CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Revelation 3:14. Laodiceans.—The city of Laodicea was situated on the banks of the Lycus, near Hierapolis and Colossæ. Archippus was possibly the angel of this Church, in the sense of being its chief pastor. Laodicea received its name from Laodice, wife of Antiochus, the second King of Syria, by whom it was re-built and beautified. Amen.—Here only used as a personal name. Faithful.—In the sense of trustworthy (see Revelation 1:5). “Trench suggests the three things necessary to constitute a true witness. He must have been an eye-witness of what he relates, possess competence to relate what he has seen, and be willing to do so.” But the assertion is here made in view of the severity of the message sent to this Church. However searching and severe, it is assuredly faithful and true. Beginning of the creation.—See Colossians 1:15. This may mean, the first of a new spiritual creation, or the Author of creation—the material world being conceived of as due to the agency of the Divine Son; or the first created being; or the beginning (in the active sense) of the creation; i.e., the Creator of all things—primary source of all creation. The appropriateness of this declaration concerning Christ comes to view as we realise the special temptations of this Church to the worship of inferior divinities. “Like Colossæ, this Church was exposed to the risks of angelolatry, of the substitution of lower principalities and created mediators for Him who was head over all things to His Church.”
Revelation 3:15. Cold nor hot.—Plumptre suggests that it was specially exposed to the chilling and enervating influence of wealth. To passionate and intense natures there is nothing so irritating as the “superior” man who can always keep the happy medium, and never gets excited about anything. Wealthy people are especially tempted to take things easy, to take even their religion easy. “The term ‘hot’ denotes the temper of fervent love, a love that warms and animates the whole life, the temper, we must remember, of the apostle who records the message.” The term “cold” simply implies the absence of enthusiasm. “The tepid temperature has, as its physical effect, the sickening sense of nausea, and in its moral aspect causes, in most earnest minds, a loathing that is not roused by the state described as ‘cold.’ ”
Revelation 3:17. Sayest.—In a spirit of blind self-confidence. Rich.—Lit. “I am rich, and have gotten riches.” The repetition implies satisfaction in the riches (Hosea 12:8). Wretched.—The worst kind of hypocrites—hypocrites without knowing it. There is no more subtle peril than self-deception concerning our spiritual condition—the self-deception that comes of self-confidence.
Revelation 3:18. Buy of me.—There is perhaps a touch of irony here. Gold tried.—Lit. “fresh burnt from the fire.” Eye-salve.—Collyrium was the common dressing for weak eyes.
Revelation 3:19. Rebuke and chasten.—See Proverbs 3:11; Hebrews 12:5. Zealous.—Implying rousing themselves out of their careless, lukewarm temper.
Revelation 3:20. Stand at the door.—Compare Song of Solomon 5:2.
Revelation 3:21. My throne.… His throne.—Both to be treated as figures. “The promise of sharing the throne is the climax of an ascending series of glorious promises, which carry the thought from the Garden of Eden (chap Revelation 2:7) through the wilderness (Revelation 3:17), the temple, (Revelation 3:12) to the throne.” The conquerors in the strife are, “in some sense which we cannot as yet fathom, made partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4)—sharers in the holiness, the wisdom, the love, and therefore in the glory and the majesty, which have been from everlasting.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Revelation 3:14-22
A Self-Satisfied Church.—The city of Laodicea was situated between Philadelphia and Colossæ. It was either actually founded, or re-built, by Antiochus II., the King of Syria, and named after his wife, Laodĭcé. In St. John’s day it was celebrated for its wealth, which was derived chiefly from commerce. In the interest of the apostle Paul, the Church in Laodicea was associated with the Church in Colosse. Neither of those Churches, however, seem to have enjoyed his personal ministry, for writing to the Colossians he says, “For I would have you know how greatly I strive for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” (Colossians 2:1). He refers to an earnest Christian work which one of His disciples, Epaphras, had done in Laodicea and the neighbouring towns, and the form in which he sends his message to Archippus suggests that this person was the angel, or minister, of the Church at Laodicea (Colossians 4:12-17). The tone of St. Paul’s references indicate considerable anxiety concerning the spiritual condition of the Church, and we can well understand that, under the enervating influence of increasing wealth, the evils that he noticed and feared grew into perilous strength in the latter days of St. John, and gave occasion to the most cutting and reproachful of the seven epistles. The key-note to the moral condition of this Church is found in its wealth. It was not disturbed by heresies, or broken up by persecutions. Its members were in comfortable circumstances. The services could be maintained without strain, there was nobody in the Church of a contentious disposition to disturb the peace, so they had drifted into an easy going way, and satisfied themselves with simply keeping things up to a fair average level. Their full strength went into their weekly money-getting, and they got through their Sabbath obligations and duties as respectably and as easily as they could. It would be very possible to find an instance of just such a Church in these days of ours; for Laodicea is a type, and a type as distinct as either of the others to which attention has been drawn. It is full of suggestion to us that the Living Christ, moving to and fro among the Churches, is arrested by the actual condition of this apparently prosperous Church. It reminds us that He who has the seven Spirits of God is never deceived by the