p. 40114. Also to the angel of the ecclesia of Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the Witness faithful and true, the Beginning of the creation of the Deity: 15. I have known thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. Would that thou wert cold or hot! 16. Thus because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to vomit thee out of my mouth. 17. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have abounded in wealth, and have need of nothing, and hast not known that thou art the wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked one. 18. I counsel thee to buy from me gold which has been refined by fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white garments, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be apparent; and anoint thine eyes with salve, that thou mayest see. 19. Whomsoever I love I discipline and admonish; be zealous, therefore, and change. 20. Behold, I have stood at the door, and I knock: if any one may hear my voice, and open the door, I will enter in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 21. The victor, I will give to him to sit with me on my throne, as I also vanquish and sit with my Father on his throne. 22. He that hath an ear let him hearken to what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias.
1. Topography of Laodicea
Laodicea, the city of the seventh ecclesia addressed by the Spirit, lay south of Philadelphia, in the way to return to Ephesus, so that it will be found, upon an inspection of the map of Asia Minor, that the seven ecclesias laid in a kind of circular form, so that the natural progress was from Ephesus to Smyrna, from Smyrna to Pergamos, from Pergamos to Thyatira, from Thyatira to Sardis, from Sardis to Philadelphia, from Philadelphia to Laodicea, and from Laodicea round to Ephesus again, (from which it was distant about forty-two miles south,) which is the method and order the Spirit hath observed in addressing them. That there was a flourishing association of believers at Laodicea in the first century, is evident from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. In ch. iv. 15, he exhorts them to “salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, even Nymphas and the ecclesia which is in his house.” He appears also to have written especially to the Laodiceans, for he tells the Colossians to read the epistle obtainable from them.
The ruins of the city shew it to have been very large, situate in a volcanic region upon seven hills, and encompassing a large space of ground. Some notion may be formed of its former greatness and glory from three theatres and a circus which are remaining, one of which is very fine, as it was capable of containing above thirty thousand men, into whose area they descended by fifty steps. Laodicea is now called Eski Hissar, or the old castle: In its apostasy, the ecclesia in this city became the metropolitan, or Mother Church, of sixteen bishopricks, yet p. 402 it is now desolate, and not so much as inhabited by shepherds, but is become a habitation only for wolves, foxes, and jackals, a den of dragons, snakes, and vipers. Thus we have in the ecclesia of the Laodiceans in the fulness of its apostasy, a Mother of Harlots sitting upon seven hills; and because of its spiritual misery, poverty, blindness, and nakedness, reduced, with the city of its habitation, to utter desolation and irrecoverable ruin, and its site become the den of ferocious beasts, and the hiding place of reptile abominations.
Laodicea was long an inconsiderable place, but it increased towards the time of Augustus Cæsar. The fertility of the soil, and the prosperous circumstances of some of its citizens, raised it to greatness. Hiero, who adorned it with many offerings, bequeathed to the people more than two thousand talents; and though an inland town, it grew to be more potent than the cities on the coast, and became one of the largest towns in Phrygia, as its present ruins prove.
Chandler, in his “Travels,” p. 225, says, that “Laodicea was often damaged by earthquakes, and restored by its own opulence, or by the munificence of the Roman emperors. These resources failed, and the city, it is probable, became early a scene of ruin. About the year 1097 it was possessed by the Turks, and submitted to Ducas, general of the emperor Alexis. In 1120, the Turks sacked some of the cities of Phrygia by the Meander, but were defeated by the emperor John Comnenus, who took Laodicea, and repaired and built anew the walls. About 1161, it was again unfortified. Many of the inhabitants were then killed with their bishop, or carried with their cattle into captivity by the Turkish sultan. In 1190, the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa, going by Laodicea with his army toward Syria, on a crusade, was received so kindly, that he prayed on his knees for the prosperity of the people—which prayer, as the future proves, was of no avail in heaven; for about 1196, this region with Caria was dreadfully ravaged by the Turks. The sultan, on the invasion of the Tartars in 1255, gave Laodicea to the Romans, but they were unable to defend it, and it soon returned to the Turks. We saw no traces of houses, churches, or mosques. All was silence and solitude. Several strings of camels passed eastward of the hill; but a fox which we first discovered by the ears peeping over a brow, was the only inhabitant of Laodicea.”
