Love for a Blind Church

Jesus's Oracle to the Church at Laodicea

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: Thus says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Originator of the creation of God. I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! As it is, since you are tepid and neither hot nor cold I am about to vomit you from my mouth. Because you keep saying I am rich and I have become wealthy and I have no need of anything, but you have no idea that you are miserable and pathetic and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to purchase from me gold refined by fire so you might become rich, and (purchase from me) white garments in order to wear that the shame of your nakedness might not be exposed, and (purchase from me) salve to anoint your eyes so you might see. I reprove and discipline whomever I love—so be zealous and repent. Look! I stand at the door and I am knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, also I will come to him and dine with him and he with me. The one who conquers—I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne, just like I have conquered and sat with my Father on his throne. The one having an ear to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. Revelation 3:14–22 

To start this last installment on the oracles to the seven churches, a “history lesson” is in order.

In my teen and college years, whenever I heard a sermon or Bible conference talk on the seven churches of Revelation, inevitably I heard that today’s church is the church of Laodicea. 

That sentiment belies what is called a “historicist approach” to Revelation—one aspect of dispensationalist theology—which claims that Revelation’s prophetic content can be mapped to history from the time it was written until the rapture, the Great Tribulation and the return of Christ. 

Part of this prophetic history is the pigeon-holing of each of the churches in Revelation to a period of history.

If you have been reading In Plain Sight throughout you’ll know already I do not subscribe to this view for several reasons. 

First, while the dispensational approach does assent to the historical reality of the churches, they insist that the churches are symbolic of subsequent periods of time (in the paid subscriber section I give a summary of these periods from the current perspective). They don’t call it symbolic, though, but prophetic. 

It amounts to the same thing. 

The periods are arbitrary, though—nothing in Revelation would divide the future into these historical periods, only those looking back over history from the current vantage point.

This reading back from now creates the problem of a moving target.

Interpreters from the Reformation to the 1800s historicized Revelation into subsequent periods before the dispensational approach was even invented—and always interpreted from their historical vantage point. 

In the 1700s attempts began to put each church into a period of time. And guess what? Laodicea was always the church of the current period, whether the 1700s down to today.

Depending on the time of the interpreter, the church period they lived in was that of Laodicea. Were they wrong and the current interpreters suddenly correct? The very approach suggests they were all wrong.

Of course, I see all seven churches as symbolic of the entire church in every age—“the one who has an ear to hear let him listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Revelation was written to real churches in the first century that together represented then, and from then on, the entirety of the church with all its glory and its faults. 

That is no more true than today: if we look at individual congregations and even national churches (think China, Ukraine, France, England, the US, etc.) all of the characteristics of the churches of Revelation can be found.

One more aspect of much current interpretation of this church is also suspect. The church of Laodicea was not uniformly bad; a close look will actually present a message of hope and potential redemption for that church (and those like it).

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1. Opening: And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: Thus says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Originator of the creation of God. Revelation 3:14

Laodicea—named for the wife of its founder, the Greek ruler Antiochus II in the mid 3^rd century BC—was the most inland and far flung of the seven churches. Forty miles southeast of Philadelphia and 100 miles directly east of Ephesus, it formed a sort of “tri-cities” area along the Lycus River with Hierapolis and Colossae (Paul mentions Laodicea five times in the letter to the Colossians). 

The city was famously wealthy for its clothing trade. There was also a sizable Jewish community there.

Jesus chose this church for his ultimate oracle, and what an oracle it is! 

In addition, this final statement of his identity brings to a culmination the characteristics of the exalted Jesus as the second person of the trinitarian God. 

Just to review, here are the first six statements of Jesus:

—Thus says the One who firmly grasps the seven stars in his right hand and walks around in the middle of the seven gold lampstands

—Thus says the First and the Last who was dead and came to life

—Thus says the one having the sharp two-edged sword

—Thus says the Son of God, whose eyes are like flames of fire and his feet are like burnished bronze

—Thus says the one having the seven spirits of God and the seven stars

—Thus says the holy one, the true one, the one holding the key of David, the one who opens and no one will shut and shuts and no one opens:

And here:

Thus says the Amen: the Faithful and True Witness, the Originator of the creation of God.

All of these cry Divine God.

What stands out in them is the attribute of absolute, pure, all-encompassing, searing truth that Jesus brought.

Here, like many of the first six, Old Testament attributes of God are taken on by the exalted Jesus. “The Amen (Greek: ho amēn)” could itself mean “the true one” or “the faithful one” but the word Amen is one used twice of God in Isaiah 65:16: “The God of Amen.”

I highlighted “the” in the translation because the intent is “the preeminent” or “the one and only.”

The Jesus who speaks is the only human who ever lived who spoke pure truth, and was the true witness to his Father. 

The language reminds me so much of the Gospel of John. 

Jesus began his important statements in the Gospel with “Amen, amen, I say to you.” John wrote that grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” 

And as witness, John wrote, “no one has ever seen God, the only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father has made him known.” All through the Gospel of John, Jesus insisted he only did and said what the Father told him.

The final phrase “Originator of the creation of God” is reminiscent not only of Genesis, but the John 1:3 and Colossians 1:18.

It is impossible not to conclude from just these opening statements that Revelation is not just the revelation from Jesus, but the revelation about Jesus as God.

2. Statement of condition: I know your works that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! As it is, since you are tepid and neither hot nor cold I am about to vomit you from my mouth. Revelation 3:15–16

Another interesting historical fact about Laodicea is that nearby Hierapolis and Colossae had hot and cold springs, but the ones in Laodicea were tepid. 