appearance of prosperity in a Church, but searchingly estimates its tone, and mood, and temper, and may thus discover and reveal a condition of things which will altogether surprise the members of the Church, who may expect commendation, and have to receive severe reproaches and warnings. We have seen that some particular feature of the vision of the Risen and Living One is taken, in order to point the application to each Church. Here He who walketh among the candlesticks is figured as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” Amen is not elsewhere used as a personal name. It means, “verily,” and is the firm assertion that a thing is true, and so it can be made a proper name, and stand for Him who is the truth. The word the Living One had to speak to this Church would surprise and humiliate it. And the very first response that the Church would make, when it received the message, would be this: “It is not true; it cannot be true.” The very possibility of such a response must be anticipated, and guarded against, so the epistle begins with the solemn declaration that it comes from Him who is the absolute and indisputable truth, the “Amen, the faithful and true witness.” Dean Plumptre thinks that the words “faithful and true witness” should be regarded simply as the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “amen.” It affirms the competency of the Living One to make this testimony, seeing that He combines in Himself all those qualifications which a witness ought to possess. The other form in which the Living One is presented is more difficult to explain. “The beginning of the creation of God.” It is probably the solemn assertion of His absolute and perfect knowledge of all things, from the very beginning. From Him nothing is hid. Effort has been made to explain this term by comparing it with the figures found in the epistle to the Colossians—“First-born of every creature,” “first-born from the dead”—and by assuming that the Laodicean Church was exposed to the temptation of worshipping inferior principalities. But this is to bring in a set of new ideas, unrelated to the point of the Divine message. He who is truth, sees truly, and witnesses truly, has something to say to which this Church is bound to give good heed, however it may surprise and distress them.
I. And what is the message?—
1. It is a searching revelation of the Church’s unrecognised weaknesses. And the first thing noticed is its listless indifference. It was lukewarm about everything. It was dying, as Churches can die, of moderation and respectability. It might, in its apparently sound and safe prosperity, be the envy of other Churches. Its very evenness, its persistently keeping at a dead level, was a supreme offence to Christ. Nobody in the Church brought any disgrace upon the Christian name, but nobody brought any particular honour upon the Christian name. The Church did not make the holy and inspiring witness of consistency in keeping at a high level of Christian attainment and service. It was simply easyful, indifferent, content to go on, aiming at nothing and doing nothing. The “lukewarm are neither earnest for God, nor utterly indifferent to religion. They are perhaps best described as those who take an interest in religion, but whose worship of their idol of good taste, or good form, leads them to regard enthusiasm as ill-bred and disturbing; and who have never put themselves to any inconvenience, braved any reproach, or abandoned any comfort, for Christ’s sake, but hoped to keep well with the world, while they flattered themselves that they stood well with God.” Such a state of lukewarmness is unreal and sickly, and yet thinks that it is a true and healthy state. Carlyle calls it “the hypocrisy which does not know itself to be hypocritical.”
2. But the Living Christ, in searching this Church, does not stop even with thus showing the fact of its condition. He reveals the root of the evil, in the spirit of self-satisfaction which has gained power in the Church, and has eaten out its heart of love and zeal for Christ. “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing.” Dean Plumptre says: “The underlying grounds of the condemnation, the secret working of this tepidity of the soul, are brought before us in these words. It is clear that the imagined wealth here is that of spiritual, not temporal, riches. In regard to the latter, the boast would probably have been true, and would have called for no such stern contrast. And yet it is not the less true that it was the possession of the riches of this world that made the Laodicean angel and his Church so satisfied that they had the riches of the other. They took the ‘unrighteous mammon,’ not only as a substitute for the ‘true riches,’ but almost as a proof that they possessed them. Outward ease and comfort took the place of inward peace; prosperity was thought a sure sign of Divine approval. We cannot read the history of the Church of Christ, or look around us, or retrace our own experience, without feeling that it has often been so, both with Churches and individual men. Lethargy creeps over them; love is no longer active; material success, multiplied endowments, the power of giving money as the one embodiment of love to God or man—these have been the precursors of decline and of decay.” The man who is in a comfortable and well-satisfied frame of mind, because all his material wants are thoroughly provided for, can seldom be brought to believe that his spiritual state can possibly be wrong. And it is precisely the same with a Church that experiences years of steady and unbroken prosperity; it becomes so hopelessly satisfied with its spiritual state, that it resents even the searching appeals of the ever-living Head of the Church. And there is no condition for the individual and for the Church so dangerous as that self-satisfied frame of mind. In spiritual things it has need of nothing. Its spiritual state is quite satisfactory to itself, and unless that self-satisfaction can be broken up, and the truth of its spiritual condition revealed to it, that self-satisfaction will surely bring its doom.
