[Chapter 3-2] Those Who Did Not Defile Their White Garments (Revelation 3:1-6)
(Revelation 3:1-6)
The
passage here says, “You have a few names even in Sardis who have not
defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they
are worthy.” Walking in “white” means that they have defended their
faith in the righteousness of God.
God walks with those who keep the chastity of their faith. He never leaves them alone, but is always with them and blesses them.
There
are the righteous on this earth who walk with the Holy Spirit. God has
written their names in the Book of Life and permitted them eternal life
to live forever. By clothing the righteous in white and being with them
always, God has made it possible for them to always overcome Satan in
their struggle against him.
To Be the One Who Overcomes Satan
To
be the one who overcomes Satan, we must first believe in the Word of
redemption that the Lord has given us. As such, let us turn to the Word
and see how the Lord has saved us with the gospel of the water and the
Spirit.
Let’s
begin by looking at Luke 10:25-35. “And behold, a certain lawyer stood
up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading
of it?” So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and
with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” And He said to
him, “You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.” But he,
wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Then Jesus answered and said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing,
wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a
certain priest came down that road. And when he saw him, he passed by on
the other side. Likewise a Levite, when he arrived at the place, came
and looked, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as
he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had
compassion. So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil
and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and
took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two
denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, ‘Take care of him;
and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.’”
We
see two protagonists in this passage: Jesus and a lawyer. This lawyer,
to boast of his faithfulness to the Law, asked Jesus: “Teacher, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life?” What kind of impression do you get
from this question?
The
lawyer in question mistakenly thought that he could keep the Law by
obeying it in the literal level. But God gave His Law to mankind so that
people would be able to recognize the sins of their hearts. The Law of
God speaks of and discloses the sins that are fundamental to people’s
hearts. In their hearts are found evil thoughts, immoral minds,
murderous minds, minds that steal, minds that bear false testimony,
minds of madness, and more. To point out the sins of the lawyer’s heart,
therefore, our Lord asked him in return, “What is written in the law?
What is your reading of it?”
Our
Lord wanted the lawyer to recognize the fundamental presence of sin in
his heart. But pompously asking Jesus “what shall I do to inherit
eternal life?,” the lawyer instead boasted of his own righteousness.
From his words, we can see what the lawyer thought: “I’ve kept the Law
well so far, and I am sure to keep it until I die.”
But
we must realize that the Law given by God can be kept only by God
Himself, and that there is no one else, not even a single person, who
can wholly keep His Law. Therefore, for a man to try to keep the Law of
God only shows his foolhardiness and arrogance before the Lord. We must
only recognize that we are sinners who can never keep God’s Law.
For
all of us, how we read the Word of God is very important. When we read
the Word of God, we must read with an awareness of the purpose that God
has intended for us. If we read the Bible without this awareness of the
Lord’s intention, our faith may flow in the opposite direction of His
will. This is why there are so many different denominations, and why
those whose faith is united with God are so often rejected.
When
those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit read the
Bible, they can understand exactly what the purpose of God is. But when
one reads the Bible without believing in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit given by God, then this can only cause great misunderstandings,
and such a person can never have biblically sound faith no matter how
hard he/she studies the Bible.
What Does the Law Say?
We
continue with the passage from Luke: “He said to him, ‘What is written
in the law? What is your reading of it?’ So he answered and said, ‘You
shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as
yourself.’”
Romans
3:20 says, “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” The Bible also tells
us, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse
(Galatians 3:10).”
The
Law not only makes us, who were already born as sinners, into even
greater sinners, but it also reveals only the shortcomings of our deeds.
This is why “as many as are of the works of the law are under the
curse.”
Some
people say that one can enter Heaven if he/she believes in God and
observes the Law well, and that one must try hard to keep the Law. So
these people, even as they believe in Jesus, spend their entire lives
trying to keep the Law. But they are in fact under the curse of the Law.
Those who have not been saved from their sins even as they believe in
Jesus are unable to escape from the confines of their faith that tries
to keep the Law in vain. They may believe in Jesus, but they will remain
as sinners before God, and sinners before God can only face His fearful
judgment. This is why Jesus, who is God, came to us as our Savior and
became the Redeemer of sinners. To elaborate further, in other words,
Jesus took care of all our sins by being baptized in the Jordan River.
Do
you know that baptism is the mark of salvation that cleanses away all
our sins? Jesus’ baptism was the only method that God established to
cleanse away all our sins.
