Laodicea:   The Church of Lukewarmness
by Dr. Robert L. Thomas

The last messenger, the one from Laodicea, finally reached his home city after accompanying the other messengers in conveying Christ’s words to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, and Philadelphia. His was not an enviable task, however, for he had to deliver the most solemn of the seven messages, a serious rebuke to a prestigious congregation in a well-to-do community. His message contained no commendation at all, but it did hold open an opportunity for the church to repent of their lukewarmness.

Laodicea was the most easterly and southerly of the seven cities, situated about 40 miles southeast of Philadelphia. Militarily, the city could easily defend itself because of the mountains around it, but its conspicuous weakness was its dependence on outside sources for its water supply. A system of underground aqueducts carried water to the city, allowing an enemy to isolate the city by blocking the flow through these aqueducts.

The city’s location made it an important commercial and financial center. It also was famous for its manufacture of a glossy-black soft wool. A well-known medical school there developed a medicine that was effective for curing eye diseases. The combination of these industries and others made Laodicea a wealthy city. Its wealth was so great that when the city was destroyed by an earthquake in A.D. 60, the populace needed no financial help from the Roman government to rebuild the city.

Jesus’ message to this city (Rev. 3:14-22) contained the same seven parts as His words to the other six cities. (1) The address (3:14a) follows the format of the earlier six messages. (2) The attributes of the speaker (3:14b) emphasize His qualities of sincerity and truth (i.e., "the Amen"), His reliability and faithfulness as a vehicle of divine revelation (i.e., "the faithful and true witness"), and His uniqueness as creator of the whole universe (i.e., "the beginning of the creation of God"). The need for truthfulness, faithfulness, and an accurate view of the person of Christ was evident in a church that had grown indifferent to their responsibilities as Christians.

THE PROBLEM IN LAODICEA

(3) To sum up His knowledge about the people (3:15a), the Lord speaks of their failure to be either cold or hot. One recent explanation suggests that Jesus thereby reprimanded the church for their lack of works by comparing the unsatisfactory temperature of the city’s water supply to the church’s unsatisfactory works for Christ. The temperature of that water was halfway between the hot waters of nearby Hierapolis with their medicinal value and the cool waters of nearby Colosse with their thirst-quenching refreshment. The explanation that refers lukewarmness to a lack of works is hardly suitable, however, because if the Lord used a mixture of hot and cold water simply as a means for expressing lukewarmness, He would not in the last part of verse 15 have expressed His desire for them to be either hot or cold, thereby indicating the desirability of being spiritually hot or spiritually cold. Further, He would hardly criticize this church for a lack of external works when He has addressed the other churches in terms of inner qualities of the Christian life, not the churches’ external accomplishments.

The better explanation for "hot" and "cold" is to see them as referring to spiritual temperature. Twice in the New Testament (Acts 18:25; Rom. 12:11), the word translated "fervent" (in spirit) is akin to the one translated "hot" in Rev. 3:15. Laodicea was not spiritually "hot," i.e., "on fire for the Lord." The word for "cold" is akin to the word used by our Lord in His Olivet Discourse when He spoke of the love of many growing cold (Matt. 24:12). Laodicean Christians were not characterized this way either. They were not at the extremity that opposed the gospel of Christ. Rather they paid lip service to Christianity. The church at Laodicea was somewhere between the states of fervency in spirit and coldness in love.

(4) As the Lord continued, He made extended remarks about the state of the church (3:15b-19). To impress the readers with the awfulness of their "in-between" state, He indicated that He would rather have them in any state but lukewarmness (3:15b-16a). That is even worse than coldness, because the spiritual state of lukewarmness is harder to deal with than the coldness of one who is an avowed enemy of the gospel. A nominal embracing of the truth is a shield that is almost impenetrable by the gospel.

