CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Revelation 3:1. Sardis.—Modern, Sart; once the capital of the old Lydian monarchy, now a village of paltry huts. Seven Spirits of God.—Most writers see in this the endowment of Christ with the Spirit, so as to be judge in His Church. But this idea involves unduly pressing the word “hath,” which more naturally suggests “hath in control” than “hath in possession.” Stuart understands our Lord presented here as having the seven presence-angels under His control, or at His disposal—having them as His attendants and the ministers of His will. In whatever sense “hath” is applied to the “seven Spirits” it is applied to the “seven stars.” Art dead.—Spiritually; a figure for being in a cold and lifeless state (Matthew 8:22; Romans 6:13; Ephesians 2:1; Ephesians 2:5; Colossians 2:13).
Revelation 3:2 Watchful.—Wakeful; the opposite of the present drowsy condition of the Church. Lit. “become watching,” “become as one who watches.” Things which remain.—Implying that some things had died out, and that some things were dying out, through neglect and disuse. In getting back energy for flagging things, there might come also restoration of lost things. Perfect.—Or up to the standard, “fully done, in weight and tale and measure.”
Revelation 3:3. Hold fast.—Compare the counsel to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:14; 2 Timothy 2:2). As a thief.—Unexpectedly, so as to find thee in a wholly unprepared state. (See Matthew 24:43; Luke 12:39; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:4; 2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 16:15.)
Revelation 3:4. Names.—This is thought to imply a Church roll. It may, however, only be a figure for “persons.” Defiled their garments.—“Clean white garments are very natural emblems of innocence. Hence, to be clothed with polluted garments, i.e. garments soiled and stained, is an emblem of a character which is soiled and polluted.” (See Zechariah 3:3, seqq.) Those are described whose outward lives had been free from impurity.
Revelation 3:5. Be clothed.—Or shall clothe himself (περιβαλεῖται). Book of life. Roll, or register, of the citizens of heaven. Names are blotted out of city registers when death occurs, or when crime is committed, and forfeiture of privilege ensues. Confess his name.—See Matthew 10:32; Luke 12:8.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Revelation 3:1-6
Death and Life and Peril of Life in a Christian Church.—There is scarcely more than a doubtful allusion, in this epistle, to the secular or religious conditions of the city of Sardis. That some of the members of the Church had not “defiled their garments” implies that there was some peculiar peril of moral defilement in their daily associations. There are ruins of a stately temple still remaining, which was dedicated to the mother-goddess Cybele; and her “worship, with its eunuch priesthood and its orgiastic rites, was one which tended, as much almost as that of Dionysos or Aphrodite, to sins of a foul and dark impurity.” The city was a very interesting one. It was famous for its purple dye, for its coinage, and for the manufacture of a compound metal, known as electrum. It was the ancient capital of the Lydian monarchy, and through its agora, or market-place, flowed the Pactolus, with its golden sands. But this epistle directs exclusive attention to the Christian Church in Sardis, and it is chosen as one of the seven Churches to receive direct messages from the Living Christ, because it was, in some way, a typical, or representative, Church; and in connection with it may be illustrated the universal Divine dealings with Churches that answer to this type. In what, then, is this Church a type of certain Christian Churches which may be found in every age? Its most marked peculiarity, the consequences of which the searching Spirit of Christ discovers and brings out to view, is, that the Church had been left for years in quietness and peace. It had not been touched by any of the persecutions that had afflicted sister Churches. The members lived as citizens in the esteem of their neighbours, not rousing opposition by any active resistance of the heathenism around, but, perhaps in an exaggerated and unworthy way, “following peace with all men.” The apparent consequence was a look of well-to-do-ness; a general prosperity; much orderliness of public service; fair charities; and conditions that seemed to indicate healthy Christian life. Sardis had the name and repute of a living Church. But there are peculiarly subtle influences always bearing upon individuals, and nations, and Churches, that go on a long time in undisturbed and prosperous quietness, with no changes to put virtue to the proof, and no warfare to put noble qualities to exercise. The supreme moral peril for a man is found in years of continued and unqualified worldly prosperity. The supreme test of a nation comes in prolonged periods of peace. And Churches that never know storm, or stress, or strain, are in grave danger of dropping down into listlessness and worldliness. The one thing that the individual, the nation, and the Church, lose in periods of unbroken outward material prosperity, is spiritual life, soul life. Bodily life, material life, social life, thrive well under such conditions, and they may come even to simulate, or stand instead of, spiritual life; but souls grow in times of conflict and trial. Pressure of distress, affliction, or evil, forces the soul into the activity in which alone it can thrive. Of some it is said in God’s Word, and in a very striking way, “Because they have no changes, therefore they forget God.” Life—soul life—cannot do with long-continued smoothness and ease. The law is an ever-working one, “Through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom.”