The
Bible tells us, in Matthew 3:15, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it
is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” The word “for thus”
here means, in its original language, “the most appropriate,” or “the
most fitting.” In other words, it was most appropriate and fitting that
Jesus would take upon all our sins on Himself through His baptism by
John. The baptism of Jesus Christ, in short, took care of all our sins.
Jesus Christ delivered us from our sins by being baptized and dying on
the Cross. When people know this exact truth and fight the lies, God
calls them as those who overcome.
Whom Must the born-again Fight against?
The
born-again must fight against and overcome the legalism. In religious
terms, the leaders of the Law may appear to be good, but deep inside
they are challengers against God. Thus their words, while they may
appear as virtuous, are in fact the words of Satan that keep their
followers under the curse of sin. This is why the saints must fight and
overcome these religionists.
The
religionists claim that salvation comes by believing in Jesus, but they
also claim that one can enter Heaven when he/she lives a virtuous life
before the Law. Can such faith be called as the faith that leads one to
be saved? Of course not!
So,
the Lord used a parable to enlighten the legalists and us on this
matter. The story goes something like this: A certain man who was going
down to Jericho from Jerusalem was attacked by robbers who beat and left
him half dead. A priest also happened to be on his way to Jericho from
Jerusalem, and came by this beaten man. But the priest did not help him,
and instead passed by on the other side. Another person, this time a
Levite, came upon the victim, but he, too, pretended not to hear the
poor man’s cries for help and simply went around him.
Then,
a third person came by, this time a Samaritan. Unlike the priest or the
Levite, the Samaritan actually bandaged his wounds, poured oil and
wine, carried him to an inn on his animal, and took care of him. He even
gave money to the innkeeper, saying, “Take good care of him. I’ll stop
by on my return; if you end up spending more than what I gave you to
heal him, I’ll repay you on my way back. So do whatever you can to help
this man.”
Who
among these three is good? The Samaritan, of course. This Samaritan
refers to Jesus. What has saved sinners like us is neither the Law of
God, nor its teachers, nor its leaders, far less our own strength,
effort, or prayers of repentance. Only Jesus who came to this earth to
cleanse away our sins is the real Savior. Jesus has “thus” (Matthew
3:15) delivered all the sinners. The baptism of Jesus and His blood on
the Cross are the mark of the sinner’s salvation (1 Peter 3:21). All the
sinners of this world are saved by Jesus’ baptism and Cross. Those who
believe in the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River and His blood on the
Cross as their salvation are wholly and completely delivered from all
their sins.
Jesus
has given us the strength to fight against and overcome the false
doctrines of untruth. When people claim, “We believe in Jesus, but if
you keep God’s Law and your deeds are good, then you will be delivered
from all your sins,” they are only showing their obstinacy and
propagating lies. If you add or subtract anything at all to the truth of
our salvation by Jesus, then this would no longer be the truth. Jesus
has given us the strength to fight against and overcome such false
doctrines of untruth.
Today’s
leaders of the Law talk loud before the people, as if they observe the
Law well. But we often witness that they cannot act on their words when
they face a situation where, though difficult, they must nonetheless
observe what the Law demands of them. They realize themselves that
though they want to do good in their hearts, they cannot do it because
of the weakness of their flesh. By hiding their weaknesses and cloaking
themselves in religious formalities, they deceive others and weigh them
down with the same burden.
Just
as the priest and the Levite did in the above passage, today’s
legalists also carry a double standard of simply passing by the other
side whenever their commitment requires their sacrifice. This is the
powerlessness of man before the Law of God. People hide this by cloaking
it in a beautiful garment called religion. But all those who hide
themselves before the Lord cannot be saved. Only those who recognize
their sinfulness by revealing their true selves with the measure of the
Law can be delivered from all their sins by the Word of the truth of the
water and the Spirit.
Only
Jesus does not pass by the dying sinners and only He saves them by
finding and meeting them. He shifted all our sins to Himself by being
baptized in person, and He delivered the dying sinners from all their
sins by paying their wages with the sacrifice of His own body. This is
how Jesus has become the Savior for all the sinners.
Those Who Overcome Will Be Clothed in White
The
passage here tells us that those who overcome will be clothed in white.
This means that we must fight and overcome the liars within the
Christian world. Even as we speak now, these liars are teaching people
to believe in Jesus and live in goodness. Living in goodness, of course,
is the right thing to do. But fundamentally, people’s hearts are filled
with all kinds of filthy things, from murder to adultery, theft, and
jealousy; and so saying to these people to live in goodness, though the
saying itself is right, is akin to confining them to a mere religion and
suffocating them to death. Telling the people whose sins are piling up
to their throat to “live in goodness” is to push them into
self-condemnation.
