Sayings of Jesus: ‘Because you are lukewarm…’

If you know your Bible reasonably well, you may be wondering, “When did Jesus say that?” You’re right to ask the question, because, in one sense, he didn’t!

Lest you think I’ve resorted to making stuff up, let me clarify that these are the words of the risen and ascended Jesus that come to us via John, in the New Testament book of Revelation, the last book in the Christian Bible (Rev 3:16).

When I say, ‘via John’, what I mean is that the writer of Revelation is speaking prophetically on behalf of Jesus, quoting him in the first person. The words are in a letter written to the church in Laodicea at Jesus’ command (see Rev 3:14–22). 

It was traditionally assumed that this same John wrote the Gospel that bears that name, plus the letters 1, 2 and 3 John, but that is no longer the scholarly consensus. Most likely, it’s thought, Revelation was authored by a different John (or possibly someone associated with a Johannine community). In any event, scholars tend to differentiate John the Evangelist (in relation to the Gospel & 1 John), John the Elder (2 & 3 John), and John of Patmos (Revelation)—whose writings are collectively referred to as Johannine literature.

Patmos reflects the island location of the writer, where it is traditionally believed that John was exiled by the Roman Emperor, Domitian. However, all that the text itself says is that he was on Patmos “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev 1:9).          

To do justice to any Bible verse, we must always start with its context. ‘Context’ includes a number of features (for more on that, see Chapter 11 of my book, How to Read the Bible Well, https://tinyurl.com/zj42wemv). Once any Bible verse is detached from what it was communicating in its original setting, it can potentially spin off into any number of fanciful ideas today that would never have entered the heads of its original writer and audience.

Here we will limit ourselves to two elements of the context: one historic geo-political, Laodicea, at the close of the 1st century CE, and one literary, the part of the letter in which our captioned words are located:

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see.” Revelation 3:14–18

Interestingly, the famous Rev 3:20 (“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in...”) follows on from this. Despite its popular use by evangelists to encourage people to “allow Jesus to come into your life,” those words were written to people who were already Christians, challenging them to respond to the passage above.

This letter is a clear example of a message being tailored (in its use of metaphor) to the specific characteristics of its destination. Laodicea was famously a wealthy city. It was known for its financial business (gold, money) and its production of expensive clothing, especially from the black wool of local sheep. And most specific of all, it was reputed for producing medicines, especially eye treatments (a famous Phrygian eye powder was produced there).    

The risen and ascended Jesus, via John, deploys these contextual metaphors to most effectively paint a word picture for the church about their spiritual condition.  

I skipped the first metaphorical reference to hot, cold, and lukewarm water. Laodicea had a big problem with its water supply. Other nearby Roman cities had ready access to a hot water supply (from hot mineral springs—Hierapolis) or a cold water supply (Colossae—known for its cold mountain water). But Laodicea had neither. Its water needed to be piped to the city through aqueducts. Inevitably, it arrived lukewarm—tepid, neither hot nor cold. It also tasted of minerals. Could this be the reason for Jesus’ apparently harsh statement about “spitting you out of my mouth”—the instinctive response of a guest or visitor, who wasn’t expecting their drink of water to taste so bad?

If you’ve ever heard a sermon on that passage, there’s a strong likelihood the bottom line exhortation was along the lines of the kind of Christian we need to be: hot and passionate, not cold and unemotional. But that’s not quite what it was saying. Both hot and cold water were important in their own right, for different purposes, but tepid, lukewarm water was neither one nor the other. It was useless for either purpose.    

When we see a string of critiques in a passage like this, we should be careful about reading any one element (such as the water temperature metaphor) in isolation. Isolating any verse risks over-interpreting it. In John’s prophetic words here, Jesus is offering a sustained critique of a combination of serious failings in the church’s discipleship, all of which need to be heard together, each drawing from a familiar local civic or commercial characteristic to paint a powerful rhetorical picture.      

How might we contemporise this critique?

Notice that the context here is their deeds—what the church does and doesn't do. The ‘lukewarm’ allusion speaks of uselessness for the Kingdom—not fit for purpose. It’s not just a critique of their inner spirituality; it suggests a church that has become comfortable, complacent, and indifferent to the things Jesus cares about most. In the words of Lauren Cooper in The Catherine Tate Show, they're ‘not bovvered’.

The ‘financial’ allusion speaks of being comfortable with material wealth, while spiritually poor. A reminder, perhaps, of Jesus’ words: “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:23 and parallels) and “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matt 6:19–20). True wealth—the Kingdom of God—is being contrasted with the deceptions and distractions of material wealth, especially in the temptation to self-sufficiency and selfishness. 

The ‘white clothes’ are symbolising purity and holiness, in contrast with the famous black woollen garments that the city’s clothing industry was so proud of. To be clear, the point is not that black = bad; it could be any colour. The point is simply that they’re not the heavenly white garments.

The garments that Jesus wants the church to be metaphorically clothed with are of a different order. Compare Revelation 19:8, where fine clothing “stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.” The Laodiceans are so proud of their fine garments that they fail to see their spiritual nakedness; to borrow Hans Christian Andersen’s famous image, the emperor has no clothes. Unlike someone whose nakedness is due to poverty, theirs is down to bad choices—and like the emperor, they don’t even realise it.  

And finally, their vision is defective. They’re not seeing things as they should be. Their vision needs healing. The orientation of their hearts and lives needs to radically change: Jesus and the values of his Kingdom need to be both their source and their goal. 

Summed up, the church at Laodicea thinks it’s doing well, but it’s criticised by Jesus for its materialism, pride, and self-satisfaction. The recurring theme is not just lukewarmness, but a church that thinks it's thriving when it isn't —“you do not realise...”

And yet, this very blunt reprimand concludes with some really positive encouragement (Rev 3:19–21):

“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

And the final phrase—repeated at the end of each of the letters to churches that Revelation begins with—is timelessly applicable. To us, today, just as much as to the church at Laodicea at the close of the 1st century:

“Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”