2. The Amen
This seventh epistle, like the others, is from the Spirit, who styles himself “The Amen, the Witness faithful and true, and the Beginning p. 403 of the creation of the Deity.” We have already expounded the title indicated by “the Amen” on page 187. Jesus, by the transforming energy of the Father-Deity, became Spirit, and is now “the Lord the Spirit.” Speaking some sixty years and upwards after the event of transformation, he said to John in Patmos, “I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; and I have been dead, and behold I am living for the Aions of the Aions, AMEN.” He was the individual Amen—the incarnation of faithfulness, and therefore “the Witness faithful and true”—the Amen-Witness; “for,” saith Paul, in 2 Cor. i. 19, “the Son of the Deity, Jesus Anointed, who was preached among you through us, through me, Sylvanus, and Timothy, he was not yea and nay, but in him was yea: for all the promises of Deity in him are the yea, and in him the Amen, to the Deity with glory through us.” All the promises of the Deity in Jesus are the Amen. This is the definition of the individual Amen contained in this passage from Paul. Now, if only some promises were fulfilled in Jesus, such as those pertaining to the sufferings of the Anointed One; and some others, such as those relating to the good things promised to Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem, and the glory consequent thereon, are never fulfilled in and through him, then, instead of Jesus being “the Amen,” he would be “the yea and the nay;” and if the promises concerning the sufferings and glory are not at all fulfilled in him, then he would be το ὁν[?] “the Nay.” But some have been fulfilled in him, and all the rest of the promises will yet be accomplished in him, and therefore he is το ναι, “the yea,” and το Αμην, “the Amen,” or the truth and faithfulness itself. When, therefore, the glorified Jesus says to the Star-Angel Presbytery of the ecclesia of the Laodiceans, and through it to all that generation of ecclesias, and to us of these later times in fellowship with them through belief of the same things they received—when He says, he is “the Amen,” it is equivalent to saying, that all the promises not fulfilled in his first coming, will assuredly be accomplished when he comes again; and that this advent with glory is as certain as the existence of the Deity, which none but a fool would call in question. All the promises fulfilled in and through Jesus are the Amen. All who do not recognize this, do not accept him as “the Amen,” and therefore in effect charge the Deity with unfaithfulness; for apart from Jesus Anointed they will never be performed. “I am the truth,” said Jesus; that is, all the truth spoken by the Eternal Spirit receives incarnate fulfilment in, by, and through him; and all this “to the Deity with glory”—to the manifestation of the Deity in his Sons with glory, styled by Paul elsewhere, “the manifestation of the Sons of the Deity,” which is the full development of the great mystery of godliness, “Deity manifested in flesh.”
p. 4043. The Witness Faithful and True
As all the promises are to be fulfilled in and through Jesus Anointed, according to the testimony he gave in the day of his weakness, he is endorsed also as “the Witness faithful and true.” He was “the Witness” by eminence. When standing at Pilate’s bar, he said, in answer to Pilate’s question, “Art thou King then?” “Thou sayest, for I am King. I have been born for this; and I came into the world for this, that I might bear witness to the truth. Every one being of the truth, hearkeneth to my voice.” He bore this witness before the people, and at the bar of Caiaphas as well. Before these he testified, that he was “the Anointed One, the Son of the Deity;” and that his enemies should “hereafter see the Son of Man sitting in right places of the Power, and coming upon the clouds of the heaven”—Matt. xxvi. 64. But, as he told Nicodemus, “We, (that is, the Father and Himself,) speak what we do know, and testify what we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.” His contemporaries in the flesh rejected him as a false witness; for John the immerser speaking of him, says, “What he hath seen and heard that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony.” There were but few exceptions to this, yet sufficient of them to be noted, for John also said, “He that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true. For he whom the Deity hath sent speaketh the words of the Deity”—John iii. 32. These words were set forth in “the Gospel of the Kingdom of the Deity,” which Jesus declared he was sent to preach—Luke iv. 13, 19, 43; and if it might then be said that “no man received his testimony,” it might with great propriety be said so now, and for the same reason, because the pious and others seek honor one of another, and “not the honor which cometh from the Deity only.”
Jesus admitted, that “if he bore witness of himself his witness was not true.” This was incontrovertible. The Mosaic law, under which Jesus lived, required two or three witnesses for the establishment of truth, so that if Jesus could have adduced no other evidence than his own, the people of Judah would have been guiltless in rejecting his claims to the Messiahship, and in repudiating the gospel of the kingdom to be manifested through him. No man of himself can demonstrate his own parentage. Jesus claimed to be the Son of the Deity, a claim which could only be established, in view of the natural untruthfulness of humanity, and the frailty of woman, by the Deity himself. This was publicly and notably done before the multitude on Jordan’s banks, when the Spirit of the Deity descended upon Jesus in the form of a p. 405 dove, and the voice came from the excellent glory in the heaven, saying, “This is my Son the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Thus the Father attested him; and afterwards, John the immerser, who heard and saw the wonder; and all the apostles who were present, and especially Peter, James, and John, who afterwards, in the presence of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, heard the same declaration on the mount, with the addition of the words, “HEAR YE HIM!”
Here, then, were John the baptizer, “a burning and a shining light;” “the Father himself;” the scriptures of the prophets; the multitude at his baptism; the apostles; and the sanction of the heavenly host which announced his birth to the shepherds; to say nothing of Joseph, Mary, and their immediate kin, who might be suspected of false testimony from interested motives—all testifying that he was “a witness faithful and true.” In the salutation in ch. i. 5, John introduces this characteristic of Jesus: “Grace,” says he, “unto you, and peace * * * from Jesus Anointed, the Faithful Witness.” There has been none upon earth more faithful than he; therefore, he is preëminently the faithful one—faithful to the truth, and to him that sent him; “faithful as a Son over his own house”—Heb. iii. 6; faithful unto death, as an example for all in him to follow. He styles himself “faithful and true” because his sayings are such. He testifies the truth in this apocalypse. The Lord God, or Adonai Yahweh, of the holy prophets—that is, Jesus Anointed—sent his messenger, to show unto his servants, through John, the things which must be shortly done: “and he said unto me,” saith John, “these sayings are faithful and true”—ch. xxii. 6. In ch. xix. 11, the word “witness” is dropped, and the Lord the Spirit, who speaks to the Laodiceans, is styled “the Faithful and True, who judges and makes war in righteousness.” He does not come, then, as a witness, but to perform all the things which have been promised from of old—to destroy the Apostasy, and to bless all nations in Abraham and his Seed.
