Conquering Kingship for a Compliant People: Revelation 3:14–22, Part 1

Setting the Scene

(avg. read time: 8–15 mins.)

I have explored elsewhere the role of the concept of participatory victory—that believers participate in the victory of God and Christ in the present and the future—in 1 John in the context of the narrative framework of cosmic conflict.¹ But it is in Revelation that these integrally related notions are most fully developed in Johannine literature through apocalyptic language. One of the most fascinating manifestations of these notions is in the letter to Laodicea in Rev 3:14–22. The Laodicean Christians had failed to live into the victory in the cosmic conflict that is properly theirs by virtue of their union with Jesus, instead opting for lives of compliance with the hostile world. Although their conduct had made them repugnant to Christ, he offers them another opportunity to repent, to live the victorious life, and to receive the inheritance they have in Christ. Although they were a compliant people at the time of this letter’s writing, Christ still offered them the conquering kingship that is the proper outcome of victorious life. Indeed, each section of this letter contributes to the interweaving of themes of victory with Christ over the hostile world, reigning in the kingdom of God with Christ, the question of allegiance in the cosmic conflict, the temptation to assimilate with the hostile world, and the issue of restoration to victorious life. My exegetical analysis demonstrates how all of these themes contribute to the astonishing promise of conquering kingship to this distinctly compliant church if they would renew their undiluted allegiance to him. I have decided to present this in two parts as well, since it is a text that illustrates well the pitfalls associated with linking the letters of Revelation to peculiarities of local contexts (as will be one of the issues illustrated in part 1), and it exemplifies the depths of theological ethics in Revelation (part 2).

Verse 14: Opening and Identification

The opening and closing of this unit are formulaic. The opening formula addresses the letter to the angel of the assembly in Laodicea. There have been several accounts of how to understand the reference to angels here that I cannot fully engage.² But it is enough to say that their presence is a natural effect of John’s apocalyptic framework. In an apocalypse, earthly events, persons, institutions, and processes are shown to have heavenly controls and correspondences as the apocalyptist reveals that there is more to each of these aspects of reality than the empirical. Unsurprisingly, this is the case for the churches in John’s apocalypse as angels serve as the invisible and heavenly representatives and ambassadors of these churches. Whether these angels also serve as guardians, revealers, or simply messengers (as the Greek name implies) is unclear. Whatever exactly their function may be, their presence comports with the proliferation of angels carrying out God’s work in this apocalypse (John uses ἄγγελος in Revelation sixty-seven times, more often than any other NT book).

The next typical aspect of this letter is τάδε λέγει (“thus says”) followed by the identification of the speaker (in every case, it is Jesus, but he refers to himself in different ways). This phrase is the LXX translation of כה אמר, a typical (but not exclusive) marker of prophetic speech conveying what the Lord has said (Exod 4:22; Josh 24:2; Judg 6:8; 1 Sam 2:27; 2 Sam 7:5, 8; 1 Kgs 11:31; 2 Kgs 1:4, 6, 16; Isa 7:7; Jer 2:2, 5; Ezek 2:4; Amos 1:6, 9, 11, 13; Obad 1; Mic 2:3; Nah 1:12; Hag 1:2, 5, 7, 9; Zech 1:3, 4, 14, 16, 17; Mal 1:4 and many others). In this particular letter, Jesus gives himself three identifications.

First, he is the “Amen” (ἀμήν). This term—a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew term—is usually a certification, validation, and affirmation that a statement is true and thus it appears at or near the conclusion of that statement (cf. 1:6–7; 5:14; 7:12 [2x]; 19:4; 22:20). This is the only instance in the NT in which it is used as a title and it likely alludes to Isa 65:16, the only use of it as a title in the OT, in which it is applied to God. The nearest equivalent otherwise is the statement in 2 Cor 1:20 that Jesus is the “Yes” to all of God’s promises and that through him is the “Amen” to God. In all cases, the terminology serves as the certification and affirmation that God will do what is promised. In the case of the NT, it certifies that Jesus is the executor of God’s promises, the one who will bring them to pass. Its appearance at the beginning of this statement (and as a title) also expresses assurance of the truth of what Christ will say as if he has already spoken.³ Finally, it is noteworthy that the Isaianic version of this title immediately precedes the promise of new creation in Isa 65:17. Because it is such a unique title with this unique association, one might expect links to new creation promises. Indeed, the use of the title here foreshadows God’s statement of new creation in 21:5, which is reminiscent of Isa 65:17. As I argue below, the most probable framework for understanding the second and third identifications in v. 14 is new creation.

