The Church of Laodicea, Rev. 3:14-22
Rev. 3:14 “The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God”
Jesus used “amen” often in His sayings, though they are usually translated as “verily, verily” or “truly” in our bibles. No-one else uses it this way. The New Bible Dictionary defines it as “to be firm, steady, trustworthy.” So when we say “amen” afterwards, we are asserting the truthfulness of what we heard. Jesus is the source of every trustworthy saying He ever uttered. He Himself is the Amen, and whatever He said will come about exactly as He said. We who are believers have a trustworthy source that pictures exactly what life is all about, right there in the Bible. The God who cannot lie has given us the truth of all things.
When we do not believe this, we are at the mercy of other sources: opinions and pundits and personal recollections. The heaving, unsteady sea of verbiage pouring through every media has everyone claiming to be the amen. And we drown in the fear and uncertainty of our times. Yet we have a more sure word from the true Amen: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).
Jesus uses this term because the Laodicean church claimed for itself everything that was untrue. Rich, but actually poor; wealthy, but wretched; needing nothing, but miserable, blind, and naked (Rev. 3:17). Their false sense of themselves kept them from the true wealth that is found in Jesus. Jerry Bridges, in True Community, tells us of several ways the Christian lives. To live entirely on our own resources. To do nothing at all and just trust the Lord. The “Lord, help me” approach, where we do all we can, then pray the Lord helps us in other areas where we fall short. And the way of the wise, where they are dependent on the Lord for everything (pp. 17-19). These latter believers see the vision of eternal life in the here and now, and have been led to the truth that abundant life is found in Christ. They have learned to base every step of their lives on the trustworthy Word of God. The devil will give us every reason to turn to other sources for help. We may turn to the truth God gave and rest our lives upon it.
Jesus is the Faithful and True Witness, again, in contrast to the poor witness of this church. Until we truly meditate on the gospel and the cross of Christ, we will be prey to all the folly and foolishness that falls our way. We were dead in sin. We need a Savior. Without this reality of our great need, we are disappointingly lukewarm, like the cold water their aqueducts carried from afar, but by the time it reached us it was only to dribble as tepid in our cups. Lifeless and flavorless.
Jesus has witnessed across the pages of the gospels of the fullness of life that is found in a relationship with God. He said to His disciples, “I have food to eat of which you do not know” (John 4:32), referring to doing the will of God. “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel” (John 5:20). “My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30). Who among us can say, “I do not seek my own will but God’s will”?
Jesus is the Faithful and True Witness of all He has promised for our lives. He is the source of life for every living thing. We need not seek any other. We may meditate day and night on the One who feeds us with the finest (gluten-free, additive-free) wheat that satisfies the soul.
As the Beginning of the creation of God, we read in Heb. 7:3, “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.” (This was written when comparing Jesus with Melchizedek, whose priestly genealogy was not given.) He had no beginning; He was the creator of all things (John 1:1-3), yet Himself is uncreated.
This title gave rise to Arianism in the early church, which asserted that Jesus had a beginning and was a created being as was Satan. But no creature could cancel our sin, so Christ had to be fully God and fully human. Jesus claimed to be God (why else did the Jews try to stone Him?), not a god. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines it as, “Begin, Beginning, Beginner: means ‘a beginning.’ The root arch– primarily indicated what was of worth. Hence the verb archo meant ‘to be first,’ and archon denoted ‘a ruler.’ ” Thus “Beginning” and “Firstborn” when applied to Jesus are not of a literal and physical sense, but conceptually, first as of greater worth. All of Revelation pictures Jesus this way, including the times He takes on the titles of God in the OT (compare Isa. 44:6 with Rev. 1:11). Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses miss this entirely.
Jesus used this title because the Laodicean church was presenting itself as entirely self-sufficient. They took pride in their city and its material wealth and identified with it. Christians are to identify with Christ and His standing before God. In Christ we have all the wealth of resources for the Christian journey that we’ll ever need. Christian believers have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ (see Eph. 1—3 and the many “in Christ” and “in Him” phrases throughout the NT).
It’s time to take seriously Jesus’ word to His disciples, “without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and approach the spiritual life this way. Paul learned this and took His riches to heart: “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus [or, in Christ Jesus]” (Phil. 4:19). Based on a personal need of our insufficiency and of Christ’s bounty, we can have more confidence in life than we think.
