“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
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Revelation 3:15-18 sits inside this longer paragraph.
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked; I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see. As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.”
Parallel Translations
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“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot.
So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.
Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable, poor, blind, and naked;
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, that you may become rich; and white garments, that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
-
I knowe thy workes that thou arte nether colde nor hot: I wolde thou were colde or hotte.
So then because thou arte bitwene bothe and nether colde ner hot I will spew the oute of my mouth:
because thou sayst thou arte riche and incresyd with goodes and haste nede of nothynge and knowest not howe thou arte wretched and miserable poore blinde and nakyd.
I counsell the to bye of me golde tryed in the fyre that thou mayste be riche and whyte raymet that thou mayste be clothed that thy fylthy nakednes do not apere: and anoynt thyne eyes with eye salve that thou mayste se.
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I knowe thy woorkes, that thou art neither colde nor hote: I woulde thou werest colde or hote.
Therefore, because thou art luke warme, and neither colde nor hote, it will come to passe, that I shall spewe thee out of my mouth.
For thou saiest, I am rich and increased with goods, and haue neede of nothing, and knowest not howe thou art wretched and miserable, and poore, and blinde, and naked.
I counsell thee to bye of me gold tried by the fire, that thou maiest bee made rich: and white raiment, that thou maiest be clothed, and that thy filthie nakednesse doe not appeare: and anoynt thine eyes with eye salue, that thou maiest see.
Cross-references (83)
- Romans 12:11 (v15) not lagging in diligence; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
- Matthew 6:24 (v15) “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other.…
- Revelation 2:5 (v16) Remember therefore from where you have fallen, and repent and do the first works; or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your…
- 1 Kings 18:21 (v15) Elijah came near to all the people, and said, “How long will you waver between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal,…
- James 1:8 (v15) He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Show all 81 cross-references
- Revelation 16:15 (vv17–18) “Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his clothes, so that he doesn’t walk naked, and they see his shame.”
- 1 Peter 1:7 (v18) that the proof of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in…
- Proverbs 13:7 (v17) There are some who pretend to be rich, yet have nothing. There are some who pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.
- Isaiah 55:1 (v18) “Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and…
- Romans 7:24 (v17) What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?
- Hosea 12:8 (v17) Ephraim said, “Surely I have become rich, I have found myself wealth. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is sin.”
- Revelation 2:4 (v15) But I have this against you, that you left your first love.
- Revelation 2:9 (vv17–18) “I know your works, oppression, and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews, and they are not,…
- Psalms 81:11-13 (v15) But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me. So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they…
- Zechariah 11:8-9 (v16) I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me. Then I said, “I will not feed…
- Revelation 19:8 (v18) It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
- Malachi 3:3 (v18) and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they…
- Matthew 24:12 (v15) Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.
- Matthew 13:44 (v18) “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he…
- Luke 1:53 (v17) He has filled the hungry with good things. He has sent the rich away empty.
- Revelation 7:13 (v18) One of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and where did they come from?”
- Deuteronomy 8:12-14 (v17) lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built fine houses and lived in them; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and…
- Proverbs 23:26 (v15) My son, give me your heart; and let your eyes keep in my ways.
- Zephaniah 1:5-6 (v15) those who worship the army of the sky on the housetops, those who worship and swear by Yahweh and also swear by Malcam, those who have…
- Jeremiah 14:19 (v16) Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace,…
- Jeremiah 15:1-4 (v16) Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight,…
- Matthew 9:12 (v17) When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.
- John 9:40-41 (v17) Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind,…
- Genesis 3:7 (v17) Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.
- Psalms 32:8 (v18) I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go. I will counsel you with my eye on you.
- 2 Corinthians 12:20 (v15) For I am afraid that by any means, when I come, I might find you not the way I want to, and that I might be found by you as you don’t…
- Philippians 1:9 (v15) This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment,
- 1 Peter 1:22 (v15) Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from…
- Deuteronomy 5:29 (v15) Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them and…
- Daniel 12:2 (v18) Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
- Matthew 10:37 (v15) He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.
- Luke 18:11-12 (v17) The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortionists, unrighteous,…
- Romans 12:3 (v17) For I say through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;…
- James 2:5 (v18) Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom which he…
- 2 Peter 1:9 (v17) For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.
- Revelation 3:1 (v15) “And to the angel of the assembly in Sardis write: “He who has the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars says these things: “I know…
- Revelation 3:4-5 (v18) Nevertheless you have a few names in Sardis that didn’t defile their garments. They will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He who…
- Psalms 73:24 (v18) You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.
- Matthew 5:3 (v17) “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Luke 14:27-28 (v15) Whoever doesn’t bear his own cross, and come after me, can’t be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, doesn’t first sit…
- 1 Corinthians 3:12-13 (v18) But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble, each man’s work will be revealed. For the…
- 1 Corinthians 4:8-10 (v17) You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also…
- 2 Corinthians 8:9 (v18) For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty…
- Revelation 2:2 (v15) “I know your works, and your toil and perseverance, and that you can’t tolerate evil men, and have tested those who call themselves…
- Proverbs 23:23 (v18) Buy the truth, and don’t sell it. Get wisdom, discipline, and understanding.
- Isaiah 47:3 (v18) Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”
- Micah 1:11 (v18) Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won’t come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from…
- Nahum 3:5 (v18) “Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and…
- 2 Thessalonians 1:3 (v15) We are bound to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, even as it is appropriate, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love…
- Revelation 3:17 (v18) Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing;’ and don’t know that you are the wretched one, miserable,…
- Exodus 32:35 (v17) Yahweh struck the people, because of what they did with the calf, which Aaron made.
- Zechariah 11:5 (v17) Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t…
- Luke 6:24 (v17) “But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation.
- Luke 12:21 (v18) So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
- 2 Corinthians 5:3 (v18) if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked.
- Genesis 3:10-11 (v17) The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.” God said, “Who told you that you…
- Jeremiah 13:26 (v18) Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will appear.
- John 9:6-11 (v18) When he had said this, he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the blind man’s eyes with the mud, and said to him, “Go,…
- Romans 11:25 (v17) For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening…
- Joshua 24:15-24 (v15) If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the…
- Proverbs 30:9 (v17) lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’ or lest I be poor, and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.
- Isaiah 42:19 (v17) Who is blind, but my servant? Or who is as deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as…
- Jeremiah 2:31 (v17) Generation, consider Yahweh’s word. Have I been a wilderness to Israel? Or a land of thick darkness? Why do my people say, ‘We have broken…
- Hosea 10:2 (v15) Their heart is divided. Now they will be found guilty. He will demolish their altars. He will destroy their sacred stones.
- Matthew 25:9 (v18) But the wise answered, saying, ‘What if there isn’t enough for us and you? You go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’
- Romans 2:17-23 (v17) Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God, know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being…
- 1 John 2:20-27 (v18) You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but…
- Psalms 16:7 (v18) I will bless Yahweh, who has given me counsel. Yes, my heart instructs me in the night seasons.
- Psalms 107:11 (v18) because they rebelled against the words of God, and condemned the counsel of the Most High.
- Proverbs 1:25 (v18) but you have ignored all my counsel, and wanted none of my reproof;
- Proverbs 1:30 (v18) They wanted none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof.
- Proverbs 19:20 (v18) Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may be wise in your latter end.
- Ecclesiastes 8:2 (v18) I say, “Keep the king’s command!” because of the oath to God.
- Romans 11:20 (v17) True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear;
- 1 Corinthians 16:22 (v15) If any man doesn’t love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be cursed. Come, Lord!
- 1 Timothy 6:18 (v18) that they do good, that they be rich in good works, that they be ready to distribute, willing to share;
81 distinct cross-references across this passage (83 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv15, 17 The proposition of reproof is in this verse, whereunto…
The proposition of reproof is in this verse, whereunto is adjoined a threatening, verse 16, with a confirmation declaring the same, verse 17, and of exhortation unto faith and repentance, verses 18, 19, whereunto is added a conditional promise, verse 20.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv15–18 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither…
15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
Ver. 15. That thou art neither cold] Such are our civil justiciaries, political professors, neuterpassive Christians; a fair day mends them not, and a foul day pairs them not; peremptory never to be more precise; resolved to keep on the warm side of the hedge, to sleep in a whole skin, suffer nothing, do nothing, that may interfere with their hopes or prejudice their preferments.
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I would thou wert] Better be a zealous Papist than a lukewarm Protestant. A zealous Papist (saith one) dare tell us to our heads that our religion is error, ourselves heretics, our end destruction; that one heaven cannot hold us hereafter, one church now; that our damnation is so clearly set down in our own Bibles, that there needs no more to assure us thereof than to open our eyes and read it; that if we be not damned, he will be damned for us, &c. This is better than forlorn recklessness in right religion, and that detestable indifference above specified. (Campian, Rat. 10; Bristow, Mot. 36; Coster ad Osiand.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv15–18 I know thy works; I know and observe thy…
I know thy works; I know and observe thy behaviour, thy ministerial function.
That thou art neither cold nor hot; thou art neither openly profane and grossly scandalous, like heathens, or such as make no profession; nor yet hast thou any true zeal or warmth, either for the faith once delivered to the saints, or in love to God, seen in keeping his commandments, having the power and efficacy of godliness, teaching thee to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, Tit 2:12. Thou hast a form of godliness, but deniest the life and power thereof.
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I would thou wert cold or hot: we must not think Christ wisheth any persons cold absolutely, but comparatively, intimating to us, that the condition of a downright atheist, or profane person, is more hopeful than that of a close, formal hypocrite: the latter is in the road to hell as well as the other, and no more pleaseth God than the other. It is better not to have known the truth, than knowing it, to live contrary to it, Luk 12:48; 2Pe 2:21. Commonly such men also are proud, and self-conceited, having something to stop the mouth of their natural conscience, harder to be convinced of their evil state, Mat 21:32,33.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v17 Observe here, 1. This church’s partial opinion of herself,…
Observe here, 1. This church’s partial opinion of herself, her vanity and vain-glorious ostentation, accompanied with self-esteem: she said she had need of nothing.