As
such, what they really need is for us to help them to be delivered from
all their sins by teaching them the truth of the water and the Spirit
that can save them from their fundamental sins. This is the right
lesson, and after this teaching comes the admonishment to live a life of
goodness in God. To put it differently, the most immediate priority for
those standing outside Christ as sinners is to make them righteous by
preaching to them the gospel of the water and the Spirit first.
The Degrading of Christianity into a Worldly Religion
We
must not be deceived by the worldly religions. Only when we fight and
overcome the worldly religions that spread lies can we enter Heaven.
Because we are incapable of keeping the Law of God, we need the grace of
salvation that Jesus has given us, and only by believing in this grace
can we meet the Lord.
But
many in Christendom, although they believe in Jesus, are being dragged
to hell, deceived and misguided by those who spread lies. They are
deceived by the seductive notion that people can and must be good. But
because we are fundamentally born with sin, we can never be good no
matter how hard we try. As such, we can be saved only by believing in
the gospel of the truth that Jesus has saved us by His water and Spirit.
We can live a new life only when we recognize that we have become
sinless by believing in this truth.
The
Pharisees of the Bible and most of today’s Christians who are not
cleansed of their sins by not believing in the gospel of the water and
the Spirit are all the same—they are all heretics. The Pharisees
believed in God, the resurrection of souls, and the afterlife as
recorded in the Scripture. But they did not believe in Jesus as their
Messiah. Moreover, they trampled on and ignored Christ’s baptism and His
blood on the Cross.
Today,
there are many Christians who are just like these Pharisees. They have a
tendency to give more recognition to Christian doctrines than the Bible
itself. This is why there are so many heresies sprouting out endlessly
nowadays. In Titus 3:10-11, God tells us about the heretics saying,
“Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing
that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.” Those
who belong to heresies trust, believe, and follow their religious
leaders more than the Bible, and as a result, they are all to be
destroyed.
Now
as before, there are many false prophets springing up in this world.
Through the Word of the main passage, God thus told us that everyone
must fight and overcome these false prophets. He also said only those
who overcome will be clothed in the garments of righteousness.
In
Luke 18 is found “the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.” A
Pharisee went up to the Temple, raised his hands, and prayed in pride:
“God, I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I earn.” The tax
collector, in contrast, could not even raise his face when he prayed:
“God, I can’t do what he does. I’m a sinner with many shortcomings, who
can’t fast twice a week and who can’t even give You tithe. Not only
that, I’ve also deceived people, stolen from them, and have done many
other evil things. I’m a worthless man. Have mercy on me, God. Have
mercy and save me please.”
The
Bible tells us that it was the tax collector who was justified by God
rather than the Pharisee. This is shown well in the question, “who can
possibly be forgiven of sin?” It is none other than those who realize
their own shortcomings. Those who know that they are sinners, the souls
that recognize that they are undoubtedly bound to hell were the Law or
the righteous judgment of God to be applied to them—these are the ones
who receive the salvation of redemption from Jesus.
Matthew
3:15 records what Jesus spoke just before He was baptized. “Thus” in
this verse means that Jesus’ baptism was the most appropriate way to
save sinners—that is, saving them by making their sins disappear with
the baptism of Jesus, which handed over all sins to Him.
Do
you believe in the fact that Jesus has “thus” saved you from your sins?
The Lord took upon all your sins on Himself when He was “thus”
baptized. He then carried all the sins of the world to the Cross and
paid the wages of all these sins with His own blood. You must believe in
this for your soul to live. When you believe this, your soul is atoned,
and you are born again as a child of God.
Yet
there are many in this world who deny this truth of the water and the
Spirit, the gospel of salvation. This is why we must fight spiritual
battles. I am not saying that we should do more wrong deeds to recognize
our sin, but that we should be clothed in God’s grace by recognizing
ourselves as someone who is fundamentally bound to sin and to be judged
spiritually. You must accept the fact that Jesus is your Savior.
Everyone who wants to be saved must believe in the Jesus of redemption
who took upon all our sins on Himself and was judged in our place. Only
then can there no longer be any sin left in one’s heart.
