A verse, in context
Revelation 3:20
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock" (Revelation 3:20) is a favorite evangelistic image: Christ outside the sinner's heart, waiting to be let in. The words are gentle and true, but Jesus first spoke them to a church that already bore His name.
“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”Revelation 3:20
How it is often used
How it is often used. This verse is most often used to invite non-Christians to salvation: Jesus is pictured standing patiently outside the heart's door, and the hearer is urged to open it and receive Him. It has inspired paintings and countless gospel appeals, and the picture of Christ's patient knock is genuinely moving and not untrue to His character. The instinct to invite people to Christ is a good one. But the popular use treats the verse as originally addressed to unbelievers coming to faith for the first time, when the words were actually spoken to the church at Laodicea, people who already claimed to know Him. The door in view is not primarily the door of a first conversion but the door of a self-satisfied congregation that had, in practice, shut Jesus outside its own life.
The passage around it
The passage around it. This verse closes Jesus' letter to the church in Laodicea, the last of the seven letters to churches in Revelation 2 and 3. It is a stinging letter. Jesus says, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth" (vv15-16). The church thought itself rich and self-sufficient: "thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" (v17). Jesus counsels them to buy from Him gold tried in the fire and to be zealous and repent (vv18-19). Only then comes verse 20: the knock at the door is Christ seeking to be welcomed back into fellowship with a comfortable church that has drifted away from Him. The promised reward is intimate fellowship: "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
What it actually means, and where it leads
What it actually means, and where it leads. First and foremost this is Christ appealing to His own people who have grown lukewarm and self-satisfied, asking to be let back into real fellowship. The tragedy the verse exposes is a church so sure of its wealth and security that it has functionally shut its Lord outside. The invitation is to repent and rediscover communion with Him: "I will sup with him, and he with me" is the language of shared table and restored intimacy. This does not empty the verse of evangelistic power; the same Christ who knocks at Laodicea's door knocks at every heart. But read in context it is even more searching, because it warns that a person can wear Christ's name and still keep Him at arm's length. It leads to Jesus as the one who will not force the door but keeps knocking, offering Himself to the comfortable and the lost alike, wanting not our religious self-sufficiency but our fellowship.
Questions people ask
Is it wrong to use this verse in evangelism?
It is not wrong to draw on its picture of Christ's patient knock, and the same Lord does call the lost. Just be honest that the verse was first spoken to the lukewarm church at Laodicea, which makes it a searching word to comfortable believers, not only to unbelievers.
Who was Laodicea?
Laodicea was one of the seven churches addressed in Revelation. Jesus rebukes it for being lukewarm and self-satisfied, thinking itself rich while being spiritually poor. Verse 20 is His appeal to that drifting church to open the door and be restored to fellowship.
What door is Jesus knocking on?
In context it is the door of the Laodicean church's fellowship with Him, which their complacency had effectively closed. By extension it pictures Christ's patient appeal to any heart, believer or not, that has shut Him out.