Three Doors, Three Promises—Part 3. Jesus Knocks at the Door. If I Open It He will Come In and Eat With Me and I With Him!
This post is the third in a series on doors and promises. Part 1 looked at Jesus as the door to the sheep pen or Kingdom of God (John 10: 7 – 10). Part 2 looked at the invitations to ask, seek, and knock and the door will be opened to us (Matthew 6, 7).
This post, part 3, examines the promise Jesus makes in Revelation (Revelation 3: 14 – 21) to the church in Laodicea and to every believer since then. Here is the relevant passage:
“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 him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3: 19, 20 NIV).
While exiled on Patmos the disciple John had a vision in which Jesus told John to write down what he saw and heard. What he wrote is known today as the book of Revelation.
At the beginning of this vision Jesus instructed John to write 7 letters, one to each of 7 churches in Asia Minor. The last letter was written to the church in Laodicea.
I think there are three significant aspects to this letter:
Jesus rebukes the Laodiceans. But, if we focus on that we miss the heart of the letter. This letter illuminates God’s relentless love, faithfulness, mercy, and grace to those churches and people who have strayed far from Him.
This letter demonstrates the tension between God’s grace and our responsibility.
There is a striking similarity between this letter and the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11 – 32). A better title for this post might be, “Laodicea – the Prodigal Church”. The parable has been called ‘the Gospel within the Gospel’, because it illustrates the heart of the Father. The similarities between this letter and that parable suggest to me that the letter to the Laodiceans also takes us deep into the heart of our Father.
The letter begins with Jesus rebuking the Laodiceans – harshly. Jesus tells them, “You say, I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” This is The Message translation: “You brag. ‘I’m rich. I’ve got it made. I need nothing from anyone.”
The church and its members have become self-sufficient, self-confident, and self-reliant. Their hearts are far from Jesus. In their success they have become almost indistinguishable from the pagan world surrounding them. They believe they are doing very well materially and spiritually. They are deceived!
Jesus tells them that they are neither hot nor cold – they are lukewarm. He is about to vomit them out of His mouth. Jesus is referring to their spiritual life – they no longer supply healing for the spiritually and physically sick (hot water) nor refreshment for the spiritually weary (cold water). The power and presence of God has left them.
Jesus summarizes their condition and His disgust with them with these words, “But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.”
The Laodiceans have come to depend upon the things of the world for their ultimate value. They have left their first love and are now living far from Him. They are like the younger son in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Like the younger son, in their pride and self-sufficiency they have left the Father and His house, and travelled to a ‘distant’ land. Jesus is also speaking to many churches and believers today, especially in Europe and America, who have also traveled far from Jesus – in whom the light of the Kingdom is growing dim.
But if we stop reading here we will miss the main message – the relentless love, faithfulness, and grace of Jesus. Because even though they have left Jesus, Jesus has not left them.
Jesus makes them 3 offers. He promises them that if they receive, accept, and act on these offers, “He will give the right to sit with Him on His throne.” How is it possible for a church, which has told Jesus, “We don’t need you” and has traveled spiritually far from Him, to receive a promise like this – a promise of power, authority, and favor? It is grace flowing from the heart of the Father who sent His son to die so that we might be restored to a relationship now with Him in His Kingdom.
The first offer comes in the form of advice. “I counsel you to buy from me gold . . . white clothes . . . and salve to put on your eyes”. These are spiritual gifts – gold probably stands for true faith and maybe power; white cloth stands for holiness and righteousness; and eye salve to heal their spiritual blindness.
Jesus counsels them to buy. He is saying to them, “If I were you I would . . . “, or, “I advise you to . . .”. Their decision! But how can they buy? Jesus just told them they are poor. The Greek word for ‘buy’ also means to redeem, in the sense of giving up something of lesser value for something of greater value. I think Jesus is telling them to trade in their pride – self-sufficiency and self-confidence – which in Jesus’ eyes has no value, for something of infinite value – His faith, holiness, and power.
In a sense, they must come to the end of themselves. But I think that ‘to buy’ also requires that the Holy Spirit provides some power for them to make ‘the trade’. However it happens, the trade, if they make it, opens the door (so to speak) for the next offer.
The second offer is based on their accepting the first. If they hear Jesus and are convicted that His words are truth and ‘buy’ from Him as He counseled, they can receive the second offer, which is prefaced by these words, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline”. First the bad news, then this good news – I (still) love (phileo) you!
Jesus tells them: Be enthusiastic and zealous for me. Repent of your near-apostasy. They must repent! Repentance is a gift, but they must receive the gift and give Jesus permission to transform their hearts.
