Laodicea: The Lukewarm Church, Part 1
Revelation 3:14-18
Now let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 3 and we come to the last of the letters to the seven churches, the letter to the church at Laodicea, the church that made the Lord Jesus Christ sick...the lukewarm church.
These letters, as you know, are directed at seven churches, actual churches, historical churches in actual cities in Asia Minor. But they transcend their time and space and they become model letters to various kinds of churches that exist in all eras of church history. They illustrate for us the character of churches in our own day, in fact since Pentecost. And Laodicea, is the last, is the worst. Five churches with serious problems have already been addressed and they are on somewhat of a descending scale. As you move through the seven letters, remember two of them had no condemnation, that's Smyrna and Philadelphia. The other five progressively degenerate.
There was Ephesus, the church still strong doctrinally, but the church that left its first love. There was Pergamos which had not denied the faith but was tolerating sin. There was Thyatira where there was still some good things going on but full-blown compromise with evil had taken place and the majority seemed to have been involved. Then there was Sardis, a church with only a few genuine believers, a church which had a name but was actually dead.
And now at the bottom, if you will, is Laodicea. This is an unsaved church. In fact, if there were any believers in this church they aren't even referred to in the letter at all. It is a church that is characterized by lukewarmness which becomes a metaphor for being non-saved people. Laodicea has the grim distinction of being among all seven letters the only one in which Christ has nothing good to say. It is unmitigated, unspared condemnation. There is in this church apparently absolutely no redeeming feature. This is the unsaved, unregenerate false church.
Also, because of the nature of the church this is the most threatening epistle. This is the most blistering rebuke. And it is sent to a proud church.
Now the richness of this letter will become apparent to you as we endeavor to examine it. It begins in chapter 3 and verse 14 and runs to the end of the chapter. In order to understand, however, the richness that is contained in the letter, you really have to understand some background. And we're going to work our way through that background, listen carefully and it will make the whole letter come alive to you.
First of all, we begin in verse 14, "And to the angel," that is the messenger, the one who was to deliver the letter, the word angel, angelos, being angel or messenger. This was the seventh of the messengers that had received these letters from the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. And as they moved from city to city, each one would arrive at his own church with the letter for that church. We don't know whether each of them had a copy of the whole of the apocalypse, the whole of the revelation. But we do know that each one would have a copy of the letter specifically for their own church. This being the seventh, this man must have made the journey by himself. Alone he travels to Laodicea to give them a letter which surely he has read and reread.
"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write," and here we're introduced to the correspondent. "The amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, says this." Now you remember that in each case the letter begins with an identification of the one who writes, none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. You also remember that for the most part the identifying characteristics are taken from the vision of Christ that is given in chapter 1.
However, in this case this is a somewhat unique introduction. The Lord identifies Himself here in three titles. He calls Himself the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.
First of all, the amen. That is a unique title. And it probably reflects a Hebrew original. Back in Isaiah 65:16 it says, "The God of amen." That's Hebrew for truth, or affirmation, or certainty. God was called the God of truth then, the God of certainty, the God of affirmation. Whatever God says is so, whatever God says is true, whatever God says is certain therefore He's the God of amen.
Now the word "amen" is often used in Scripture as a word to affirm the veracity of a statement. Sometimes it is used before a statement and when it is it is usually translated "verily, verily," or "truly, truly," but in the Greek language, for example, it is "amen, amen." You often see before some very significant statement "amen, amen." And there it is to affirm the truthfulness of what is to be said.
Sometimes you see it at the very end. And at the end it is to seal the certainty of what has been said. Amen means firm, fixed, certain, faithful, unchangeable. Those are all words that surround the meaning of amen.
Now how is Christ here the amen? Well we could say that He is the amen in the sense that He is God. If God is the Old Testament amen, certainly Jesus Christ being God in human flesh is the New Testament amen. But there's more to it than just the reference to deity. He could have chosen a number of things to refer to Himself as God, but choosing the amen takes it a step further. He is the amen because He is true, He is the amen because He is certain.