Is
there sin in your heart right now? Those who think there is sin in
their hearts must know the Law of God first. By God’s Law, the wages of
sin is death. If you have sin, then you must die. If you die without
being atoned for your sins, you will be judged and sent to hell. Because
everyone in this world cannot help but sin, everyone cannot avoid but
be sent to hell before the Law of God. This is why God, having mercy on
us, saved us by sending His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to this
earth, having Him “thus” (Matthew 3:15) take upon all the sins of the
world on Himself with His baptism in the Jordan River, and judging Him
on the Cross in our stead—all so that He could send us to Heaven.
We
cannot be saved because of our good deeds. People may have different
levels of hypocrisy, but everyone is a hypocrite nonetheless, and no one
can completely reach perfect goodness. Therefore, people can be
delivered from all their sins wholly only when they are forgiven of all
their sins by believing in the salvation of Christ’s atonement. This is
the core truth of the Bible.
Describing
how he was before he met the Lord, Paul confessed, “For the good that I
will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I
practice” (Romans 7:19). Why was Paul like this? Because mankind is
simply incapable of doing any good. Everyone knows that doing good is
the right thing to do, but no one is fundamentally able to do so. This
is something wholly different in degree and dimension from the desires
of the flesh that even the righteous have. This is why people are saved
only by believing in the gospel of truth that the Lord has given them.
How
did the righteous and sinless God accept such unclean and filthy beings
as we? God saved and embraced us because of our Lord Jesus. He took
upon all the sins of mankind with His baptism by John, the High Priest
of mankind, carried these sins to the Cross, and was judged in our
place. Do you believe in Jesus? Believing in Jesus is believing in what
He has done for us.
The Way to Stand before God
Cain
and Abel were born between Adam and Eve, the first parents of mankind.
When Adam and Eve sinned, God killed an animal instead and clothed them
in its skin. This teaches mankind two laws of God. One is God’s law of
justice, where “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) and the other
is His law of love, where sacrifices are used to cover the sinners’
shameful sins. Adam and Eve, deceived by Satan, sinned against God.
Regardless of how they ended up sinning, they had to be put to death,
for the wages of sin is death before the Law of God. But God killed an
animal instead and clothed them in its skin. This was the foreshadowing
symbol of the sacrificial atonement to come.
After
committing their sin, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together and made
themselves coverings. But these fig leaves could not last long, as they
dried out in the sun, breaking and falling apart with their movement,
and thus unable to cover their blemish. So on behalf of Adam and Eve who
tried to cover their shame with fig leaves in vain, God killed an
animal, made tunics of skin, and clothed them. Through the sacrificial
offering, in other words, God covered all the shame of sinners.
This
speaks to us of God’s love for us and His just salvation. Adam and Eve
realized that God killed the animal instead of them, and that He Himself
covered all their shame and saved them. They then passed on this faith
to their children.
Adam
had two sons, Cain and Abel. Cain, the first son, offered to God the
produce of his own effort and strength as his offerings, while Abel’s
offering was a slaughtered lamb in accordance to God’s law of atonement.
Which one did God accept? These two offerings were one of the key
landmark events of the Old Testament that showed the contrast between
the offering of faith and the offering of human thought. God accepted
Abel’s offering. The Bible tells us that God did not accept Cain’s
offering of the fruit of the ground and of his sweat and labor, but
instead accepted Abel’s offering of the firstborn of his flock and their
fat.
“Abel
also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the
Lord respected Abel and his offering,” says the Bible. God received
Abel’s offering and his sacrifice in joy. From this Word, we must be
able to read what God’s heart wants from us.
How
would God accept us? Everyday we come so short before Him; how could we
ever stand before God? There is only one way in which we can go to God,
only one way that God has set for us. This is none other than through
“offering”—not the offering of our “deeds,” but the offering of our
“faith.” This is what God accepts.
What
was the faith that Adam and Eve passed onto their children? This was
the faith of “tunics of skin.” Put differently, it was the faith that
believed in atonement through sacrificial offering. Today, this is the
faith in the gospel of the water and the blood of Jesus: “I believe that
all my sins were taken away by Jesus’ baptism and blood, and that He
was judged in my place. I give this faith as my offering. I believe that
the Lord took away all my sins when He was baptized. I believe that all
my sins were passed onto Jesus. As God promised in the Old Testament,
Jesus Christ made me sinless by being the sacrificial lamb and dying for
me. I believe in this salvation.”
When
we stand before God, believing that the Lord has thus saved us, God
accepts the offering of this faith and embraces us. Why? Because just by
His “sacrificial offering,” and nothing else, we have become sinless
and righteous before God.