Observe, 2. That this boasting and vain-glorious ostentation did very probably spring from, and was occasioned by, this church’s worldly prosperity: thou sayest, I am rich, and increased in goods. We are apt to mistake the warm sun for God’s blessing, and to apprehend when we are great that we are gracious; and because rich in goods, conclude ourselves rich in grace: but, alas! God lifts up the light of his common providence upon thousands whom he does not lift up the light of his reconciled countenance upon.
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Observe, 3. Christ’s impartial judgment concerning this church of Laodicea, Thou sayest, thou art rich, and needest nothing: but I say, thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
Behold here, How some have little or no grace, who yet conceit they have much grace; as some reckon their temporal, so there are others that value their spiritual, estate, at many thousands beyond what it really is, and when upon a just balance of account they are worth nothing. Ah, miserable souls! empty and guilty, poor and pennyless in spirituals, wanting every thing, but especially a sight and sense of their poverty and wants.
Observe, 4. The counsel given by Christ to this church, very suitable to her condition: What pinches more than poverty? here is gold to enrich us. What shames us more than nakedness? here is a promise of raiment to clothe and cover us. What afflicts and grieves us more than blindness? here is eye-salve to anoint us.
But observe the order of the words, 1. Christ says not, I commanded thee, but, I counsel thee. O infinite condescension! the Lord Jesus does not always command like a king, but sometimes counsels like a friend; he counsels us by his Spirit, he counsels us by his ministers, he counsels us by our own consciences.
2. Christ’s counsel is to buy; that is, earnestly to desire, and sincerely to endeavour, the procuring such spiritual blessings as we want: we buy with our prayers, our tears, our endeavours.
3. The blessings offered, tried gold, that will bear the touchstone, that faith and holiness which will give thee boldness in judgment. White raiment, or the merits of the Mediator, which covers our shame and nakedness out of the sight of God. And eye-salve, or the grace of spiritual illumination, whereby we see the want and worth of these spiritual blessings.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv15–18 Because thou sayest, I am rich,.... In worldly goods,…
Because thou sayest, I am rich,.... In worldly goods, which occasioned her lukewarmness, as riches often do, and her vanity, pride, and arrogance, afterwards expressed. Laodicea was a very rich city, and so will be this church state, through the accession of kings and princes, and great men of the earth unto it, in the former period: riches seldom do any good to the churches of Christ, they did not in Constantine's time; and it seems that even at the close of the spiritual reign of Christ they will be of bad consequence, since they will usher in the Laodicean church state: or her meaning is, that she was rich in spiritual things; not in grace, but in external gifts, which still remained, upon the very great pouring forth of the Spirit in the last church state; and in good works, on which she too much trusted for salvation, placing her righteousness in them: she is one whom the Jews (c) call , "rich in the law":
and increased with goods: with outward peace and prosperity, with much natural and divine light and knowledge, with the purity of Gospel ordinances, even beyond the former church state in her own imagination:
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and have need of nothing: contenting herself with these external things: true believers, as considered in Christ, stand in need of nothing indeed, they are complete in him, and have everything in him; but, as considered in themselves, they are daily in need of daily food for their souls, as for their bodies, of fresh light and life, strength and comfort, and of new supplies of grace; wherefore this church shows great ignorance of herself, as well as great pride and arrogance to express herself in this manner:
and knowest not that thou art wretched; as all men are in a state of nature and unregeneracy; which may be the case of many professors, and they be ignorant of it; as to be under a sentence of wrath, obnoxious to the curses of the law, in danger of hell and destruction, lost and undone, and unable to extricate themselves out of such a state: true believers account themselves wretched, as the Apostle Paul did, on account of indwelling sin, and the plague of their own hearts, which the members of this church, the greater part of them, were ignorant of:
and miserable; a miserable man is one that is attended with outward afflictions, but this was not the case of this church; and with spiritual poverty, blindness, and nakedness, and this was her case; some persons neither know their misery, nor their need of mercy:
and poor; not in purse, nor in spirit, nor with respect to outward afflictions, nor as to her church state, but in a spiritual sense; one whom the Jews call a (d) , "poor in the law"; as such may be said to be who have nothing to eat that is fit to eat; nothing to wear but rags, and have no money to buy either; who are in debt, and not able to pay, nor to help themselves on any account; and this may be the case of professors, and yet not known and considered by them:
and blind; natural men are blind as to a saving knowledge of God in Christ, as to the way of salvation by Christ, as to the plague of their own hearts, as to the work of the Spirit of God upon the soul, and as to the truths of the Gospel, in the power of them; but here it regards blindness with respect to her church state, and its imperfection:
and naked; sin has stripped man of his moral clothing; man's own righteousness will not cover his nakedness; and whoever is destitute of the righteousness of Christ is a naked person,
(c) Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 106. 2. (d) Vajikra Rabba, sect. 34. fol. 173. 4. vid. Targum in Cant. viii. 9.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv15–18 I know thy works - Thy disposition and behaviour,…
I know thy works - Thy disposition and behaviour, though thou knowest it not thyself. That thou art neither cold - An utter stranger to the things of God, having no care or thought about them. Nor hot - As boiling water: so ought we to be penetrated and heated by the fire of love. O that thou wert - This wish of our Lord plainly implies that he does not work on us irresistibly, as the fire does on the water which it heats. Cold or hot - Even if thou wert cold, without any thought or profession of religion, there would be more hope of thy recovery.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv15–18 Verse 15. Thou art neither cold nor hot] Ye…
Verse 15. Thou art neither cold nor hot] Ye are neither heathens nor Christians-neither good nor evil-neither led away by false doctrine, nor thoroughly addicted to that which is true. In a word, they were listless and indifferent, and seemed to care little whether heathenism or Christianity prevailed. Though they felt little zeal either for the salvation of their own souls or that of others, yet they had such a general conviction of the truth and importance of Christianity, that they could not readily give it up.
I would thou wert cold or hot] That is, ye should be decided; adopt some part or other, and be in earnest in your attachment to it. If ever the words of Mr. Erskine, in his Gospel Sonnets, were true, they were true of this Church: -
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"To good and evil equal bent,
I'm both a devil and a saint."
They were too good to go to hell, too bad to go to heaven. Like Ephraim and Judah, Ho 6:4: O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it passeth away. They had good dispositions which were captivated by evil ones, and they had evil dispositions which in their turn yielded to those that were good; and the Divine justice and mercy seem puzzled to know what to do to or with them. This was the state of the Laodicean Church; and our Lord expresses here in this apparent wish, the same that is expressed by Epictetus, Ench., chap. 36. Ἑνα σε δει ανθρωπον, η αγαθον, η κακον, ειναι . "Thou oughtest to be one kind of man, either a good man or a bad man."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v17 Rev 3:17-19. Because thou sayest, I am rich —…
Rev 3:17-19. Because thou sayest, I am rich — In gifts and grace, as well as worldly goods; and increased with goods — Greek, και πεπλουτηκα, literally, And have enriched myself, by my own wisdom and virtue; and have need of nothing — Imagining thy state in religion to be very prosperous and happy; and knowest not — Dost not so much as suspect that thy religion is at all defective: that thou art — In God’s account; wretched, miserable, &c. — In a most deplorable condition, destitute of every desirable blessing. I counsel thee — Who art poor, and blind, and naked; to buy of me — Without money or price; gold tried in the fire — Living faith, purified in the furnace of affliction; that thou mayest be rich — In the enjoyment of God’s favour, and communion with him, and all the blessings consequent thereon. And white raiment — True and genuine holiness; that thou mayest be clothed — With the divine image and nature. And anoint thine eyes with eye-salve — Spiritual illumination; the unction of the Holy One, which teacheth all things; that thou mayest see — Mayest possess that acquaintance with God and things divine which is essential to true religion. As many as I love — Even thee, thou poor Laodicean. As if he had said, Do not imagine that what may seem severe in this address, proceeds from any unkindness to thee: far from it: love, that is, a regard to thine immortal interests, dictates the whole. O how much has his unwearied love to do! From this principle, I rebuke — For what is past: and chasten — That men may amend for the time to come. Be zealous, therefore — More so than thou hast ever been, and deeply repent — Of thy prevailing lukewarmness and indolence.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv15–18 I know thy works - notes on Rev 2:2.
I know thy works - notes on Rev 2:2.
That thou art neither cold nor hot - The word “cold” here would seem to denote the state where there was no pretension to religion; where everything was utterly lifeless and dead. The language is obviously figurative, but it is such as is often employed, when we speak of one as being cold toward another, as having a cold or icy heart, etc. The word “hot” would denote, of course, the opposite - warm and zealous in their love and service. The very words that we are constrained to use when speaking on this subject - such words as ardent (that is, hot or burning); fervid (that is, very hot, burning, boiling) - show how necessary it is to use such words, and how common it is. The state indicated here, therefore, would be that in which there was a profession of religion, but no warm-hearted piety; in which there was not, on the one hand, open and honest opposition to him, and, on the other, such warm-hearted and honest love as he had a right to look for among his professed friends; in which there was a profession of that religion which ought to warm the heart with love, and fill the soul with zeal in the cause of the Redeemer; but where the only result, in fact, was deadness and indifference to him and his cause. Among those who made no profession he had reason to expect nothing but coldness; among those who made a profession he had a right to expect the glow of a warm affection; but he found nothing but indifference.
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I would thou wert cold or hot - That is, I would prefer either of those states to what now exists. Anything better than this condition, where love is professed, but where it does not exist; where vows have been assumed which are not fulfilled. Why he would prefer that they should be “hot” is clear enough; but why would he prefer a state of utter coldness - a state where there was no profession of real love? To this question the following answers may be given:
(1) Such a state of open and professed coldness or indifference is more honest. There is no disguise; no concealment; no pretence. We know where one in this state “may be found”; we know with whom we are dealing; we know what to expect. Sad as the state is, it is at least honest; and we are so made that we all prefer such a character to one where professions are made which are never to be realized - to a state of insincerity and hypocrisy.
