Laodices is addressed – Part 1

Unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness; the beginning of the creation of God. REVELATION 3:14

“The message to the Laodicean church is highly applicable to us as a people. It has been placed before us for a long time, but has not been heeded as it should have been. When the work of repentance is most earnest and deep, the individual members of the church will buy the rich goods of heaven.” 7BC 961

“I was shown that the testimony to the Laodiceans applies to God’s people at the present time, and the reason it has not accomplished a greater work is because of the hardness of their hearts.” 1T 185

” The Laodicean message applies to the people of God who profess to believe present truth. The greater part are lukewarm professors, having a name but no zeal.” 4T 87

Seventh Day Adventists have long had difficulty dealing with the message to Laodicea recorded in Rev 3:14-22.

In the months and years following the Great Disappointment of 1844, Sabbath-keeping Adventists rather smugly applied this message to those Adventists who had not accepted the Seventh-day Sabbath or the changing ministry of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary. In spite of the attention given to the importance of the idea of “righteousness by faith” that developed in 1888, and during the years that followed, most Adventists found it difficult to accept the True WitnessÕs evaluation of Laodicea, and applying His counsel to themselves.

This condition has persisted to this present time and we have continued in a “lukewarm” state.

But Christ has not found a lukewarm church appealing, rather Christ finds it nauseating/ sickening.

Part 1 seeks to arouse all of us to our true condition, and to accept the gracious remedy provided. I do not pretend that this will be easy for any of you, but it is essential.

There are seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, etc. All these parallel passages deal with the same time periods, but each concentrates on a different issue, therefore we must consider the context of all seven churches (Rev 1 -3) in order to accurately understand what Christ is saying to the Laodicean church, the last in the series – I won’t be covering this in this article, however will do so later, if that be God’s will.

The True Witness evaluates each church, and we find as we examine the messages to these churches that each follows a pattern made up of 4 basic elements:

Commendation
Jesus makes note of the good points about each church

Reproof
Jesus judges each church by its works stating, “This is what I have against you”

Counsel
Jesus never rebukes His church without giving it a remedy for its problems. For every problem the church faces there
is counsel

Promise
Jesus closes His counsel with a promise. If His people will accept the counsel and follow it, the promise will be fulfilled to them.

BUT there are some interesting exceptions to this pattern. Jesus has no reproof for two of the seven churches – Smyrna and Philadelphia

Unfortunately, Jesus has much to say in reproof to Laodicea, representing the church in the time we live – our church.

But there is something even more disturbing about Christ’s message to Laodicea than His reproof.

Not only does Jesus reprove Laodicea, He has nothing good to say about her. There is no “commendation” for the Laodicean church.

Sister White says, “The message to the church of the Laodiceans is a startling denunciation and is applicable to the people of God at the present time.” 3T 252

Applicable to who? – the people of God. Are we the people of God? – then this applies to us.
What? When? and Where? – to get this into times and places – at the present time, in other words, this means us and now.

Here is a church that claims to have present truth – and Jesus has NO commendation for her; here is a church which claims to be God’s remnant church – and don’t we claim that in this church? Jesus says, “I have nothing good to say about you” – that certainly is a “startling denunciation.”

Further, Christ’s message to Laodicea is vitally connected with the message of Òrighteousness by faithÓ, the message God brought to the church in 1888.

This is clearly supported by Ellen White (7BC 964)
“Take this message in all its phases and sound it forth to the people wherever providence opens the way.
1 – justification by faith and
2 – the Righteousness of Christ
are the themes to be presented to a perishing world.”

This message is one that we first need to apply to ourselves before we attempt to share it with others. When we see ourselves, wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked, THEN we can take the message of life to a world that is dying. This message will illuminate the entire world with “God’s glory”. When we all understand and apply Christ’s words to ourselves they will (Christ’s words) bring a revival and power to our lives.

When we write a letter, we identify the person to whom we are writing in a greeting – “Dear Mary” or “Dear John”. And we sign our name to show who has written the letter. Just so, Revelation 3:14, the introduction to Jesus’ letter to Laodicea, contains these same two items. It identifies the one to whom this letter is addressed, and it names the One who is sending it – the recipient and the Sender.

As we look carefully at verse 14, we’ll notice that the letter to Laodicea is addressed, not to the church itself, but to the “angel” of that church. What does this mean? Who is this “angel”?

To answer these questions, we need to go back to Revelation chapter 1 and look at the introduction to these messages to the seven churches. In chapter 1, we find John in vision on “the Lord’s day’ – Sabbath (verse 10). He hears a voice and turns to see who is speaking to him. The first thing he sees in vision are seven golden candlesticks. And in the middle of these candlesticks, or lamp stands, he sees “one like unto the Son of man” (verse 13). This is Jesus Christ. While He was here He called Himself by this title in order to identify Himself with us.