4. The Beginning of the Creation of the Deity
The third designation by which the Spirit characterizes himself, in his address to the ecclesia of the Laodiceans, is, that he is “the Beginning of the creation of the Deity”—ή αρχη της κτισεως του Θεου. Now, this phrase might be supposed to mean that Jesus, and Jesus Anointed, were the beginning of the creation of which Moses treats in Genesis; or that they were the chief of that creation. But these suppositions cannot be admitted; and for the sufficient reason that Jesus p. 406 unanointed, or Jesus Anointed, had no existence in the era of the Adamic creation. The anointing Spirit existed then, and was the creating energy; but at the same time an uncreated agent, and therefore not the first of a creation.
In the passage before us the Lord the Spirit, or Jesus Anointed, refers to another creation—to A NEW CREATION. He is the beginning of that new creation of the Deity; even of that referred to in Rev. xxi. 5, in which Jesus Anointed says, “Behold I make all things new.” When all things are made new there will be a new creation upon the earth, adapted in all its elements to the new population prepared in the previous seven thousands of years to inhabit it. Jesus Anointed is the creator of this new creation; and himself also the first element of it that has been created without human intervention. Enoch, Moses, and Elijah were glorified men before his creation; but they were not a direct creation of the Deity; for their paternity was human. Jesus had no human father; but was created by the Spirit as independently of the will of the flesh as Adam, the Beginning of the Animal Creation of the Deity, was before him.
It is revealed that the Eternal Spirit will create from the dust, and establish upon the earth, a population, every individual of which shall be like Jesus is now—glorious, incorruptible of body, and deathless; the Deity bodily manifested in each of them—Rev. xxi. 3, 4; and that such a constitution and order of things will obtain in relation to them, as will be suitable to pure and immortal beings—to a world of gods, or elohim. This order, or κοσμος, is styled “a New Heaven and New Earth”—a New Government and New People; a phrase which indicates that, although all men then upon the earth are immortal and free from all the evils of the present state, yet are not all of equal rank and authority; and that government is designed for the purpose of affording scope for a diversity of honors, that he who has distinguished himself more than his fellows in the cause of truth and righteousness in the previous animal existence, may be a more distinguished and brilliant star in the firmament “beyond” the Millennial Aions. This principle of diversity obtained in the kingdom of the Deity when David and Solomon occupied the throne of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Though all were Israelites and a holy people, all were not equal in rank and authority. The principle also obtains in all the kingdoms of the world; all Englishmen are not dukes and princes; nor are all noblemen of equal rank, influence, and wealth, but the diversity in their original patents of nobility is predicated upon what the Devil, who promotes them, considers their merits in his service. No Englishman can become a member of the royal family who is not born such. It is an p. 407 hereditary distinction, and eminently exclusive. So in respect of the New Government of the Post-millennial Aion, it will, we believe, be restricted to the Saints raised and transformed at the advent of the Amen. Jesus and the Saints anointed will rule the nations as kings and priests during the Millennium; at the end of which the priesthood will be abolished, but not the royalty. This will continue for ever, in an illimitable sense. But the Millennial Earth is to be abolished as well as the priesthood; not the globe, or planet, called Earth, but the world of nations, consisting of mortal men, over which Jesus and his glorified brethren reign during the thousand years. “Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee, O Israel”—Jer. xxx. 11. All non-Israelitish nations are to be abolished. That is, there will be no national diversities in the post-millennial ages. All will be righteous, deathless, and citizens of Israel’s Commonwealth, which will continue eternally under a new constitution. There will then be no English, French, Spaniards, Italians, and such like; but all will be Israelites by the adoption or redemption from death, or the mortal state.
The Millennial Earth will then be purged of all sinful elements, and the remnant transformed; so that it will be essentially “a New Earth,” or population, subordinate to Jesus and the Saints, who will constitute the luminaries of the “New Heaven,” as they will have done of the heaven become old, and called by John “the former heaven.” The position of these is fixed; they are the sun and fixed stars both of the Aions of the Aions, and Beyond. “They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for the Olahm and Beyond”—Dan. xii. 3. Here is a marked difference, the generality of the saved being as “the brightness of the firmament;” but those who have distinguished themselves in the service of the truth, stand out from the diffused brightness as brilliant particular stars. But one star differs from another in glory in the celestial arch; so will it be in the New Heavens of the Olahm and Beyond—עולם ועד. There are places on the right hand and on the left in the glory “for whom it is prepared;” and there is a place for the Sun of Righteousness; and for the Twelve on the tribal thrones of the kingdom; and many situations in the royal house for the saved in general. A place for every one, and for every one a place; but each for the place as appointed. The apostles will certainly shine as a bright constellation, which can be constituted of no other stars than themselves—a constellation of twelve bright orbs, each one upon a throne of Israel—the thrones of the house of David. Yet is the least in the kingdom of the heavens greater than the greatest of all the p. 408 prophets unglorified; so that while there is greatness for all, there will exist the least among the great.