(2) Such a state is more honorable. It is a more elevated condition of mind, and marks a higher character. Of a man who is false to his engagements, who makes professions and promises never to be realized, we can make nothing. There is essential meanness in such a character, and there is nothing in it which we can respect. But in the character of the man who is openly and avowedly opposed to anything; who takes his stand, and is earnest and zealous in his course, though it be wrong, there are traits which may be, under a better direction, elements of true greatness and magnanimity. In the character of Saul of Tarsus there were always the elements of true greatness; in that of Judas Iscariot there were never. The one was capable of becoming one of the noblest men that has ever lived on the earth; the other, even under the personal teaching of the Redeemer for years, was nothing but a traitor - a man of essential meanness.
(3) There is more hope of conversion and salvation in such a case. There could always have been a ground of hope that Saul would be converted and saved, even when “breathing out threatening and slaughter”; of Judas, when numbered among the professed disciples of the Saviour, there was no hope. The most hopeless of all persons, in regard to salvation, are those who are members of the church without any true religion; who have made a profession without any evidence of personal piety; who are content with a name to live. This is so, because:
(a) the essential character of anyone who will allow himself to do this is eminently unfavorable to true religion. There is a lack of that thorough honesty and sincerity which is so necessary for true conversion to God. He who is content to profess to be what he really is not, is riot a man on whom the truths of Christianity are likely to make an impression.
(b) Such a mall never applies the truth to himself. Truth that is addressed to impenitent sinners he does not apply to himself, of course; for he does not rank himself in that class of persons. Truth addressed to hypocrites he will not apply to himself; for no one, however insincere and hollow he may be, chooses to act on the presumption that he is himself a hypocrite, or so as to leave others to suppose that he regards himself as such. The means of grace adapted to save a sinner, as such, he will not use; for he is in the church, and chooses to regard himself as safe. Efforts made to reclaim him he will resist; for he will regard it as proof of a meddlesome spirit, and an uncharitable judging in others, if they consider him to be anything different from what he professes to be. What right have they to go back of his profession, and assume that he is insincere? As a consequence, there are probably fewer persons by far converted of those who come into the church without any religion, than of any other class of persons of similar number; and the most hopeless of all conditions, in respect to conversion and salvation, is when one enters the church deceived.
(c) It may be presumed that, for these reasons, God himself will make less direct effort to convert and save such persons. As there are fewer appeals that can be brought to bear on them; as there is less in their character that is noble, and that can be depended on in promoting the salvation of a soul; and as there is special guilt in hypocrisy, it may be presumed that God will more frequently leave such persons to their chosen course, than he will those who make no professions of religion. Comp, Psa 109:17-18; Jer 7:16; Jer 11:14; Jer 14:11; Isa 1:15; Hos 4:17.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv15–18 neither cold--The antithesis to "hot," literally, "boiling" ("fervent," Act…
neither cold--The antithesis to "hot," literally, "boiling" ("fervent," Act 18:25; Rom 12:11; compare Sol 8:6; Luk 24:32), requires that "cold" should here mean more than negatively cold; it is rather, positively icy cold: having never yet been warmed. The Laodiceans were in spiritual things cold comparatively, but not cold as the world outside, and as those who had never belonged to the Church. The lukewarm state, if it be the transitional stage to a warmer, is a desirable state (for a little religion, if real, is better than none); but most fatal when, as here, an abiding condition, for it is mistaken for a safe state (Rev 3:17). This accounts for Christ's desiring that they were cold rather than lukewarm. For then there would not be the same "danger of mixed motive and disregarded principle" [ALFORD]. Also, there is more hope of the "cold," that is, those who are of the world, and not yet warmed by the Gospel call; for, when called, they may become hot and fervent Christians: such did the once-cold publicans, Zaccheus and Matthew, become. But the lukewarm has been brought within reach of the holy fire, without being heated by it into fervor: having religion enough to lull the conscience in false security, but not religion enough to save the soul: as Demas, Ti2 4:10. Such were the halters between two opinions in Israel (Kg1 18:21; compare Kg2 17:41; Mat 6:24).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv15–18 15. Neither cold nor hot—The metaphor is taken from…
15. Neither cold nor hot—The metaphor is taken from water, which, when cold or hot, (boiling, ζεστος, from ζεω, to boil,) may be palatable, but nauseating when lukewarm. But it is a serious problem, the difficulty of which, is liable to be overlooked. What is that coldness which the Lord prefers to lukewarmness? Luke-warmness itself is that indifference which we commonly call coldness of religious state; and so this cold must be something colder, something implying the absence of even that degree of warmth implied in the equilibrium of indifference. Hence Dusterdieck, followed by Alford, represents it to be a state of actual unregeneracy, of “enmity and opposition” to Christ! And the reason assigned is, that it is easier to convert the enemy than it is to rouse a lukewarm Christian to heat; a reason overwhelmingly contrary to experience. Dusterdieck’s illustration is: “Saul was cold when he persecuted; and when he became Paul he was hot.” So it was easier for Saul to become Paul, than for a lukewarm Christian to become hot! But Paul had a troop of followers as cold as himself, none of whom would warm into conversion, leaving him an exceptional case. But how absurd to make the Lord wish this Church to be as Jewish persecutors, or heathen; like the world around them, rather than a Christian Church, even in its lukewarm phase! On the contrary, Hengstenberg’s view very nearly solves the problem. Not the coldness of the unregenerate, or the apostate, but the coldness of one still a Christian. In this Laodicean coldness there is not only the condition, but the Christian consciousness, of the cold, which is an uncomfortableness, and negatively, at least, feels the need of heat. He is, therefore, dissatisfied, and is more easily disturbed into repentance and zeal, than the man who was at once cold and warm enough to be satisfied and self-determined in his indifference. It is not the coldness, as a fact, but the coldness, as a feeling, which grounds the Lord’s preference. The feeling may be latent, only an unconscious susceptibility; but it is a susceptibility responsive to an awakening appeal.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv15–18 15. neither cold nor hot] Neither untouched by spiritual…
15. neither cold nor hot] Neither untouched by spiritual life, dead and cold, as an unregenerate heathen would be, nor “fervent (lit. boiling—a cognate word to that here used) in spirit” (Rom_12:11). We might naturally speak (perhaps the Lord does, Mat_24:12) of those as “cold” who were such as the Laodiceans were, and of course here something more is meant: but that further meaning can hardly be being “actively opposed” to the Gospel, but only being utterly unaffected by it.
I would thou wert cold or hot] For the sentiment that it would be better even to be “cold,” cf. 2Pe_2:21; though there the apostasy described is no doubt more deadly than here. But according to the Greek proverb (Ar. Eth. VII. ii. 10) of a man who sins against his conscience, “When water chokes, what are you to wash it down with?” You can instruct and convince a man who has either low or perverse views of duty, but what can you do to one whom sound views do not make to act rightly? And similarly an unbeliever can be converted and regenerated, but what can be done for him in whom faith does not work by love?
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv15, 17, 18 (15, 16) Neither cold nor hot.—The “heat” here is…
(15, 16) Neither cold nor hot.—The “heat” here is the glowing, fervent zeal and devotion which is commended and commanded elsewhere (Rom_12:11). It is not, however, the self-conscious, galvanised earnestness which, in days of senile pietism, passes for zeal. It is an earnestness which does not know itself earnest, being all too absorbed in its work. It is self-forgetful, and so self-sacrificing, rather than ambitious of self-sacrifice. It is, in short, kindled of God, and sustained byconverse with the Divine One (Luk_24:32), and restored by intercourse with Him (see Rev_3:20; comp. 1Jn_4:15-20). The “cold” describes the state of those who are as yet untouched by the Gospel of Love. An intermediate state between these is the “lukewarm”; such are neither earnest for God nor utterly indifferent to religion. They are, perhaps, best described as those who take an interest in religion, but whose worship of their idol of good taste, or good form, leads them to regard enthusiasm as ill-bred, and disturbing; and who have never put themselves to any inconvenience, braved any reproach, or abandoned any comfort for Christ's sake, but hoped to keep well with the world, while they flattered themselves that they stood well with God; who were in danger of betraying their Master, Judas-like, with a kiss. With the denunciation of “lukewarmness” here we may compare the exhortation to greater ministerial earnestness addressed to Archippus (Col_4:17).
I would . . . .—The wish is not that they might grow cold rather than remain in this lukewarm state, it is more a regret that they are among those who are in a condition which is so liable to self-deception; such a state is “both to God displeasing and to His foes.” And this is expressed in startling language, “I am about (such is the force of the words) to spue thee . . . .”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv15–18 I know thy works; and because they are not…
I know thy works; and because they are not what they should be (vers. 16, 17), I give thee this admonition, which is nevertheless a warning and a token of my love (ver. 19). That thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. The lukewarmness of which the Epistle complains was produced by a fallacious sense of security, begotten of ease and prosperity. In truth those "secure," without care, had become the careless ones. Active opposition may well be a less deadly evil than careless ease. The persecution of a St. Paul may be diverted into the zeal of an apostle; but how can any active good be got from that which is utterly stagnant and without motive power? The man who, by wilful action, increases a disease, may repent of his deed, and try to recover from the danger to which he has exposed himself; but he who lives on in careless ignorance of the existence of the malady can never improve himself until he has awoke to a full knowledge of his own state. Some understand "cold" to mean "untouched by the power of grace," and "lukewarm" to denote those who, having received the grace of God, had not allowed it full scope in bringing forth works meet for repentance. (Mat_3:8) And just as there was more hope of the real conversion of the "cold" publicans and harlots, who "went into heaven" (Mat_21:31) before the self-satisfied, "lukewarm" Pharisees, so there is more hope of an unconverted sinner than of him who, having once been roused to a sense of God"s will, has relapsed into a state of self satisfied indolence and carelessness. The sentence is not a wish that the Laodiceans should become hot or cold; it is a regret that they had not been one or the other. Our Lord is not wishing that any of them may become cold, but resetting that, when he comes to review their conduct and to pronounce judgment, many of them cannot even plead that they "knew not the way of righteousness," but belong to that worse class, "which after they had known it, turned from the holy commandment delivered unto them. (2Pe_2:21; see also Joh_9:41)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v17 Knowest not that thou art wretched.