3. With an almost withering severity, the Living Christ declares that the self-satisfaction the Church was nourishing as to its spiritual state was but a sign of its moral blindness. If they could see facts, they would see that, as a Church, they were “poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. They were not even, as they assumed, keeping to a fair spiritual level. They had sunk low: they had lost tone. They thought themselves rich, but where were their spiritual riches? Could they show them when called upon to do so? Where were their spiritual garments? Could they appear clothed in them when called upon to do so? The Living Christ suddenly calls upon them to bring forth the signs of their spiritual life. They can find none, and now their blindness is forcibly removed, and they are compelled to appear before Him as they are, and to see themselves as they are, poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. What a humiliation!” The sin of this Church came out of its being too comfortable. It was not serious enough about anything. And this is often the secret of self-centredness. It satisfies a man with his narrow circle of interests—which, like the famous chamber-prison of fable, is ever narrowing and narrowing, until at last it crushes all life worth living out of the man.
II. And what is the advice given by the Risen and Living Lord?—“I counsel thee to buy of Me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see.” Precisely the work for the sake of which the Living Christ is ever moving among the Churches is the rehabilitation of the spiritual life of the Churches. The condition of this Church was bad, but it was not hopeless. Something could be done. Provision for the recovery of position, and health, and spiritual tone, were at command. That provision can be supplied only by the Church’s awaking from her lethargy, beginning really to care for its spiritual condition, mourning over the condition into which it had allowed itself to drift, and making fresh, direct, personal applications to her Lord for reviving and restoring grace. In his “Holy War” Bunyan pictures Mansoul awakened to recognise the Laodicean state into which it had fallen, filled with zealous anxiety, and sending messengers, with pleading entreaties, to her absent Emmanuel. “Buy of Me,” as only we can buy of Christ; with penitence, and zeal, and prayer, and holy yearnings, but without money and without price. “The gold” which Christ will thus “sell” to him who seeks it—the treasure of holiness, and peace, and joy—is that which has been “tried in the fire”; and this, as in all like cases, implies chastisement and suffering. The “white garments” that hide the shame of nakedness, the true holiness of life which alone prevents the exposure of that “inner vileness” of which even the saints of God are ever painfully conscious, are those which have been made white in the blood of Christ, which symbolises suffering. The “eye-salve” which gives clearness of vision, does so, not without the pricking smart that clears away the blinding or beclouding humours. And the counsel is urged by this gracious persuasion; the Living One who rebukes them, loves them, and rebukes them because He loves them. For love can never let sin alone when it finds sin in the objects of its love. And the love that rebukes will not stop with rebuke; it will go on to chastening, it will be followed by discipline that may secure full deliverance from the sin. The very familiar Revelation 3:20 receives its proper explanation only by observing its insertion at this precise point of the epistle. It is usual to sever it entirely from its connection, and to regard it a figure of Christ’s seeking admission to the human heart. And that may be justifiable, but it was not in the mind of this writer, nor does it bear direct relation to the subject of this epistle. In Holman Hunt’s suggestive picture, “The Light of the World” is represented as an august person, artistically and symbolically arrayed, standing with a lamp in his hands under a midnight sky, on the outside of a walled enclosure, the entrance-gate of which is barred. He stands as one who has knocked over and over again, and received no answer; and you observe that the wild vine and bramble have grown over the gate, showing how long and resolutely it has been closed. But in this epistle the Christ is the Living White One standing at the door of a Church. He has come to deliver His searching and arousing rebukes. He stands, as it were, outside to deliver His rebuke; and now He waits—“stands at the door and knocks”—waits to see if the Church will respond aright, and give Him welcome to do His cleansing and reviving work. He will not at once begin His chastenings. They must come if the Church does not fittingly respond to reproof and rebuke. But He will wait—hopefully wait. “Judgment is His strange work, mercy is His delight.” He would so much rather work the recovery of the Church with its will than against it. But there is a very remarkable change in the appeal of Christ as He stands waiting. His rebuke and counsel had been sent to the Church. His appeal is directly addressed to each and every individual member of the Church. “If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and He with Me.” The responsibility of rightly answering the reproof of Christ is made to rest on each single person. It could easily be shifted off, and made to appear the general duty of the Church. Christ demands that it shall be the direct answer of each man. The recovery of a lethargic and lukewarm Church is the recovery of its individuals, one by one. The promise to the overcoming soul and overcoming Church is the full enjoyment of the highest spiritual privilege, the privilege that can only be enjoyed by the most spiritually-minded. “I will give to him to sit down with Me in My throne; as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father in His throne.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Revelation 3:14. Laodicea.—A Church of which the state is described in the darkest colours, and whose future seems to be compromised. She is threatened with immediate rejection—“Spue thee out of My mouth.” There is here mote than an expression of indignation; it is one of disgust. Laodicea has fallen as low as a Church can fall, while still bearing the name of a Church.—F. Godet, D.D.