But more than that, more specifically even than that general affirmation, Scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 1:20 a very important truth. It says, "For all the promises of God in Him are amen." All the promises of God in Him are amen. What does that mean? That means that all God's promises and all God's covenants are guaranteed and affirmed by the person and work of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament God said I will forgive your sins. God could never do that if it were not for the person and work of Christ, right? Because forgiveness was purchased by His atoning death. All of the promises that God made to take men and show them mercy and loving kindness, grace and give them a Kingdom and a hope and an eternal life are bound up in Jesus Christ fulfilling His work. So that everything that God ever planned or purposed for man, everything that God ever promised for man finds its amen in Jesus Christ. God's promises are all certain in Him. They all become sure in Him. And so, Jesus Christ is God's amen, the one who confirmed all the promises.
Then He identifies Himself as the faithful and true witness. This further elucidates the same line of thinking as the word amen. As I noted, amen has reference to truth and certainty and He follows that up by saying He is the faithful and true witness. Not only is Jesus by His work the amen, or the one who makes the promises of God certain, but every time He speaks what He says is also true. What He did puts the amen to punctuate the promises of God, what He says is always true. He is the faithful and true witness. He is completely trustworthy. He is perfectly accurate. His testimony never fails to be reliable. In fact, in John 14:6 He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." He is, of course, the perfect true witness.
Back in John chapter 3 in verse 31 we read this, "He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all...speaking of Himself...what He has seen and heard of that He bears witness and no man receives His witness. He who has received His witness has set His seal to this, that God is true." Jesus comes, He speaks. Men reject Him. But whoever accepts what He says is saying God is true. He is the amen of God, He is the faithful, true witness who speaks the very Word of God. He is then living verification and confirmation of the promises of God in everything He does and He affirms the truth of God in everything He says. He is absolutely true.
And this is a good way to begin the letter because it affirms to the people in Laodicea that He knows what He's talking about. That whatever assessment He gives of the church is absolutely accurate, that whatever promise He offers the church is absolutely affirmed in His perfect work. When He rightly assesses their unredeemed condition, He is a faithful and true witness to that condition. When He offers them the promise of fellowship in verse 20 which is a promise of salvation, He can offer that because He is the amen who seals the covenant of God, the promise of God.
The third thing He says about Himself is He is the beginning of the creation of God. The English here, frankly, is a bit ambiguous. But that ambiguity disappears when you understand what He means by what He says. When He says He is the beginning of the creation of God, He doesn't mean that the first thing God ever created was Him. He doesn't say He was the first creature God ever created. He says He is the beginning of the creation. What He means by that is He is the source of it. He is the power by which creation began.
It should be noted for you that this letter sent to the church at Laodicea has much in common with Paul's letter to the church at Colossae. They were very close together. In fact, you could say that three cities were sister cities...Hierapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae. Apparently there was a heresy in Colossae about Jesus Christ. And that heresy said that He was a created being and not at all God. It wouldn't be too hard to surmise that that heresy that depreciated the deity of Jesus Christ had gone up the road a little bit and hit Laodicea. And when Jesus says here He is the beginning of the creation of God, He is the arche, He is saying essentially the same thing that Paul said in Colossians chapter 1 verse 15, "He is the image of the invisible God, the prototokos of all creation, of all those who have ever lived He is the supreme one." And of course, in His humanity He did become man. But he says, "By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by Him and for Him. He is before all things...that is prior to them...in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body of the church." Here it is, "He is the beginning."
Apparently there was some question about Him because obviously Jesus had become a man, was born. He, of creation, was the prototokos, the supreme person ever born. But though He was born as man He always existed as God and while as man He had a beginning, as God He was the beginning. And so here, I believe, is a very important note. I believe the reason you have an unsaved church in Laodicea is because they had an errant doctrine about Christ. It was their heretical Christology that produced an unregenerate church. And what our Lord is saying to them in this letter is you must understand who I am, I am the one who has confirmed all the promises and covenants of God, I am the one who speaks truth and only truth and I am the beginning of the creation.
Colossae was ten miles away. Those two churches were sister churches. It is very likely that whatever Christological heresy had filtered its way into the Colossian church and attacked the deity of Christ, and reduced Him to a created angelic being had also affected the church in Laodicea. This church had bought in to that erroneous view of Christ and consequently was unsaved and lost. That is a tragic thing. But always you will note the damning error is the error about Christ, is it not? Start naming the cults and what is in common with all of them? They deny what? The deity of Jesus Christ.
When Paul was closing the letter to the Colossians, verse 16 of chapter 4, the last little part of Colossians, he said, "When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans." Why? Well they must have been into the same error. And then he says, "And you for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea." That would have been the epistle that we know as Ephesians...most likely. So whatever was going on in Colossae probably had spilled over, only the church in Colossae was fighting it and the church in Laodicea had bought it.
