the “new name” is almost certainly an intentional foreshadowing of the vision in 19:11–21, where Christ the heavenly warrior defeats and thus destroys the beast. There Christ’s “new name” is “King of kings and Lord of lords”; and now in anticipation of that scene the victors in Philadelphia are promised to have that name written on them as well (but with location unmentioned, since it is a name of divine ownership, not of personal gain).
To the Church in Laodicea (3:14–22)
14“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
19Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.
21To those who are victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Laodicea, the last of the five cities on the northwesterly, southeasterly interior highway of Anatolia, was also the crossroads for the highway east and west. It therefore rather automatically became the premier city of the tri-cities in the Lycus River valley (which included Colossae and Hierapolis). It was also an extremely wealthy city, a fact noted in all kinds of deliberate and incidental ways throughout ancient historical and literary remains. It had become famous for three reasons in particular: first, for all practical purposes they were the Swiss bankers of antiquity, which meant that it was a city of considerable wealth; second, they were famous for a breed of sheep that produced an extremely fine and desirable black wool; and third, their proximity to a hot springs across the river made them a kind of medical center, famous worldwide for a specially mixed eye salve. It is therefore not difficult to see how in many respects it became “like city, like church”; indeed, practically everything in the letter reflects some aspect of a church located in this setting.
One should note at the beginning that the description of Christ in this final letter now abandons the vision in 1:16–18 altogether, in favor of a series of brief epithets. First, Christ reveals himself to them as the Amen, thus affirming the truth about God the Father to which he is bearing witness. Second, he is the faithful and true witness, language from 1:5 with the addition of the adjective “true.” Third, he is the ruler of God’s [= all] creation, a most striking appellation, both for the Apocalypse as a whole and for this letter in particular. Indeed, the closest thing to it in the New Testament is the affirmation by Paul in Colossians 1:15 that the Son “who is the image of the invisible God” is also “the firstborn over all creation.” Paul’s clause almost certainly means that his relationship to creation is that of “the firstborn,” and thus he is the rightful heir of all creation, just as he was the actual creator at the beginning.30 The apparent reason for this appellation here has to do with Laodicea’s location near one of the better-known natural phenomena in the ancient world.
What follows the introduction of Christ in verse 14b is an extended description (through v. 17) of Christ’s knowledge of their deeds, whose primary feature is the considerable difference between who they think they are and who Christ knows they are, which Christ reveals to them in this letter. This is a comeuppance of the highest order, a revelation that comes in four distinguishable steps. First (v. 15), Christ reveals their actual condition from the divine perspective: you are neither cold nor hot, which is probably a reflection on the fact that they are across the river from the actual hot springs, so that by the time the hot water reaches them across stream it has cooled enough to be insipid, useful for neither medicinal nor drinking purposes. The more remarkable moment of judgment comes next: Christ would rather have them either one or the other! In actuality, of course, he would prefer them to be “hot”; but if they were “cold” then they could more easily recognize their situation and be helped. Rather, his judgment is that because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. Besides revealing something about the ancients’ own view of drinking water, a view with which most moderns can easily identify, this sentence also reveals something about Christ’s own heart toward his people. The imagery is especially striking, and is common to anyone who has tried to get a drink of refreshing water from a public fountain, but found it tepid and spit it out instantly.
With verse 17 the imagery changes from drinking water to the plight of the wealthy, who by nature, of course, do not think of themselves as being in a quandary of any kind. The normal response of such people is I am rich, which is then elaborated in terms of having acquired wealth and therefore not needing a thing. But as is often the case, it is all a matter of perspective, in this instance theirs vis-à-vis Christ’s. Viewed from below they have everything one could want or need; viewed from above—and what they do not realize—they in fact are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. The first two of these five adjectives spell out the nature of their condition from the divine perspective: rather than not needing anything, their condition is rather a kind of wretchedness that calls for pity. The final three then spell out their actual condition: the “rich” are in fact impoverished, neither able to see nor clothed.
The divine response to their own unrecognized wretchedness is to counsel them to buy from Christ what is necessary to become what they think they are, but are not in fact. Thus Christ offers them gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich. This striking imagery, which on the surface seems obvious, is in fact less than certain. They would surely, as will later readers, understand easily enough the imagery of “gold refined in the fire.” But what the imagery points to, or whether it has any specific referent as such, is less than clear. Most likely the point of the imagery lies not simply with the gold itself, but especially with the fact that it needs to be “refined in the fire.” If so, then their own need to be “refined” as through fire is the ultimate point of the imagery. At the same time the imagery automatically points to something of great value.
The white clothes to wear, which is the second curative category, picks up the third of the preceding maladies. At the same time it takes one back to the imagery used in the letter to the church in Sardis, although the concern here is not so much with whiteness as such, but with the use of the clothes: so you can cover your shameful nakedness. The final expression, “shameful nakedness,” carries some ambiguity as well. Private nakedness is not to be thought of as shameful; what is shameful rather is the public expression of the “nakedness” of this church, which they of course cannot see, but which Christ sees clearly.
The third item they are to “buy” from Christ has to do with the second malady in verse 17, their blindness. They are to buy from me . . .
salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Again, we are left a bit in the dark as to the presupposition behind this imagery. But the “salve” is to be understood as having curative properties to it, so that when applied the “scales” drop off and the blind can see.
These descriptions of this church’s impoverished condition and the corresponding divine cures are followed by two brief sentences that essentially have Laodicean repentance as their goal. First, the One described as “the faithful and true witness” (v. 14) affirms that those I love I rebuke and discipline. Indeed, all that has been said to this point is a plea of love. The affirmation itself seems simultaneously to point backward and forward. That is, the “rebuke” is what has in effect already taken place in the preceding sentences; the verb “I discipline” serves as a warning that leads into the second