Revelation 3:15. Hot.—The heat commended by implication is not the “self-conscious, galvanised earnestness which, in days of senile pietism, passes for zeal. It is an earnestness which does not know itself earnest, being all too absorbed in its work. It is self-forgetful, and so self-sacrificing, rather than ambitious of self-sacrifice. It is, in short, kindled of God, and sustained by converse with the Divine One.”—Bishop Boyd Carpenter.
Revelation 3:17. Self-deception.—Why should a man repent of his goodness? He may well repent, indeed, of his falsehood, but unhappily the falsehood of it is just the thing he does not see, and cannot see by the very law of his character. The Pharisee did not know he was a Pharisee. If he had known it he would not have been a Pharisee. The victim of passion, then, may be converted—the gay, the thoughtless, or the ambitious; he whom human glory has intoxicated; he whom the show of life has ensnared; he whom the pleasures of sense have captivated;—they may be converted, every one of them; but who is to convert the hypocrite? He does not know he is a hypocrite; he cannot, upon the very basis of his character; he must think himself sincere; and the more he is in the shackles of his own character, i.e., the greater hypocrite he is, the more sincere must he think himself.—Mozley.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Revelation 3:14. Laodicea.—This city was originally called Diospolis, and afterwards Rhoas. It was re-built and beautified by Antiochus II., King of Syria, and named after his wife Laodicé, by whom he was subsequently poisoned. In Roman times it was a very principal city among those of the second rank in Asia Minor. It suffered in the Mithridatic war, but ere long recovered; it was also well-nigh destroyed by a great earthquake, A.D. 62, but was repaired by the efforts of its own citizens, who asked no help from the Roman Senate. Laodicea was in Southern Phrygia, called Phrygia Pacatiana, not far from Colossæ, and about six miles south of Hierapolis. It was distinguished from other cities of the same name by being termed Laodicea on the Lycus. Its commerce was considerable, being principally in the wools grown in the neighbouring district, which were celebrated for their fine texture and rich hue. A village, called Eski-hissar, stands amidst its ruins.
Revelation 3:19. God’s Love in Affliction.—It is rerelated that a poor but worthy inhabitant of Paris once went to the bishop of the place, with a countenance beclouded and a heart almost overwhelmed. “Father,” said he, with the most profound humility, “I am a sinner—I feel that I am a sinner—but it is against my will. Every hour I ask for light, and humbly pray for faith, but still I am overwhelmed with doubts. Surely if I were not despised of God He would not leave me to struggle thus with the adversary of souls!” The bishop thus consoled, with the language of kindness, his sorrowing son: “The king of France has two castles in different situations, and sends a commander to each of them. The castle of Montelberry stands in a place remote from danger, far inland; but the castle of La Rochelle is on the coast, where it is liable to continual sieges. Now, which of the two commanders, think you, stands the highest in the estimation of the king: the commander of La Rochelle, or he of Montelberry?” “Doubtless,” said the poor man, “the king values him the most who has the hardest task, and braves the greatest dangers.” “Thou art right,” replied the bishop. “And now apply this matter to thy case and mine, for my heart is like the castle of Monielberry, and thine like that of La Rochelle.”
Revelation 3:20. Christ at the Door.—The love of Christ has to come to sinful men with patient pleading and remonstrance, that it may enter their hearts and give its blessings. Some of you may remember a modern work of art in which that long-suffering appeal is wonderfully portrayed. He who is the Light of the world stands, girded with the royal mantle clasped with the priestly breast-plate, bearing in his hand the lamp of truth, and there, amidst the dew of night and the rank hemlock, He pleads for entrance at the closed door which has no handle on its outer side, and is hinged to open only from within. “I stand at the door and knock. If any man open the door, I will come in.”—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Knocking at Doors.—The gates of the rich and the doors of the caravanserais and other large buildings have a knocker made of a bent bar of iron hung by a hinge, so as to strike upon a broad-headed nail. Otherwise there is always a ring set in the door, by which it is pulled to, and this is used as a knocker by striking it against the door with the open palm. Officers of justice rap on the doors with the ends of their staves of office, and some people, impatient of delay, try to make more noise by striking the door with a stone. The sleep of Orientals is proverbially heavy, and loud and repeated knockings at doors are sometimes heard at the dead of night, accompanied by the reiterated shouts of some belated traveller.—Van Lennep.