The Lord gave this description to this church for a reason. That reason would be that they, no doubt, had experienced all of these things—the untruths, witnesses who were not reliable, and those who acquiesced to the Roman government. And so the Lord is assuring these Laodiceans that what they hear from Him will be just right. It will be the Truth. It will be according to the Will of God.

He also identifies Himself as “the Beginning of the creation of God.” In that day, in the latter part of the 1^st Century, people spoke of Rome and the Emperor—the Caesar—as being eternal and living forever. That’s perhaps the frame of reference that those in Laodicea, a Roman community, might have about eternal things. If a Laodicean spoke of something eternal, or thought of something that existed from the creation, their thoughts might be of Rome and of the Caesar. But, it is the One Who is speaking—it is the Christ Who was there at the Beginning of God’s creation. He was present with the Father in the morning of time. In the beginning of John’s Gospel, he would pen these marvelous words about Whom he was going to write—that is, Jesus Christ, the Lord. He said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made,” John 1, verses 1 through 3 [King James’ Version]. Then John will later say in verse 14 of John, chapter 1,“and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” If there was any confusion or misunderstanding about who John was speaking about in the first three verses, this clarifies it. He was speaking about Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, the One Who came in the flesh. Indeed, He was there at the beginning. He was part of the creation. He was not created, He was the Creator. And this, too, for these readers, establishes His credibility. It makes His Testimony “Faithful and True.”

So, The One Who spoke these things to the Laodicean Christians was “the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness,” and He joined God in the creation of mankind and in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and all that is in it. These are pretty impressive credentials, I would say. Wouldn’t you? When the Lord speaks, you’d better listen. Church in Laodicea—you’d better listen! Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2003—you’d better listen!

Condemnation and Warning (verses 15-20)

In verse 15, He says, “I know your works.” This is a statement that He has made previously to the other churches He has addressed.

Here in Laodicea, though, we see that their works are not characterized in their actions, but are more characterized by their attitudes. Their attitude was one of “indifference.” It was an attitude of “lethargy.” The descriptive term “lukewarm” describes their attitude. And the Lord says that He would rather they were either ice “cold” or they were “hot,” one or the other, but, please, not in between—not “lukewarm.”

Now, we can understand that the Lord would desire that this church—that any church—would be “hot,” the implication being that they are working, they are active, they are doing the things that they should be doing, that they are winning souls, that they are keeping the saved saved, that they are doing all those works that the church should be doing. That is the clear implication of being “hot.” We sometimes use the cliché of being “on fire,” and sometimes we use that in reference to a new Christian, someone who has recently obeyed the Gospel, who is full of zeal and wanting to learn and to study and just can’t keep quiet about what has happened to him or her. And we say, “That person is ‘on fire’ for the Lord!” We might even point to a congregation sometimes, and look at all that they are doing in the Name of the Lord, all the good works that they are involved in, and say, “My, that’s a congregation that is ‘on fire’ for the Lord!” They’re “hot” (and not in the present sense/meaning of the word that is sometimes used by young people). So we can understand that part.

But “cold”? Does the Lord really desire that someone be “cold”? What is the implication of that? Clearly, that is someone who is outside of Christ. Someone “in the world” would be how I would describe that. Why would the Lord prefer that someone be outside of His Body? Well, there are a couple schools of thought here. One is that, perhaps, if someone is in the world, then there is a better opportunity to teach that one, to convert that one, than perhaps a Christian who is “lukewarm” and is full of him or herself, and who really has this lethargic type of attitude about the Lord and His work, and so on. That may be a possible thought.

Here’s another idea, and I think that, perhaps, this idea may be more likely. Perhaps the idea/thought is that one who is in the world cannot have an ill affect on the Body of Christ. The one who is in the world IS in the world—not a part of the Body. However, one who is “lukewarm,” one who has been baptized into Christ, who has obeyed the Gospel, who has become a child of God, but is “lukewarm” or lethargic in their work, in their attitude, in their approach, is a person who can certainly have a deleterious [harmful] effect—a negative impact—on the Body of Christ. What about an entire congregation that is classified as “lukewarm”? What does that do to the Name of Christ, I ask you?

So, I would think that the Lord would be saying that He would prefer that you were energetic, that you were alive, that you were “hot,” that you were working and serving. But if you are not going to be that way, He would prefer that you were out in the world were you can’t damage His cause.