“The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the place where sorrow is unknown.”
The prophet Jeremiah illustrates the truth by a very suggestive figure: “Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed” (Jeremiah 48:11). The Church in Sardis, then, is a type of those Churches that have known years of unbroken outward prosperity and peace. We always are disposed to make mistakes about such Churches, and to over-estimate their spiritual condition. The Living Christ, who “walketh among the candlesticks,” makes no mistakes. Let us see what He may be finding, to-day, to be the truth concerning such Churches, by what He found to be the actual, rather than the apparent, state of the Church in Sardis. In dealing with the previous Churches, we have seen that, in each case, the Living Christ is pictured as present in a precise relation to the conditions and needs of the Church. That is equally true in this case. We have to be assured that He is never deceived, or carried away by mere appearances. He goes in behind the show of things to the inward reality. He can searchingly search. He can deal with motives. He can test for signs of spiritual life. So He is figured, in relation to Sardis, as having the seven Spirits, or the perfect Spirit of God. He has the Divine eye, which the psalmist felt. “searched and knew him,” and which the Christian teacher spoke of as “discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.” The Church in Sardis might be so satisfied with itself that it would find it hard to believe it could be as Christ declared it was. Let them know, then, that the Living One, who moved among them, saw secrets with absolute precision, for He had the seven Spirits of God. There can be no appeal from His searching inspection, and unhesitating decision. But that is not all the figure in which Christ is presented to this Church. He is also “He that hath the seven stars.” Now, the “stars” are the angels, or ministers, of the Churches; and this allusion to the Living Christ as having, or holding, the stars in His right hand, is evidently intended to suggest that He meant to subject the minister of this Church in Sardis to an unusually searching test. It was possible that he might be found as spiritually dead as were the average of the members of the Church. It might even be that his yielding to subtle, worldly influences had sealed the spiritual death of the Church. “His faith, as well as the faith of the Church, may have sunk into a superficial, though perhaps an unostentatious, state.” And if so, it was well that the Divine rebukes should seem, in a very direct way, to be pointed at him. In the inspection of this Church notice—
I. The Living Christ does not stop with mere signs of life.—There is almost an abruptness in the way in which they are mentioned, and brushed aside. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest.” “These things bring you men’s praise, and even men’s confidence, but I am not interested in them; I want to know what is behind them.” The show and the fame of Christian life is not always a genuine expression of spiritual life. Many a consumptive patient makes a brave show of life when he is just dropping into the grave. Other things besides spiritual life can secure the commonplace goodness of a man, and of a Church. A moral man may not be a Divinely quickened man. An apparently healthly Church may have really lost its vitality. The leaves of the tree do not fall at once when the fresh springs of sap are stopped in their flowing. Presently, if there be no sustaining life, the signs of life will surely fail. But when the Living Christ searched the Church in Sardis, and its minister, the evil, the spiritual death, was only in its beginnings. The tone of His address is more than usually severe. The conditions were subtle. The discovery of the insidious evil was physician’s work. The seeming flush of health really was but the hectic flush of disease. The very little, dull, but steady, pain and swelling, of which no notice was taken, was the sign of cancerous growth, and a living death. Signs of life in a Church! Services maintained; numbers increasing; propriety of conduct winning public respect; generous meeting of responsibilities; service of charity to the poor; kindly sympathies with one another in times of sorrow;—Christ, the Living Christ, passes them by, with a glance of approval; they are good as far as they go. He goes in behind them to test the vitality, the spiritual life, of which they should be the expression. And He may have to say, “I know thy works; thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.” “In Sardis there had been no open scandals. It was still recognised by the other Churches as a living and true member of the great family of God—was even, it may be, winning their admiration for its seemingly energetic vitality. And yet the chill and the paralysis, which were the forerunners of the end, were slowly creeping in upon its life; death, not life, was already master of the position, the dominant characteristic of the Church as a whole, and perhaps of its spiritual ruler in particular” (Plumptre).