Rev_3:17-18
Knowest not that thou art wretched.
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A great mistake, and the way to rectify it
These Laodicean people were unhappily in such a state that you could not get at them. They were not so poor that they knew they were poor, and therefore when the poverty-stricken were addressed, they said, These things are not for us: we are increased in goods. They were blind, but they thought they saw; they were naked, and yet they prided themselves on their princely apparel, and hence it was hard to reach them. Had they even been outwardly worse, had they defiled their garments with overt transgression, then the Spirit might have pointed out the blot and convicted them there and then; but what was to be done when the mischief was hidden and internal?
I. First, let us think of the Church in Laodicea and listen to their saying; it may prevent us from reaching such a height of pride as to speak as they did.
1. The spirit of self-congratulation expressed itself in a manner strikingly unanimous. It was the general, unanimous feeling, from the minister down to the latest convert, that they were a most wonderful Church. They were heartily at one in having a high estimate of themselves, and this helped to keep them together, and stirred them to attempt great things.
2. This saying of theirs was exceedingly boastful. The present was all right, the past was eminently satisfactory, and they had reached a point of all but absolute perfection, for they needed nothing.
3. They were sincere in this glorying. When they said it they were not consciously boasting, for the text says, And thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. They did not know the truth. How readily do we believe a lie when it fosters in us a high opinion of ourselves.
4. But now see what was their actual state: they were altogether mistaken. These intelligent persons, these wealthy persons, these instructed persons did not know themselves, and that is the grossest kind of ignorance. You remember the Tay Bridge disaster. There is no doubt whatever that the bridge was not fitted for its position, its ordinary strain was all it could bear; but nobody thought so. Undoubtedly the engineers reckoned it would stand any test to which it might be put, and therefore there was no attention given to it to make it any stronger and to provide against sudden disaster; and consequently when a specially fierce hurricane was out one night it swept it all away. That is just the picture of many a Church and many a man, because he is thought to be so pious, and the Church is thought to be so correct and vigorous, therefore no attempt is made for improvement, no special prayer, no cries to heaven.
II. Our Lords blessed counsel.
1. Note how He begins: I counsel thee to buy. Is not that singular advice? Just now He said that they were wretched and poor. How can they buy? Surely it suggests to us at once those blessed free grace terms which are only to be met with in the market of Divine love: Yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2. But next, what does He say? I counsel thee to buy of Me. Ah, they had been dealing with one another: they had been bartering amongst themselves. One brother had brought this talent, another that, and they had grown rich, as they thought, by a mutual commerce. Now, says Christ, compare yourselves with yourselves no longer: give up seeking of man, and buy of Me. It is the very foundation of grace--to be willing to buy of Christ.
3. Now see the goods which He describes. I counsel thee to buy of Me--what? Everything. It is true that only three wants of these people are here mentioned, but they are inclusive of all needs.
4. The counsel of the Lord is not only that we buy of Him everything, but that we buy the best of everything of Him. Gold is the most precious metal, but He would have them buy the best of it, gold tried in the fire; gold that will endure all further tests, having survived that of fire. Remember the raiment too, for that is of the best; our Lord calls it white raiment. That is a pure colour, a holy colour, a royal colour. We put on the Lord Jesus as our joy, our glory, our righteousness. And as to the eyesalve, it is the best possible one, for Jesus says, Anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see.
5. All this is the counsel of Christ, and the counsel of Christ to a people that were proud and self-conceited. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The self ignorance of the Laodiceans
The secret of lukewarmness is disclosed in these words, Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. Shall we find fault with the words in themselves? Might they not be taken as an expression of gratitude? Might they not mean, The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage? Now I would not deny that this may have been meant by the Laodiceans as the language of very exalted piety. Possibly, too, their neighbours might admit the claim, and regard them with admiration. But when we look closely into the words, two unpleasant things appear. First, here is no recognition of the Lord and His goodness; no lowly and grateful ascribing of all to His undeserved lovingkindness and bounty. If the Laodiceans had felt themselves debtors, they would at least have said, By the grace of God I am what I am--Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be the glory. This second thing, too, becomes apparent, in examining the words, that they are a boast; a glorying in self, and not in the Lord; a quiet claim of superiority over other Churches; like the words of the Pharisee, God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are. Their wretched and pitiable condition is presented to themselves in three aspects: as poverty, blindness, and nakedness. What a combination of ills! If you find a fellow-man in this plight, how you commiserate him. Each evil more than doubles the other. And then add inevitable nakedness--with its shamefulness and discomforts--and how woeful the condition! Well, here is a Church of Christ in that pitiable condition. There is material wealth, growing numbers, name and repute in society, many showy and coveted virtues that attract attention and admiration. But look for the faith, the love, the joy, the peace, the hope, the meekness, the piety, the holy zeal, the beneficence, the martyr-spirit, the self-forgetfulness and self-denial, in which the true wealth of a Church consists, and she has nothing. Inquire how much of heaven there is within her borders--how much of the power and joy of the Holy Ghost-and you discover that in the real, true sense she is bankrupt. This Church is blind as well as poor--blind in the eye that sees God. They said, We see, and believed it. But enter the region of spiritual truths and realities--bring up the doctrines of the gospel and the hidden wisdom, comparing spiritual things with spiritual--they are foolishness to the Laodiceans, neither can they know them, because they are spiritually discerned. If spiritual poverty in a Christian Church is sinful, so also is blindness. It is not misfortune, but fault. It need not be. The Saviour was anointed with the Holy Spirit that He might give sight to the blind, and He has lost none of His skill. One thing more characterises this Laodicean Church: instead of the rich and glorious adorning of thy fancy, thou art naked. Grace clothes the happy soul with the garment of salvation, and covers it with the robe of righteousness, so that we appear with acceptance in the presence of the majesty of heaven and earth; but Laodicea in its pride is naked as a beggar. And saddest of all, thou knowest it not: it is hidden from thine eyes. Could aught be more deplorable? (J. Culross, D. D.)
The Church of the Laodiceans
I. The opinion which the Laodiceans held of themselves. Thou sayest. It is not likely that the words which follow were spoken. The saying was in a cherished thought--not in a thought that comes in, if I may so speak, at one door of the spirit and passes out at another, but a thought that a man makes at home in his mind. He who speaks to the Laodiceans, hears this speaking; though the speaking be only thinking, He hears it; though only in feeling, He hears it. Oh, what a different thing life would be, if lived out under the eye of God, from what it now is as lived out under the eye of men! But, mark, every Church presents itself in a particular form to Jesus Christ. Every Church by its worship and communion and fellowship and work is, according to this text, saying something perpetually into the very ear of God. Now these people said, I am rich--rich not in material wealth, though that most likely was true. And they said, I am increased with goods: that is, I am become wealthy. There is a force in the word that gives the idea of their having gained this spiritual treasure by their own exertions, so that it was to their credit to have been thus spiritually rich. And have need of nothing; that is, they were perfectly satisfied. You see there is a sort of climax here: rich--become rich--having need of nothing. First the fact of wealth is stated, then the means by which it was obtained is indicated, and then the result. But now, what does all this mean in plain language? Christ intends to say to these people, that they were self-conceited and self-sufficient. The men who are great in their own eyes are men who have very little to do with God, and very little to do with the works of God; and the Christians and the Churches that are great in their own eyes are Christians and Churches that cannot be much in communion with Christ.
II. Their real condition, as described by one who knew it well. And knowest not that thou art wretched--literally, that thou art the wretched on--the wretched one out of these Asiatic Churches--the wretched one in all the Churches of Christ. The Laodicean Church thought itself to be the great one; and, to correct them, Christ is represented as saying, and knowest not that thou art the wretched one. A slave to vanity and to delusion, this Church was verily the wretched and the pitiable one, a true object for compassion.
III. The counsel. It is just the same with a man who professes to cultivate his mind, to increase his knowledge, and to add to his information--so soon as he begins to rest in what he has gained, and to call it wealth, and to feel rich in it, so soon he arrests his progress in getting to himself the treasures of information and of knowledge. This counsel, I say again, is offered to those who assume and assert that they do not need it. But what is here meant by the word buy?--I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire. The word buy here does not mean to give an equivalent, but to part with this self-sufficiency, and to part with it for something valuable. We often see God bring a conceited man down to no faith at all in order to lift him up to the position of a true believer. What Christ suggests to these people is this, that they shall part with their self-conceit and with their self-sufficiency. By this gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich, we may understand sterling godliness as opposed to the form of godliness without the power. Of what use is a sham Christian? Of what benefit is an unreal Church? Things are precious only as they be true and thorough and entire. And white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, etc. Put into plain language, this simply means, get what is really valuable; put on what is really fair and true; and try to see things by a proper and spiritual discernment to be derived from above just aa they really are. (S. Martin.)