So John hears Jesus and sees Him walking among the golden candlesticks. In his vision, John sees Jesus holding in His right hand seven stars and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword (verse 16). The New Testament symbolized the Bible, God’s Word, as a sharp two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12).

Verse 20 explains the symbols of the seven golden candlesticks and the seven stars in Jesus’ right hand: “The seven stars” Jesus tells John, “are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”

The seven candlesticks represent the churches themselves. This is an appropriate symbol. In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to His followers, “Ye are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14) but in John 8:12 Jesus said of Himself “I am the light of the world”. Which is it? Are we Christians the world’s light, or is Jesus? How can both statements be true?

The answer is evident in the original language of Matthew 5:14. It isn’t so apparent in English, but in Greek it is clear that the word ye is plural; Jesus is referring to all Christians. But the word light is singular. There is only one light, and that light is Jesus Christ. He is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). So when Jesus said in Matthew 5:14 “Ye (all His people) are the light (Christ’s representatives) of the world,” He was saying that His church is to reflect Him, the true light of the world. The church is to represent Christ to the world. The world needs to see ÒChrist in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Whatever light we shed in the world is the result of reflecting the rays from the true Light, Jesus Christ.

Jesus went on to say that when a person lights a candle, he puts it on a candlestick so that it will give light to everyone around. That, He said, is how His people are to shine for Him in this dark world (see Matthew 5:15,16). Like candles set on a candlestick, each member of God’s church is to let His light, Christ in you, so shine before men that they may see His good works and glorify the Father who is in heaven. So the symbol of the seven candlesticks representing the seven churches is very fitting. We need to keep this in mind as we look at Christ’s message to Laodicea in order to understand why the church has failed to be the light of the world that God intended her to be.

It is clear, then, that when John saw in vision Jesus walking among seven candlesticks, holding seven stars in His right hand, the candlesticks represent the seven churches (see Revelation 1:20). But who or what do the stars in Jesus’ hand represent?

Verse 20 clearly answers that question also: “The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.” Remember that each of Christ’s letters to the seven churches is addressed to the “angel” of that church. What does this symbolize?

The word angel means “messenger”. Hebrew 1:14 describes angels as “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” They are God’s messengers to minister to us who are the recipients of salvation. So when Jesus speaks of the “angel” of each of the seven churches He is referring to those who are the spiritual leaders of the church. The Living Bible paraphrase doesn’t use the word angel in these verses in Revelation that speak of the seven churches. It uses the word leader. That is the correct sense of the word; the “angel” of the Laodicean church symbolizes the ‘spiritual leader” of that church.

A church’s spiritual leaders include the elders, Sabbath School teachers and other officers. But the primary meaning seems to refer to the pastor, the shepherd who is in charge of the spiritual condition of the church. Ellen White says:
“God’s ministers are symbolized by the seven stars, which He who is the first and the last Christ has under His special care and protection. The sweet influences that are to be abundant in the church are bound up with these ministers of God who are to represent the love of Christ. The stars of heaven are under God’s control. He fills them with light. He guides and directs their movements. If He did not, they would become fallen stars.” (Gospel Workers, 13,14)

To a large degree, the spiritual condition of the church is in the hands of the ministers. Traveling to Jerusalem from his missionary journeys, Paul stopped briefly in Miletus, where he met with the leaders of the church in Ephesus. He challenged them, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). We have placed many responsibilities on our pastors today, but their primary task is to feed the church spiritually and bring about growth in grace. The spiritual condition of the church will depend largely on the pastor and the food with which he feeds his flock every Sabbath.

All of us, when we first believe in Christ and accept His gift of salvation, do so from a selfish motive. There may be rare exceptions, but because our human natures are selfish, we usually accept Christ in the beginning because we are afraid of punishment or because we want the reward. Our evangelism often appeals to these same motives. When we tell people that there is a “heaven to gain and a hell to shun”, aren’t we appealing to their egocentric natures? Of course, it’s true that we should want to gain heaven and shun hell. But if that is the only motivation, then we are operating from basically a selfish orientation.

Likewise, the disciples – all 12 of them – accepted Jesus for selfish reasons. Even after three years spent with Jesus, what were they arguing about in the upper room? They were arguing about who would be the most important in the coming kingdom. They were still thinking of themselves.

Most of us are what Paul calls “carnal” Christians, or “babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1), when we first accept Jesus and join His church. It is the pastor’s responsibility to feed these spiritual babies so they will grow. As the spiritual leader of the church, he is to help them move from carnality to spirituality. There has to be spiritual growth. A carnal Christian is a weak Christian, a baby in Christ, and the pastor must carefully nourish him and help him to grow.