So when He calls Himself the beginning, He is the arche, that is the beginner, the originator, the initiator. It's the same idea as in Revelation 22:13 where He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." He is the first, He is the Alpha, He is the originator, He is the beginning. John put it this way, "By Him were all things made that were made."
So, the Lord Jesus Christ is preeminent as the amen, as the faithful and true witness, and as the creator. He is sovereign, saving God, the uncreated source of creation.
So, the letter begins, "The Lord who has created everything, the faithful and true witness to the Word of God, the one in whom all spiritual promises are fulfilled says this..."
Now I want to talk a little bit about the city, the city of Laodicea because it's absolutely essential and fascinating to understand this city. It was located in the Lycus River Valley, the southwest area of Phrygia. Of the seven cities in the letters, it is the most southeasterly. It is 45 miles southeast of Philadelphia and would be about directly east of Ephesus about 100 miles. So these seven letters traverse a little bit of a loop in Asia Minor. Hierapolis, one of the sister cities six miles north, Colossae, ten miles to the east and south a bit. Because of the Lycus Valley being one of the most common routes of travel to the west, people obviously wanting to travel through a valley rather than across mountains.
Laodicea became a very important city. Anytime these cities were on a trade route they became significant. Not only was it a significant city on the east/west trade route, but it was also a significant city on the north/south road from Pergamos and Sardis, moving south to the coast. So they were crisscrossing all these people who went east and west and north and south and coming through the city of Laodicea. It had been founded by Antiochus II in the third century B.C. He named it for his wife.
The modern name of this Turkish city is Eskee Hizar(??), still there. Eskee Hizar means in Turkish "the old fortress," named for some of the ancient ruins. It is interesting to note that it had a large Jewish population and that large Jewish population probably was the starting point for the development of the church. You say, "Where do we find that it has a large Jewish population?" Quite, interesting. Every year Jews had to pay a temple tax, didn't matter where they lived or where they were, they had to pay that, that was part of their religious duty and they had to pay that temple tax, any male Jew over twenty-one. It amounted to half a shekel. In 62 B.C. Flockus(?) the governor put a stop to any exporting of gold from Laodicea. We have this in archaeological records. He needed it to back the currency. So he said no gold can be exported out of Laodicea.
Well, the Jews always paid their tax with gold. They would do this, all the Jews in a local town would get together, they would put it all together in one lump of gold, that's how they would pay their tax, one lump package of gold. In spite of Flockus' order they sent their gold anyway back to Jerusalem to pay their temple tax. The Laodicean authorities confiscated it and they weighed it in at what amounts in our terms to about twenty pounds. Twenty pounds would be equal to about 7,500 shekels. So you can see that there were quite a number of Jews. That's only the males over twenty one, plus the females and the children. Significant number of Jews.
These Jews existed in the midst of a pagan culture. They had probably come there because they were entrepreneurial and wanted to start their businesses. And they found themselves in the midst of pagan culture and morality and they became mixed with it. And if you read in the Talmud, you will read, interestingly enough, about Laodicea. And you will read that Laodicean Jews had come to the apex of ease and laxity. It probably was that Jewish contingent that was the first point of evangelization. That was certainly Paul's normal process and though Paul never went to Laodicea, when the church was founded there it was probably founded something along the path of his kind of strategy which was to go to the synagogue first. There would have been a synagogue there for sure with that many Jews, a very large one.
Now there's something else to know about this city and I think it's fascinating. Crucial to this city was its water supply. There were some local streams in the area but as the population grew and developed the local streams and rivers were inadequate. In fact some of them dried up in the winter. And so water had to be brought in. Well the only way they could bring it in there was by an underground aqueduct. And being very enterprising they managed to build an aqueduct and the water flowed down this aqueduct into the city of Laodicea. It did have an impact on their strength militarily because anybody could come along and conquer them by just cutting off the water supply, finding where the aqueduct was, identifying it, sealing it off and just sitting out and waiting until the siege of the city accomplished its end as the people had no water. And though it was fortified architecturally, an enemy could find the aqueduct and leave them rather helpless. So it never became much of a military power.
