Revelation 3:18
Gold, White Clothes,
and Spiritual Blindness

These instructions from Jesus to the church in Laodicea are recorded by the apostle John in the book of Revelation. Chapters 2 and 3 contain evaluations of seven churches in the area of what was called Asia (current day Turkey). These evaluations are very valuable since they give a good indication of what Jesus is looking for in His churches. Knowing that our churches, and our contributions to them, will be evaluated by our Lord, should motivate us to run them well. And these two chapters give some insights into the things we might be evaluated upon.

The church in Laodicea received the instructions above. But what was their evaluation? What did Christ think of them?

Rev 3:15 “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—

Wow, these were lukewarm believers. People who believed in God, were part of a church, but did not care much for it. They would show up every Sunday, but then on Monday, you could not see a difference in their lives. There was no passion for God; they did not love Him with all their mind, soul, and strength. And as a result, Jesus would vomit them out.

Unless they changed. Unless they heeded the words in the instructions above. So what are they to do? They have to buy from Him gold and white garments, and they have to put salve on their eyes so that they can see.

The gold does not refer to material possessions. They had plenty of those (verse 17). The gold refers to treasure in heaven (Mat 6:19) which one gets by building ones life and ministry on the foundation of Christ (1 Cor 12). And the white garments refer to the preparations we have to make to appear well dressed (and not naked in shamefulness) in heaven (Mat 22:11). They are white if we have purified our hearts and souls by obeying the truth.

The anointing their eyes with salve so that they may see, refers to their responsibility to open their eyes to spiritual realities. We are all born spiritually blind but Jesus can heal our vision, just like he healed many a blind man while walking in Israel. How does He heal our spiritual vision? By opening our hearts to the truths that He is teaching through His Words. We can only learn these truths from His Word, from our Bible. 

What are some of these truths? One of them is that we are all sinners (Rom 3:23) and that we all need to be justified from these sins through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 3:22, Eph 2:8, John 3:16). But there is more. The church in Laodicea had this faith; else it would not be a Christian church. Jesus taught so much more than this. In His most famous sermon, the sermon on the mount (Mat 5 – Mat 7) He does not mention even once that we are saved by faith in Him. So what does He teach? I would encourage you to read and study if for yourself.

One thing I observed is that he does mention at least 5 times how we can have a reward in heaven (the gold mentioned above) and He teaches that, in order to receive that reward, we have to hear all His words and act on them (Mat 5:19, 7:24), and teach them to others (Mat 5:19, 28:20).

So three questions to ask yourself: do you know all Jesus’ commandments? And if yes, do you keep them? And finally, do you teach others to keep them? If you can answer “Yes” to all three, you are no longer blind, your garment is clean, and you have a treasure in heaven. If you answered “No” to one or more of those questions, you have some work to do.

Godspeed!