In His letter to the Laodicean church, Christ is saying, “Pastors, there is something wrong with the church”. Of course, the message to Laodicea is relevant to every member of the church (see Revelation 1:11), but the ministers have a special responsibility to build up the church. We need to pray for our ministers and pastors, that they will feed the flock and help it to grow spiritually. Ellen White recognized the special importance of JesusÕ words to church leaders:
“These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand”.

These words are spoken to the teachers in the church – those entrusted by God with weighty responsibilities” (Review and Herald 26 May 1903)

So now we have seen to whom in Laodicea Jesus has addressed His letter. He addresses it to the ministers, the spiritual leaders of the church. Yet Jesus is not speaking only to them; He isn’t addressing just certain individuals in the church. Through the leaders, He is speaking to the whole church, to every member. There is something dreadfully wrong with the Laodicean church, and Christ is appealing to the leadership of the church – and through them to every member – to realize the urgency of what He is saying. The whole church, top to bottom, needs to understand this message and the leaders, particularly, must consider it carefully.

Now let’s look at the second half of Revelation 3:14. What names does Jesus use when He “signs” the letter to the Laodiecan church?

In every one of the seven letters to the churches, Jesus gives Himself a special title, or name. And in each case the title He gives Himself harmonizes with the special needs of that church. Therefore, the title Christ gives Himself when speaking to Laodicea is based on Laodicea’s needs; it is connected with the message to that church. Here is what Jesus calls Himself when He is speaking to Laodicea. “These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14).

First, Jesus refers to Himself as the “Amen, the faithful and true witness”. The word Amen is being used here as a proper noun, a name. Amen actually means “so be it”. Or it can mean “the truth” or “what is being said is the truth”. The emphasis in this first title seems to be on the truthfulness of Jesus’ witness to Laodicea.

Why does He need to stress the truthfulness, the accuracy, of what He is saying? Because, as we will see in more detail later, there is a great discrepancy between Laodicea’s evaluation of herself and the evaluation that Christ gives. Laodicea has a major problem; her self-evaluation does not agree with Christ’s evaluation of her spiritual condition. Laodicea says, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing”. Jesus says, “Thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

Who says that Laodicea is wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked? Jesus Christ, “the Amen, the faithful and true witness” (verse 14).

We say we are rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing.

Do these two evaluations agree? Clearly not. Therefore, the question is: Who is right? “bviously, the Faithful and True Witness is right. That’s what Jesus wants to emphasize. That’s why He calls Himself “the Amen” the truth, the Faithful and True Witness.

We need to clearly understand that the church is the body of Christ It is a corporate whole Ð a koinonia – made up of individual members, just as the physical body. When a person’s hand is diseased, the whole body is affected – not just the hand. The Bible is clear on this point. For example, when Daniel prayed (Daniel 9) he said “WE have sinned against thee” (verse 8). He included himself in the sins of Israel that had brought them into captivity in Babylon. Was this true of Daniel personally? No. Yet he identified himself with God’s people. He understood that the church is a corporate body and that what affects one affects all.

This is my main complaint against many of the independent movements that are arising these days to criticize the church. They hold up the shortcomings of the church, and then they look upon themselves as self-righteousness as if they alone are on the right track. The Bible teaches that we are all one body; we each need to identify ourselves with the mistakes of the church, for we are one. I might look at myself and say “I’m all right; I’m feeding the people in my sermons and writings. I’m doing my job”. But the truth is that I, too, am part of the body and thus part of the problem that Christ identifies in Laodicea.

We in Laodicea today have the same problem Peter had. Just before His betrayal, Jesus sadly announced, “All ye shall be offended because of Me this night; for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad” (Matthew 26:31). All the disciples denied it, and Peter denied it vehemently.

“Though all men shall be offended because of thee”, Peter replied, Òyet will I never be offended” (verse 33). Jesus said to Peter, “Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow , thou shalt deny Me thriceÓ (verse 34).

But Peter insisted, “Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee” (verse35).

Peter had the Laodicean problem. Jesus had one evaluation of him. Peter had another, far different, evaluation of himself. Did they agree? No. Who was right? Jesus was right. Just think how much embarrassment and how many problems Peter would have avoided if he had simply said, “Yes, Lord, You know all things. You are right, and I am wrong.” But Peter had to learn the hard way that Jesus knew him better than he knew himself. That Jesus’ evaluation was the truth.

In His letter to the Laodicean church, Jesus is saying, “I am the True Witness. What I am telling you is the truth. You may not agree with Me, but I am telling you the truth. You may not like to hear it, but I’m telling you the truth.” And if we don’t learn to listen to Christ now, like Peter, we will have to learn the hard way, for Jesus warns, “If you don’t repent, I will rebuke you and spew you out of My mouth” (see Revelation 3:16).