II. The Living Christ is anxious about flagging life.—Nothing can be done by agencies within the Church’s control for those in the fellowship who are quite spiritually dead. There is no hope for them, save in the awakening trump of some direct Divine dealing. But, while this may be the condition of a few, the Living Christ fixes attention on those whose vital force was but failing—who were but beginning to die. And the searching Eye noticed that it was on certain sides of Christian life that they had begun to die, as trees show signs of hastening death in particular branches. This, however, only made their spiritual condition the more perilous, because they might easily be satisfied with the things into which spiritual life still streamed, and might fail to see the significance of the death that was doing its work in other things. When we live, crediting ourselves with, and getting the credit of, superior piety, it is very easy to blind ourselves to the actual conditions of spiritual peril in which we are found. But there is hope in dealing with those whose spiritual life is only flagging. The Living Christ bids them “establish the things that remain” alive, but “are ready to die.” He tells them that He had not found their works perfect, they were not good, not alive, all round the tree, and the death in some of the branches would inevitably spread to all the other branches. And He solemnly warns them—with a most arousing warning—that when deadly disease stealthily creeps upon a man, and is left unchecked, it has a way of leaping upon him at last, and clutching him with one hopeless grip. They will find it even so with flagging, diseased, deteriorated, spiritual life. “If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Plumptre says: “The angel of the Church is called to wake up from his slumbers, and then to strengthen in himself the energy, the zeal, the love, the hope, the faith, which were so nearly dying out. In doing this he could not fail to help the persons, also, in whom this flagging of all spiritual vigour had been most conspicuous, or, in the language of the epistle to the Hebrews, ‘to lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees.’ ”
III. The Living Christ recognises those in the Church who are truly and healthily alive.—For such there always are, even in a spiritually decaying and dying Church. The Lord always has His “remnant.” In a prosperous Church they are often found among those who are poor in this world’s esteem. And almost always they are found among the severely afflicted ones—those who have the trials and persecutions in their own personal experiences, which the Church, as a Church, may so perilously lack. They are always the salt of the Church, the hope of the Church. And they are sure to gain the loving recognition of the Living Lord who “walks among the candlesticks.” But the description given of the sign of life in them which their Lord recognises is singular and suggestive. “Thou hast a few names in Sardis which did not defile their garments.” They walked the foul highways of immoral Sardis clean. But the suggestion is not one of merely careful, watchful walking—one of mere ordering of conduct and relationship. It reminds us of Christ Himself, who walked the earth in spotless white, though He touched the leper and ate with sinners. He had such vigorous life in Him that neither His soul nor His body could take stains. That is the idea of the undefiled few. They have such vigorous spiritual life that as they go to and fro among defiled men and things they take no stains; they throw off all infections; cleanness and health are guaranteed to them by vigorous life. And these shall “walk with Christ in white.” They shall come into such a near and sympathetic fellowship with Him as only they can know who are alive as He is alive. If it be true that death creeps on from a spot to a limb, and from a limb to a vital organ, we need not miss seeing the answering truth—that life is active to resist encroaching death. Every really living Christian in a Church is an active, energetic power. The undefiled few preserve, as does the salt; they work as does the leaven; they spread as does life; they fight evil and death, even as the White One Himself ever did, and does. The hope of every Sardis lies in her present, searching Lord, and in her “undefiled few.”
