Revelation 3

The letter to Sardis (3:1-6) works by reversal. The church has a name that it is alive — a reputation, presumably, for vitality — but the deeper assessment is that it is dead. The few exceptions are those who have not soiled their garments, who will walk with Christ in white. The figure of white garments runs through all seven letters as a symbol of faithfulness and its reward. Sardis was historically a city that had been taken by surprise by besieging armies — both Cyrus the Great in 547 BCE and Antiochus the Great in 218 BCE had captured the supposedly impregnable acropolis by finding the one unguarded place. The letter's call to wake up (3:2) almost certainly activates this historical memory for its original readers. The letter to Philadelphia (3:7-13) is, along with Smyrna, the other letter containing no rebuke. The church has little power but has kept Christ's word; it will be made a pillar in the temple of God and given a new name written on it. The open door image (3:8) has been widely applied to missionary opportunity, but in context it refers to access to God — the door that leads into the presence of the Holy — that no human opposition can shut.

The letter to Laodicea (3:14-22) has generated more commentary than almost any other single passage in the book. The lukewarm diagnosis has become proverbial in the English language. The commercial metaphors of the rebuke are drawn from Laodicea's actual situation: the city was a wealthy banking centre and a producer of a distinctive black wool; it also had a medical school famous for an eye salve. The counsel to buy gold, white garments, and eye salve is a precise ironic reversal of the city's known products and industries. The Laodiceans are urged to purchase from Christ what they think they already have from their city's commerce. The image of Christ standing at the door and knocking (3:20) has become the most reproduced visual icon from the seven letters — Holman Hunt's painting The Light of the World is only the most famous example — though in context it is an image not of gentle patient evangelism but of urgent reproof: the one who holds the church to account is outside the door, asking to be let in.