Kenneth Dodders(?) written some interesting things about this city and he says this, "They couldn't use the Lycus or the Maeander Rivers for drinking because they were too dirty. Besides, the Lycus River often dried up during the dry season. Most of the springs in the area are hot springs full of gasses and other chemicals. The Laodiceans had no choice, they had to pipe in water from a distant spring through twin lines of stone pipe, each stone was about three feet across and hallowed through the middle. The water carried by those pipes was so charged with impurities that it dropped much of its load in flow. The calcium carbonate gradually clogged the pipes. The water was collected in a central water tower, then distributed through the streets by pipes radiating from it. The water tower and sections of the terra cotta pipes are still visible even today. It is evident, at least, that the water it carried was bad, for thick deposits of calcareous impurities can still be seen almost choking the surviving section of the pipes. So whatever water finally got to the city was dirty, impure.
Another writer says the orientation of the aqueduct has suggested to archaeologists that the springs at the modern town of Denzilly(?) five miles to the south were the source. So here ran this little aqueduct to get them water. This was a major issue because a city can't exist, obviously, without that.
A second key feature that's going to come into play in the letter that dominates the city is the commercial aspect. There are several things you need to know about the commercial aspect of the city. First of all, it was a banking center...it was a banking center. It was very wealthy apparently because it was on the crossroads, north, south, east, west, it became a business hub and it became a banking center for people moving in all directions to put their funds. They became so very wealthy that when in 60 A.D. the city was totally flattened by an earthquake, Rome offered to give them some money to rebuild and they refused it saying they had plenty of their own. The people of Laodicea prided themselves in rejecting the offer of financial help from Rome and rebuilt the city far more beautiful than it had ever been and they did it with their own funds.
Tacitus writes, "Laodicea arose from the ruins by the strength of her own resources and with no help from us." Tacitus, the Roman historian. And so they were extremely wealthy.
A second feature in the commercial area had to do with the wool industry. Laodicea became famous for its wool industry and the major product, this is very interesting, was a soft wool that was glossy black in color, shiny black. It was used for clothing and it was used also for weaving into carpets, both locally and after export.
The third key feature about the city in a commercial sense was its medical school. It had about thirteen miles north of the city a very famous medical school. It was basically established in connection with an ancient temple that was associated with the god identified later by the name of Aesculapius, the god of healing who is still around in old medical literature. The medical school had famous teachers, but the thing that was most prominent in the medical school was they developed a certain salve for the eye. And people from all over that part of the world when they had an eye ailment would come to this medical school near Laodicea to get the eye salve that they would then put on their eyes which would bring some measure of comfort and healing.
So as you look at the commercial aspect of Laodicea you see finance, black wool and eye salve. And all three of those industries play a major part in this letter. And so does the water supply.
The third thing I want to mention about is the church. "He says to the angel of the church in Laodicea," now there's no record of the founding of the church but we can sort of put two and two together. While the Apostle Paul was ministering in Ephesus his friend Epaphras evangelized the Lycus valley. And he even evangelized Laodicea, that's in Colossians 1:7. Out of Ephesus where Paul was building this sort of mother church, people were going and founding other churches and Epaphras went to Laodicea about a hundred miles to the east and a bit south and founded the church there. By the time Paul wrote Colossians in the early sixties, he had not personally visited Laodicea or Colossae for that matter. He told Philemon, you remember, in verse 22 of Philemon that he wanted to come and visit Colossae. He said he would be soon released and be able to come and visit there.
So Paul never went there. It is possible that Archippus, a son of Philemon, was a real leader in that church in Laodicea, as well as in Colossae since the churches were associated with one another in proximity.
So the church was founded during the same period of time as the others in the ministry of Paul in Ephesus. As we noted earlier, it got infected with a deadly heresy that misrepresented the deity of Jesus Christ. I think that's inherent in the title there and in the situation in the church--corrupt, unsaved, lost.
Sardis was dead but had a few living, worthy believers. Thyatira was compromising, sinful and idolatrous, but had some who held the truth. Laodicea was a church that was absolutely no church, it was tares without wheat. Somebody asked the question, "Well what about the messenger? Was he genuine?" Probably, probably was. It may well have been that a messenger had to be selected from somewhere else to take the letter, we don't know.
In each of these letters we've also come to a fourth point, the commendation. However, there is no commendation here so there's nothing to say. Verse 15 He says, "I know your deeds, period, and I've got no comment." There isn't anything to say to commend anything you do.