Second, Jesus refers to himself as πιστὸς καὶ ἀληθινός (“faithful and true”), which is arguably an augmentation of the first identification as the Amen. These words have overlapping semantic domains, as demonstrated by the multiple versions of rendering the Hebrew אמן in Greek. Symmachus, like John, renders it as the transliterated ἀμήν, Aquila renders it as a form of πιστός (πεπιστωμένως), and the LXX renders it as τὸν ἀληθινόν. Jesus is given this full description only one more time in Rev 19:11 and then it becomes a descriptor about the message of new creation (21:5; 22:6), expressing the surety that this consummate promise will also come to pass. It will come to pass because of what Jesus has accomplished in his earthly ministry, in which he was the faithful and true witness unto death and resurrection (1:5–6; John 3:11; 4:44; 5:31; 7:7; 8:13–14, 18; 13:21; 18:37).⁴

Third, Jesus is the ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως. Scholars have translated the word ἀρχή variously as “beginning,” “source,” “principle,” or “ruler.”⁵ Although there are distinctions in the first three possible meanings, they all relate theologically to Christ’s role in the origination and possibly sustainment of creation. Generally, the decision is thus between this kind of meaning and the political/royal meaning. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to convey both senses in a smooth English translation, despite the likely presence of a double entendre here (“first” or “foremost” may be sufficiently ambiguous, but such options are not sufficiently communicative and can lead to confusion).⁶ One piece of evidence that makes it probable that there is a double entendre here is the traditional link between God’s action as Creator and God’s action as Lord (Pss 65:5–13; 74:12–23; 89:5–18; 93; 97:1–6; 104; 136:5–9; 146:5–7; 147:4–5, 8–11, 14–18; Isa 40:12–31; 41:17–20; 44:24–28; 45:12–18; 48:7–13; 55:10–13; Jer 31:35–37; 32:17–19; 33:20–26). Just as God’s action as Creator serves as the foundation for God’s action as Lord and Savior, God’s action and character as Lord is the link that binds together protology and eschatology. Likewise, on the basis of parallels with Rev 1:5–6 and Col 1:18, it is likely that the inauguration of the new creation and the inauguration of Christ’s rule are two aspects of the same results of Jesus’s death, resurrection, and exaltation.⁷ These aspects can only be distinguished, but not separated. The stress here is not so much on Jesus’s sovereignty from the beginning, but on his sovereignty established by his earthly work to bring God’s promises of new creation to pass (as the other two titles imply). As such, it seems best to interpret this word as a double entendre in this instance.

The basic message of this christological introduction is that the one who says these things is the absolutely and inexorably faithful one, the ruler of creation and new creation, the one who has spoken and will do it, the one whose promises—no matter how seemingly extravagant—will be fulfilled. Christ is the conquering king whose faithfulness is beyond all attempts to resist the fulfillment of promises. He is the Amen because he validates all of God’s promises. He is the faithful and true witness because he speaks the truth without dilution and is faithful to enact God’s promises. He is the inauguration and ruler of the new creation because of what he has already accomplished and will yet consummate. He has blazed the trail of faithful testimony to God unto death that leads to resurrection and enthronement. Thus, he is able not only to address the problems of the unfaithful Laodiceans, but is also able to make them into conquering kings like himself.

Verses 15–17: Diagnosis of the Problems

The next formulaic element is the use of οἶδά plus the object of knowledge. In this case, as with four of the other letters, the object is the works of the church (σου τὰ ἔργα: 2:2, 19; 3:1, 8).⁸ The verb is in the perfect tense to emphasize its stative force (“I am in the state of knowing”).⁹ The sense is that Christ is clearly aware of their way of life and no appearance of riches can deceive him, as it has deceived them.

