Looking at Laodicea in Revelation: what is Jesus saying about a rich, lukewarm church?

LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN LAODICEA
Rev 3:14-22
And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write
The words of the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness
The beginning of the creation of God
I know your works;
Because you are neither cold nor hot,
(Would you were either cold or hot!)
Since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold,
I will spit you out of my mouth.
For you say “I am rich
And I have prospered
And there is nothing that I need”
Not realising that you are wretched
And pitiable,
And poor
And blind
And naked.
I advise you to buy from me
Gold refined by fire
So you may be rich,
And white garments
So you may be clothed
And so nobody can see
The shame of your nakedness
And salve to anoint your eyes
So that you may see.
Those who I care about
I reprove and discipline
So be zealous and repent!
Behold I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door,
I will come in and eat with him and he with me,
The one who conquers
I will grant to sit down upon my throne with me
As I also conquered and sat down
With my Father on His throne.

The one who has ears
Hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

This translation is from my musical setting. At some point I will put parts of it up here - the recording of the “letters to the seven churches” is relatively complete at this stage.

It is Jesus speaking in this passage - the risen and ascended Jesus, who stands in glory in heaven, ruling over all creation. John (Yohanan) sees him in his vision walking among seven golden lampstands, which are the seven churches; churches are supposed to give light to the world, by pointing to Him. The church in Laodicea (which name does indeed mean “righteousness of people” or “people of justice”; but not exactly people’s opinions or judgements, which I think would be a different Greek expression) is not spreading light, because they rely on their own righteousness, and they think they’re doing well, because they are rich and prosperous.

Jesus is the “Faithful and True Witness, the beginning of God’s creation” — He Himself was not created, but as it says in John 1, “through Him all things were made, without Him not one thing was made that was made.”

Jesus is going to spit Laodicea out of His mouth, because her works are “neither cold nor hot” but lukewarm. This is because Laodicea says, “I am rich and I have prospered and there is nothing that I need.” This speaks of material riches, as well as spiritual riches. It is a common illusion that some rich Christians have, that because they are wealthy, they must be good people. Jesus says this is not always so: when He tells them they don’t realise they are “wretched and pitiable, and poor and blind and naked.” The point is, that self-righteousness is no righteousness at all: we must have God’s righteousness.

I must add at this point, that a person may think they are doing well spiritually, when relying on their own righteousness, and actually be quite poor, materially speaking — they may even be proud of their poverty as many monks were in Luther’s time (he said “I could see their pride through the holes in their cloaks”) — this too may be what the church of Laodicea is like — this sin of self-sufficiency can be committed by the poor person who thinks he or she is righteous without needing Jesus’ help.

When Jesus tells Laodicea they are poor, He is not talking about material riches: He is talking about spiritual riches. Spiritually, Laodicea is wretched, they ought to be pitied, they are poor — they have no spiritual riches — and blind — they cannot see where they are going — and they are naked — they are not clothed in anything that will help them spiritually (if they were clothed in Christ’s righteousness, they would be doing much better.)

Jesus advises them to buy gold refined by fire from Him — gold represents wisdom here — a person rich in Jesus’ heavenly gold might be poor in the eyes of the world — but will be truly rich, spiritually speaking. I remember during the pandemic people said to me in relation to taking the vaccine, “there are some things you don’t need to pray about.” Well, this was patently not the wisdom of God in relation to the coercion that was happening to take the experimental medications. I believe the Western church in particular was highly vulnerable to this swindle precisely because, like Laodicea, we are rich and comfortable, and we don’t really think we need anything. “I have need of nothing” says Laodicea.

Yet we truly need Jesus’ wisdom to guide us through times such as these. And to have it, we must ask for it. We must not think we have enough wisdom on our own.

Jesus also wants Laodicea to buy white garments from Him. These are garments of purity and righteousness. What the passage doesn’t say is what they must pay to acquire these garments and the gold of heaven — well, I believe that, as elsewhere in the Bible, the things God gives are free — “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” Isaiah 55:1. You just have to ask.

Of course, asking comes at a cost: our pride. We must humble ourselves to ask for something from God. And Jesus also said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” — in other words, following Jesus means being willing to put Him first, before every other commitment.

Jesus tells the Laodiceans to buy white garments from Him “So you may be clothed and so nobody can see the shame of your nakedness. And salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.” God alone can help us to see aright: particularly in these times, we must not be blind, but must rely on the salve Jesus gives to heal our eyes and help us see which way to go.

Jesus tells the Laodiceans that those He cares about, He reproves and disciplines. This discipline is often painful: when we experience painful events in our lives, we might reflect that these events are God’s will — He intended them to make us into better people — and we should heed the scriptures and work out what God is telling us to do in response. Often it involves blessing our enemies, or trusting Him through difficult times.

He tells the Laodiceans to be zealous and repent. Strangely enough, the word meaning “zealous” also means “jealous” in Greek — and is the word that both English words are probably derived from. We should be jealous of our faith — we should not put our faith in ourselves, our riches, or anything else apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He has made for us on the cross.

This is followed by a lovely, very well-known passage:

“Behold I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me, The one who conquers I will grant to sit down upon my throne with me. As I also conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne. The one who has ears hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

What do we eat in such a wonderful meeting with Jesus, when we open the door to Him? Spiritual food — Jesus Himself is the bread of life. And if we conquer — if we can persist in following Him through our whole lives — we will sit down on the throne with Him in heaven — ruling over everything.

NOTE: This post was written in partial response to a post by Aussie17 (Solomon’s Porch) about this passage, which I think was a kind of spiritual riff on this passage; I thought I might just look at what the passage itself says. We should be careful, I think, not to make the Bible say anything beyond what the word of God actually says.

I also admit that Aussie17’s idea of not making binary judgements was worrying to me: after all a fact check is all about checking facts, in other words, working out if some fact is true or false ! However, it struck me, that deciding not to make binary judgements is also a binary judgement. In the end, in the real world, facts are often nuanced and we can only do our best — we can’t know everything — this is why we must not rely on our own judgement, but pray and rely on the Spirit of Jesus to guide us through these difficult times, and to seek the truth, because “you (plural) will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. (John 8:32) (That this is a plural ‘you’ is important: knowing the truth is not an individual activity, but something that can only be discerned with the help of others.)

This post has been revised a bit since I sent it out! I want to get it right — in a very binary way — when dealing with the holy scriptures.