IV. The Living Christ encourages effort to recover life by giving gracious assurances and promises.—“To him that overcometh” the stealthy, insidious influence of this prolonged Church prosperity and peace, that braces himself to resist the evil, and nourishes his soul-life into healthy vigour and activity, these assurances come. “He shall be arrayed in white garments”—a fitting array for the white-souled, and for the servants of the White Christ. Their whiteness shall come out and clothe them, and so take the attention of men and be a powerful witness for Christ. Their “name shall not be blotted out of the book of life,” as the names of the dead citizens must be, and the names of the dying citizens are in peril of being. And the Living Christ shall find His personal pleasure in them. He shall speak about them to His Father and to the angels; glad in those who are quick, and strong, and healthy, in that Divine life they have through Him. “I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.” “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith” unto the Church in Sardis. Beware, lest any of you succumb to the oppressive moral atmosphere that is around the Churches of Christ in these days of national prosperity, wealth, worldliness, and peace. In that atmosphere, spiritual life finds it hard to thrive. It has this subtle influence upon us: it nourishes self-indulgent life, mental life, artistic life, and even a sort of philanthropic life; and Churches are so easily deceived with these things, and induced to call them spiritual life. And then the real spiritual life moves slowly in the veins of the Church, and then it becomes stagnant in places, and then it mortifies. He who hath the seven Spirits of God looks at the facts, not at the seeming, and behold, He must say this: “I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead.” Dead in places, dying in other places—only a few parts really alive. What an alarming picture of a Christian Church! This is the arousing warning given to it: “Remember, therefore, how thou hast received and didst hear, and keep it and repent. If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Resist the creeping lethargy, arouse yourselves, shake off the sleep of hastening death. Be among those who overcome and live, and, because alive, walk the earth with the Living, White Christ.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Revelation 3:1. A Name to Live.—It is the reputation for piety possessed by the Church at Sardis which is referred to. Living with the credit of superior piety, it was easy to grow satisfied with the reputation, and to forget to keep open the channels through which grace and life could flow, and to fail to realise that the adoption of habits of life higher than those around them, or those who lived before them, was no guarantee of real spiritual life; for, as Mozley says, “the real virtues of one age become the spurious ones of the next.… The belief of the Pharisees, the religious practice of the Pharisees, was an improvement upon the life of the sensual and idolatrous Jews whom the prophets denounced. But those who used both the doctrinal and moral improvements as the fulcrum of a selfish power and earthly rank, were the same men, after all, as their fathers, only accommodated to a new age.” Self-satisfaction, which springs up when a certain reputation has been acquired, is the very road to self-deception. The remedy is progress, forgetting the things behind, lest, looking with complacency on the past, moral and spiritual stagnation should set in, and spiritual death should follow.—Bishop Boyd Carpenter.
Seven Spirits of God.—The Spirit is thought of, to use the later terminology of the Nicene creed, as the “Giver of life,” and of all its sevenfold gifts; the seven Spirits of chaps. Revelation 1:4 and Revelation 5:6 were but forms of that Divine life which He—one, yet manifold—imparted. He also “hath the seven stars,” which represent the guides and teachers of the Church; He is able, that is, to bring together the gifts of life, and the ministry, for which those gifts are needed. If each star shines with its peculiar radiancy, it is because it is under the power and influence of the sevenfold Spirit; if it has no life or light, and ceases to shine, there is the danger of its falling away from its place in that glorious band and becoming as one of the “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever” (Jude Revelation 3:13).—Dean Plumptre.
True Church Life.—The Church to whom this statement was made was that of Sardis, and the remarkable thing is that this strong condemnation is pronounced while yet no flagrant vices are charged upon its members. They appear to have been sound in creed, respectable in conduct; yet, after all, they were dead.
I. There are certain things which secure for a Church a good name, which yet are no sure indications of spiritual life.—
1. Numbers may give a name to live while yet there may be death.
2. Wealth may give a name to live.
3. The absence of immoral conduct is no sure indication of life.
4. A sound creed is no indication of a Church’s life, because it may have been departed from, or a Church may put the creed in place of the Saviour, or its members may have gone soundly to sleep upon its sound creed.
