Revelation 3:14

VII. LAODICEA Rich in goods, but poor in faith, Revelation 3:14-22.

14. Laodicea From Philadelphia our apostle in his circuit would range to the south-east through a journey of fifty or sixty miles to the capital of Phrygia, the rich and powerful Laodicea. In so doing he would cross from the Hermus over a mountain range into the fertile valley of the river Meander, a river whose varying course has given our language a verb, “to meander.” He would find a great city, which, under the Roman sway, had continually grown in power. He would also find, to all appearance, a rich and proud Church, whose Christianity had assumed a stereotype and inactive form. The Apostolic Constitutions (viii, 46) say, that Archippus was then Bishop of Laodicea. And it seems to some a coincidence that in Colossians 4:17, St. Paul appears to imply that he was a remiss minister. Hengstenberg finds, not wisely, an allusion to his name in the word αρχη , Revelation 3:14. Laodicea was one of a triangle of neighbouring city Churches; including Colosse, to which Paul had addressed an epistle, and Hierapolis, visible from the summit of the Laodicean theatre, and where Papias was, soon after St. John’s day, a bishop. St. Paul in his epistle to Colosse salutes the brethren in Laodicea, and requires his epistle to be read in the Church of the Laodiceans, with an exchange. See note on Colossians 4:16. Laodicea was founded in the third century before Christ by Antiochus II., king of Syria, and so named after his wife. It submitted to Rome, and in the war of Mithridates, king of Pontus, stood a siege against that monarch. It had been (A.D. 62) overthrown by an earthquake, but was munificently patronized by the Roman emperors, and its theatres, aqueducts, and churches have left magnificent ruins for the eye of the modern traveller and the spade of the excavator. Perhaps Laodicea listened to the voice of the Lord, woke to action, and became a powerful Church. A bishop and martyr, Sagaris, (A.D. 170,) is mentioned by Eusebius. About the middle of the fourth century the Council of Laodicea assumed to settle the New Testament Canon, in which it is remarkable that our Apocalypse was denied a place.

The Amen The divine affirmative One. So in Isaiah 65:16, “The God of Truth,” in the Hebrew “The God of Amen.” In 2 Corinthians 1:20, Christ is the medium through whom our obedient amen goes up to God; here he is the intervening, affirming Amen, affirming God’s truth, to us. The “verily” so often repeated by our Lord in the gospels, is in the Greek amen; and it is remarkable that in John’s Gospel it is always doubled, verily, verily, amen, amen.

Faithful and true witness A title preparing us for a faithful and true testimony to Laodicea respecting her character and spiritual condition.

Beginning of the creation A sublime declaration of the divine authority from which that testimony comes. A beginning of a series of things, taken passively, is the first one in that series. In that sense Christ would be the first created being in the series of creation. Taken actually, as that which originates the series, then the series does not include, but takes existence from, him. In that case Christ is the originator of the creation, uncreated. How John understands it we may well learn from the very first verse of his Gospel. In the opening words, “In the beginning was the Word,” the same Word, αρχη , is used as here, and its subject precedes creation. And in the third verse we are told that “the world was made by him,” namely, the Word, who was in the beginning.