“The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.” Revelation 3:14
The Lord is speaking to His church at Laodicea. As with the other six churches, He focuses them on His characteristics that they need to remember based on their situation and the time in which they live. The Witness The Lord continues the theme He began His introduced to Himself as the Amen – the “so be it”. The Lord is not a witness, He is THE witness. The Greek word used can mean “martyr, record, witness”. The Lord fulfills all these definitions. A witness is needed to verify the truth. In the Laodicean age we live in, God is mocked and His words are considered fables. The Lord comes to His church that is struggling with placating and compromising with a world system whose beliefs are built on lies. The Lord reminds His churchthat He is the witness to what His word proclaims. As THE witness, He was there – He has first-hand knowledge of what happened and what is recorded. He is the martyr of whom the scriptures speaks. He has first-hand knowledge. Despite men who spout opinions to the veracity of what God says, the church must listen to THE witness. The Lord then uses two adjectives to describe the type of witness He is. Faithful First the Lord is a faithful witness. The Greek word for faithful is pistos. It means “trustworthy, faithful, believing, persuaded, or fullness (loyalty) to faith. It also is translated sure or reliable. The Lord focuses the church on His veracity. The world system mocks the truth and proclaims it is foolish. They claim God and His word are false. Anyone can stand and voice an opinion without fact or proof. The Lord reminds His church that He is “faithful”. In other words, the Lord gloss over the truth. What He tells us – the rewards in heaven, the punishment of hell, the consequences of sin – are all true. He does not overemphasize the good or downplay the bad. We can have full assurance in everything THE faithful witness tells us. True The Lord adds a second adjective. Not only is he a faithful witness to tell the entire truth, he is the true witness. There is not one iota of lie, distortion or falsehood in what He says. “In him is no variableness or shadow of turning.” “I am the way, THE TRUTH, the life.” Faithful and true – there is no reason to doubt anything the Lord says despite the opinions of the world around us. What can we learn? There are two applications for us. First, we live in a post-modern society which denies the concept of absolute truth. We are told that all people have their truth and everyone’s truth is valid. Believers have no right to tell others what they believe is wrong. While we cannot do much about the culture we live in, we must realize that if we conform to this teaching we are rejecting the example of Christ who is faithful to proclaim the full truth of God. He alone is the example we are to trust and follow. Second, the Lord is about to issue strong words to this church which has become so much like the world that waters down God’s truth to fit in. The words the Lord is about to proclaim are true and faithful. They must be listened to or Christ knows the beginning and the end. Therefore His urgent appeal and strong condemnation of this church’s worldly behavior is to be heeded or the consequences will be severe. Truth! This is the Lord’s true message to us today as the world squeezes us into its tolerant mold.