God
accepted us because we gave Him the offering of our faith that believes
in Jesus as our Savior. When God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice, in other
words, He also accepted us in Christ. The reason is because all our sins
were passed onto the offering. Because the judgment for our sins was
passed onto this offering, we have become sinless. This is the justice
of God and His righteousness. This is also the love of God and His
perfect salvation.
We, Too, Offer Abel’s Faith
The
Bible tells us that God accepted Abel’s offering of faith with joy.
What, then, is the offering of faith that God would accept from us
today? When we believe in our hearts that Jesus is our Savior, and that
He took care of all our sins and was judged for us, and when we give
this faith to God, God accepts us by the offering of this faith.
Regardless of how short our deeds have come, because all our sins were
passed onto Jesus, and because Jesus was judged in our place, God the
Father found our sins in His Son, not in us. God thus passed all our
sins to His Son, judged Him in our stead, raised Him from the dead in
three days, and has sat Him on His right hand.
God
has saved all those who believe in this. He has accepted our offering
of faith. Without Jesus Christ, we can never stand before God. But
because Jesus became our assured Savior, we can go to God with the
offering of this faith, and because of this offering, God can accept us.
Is our faith in this truth whole? Of course it is!
We
have now become actually sinless. Because our sins were passed onto
Jesus, God clothed us, who have become sinless, in white garments. He
made us righteous. As our Lord promised, “He who overcomes shall be
clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the
Book of Life,” He will confess our names before His angels.
In
God’s Church of Sardis, there were a few who walked with the Lord in
white. None other that these were the servants of God, His children and
saints.
God
accepted Abel’s offering. And He also accepted Abel. But God does not
accept offerings if they are not whole. God thus did not accept Cain and
his offering. Why did God not accept Cain and his offering? He did not
accept them because Cain’s offering was not the offering of life
prepared with the atoning blood. The Bible tells us that Cain gave the
fruits of the ground, the produce of his own effort, as his offering.
Put simply, he offered his crops. These might have been watermelon,
corn, or potato, or whatever, no doubt all cleaned and well prepared.
But God did not accept this kind of offering.
This
offering of Cain has an important meaning that today’s Christians must
all understand to be saved. But few really know the heart of God in
today’s world, for many of them have no idea, not even in their dreams,
that they are actually giving Cain’s offering to God.
When
one stands before God, he/she must first recognize oneself as bound to
death and hell because of his/her sins. Do you recognize this before
God, that you are doomed and bound to hell because of your sins? If you
do not acknowledge this, then there is no need for you believe in Jesus,
for Jesus is the Savior of sinners. The Lord told us, “Those who are
well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Our Lord is
needed by the souls that are suffering under the yoke of sin, not by
those who do not realize their own sins and who claim to be sinless when
they are yet to be born again.
Everyone
is fundamentally a sinner. God therefore has to judge mankind, and
mankind is bound to face this judgment of God’s wrath. You and I, in
other words, are all doomed to be destroyed. But to avoid sending us to
this hell of destruction, the Lord took away all our sins with His
baptism in the Jordan River and received God’s judgment in our place.
Because of this, the Lord could wholly save all of us before God.
Therefore, only those who actually commit sin before God and acknowledge
themselves as sinners need to believe in God, and to only these has God
become the Savior.
Faith that Clothes Us in the White Garment of Salvation
As
the Bible tells us, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood”
(Leviticus 17:11), the life of a man is also in his blood. Because of
our sins, we must surely die. Why, then, did Jesus die on the Cross? He
died on the Cross because He took upon all our sins on Himself, and,
because the wages of sin is death, Jesus shed His blood of life to pay
the wages and died in our place. To bear witness to this truth, He was
crucified, bled and died on the Cross instead of us.
As
the Bible tells us, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was
bruised for our iniquities” (Isaiah 5:15). Jesus really died because of
our transgressions and iniquities. His death, therefore, is our death,
and His resurrection is our resurrection. Do you believe in this?
Jesus
came to this earth to save us and was baptized to make our sins
disappear. Jesus was also crucified. People despised Him, robbing Him of
His clothes, spitting at Him, and slapping His face. Why did Jesus, who
is God, face this humiliation of being slapped and spat at? Our Lord
was despised because of our sins.
The
death and resurrection of the Lord, therefore, are the death and
resurrection of each and everyone of us. No religious leader of the
world took care of our sins. Neither Mohammed, nor Buddha, nor anyone
else in this world gave up his life for our sins.
But
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to this earth and took upon our sins
with His baptism in the Jordan River and made us sinless. And to
deliver us from our death, judgment, destruction and curse, He gave up
His own life.