As in the letter to Sardis, this formulaic note immediately precedes the condemnation of the Laodiceans, but the difference is that the Laodiceans have no redeeming qualities. Instead, Christ describes them as being neither cold nor hot, then he uses a particle that expresses the currently unattainable wish that they were either cold or hot (ὄφελον ψυχρὸς ἦς ἢ ζεστός: “Oh, if only you were cold or hot”).¹⁰ Some scholars have attempted to read these adjectives as descriptors of faith conditions (believing or unbelieving) or temperaments (friendly/faithful or hostile), but this reading of the metaphorical descriptors finds little support in the book as a whole or in the ancient historical context.¹¹ Given the severity of the action taken against those who actively rebel against God and do not repent throughout the book, it does not seem possible to maintain the idea that Christ prefers coldness-as-unbelief to lukewarmth-as-hypocrisy (9:20–21; 13:3–4, 7–8; 14:9–11; 16:9, 11; 20:11–15; 21:8, 27; 22:15). It is more likely that this description indicates the condition of the church in relation to its environment, which is a feature of all of the other letters, but would otherwise be absent here (2:2–3, 6, 9–10, 13–15, 19–20, 24; 3:1b, 4, 8–10). When Christ describes the Laodiceans as “lukewarm” (or, in modern parlance, “room temperature”), he is describing them as being indistinct from their environment, as lukewarm water is from its environmental temperature.¹² They were compliant to the world around them, complacent in the current age, as opposed to being faithful in anticipation of the new creation. Although they were supposed to be witnesses for Jesus (1:2, 9; 2:13; 6:9; 11:3; 12:17; 13:10; 14:12–13; 17:6; 19:10; 20:4), they had become impotent for this function.¹³

Because they are lukewarm (χλιαρός), being neither hot nor cold, Christ warns that he is about to vomit or spew them out of his mouth. At this point, many scholars have tried to explain the imagery of the temperature, repulsive taste, and emetic quality of what Christ has in his mouth by comparison to Laodicea’s water, which was lukewarm and mineral-rich (due to the presence of calcium carbonate).¹⁴ Sometimes, they make the connection to an episode in Life of Aesop 3 in which Aesop drinks lukewarm water and puts his fingers in his throat to vomit what he had eaten in order to prove to his master that he had not eaten his figs.

There are multiple problems with making such connections. One, the mineral content of the water is not relevant to the imagery of this letter, since only the temperature is mentioned. Two, Clare Rothschild observes, “Calcium carbonate’s presence typically qualifies water as ‘hard.’ The waters of the region of ancient Laodicea were not peculiar in this regard. ‘Hard’ water is not emetic, poor tasting or bad for one’s health. In fact, it is often used as a calcium supplement or antacid.”¹⁵ Three, Strabo confirms that Laodicea’s water was suitable for drinking, as opposed to the hot spring water of Hierapolis (Geogr. 13.4.14).¹⁶ Four, the Aesop episode itself shows that lukewarm water is not emetic, since Aesop must put his fingers in his throat to induce vomiting.

It is more likely that, just as the lukewarmth characterizes the Laodiceans’ lack of distinction from their pagan environment, the vomiting imagery indicates how utterly distasteful this condition is to Jesus. In fact, the imagery is reminiscent of God’s warning of the promised land vomiting out the people of Israel if they act as the Canaanites do (Lev 18:25, 28; 20:22).¹⁷ If the Laodiceans are compliant with the world around them, then there is no use in treating them as if they are members of a community abiding by a special covenant tying them to that special inheritance. However, Jesus has not given up on them yet. This severe rejection comparable to exile is about to happen (hence the use of the key term μέλλω), but it has not happened yet. Jesus still gives them an opportunity to avoid this fate.

