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This epistle to the Laodiceans is the seventh and last epistle which Christ commanded St. John at this time to write; most of the churches were found faulty before, but none like this here. Formality and hypocrisy, coldness and indifferency, in religion, had so for prevailed in this church, that we find nothing commended in them, nothing good spoken of them, and none of them exempted from the general charge brought in against them for that lukewarmness and hypocrisy.
In this epistle now before us, Observe, 1. A description of Christ in his deservedly glorious titles: thus saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, that is, he that is verity and truth itself, both in his promises and his threatenings, who is holy, and cannot lie; righteous, and cannot deceive; wise, and can never be deceived; therefore Christ takes upon him this name here of the faithful and true Witness, to awaken these drowsy hypocrites, to see and consider that he knows their state and condition, and will testify and witness against them.
There is no such effectual remedy against hypocrisy, lukewarmness, and indifference in the matters of religion, as a firm belief of Christ's omnisciency and veracity. The other title given to Christ, is the beginning of the creation of God; that is, the beginner of the creation of God, the original and first cause, by which all the creatures of God had their beginning. Christ is not only principium principatun, but principium principians; not the passive beginning, or he that first created, but the active beginning, or he by whom the creation was begun, both the old and new creation.
Now Christ takes upon him this title, to encourage the Laodiceans to come unto him, (according to the invitation, given Rev_3:18.) to recover them from their formality, seeing he is omnipotent, and can give a being and beginning to grace in the new creation as he did to nature in the old and first creation.
Observe, 2. The reproof here given to this church of Laodicea, I know thou art neither hot nor cold; thou art not for open heresy or infidelity, but likest well a profession of Christianity; you receive the gospel, and so are not quite cold, but you want zeal to suffer any thing for it, and so are not at all hot; I see nothing in thee but a lukewarm indifferency, for which I disown thee, nay, disdain thee.
Learn hence, 1. That Christ loathes lukewarm persons, who profess Christianity with reserves for worldly safety. These Laodiceans were neither enemies to Christ, nor true friends, but served God and gain, Christ and the world, by turns, as occasion served.
Learn, 2. That though God abominates lukewarmness and want of zeal, yet he will not disown those who have any spark of true zeal, though defective and culpably remiss; he will not quench smoking flax, but blow it up into a holy flame; but all that have not so much zeal as to prefer Christ before the world, shall be accounted his enemies, and disowned by him.