Now this new creation, wonderful in its development and consummation began with the formation of a babe in the womb of the Handmaid of Yah; and ends with the cessation of “every curse”—Rev. xxii. 3. The power of the Deity overshadowed the daughter of Heli, and in the set time was born Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews. Here was a creation of the Deity; but it was only the “beginning of the creation” hereafter to be effected by the same power. When created and anointed, this new creation was Eternal Power manifest in flesh; and when resurrected and glorified, that flesh was trasformed into Spirit, or Deity—a substantial corporeal entity, called by Paul a “Quickening Spirit,” and “the Lord the Spirit.” Hence, viewing him thus, and not as a body of death lying in a sepulchre, the apostle says of him, “who is an image of the invisible Deity, first-born of all creation” (πασης κτισεως). He then gives the reason why this first-born image of the Deity is preëminent over all; “because,” saith he, “were created by him the all things; the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the things seen and the things unseen, whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities, or authorities; the all things have been created through him and for him; and he is before all things, and the all things by him hold together; And he is the Head of the Body, the ecclesia, who is the beginning, first-born from among the dead, that among all he might become preëminent; for in him it pleased that all the fullness should dwell”—Col. i. 15-19. Compare this with Gen. i. 2, where the creation of the material world is attributed to Spirit of Elohim—רוּח אלהים; the same spirit afterwards incarnated in Jesus; so that he, when anointed, was not only the created, but the antecedent and creator of all things defined.
5. “I Know thy Works”
After the Spirit’s introduction of himself by stating certain of his characteristics having some special adaptation to the Star-Angel Presbytery addressed, he forthwith declares to each of the seven, “I have known thy works”—οιδα τα εργα σου; and then proceeds to point them out, and to approve or reprobate them, as the case may be. None of them seem to have been in so disgusting a state as this of the Laodiceans. The Ephesian was remarkable for labor, patience, and intolerance of evil doers; though they had some “liars” among them, who said they were apostles, but were not. The Smyrnean was tribulated, p. 409 poor in this world, but rich in faith; but not without blasphemers of the synagogue of the Satan. The Pergamian held fast the name, and had not denied the faith; yet had in it the holders of Balaam’s teaching and that of the Nikolaitans. The Thyatiran was noted for love, service, faith, patience, and works more abundant than in their beginning: yet they tolerated teachers of the Jezebel type. The Sardian was dead, and the things pertaining to it ready to die; because their works were not perfect before the Deity. The Philadelphian had a little strength, had kept the word, and had not denied the name. All these had something to work upon by which the evils among them might be corrected; for even Sardis is exhorted to “strengthen the things that remain.” But in regard to the Laodicean Star-Angel Presbytery it appears to have been in such a perfectly self-satisfied condition—in so thoroughly lukewarm a condition—that there was no possibility apparent of restoring it to health. There is no redeeming excellence cited in its favor. It was lukewarm. In an anti-amen state; unfaithful and untrue; and without zeal for the manifestation of the new creation, and therefore “removed from the hope of the gospel.”
Being destitute of these qualities of the true believer, they delighted in the things that perish. Like professors of the nineteenth century, they said that they had need of nothing. They were rich in the wealth of the world, and high in favor with the powers that be. Being rich, they were influential in the state; and being lukewarm, they were not troublesome in bearing witness for the truth against the superstitions of the world. Hence, the world ceased to persecute them, because the world loves its own, and they had become the world’s, in ceasing to testify against it.
But, though they regarded themselves so complacently, the Lord the Spirit, who seeth not as man seeth, contemplated them with great nausea and disgust. He told them that they were ignorant of their true condition; as ignorant of it as our contemporaries are of theirs. “Thou knowest not,” says he, “that thou art the wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked one.” They were “wretched,” being under condemnation; they were “pitiable,” being really wretched while they deemed themselves in bliss; they were “poor,” and “blind,” being weak in faith and alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that was in them; and they were “naked,” being in their sins.