Jesus played with this situation to make an observation.

We might think from our point of view that “cold” was bad and “hot” was good, but in fact both were considered good for healing purposes, while the tepid-lukewarm was just in between—think ice or heat for sore muscles (or hot or iced coffee/tea).

Like his parables, Jesus used an everyday physical fact to illustrate a spiritual condition.

Jesus also used the vivid expression of vomiting. Their lackadaisical faith that bordered on narcissism made him sick—that is not what he saved them for!

3. Exhortation #1: Because you keep saying I am rich and I have become wealthy and I have no need of anything, but you have no idea that you are miserable and pathetic and poor and blind and naked, I am advising you to purchase from me gold refined by fire so you might become rich, and white garments in order to wear that the shame of your nakedness might not be exposed, and salve to anoint your eyes so you might see. Revelation 3:17–18

Laodicea was a wealthy city—known for riches and fine clothing and even a medical school with ophthalmologist, and this fact became another avenue for Jesus to express the truth of their condition. Whether the Christians were materially wealthy we don’t know, but it appears they (like the Corinthians) had a measure of spiritual pride. 

Maybe they were in a spiritual competition with the Jews there.

Jesus would have none of it.

Pride blinds.

The only spiritual condition Jesus desired was spiritual poverty (Blessed are the poor in spirit).

He detailed their true condition: miserable, pathetic, poor, blind, naked.

But Jesus, that is so harsh!

This was the same Jesus that spoke just as harshly in the Gospels when he needed to.

We tend to fear telling people the truth because of what they might think of us (or do to us).

Jesus had no fear—and neither should we as those who have died with him.

Jesus told them the truth … but he also gave them a remedy—one he had set out in a different way in the Sermon on the Mount.

They could buy a different type of gold: gold refined by fire—spiritual gold (treasure in heaven that thieves cannot steal—Matthew 6:20).

They could buy white garments (that moths cannot eat—Matthew 6:20) to cover their nakedness—their nakedness was the bare truth about their sinful selves that Jesus covered with his blood.

White garments are what the saints were clothed with throughout Revelation.

They could buy salve for their eyes that would heal them—just as Jesus had done for the blind in the Gospels. 

In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus contrasted the “evil eye” with the “good (or “simple” or “generous”) eye” and explained that “the eye is the lamp of the body.”

Without the light of Jesus, they were totally blind.

Only if they recognized their true condition and came to Jesus for true riches and healing, would their position be restored.

4. Exhortation #2: I reprove and discipline whomever I love. So be zealous and repent. Revelation 3:19

I used the word “position” with intent.

This oracle embodied the tension of what my doctoral professor termed “assurance and warning.” 

Jesus warned the Laodiceans but simultaneously expressed his enduring love.

Jesus would keep disciplining them until they repented (i.e. changed their mind) and returned, because he loved them (and us!) deeply.

(cont.)

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5. Promise: Look! I stand at the door and I am knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, also I will come to him and dine with him and he with me. Revelation 3:20 

That love is expressed in no better way than in the promise of this verse.

With the discipline is an invitation.

Jesus was always standing there at the door, always knocking. It was they (we) who shut the door, or refused to open it.

In this case it did not appear to be salvation at stake, as this verse is so often taken for (though it does work for evangelism too).

Instead it was vital fellowship with Jesus—fellowship that engenders assurance, hope, endurance, joy, peace.

The pride of the Laodiceans had shut off their fellowship from Jesus.

He wanted it back—he wanted to share that intimate fellowship with his redeemed brothers and sisters.

All they needed to do was recognize their condition, change their minds (i.e. “repent”) and open the door to Jesus.

That is a good practice for us every single day of our lives.

6. Reward and call to listen: The one who conquers—I will grant to him to sit with me on my throne, just like I have conquered and sat with my Father on his throne. The one having an ear to hear, let him listen to what the Spirit says to the churches. Revelation 3:21–22

The promise of fellowship was only a down payment for the ultimate reward: If they conquered, Jesus also promised that they would share his throne, which he himself did by his “conquering” on the cross and in the resurrection. 

If we have been redeemed by Jesus, we also will inherit with Jesus.

Paul wrote much the same in Ephesian 2:5-6, God “made us alive together with the Messiah—you are saved by grace—and raised us together and seated us together in the heavenly places in Messiah Jesus.”

Though those in the church of Laodicea had a great deal of soul-searching to do (as do we all), Jesus’s assurance of his love and his promises of fellowship and a future reign with him were a much greater “carrot” than the “stick” of his discipline, if one can even call it a stick.

Jesus simply gave them a choice—rely on your own pride and see its destructive results, or rely on Him and see its joyous consequences. 

Jesus loved them through it all, but He could and would not make them do anything. 

They had to choose.

Jesus only laid out the glorious promises that turning to Him would bring to reality and then invited them into that reality.

Thanks for reading. See you later.

**The paid subscriber section below has Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation, the Audio Version, and an addendum on the historicizing interpretation of the seven churches.**

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

I’ve not had much to comment on recently, but this passage has a few interesting features.

1. ὁ ἀμήν, ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς καὶ ἀληθινός, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ·

   The Amen, the witness the faithful and true, the originator of the creation of God

   This verse has an example of a noun with appositional phrases. ὁ ἀμήν, “the Amen” is the primary noun.