In 3:12a the Lord says, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore.” In 2:17 the overcomer becomes a transformed stone for God’s building. Here the overcomer will be made a pillar built into the temple of God. Because he is built into God’s building, “he shall by no means go out anymore.” This promise will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom as a prize to the overcomer.
In 3:12b the Lord goes on to say concerning the overcomer, “I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name.” Here the Lord speaks of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is not a physical city but a composition of the believers. This composition will appear first in the millennium as the totality of all the overcomers. These overcomers will bear the name of God because they have God’s nature in them; and they will bear the name of God’s city because they are God’s city. This means that the overcomers will be the New Jerusalem. The name of God and the name of the New Jerusalem written upon them will describe their nature and declare what they are. Furthermore, they will bear the new name of the Lord whom they have experienced in a particular way.
The name of God, the name of the New Jerusalem, and the Lord’s new name written upon the overcomer indicate that the overcomer is possessed by God, by the New Jerusalem, and by the Lord; that God Himself, His city, the New Jerusalem, and the Lord Himself all belong to him; and that he is one with God, with the New Jerusalem, and with the Lord. The name of God means God Himself, the name of the New Jerusalem means the city itself, and the name of the Lord means the Lord Himself. To write the name of God, the name of the New Jerusalem, and the name of the Lord upon the overcomer indicates that what God is, the nature of the New Jerusalem, and the person of the Lord have all been wrought into the overcomer.
In Greek “Laodicea” means the opinion, the judgment, of the people or of the laymen. The church in Laodicea as a sign prefigures the degraded recovered church. Less than a century after the Lord recovered the proper church in the early part of the nineteenth century, some of the recovered churches (“assemblies”) became degraded. This degraded recovered church differs from the reformed church signified by the church in Sardis; it also differs from the proper recovered church signified by the church in Philadelphia. The degraded recovered church, signified by Laodicea, will exist until the Lord comes back.
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of My mouth” (3:15-16). Once the recovered church becomes degraded, it is lukewarm-neither cold nor hot.
According to verse 16b, the Lord is about to vomit the lukewarm ones out of His mouth. Once we become lukewarm, we are not fitting for the Lord’s move and shall be vomited out of His mouth. When the recovered church becomes degraded, she is in danger, unless she repents to be hot in seeking the rich experiences of the Lord, of being vomited out of the Lord’s mouth. To be vomited out of the Lord’s mouth is to lose the enjoyment of all that the Lord is to His church.
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