6. “I am about to vomit thee out of my Mouth”
What was to be done with a generation of such apostates from the faith and hope of the gospel? Were the gifts of the Spirit to be p. 410 continued with them, by which they had been as in the mouth of the Spirit speaking to the world for the conversion of sinners; and for the building themselves up in the knowledge of the Son of the Deity? Should the light of the Spirit still burn in the lampstand, and be regarded with indifference or as useless, to so rich and prosperous a community of christians, as they esteemed themselves? The sun may shine, but the blind do not see him; so anointing spirit which taught them all things (1 Jno. ii. 27) was in their lampstand, but they were so deluded by traditions that they could not discern it. Even as it is now. The Bible which teacheth all things necessary for wisdom and salvation is in all “the churches,” and read from all the pulpits; but so perverted is the public mind by clerical theology, that when the truth is read, the people cannot discern its import. The Angel of the ecclesia of Laodiceans was emphatically “the wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked one.” They were in spirit, as was Balaam, who strove to prophesy against Israel for the wages of unrighteousness which he loved. They had been baptized or immersed, “into the Name of the Holy Spirit,” and had received the gifts of the Spirit; but the first generation of the Angel-Presbytery had diminished; and men speaking perverse things to draw disciples after themselves had got in among them as “successors,” and by their teaching had created a lukewarmness towards the things of the name and faith of the Anointed Jesus. They had therefore become as the incompatible ingesta of an irritable and nauseated stomach. This was their relation to the Spirit in whom they were for the time. If they had been cold they would have been refreshing; for “as the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger (or angel) to them that send him; for he refresheth the soul of his masters”—Prov. xxv. 13. “Would, saith the Spirit, that thou wert cold!” for then, as it was a harvest time, the Father and the Son would have been refreshed in beholding their faithfulness. But they were not cold, in other words, they were not a faithful angel-presbytery. Neither were they hot. They had no zeal for the truth, therefore they did not speak it forth. “They needed nothing,” they said; they were rich, and had made their fortune. They were transformed into a hierarchy of clergymen, and had become more potent in Laodicea than the priests of the idol temples, which were closed for the want of worshippers. They were looked up to by the wealth and fashion of the city as the ambassadors of the Deity, and the inspired mediators between heaven and earth; and were respected and honored by the plaudits and largesses of the rich, in whom, as we have seen, Laodicea did greatly abound. The rich ministered to them abundantly in temporals, so that they had “need of nothing:” and in return they ministered to them p. 411 “smooth things” after the fashion of the ministrations of the intensely pious, respectable, sleek, and downy “ministers of grace,” who now abound on every side, even of
“The things that mount the rostrum with a skip,\ And then skip down again; pronounce a text;\ Cry hem! and reading what they never wrote,\ Just thirty minutes, huddle up their work,\ And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.”—Cowper.
They said “they had need of nothing.” Much is implied in these words when uttered by an eldership contemporary with an apostle. When “the gospel of the kingdom” first visited Laodicea in the first half, or middle, of the first century, its population was divided between the Jews and Pagans. The latter had become like the Papists of France and Italy in our time, worshippers from habit of the objects they despised; while the Jews were more zealous for mere human tradition than the righteousness of the law. Here, then, was a great work to be performed—the turning of these Jews and pagans from the Satan to the Deity, as manifested in the Anointed Jesus. So long as a minority remained to be converted, there was work to be done, and the party appointed to do it could not say “they had need of nothing,” while their work remained unfinished. That work was never accomplished; for when it had progressed to a certain point, the christian body in Laodicea became “lukewarm;” they ceased to be “hot;” their meditation upon the word ceasing, the fire also ceased to burn; and they no longer spoke with their tongue the glorious and wonderful works of the Deity—Ps. xxxix. 3. They had vanquished the temples and the synagogues in the argument; they had reduced them to silence, and had no longer in Laodicea an open enemy to contend with; the pressure from without was removed, and taking the lead in Laodicean society, as the clergy do now, with traditions to suit all comers, they were infected with the spirit of the world which hearkened to them, because of the compact which had been established by their unfaithfulness. By way of illustration, ask the divines who officiate in the odor of sanctity in the fashionable pulpits of New York City, London, and so forth, well paid, and pampered with all the luxuries of life, honored by a delighted world, arrayed, if not in purple, in the glossiest black, and fine linen, and splendidly lodged in elegantly furnished abodes—ask such if there is any thing they need? They believe they are the elect; the successors of the apostles, and “the ambassadors of Jesus Christ;” they say they are christians, and ministers of righteousness, and that their rich and prosperous flocks are “the Church of God,” the very kingdom of heaven p. 412 itself—what, then, can they possibly need? Do they desire a large attendance of the ill-clad poor in their gorgeous and pillared temples? Is it for the great unwashed, the bone and sinew of society, they have caused to be erected their “houses of God,” tricked off with carpetry and plush? It is notorious, that “immortal souls” in the rough and sordid exterior of poverty, are not wanted in the fashionable “churches,” the clerical synagogue of the Satan. Having, therefore, all they desire, the language of their condition is, “I am rich, and abound in wealth, and have need of nothing.” They are perfectly satisfied with what exists, and are unwilling that it should be disturbed. They are surrounded by society in festering rottenness, and in profound ignorance of the prophets and apostles; but they do nothing beyond the pale of their own little respectabilities. True, a society may send hirelings to visit the dens of poverty, but they are needy adventurers, not the well-to-do pastors of fashionable and wealthy flocks, who get a home-missionary birth for a piece of bread. Such is the system originating in and worked out by Sin’s Flesh, which was the same in the first century that it is in the nineteenth. Hence, when professors of christianity in these two centuries say, “we are rich, and abound in wealth, and have need of nothing,” it is because the same temporal and spiritual condition is characteristic of each.
This wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked one of Laodicea, is regarded as being symbolically in the mouth of the Spirit. This must be admitted, or it will be altogether inconceivable how she could be “vomited out” of his mouth. As we have said, the Star-Angel Presbytery had been “immersed into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” upon the belief of the gospel of the kingdom, which entitled them to be addressed in the same language as their brethren in Thessalonica, whom Paul describes as “IN the Deity the Father, and IN the Lord Jesus Anointed”—1 Ep. i. 1. To be “in the Lord Jesus Anointed” was the same as being “in the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” for it required the Son and the Holy Spirit to constitute the Lord Jesus Anointed. The Laodicean Angel was therefore in the Lord Jesus Anointed, or in the Spirit; and there was no way in which they could be expelled, ejected, or vomited forth, but by the mouth of the Spirit. Now, if one man in his indignation say to another, “I vomit, or spue, you out of my mouth,” the saying imports, that he henceforth repudiates all association with him with extreme loathing. The Spirit did not say that he had done this, or there would have been no scope for counsel, discipline, and admonition. A community pretending to be christian, but in fact repudiated by the Spirit, has no communion with the Christ, is the subject of no discipline, and receives no admonition, p. 413 or fatherly instruction. “Whom the Lord loves he chastens,” and where there is no chastening, as in the case of “the Names and Denominations” of “christendom,” professors are bastards, and not sons—Heb. xii. 5-8. The Spirit said, “I am about—μελλω—to vomit thee out of my mouth, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot.” There is, however, no evidence that the gifts of the Spirit were withdrawn, and the light of the presbyterial lampstand extinguished, in the generation contemporary with the publication of the Apocalypse. It is possible that discipline and admonition operating upon some of them may have resulted in a change, and a renewed manifestation of zeal, to which they were exhorted by the Spirit; for if he had no people among them capable of being saved, the exhortation would have been entirely useless; “be zealous, therefore,” said he, “and change.”
7. The Counsel of the Spirit
As long as an ecclesia is a called-out association, the Lord the Spirit waits to restore it from the lowest conceivable ebb of faith; so that if she of Laodicea had taken the warning of the ejectment prepared for her in the future, she might have recovered, and not been spued out at all. It was to save her from this catastrophe that the Spirit counselled her to buy gold and garments of him, and to inoint her eyes with salve.
“Gold refined by fire” is the symbol of a tried faith. This appears from the comparison in 1 Pet. i. 7, where the faithful are said “for a season to be in heaviness through manifold persecutions; that the trial of their faith, being much more precious than of gold which perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Anointed.” The condition of which they boasted, in which they were rich and abounding in wealth, and needing nothing, could not develop faith of this character A tried faith comes forth of tribulation, not of worldly prosperity, which is only calculated to pervert, weaken, and corrupt. The Spirit, therefore, counselled them to buy a tried faith, which could only be purchased in those days at the cost of “much tribulation,” which “worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed.” To become subject to the tribulation, they had only to “contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints,” which would put them into antagonism with the world without, and the lusts of the flesh within. They would not then be able to say that they had need of nothing, for they would most likely find themselves stripped of every thing, and reduced to an humble dependence on the goodness and p. 414 bounty of God. To buy a tried faith, then, would be the fruit of zeal, and of a change of mind, and the cause of their justification, or investment with the “white garments” of righteousness.
But to arrive at this most desirable anti-Laodicean state, it was necessary that the eyes of their understandings be anointed with the unction of the Spirit, that they might perceive what, with all their piety and wealth, they were perfectly blind to. The Spirit’s eye-salve is the word of the testimony contained in the writings of the prophets and apostles. If they would work this into their eyes, “inoint” them well with it, they would be brought to see how wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked they really were. They would discover that instead of having need of nothing, they were in need of every thing; and “needed that one teach them again the first principles of the oracles of the Deity; and had become such as had need of milk, not of strong meat.” Possessed of a tried faith, and invested with righteousness, with the gifts of the Spirit, they would have been rich indeed, and well clothed, and enlightened, and fit to appear before the Anointed Jesus with praise and honor and glory at his apocalypse; for God hath chosen, not the rich and increased in goods, who have need of nothing, with poverty of faith, but “he hath chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, to be the HEIRS of that kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”—James ii. 5.
8. “I have stood at the Door, and I Knock”
The door here referred to is evidently the ears collectively of those addressed. This appears from what follows, as, “If any one hear my voice and open the door, I will enter in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” “Let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith,” says Paul. Now for Christ to enter in to dwell there, and consequently to banquet there, his voice, which is the truth, must first knock at, or sound, upon the ears of a man. If a man do not hearken to the truth, he keeps the door which leads to his heart, or understanding and affections, shut; and a faith-appreciated Christ cannot enter. The Greek sentence, which I have expressed in the translation, is ιδον, εστηκα επι την θυραν, και κρουω, “I have stood at the door, and I knock.” How long he had been standing there is left to inference; but in now sending this epistle to them through the apostle John, he knocked audibly. Some of them would probably not accept the epistle as genuine, especially as it was so little flattering to their vanity; but would give it the go by, and attribute it to some pretender to inspiration, as many p. 415 do in our day. paying the Apocalypse little or no respect. Others, however, among them might discern in it the voice of the Spirit, as we do, and give heed to it. In so doing they would set diligently to work as poor, blind, and naked men, to recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, and not rest content “until,” by close study of the scriptures, “Christ be formed in them;” and when so formed, they would hold that heart-satisfying communion with him expressed in the words, “I will sup with him, and he with me.”
