Revelation 3:17

Revelation 3:17. This verse is sometimes connected with the preceding, as giving a further statement of the reason why the Lord would deal with the church at Laodicea according to His threatening. But it is more natural to connect it with Revelation 3:18, and to regard it as containing the ground of the counsel there given. The question may be asked, whether we are to understand the words of the first half of the verse as referring to temporal or spiritual wealth. The words of Revelation 3:18 determine in favour of the former. It was not spiritual pride that had made the church at Laodicea ‘lukewarm:' the spiritually proud have too many positive elements of character to justify such a description in their case. It was worldly prosperity that had made the church indifferent to the energy and power of Divine truth. Outwardly she could still profess the Christian faith. But, to be held in reality, that faith must be accompanied by a clear and deep perception of the vanity of this world. To such a state of mind riches are a bar. The rich may no doubt enter into the kingdom of God as well as the poor, but they do so with difficulty (Mark 10:23-24). Their wants are satisfied with ‘corn and wine;' the world pays homage to them; they have ‘much goods laid up for many years;' they are free from anxiety as to the future; and they will ‘leave their substance to their babes.' Why should they be eager about religion? They have difficulty in being ‘hot.' Yet they would not oppose religion. It is easier to conform to it. They cannot oppose it or be ‘cold.' Such is the state of mind which the Lord seems here to address, and hence the powerful language of the following words, and knowest not that thou art the wretched one, and miserable, etc. ‘Thou callest the poor wretched: thou art the wretched one: to thee really belong the misery and the poverty and the blindness and the nakedness for which thou pitiest or professest to pity others.'