Shallowness in religion
Setting aside for a little the question what this lukewarmness or shallowness is, in the higher spiritual life of the soul, we are all of us perfectly well acquainted with those whose characters it marks in common life--shallow, surface, outside men. We see it in one man in the life of the affections. He is full of a ready, courteous, skin-deep kindliness of demeanour, which reaches down to no self-sacrifice, which implies no wearing anxiety for others, which reveals no deep, disturbing love, perhaps, for any one person upon the earth, nay, which perhaps is thoroughly compatible with absolute cruelty of heart. This character is one of utter shallowness; it is marked by an essential poverty in the life of the affections. They are called up by the lightest surface-touch, because to them the surface is all. They are mere land-springs of kindness, easy to break out after a summer shower, easy to dry up after a twelve hours drought. It is demonstration without depth, the brook of shallow love, babbling of its shallowness as it flows. Here is one of these shallow characters: now look at it from another point, and see it in the life of science. See the poor sciolist, with his ready smattering of all learning, veiling even from himself his universal ignorance. For what worth knowing does the man know? His readiness to acquire and his readiness to produce are of the very essence of his disease. Again, you may see the self-same character in the public man. He is the easy repeater of the watchwords of a party, the retailer of other mens aphorisms, the uncomprehending inheritor of a traditional policy. There is not in this man, perhaps, one atom of real knowledge, one acting of any deep principle which could govern, could strengthen, or could ennoble a public life. Here, then, in the ordinary life of this world--having put for the time the higher spiritual world aside--here is this familiar phase of shallowness. And now, how is it to be cured? How are we ourselves to get free from it? We must trace the cause of the evil. The master root of this vice is the selfishness of our fallen nature, working under the peculiar circumstances which belong to ease, to abundance, and to a refined civilisation. Men shaken daily together in the vast sack of common respectabilities round off from one another the sharp corners of their individuality, and thus the curse of shallowness is imparted, like some contagious disorder, from one to another; and all combine to banish, as the source of continual trouble, from their life of painted complacency, deeper and more real qualities. Here is the working of the evil and its cause; and now where is the cure to come from? Wealth cannot buy it; civilisation cannot give it; intellectual power cannot command it. Where then is the cure against all this degradation of humanity? In the Church of Christ, and in it alone, is stored the sufficient remedy. The Lord imparts Himself to the soul that will receive Him. This is the new life of the regenerate. This is the mystery of the new birth in its perfection, in the soul that follows after Christ. And so the shallownesses of his nature are swept away by the mighty burst; the rock is struck and the streams flow, and those whom the Lord has healed, witness of that healing to others. The emptiness of fallen man is filled full by the awful in-dwelling of the Incarnate God. I counsel thee to buy of Me. And what is needed to buy of Him? First, you must believe in the reality of the renewed life. How many fail here! They live in the perpetual dream that for the present they must be shallow, instead of believing in the mighty enfranchisement which the Eternal Son has wrought out for them. Oh, claim it for thyself, and claim it here. Next, join in desire, join in prayer, join in perpetual aspiration, your present life to the life of Christ. This is the great sacramental mystery of our new being. By the power of the Holy Ghost, Christ will work daily within you, if you will seek His working. Only thirdly, seek all this not as a mere apprehension of the understanding, for that will do no good, but seek it as part of a renewed life. Seek it in a life of greater brightness and greater obedience in service. (Bp. S. Wilberforce.)
The great and dangerous mistake of some professors
All flattery is dangerous; self-flattery is more dangerous; but self-flattery in the business of salvation, is the most dangerous of all.
I. That there are multitudes of such self-deceivers among professors.
II. The grounds and causes of this self-deceit among professors.
1. The natural deceitfulness of the heart, than which nothing is more treacherous and false (Jer_17:9).
2. Satan is a chief conspirator in this treacherous design.
3. The common works found in unregenerate souls deceive many, who cannot distinguish them from the special works of the Spirit in Gods elect (Heb_6:4).
4. To add no more, this strengthens self-deceit exceedingly in many, viz., their observations of and comparing themselves with others. Use 1 shall be for caution to professors. Before I tell you what use you should make of it, I must tell you what use you may not make of it.
(1) Do not make this use of it--to conclude from what hath been said, that all professors are but a pack of hypocrites.
(2) Do not make this use of it--that assurance must needs be impossible, because so many professors are found to be self-deceivers.
(3) Do not make this use of it--to conceal or hide the truths or graces of God, or refuse to profess or confess them before men, because many professors deceive themselves and others also by a vain profession. Use
2. Surely you cannot improve this point to a better purpose than from it to take warning, and look to yourselves, that you be not of that number who deceive themselves in their profession. (John Flavel.)
The unconverted sinners estimate of himself
I. The unconverted sinners estimate of his own condition.
1. I am rich. The word rich is here used in its most extended meaning, as descriptive of the possession of that which is of great value. I am rich. I possess much; and what I possess is well worth having. If the unconverted sinner has money, he is proud of it. He looks upon it as a great portion. But many of the unconverted have no money to be proud of. That circumstance, however, does not prevent them from finding out that they are rich. Perhaps they have respectable family connections, or they have a goodly personal appearance, or they possess superior talents. In any such case, the mind fastens with special complacency upon the circumstance, and feels all the satisfaction attendant upon the consciousness of being rich.
2. And increased with goods. These words embody an additional conceit of the unconverted man. He is rich, and his wealth is not in the course of decay; on the contrary, it is rising in its amount, it is accumulating fast. If he is a young man, he, peradventure, rejoices in the rapid growth and extensive range of his literary and scientific and professional acquirements, and his heart bounds within him as the strong hope arises of approaching distinction and fame. See, again, that man who has left behind him the gay period of youth, and has arrived at the years of maturity and wisdom. He is no longer what he once was. The fire of passion is moderated, and the greaser immoralities of early life are abandoned. From being a person of no character, he is become a person of good character. He is a prudent, a well-behaved, an honourable citizen.
3. And have need of nothing. In these words we are presented with the unconverted mans climax. The prosperity of his state has arrived at the superlative degree.
`II. The unconverted sinners real state.
1. He is wretched. Consider the original state of mankind. Think of its enjoyments, its privileges, its honours, its prospects. What a happy condition! and how wretched the condition which has succeeded! They might be free, but instead of that they are slaves to Satan, to the world, to their own lusts. They might be noble princes; but, alas! they are disgraced outcasts from the Divine favour. They might be kings and priests unto God; but they are doomed criminals, the branded victims of coming vengeance. Surely they are in a wretched condition; they have the Almighty Potentate of heaven and earth for their foe.
2. Miserable. It is intimated here, that when the mind comes to the consideration of the state of the unconverted, the appropriate emotion is pity. The thraldom they are held in calls for pity; the forfeiture they have incurred, the doom they have provoked, the self-deception they are practising, the false security they are indulging, the infatuation they are exemplifying, demand our pity.
3. Poor. If the tattered garment around the body be recognised as the symbol of poverty surely we have the symbol of a deeper poverty when the soul is enveloped in the unclean rags of self-righteousness!
4. Blind. Sinai overhangs him, but he heeds not the frowning mountain. One fairer than the sons of men, and chief among ten thousand, appears to him; but he evinces no sense of His attractions. The deformities of sin do not hinder him from embracing it. Though it be the noon-day of the Gospel, he gropes as one in darkness. The road which he travels is marked for his warning, as the way to everlasting misery and ruin, but he slackens not his pace. Can it be, then, that he sees? Would beauty have no power to draw a man, deformity none to repel him, or dangers to dismay him, unless he were blind?
5. Naked. This completes the picture of an unconverted state. The unconverted are naked in a two-fold respect--in that they want the garment of justification, and likewise the garment of sanctification.
III. Some inferences descriptive of the unconverted mans error.
1. It is a great error. It is just as great an error as possibly can be. It is not, for example, the error of the man who says it is an hour before noon, or an hour after noon, when it is actually just noon; but it is the error of him who declares it is midnight while he stands under the blaze of the meridian sun.
2. It is a surprising error. It is surprising from its very grossness. Man is so prone to err that the occurrence of small mistakes excites no astonishment; on the contrary, we look for it. But it is startling to find men calling bitter sweet, emptiness abundance, disgrace honour, and misery comfort and happiness. The error in question is the more extraordinary, when it is considered that there are such ample means of getting at the truth.
3. It is a pernicious error. Death is the consequence of adhering to this error--death in its most appalling form--the eternal ruin of body and soul.
4. It is an error which, by human means, is incorrigible. We say not that its correction is beyond the power of God. (A. Gray.)
Human need
Man is by nature the neediest of all beings. Nor is it, as some might maintain, his disgrace and the signal of his inferiority that he is thus needy, but rather the mark of his native glory and pre-eminence. For it points to the number and greatness of his faculties. The lower the creature, the less his need; for the more feeble his sensibilities, narrow his powers, and torpid his desires. But, from the most sagacious and strongest of the animal tribes, how vast the difference, in capacity of intellect and feeling, to man! And no less vast the difference of need. He draws from the earth, from the water, and from the air, to satisfy his appetites and to satiate his curiosity; he ransacks every kingdom of nature for his comfort and aggrandisement, and is not content. Is there, then, no satisfaction for a man? God has not made His noblest creature for a wretched failure and a miserable want. Let him bring into light all his abilities and desires--they are not too many or too strong; those of the higher nature as well as the lower; those that tend up to God Himself and heaven and immortality, as well as those that tend downwards and abroad to earthly things. Let him unfold them without fear. The vast supplies from the foreseeing Creator, in the treasury of His truth, are ready. Let him appropriate them to his need. Man is a being that does not need daily bread and clothing and shelter alone; but he needs truth, needs duty, needs love, needs God. The mistake is in trying to gratify fully his nature with such outward things, neglecting the spiritual. It is just this foolhardy and hazardous assurance of satisfaction in outward prosperity, that I apprehend, the author of our text means to expose. Man--whosoever thou art, content with sensual good and clinging to outward treasure--that is not the true gold with which thou fillest thy coffers. That is not the durable raiment with which thou art clad. There are riches of goodness for the heart. To sustain this exhortation, it is not necessary to speak in the exclusive ardour of one idea, but the sober proportion that takes in mans whole estate. He needs, by various education, to get possession of all his members and faculties. He needs to fabricate, needs to manufacture, needs to discover and invent, needs to trade, needs to accumulate; so that every industrial faculty may be brought out, every hand employed, every talent put in motion--nay, so that the community itself may not fail, but be civilised. In setting before you a moral and spiritual need, I certainly do not forget these personal, social, and political necessities, nor would shove them by an inch from their place; but, admitting the latter, maintain the supreme importance, the predominating position of the former. The dull caterpillar may be content with lying upon the ground, hardly appearing animated, like a lump or brown leaf, when the wings are actually folded up within, to bear it into the sunshine and among all the blossoms of the landscape. So a man may be content with a low, earth-bound life, a state of half-manhood, because unconscious of the heaven-bestowed capacities by which he might live above the world. But the mere force of nature will not unfold the man as it does the insect. He may discourage and keep down these wings of the soul. He may, by sin and his rebellious will, wound and mutilate them as they instinctively strive to expand. Yet he cannot remain for ever unconscious of their existence. He cannot exercise them in the mean ways of the world in which he treads. Lacking their true element and use, they will pine and wither with dissatisfaction and remorse. We need the principle of devotion to God and others good. We need the practice of the two great commandments of love to God and man. We need to be humble, need to be patient, need to be meek, to the Father above and our brethren below. We need these dispositions, not only as paying our debt to them, though they are our debt, but as the indispensable requisites of our own well-being. (C. A. Bartol.)
