Revelation
Laodicea: What Brings
the Time of Christ’s Patience to an End
(Rev. iii. 14-22.)
WE come now to the solemn close of these addresses, the
Lord’s last word to the churches; and it is very striking that we come to
that close here, just after that epistle to Philadelphia, in which we have seen
recognized a certain real return of heart to Christ, and a true revival by His
Word and Spirit. Now, there are, on the contrary, prostration and collapse: and
the most serious thing is that these are the infallible signs of the failure on
the part of Philadelphia itself. Laodicea springs out of Philadelphia. The
blessing there leads to the judgment here. In the states of the professing
church which these addresses have already pictured, there is not only
historical succession, but development. Even Protestantism sprang out of the
bosom of Romanism, as Philadelphia out of Protestantism. In neither case is the
one absorbed into the other, however. Romanism continues, outside the
Reformation. The signs of a remnant are unmistakable in Philadelphia. Moreover,
"overcomers" are implied in each case until the coming of the Lord. In
Thyatira, thus, they are exhorted to "hold fast till I come; and he that
overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over
the nations." In Sardis, ‘‘ If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will
come upon thee as a thief." In Philadelphia, "I come quickly." In this way,
Protestantism, springing out of Romanism, runs henceforth side by side with it
to the end. Philadelphia springs out of Protestantism, and similarly
accompanies it. And so Laodicca, we may conclude, springs out of Philadelphia,
and runs its course parallel with the rest.
But there is more positive
proof. For if in Sardis there has been the absolute coldness of death, in
Philadelphia, the glow of revival, in Laodicea there is the fatal lukewarmness
which shows at once the effect (and the limited effect) of one upon another.
And this is why the cold of Sardis itself is preferable to the lukewarmness of
Laodicea. All God’s grace has been spent in vain upon it.
Laodicea
gives us, then, the failure of Protestantism, as Thyatira of that which assumes
to be the Catholic Church. It is the complete failure of Christendom the second
time; and now, in the full light of an open Bible, and after repeated
intervention of God in wide-spread and protracted revival and blessing. The
full end of patience has at last been reached, and the time to display also the
results of the divine work, which no failure or opposition of man can in any
wise hinder.
But before entering upon the details of this address to
Laodicea, let us inquire as to the name itself. It was given to the city by
Antiochus 11., after his enlargement of it, in honour of his wife Laodice, and
is a compound of two words - laos, "people," and dike.
"Dike" is given by the dictionaries as having the three meanings,
closely connected together, (i) of "manner, custom, usage;" (2) of "right;" (3)
of "requirement," and so "vengeance," punitive justice. We have thus three
possible meanings: "custom of the people," "people’s right," "judgment of
the people." And these three things have equally plain and solemn connection
with one another. For it is indeed the "people’s custom" that is here
unfolded. If under popery it is rather the usurpation of the leaders that is
the question, in Protestantism, with its open Bible, the people are tested as
never before. The earliest ages of Christianity, dependent upon the toilsome
labour of copyists for the multiplication of copies of the Word, had in no wise
the privileges of which the Reformation, with its providentially furnished
printing press, at once came into possession. Hence, also, responsibilities as
great, and brought home to the door of every man. People may still be ignorant,
but it is now assuredly a willing ignorance. They may still seek to cast
responsibility upon others, and blindly follow still leaders as blind, but this
has necessarily now another character from what it had before. Hence it is the
people who are now being manifested,- their way which is being made apparent;
and judgment, however delayed, must at last follow with proportional energy.
Thus two significant applications of this word "Laodicea" are made
evident.
But again, and connected with this, there is a feature of the
last days which Scripture puts prominently forward, - the self-assertion which
indeed on man’s part has never been lacking, but which NOW pervades, in a
manner not before seen, the masses of the population. That Protestantism has
favoured this, is one of the reproaches of the Romanists. And it is undeniably
true that in one sense it has favoured it. The breaking of ecclesiastical
yokes, - the yoke of a tyranny more prostrating than any other, - with that
awaking of the mind of man which is ever found where the light of the Word of
God has penetrated, - has produced a state of things in which, if Christ’s
yoke be not accepted, man’s will will assuredly assert itself as never
before. And so it has proved; and so Scripture long before declared that it
would be. "Laodicea," in its third sense, as "people’s right," has become,
morally, spiritually, and politically also, the watchword of the times. On the
one hand, there is an immense march of civilization, a predicted running to and
fro, and increase of knowledge; on the other, an uprise of what threatens
civilization, and is ominous of an approaching end of the whole state.
