Revelation 3:4Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

You have acquired this good thing: some of your members have not defiled themselves by sinful deeds in their purity of soul. Having kept the garment of incorruption undefiled, they will be clothed with Me in the regeneration in bright wedding garments.

Everyone who is not defiled by the filth of sin walks with the Lord in white and becomes worthy to follow in the footsteps of the Lamb.

By those who have not defiled their garments, He means the bodies of the saints, according to what was said by the patriarch Jacob: "He washes his garment in wine" (Gen 49:11). Isaiah says the same: "Why is Your garment red, and Your robes like one who has trodden nearly everything in the winepress?" (Isa 63:2). Thus the white garment signifies bodily purity.

He who knew the name of Moses and writes in heaven the names of His saints calls His own sheep by name.

Only a few are able, in the hour of temptations, to confess the name of the Lord before men, because this is bound up with the shedding of one's own blood. But only blood that has been shed makes the garments of the soul white (cf. Rev 6:9-11).

"But you have a few names." You have a few persons left who have not stained themselves with vices and have not fallen into a state of deadness like the greater part of the members of the Church of Sardis.

What does the Lord command to be written to the angel of the Church of Sardis? Rev 3:1-6. More of rebuke than of consolation. The works of the Sardian Church are incomplete before God. What the Sardians received and heard when they were instructed by the Gospel preaching has been forgotten, or is not being fulfilled in their life. Therefore, if they do not repent, they may be subjected to sudden judgment and condemnation from God. Still, among them there are a few who have not defiled their garments. The victors over passions and temptations will be clothed in white garments. They will be written in the book of life, and their names will be confessed before the heavenly Father and before the angels. "Yet you have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments" (Rev 3:4).

Yet even in this Church there are people who did not yield to the common disposition. Therefore here on earth they preserve those virtues, or white garments, that adorned the Lord during His earthly life. They are fully worthy to be followers of Christ. In heaven these people will also be counted worthy of special distinction, and their names will never be blotted out from the book of citizens of the heavenly city. The Lord will always acknowledge them as His own.