II. A sure indication of life is the fruit.—“I know thy works.” The threefold test of a Church’s life is—
1. Works of faith.
2. Works of love.
3. The patience of hope. The patience of hope is the work of hope. “If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” This patience is not simply quiet waiting, it is also active perseverance. Hope is the mainspring of effort, and a hopeful Church will be a persevering Church, with no such word as weariness in its vocabulary.—W. M. Taylor, D.D.
Revelation 3:4. The Undefiled Few.—To the Church in Sardis the message is one of almost unmingled reproof. Christ is represented as having the seven, or perfect, Spirits of God, therewith looking this Church through and through; going in behind the appearances of life, discerning the beginnings of spiritual death. Sardis was a tree fair to look upon, with leaf and flower; but the blight had stricken it—the blight of worldliness and self-indulgence. But that Eye, which is so quick to detect the evil, is yet more lovingly quick to discern the feeblest traces of good. “Even in Sardis” that Eye rested on an undefiled few, who were steadfast in heart, who were clinging to Him in trustful love, who were trying to walk the soiling streets of Sardis with unspotted garments. Such as they Christ will never pass over in forgetfulness; such true and earnest hearts need great comfortings; they shall have them, if need be, from the very lips of Jesus. To such He says, “They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”
I. The undefiled few.—
1. The figure used of unstained garments indicates those who have not brought disgrace upon their Christian professions by their outward life. This is, indeed, only one of the lowest forms of Christian virtue.
2. But more than this is meant. Sardis was famous, even among the degraded cities of that day, for the abandoned profligacy of its inhabitants. In comparison with those around them, their garments were undefiled.
3. There is yet a deeper reference here. The truly undefiled are they who keep up their integrity of heart, amidst all the faintings and fallings of their life.
II. Their present power.—In every branch of life, or phase of history, you find God has had a few who were leaders—leaders of thought, opinion, enterprise, active effort, and pure living. These are the salt, preserving the rest from corruption. Such was the service of the few in Sardis.
III. Their future glory.—This appears to embrace two things:
1. They who struggle after goodness now, shall find themselves settled in goodness then for ever.
2. Above all, these undefiled few shall have a communion with Christ of an extraordinary intimacy and preciousness. “They shall walk with Him in white.”
Walking in White.—White can hardly be called a colour. It is the soul of a thing shining through a simple and transparent medium. White shows the purity that a thing is. Illustrated by the white cactus. White is the emblem of innocence for children, and virtue for the redeemed. Illustrate priests in white. Church dressed as Bride—snow, wool, pure spring flowers. The text is in the book of Revelation. Can that book be won for Christian uses? The key to it is white, whiteness. Explain the prologue as a thesis worked out in the book. Compare the gospel of St. John, which has a similar beginning thesis. The first chapter is the vision of the Living, White Christ. He is with His Churches. He finds that they are all not-white. He is ever with them, to make them white. He uses the varied forms of earth-tribulation as His agents. As the process goes on through the ages, we get occasional glimpses of the heavenly, and there some sanctified wholly. The book closes with the vision of the Holy City for the holy ones, and the cry to Jesus to hasten the perfecting of His work.
I. We are not white.—St. John says, “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” It is the fact concerning us all, that we “have not kept our garments unspotted from the world.” We could not bear the searching of the full sunshine, or the testing of the spring-time. The White One searches all who are satisfied with themselves—searches words, thoughts, affections, tone, relations. How severe His searchings are, is seen in His messages to the Seven Churches of Asia. Ephesus had left its first love, Smyrna needed tribulation. There were a few things against Pergamos. Thyatira was self-indulgent. Sardis had a name to live, but was dead. Philadelphia had but “a little” strength.” Laodicea was lukewarm. However self-satisfied we may be, revealing times are sure to come, which humble us in the dust. This is our severest testing. True whiteness will not take stains, any more than Christ took leprosy. The only thing that can be said of us is, we have not been among stains. Who of us is clean every whit?
