Lukewarm Water
useless religion of mixture and self-assurance
- Root
- 1 Kgs 18:21
- New Testament
- Rev 3:15-16
No Torah text names lukewarm water, but the charge behind it is old. Elijah asked Israel, "How long halt ye between two opinions?" (1 Kgs 18:21), and Zephaniah found men "settled on their lees" who said in their heart, "Yahuah will not do good, neither will he do evil" (Zeph 1:12). Laodicea's tepid water carries that mixture into Revelation: neither hot for purification nor cold for refreshment, but stagnant, mixed and unclean, a self-assured religiosity that resists correction. The teaching that an assembly's standing can never be lost is answered by the text itself: "I will spue thee out of my mouth."
From The Courtroom of Heaven, pp. 55–56