The topography of Laodicea, given on page 401, is a standing monument of the impenitence of this seventh Star-Angel. Had it gained the victory over the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, and maintained the gospel and its institutions in their apostolicity and purity, Laodicea would not now be a mere habitation for wolves, foxes, and jackals. The existing desolation was initiated because “they changed the truth of God into a lie;” turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denied the only Lord God, even the Lord Jesus Anointed. For this cause, “God sent upon them strong delusion,” that they should believe the lie they had invented; and which has been traditionally transmitted to our generation, and constitutes the “Christianity” in which the world delights—a christianity which is the glory of the Satan; but as nauseating to the true believer, and as provocative of emesis, as the Laodicean Angel, which was at length spued out of the mouth of the Anointed Jesus.
It is probable, however, that there was a remnant even in Laodicea; that all the members of the ecclesia did not share in the lukewarmness of the generation coëval with the Apocalypse. Some probably sorrowed over the faithlessness of the Eldership, and the declension of the generality. If they succeeded in maintaining their position as faithful witnesses of the name and faith of Jesus Anointed, till the ejectment of the Angel from the Spirit’s mouth, they would themselves become a distinct and separate party, characterized as “keeping the commandments of the Deity, and having the testimony of Jesus Anointed;” while the others who were spued out as an utter abomination, are known on the page of history as “THE CATHOLIC CHURCH,” the Mother of Romish and Protestant Sectarianism—Rev. xii. 7; xvii. 5.
9. The Promise to the Victor
To the remnant who should “overcome the Great Red Dragon—that old Serpent, surnamed the Devil and the Satan—by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, not loving their lives unto p. 416 the death,” (ch. xii. 11, 9,) it is promised in this epistle that they shall become the joint occupants of the throne of Jesus Anointed: “I will give to the victor to sit with me in my throne.” In the letter to the Thyatirans, the same class had been promised dominion over the broken and conquered nations; and in this they are told they shall reign with Christ; for to share in his throne is to reign with him.
Christ attains to dominion by conquest; so must all who share with him in his reign. This is expressed in the words, “as I also vanquish and sit with my Father in his throne.” In the English Version, this reads, “even as I also overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne.” The Greek of this is, ως καγω ενικησα και εκαθισα μετα του πατρος μου εν τῳ θρονῳ αυτου. In this sentence the verbs ĕnikēsa and ĕkathisa are both of the aorist tense; that is, they express actions without fixing the time of the actions; for the word aorist signifies without boundaries, indeterminate, indefinite. In the translation I have rendered them by the indefinite present, which is always flowing. “I vanquish” is a simple fact, which, in the present tense, does not affirm that the action is complete. The action continues, it may be for a long or short time, until it merges into the perfect, when it may be said “I have overcome,” or “I overcame.” If the Spirit had meant that the overcoming process was completed, he would have used the word νενικηκα nĕnikēka, “I have overcome;” but as he did not, we are to understand that ĕnikēsa is prophecy and not history; that is, an action to be accomplished in the future.
It cannot be affirmed that Jesus Anointed has overcome the enemies to this throne and kingdom, and that affirmation be in harmony with the word. Jesus claimed the throne of David, or sovereignty over Israel, and the world; and argued his rights before the people and other rulers. But he did not overcome; on the contrary, they overcame him in putting him to death. True, he was raised by the power of the Deity; but when raised, he did not obtain what he claimed. He was even then like a man in the midst of a crowd of enemies too strong for him. Some friends perceiving it, rush in, and rescue him from their grasp; so the Father interposed and extricated him from their snares, and carried him off to heaven, where he is secure against their attack, until the time arrives to renew the conflict; and for the Lamb to overcome in the war of that great day of the Almighty, spoken of in Rev. xvi. 14; xvii. 14; xix. 11-21—an overcoming, by which the book is opened and the seals loosed, and its contents read and looked upon—ch. v. 1-5.
But Paul settles the question whether Jesus has overcome or not, very distinctly. He tells us plainly and positively that he has not, p. 417 In laying this conclusion before the reader, he quotes the eighth psalm, to show that the Son of Man was to be made a little lower than the angels: that he was to suffer death; that he was to be crowned with glory and honor; and that all things were to be put in subjection under him. He then argues that the phrase “all things” is so comprehensive as to leave no exception. Having declared this, he directs attention to the facts in the case; from which, it is evident, that the subjection of the all things does not obtain. He wrote about thirty years after Jesus said, “all authority ĕdothē (1 aor. ind. pass.) is given to me in heaven and upon earth—Matt. xxviii. 18; and yet he said, “but now we see not yet all things put under him.” What do we see then? “We see Jesus,” says Paul, “who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” That is all we see accomplished. Although “all things are δι ὅν on account of him,” yet all the things are to be δι’ ὁν through him—through his instrumentality. All the thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers of the existing order of things are developed on account of him. This is the reason of their existence. He is to possess them all; as it is written, “the kingdoms of this world become our Lord’s and his Anointed’s; and he shall reign for the Aions of the Aions”—Rev. xi. 15. But, it is very obvious, that they are not in his possession now, any more than they were in Paul’s day. Even after a lapse of eighteen hundred years we can say with him, “but now we do not yet see all things put under him;” nor shall we see them so subject until they are subjected “through him,” as represented in Rev. xix. 11-21. When this conquest is perfected he will be able to say, νενικηκα I have conquered; but till then, it can only be said prophetically ενικησα, I conquer, at some future time.