As Christ gives more specific detail on the condition of the Laodiceans, he notes that they have claimed to be rich, to have prospered, and to have need of nothing. This doubly redundant statement illustrates the sense of absolute self-sufficiency in the Laodicean church. This type of statement appears in several contexts in the ancient world as a statement of hubris (Hos 12:9; Zech 11:5; 1 En. 97:8–9; Luke 12:16–21; Epictetus, Diatr. 3.7.29), but some have attempted to link this attitude to the perceived hubris of Laodicea in general. It is true that Laodicea was a city that generated substantial wealth relative to its size (Cicero, Flac. 68; Tacitus, Ann. 14.27; Šabb. 119a). It was an important trading center on the road to and from Ephesus and its flocks produced much black wool, which made the city a popular textile producer. It had two theaters that could accommodate thousands, and in the second century it would have a stadium that could accommodate thousands more (the current estimate is that the latter could hold 20,000 attendees).¹⁸ Furthermore, Tacitus briefly mentions that the Laodiceans rebuilt after an earthquake in 60/61 CE without Roman assistance (Ann. 14.27). Some understand this text as indicating that the Laodiceans refused Roman assistance because they believed that they did not need it and proved as much in their reconstruction.¹⁹

The problem with this reading is that it is a circular one. It relies on reading the Tacitus text in light of the Revelation text and then turning to read Revelation in light of what Tacitus allegedly says.²⁰ Tacitus himself does not say that the Laodiceans refused aid; he simply notes that they did not receive it. The Laodiceans had previously received aid from Augustus after the earthquake in 17 CE (Strabo, Geogr. 12.8.18). More likely, this narration is Tacitus’s subtle critique of Nero precisely because Augustus had been the better patron in providing aid.²¹

In any case, the church was rich, but their material wealth had clouded their vision to what their actual condition had become: wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. The irony of the situation could not be starker as the apparently self-sufficient church is actually the most powerless of all. This irony then raises the question of how their perception and reality became so contradictory. A precise reconstruction is impossible with the amount of information available, but what is available provides some important hints.

First, the contrast of richness and poverty here is also in direct contrast to the church in Smyrna, which is rich despite its material poverty (2:9). This church had also suffered for their faith and would continue to do so (2:9–10), whence came the proof of their faith’s richness. Second, outside of Rev 2:9 and 3:18, where special circumstances are provided for being rich, the process of becoming rich or maintaining wealth in the rest of Revelation is tied with the habit of consorting with the world, especially the supreme power of “Babylon” (13:16; 18:3, 15, 19). As such, their wealth in and of itself is suggestive of the degree to which they have assimilated to their environment like lukewarm water, as Brian Blount argues, “By attending the festivals, trade gatherings, cultic ceremonies, and other social situations where upward financial mobility could be bought at the high price of eating meat sacrificed to idols and acknowledging in other ways imperial and pagan lordship, the Laodiceans have enriched their historical circumstance at the expense of their eschatological one.”²² The temptation to acquire and maintain wealth—along with the security, status, power, and prestige it brings—intensified the accompanying temptation to assimilate to the environment, to comply with any pressure to participate in the pagan rituals, especially of the imperial cult, which coins of the day indicate was present in some way at Laodicea.²³

John thus conveys that in the world of the Roman Empire—with all of its political and religious trappings—the issues of allegiance and assimilation were integrally related. The lukewarmth of the Laodiceans, along with these other qualities they possess as a result, showed that they were too assimilated, impotent, and non-committed, which meant that their allegiance was undermined. As Craig Keener observes, this condemnation of Laodicea, “reminds us how readily we Christians absorb the attitudes of our culture without pausing for critical reflection on this behavior.”²⁴ In order to renew their allegiance, they would need to break free of the self-satisfaction brought on by their material wealth and compliant orientation to the world. It is this issue of renewing allegiance that Jesus addresses in the next section.

Part 2

1. K. R. Harriman, “Take Heart, We Have Overcome the World: Participatory Victory in the Theological-Ethical Framework of 1 John,” EvQ 88 (2016/2017): 305–19.

2. For a survey of views on who or what these angels are, see David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, WBC 52A (Dallas: Word, 1997), 108–12.

