Spewed from the mouth

Jesus threatens to vomit the lukewarm from His mouth (Revelation 3:16). That picks up on Old Testament descriptions of the land comiting out the inhabitants. But it also reminds us of the fish that vomited Jonah out onto dry land. That is a “return from exile” image: Jonah, the Israelite prophet, goes into the belly of the sea monster and is later returned to land, “vomited” by the imperial fish. Israel, once vomited out of the land into exile, is vomited back from exile into the land.

How might Jesus’ threat be related to the vomiting of Jonah? Jesus is depicted at the beginning of Revelation as the living version of the imperial statue of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Daniel 2). He is the embodiment of true empire. Those churches and Christians who remain lukewarm are vomited out of the new empire, the kingdom of God. Perhaps too this means that the false Jews within the literal empire are being vomited out of the empire. What in Jonah is a positive image of return from exile here becomes an image of expulsion and rejection. The Jews are expelled from the empire that once protected them, as the beast devours the harlot.