Moral wealth
I. Moral wealth is most foreign to the self-righteous. In morals, the richer a man thinks himself to be, the poorer he is. Pharisaic souls are in utter destitution.
II. Moral wealth is the great want of humanity. Men, whatever else they possess, are abject without it.
1. It is the only wealth that is intrinsically valuable.
2. The only wealth that enriches the man.
3. The only wealth that procures an honourable status in being.
4. The only wealth that secures a true and lasting interest in the universe.
III. Moral wealth is to be obtained only in connection with Christ. Jesus has the gold, the white garment, the eyesalve, the unsearchable riches.
IV. Moral wealth must be obtained by purchase. Buy of Me. You must give up something for it--ease, self-righteousness, prejudices, worldly gain and pleasures. You must sell that you have. (Homilist.)
The spiritually luxurious and proud
What is the condition of the individual Christian (so called) who is represented in the Laodicean Church? Is not this a description of one who is spiritually luxurious and proud? Do not confound the spiritually luxurious with the temporally luxurious. One spiritually luxurious Christian may be a man poor in this worlds goods. He may be the farthest removed from the worlds luxury. He may wear hair-cloth and walk with bare feet. His outward condition has nothing to do with his spiritual state. His supposed riches, his increase of goods, his need of nothing--all refer to his spiritual condition. He thinks he is full of the Divine life. He is one of the Lords favourites. He serenely looks down upon mankind from the high level of a spiritual nobility. He takes his delicious ease amid his good thoughts of himself, and has a lofty scorn for the common herd of Christians. He may be an observer of forms. He may go to church. He may bow his head reverently. He may even enter a brotherhood and take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; or, on the other hand, he may be a neglecter of all public worship--above all the means of grace. They are good enough for the crowd, but he has no need of them. In either ease he considers himself a model Christian, and never thinks of applying to himself any of the Divine rebukes for shortcomings and inconsistency. You have often seen such. They are very varied in their earthly conditions, and also in their mode of exhibiting their conceit, but they all have the same satisfaction with themselves.
1. They are spiritually poverty-stricken. The spiritual wealth consisting of appreciation of the Divine promises, close communion with God, and the glorious visions of hope and faith, is altogether lacking. The wealth of sympathy and helpfulness, the wealth of energy for Christ and His salvation, has no representation in them.
2. They are spiritually naked. The grateful sense of indebtedness to a gracious Saviour, melting the soul and humbling it before Him, has never been felt.
3. They are spiritually blind. That is why they do not detect their nakedness. That is why they do not know their coin is all spurious and their wealth but poverty. (H. Crosby.)
What does God think of me
A young lady of thoughtful turn of mind once said to the late Dr. Jowett, Master of Balliol, Doctor, what do you think of God? For a while the doctor was silent, and then, with great solemnity and pathos, he replied, My dear, it is not what I think of God, but what does God think of me.
What we are before God
The Laodiceans said, We are rich and have need of nothing, but God said, Thou art poor and wretched and miserable. In the old tombs of our cathedrals there were frequently two figures on the monuments, one of the deceased king, or knight, or bishop, resting above in his full robes of state as he wore them abroad in life, and another beneath of a thin, emaciated skeleton, which recalled to the eyes of the beholder the realities of the grave below. It is well to have in thought this double imago of ourselves, what we are before the world, and what we are before God. (Free Methodist.)
Poor and needy
Dr. T.L. Cuyler tells us that when the richest American of his day was in his last fatal sickness, a Christian friend proposed to sing to him; and the hymn he named was, Come, ye sinners, poor and needy. Yes, yes, replied the dying millionaire, sing that to me; I feel poor and needy. Yet at that moment the stock markets of the globe were watching and waiting for the demise of the man who could shake them with a nod of his head.
I counsel thee to buy of Me.--
Christ giving counsel
Looked at broadly, these words intimate that the Lord has not given them up, however desperate their condition. To the hearing ear they sound like this, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in Me is thine help. It will be found that the grace of Christ meets the Laodiceans at every point. Knowing their poverty, the Lord offers to provide them with true and durable riches--gold bright from the fire. The fire-purged gold represents those spiritual possessions in which the true wealth of a Church consists. What shall we count in under this head? Light is thrown on the question by what we are told (2Co_8:1-5) concerning the Churches of Macedonia. They were marked by deep poverty, but that poverty was conjoined with abundance of joy--the joy of the Holy Ghost, which had never failed them since they embraced the gospel; that joy of theirs was gold. Again, even in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality; that liberality of theirs was gold. Again, there was the outflow of love to their suffering brethren in Christ at a distance; they were willing to contribute to their help, even beyond their power: that love was gold. A Church that is rich in these things is rich indeed. Besides being poor, the Laodiceans were naked. So He invites them to make application to Him, and promises to give white raiment, etc. This represents and symbolises the saintliness of life in which saintliness of heart expresses itself. As the dress clothes the body, and answers to its form and size, so a saintly life is the garb, as it were, and expression of a holy heart. The well-doing in which we are not to be weary is not the mere doing of what is good, but of what is beautiful; and beauty of living is the outward of heartbeauty, as a smile is the outward of heart-cheer. Besides being poor and naked, they were blind; answering to the prophets description of the blind people who have eyes, or like those men who appealed to Jesus with the question, Are we blind also? Now we must settle it in our hearts that we can find what we need only in Christ, and nowhere else. Buy, He says, of Me. We must not merely look away from man, we must also look away from ourselves to Him. There is a peculiar and very delightful emotion produced in the mind by fine scenery; almost every one, I suppose, knows what it is. You sit in a room which commands one of the finest views in the country. Your face, however, as it happens, is turned away from the window. You shut your eyes and strive to call up the peculiar emotion to which I have referred. Of course you fail. All the striving in the world would be in vain. What, then? Rise from your chair, open your eyes, step to the window, gaze forth upon the scene outspread before you, and let it produce its own effect upon your mind. In like manner, in religion, we shall not succeed in getting the right feeling by our trying and striving, we must look out of ourselves to Christ. (J. Culross, D. D.)
Jesus, the heavenly counsellor
Uncertainty and doubt will make themselves felt in the history of all who have the journey of life to accomplish. We cannot wonder, then, that in the present day so many guides should present themselves, all professedly eager to help us in our great uncertainties.
I. The counsel Jesus gives.
1. Jesus counsels us what we are to believe. The faculty of belief is as certainly possessed by man as is the faculty of vision; the one is a physical and the other a mental power, but both are possessed by us, and both are to be exercised. Jesus says, I counsel thee what to believe. To believe in God, in His perfections, His power, wisdom, justice, grace, mercy, truth, love. In His providence and care over you, to believe in such a way as that we shall revere, obey, and love God. To believe in Jesus--Ye believe in God, believe also in Me--that I am what the prophets said I should be, the true Messiah. Believe in the fulness of My love, the sufficiency of My atoning work, My ability and willingness to pardon and cleanse, and in the absolute and unchanging truthfulness of all My words. Believe in the Holy Ghost; in His convincing, converting, renewing, sustaining, and sanctifying energy. Believe in the duties pertaining to personal life and godliness as I have revealed them.
2. I have met with not a few young folks who have been sadly perplexed with the question as to what they shall be. One has solved it by saying, I shall be a great merchant; my ships shall sail on many seas, and my servants and warehouses shall be exceedingly numerous. Another has said, Science shall be my study. A third has said, I will be a physician, and I will try to relieve the poor of their maladies. To all such the Heavenly Counsellor comes, and He does not say to such, How mistaken you all are, you must all change your decisions. Oh no, but He counsels the farmer as he sows to sow goodness, that when the reaping time comes he may reap the same. To the philosopher He counsels the study of the wisdom which is from on high, and which is full of good works; and to the merchant He says, Let goodness be the article in which you shall always trade; let it store your warehouses, fill the holds of your ships, and govern all your transactions. To all the Heavenly Counsellor says, Be good; have a good heart, a good conscience, a good intention, a good life.
3. This Heavenly Counsellor tells us also what we are to do. Activity, under His advice, is always to characterise us. The Lord Jesus knows as no one else the great evils of idleness, and how such evils must afflict and torment all who are slothful; and so against this sin He plainly counsels us. In the cultivation of inward holiness and in the development of righteous principles, in the hope of winning souls for heaven and God, work.
II. Christs counsels are all and always golden. So that not any mixture can be detected; they have all passed through, and been stamped in, the minting house of heaven. But how shall we know that these counsels are all golden?
1. In the first place, because of their genuineness. It matters not the test through which we put them, or the analysis they are subjected to; not all the testing in the world can either detect the least impurity or make them more genuine than they are. Who, I should like to know, seeks the good of every man, woman, boy, and girl, as Jesus does? And whose counsel when adopted has resulted in such untold good to millions of our fellow creatures as His? Yes, look at it how, when, and where you may, ring it as you please, weigh it, measure it, or bring any other test you please to bear upon the counsel offered by Jesus, and its genuineness will be made the more evident.
2. Because of the value of His counsels. All genuine things are not so valuable as gold; a violet is a genuine violet, but we dont part with gold for violets. The paper on which I am writing is genuine paper, but it is not of the value of gold. The counsel Jesus gives is not only as valuable, but more so than gold. Do you ask what the advice Jesus gives will procure? It will procure for us the favour of God, the approval of angels, and the esteem of all good men. It will procure for us peace within and purity without, enable us to live soberly, righteously, and godly here, and then to sit down in the kingdom of God above and to go no more out.
3. Like gold, they must be searched for. The name of the mine is the Bible, the implements with which we are to work are prayer, patience, and faith. By knee work and ceaseless industry they will be amply recompensed.
4. Because, like gold, they are to be used. Some people who keep a shop hang up His counsels in their parlours and drawing-rooms; it would be better if they would use them in their business. Some look at them when they put on their Sunday clothes, and then say adieu to them when Sabbath attire is laid away. Better if they would walk and move and live in the same all the week through. Then, like gold, if we use Christs counsels aright, they will increase more and more.