"People’s right!" The rights of the masses! and which the masses
themselves mean to define and pronounce upon. Here is that condition of things
which Hobbes, more than two centuries since, declared to be the natural
condition, and which he rightly said meant universal war. For who is to judge
as to these conflicting interests? and who is to enforce the judgment? Class
will disagree with class, - nay, individual with individual: every man’s
hand will be against his brother; might will make right upon a scale the world
has never seen, until out of this surging sea a power rises strong enough to
command once more. Then they that will be lords shall have a lord, and they
that will not receive Christ shall have Antichrist.
So the Word of
God declares. For this ominous watchword, "people’s rights," in the end of
centuries of divine long suffering, is a terrible claim in the ears of a God,
strong, if yet so patient, and who is provoked every day. It is a claim which
denies the fall, and the sentence confirmed by countless individual sins, - the
claim of a world which has refused and crucified the Son of God come into it in
simplest loving mercy; - which would take the earth out of its Maker’s
hand, and enrich itself at His cost and to His dishonour. What wonder if they
should quarrel over the spoils of victory, and the nations be quaking, as they
are, over the success of their policy of liberty and equal rights? When
democracy meant only the curbing of the despotic power of rulers, when it meant
still respect for wealth and rank, and law and order, they could rejoice over
it, and cite it as the evidence of morally improved times. Arbitrary power only
was to be restrained: there was to be equal justice, and quietness and
assurance as the effect of righteousness. Certainly the abuse of power had been
great enough to provoke reprisals, and make the downfall of absolutism an
apparent real advancement. But man was and is the same; and the mistake has
been ever to suppose that alterations of this kind could really heal or touch a
moral state which was the essence of the trouble. The leprosy, skinned over
here, would only break out elsewhere, for it was deeper than the surface, - in
the blood, in the vitals of humanity itself.
Who can say where the
movement for men’s rights shall stop? If they be rights, must it not be
unrighteousness to stop any where? Who can say to the restless, resistless,
surge of the sea, Come no further! here shall thy waves be stayed? There were,
there are, most real and gigantic evils, - tyrannies which no form of
government yet devised has taken into account, or probably can take. What does
every man’s right to his own imply? What is "his own"? How can you take
from wealth the power which wealth implies? or allow power without allowing the
abuse of it? Settle all inequalities, make one general plain of all the
mountains upon earth, you have stopped the fertilizing rivers also which the
mountains roll over the plains and in the valleys which you deprecate, but for
whose benefit, spite of all, they rise.
Rights! what scale have you of
rights? Listen to the voices from a lower level than you desire, which will
interpret for you, and enforce their interpretation, - socialism, communism,
nihilism, - dread names, not merely for the monarch, but for the man of
property also, and for the law-abiding citizen. People’s rights are
already in terrible conflict with one another, and in their name how many
wrongs may be inflicted yet! This Laodicea of politics is destined to be the
rock upon which all governmental reform will end in anarchy and chaos. He who
can read the great typical book of nature may read the scriptural presages upon
a scroll written with lamentation and mourning and woe: "And there shall be
signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth,
distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s
hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are
coming upon the earth: for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Luke
xxi. 25, 26).
But the removal of the things that can be shaken will
only make way for a kingdom, not such as they anticipate, absolute beyond all
the tyrannies of old, a "rod of iron," which shall break as potsherds all the
opposing powers of man, yet be the shepherd’s rod under which the poor of
the flock will lie down at last in peace, and none shall make them afraid. How
refreshing to turn from what has been engaging us to contemplate such a rule as
the world has never seen! "He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and
Thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the
little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people; He shall
save the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor. . . In His
days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace as long as the moon
endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to
the ends of the earth. All kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall
serve Him" (Ps. lxxii. 2 - 4, 7, 8, ii). But, it may be objected, this is
altogether political: what has this to do with Laodicea as a condition of the
churches? It would have little indeed to do with it if only the Church realized
its separation from the world. As it is, it has very much indeed to do, - so
much, that in Christendom a political Laodicea involves, as a matter of course,
an ecclesiastical one. The world and the Church are so allied, so mingled, so
permeate each other now, that ideally alone will they endure separation. And as
a matter of fact, "people’s rights" has become scarcely less an
ecclesiastical than a political watchword. In this sphere, the masses are
rising up against the long rule of their spiritual leaders, and claiming
their rights at their hands. The oldest and best established oligarchies are
accepting popular methods and forms upon all sides. The few must yield to the
many. They choose their pastors as they choose their lawyer or their doctor,
and insist upon having what they pay for. What can be a better "right" than
that? Thus, however, it is clear, they "heap to themselves teachers," if you
must not assume that they have "itching ears." But, in truth, the ear it is
that is largely consulted; and necessarily so, where the very idea at the
bottom is a commercial equivalent, and popular majorities rule, as quantity
instead of quality. Even in the Church, and at its best, the most spiritual
have never been the larger number. How much less in churches demoralized by
heterogeneous mixture, competing for power and popularity!
