Revelation 3:18Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore, whoever is rich and well supplied, buy for yourself from Christ gold purified by fire. Then, when your impurities have been burned away in the fire, you can become pure gold, once you are cleansed by almsgiving and beneficence. Buy for yourself a white garment, so that the one who was naked in Adam and formerly stiffened in a loathsome condition may be clothed in Christ's white robe. Let the rich and well supplied matron anoint her eyes, not with the devil's antimony, but with the ointment of Christ. Then she may attain the vision of God, when she becomes worthy of Him by her works and conduct.

If you wish to be rich, I counsel you to acquire from Me, who enriches all, gold refined by the fiery desire of a burning heart. That is, gold purified by the fire of trials. Then you will have in your heart a treasure that cannot be plundered. You will be clothed in the bright robe of virtues, which will cover the nakedness of your sins. The collyrium, or eye medicine, signifies non-possessiveness. Gifts darken the eyes of those who look upon them, while contempt for gifts gives illumination to our sight.

Thus, by giving alms and living in good deeds, you yourself may become gold. You may receive understanding from God and, through conversion to the good, merit the martyrdom of patience.

The Lord calls those who lack works of righteousness naked, and He also accuses them of blindness. But the one clothed in white garments is he who is clothed in Christ's baptism and endowed with the power of that faith which works through love; for "as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). When He says that the eyes should be anointed with eye salve, He calls the heart to bend toward the divine Scriptures: "For the commandment of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes" (Ps. 18:9). Cf. Gal. 5:6.

Content with faith alone, you seek the treasures of piety in vain. If you truly desire to become rich, sell everything and buy the flame of love, tested in temptations. Anoint the eyes of your mind, not with the antimony of deceitful boasting, but with the ointment of divine understanding. To anoint the eyes with ointment means to become worthy, through good works, to understand Holy Scripture.

St. Macarius of Egypt writes: "If anyone says, 'I am rich; I have already acquired enough; I need nothing more,' such a man is not a Christian, but a vessel of delusion and of the devil.

For the enjoyment of God is insatiable. The more one tastes and eats of Him, the more hungry one becomes.

Such people possess an irresistible burning and love for God. The more they strive to make progress and advance, the more they regard themselves as poor, as needy and possessing nothing.

This is what they say: 'I am unworthy that this sun should shine upon me.' This is the mark of Christianity: humility."

See verse 19. The Lord exhorts the deluded man to repentance. He proposes that he buy from no one else, but from the Lord Himself, the necessary things of which repentance consists.

The purchase is urgently needed. Without it there is no salvation.

There is no salvation without repentance. Repentance is received from God only by those who, in order to receive it, sell all their possessions.

That is, they renounce everything that had been falsely appropriated to them by conceit.

The path to spiritual contemplation is constant abiding in repentance, in lamentation, and in tears over one's sinfulness.

Lamentation and tears are the eye salve by which the eyes of the soul are healed.

To avoid such danger, Jesus Christ counsels one to buy what is necessary. That means not merely to ask for it, nor to receive it without cost, but precisely to acquire it from Christ Himself at the price of labor and repentance. Hence: "Be zealous and repent" (Rev. 3:19); compare Isa. 4:1. He counsels them to buy true, pure gold, refined by fire, so as to become rich. He counsels them to buy a white garment, so as to be clothed, and collyrium for anointing the eyes, so as to see. Collyrium, καλλούριον or κολλύριον in Greek, originally meant a piece of bread given to children. Later it meant a medicine of elongated and round form. Finally, it meant eye ointment.

Ordinary human reason does not know the spiritual power of the word. It even fears conjectures about it.

This is almost as it must be, since it no longer takes the forms of its knowledge from the man created in the image of God.

Rather, it takes them from the man who, having fallen from that height through sin, "was joined to the senseless beasts and became like them," as the Psalmist says (Ps 48:13).

To this very man belongs the same reason that now judges the capacities and powers of man.

What wisdom can be expected from such reason?

Like a blind man, it feels the eye. Unable to touch light in it, it concludes that there is no sun in heaven, just as there is none in his eyes.

To the Church of Laodicea in Phrygia, whose members did not regard their Christian duties with sufficient seriousness, the Lord addresses Himself as the embodied affirmation of the truth of His words: the Amen, the faithful and true Witness.

He also speaks as One Who is Himself able to fulfill every threat He has uttered against those who forget His commandments.

Describing the condition of the Laodicean Church, the Lord compares it to lukewarm water. Whoever takes it into his mouth involuntarily spits it out, because it produces a very unpleasant sensation.

It would have been better if the Laodiceans were cold, that is, if they had remained pagans. Then they might have been left in peace while their conversion was awaited.