So that takes us to the condemnation. And the condemnation is very important, verses 15 and 16. "I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." Whoa...strong language. I know your deeds. I know them intimately and I know them infallibly. I know your deeds. Just a footnote on that. Deeds always reveal what a person is...always. "By their fruits you shall know them." Romans 2 verses 6 to 8, Paul makes it as clear as anywhere in the Bible, "God will judge you on the basis of your deeds." "God will render to every man according to His deeds." "To those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, He'll give eternal life. To those who are selfishly ambitious and don't obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, He'll bring wrath and indignation."
You say, "Wait a minute, I thought we were saved by grace and faith and all of that." That's right, we are. But whether we are saved or not shows up in our deeds. James says the same thing. Your faith is made known by your works.
So He says I know your deeds and therefore I know your heart. I can see by what you do what you are. That is a very important statement with sweeping implications in the New Testament. A person who is a Christian manifests it. A person who is not manifests it.
And then the statement, the most relentless, overpowering rebuke yet. And the rebuke says, basically, "I spit you out of My mouth because you're lukewarm." This takes us back to our comments about the water supply. In Hierapolis, six miles to the north, there was some famous springs, hot springs. In fact, they were one of the most well-known and popular places for healing. The water was hot and you went there and sat in that water and it had therapeutic power. It is still used today. Hierapolis had hot water and that hot water was therapeutic.
In Colossae, ten miles south and east, there was a cold stream. We learned that the stream was perennially running and perennially cold like typical water that flows from the high mountains. That water was thirst quenching. That water was famous because of its cool, clear character.
They didn't have the hot therapeutic water of Hierapolis and they didn't have the cold clear refreshing water of Colossae, they had the foul, dirty, tepid water that flowed for miles through an underground aqueduct. It wasn't hot and it wasn't cold. Not hot enough to relax and restore, not cool enough to refresh and quench. Laodicea couldn't provide the refreshment of Colossae, it couldn't provide the healing of Hierapolis. Its lukewarm water was absolutely useless. Any visitor who came there who wasn't used to the stuff would put it in his mouth and immediately emit it, spit it out.
And the word "lukewarm," chliaros, is simply a word for tepid water. One historian says, "The water supply of Laodicea was derived from an artificial pipeline, bringing water which was literally lukewarm and so impure as to have an emetic effect."
What is the spiritual significance of this? Simply that the Laodicean church made Christ vomit. It was a sickening church. Some churches make the Lord weep. Some churches make the Lord angry. This one made Him sick. Back in chapter 2 and also in chapter 3 we saw His anger toward some churches, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis. But here He's sickened.
Now how are we to interpret these three categories? What does cold mean? Well that's not too tough. Cold means spiritually cold, open outright rejection of Jesus Christ, repudiating the gospel. He says you're not cold, I mean, you're just not openly, outright, rebellious, rejecting Christ and repudiating Christianity.
But on the other hand, what does hot mean? Zealous, spiritually alive and awake and eager and fired up, as it were, for the Lord. He says you're not that either. You're not boiling for...with spiritual zeal for the Lord, nor are you openly outright cold.
There are many in the world who are completely cold to the things of Christ. The gospel leaves them absolutely unmoved. It arouses no spiritual response. They have no interest in Christianity, no interest in the church. They make no pretense. They certainly aren't hypocrites. They don't even go near things that have to do with Christ. They are lost and they could care less. They don't want to hear the Word of God at all.
On the other hand, believers are marked by a response to spiritual truth and they're zealous and they're fervent. And He's saying metaphorically, I can take it if you were like Hierapolis because then you'd be real. I could even take it if you were like the cold water of Colossae. That's better than being the foul water of Laodicea, lukewarm. Who are they? Professing Christians...go to church, claim to know the Lord, but aren't saved. They're content with self-righteous religion. They're hypocrites playing games. They're the kind of people described in Matthew 7 where Jesus says, "Many will say unto Me in that day, `Lord, Lord,' and I will say unto them, `Depart from Me, I never knew you. You may have done many works in My name and prophesied and cast out demons, but I don't know you.'"
They're like those in 2 Timothy 3:5 who have a form of godliness but without power. They're like the Jews in Romans 10 who have a zeal for God but not according to a true knowledge. They're just hypocrites touched someway by Christianity but not belonging to Christ. And there is something obnoxious about them. They nauseate Christ. They make Him sick.
There's much more hope, frankly, for one who has been untouched by the gospel. There's much more hope for one who has made no pretense of know