Jesus has Left the Building: B.M. Palmer, Laodicea, and the Communion Blessing We Really Need

B.M. Palmer was a well-respected Presbyterian minister who preached the Christian Gospel in New Orleans in the 1800’s. His excellent Theology of Prayer is not the easiest book to find but is full of helpful insights and is well worth the effort of working through its antiquated style and comprehensive arguments. One of the topics he explores is the relationship of the Sovereign will of God and our human will, which we voice in our prayers. He stresses that prayer is not a means by which we rub the divine genie lamp. Prayer is the channel by which God gives us blessings which He has pre-planned. 

True prayer has to be answered because it involves asking for the things which God already intends to give us when we pray.

“The scriptural principle is, not that favours are by our importunity wrung from the reluctance of the Divine Being, but that they antedate the prayer in the determinations of his sovereign and gracious will”.

How do we know what God intends to give? Objectively we find this in the promises of God in Scripture. Subjectively, real prayer requires a living communion with the Holy Spirit who alone can

“...Teach us the things to pray for, and work in us the right desires for the same”.

The help He gives us is effective in each specific prayer because He knows what God intends to do, and moulds our prayers to fit. God could rule as a cold, tyrannical dictator; by ordaining prayer as the means by which He carries out His plans and purposes, He turns the unfolding of history into a relational, cooperative act between Himself as “our Father in heaven” and Christians as His blood-bought children.

“The connection is simply this: God, of His own will, proposes to bestow a special good; the Holy Spirit knowing this purpose, produces in the heart of the believer the corresponding desire, which utters itself in all the vehemence of true prayer”.

In real prayer any benefit we hope to obtain is secondary to this dynamic spiritual interaction with God Himself. Prayer

“...is a real pleading with God, and the mind is fixed upon him to whom the petitions are addressed. If the attention be withdrawn from Him to consider what effect the exercise is to produce on ourselves, in that instant it ceases to be prayer and resolves itself into pious meditation”.

The main focus of prayer is not the object for which we pray. Nor is it any benefit we may experience in the activity of praying - for example, a sense of peace or joy. The main focus of prayer is God Himself. If the focus is taken off God it ceases to be prayer.

Prayer - God-focussed prayer - does have an impact on the believer which Palmer calls the “reflex influence of prayer” or “the retro-action of prayer on the worshipper himself”. Among the subjective benefits of prayer Palmer recognised that it increases the depth of our religious nature, develops a truthful and transparent character, struggles against sin and raises standards of holiness, strengthens our empathy with those for whom we are praying, shapes us and fits us into God’s plans, and gives a calm stability amid the changeableness of life. These are immediate benefits which we gain simply through the act of regular prayer. But note! If our focus shifts away from God and onto these blessings, we cease to pray, and therefore stop doing the very thing from which these benefits flow. Occasional meditation on these things might be healthy but constant preoccupation with what benefits us is the sign of a sick soul.

In Revelation 3:14-20 you can read a letter dictated by Jesus Christ, and written down by the apostle John, to be sent to a church in a town called Laodicea. It seems that they had fallen in to this very trap. As a church they were confidently saying “I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing” but Jesus says that they were in fact “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked”! In what way were they poor? They had taken their eyes off Jesus. Any benefits they had were given by Him. They were still meeting together but they had stopped going to Jesus who alone could give spiritual riches, righteousness and purity in place of sin’s shame, and clear spiritual vision.

We know that they had stopped looking to Jesus because no one had noticed He wasn’t coming to church any more. The one who holds the master key to all the church doors in the world (and all the other doors too - see Revelation 3:7!) had left the building.

“Behold I stand at the door and knock!”

It seems that they couldn’t hear Him knocking because He has now resorted to sending a letter. Jesus still loved the people inside. He could have shut up shop permanently and gone somewhere else. Instead He stands there knocking - the King of Heaven asking for admittance! He wants to come in and put things right again.

“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent”.

He promised that

“If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me”.

Jesus promises real spiritual riches, purity, and healing of the soul to everyone who turns their attention back to Him. This is where the focus is: on Him. So taking His counsel and receiving from Him (v18), parallels listening to Him and receiving Him (v20). You only really have Jesus’ blessings to the extent that you have Jesus Himself. To have some of the benefits Christ gives without having Christ Himself is to be under God’s discipline. In His grace and mercy He never “leaves or forsakes” a true Christian but on occasions  He does withdraw His manifest presence. Sometimes this is the only way to teach us what really matters.

At the very least the “eating together” in verse 20  refers to an event of close spiritual communion between Jesus and his people but many Christian have seen in this a clear reference to the fellowship we have with Him during the Lord’s Supper. Whilst we may be aware of it in other ways too - such as a lack of liberty in the prayer meetings, a lack of power in the preaching, dull personal spirituality, little evangelistic fruit, and a sense of spiritual darkness (“I’m under a cloud”) or dryness (“I’m in a bit of a wilderness”) - when Jesus withdraws His gracious presence from a church, one of the places we feel it most is at the Communion Table. Likewise, in times of spiritual renewal and revival, Communion can be marked by an intense awareness of God in all His holy majesty and power, mercy and grace.

After several months of quarantine, many of us are longing for physical contact with other people. We miss our friends, the ‘brothers and sisters’ with whom we normally gather to worship. ‘Zoom’ and other online platforms allow us to communicate on some level and experience a degree of felt intimacy with each other. But we need to remember that the social interaction we are craving is a ‘reflex benefit’ of Christian worship. First and foremost, we are not gathering to see each other. We are gathering to meet with God and worship Him. We have real fellowship with one another only to the extent that we all have our eyes on Jesus.

This puts us in a dangerous position. Because the need we are feeling most is not what we actually need most. As much as we need the blessing of being with each other, what we need most of all is to be together with Jesus, in close, spiritual intimacy. Whatever your view on online communion, do not allow the feeling of intimacy with other Christians to satisfy you, to the neglect of intimacy with Jesus. It seems to me that this whole issue should force us to face some challenging questions.

Has He, through this pandemic, locked us out of our church buildings because, for many years, we have been excluding Him from the centre of our worship and religious life? Is He saying to us what He was saying to the Christians at Laodicea? The final verses in this letter remind us that resisting religious luke-warmness is a major part of the spiritual battle faced by Christians living in affluent times and places. It has to be conquered, no less than the intense opposition faced by some of the other churches Jesus sent letters to. Verse 21 implies that even Jesus had to struggle against this - He knows how we feel. The real blessing is not so much sitting with each other but fellowshipping with Jesus in the struggle so that we can also sit with Him in His Victory (v21-22).