REVELATION 3 (NOTES OF A READING)
REVELATION 3 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC In connection with these addresses to the assemblies, it is important to notice the character in which the Lord presents Himself to each. I have thought that in each case the overcomer is the one who apprehends Christ in that character, so that the Lord provides in Himself the remedy for every form of defection. He presents Himself in such a way as to make each one who apprehends Him an overcomer. We often think of overcoming as some effort, or task, on our part; it is not exactly that; the one who apprehends Christ is the one who overcomes. To apprehend Christ as the One who is the Holy, the True, He who has the key of David, who opens, and no man shuts, and who shuts and no man opens, would constitute one an overcomer in Philadelphia. It is very simple: if I want to be an overcomer I must pray much that I may apprehend Christ. This involves conflict, because there are always things present at work to move saints’ hearts away from Christ inwardly; and to resist them, refusing to be moved away from Christ in your heart and soul, means conflict. The Lord appeals to both the affections and the mind, the intelligence of His saints. It is good to see that there has always been in Christ the preservative power to make His saints overcomers.
It is particularly important to see the character in which the Lord presents Himself to Laodicea. We have no doubt reached Laodicea historically; it is the closing phase of the church’s history.
Rem He does not speak to Laodicea of His coming.
CAC It is not likely He would to an assembly He was just going to spue out of His mouth! Philadelphia has the proper characteristics of the whole assembly; Laodicea has not one, and looked at as an assembly it is what the Lord will [p. 459] wholly reject.
Rem Yet there are real ones among them.
CAC Scripture does not say so; it does not say there are any who will open the door. Laodicea represents a state of things without Christ, and without the Spirit; if we wish to be preserved from its dangers, we must pay attention to how the Lord is presented in verse 14, “The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God”. The Spirit of God is calling especial attention to those three characteristics at the present time; and it is the lack of so apprehending Christ which has brought about the Laodicean state. As the Amen, He is the confirmation of every divine thought; that is a great preservative for saints; it shuts out all thought of development. God has said ‘Amen’ in Christ; He has established and confirmed every thought in Christ. You cannot advance on that. Christendom is full of thoughts of development, but there is finality in Christ, and there is no going beyond God’s final word. We have been hearing lately of the importance of the Colossian epistle in view of this address to Laodicea. The Spirit of God drops a striking hint at the end of that epistle. He charges that it be read in Laodicea. The Lord had provided the corrective; that epistle might have preserved them. Colossians gives God’s Amen — Christ — and Christ as the Beginning of the creation of God. “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and ye are complete in him” (Colossians 2: 9, 10); that is the teaching of Colossians and that is finality; there is nothing beyond. Everything brought in, in addition to Christ, denies that He is “the Amen”. If you bring in the teaching of men, philosophy, the elements of the world, it is as much as to say there is more that can be said after Christ; that you need Christ, but many other things as well. They were giving up the fact that Christ was the Amen, and the Beginning of the creation of God.
Then He is the faithful and true Witness; everything that God is witnessing to is in a risen and glorified Man. It is not what He was when on earth, but what He is now. If the Lord [p. 460] is not apprehended by us as the faithful and true Witness, we shall be all adrift — that is the state of christendom in its last phase — complete ignorance and confusion about everything, because a risen and glorified Man is not known as the faithful and true Witness, the Witness of the complete setting aside of man in the flesh. It is wonderful that His presence in heaven is the witness of all that was involved in His death. Few know Him as the Witness, many live in His bounty without knowing Him as the Witness. His death means the closing up of the history of man in the flesh for ever. Christendom will not have that, and the refusal of it leads them into Laodiceanism. They are doing their best to set up the man God has set aside in Christ’s death. To meet that, we must see what His death witnesses. John speaks of three that bear witness, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; they bear witness to Christ having come and man in the flesh being set aside in His death.
Ques He is the Beginning of the creation of God: is that of new creation?
CAC Whatever God created, Christ was the beginning of it. God always begins with Christ: in the creation of the world, God began with Him. We see that in Proverbs 8. He was the wisdom of God for the old creation. The Laodiceans were not beginning with Christ. If you do not begin with Christ, you do not begin with God, and then you have nothing; if you do begin with Him you have only one thing to do and that is to go on with Him.
Rem This is a most solemn indictment: “Neither cold nor hot, ... lukewarm, ... thou art the wretched and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”.
CAC Yes, because there is so much true substance there, that makes it very solemn; they might have been very rich. It is very solemn that people may have just enough of God to make them nauseous. The Lord wishes they were either totally ignorant of God or really warmed in His love. How lovely it is that He presents Himself as the universal Provider. “Buy of me gold purified 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 made manifest; and eye-salve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see”.
Rem “As many as I love”, that is a very strong expression.
CAC It is the same kind of love that the Lord had for Jerusalem when He wept over it. The Lord can supply everything, whatever the lack. It is a terrible position to be destitute when there is no supply; but there is a full supply even for Laodicea. We should take care to avail ourselves of it. A saint may have to feel, ‘I am in a very Laodicean state, neither cold nor hot. I have been posing as a nice Christian and I have found out what a wretched miserable creature I am’. Well, there is a full supply for what such a heart needs.
Rem The shame of nakedness is often spoken of in connection with Israel.
CAC If I am not manifesting Christ, I am manifesting myself, and if that is so, it is the shame of my nakedness. If what man is as fallen comes into view, it is the shame of my nakedness. If what Christ is comes into view, it is glory and praise. Paul was very exercised that he should not be found naked (2 Corinthians 5: 3).
All this rebuke is that there may be repentance and a door opened for Christ. The Lord has been rebuking and disciplining in a very serious way the last few years. His hand has been felt throughout christendom, and it is all that they may open to Him. The Lord is still acting in love towards the christian profession in spite of its nauseous state. He is knocking and standing at the door. His attitude towards the whole christian profession is one of love. He is calling attention to Himself, that is the true explanation of the Lord’s supper, perhaps the greatest spiritual event in the history of christendom. I know none other so important. People preach a great deal about the Lord’s coming; but the Supper brings [p. 462] Christ into the affections of the saints, and there could not possibly be the revival of affection without a looking for His coming. People often preach His coming in order to revive affections: that is working the wrong way round; the only result has been that christendom is full of people who believe in the pre-millennial advent of the Lord but who are not really looking for Him in affection. The Lord Himself must be brought before people, and nothing does that so much as the Supper. The Supper is the appeal of affection to affection. Satan makes it a sacrament: many break bread from obedience, but it is only affection that makes you eat the Supper: thousands break bread without eating the Supper. The Supper is the knock of a Person who loves us infinitely, and if we really entered into that, none of us could be Laodicean.
Ques. What is supping?
CAC Personal intimacy. It is a comfort to see that the very best things in Scripture are individual. The very greatest thing in Scripture we get in John 14: 23, “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him”, and that is individual. The individual lover gets that privilege. In that way the Lord has provided for the most difficult day that could possibly arise. But that never isolates me, because it is the lover who gets the presence of the Father and the Son, and he proves himself a lover by obedience; and the obedient one loves his brethren, so he cannot be isolated. What a wonderful association verse 21 gives us! “To sit with me” suggests a great deal. He sits with His Father, and the overcomer is to sit with Him in His throne. It is a great thing to have an ear!