Church of Laodicea
Revelation 3:14-22
We will now look at the Church at Laodicea in chapter 3 and Hebrews 3, where all the previous warnings converge, and the New Testament’s theology of perseverance is stated most clearly. ChatGPT provides the outline.
14. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;
15. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
16. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
17. Because 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:
18. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
19. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
22. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Revelation 3:14-22.
Revelation 3 and Hebrews 3. A Direct Comparison Of The Two
The church at Laodicea is not persecuted, not compromised by outsiders, not deceived by false prophets. It is self-satisfied, and therefore the most dangerous state of all. Right off the bat, it makes me think of the unteachable modern evangelical. How about you?
Shared audience: overconfident believers, not outsiders
Laodicea
“I know thy works… thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.”
Hebrews 3:12
“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.”
Shared meaning
- The warnings are addressed to “brethren.”
- The danger is not ignorance but self-confidence, self-deception, and unteachableness (pride)
- Departure happens gradually, not suddenly
Laodicea proves that false assurance can exist without faithfulness. Pride, which reveals itself in unteachableness, blinds many Christians.
Lukewarmness and the hardened heart
Laodicea
“Because thou art lukewarm… I will spew thee out of my mouth.”
Hebrews 3:13
“Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
Shared meaning
- Lukewarmness is the hardness in progress
- Sin deceives, then it destroys
- Neutrality is an illusion
Both texts describe spiritual anesthesia.
Christ outside the community of believers
Laodicea
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”
Hebrews 3:6
“Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end?”
Shared meaning
- Christ’s presence is conditional
- The “house” remains His only if faith is held fast
- Loss of communion precedes final loss
This is not evangelistic imagery; it is covenant-rupture imagery. This reminds me of decades ago, when I was being trained in door-to-door evangelism. The pastor talked about this chapter. I had such a vivid picture in my mind of Christ, standing outside the walls of the Christian Church, knocking to gain entrance, that it melted my heart instantly. Inside the church, Christians were supposedly worshiping God, but He was standing outside. What a picture. All these believers really thought that they were in the presence of God, but He was not there. It pierced my heart. (I used this example in my article “How the preaching of Revelation 2 and 3 Disappeared.)
Discipline as last mercy
Laodicea
“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”
Hebrews 3:7-8
“Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
Shared meaning
- Rebuke is proof of love
- The window of repentance is time-bound
- Delay hardens the heart; it doesn’t humble the heart
Grace shouts in correction before judgment falls silent. If only Christians believed this.
The danger of unbelief after participation
Laodicea
“They think they see, but are blind.”
Hebrews 3:14
“We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end.”
Shared meaning
- Participation is real
- Continuation is required and is not optional
- Confidence can be lost
Hebrews does not redefine “partakers” as “pretenders” as if they were never saved, a tactic used by Calvinists and evangelicals much of the time.
Spitting out and falling in the wilderness
Laodicea
“I will spew thee out of my mouth.”
Hebrews 3:16-19
Israel fell in the wilderness after redemption from Egypt
Shared meaning
- God rejects covenant members who persist in unbelief and sin
- Past deliverance does not guarantee final rest
- Judgment follows resistance, and apostasy comes from prolonged resistance
Laodicea is the church version of wilderness Israel. It is not a pretty picture.
Overcoming versus. entering God’s rest
Laodicea
“To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.”
Hebrews 3:18-19
“They could not enter in because of unbelief.”
Shared meaning
- Two outcomes remain open
- Final participation is conditional (contrary to the constant messaging of Calvinists and evangelicals who teach unconditional perseverance or eternal security)
- Unbelief, not ignorance (if it is not willful ignorance), excludes
Overcoming is a faith that continues in obedience and fidelity.
How the Christian traditions handle Laodicea-Revelation 3 plus Hebrews 3
Early Church
The early church read this pairing with sobriety:
- Baptism and miracles did not immunize against unbelief
- Assurance of salvation without obedience was a lie. (And both Calvinists and Evangelicals heartily embrace this lie.)
- “Today” was always urgent
Laodicea was not backslidden pagans; it was comfortable and lukewarm Christians who saw no danger at all in their ongoing sinful practices. How many evangelicals today, despite their ongoing sins, sense the danger they are in? Sensing danger and believing in eternal security are mutually exclusive.
Eastern Orthodox
Orthodoxy reads both as a warning against:
- Spiritual pride
- Presumption
- Forgetfulness of God
Faith must be kept alive through vigilance, repentance, obedience, and humility.
Calvinist approach
Calvinism must carefully qualify the language to explain away these warnings.
Typical moves by Calvinism:
- Laodiceans are nominal believers (not real believers) against the apparent evidence to the contrary
- Hebrews’ warnings describe the means God uses to preserve the elect, which makes no sense because the elect’s preservation is based on God’s decree, not their performance.
- True believers cannot finally fall away, which emasculates the warning. They do this repeatedly, and it definitely fools many.
Tension:
- The text speaks directly to “brethren” and not nominal believers.
- Participation language resists reduction to profession of faith alone
The system survives, but the urgency is reinterpreted as nonexistent. How is that for good exegesis?
Arminian approach
Arminians read both texts plainly:
- Believers can grow lukewarm
- Hearts can harden
- Departure from God is real and fatal if unrepentant
“Today” is a genuine opportunity, not a rhetorical flourish.
Evangelical tension
Modern evangelicalism often:
- Quotes Laodicea devotionally
- Uses Hebrews 3 diagnostically
- Avoids connecting them existentially as a matter of life and death
Lukewarmness becomes a mood, not the grave sin of unbelief.
The final fault line
Laodicea in Revelation 3 plus Hebrews 3 ask one final question: Can confidence replace obedience?
- Early church / Orthodoxy answers: No — confidence must be guarded.
- Calvinism: Confidence proves election. (What vain presumption is that.)
- Arminianism: Confidence must be sustained by faithfulness.
- Evangelicalism: Often unresolved. (How sad? That speaks to compromise.)
Laodicea is the last church for a reason. It is not attacked. It is not pressured. It simply forgets God and stops believing in His word. And Hebrews 3 says what happens when forgetting becomes unbelief. Explain to me how the present evangelical church in our nation doesn’t closely resemble this Laodicean church.
This is the message to the church of Laodicea:
14. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; ……
15. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. (How many lukewarm Christians fill our evangelical churches today? Is it not the vast majority?)
16. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (Can a genuine Christian be lukewarm or cold? It appears to me that much of evangelical Christianity today says yes, genuine Christians can be cold and lukewarm, and mostly are. Few are those who are hot and do not live in repeated sin.)
17. Because 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: (Is this not the picture of much of evangelical Christianity today?)
18. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see. (My continued prayer is that God anoints our eyes with His eye salve so that the truth permeates our hard hearts, blind eyes, and deaf ears.)
19. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
20. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. (God stands at the door of our hearts, seeking entrance into what is supposed to be His temple, wondering why we do not invite Him in. Might it have something to do with our belief that living in unrepentant sin is to be expected for the children of God?)
21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Eternal life and salvation are conditional. Don’t believe those who lie to you that it is not.)
22. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
You now know precisely why the evangelical church downplays the historic preaching regarding Revelation Chapters 2 and 3. They want to hear messages that comfort and encourage them in their ongoing sin.
