Revelation 3:15 Commentary and Bible Study

Here is the first charge against this church which is in such a sorry condition. ‘I know thy works.’ That is said to all the churches, but with this result here: ‘That thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.’ We should not think that nobody saved in Laodicea, nobody converted; that it was a completely dead church. That is incorrect because the church was loved by the Lord. He goes on to say that he only chastens and rebukes the church, and commands it to repent, because he loves it. The church still had to be dealt with. Saved people there in Laodicea were in serious error, and cold of heart. But there were unconverted there too. So there has often been discussion – who is addressed in this letter? Is it the saved or the lost? When we get to the end and Christ depicted as standing at the door and knocking – is this addressed to the church at Laodicea or to unsaved individuals? The answer is both. The church has become a mixed multitude. There are people completely dead and there are people who are lukewarm.‘Thou art neither cold nor hot.’ They might have been cold, indifferent to the Lord, resentful even of any Christian message or any attempt to witness, unaffected entirely of the message of the Bible, cold and apathetic. They could have been, but they were not. There was an acceptance of the things of God, even among the unsaved, nominal people there. There was an openness to hear the word. They said nice things. They used the right phrases. They spoke to each other about the Lord. They were not stone cold. Neither were they hot. They were not fervent. They were not devoted. They were not enthusiastic. They were not committed. They were not working for the Lord and praying to him. They were not reliable in their commitment even to the attendance at worship perhaps. They were in-between. They were lukewarm. They were neither one thing nor the other.Why should he prefer them to be cold rather than lukewarm? Would God actually prefer that I was against him or indifferent to him, than that I was polite and accepting but not actually committed? Yes, because to be lukewarm is hypocrisy; it is even more offensive than being cold. It would be much better for people to know where we stand. To be lukewarm is to deceive ourselves. We think we are with the Lord when we are not really. And we are bad witnesses because people think we are Christians and we are not living like Christians. It may be that we are true Christians, but we are at such a low level that people do not take this so seriously. If everybody who was lukewarm had been cold, then maybe it would have been practical to say ‘Let the true people of God come out, and start a new congregation.’ But you could not tell who was a Christian and who was not.