Think of it,
however, as we may, there is no doubt that, in church as well as state,
"liberal" thoughts are prevailing, - democratic forms are succeeding to the old
aristocratic ones. And here certainly Philadelphia has prepared the way for
Laodicea. Distinctive priesthood, and the vested rights of clerisy, have in
measure yielded to the free evangelization going on, and the equality of
Christian brotherhood, and it is impossible not to rejoice that this should be
so. But yet who can doubt that the overthrow, such as it is, of these
ecclesiastical superstitions has favored claims that are no more of God than
they? The laity may dispossess the clergy, and dominion pass from one class to
another without reverting to the hands to which it really belongs. Christ is
alone Master, not clergy, and not people. Ministers are indeed servants, as
the very name imports, yet not servants of men, - a thing against which the
apostle so vehemently contends. "Ye are bought with a price; be ye not the
servants of men: if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ."
Thus these two things are in essential opposition. Christ needs to be in His
true place, - a thing which so marks Philadelphia, but from which Laodicea
excludes Him as does Thyatira. Bring Christ in, and the ministers are His
servants. Bring Christ in, and the people are His people. His service, on the
part of all alike, is true and equal freedom at once to all.
But the
spiritual phase of Laodicea we are now to follow. May we do it honestly, with
hearts open to receive rebuke; remembering that, not ecclesiastical place, but
spirit, is in question. It is an old deceit to pride one’s self on
possession of the truth, while yet the sanctification by the truth is unknown.
And this indeed makes a large part of the character of what is before
us.
The Lord presents Himself here as the One who amid the general
failure is "the Amen, the faithful and true witness:" He has not
failed.
He is the Amen: "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ," says the
apostle, "who was preached among you by us, even by me and Sylvanus and
Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea. For all the promises of God
in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God by us" (2 Cor. i. 19, 20).
No uncertainty, no doubtfulness, is there in Christ or His Word. He is always
simple, positive "Yea," speaking one thing, absolutely to be depended on. If we
have but a word of His, it is a blessed reality, given us in God’s
infinite love, which we may rest our souls on for eternity, and which can never
fail us. This is a resource which the denial of verbal inspiration would
completely take from us; but His own assurance is, "Scripture cannot be broken"
(Jno. x. 35). If it be a question, as in the case which the Lord is speaking of
here, of but a title applied by an inspired writer to a certain class of men,
there must be perfect suitability and divine wisdom in the application. "If he
called them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken."
How precious is this assurance! Coming where it does, is it not itself a
significant warning, this claim of His as "the Amen, the faithful and true
Witness" to such a generation as the present? Does He not in it challenge the
unbelief so common all around us?
But this presentation of Himself as a
true and faithful Witness is in contrast with the failure of the Church, which
has been any thing but that. He is just about to remove the candlestick because
it has been unfaithful and untrue. But His people’s shortcoming is not His
own. Infidelity may seek to justify itself by the failure of Christians; and
even Christians, alas! are almost capable of taking it as in some sort a
reflection upon Himself. But "if we are unfaithful, he abideth faithful," as
the R. V. rightly puts it now (2 Tim. ii. 13). And He is just ready to rise up
and bring in that day in which, with the revelation of all things, this
faithfulness of His will appear abundantly. In the general wreck, this only now
remains to Him.
He proclaims Himself with this: "The Beginning of the
creation of God." The old creation, spoiled by sin, is passing away; its
history is nearly completed; its judgment has been long since pronounced
in the cross, and in Christ risen from the dead is begun all that God owns as
really His, - first and always in His thought, and for which the ruin of the
old only prepared the way.
When the Psalmist lifted up his eyes to
heaven, and in view of God’s glorious handiwork there exclaims, "What is
man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?"
the answer is, "Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; thou hast
crowned him with glory and honour; Thou madest him to have dominion over the
works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet." But
of whom is he speaking? As the apostle in the second of Hebrews assures us, not
of the first, but of the Second Man. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower
than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour." It
is Christ in whom the true ideal of man is realized, and of whom the first Adam
was but the fleeting image, and in many respects the contrast Now in Laodicea,
with Christ outside, it cannot be the new creation in which their riches are.
Yet they say they are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.
Thus there are things which are gain to them which they have not counted loss
for Christ.
It is an exceedingly solemn thing that the very truth which
with all its grace judges and sets aside man most thoroughly is the very truth
which he is prone to take and use for the purpose of self-gratulation. Take the
law: God gave it "that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become
220 PRESENT THINGS, ETC. guilty before God" (Rom. iii. 19). But how has man
used, and how is he using it? Always to establish his own righteousness by it.