III. No one is entitled to expect this golden counsel for nothing. Men do not part with gold on such terms, nor does Jesus part with His counsels thus, and so He says, I counsel thee to buy.
1. We are to obtain this counsel in the first place by giving up all our sins. What an exchange I It is dross of the worst for gold of the very best kind. If a man were to come and offer gold and crowns, titles and lands, for old rags and bones, I feel sure there would not be many left in all the houses put together; and yet, whilst Jesus offers the gold of heaven if we will only forsake our evil ways and come to Him, how few are really eager to make the exchange.
2. Then in a sense we purchase the gold of heaven by using aright the quantity already given. It is by use the two talents become five, and the five talents ten. If we walk in the light already given, however faint and feeble it may be, it will conduct us to greater clearness and to more perfect vision. (J. Goodacre.)
Christs counsel to a lukewarm Church
He does not willingly threaten, and He never scolds; but He rather speaks to mens hearts, and their reason, and comes to them as a friend, than addresses Himself to their fears.
I. Now, I observe that the first need of the lukewarm Church Is to open its eyes to see facts. Observe that the text falls into two distinct parts, and that the counsel to buy does not extend--though it is ordinarily read as if it did--to the last item in our Lords advice. These Laodiceans are bid to buy of Him gold and raiment, but they are bid to use the eyesalve that they may see. No doubt, whatever is meant by that eyesalve comes from Him, as does everything else. But my point is that these people are supposed already to possess it, and that they are bid to employ it. No doubt the exhortation, anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see, may be so extended as to refer to the general condition of spiritual blindness which attaches to humanity, apart from the illuminating and sight-giving work of Jesus Christ. That true Light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world, has a three-fold office as the result of all the parts of which there comes to our darkened eyes the vision of the things that are. He reveals the objects to see; He gives the light by which we see them; and He gives us eyes to see with. Behold Me as I am, and the things that I reveal to you as they are; and then you will see yourselves as you are. So, then, there comes out of this exhortation this thought, that a symptom constantly accompanying the lukewarm condition is absolute unconsciousness of it. In all regions the worse a man is the less he knows it. It is the good people that know themselves to be bad; the bad ones, when they think about themselves, conceit themselves to be good. The higher a man climbs in any science, or in the practice of any virtue, the more clearly he sees the unscaled peaks above him. The frost-bitten limb is quite comfortable. Another thought suggested by this part of the counsel is that the blind man must himself rub in the eyesalve. Nobody else can do it for him. True! It comes like every other good thing, from the Christ in the heavens; and, as I have already said, if we will attach specific meanings to every part of a metaphor, that eyesalve may be the influence of the Divine Spirit who convicts men of sin. But whatever it is you have to apply it to your own eyes. Our forefathers made too much of self-examination as a Christian duty, and pursued it often for mistaken purposes. But this generation makes far too light of it. Apply the eyesalve; it will be keen, it will bite; welcome the smart, and be sure that anything is good for you which takes away the veil that self-complacency casts over your true condition, and lets the light of God into the cellars and dark places of your souls.
II. The second need of the lukewarm Church is the true wealth which Christ gives. I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire. Now, there may be many different ways of putting the thought that is conveyed here, but I think the deepest truth of human nature is that the only wealth for a man is the possession of God. That wealth alone makes us paupers truly rich. For there is nothing else that satisfies a mans craving, and supplies a mans needs. That wealth has immunity from all accidents. No possession is truly mine of which any outward contingency or circumstance can deprive me. But this wealth, the wealth of a heart enriched with the possession of God, whom it knows, loves, trusts, and obeys, this wealth is incorporated with a mans very being, and enters into the substance of his nature; and so nothing can deprive him of it. The only possession which we can take with us when our nerveless hands drop all other good, and our hearts are untwined from all other loves, is this durable riches.
III. The third need of a lukewarm Church is the raiment--that Christ gives. The wealth which He bids us buy of Him belongs mostly to our inward life; the raiment which He proffers us to wear, as is natural to the figure, applies mainly to our outward lives, and signifies the dress of our spirits as these are presented to the world. I need not remind you of how frequently this metaphor is employed throughout the Scripture. There is nothing in the world valuer than effort after righteousness which is not based on faith. Buy of Me raiment, and then, listen to the voice which says, Put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man of God created in righteousness and holiness of truth.
IV. Lastly, all supply of these needs is to be bought. Buy of Me. There is nothing in that counsel contradictory to the great truth, that the gift of God is eternal life. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Gold tried in the fire.--
Tried gold
I. A precious commodity.
1. Gold represents the blessed Saviour, for He is the most excellent of beings.
2. Gold represents the gospel, for it is the most excellent of systems.
3. Gold represents the Christian graces, for they are the most permanent of treasures. Faith, hope, and love have a power to bless beyond this worlds wealth.
II. This precious commodity tried. Even philosophy itself has confessed that the gold of the gospel alone will sustain in the final conflict.
III. This tried and precious commodity is offered for acceptance It is strange but true that men reject salvation because it is freely offered. Pride resents the humbling conditions. Self-will tramples beneath its feet offered mercy.
IV. The glorious consequence of accepting. Soul riches are the true abiding wealth. (W. Burrows, B. A.)
Aggravated poverty of soul
If a mans gold prove counterfeit, his jewels painted glass, his silver lead or dross, he will not only be found poor when he comes to be tried, and want the benefit of riches, but will also have a fearful aggravation of his poverty, by his disappointment and surprisal. If a mans faith, which should be more precious than gold, be found rotten and corrupt, if his light be darkness; how vile is that faith, how great is that darkness! (J. Owen, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv15–18 15. I know thy works. The same statement has…
15. I know thy works. The same statement has been made of all the churches, but in all the others there has been something to praise. Thou art neither cold nor hot. Neither acting hostile to Christ, nor zealous for Him. Christ would rather that men should be opposers than formal, apathetic professors.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv15, 18 Rev 3:15; Rev 3:19.
Revelation
LAODICEA
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Rev 3:15; Rev 3:19.
We learn from Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians that there was a very close connection between that Church and this at Laodicea. It is a probable conjecture that a certain Archippus, who is spoken of in the former Epistle, was the bishop or pastor of the Laodicean Church. And if, as seems not unlikely, the ‘angels’ of these Asiatic churches were the presiding officers of the same, then it is at least within the limits of possibility that the ‘angel of the Church at Laodicea,’ who received the letter, was Archippus.
The message that was sent to Archippus by Paul was this: ‘Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received of the Lord, that thou fulfill it.’ And if thirty years had passed, and then Archippus got this message: ‘Thou art neither cold nor hot,’ you have an example of how a little negligence in manifest duty on the part of a Christian man may gradually grow and spread, like a malignant cancer, until it has eaten all the life out of him, and left him a mere shell. The lesson is for us all.
But whether we see an individual application in these words or no, certainly the ‘angel of the church’ is spoken of in his character of a representative of the whole Church. So, then, this Laodicean community had no works. So far had declension gone that even Christ’s eye could see no sign of the operation of the religious principle in it; and all that He could say about it was, ‘thou art neither cold nor hot.’
It is very remarkable that the first and the last letters to the seven Churches deal with the same phase of religious declension, only that the one is in the germ and the other is fully developed. The Church of Ephesus had still works abundant, receiving and deserving the warm-hearted commendation of the Master, but they had ‘left their first love.’ The Church at Laodicea had no works, and in it the disease had sadly, and all but universally, spread.
Now then, dear friends, I intend, not in the way of rebuke, God knows, but in the way of earnest remonstrance and appeal to you professing Christians, to draw some lessons from these solemn words.
I. I pray you to look at that loving rebuke of the faithful Witness: ‘Thou art neither cold nor hot.’
"We are manifestly there in the region of emotion. The metaphor applies to feeling. We talk, for instance, about warmth of feeling, ardour of affection, fervour of love, and the like. And the opposite, cold, expresses obviously the absence of any glow of a true living emotion.
So, then, the persons thus described are Christian people {for their Christianity is presupposed}, with very little, though a little, warmth of affection and glow of Christian love and consecration.
Further, this defectiveness of Christian feeling is; accompanied with a large amount of self-complacency: - ‘Thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’ Of course it is so. A numbed limb feels no pain. As cold increases the sensation of cold, and of everything else, goes away. And a sure mark of defective religious emotion is absolute unconsciousness on the man’s part that there is anything the matter with him. All of you that have no sense that the indictment applies to you, by the very fact show that it applies most especially and most tragically to you. Self-complacency diagnoses spiritual cold, and is an inevitable and a constantly accompanying symptom of a deficiency of religious emotion.
Then again, this deficiency of warmth is worse than absolute zero. ‘I would thou wert cold or hot.’ That is no spurt of impatience on the part of the ‘true Witness.’ It is for their sake that He would they were cold or hot. And why? Because there is no man more hopeless than a man on whom the power of Christianity has been brought to bear, and has failed in warming and quickening him. If you were cold, at absolute zero, there would be at least a possibility that when you were brought in contact with the warmth you might kindle. But you have been brought in contact with the warmth, and this is the effect. Then what is to be done with you? There is nothing more that can be brought to bear on your consciousness to make you anything higher or better than you are, than what you have already had in operation in your spiritual life. And if it has failed, all God’s armoury is empty, and He has shot His last bolt, and there is nothing more left. ‘I would thou wert cold or hot.’
Now, dear friends, is that our condition? I am obliged sadly to say that I believe it is to a fearful extent the condition of professing Christendom to-day. ‘Neither cold nor hot!’ Look at the standard of Christian life round about us. Let us look into our own hearts. Let us mark how wavering the line is between the Church and the world; how little upon our side of the line there is of conspicuous consecration and unworldliness; how entirely in regard of an enormous mass of professing Christians, the maxims that are common in the world are their maxims; and the sort of life that the world lives is the sort of life that they live. ‘Oh! thou that art named the House of Israel,’ as one of the old prophets wailed out, ‘is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings?’ And so I would say, look at your churches and mark their feebleness, the slow progress of the gospel among them, the low lives that the bulk of us professing Christians are living, and answer the question: Is that the operation of a Divine Spirit that comes to transform and to quicken everything into His own vivid and flaming life? or is it the operation of our own selfishness and worldliness, crushing down and hemming in the power that ought to sway us? Brethren! it is not for me to cast condemnation, but it is for each of us to ask ourselves the question: Do we not hear the voice of the ‘faithful and true Witness’ saying to us, ‘I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot’?