But it is affirmed by some, that Jesus is now sitting upon that throne of his Father of which he is the heir; and that therefore, he hath overcome. To this I object, that the throne of the Father of which Jesus is the heir does not yet exist; and therefore, of course, he cannot be sitting upon it; and has, consequently, not yet conquered, or overcome his enemies.
When Jesus ascended to heaven, “he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in high places”—Heb. i. 3, which, in Heb. x. 12, is styled “the right hand of the Deity;” and in Heb. viii. 1, the phrase is extended to, “he sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” Treating of this subject in Eph. i. 20, Paul says, that the Deity raised up the Christ from among the dead, and “set him at his right hand in the heavenlies.” Thus he hath highly exalted him indeed, having placed him there above all terrestrial governments, or, in p. 418 the words of the apostle, “far above every principality, and authority, and power, and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this AION, (or Course of things,) but in the future. And puts all things (παντα ὑπεταξεν—1 Aorist,) under his feet.” And again, in Col. iii. 1, “Seek the things above, where the Anointed is, sitting at the right hand of the Deity”—the life, the honor, the power, the glory, the salvation, the grace, to be brought you at the apocalypse of Jesus Anointed—1 Pet. i. 13; all of which is in harmony with Ps. cx. 1, “Sit thou at my right hand,” said Yahweh to David’s Lord, “until I shall make thy foes a stool for thy feet,” or until I conquer them for thee; and then thou shalt sit upon my throne. For it is so written in the next verse, in these words, “The sceptre of thy strength shall Yahweh send out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies;” and in the second psalm, “I have anointed my King upon Zion, the mountain of my holiness.”
We have said that the throne of the Father that Jesus is heir to does not yet exist. He is King elect, but without throne or kingdom. This may be thought strange, but it is not more strange than true. Jesus is not heir of the throne at the right hand of which he is now sitting. That is not the apocalyptic throne, but the throne of the boundless universe, “in the light which no man can approach unto.” The Father intends to have a throne on earth, as well as that now in the light. He has had a throne on earth formerly, which continued for several ages; but he caused it to be overturned superlatively more than twenty-four hundred years ago, and it has ceased to be ever since. While it was standing, David and Solomon, and their posterity, sat upon it, governing the twelve tribes of Israel for Jehovah. “Of all my sons,” says David, “Jehovah hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of THE KINGDOM OF JEHOVAH over Israel”—1 Chron. xxviii. 5. So when David was about to die, Solomon was anointed, and “sat on THE THRONE OF JEHOVAH as king instead of David his father, and prospered; and all Israel obeyed him”—ch. xxix. 23.
But in the days of Zedekiah, the last of David’s posterity that ever occupied the throne of Yahweh or Jehovah, it was overturned by Nebuchadnezzar. This catastrophy was predicted before it came to pass, in Ezek. xxi. 25-27. In this passage, the prophet addressing Zedekiah, then reigning in Jerusalem, says, “Thou profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come for the punishment of iniquity at the end; thus saith Adonai Yahweh, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be that; exalt the low, and abase the high, I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and this shall not be until he come whose right it is, and I will give it him.” Thus the reigning king was to be uncrowned and deposed, and the throne and dynasty of David set aside, p. 419 until the Messiah having been manifested, should at some subsequent period be apocalypsed for the purpose of receiving what of right belongs to him—the throne and kingdom of Jehovah, formerly occupied by his ancestors, David and Solomon.
Hence there must of necessity be a restoration of the throne and kingdom of Yahweh. Nothing can be more evident than this. Jeremiah, who was contemporary with the subversion of the kingdom and destruction of the city and temple by the Chaldeans, looked forward to a time when Israel would think nothing of the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh, and would not visit it. That time has not yet come, for, though they cannot visit it, because it does not exist, still “it comes to mind,” and “they remember it.” Now, speaking of this future when they shall not regard it, he says, “At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of Yahweh; and all nations shall be gathered to it, (as the seat of government,) to the Name of Yahweh to Jerusalem; neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north, to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers”—ch. iii. 16-18.
This, then, is the Father’s throne, of which Jesus and the Saints are the joint-heirs. In the promise to those who shall buy gold and white raiment of him, and become victors over the blandishments and seductions of the Laodicean Apostasy, he assures them, as he did the faithful in Thyatira, that what he received of the Father they should partake in —“even as I have received (the promise thereof) from my Father.” But before this promise can be verified in deed, Jesus and his brethren must vanquish their enemies. Jerusalem and the Holy Land must be wrested out of the power of the Gentiles, and Israel must be restored. When this is accomplished, or rather, in the accomplishment thereof, “a door is opened in the heaven, and a throne is set up therein”—Rev. iv. 1, 2; and Jesus will then sit down with his Father on his throne, and not till then.