An Exposition of Revelation .pdf

generate neutrality than an outwardly true position, if self-judgment be not maintained with godly
sincerity. The more one stands in the forefront of the battle, with the responsible testimony of God, the
more His grace and truth are in letter brought out before others, if there be not also walk according to
the light, sooner or later comes a lapse back into neutrality, if not active enmity. For heart and
conscience are not animated and governed by the power of God's Spirit through living faith in Christ.
Indifference to all that is good must follow; and the only kind of zeal, if zeal can so exist, will be for
what is of the first man, worldly, and bad.
This is Laodiceanism. So repulsive does the Master declare it to be, that one need not wonder
that most are unwilling for it to be their lot, or that it can be, as it is, the last recorded phase before the
church is traced no more on earth. People vainly dream of progress, and flatter themselves. "Thus
because thou art neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I
am rich, and am grown rich, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art the wretched one
and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified by fire."
They wanted everything that was characteristic of Christianity: "gold" or divine righteousness in
Christ, "that thou mayest be rich"; "and white garments," or the righteousnesses of saints, "that thou
mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be manifested; and eyesalve to anoint
shine eyes, that thou mayest see." They had lost the perception of what God values. All was dark as to
truth, and uncertain as to moral judgment. Holy separateness and savour were gone. "As many as I
dearly love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and am
knocking: if any one hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him,
and he with me." The Lord presents Himself even there in His pitiful way to meet their every want
"He that overcometh, I will give him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame and
sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the
churches."
The utmost promised in the word that closes the epistle goes not beyond reigning with Him. It is
not anything special. For every one that has part in the first resurrection reigns with Christ, as even
shall the Jewish sufferers under earlier enemies, or later under the Beast. It is a mistake therefore to
suppose that it is a singular distinction. For all amounts to this, that the Lord will hold, after all, to His
own truth in spite of unfaithfulness. There may be individual reality, even where the surroundings are
miserably untoward. But all that are born of God and are Christ's share the kingdom.
Such is the bearing of the seven churches to which the Lord was pleased to send the letters
contained in the second and third chapters. We have found substantial reason and ample evidence in
their own contents, as well as in the character of the book itself, to look for a meaning far more
comprehensive than only the historical notice of the Asiatic churches then primarily addressed. That
John wrote to these seven churches is indisputable; but that no more was meant ought not to be
assumed. "The things that are" is an unusual and suggestive expression. The septenary number in itself
is significant, and its division into three and four. Again, the order of their contents, as well as their
nature severally, points to a continuative inference. There are depicted successive phases of strikingly
varied ecclesiastical states, as objects of the Lord's judgment from the threat on the first till the spuing
out of the last. Further it is plain, if certain phases do not abide, that at a given point in their course the
language implies that the latter ones continue up to Christ's coming. From Thyatira inclusively those
also that follow, as they successively arise, go on together till then.
Thus one gathers from the internal evidence that the three earlier churches are severed in
character from the rest; for though all are alike typical and successive from the apostle's day, only the
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