The large part of the Christian world, so called, to-day is taking the
"strength of sin" (i Cor. xv. 16) to accomplish holiness by it, and are taking
salvation itself to be, "not" indeed "by the merit of works, but" yet "by works
as a condition."
So, exactly, with Christianity: God has brought in the
truth of new creation, the world before Him lying under death and judgment. Yet
man takes the blessed truth of Christianity to patch up the world with it, and
make it better if he can. And in the very presence of the ruin and break-up of
things on every side, men are vaunting the success of the effort. On the eve of
judgment, they are fulfilling the Scripture-portents of such a time by their
smooth auguries of prosperity and peace.
No doubt God’s Spirit is
really and largely working; but His end and man’s thought are diverse, in
that, while He is converting souls to "deliver them out of this present evil
world," man’s thought is an improved world, a Christian world: the effect
of which is, to amalgamate Christians and the world, and spoil the scriptural
character of Christianity altogether.
But in these last days God has
given many to recognize the truth of the Word as to this. He has revived the
truth of new creation, and revealed to us the practical and fruitful
consequences which result from a place in Christ, where He is, in the heavens.
But the question for us is, What are we doing, then, with the truth we
recognize? Shall we talk of being in Christ a new creation, old things passed
away, and all things become new, and yet cling to what has in it all the moral
elements that make up the world - " the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life"? Is it theory with us, or practical reality, to
have "put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him
that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor
uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is ALL, and in
all"? Has the Lord need to appeal to us as the One who is "the Beginning of the
creation of God"? If so, is not Laodiceanism with us in that
proportion?
To Laodicea, as to the rest, He says, "I know thy works."
Here is the test, - the only true one. "I know thy works, that thou art neither
cold nor hot: I would that thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art
lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth." This is
the certain and near end of professing Christendom. Of course He will not spew
His own beloved people out of His mouth. He must take these first of all to
Himself before He can reject the whole mass as nauseous. And we have already
seen, in the address to Philadelphia, that the Lord tells them He will keep
them out of the hour of temptation which shall couie upon all the world : - not
merely out of the temptation; He might hide them in the desert so, but out of
the hour of it. For this, He must take them out of the world altogether. And
that is what the "I come quickly" connected with this also intimates.
Here, then, we have the brief, solemn pause before the Lord takes His people to
Himself. He must do this before the professing body can be spewed out of His
mouth. He cannot so reject even the poorest, weakest, most wayward of His own.
And it is important to insist upon this, because there is abroad a view
according to which only a class of better than ordinary Christians will be
taken up when the Lord comes, while the rest will be left upon earth to go
through the tribulation which follows this, when the earth is enduring the
vials of His wrath. They point to the promise to Philadelphia as in this way
the promise to a special class; and the ten virgins of our Lord’s parable
they maintain to be all Christians, as they bring forward the fact of their
being "virgins" to prove; - only foolish ones, unwatchful and unready, with
indeed the oil of the Spirit in their lamps, but no extra supply in their
"vessels." Thus their lamps, which had been burning, cease to burn at last, and
the fresh supply of oil they get is obtained too late for admission to the
marriage. The Lord rejects them only as the bride: they lose their place in
this, and are shut out to be purified by tribulation, and made ready for the
kingdom afterward.
But how many precious realities must be denied in
order to hold this view! Is it our faithfulness, then, that gives us a place
among those who are admitted to the dignity of the bride of Christ? Is the Lord
when He comes indeed going to discriminate in this way between less and more
faithfulness? - between ordinary and extraordinary Christians? What an engine
is this for turning the blessed and purifying hope into a means of
self-occupation and despair! If things are so, where is the line of acceptance
to be drawn? and on what side of it are we? Is my joyful expectation of this
blessed time to be based on the belief in my own superiority to many of my
brethren? What comfortable Pharisaism, or what legal distress must such a
view involve!
If true, why should such a discrimination be made between
the living saints alone? Why should it not equally affect the dead? And then,
is there to be a purgatory to purify these? As to Scripture, the support it
gives to any such view is only apparent, and results from an interpretation of
single passages, which is at issue with its whole doctrinal teaching. The
coming of the Lord to remove His saints is not in Scripture ever connected even
with our responsibilities and their adjudication, but with the fulfillment of
the hope with which grace has inspired us. Our responsibilities and the reward
of our works are connected with that which is called the "appearing" or
"manifestation" or "revelation of Christ," - His coming with His saints, not
for them. At the door of the Father’s house to which He welcomes us when
He comes, no sentry stands, no challenge is required. We go into it as purged
by the precious blood of Christ, and in Christ. Already are we not only
entitled, but "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light."
Continued
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