matches the other person’s opinion. And if so, I can quietly do a high five to myself.
Imagine how offensive we are to Jesus, however, when we live our lives with no concern with his opinion. This does not concern temporal matters of what to wear and how to plant our flowers. This concerns matters of the soul, matters of holiness and lifestyle. Imagine how offended Jesus is when we do not act like we need him in our lives? In living for Jesus, and in working for Jesus, there is no other one we need but Jesus. Unfortunately, we are so prone to forget him or get used to doing things without him, that we eventually almost completely leave him out of our decision processes. This was the problem in the congregation in Laodicea.
Exposition
Laodicea was forty miles southeast from Philadelphia. It was named after the wife of Antiochus, Laodice. It was the wealthiest city in the Phrygian region, known for its black wool industry, banking industry, and medical school. One of the most famous ointments made was an eye salve made from Phrygian powder mixed with oil.143 The city was so wealthy that after it experienced a significant earthquake that destroyed the city in 60 A.D., it rebuilt itself without outside help from the Roman government.144 The main weakness of the city was its lack of water. Because of that, an aqua-duct system was built to bring water into the city. Water was retrieved from the hot springs that came from the city of Hierapolis and from the cold springs of Colossae.
In verse 14 Jesus is identified as the Amen, the Faithful Witness, the Truth, and the Ruler of God’s creation—there is authority and truth and judgment. His word is final. There is no other witness higher than Jesus. There is no opinion that is more worthy of query. Isaiah 65:16 says, “So that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth, and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth.”145 This verse could be understood as the God of the Amen. Jesus is the Amen. What he says will happen. In the Old Testament, “amen” is primarily an acknowledgement of that which is valid and binding. In referring to Jesus, it would mean the One in whom perfect conformity to reality is exemplified. Jesus made this claim in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” All truth and true reality are found in Jesus. What the world needs today is someone to trust. We have tried programs and policies, but they have failed. But Christ never fails. He is as good as an “Amen.” His “yes” means yes. The name, Amen,” applied to Christ, guarantees the truthfulness and reliability of his words.146
Jesus is also the faithful and true witness, that which puts him in stark contrast to the character of the Laodicean church. But he is also the ruler of God’s creation. Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” Surely this is enough to convince us that our sufficiency can only be found in Jesus, the “Amen,” the end of all things, the perfect and faithful Witness, the very Creator. The word ἡ ἀρχὴ (he arche) can be translated “beginning” or “ruler.” Implicit in the idea is inauguration, supremacy over, and temporal priority.147 All creation was begun by him, for him, and in him. Because of his resurrection, Jesus is the inauguration of and Sovereign over the new creation.148
Jesus considered the Laodicean church lukewarm, neither hot, nor cold. That is his primary criticism of the church body. Hierapolis was famous for its hot springs, used medically. These springs rose within the city, flowed across a wide plateau and spilled over the cliff directly opposite Laodicea. The cliff was about 300 feet high and encrusted with white calcium carbonate. As the hot, mineral-rich water traveled across the plateau, it gradually became lukewarm before spilling over the edge. You get a picture of sickly, insipid water seeping over slimy rock, which the unsuspecting visitor drank only to spit up on the ground. In contrast to the hot springs of Hierapolis were the cold, refreshing and pure waters of Colossae. By the time these flowed down toward Laodicea, these waters were also tepid or lukewarm and good for nothing.149
Again, Jesus called the Laodicean church lukewarm. The word for lukewarm is χλιαρὸς (chliaros). That meant that they were filled with disease and bacteria. They were neither hot nor cold. He wanted them to be useful for his kingdom, but instead they were good for nothing except to be spit out. Jesus’ desire was that they would be either useful for healing or useful for refreshing, one or the other. But they were neither. Their purpose and ministry and usefulness in the kingdom were gone. This made the church distasteful to the Lord.
We don’t need to investigate too many churches in the world to see that there are many churches very much like Laodicea. Many churches have ceased being useful vessels in the hand of the Lord, and he is about to spit them out of his mouth. He wants us to be cold waters of refreshment to the spiritually weary. Those who are burdened with life need the cup of cold water of encouragement from the church—the cold waters of the grace of God and mercies of Jesus. Instead, they often receive more burdens, more guilt, and more religion. Those who are thirsty for God must be able to find God among God’s people. There is no other place to look. The reason Western Europe is spiritually dead now is because the Christian churches in Western Europe stopped relying on Jesus for their sufficiency, began to call into question the Word of God, began to doubt the supremacy of Jesus, and when the starving and the thirsty unbeliever looked to the church for a cold drink of water, they found the well empty.
Jesus wants his church to be hot healing waters to the spiritually sick or dead. The Gospel is for the sick. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but the sinner to repentance.”150 The church must be a clinic, a healing station for the spiritually sick around us. Unfortunately, many churches have turned into funeral homes themselves, and the sick do not go into funeral parlors seeking life. They need hospitals. Jesus wants us to be hot, healing waters, but again, the source of healing is found in Jesus, and in a proper understanding of who he is.
I gave an assignment one semester at the University of Toledo where the students had to go to churches in the area before and after Thanksgiving Day to evaluate how those churches celebrated or recognized Thanksgiving. The responses in their papers and as they shared their experiences in class was sad to hear. Many of these students had not been in church for many years, some of them never. And the stories they told revealed how sick some of the churches themselves were. One young man, who had a long ponytail, and wore an army jacket, said that no one talked to him. He really felt like an outsider. Another mentioned how catty and gossipy the choir ladies were before they went up to sing.
How can the sick find spiritual healing among the sick? Does this mean that the church today must be perfect, and everyone in the church spiritual giants? No. But the church is a hospital, and hopefully hospitals are places people go to find healing. There should be many sick people there, and we should all be in process of getting healthier, not sicker or more stagnant.
From the perspective of the Laodicean church, there was no problem. They were very wealthy. Material wealth had clouded their spirituality. The wealth source in Laodicea would have been clothes, healing balm for the eyes, and precious metals. They had these, but they did not have the spiritual wealth from Jesus. And from his perspective they were wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, like a homeless infant in the middle of a dirty sewer-filled city street. Mounce accurately paints the problem by writing, “Their pretentious claim was not only that they were rich but that they had achieved it on their own.”151
Woe to the church if it ever thinks that it has attained completeness in its life and ministry so that
