The Church That Needed Nothing

3:14The Amen, the faithful witness

Christ's titles in this letter are unusually bold. "The Amen" (WEB) picks up the Hebrew word for "so be it" and "it is true." Isaiah 65:16 speaks of a God of truth, and in the Hebrew that phrase is literally the God of Amen. Jesus is the One in whom every promise of God finds its yes (2 Corinthians 1:20). Next he is "the Faithful and True Witness," the same title John gave him in 1:5. He is reliable precisely where Laodicea is not. The church will soon be told what it thinks of itself and then what he thinks, and only one of the two assessments is accurate.

The third title is "the Beginning of God's creation." Some have wrongly read this as saying Christ was the first thing God made. The Greek word, archē, means source or ruler, the same root that gives us "archbishop." The rest of Scripture is plain: all things were made through him (John 1:3), and he is "the beginning, the firstborn from the dead" (Colossians 1:18). He is the origin and the head of all that exists.

Notice who is speaking to this wealthy church: the One from whom every good thing comes. If Laodicea thinks it has everything, it is addressed by the One who made everything.

3:15-16Neither hot nor cold

"I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth."

This is one of the most misunderstood images in the Bible. Many assume hot means passionate, cold means unbelieving, and lukewarm is somewhere in the middle. But Christ says he wishes they were either hot or cold, and nobody wishes a church were unbelieving. Many scholars suggest a better reading from the local landscape. Hierapolis, across the valley, was known for hot springs, whose waters were valued for healing. Colossae had cold, clean water, which refreshes. Laodicea is said to have brought in its water through an aqueduct, and by the time it arrived it was tepid. Hot water heals and cold water refreshes. Lukewarm water does neither, and it makes you gag.

If that is the picture, the charge is not that Laodicea lacks heat but that it lacks usefulness. A church can have comfort, money and respectability, and still offer no healing to the broken and no refreshment to the weary. Christ's wish is that they were either, because either would serve someone.

The verb is strong. To vomit is to reject with disgust. Yet remember: he is still addressing them, and he is still speaking in the hope of change.

3:17Rich, and blind to it

Here is the heart of the problem, and it is a statement the church made about itself: "I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing." The words are quoted, so we are meant to hear them as the congregation's own self-portrait. Notice the pile-up of wealth words, and then "need of nothing," the exact opposite of the poverty of spirit Jesus calls blessed (Matthew 5:3).

Christ answers with five words that cut through the self-image: "the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." Each lands on a Laodicean pride. The wealthy banking city is poor. The eye-medicine trade is blind. The wool-producing city is naked.

Compare this with Smyrna in 2:9, where Christ said, "I know your works, oppression, and your poverty (but you are rich)." Smyrna looked poor and was rich. Laodicea looked rich and was poor. John has placed these two letters as mirrors, and the lesson is that the world's balance sheet and heaven's can read opposite.

The most telling word is "don't know." Laodicea is not described as stubbornly rejecting the truth. It simply does not know. That is what makes self-sufficiency so dangerous: it is comfortable. Nothing in the building feels wrong.

3:18-19Buy from me

Christ does not only diagnose. He prescribes: "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich," then "white garments, that you may clothe yourself" so that shame is not exposed, and "eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see." Each remedy answers one of Laodicea's industries. Their banks held gold, but his is tested by fire and lasting. Their looms made wool, but his clothing is white and covers shame. Their medical trade sold eye salve, but his opens the eyes of the heart.

"Buy from me" should make us pause, because they are the poor, and the poor cannot buy. The answer is in Isaiah 55:1: "Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat!" The only currency accepted is need. Grace is "bought" by those who admit they have nothing to pay with.

Then comes verse 19, the key to the whole letter: "As many as I love, I reprove and chasten." This is Proverbs 3:12 in a new setting: "for whom Yahweh loves, he reproves." The harsh words of verses 15 to 18 are not the speech of a rejecting judge. They are the correction of a parent who loves. The command that follows has a fire in it: "Be zealous therefore, and repent." The Greek word for zealous is related to the word for boiling. The lukewarm church is told to come to the boil.

3:20-22The knock and the throne

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me." The verse is often used in appeals to unbelievers, and it carries one. But in its setting, the Lord is outside a church. The people who think they have need of nothing have, without knowing it, left him on the doorstep. It echoes the beloved in the Song of Solomon, "the voice of my beloved who knocks" (5:2), and Jesus's own picture of servants who open at once when their master comes and knocks (Luke 12:36).

"If anyone" matters. The letter is addressed to the church, but the invitation comes to each person, and the door is opened one heart at a time.

The reward is a meal. To dine is to share the table, and it is the closest fellowship the ancient world knew. It hints at the marriage supper still to come (19:9).

Then the final promise: "He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne." Christ overcame by his cross and resurrection, and his seat is open to those who share his victory. From a door on earth, John will next see a door standing open in heaven, with a throne beyond it.