‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.’  (Revelation 3:15-16)

The revelation given to John mostly concerns the Last Days, in Greek ἔσχᾰτος eschatos, but not only does that cover the end of history and the world, it also includes present age.  To this end, it begins with Jesus’ assessment of the state of his Church.  While his audit names the major centres of the burgeoning faith in Asia Minor (Anatolian Peninsula), some suggest that each church also represents the complete Church over time; thus the last, Laodicea, conveys the state of today’s Church.  Be that as it may, Jesus’ rebuke of tepidity is stark and not a little startling.  

The word translated ‘lukewarm’ is χλιαρός chliaros from chlió to become warm.  Surely warming toward Jesus is better than being cold and indifferent?  That is not what Jesus says, so how can we understand this?  It may help to consider the location of the warning.   

Laodicea was the key commercial city in the region of Phrygia and one of the richest, noted for its self-reliance.  The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in the first century, noted that after Laodicea was destroyed in an earthquake AD60, the civic authorities spurned offers of external relief having faith in their own resources to rebuilt and recover.  This was not only indicative of a Laodicean characteristic for self-reliance, but of their considerable material resources.  And this is exactly what Jesus says of them:

‘For you say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing”, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.’ (Ibid 3:17).  

The Laodicean church reflected their civic pride and boasted of the wealth and status while not realising that they were in spiritual terms, the very opposite.  Contrast with those who Jesus says will be blessed and would possess eternal treasure:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 5:3)

To be poor in spirit means to be humble recognising that in God’s economy ‘the first shall be last and the last shall be first’ – and Jesus reaches this epigram by saying this:

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.  (Matthew 19:29)

In contrast to self-denial, the Laodicean church had become complacent and independent; presumptuous in their relationship with God, not least regarding their inheritance of eternal life, their salvation. 

Of course, Jesus would have his followers ‘hot’, on fire for him, demonstrated by obeying his commandments fervently, but why would he prefer that people are ‘cold’ towards him, surely being lukewarm in faith is better?  How can those who are cold toward God be in a better place than being faithful, albeit weakly so?

Jesus offers them sage advice:

‘I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.’ (Revelation 3:18)

The answer is about seeing or indeed, not seeing, clearly.  Those who are ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ toward God live in the reality, either that of the kingdom of heaven or the world, whereas the ‘lukewarm’ abide in a fantasy – they relate to God on their terms, not His.  

So, while those who are cold have no relationship at all with God, they may yet have one – and a ‘real’ one, at that!  In other words, for the unsaved hope remains.  But for lukewarm, there is no such assurance; their hope is fiction – their ‘truth’.  Being complacent even presumptuous may not seem that bad but beneath, as for Cain (who related to God on his terms), ‘sin lurks at the door’ (Genesis 4:7).

The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
    and perverted speech I hate.  (Proverbs 8:13)

Biblically, wisdom is seeing the world and worldliness from God’s perspective and this is dependent on fearing Him, not treating God with disdain.  The lukewarm typify ‘fools (who) despise wisdom and instruction’ (Proverbs 1:7).

But for the lukewarm the door is not yet locked; Jesus has still ‘to spit them out.’  Repentance can restore hope and assurance, as he says:

^‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.’  (Revelation 3:19-20)

There is always a way back to Jesus but that way lies through in acknowledging spiritual poverty; in humility, by embracing impoverishment, begging for God’s bounty; putting aside notions of independence in favour of complete dependence, but most of all by being enthusiastic, energised and ‘moved’ by Jesus and his gospel of redemption.

For the antonym to being lukewarm that Jesus offers is zealousness.  In a psalm, David writes of a time when he is humbled, poor and outcast, all the result of his zeal for God:

For zeal for your house has consumed me,
    and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting,
    it became my reproach.
When I made sackcloth my clothing,
    I became a byword to them.
I am the talk of those who sit in the gate,
    and the drunkards make songs about me.  (Psalm 69:9-12)

And it is this psalm that comes to the disciples’ minds in connection with Jesus’ display of zeal for his Father’s house, when he clears the Temple porticos of money-changers and merchants (John 2:17) – when worldliness literally infiltrated the hallowed courts.

Impoverished, David stands in contrast to the Laodicean faithful, who being rich and exalted, have lost or never possessed zeal for God.

The word ‘zeal’ comes to English direct from the Greek ζῆλος zelos, and the meaning is the same, ‘extreme eagerness or enthusiasm’; zelos derives from zéo ‘to boil’ and is an onomatopoeia of the sound of boiling water.  This is the definition of being ‘hot’ in Jesus’ terminology.

So properly, zeal is indeed the antonym to lukewarm, and must proceed and ‘inform’ repentance.  Zeal is the emotion, whereas repentance is the decision, for the Greek verb translated ‘repent’ is μετανοέω metanoeó, which means ‘to change one’s mind’ or ‘to radically change one’s thinking’.

Laodicea declined and now only ruins remain as a reminder to its great wealth, but Jesus’ warning endures.  Any who would presume on God, think themselves deserving and thereby certain of their salvation; or to any who might confuse material wealth with spiritual blessing.  But mostly Jesus clarifies that there is no mid-ground; you are either for him and all in, or not.  Anything is better than being a complacent believer whose faith is based on delusion and is diluted by that of a world view; as the palette finds lukewarm food emetic, so also does Jesus retch at spiritually tepid offerings.