And to the angel of the assembly in Laodicea write These things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God
The last of the seven letters opens with three names the Lord takes for Himself, not with the church's condition. Why does He introduce Himself this way here, and what does it mean to call Him the beginning of God's creation?
"The Amen" as a Name
Most people say this word at the end of a prayer. Here it is a title, and it reaches back to Isaiah.
To Laodicea the Lord presents Himself in a threefold way. All the promises of God are amen in Him. That is, they are firm and carried through to completion in Him. But He Himself is also "the Amen." He takes it as a title. It reminds us of the way Jehovah speaks of Himself twice in Isaiah 65:16 as "the God of truth," or word for word, "the God of Amen." The Jehovah in whom everything is made sure is the Jesus of the New Testament. And it is striking that the word "truly," so often on His lips, is really the word Amen.
What the Titles Guarantee
The first two titles work together: one tells what He guarantees, the other what it cost Him.
As the Amen, He is the One in whom God has taken up and confirmed all His promises. They reach in every direction: to bring about every good, to overthrow every wrong, and to glorify God forever in doing it. As the Faithful Witness, He was always loyal to the One who sent Him. He loved the Father and came to do the Father's will. Whatever it cost Him, He never turned aside from that will and never shrank back from carrying it out.
The Place the Church Vacated
These titles name what the church itself should have been. It stopped being those things, so Christ holds the ground alone.
He alone is "the faithful and true witness." This is exactly what the church should have been, but was not. So He has to take that place Himself. It was so before, when He was here on earth in grace. Now He must take it up again in judicial power and glory. It is hard to imagine a sharper rebuke to people whose whole duty was to be faithful and true witnesses.
The failure shows up in where the church settled down.
The church should have walked consistently apart from the world. In its own measure that walk would have confirmed the truth of the heavenly calling and borne witness to it. Sadly, the professing church has given up the heavenly calling. It has settled down on earth and become the world. Instead of confirming, it has become the denial of the truth of God.
"The Beginning" — Principle, Not Date
The Greek word behind "beginning" points to a principle, not a date on a calendar.
He is the "beginning" of all things, always, in Himself. He is that, come what may... What the church lacks, He is in Himself — "the beginning of the creation of God," the beginning of all things. Christ is what answers to the original idea in God's mind before all things. The Greek word arche means the beginning in theory and the end in practice. The main thought in building a house is to have a roof; but in practice the roof is the last thing made. The word "principle" comes nearest to the sense, though it does not give the whole idea.
Not Himself a Creature
Some read the phrase as though Christ were the first thing God made. The wording rules that out.
Christ is not, and I think could not be, called ktisma [a created thing], for this would take away from the Creator. He is called the firstborn of all creation and also the beginning of the creation of God.
God's New Start
Why this title to this church? Because the old creation Laodicea rests in is already under judgment.
He announces Himself with this: "The Beginning of the creation of God." The old creation, spoiled by sin, is passing away. Its history is almost finished. God pronounced its judgment long ago at the cross. In Christ risen from the dead everything begins that God owns as truly His. It was first and always in His thought, and the ruin of the old only made way for it.
Man as the Beginning
Laodicean teaching starts somewhere else.
Laodicean teaching has man as the beginning — if it does not go further back to the ape, or even to protoplasm. And its end is man, man made into a god. If Christ comes in at all, it is as an example, an encouragement and a helper to man in his climb up the road of progress.
Summary
- Amen. A divine title, not a closing word: the God of truth of Isaiah 65:16, in whom every promise of God is confirmed.
- Witness. What the Amen promises, the Faithful Witness proved — loyal to the Father's will at any cost.
- Beginning. What He proved in obedience, He is in Himself: the principle behind everything God has begun, and never a created thing.
- Vacancy. All three name what the church should have been. It settled down on earth instead, and so denied the truth it should have confirmed.
- Answer. The titles both rebuke and rescue. Laodicea makes man the beginning and the end; Christ risen is God's new start.