II. And now will you let me say a word next as to some of the plain causes of this lukewarmness of spiritual life?
Of course the tendency to it is in us all. Take a bar of iron out of the furnace on a winter day, and lay it down in the air, and there is nothing more wanted. Leave it there, and very soon the white heat will change into livid dullness, and then there will come a scale over it, and in a short time it will be as cold as the frosty atmosphere around it. And so there is always a refrigerating process acting upon us, which needs to be counteracted by continual contact with the fiery furnace of spiritual warmth, or else we are cooled down to the degree of cold around us. But besides this universally operating cause there are many others which affect us.
Laodicea was a great commercial city, an emporium of trade, which gives especial point and appropriateness to the loving counsel of the context. ‘I advise thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire.’ And Manchester life, with its anxieties, with its perplexities for many of you, with its diminished profits, and apparently diminishing trade, is a fearful foe to the warmth and reality of your Christian life. The cares of this world and the riches of this world are both amongst the thorns which choke the Word and make it unfruitful. I find fault with no man for the earnestness which he flings into his business, but I ask you to contrast this entire absorption of spirit, and the willing devotion of hours and strength to it, with the grudging, and the partial, and the transient devotion of ourselves to the religious life; and say whether the relative importance of the things seen and unseen is fairly represented by the relative amount of earnestness with which you and I pursue these respectively.
Then, again, the existence among us, or around us, of a certain widely diffused doubt as to the truths of Christianity is, illogically enough, a cause for diminished fervor on the part of the men that do not doubt them. That is foolish, and it is strange, but it is true. It is very hard for us, when so many people round about us are denying, or at least are questioning, the verities which we have been taught to believe, to keep the freshness and the fervor of our devotion to these; just as it is very difficult for a man to keep up the warmth of his body in the midst of some creeping mist that enwraps everything. So with us, the presence, in the atmosphere of doubt, depresses the vitality and the vigor of the Christian Church where it does not intensify its faith, and make it cleave more desperately to the things that are questioned. Beware, then, of unreasonably yielding so far to the influence of prevailing unbelief as to make you grasp with a slacker hand the thing which still you do not say that you doubt.
And there is another case, which I name with some hesitation, but which yet seems to me to be worthy of notice; and that is, the increasing degree to which Christian men are occupied with what we call, for want of a better name, secular things. The leaders in the political world, on both sides, in our great commercial cities, are usually professing Christians. I am the last man to find fault with any Christian man for casting himself, so far as his opportunities allow, into the current of political life, if he will take his Christianity with him, and if he will take care that he does not become a great deal more interested in elections, and in pulling the strings of a party, and in working for ‘the cause,’ than he is in working for his Master. I grudge the political world nothing that it gets of your strength, but I do grudge, for your sakes as well as for the Church’s sake, that so often the two forms of activity are supposed by professing Christians to be incompatible, and that therefore the more important is neglected, and the less important done. Suffer the word of exhortation.
And, in like manner, literature and art, and the ordinary objects of interest on the part of men who have no religion, are coming to absorb a great deal of our earnestness and our energy. I would not withdraw one iota of the culture that now prevails largely in the Christian Church. All that I plead for, dear brethren, is this, ‘Ye are the salt of the earth.’ Go where you like, and fling yourselves into all manner of interests and occupations, only carry your Master with you. And remember that if you are not salting the world, the world is putrefying you.
There I think you have some, though it be imperfect, account of the causes which operate to lower the temperature of the Christian Church in general, and of this Christian Church, and of you as individual members of it.
III. Now, further, note the loving call here to deepened earnestness.
‘Be zealous, therefore.’ The word translated, and rightly translated, zealous means literally boiling with heat. It is an exhortation to fervor. Now there is no worse thing in all this world than for a man to try to work up emotion, nothing which is so sure, sooner or later, to come to mischief, sure to breed hypocrisy and all manner of evil. If there be anything that is worse than trying to work up emotion, it is attempting to pretend it. So when our Master here says to us, ‘Be zealous, therefore,’ we must remember that zeal in a man ought to be a consequence of knowledge; and that, seeing that we are reasonable creatures, intended to be guided by our understandings, it is an upsetting of the whole constitution of a man’s nature if his heart works independently of his head. And the only way in which we can safely and wholesomely increase our zeal is by increasing our grasp of the truths which feed it.
Thus the exhortation, ‘Be zealous,’ if we come to analyze it, and to look into its basis, is this - Lay hold upon, and meditate upon, the great truths that will make your heart glow. Notice that this exhortation is a consequence, ‘Be zealous, therefore,’ and repent. Therefore, and what precedes? A whole series of considerations - such as these: ‘I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire . . . and white raiment . . . and anoint thine eyes with eye salve.’ It is to say, lay hold of the truth that Christ possesses a full store of all that you can want. Meditate on that great truth and it will kindle a flame of desire and of fruition in your hearts. ‘Be zealous, therefore.’ And again, ‘As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.’ ‘Be zealous, therefore.’ That is to say, grasp the great thought of the loving Christ, all whose dealings, even when His voice assumes severity, and His hand comes armed with a rod, are the outcome and manifestation of His love; and sink into that love, and that will make your hearts glow. ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ ‘Be zealous, therefore.’ Think of the earnest, patient, long-suffering appeal which the Master makes, bearing with all our weaknesses and our shortcomings, and not suffering His gentle hand to be turned away, though the door has been so long barred and bolted in His face. And let these sweet thoughts of a Christ that gives everything, of a Christ all whose dealings are love, of a Christ who pleads with us through the barred door, and tries to get at us through the obstacles which ourselves have fastened against Him, let them draw us to Him, and kindle and keep alight-a brighter flame of consecration and of devotion in our hearts to Him. ‘Be zealous.’ Feed upon the great truths of the Gospel which kindles zeal.
Brethren, the utmost warmth is reasonable in religion. If Christianity be true, there is no measure of ardor or of consecration which is beyond the reasonable requirements of the case. We are told that ‘a sober standard of feeling in matters of religion’ is the great thing to aim at. So I say. But I would differ, perhaps, with the people that are fond of saying so, in my definition of sobriety. A sober standard is a standard of feeling in which the feeling does not outrun the facts on which it is built. Enthusiasm is disproportionate or ignorant feeling; warmth without light. A sober, reasonable feeling is the emotion which is correspondent to the truths that evoke it. And will any man tell me that any amount of earnestness, of flaming consecration, of fiery zeal, is in advance of the great truths that Christ loves me, and has given Himself for me?
IV. And now, lastly, observe the merciful call to a new beginning: ‘Repent.’
There must be a lowly consciousness of sin, a clear vision of my past shortcomings, an abhorrence of these, and, joined with that, a resolute act of mind and heart beginning a new course, a change of purpose and of the current of my being.
Repentance is sorrow for the past, blended with a resolve to paste down the old leaf and begin a new writing on a new page. Christian men have need of these fresh beginnings, and of new repentance, even as the patriarch when he came up from Egypt went to the place where ‘he builded the altar at the first and then offered sacrifice. Do not you be ashamed, Christian men and women, if you have been living low and inconsistent Christian lives in the past, to make a new beginning and to break with that past. There was never any great outburst of life in a Christian Church which was not preceded by a lowly penitence. And there is never any penitence worth naming which is not preceded by a recognition, glad, rapturous, confident as self-consciousness, of Christ’s great and infinite love to me.
Oh! if there is one thing that we want more than another to-day, it is that the fiery Spirit shall come and baptize all the churches, and us as individual members of them. What was it that finished the infidelity of the last century? Was it Paley and Butler, with their demonstrations and their books? No! it was John Wesley and Whitefield. Here is a solution, full of microscopic germs that will putrefy. Expose it to heat, raise the temperature, and you will kill all the > germs, so that you may keep it for a hundred years, and there will be no putrefaction in it. Get the temperature of the Church up, and all the evils that are eating out its life will shrivel and drop to the bottom dead. They cannot live in the heat; cold is their region. So, dear brethren, let us get near to Christ’s love until the light of it shines in our own faces. Let us get near to Christ’s love until, like coal laid upon the fire, its fervors penetrate into our substance and change even our blackness into ruddy flame. Let us get nearer to the love, and then, though the world may laugh and say, ‘He hath a devil and is mad,’ they that see more clearly will say of us: ‘The zeal of Thine house hath eaten him up,’ and the Father will say even concerning us: ‘This is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v17 you are most miserable, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked
you are most miserable, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked
Jesus speaks of their spiritual condition as if he were speaking about their physical condition. AT: "You are like people who are most miserable, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked" (See: Metaphor)
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Buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and brilliant white garments so you may clothe yourself and not show the shame of your nakedness, and salve to anoint your eyes so you will see
Here to "buy" represents receiving things from Jesus that have true spiritual value. The "gold refined by fire" represents spiritual wealth. The "brilliant white garments" represents rightousness. And the "salve to anoint your eyes" represents the ability to understand spiritual things. AT: "Come to me and receive spiritual wealth, which is more valuable than gold that is refined by fire. Receive from me righteousness, which is like brilliant white garments, so that you will not be ashamed. And receive from me wisdom, which is like salve for the eyes, so that you may understand spiritual things"
translationWords
gold
fire
shame
anoint
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv15, 17, 18 3:15-16 neither hot nor cold: The hot springs in…
3:15-16 neither hot nor cold: The hot springs in Hierapolis were famous for their healing qualities. Colosse was equally famous for its cold, refreshing springs. In contrast, the water available in Laodicea was smelly and lukewarm. Such water is distasteful; Jesus was saying that the church’s indecisive commitment to him was revolting.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.