For that reason His threat to the Laodiceans was to spew them from His mouth as one who has become nauseated through the sickening effect of drinking lukewarm water (3:16b). This was His figurative way of telling the church that it faced the same danger as other churches (Rev. 2:5, 16, 22; 3:3), that of being thrust into "the hour of trial" from which the Philadelphian church was promised deliverance and protection (cf. Rev. 3:10).

In His continuing discussion of the state of the church, Jesus pled with church to obtain from Him spiritual gold, white garments, and eye salve to replace the material goods and physical prosperity in which they prided themselves (3:17-18). Professing Christians at Laodicea were in critical need of repentance from their nominal Christianity and a zeal to live for Christ, so Jesus commanded them to repent and be zealous (3:19).

THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM

(5) The promise of the Lord’s coming (3:20) followed His command for the church to repent, as is the sequence in other messages (Rev. 2:5, 16; 3:3), but this time His promise anticipated a positive response to the command, an invitation for Jesus to enter an opened door and the privilege of sharing fellowship at the marriage supper of the Lamb with Him. At least four other times the New Testament uses Jesus’ presence at the door to indicate the nearness of His coming (Matt. 24:33; Mark 13:29; Luke 12:36; Jas. 5:9). Here the Lord explicitly placed the responsibility of opening that door on individual persons. People in the Laodicean church needed to repent of their lukewarmness. That was the solution to their problem. As individuals, He urged them to do so by welcoming Him at His return and not having to be ashamed because of their lack of zeal.

The other New Testament passages picturing Christ at the door portray Him in His role as judge. Revelation 3:20 is no different. He is coming to judge whether or not the people needing to repent have done so. In the other passages, the door is what might be called an "eschatological door," one that He will enter at the time of His second coming. It is not the door of a human heart as some have suggested, though that idea is implied in a secondary way. A person who has readied himself/herself for Christ’s second coming has obviously opened the door of his/her heart to invite Christ in as Savior. But the context of Revelation 2-3 in general and Revelation 3:20 in particular require that here His entrance through an opened door refers to His return for His church. The promise of participation in the marriage supper of the Lamb (cf. Rev. 19:7-9) later in verse 20 makes sense only if this is His return to involve believers in that marriage supper.

This does not mean that the time of Christ’s return depends on any individual’s invitation for Him to enter, but it does mean that when Christ returns, that individual’s participation in the marriage supper will depend on whether he has responded to Christ’ command to repent. That repentance equates to a person’s opening the door for the Lord to enter. He may open the door for Him to enter at any time, but only the Father knows the time of Christ’s entrance at His second advent (Matt. 24:36). At the moment a person opens the door—i.e., repents—His fellowship with the Lord Jesus begins, but that fellowship will reach an enriched climax at the marriage supper of the Lamb after the Lamb’s second coming.

(6) The promise to the overcomer (3:21) consists of the privilege of joining Christ when He sits on the earthly throne of David in the future kingdom. The promise compares Christ’s present joint-occupancy of the Father’s throne in heaven. That is His present location to which He ascended following His resurrection (cf. Matt. 22:44; 26:64; Mark 12:36; 14:62; Luke 20:42; 22:69; Acts 2:34; 7:56; Rom. 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Pet. 3:22). Just as He currently has the privilege of joining the Father in His throne by sitting at His right hand, so He in His promise to the overcomer offers His followers the opportunity of joining Him in His future Davidic throne. Verse 21 mentions two separate thrones, the Father’s in heaven and the Son’s on earth, but they are both places of highest honor. (7) In his command to hear (3:22) Jesus offers to overcomers in all the churches that opportunity to occupy a place of highest honor.

In the materialistic society of which we are a part at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, lukewarmness comes easy to those who belong to Christian churches. May the Lord use this message to Laodicea to awaken us from our lethargy and to spark in us a fervent zeal to exert all energy at our disposal to represent Christ effectively in a world that needs Him so badly. If we do so, we will assure ourselves that our faith in Him is vital and that we will enjoy the marriage supper of the Lamb and a future place of honor at his right hand when He occupies the throne of David in His kingdom.