Jesus also calls Himself by a second name, or title, in His letter to the Laodicean church. He refers to Himself as “the beginning of the creation of God” (verse 14). This title, especially as it is given in the King James Version of the Bible, has caused a lot of problems. Many Christians through the years, including some Seventh-day Adventist pioneers, have understood Jesus to be saying that somewhere back in the past ages, He had a beginning as the first being God created. One early Adventist writer tried to minimize this difficulty by saying that Christ’s origin was so far back in the days of eternity that as far as humans were concerned, it was almost as though Christ really didn’t have a beginning. Ellen White, however, took an opposite view. In her book, The Desire of Ages, she wrote; “In Christ is life, original, unborrowed, underived” (530). Thus she took a position that was contrary to the thinking of most of the early leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And her view was in harmony with the clear teaching of the New Testament.

You see, when Christ calls Himself Òthe beginning of the creation of GodÓ, He isnÕt saying that He was the first being God created and that He hadnÕt existed before that time. The word beginning here simply means Òthe sourceÓ or Òthe originÓ or Òthe chief causeÓ. Christ is saying ÒI am the Source of all creationÓ.

This is what the New Testament teaches clearly. “All thing were made by him (Christ); and without Him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). Speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “By him were all before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16,17; see also 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 3:9). Jesus is saying to the Laodiceans, “I am not only the True Witness, I am also the Source of all creation. I can re-create you into My image, but only if you allow Me to do so. I can create in you a new heart; I can make you a new person, but only if you repent and accept My true evaluation of you.”

He is not only saying “I am telling you the truth about yourselves, as painful as that may be.Ó He is also saying, ÒI am the solution to your problems.” That is why He calls Himself by two titles. “I am the Faithful and True Witness,” He says, “because you need to know your true condition. You aren’t even aware of it; you are in denial regarding it, so you need the truth.” And then He says, “But I have the solution to your problem. I am the Source of God’s creation. I made everything, and I can re-create your heart.”

In reality, Jesus is offering to fulfill in us the new covenant promise. He made this promise first to the Jewish nation, but the Jews rejected Him. What was the result? With tears in His eyes and tears in His voice, Jesus looked out over Jerusalem during His triumphal entry into the city just before His crucifixion, saying, “O Jerusalem, JerusalemÉhow often would I have gathered Thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” (Mathew 23:37). In other words, “I am going to spew you out of My mouth as a nation and I will turn to the Gentiles.”

Christ couldn’t fulfill the new covenant promises to the Jewish nation because it had made its ultimate and irrevocable decision to reject Him. Individual Jews could still take advantage of the promises, of course, but the nation as a whole had turned away. Now He is making the same new covenant promises to us today. The original promises found in Ezekiel 11:19,20; 36:26,27 are repeated to us in Hebrews 8:10-13.

So what have we discovered as we have examined the opening address of Christ’s letter to the Laodicean church?

We have learned that Christ is not speaking only to a few people in the church. He is addressing the leadership, and through the leaders, He is speaking to the entire membership. The problems Jesus points out in Laodicea are not the problems of only a few of its members. They are the problems of the whole corporate body of Christ, the last generation of Christians and they apply especially to the International Missionary Society Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement.

We have learned that although Christ’s spiritual evaluation of us is negative, it is nevertheless true. The question for us becomes: “Are we willing to accept His evaluation of our lives, painful though it is?” It’s painful when someone says to us, ÒYou are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked” – especially when we are a church that claims to have the truth. It is very painful. But if we are going to experience Christ’s solution to our problems, we are going to have to accept what the True Witness is saying about us. Let’s not apply this message to other churches; let’s apply it first to ourselves.

We have been deceived regarding our own spirituality, just as the Jews were deceived regarding their experience with God. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). The Jews rejected Christ because they did not accept His evaluation of them. We must not do the same.

When we look at ChristÕs evaluation of us in the letter to the Laodiceans, we will have to make a response: Is it true? Is it false? If we decide it is true, then we will take His counsel. If we decide it is false, then we will refuse the counsel and will be spewed out of His mouth. Thus the words of Jesus to Laodicea become vitally important to us.

What is our problem as identified by the Faithful and True Witness? What is it that we don’t know? What is it that has deceived us? What does Jesus mean when He says that our works are neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm? Does He mean that we aren’t doing enough works? I don’t think that is true. We are not lacking works, but our works have a problem. What is wrong with our works?

In Part 2 we will answer these question as we study Revelation 3:15,16. Verses 15 and 16 are so important because these two verses are Christ’s evaluation of Laodicea’s spiritual condition. All the rest of His letter is based on that evaluation.

John Warncken, Western Australia