Then Jesus makes this offer, conditional on repentance, around which this post is written:
“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 him, and he with Me.”
Jesus standing at the door and knocking is a symbol of His passionate heart for the lost, for the one who turned away. It is a picture of His grace! It is incredible that He is knocking and calling out, and says, “If anyone hears my voice . . . ” ‘If’ implies that they might not hear Him calling and knocking. Too self-absorbed? ‘Anyone’ means, anyone with ears to hear.
Even in the distant land, He is close. But they have to hear Him calling and knocking. How do they hear? Through prayer, praise, and worship! We hear the same way. It is our responsibility to order our lives in such a way that we spend time speaking and listening to Jesus in prayer, praising and worshiping Him.
Then, with repentant, surrendered, and submitted hearts we cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Denying the right to ourselves, we open the door into our heart for Jesus to enter.
If we open the door, Jesus comes into our heart and eats with us and we with Him. This is a beautiful picture of restoration, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It is a picture of celebration, intimacy, healing, and wholeness. If we open the door – receive His grace – the work of restoration is all His.
I also think of Jesus “coming in” as a river of life and healing. When I open the door, I open the door for this river to enter my heart or my church. I imagine Jesus ‘rushing’ in like a mighty river, sweeping away doubt, anxiety, fear, and bringing life, light, healing, and wholeness. It is a river of grace flowing from the side of Jesus on the cross.
All of this reminds me of the return of the Prodigal. As I understand the parable, the son repents when he falls at the feet of the Father. The Father receives the son without condemnation, gives him a ring, a robe, and sandals symbolizing power, authority, and favor, and throws a party for the village saying, “Come celebrate! Eat with us. My son (or church) who was lost has been found.” The Father releases a river of grace over the son.
Jesus’ final offer is truly amazing. “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne”. Like the Father in the parable, Jesus is offering the Laodicean church power, authority, and favor. And most amazing, Jesus is saying, “You will sit with me, just as I sat with My Father.”
They must open the door, and then they must overcome. ‘Overcome’ means to prevail, get the victory, endure, resist, be resolute, be steadfast, and stand. Overcoming involves the tension between our responsibility and God’s grace.
We overcome when we resist and endure the temptations that satan uses to get the Christian to worship something or someone other than Jesus. The overcomer is not without sin, but depends upon Jesus for their life. We stay connected to and dependent upon Jesus through prayer, praise, worship, reading and studying Scripture, and by making good choices about how we spend our time.
An overcomer does not deny or turn away from Jesus when life gets hard nor do they turn away when life is really good (like the Laodiceans). Overcomers do not forget who they are in Christ. Even though the Prodigal travelled to the distant land, he was always a son. An overcomer remembers this, not matter what.
But we do not overcome in our power alone. One meaning of ‘overcome’ is to stand.
“The word ‘stand’ implies that the ground disputed by the enemy is really God’s, and therefore ours. We need not struggle to gain a foothold on it . . . Today we war against satan only to maintain and consolidate the victory which Christ has already gained . . . thus today we do not fight for victory; we fight from victory. We do not fight in order to win but because in Christ we have already won. Overcomers are those who rest in the victory already given to them by their God . . . If we believe the Lord, we shall not pray so much but rather we shall praise Him more” (Watchman Nee, ‘Sit, Walk, Stand’, pgs 54, 55, 57).
One of the great passages addressing overcoming, although it never uses that word, is Paul’s exhortation to ‘stand’ in Ephesians 6. “Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6: 13 NIV).
Paul calls us to stand against satan and wear the full armor of God. But it is our responsibility to put on the armor!
Then, assuming we have received, accepted, and acted upon these gifts, we are given the greatest gift of all – the right and privilege to sit with Him on His throne. Amazing!! We can never earn this privilege, but we must receive it.
This letter is a door or portal deep into God’s heart where we find the love and grace of Jesus for His churches and people who have left Him for a distant land – people whose hearts are far from Him (or perhaps those who just want to go deeper into His heart). The way back to Jesus requires repentance, determination, persistence, discipline, and humility. But Jesus has made a way and He shows us this way in the letter. We must humbly accept His assessment of our spiritual lives, repent, open the door, and receive His grace. When we do, we find Jesus waiting for us – we have left Him, but He has never left us. Jesus, restorer! Our reunion will be a joyful time of celebration (and not condemnation).
We serve and follow a King who will travel to the ends of the earth to recover what is His – and, ‘who’ are His.
John
PS — I have written a much longer document, titled, “Laodicea – the Prodigal Church and the Way Back to Jesus”. It is published in the Pages section of this blog.