3. Louis A. Brighton, Revelation, ConcC (St. Louis: Concordia, 1999), 99; Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1-7: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 99.

4. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids; Cambridge: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999), 298.

5. Brian K. Blount, Revelation: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 81; Brighton, Revelation, 97; Timothy L. Decker, “‘Live Long in the Land’: The Covenantal Character of the Old Testament Allusions in the Message to Laodicea (Revelation 3:14-22),” Neot 48 (2014): 423–24; Koester, “Message,” 411–12; Pierre Prigent, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John, trans. Wendy Pradels (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 213–15; Clare K. Rothschild, “Principle, Power, and Purgation in the Letter to the Church in Laodicea (Rev 3:14–22),” in Die Johannesapokalypse, ed. Jörg Frey, James A. Kelhoffer, and Franz Tóth, WUNT 287 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 276–78; Stephen S. Smalley, The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 97; Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 303.

6. Aune, Revelation 1–5, 256; Beale, Revelation, 301; Craig S. Keener, Revelation, NIVApp (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 158; David L. Mathewson, Revelation: A Handbook on the Greek Text, BHGNT (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 52; Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 205.

7. Beale, Revelation, 298; Brighton, Revelation, 100; Decker, “‘Live Long,’” 436. Most of the textual variants in this passage involve omissions or disagreements on grammar and syntax. One exception is that א alone attests to reading τῆς ἐκκλησίας (“of the church”) instead of τῆς κτίσεως (“of the creation”). Although it is a singular reading, it may be evidence that early interpreters were already connecting Rev 3:14 with Col 1:18.

8. In 2:9 Christ knows the suffering and poverty of the church in Pergamum and in 2:13 he knows where the church in Pergamum dwells.

9. Mathewson, Revelation, 19.

10. Aune, Revelation 1–5, 258; BDAG, s.v. “ὄφελον.”

11. Keener, Revelation, 163; Koester, 409–11, 413–15; Rothschild, “Principle,” all. For such interpretations, see Aune, Revelation 1–5, 257; Rothschild, “Principle,” 263; Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 306–7.

12. Koester, “Message,” 415.

13. Beale, Revelation, 302; Rothschild, “Principle,” 284–90; Smalley, Revelation, 98.

14. Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, JSNTSup 11 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986), 186–91; Keener, Revelation, 158; Osborne, Revelation, 205–6; Thomas, Revelation 1-7, 307; Roland H. Worth, The Seven Cities of the Apocalypse and Greco-Asian Culture (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 1999), 214–16.

15. Rothschild, “Principle,” 264 n. 26.

16. For more on the quality of Laodicea’s water, see Koester, “Message,” 409–10.

17. Decker, “‘Live Long,’” 429–31. Rothschild’s objection to this connection on the basis of the differences between the verbs in the LXX and here must be judged as unconvincing (“Principle,” 280). John is not strictly reliant on the LXX, as his language also reflects more direct links to the Hebrew and Aramaic of the OT. On this point, see Beale, Revelation, 77–78; Ben Witherington III, Revelation, NCBC (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 11–14.

18. Mark R. Fairchild, “Laodicea’s ‘Lukewarm’ Legacy: Conflicts of Prosperity in an Ancient Christian City,” BAR 43.2 (2017): 35–36.

19. Ibid., 36; Hemer, Letters, 193; Worth, Seven Cities, 218–19.

20. James A. Kelhoffer, “The Relevance of Revelation’s Date and the Imperial Cult for John’s Appraisal of the Value of Christians’ Suffering in Revelation 1–3,” in Die Johannesapokalypse, ed. Jörg Frey, James A. Kelhoffer, and Franz Tóth, WUNT 287 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 555–57; Koester, “Message,” 416–17; Prigent, Revelation, 210–11.

21. Kelhoffer, “Relevance,” 555–57.

22. Blount, Revelation, 82. Cf. Beale, Revelation, 302; Osborne, Revelation, 156–57.

23. Fairchild, “Laodicea’s Lukewarm Legacy,” 37; Witherington, Revelation, 5–10.

24. Keener, Revelation, 159.