Therefore,
as the Bible tells us, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ
have put on Christ,” our faith must be clothed in the garment of
righteousness, atoned for our sins, by believing in the baptism of Jesus
that took away all our sins from us. This faith in Jesus’ baptism thus
includes faith in our death and resurrection.
God
has made us His children by looking at this faith of ours that believes
in His Son. This is the receiving. God receives us by looking at the
offering of our faith that we bring before Him. He does not receive us
by looking at our deeds, but He receives us as His children by looking
at our faith in the Son of God as the Savior of all, who bore our sins,
was judged in our place, and rose from the dead again.
This,
my beloved brothers and sisters, is the true faith. We are saved not by
our own deeds, but we are clothed in white garments by the works of
Jesus Christ. No man’s deed can be 100 percent clean. For our hearts to
become sinless, we must give up our own futile effort, and instead only
believe in the Lord as our Savior. By believing this and this alone can
we be clothed in white garments.
Our
names will then be written in the Book of Life, and we will be approved
by God before the angels. Jesus Himself will recognize us as the
children of God, saying, “I have saved you; you are righteous because I
have made your sins all disappear.” This is the exact meaning of the
main passage from Revelation that we have been discussing so far. We can
be atoned only when we come into the church of God, and the atoned are
found only in His church.
God
the Father has received us by looking at our faith in His Son. Though
in our infirmities and shortcomings we cannot help but go astray on a
daily basis and constantly fall into weaknesses, God looked at our faith
in His Son, and because of this faith He has received us as He has
received His own Son. Our Lord has saved us.
And
He has clothed us in white garments. Faith in the sinlessness of our
hearts is the evidence of our clothing in white garments. The Lord has
promised us that, when we stand before Him with our hearts first clothed
in white garments, He will turn our flesh into godly bodies.
In
this world, there are God’s churches where the righteous and the
servants of God can be found. There are those who are clothed in white
garments in these churches, and God works through His churches and His
servants.
Let
us turn to Revelation 3:5 again: “He who overcomes shall be clothed in
white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life;
but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
One
precondition that God gave us in the above passage is that He will
clothe in white garments only “he who overcomes.” We must overcome. But
those who, though they believe in Jesus, also believe that their daily
sins must be forgiven by their daily confessions are not the ones who
overcame Satan in their fight against him, but the ones who were
defeated. People with such faith can never be clothed in white garments.
They can never become the righteous.
Only
those who overcome believe in the Lord’s perfect work of salvation. The
Lord has already given you the faith that can overcome such false
doctrines as the doctrines of sanctification or justification. God has
also saved us with His true gospel, the gospel of the baptism and the
blood, so that we may fight and overcome the false gospels that do not
bring us the perfect salvation and be freed from Satan.
We
must only hand over our sins in faith, concretely recognizing in our
hearts that all our sins have indeed been passed onto Jesus. And we must
believe that we died when Jesus died, and that His death was the
vicarious one in our place. We must also believe that Jesus rose from
the dead to let us live again. When we have this concrete faith of
truth, God, looking at our faith, approves us as the righteous.
This,
put differently, is the meaning of the Word, “But as many as received
Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who
believe in His name” (John 1:12). People do not become God’s children
just by saying with their mouths, “I believe in Jesus,” when in fact
they do not even have any proper knowledge of Jesus at all.
The
Word of God continues, “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). That’s
right. Becoming God’s children is possible only by faith. For this, we
must therefore fight against and overcome the liars. Those who have
received the remission of sin by thus overcoming the liars must walk
with God by also overcoming the desires of their flesh. They must live,
in other words, by the will of God.
What,
then, is the will of God? God’s will is for those who have been clothed
in white garments to unite together and serve His gospel. His will is
for the righteous, though they may live apart, to gather together to
worship, serve, and praise God, and to spread the gospel to sinners so
that they, too, may be clothed in white garments. This life of working
for the salvation of souls is the life of the people of God, the life of
His servants.
When
we live such a life, God not only clothes us in His “righteousness,”
but He also gives us all the blessings of both the prosperity on this
earth and the spiritual blessings of Heaven. By making us preach this
gospel to those around us, He clothes them also in white garments. God
has clothed all the righteous and those around them in white. God has
allowed us to overcome in our fight against the untruth by believing in
the Word of truth. And He has given the blessing of being clothed in
white garments to the righteous who thus overcome in this spiritual
struggle. Praise the Lord!
No comments:
Post a Comment