II. Christ is white.—Let us say, was white, that we may feel His was a human whiteness; and that whiteness, kin to us, He has carried above. This is the impression left by the scene of the Transfiguration. This impressed the apostles. They speak of Him as “holy, harmless, undefiled.” He “did no sin.” This is the point of the vision seen by St. John. God could see no stains on Him, though He walked earth’s highway. Man has tried his utmost to find stains on Christ; and what, at the most, do they ever find? Destruction of the swine, egotism, whip of cords, cursing of fig-tree. Do not say He was white because He was God. He was white as man. Then there must be a secret in His human whiteness. It was His sanctified Will. The blood is the physical life. The Will is the moral life. The blood must be pure. The Will must be right. Our trouble is that our Will is not right, therefore stains come and stay.
III. Christ is working to make us white as He is.—He wants it. It is the aim of His infinite love. In our deep hearts we want it. Why do we so love white flowers? Have you lost the present, living, cleansing, saving Christ out of your life? Are you only resting in something He once did? Then you have not learned the lesson of the book of Revelation. Then you have not seen the supreme glory of Christ. He maketh white. He is making white. In two ways.
1. As sunshine make sails look white.
2. As washing makes white paper in the paper mills. The book of Revelation describes God’s tearers, and chemicals, and rollers.
(1) The great Son cannot bear to see any stains on His brothers. Therefore He refines, as silver is refined, seven times.
(2) The great Son wants His own purity for every brother. His is purity within. We are anxious about a covering robe. The robe of immortality lets the white (that we have become) shine through. This, then, is Christ’s present work in us—His sanctifying of tribulation. He is getting our Wills turned wholly to righteousness. Death-time is the final process in the cleansing of the Will. In recognition of this, we get white wreaths for the dead. Christ’s glory for the future is this: we shall be clean, as He is. He can work on to secure that end. He can make us suffer in securing that end. And we ought to respond to His working in us. Triumph for the sin-stained is the Christ-won, everlasting, white robe. What becomes of bodies or of garments that keep on getting stained, and never get washed? It suggests the future of all who are out of Christ.
Revelation 3:5. Erasure of Names from, the Book of Life.—“A process of erasure is ever going on, besides the process of entering. When the soul has finally taken its choice for evil; when Christ is utterly denied on earth and trodden under foot; when the defilement of sins has become inveterate and indelible;—then the pen is drawn through the guilty name; then the inverted style (stylus) smears the wax over the unworthy characters; and when the owner of that name applies afterwards for admittance, the answer is, “I know thee not: depart hence, thou willing worker and lover of iniquity!”—Dr. Vaughan.
Christ’s Book of Life.—I. Christ has His Book of Life, a register and roll of all who shall inherit eternal life.—
1. The book of eternal election.
2. The book of remembrance of all those who have lived to God, and have kept up the life and power of godliness in evil times.
II. Christ will not blot the names of His chosen and faithful ones out of this Book of Life.
III. Christ will produce this Book of Life, and confess the names of the faithful who stand there before God and all the angels.—He will do this as their Judge, when the books shall be opened; he will do this as their Captain and Head, leading them with him triumphantly to heaven, presenting them to the Father.—Matthew Henry.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 3
Revelation 3:1. Sardis Famous for Toys.—“The games of children are pretty nearly the same the world over. Wilkinson has described some of the toys of the ancient Egyptians, found among the ruins and tombs of that remarkable land. Similar remains are found in various parts of Western Asia, the more graceful being the work of the Greek race, and of their nearest neighbours in the western part of the Peninsula. Sardis, the capital of Lydia, was celebrated of old for its manufacture of children’s toys, as Nuremberg is in Germany now. In that same region a great variety of articles in terra-cotta are found, exhibiting no little taste in the imitation of nature’s models. Miniature horses, cattle, dogs, fish, chickens, lions, and deer, an ass with its pack-saddle, dolls with arms and legs that could be moved by the pulling of a string, comic figures, or caricatures of hunch-backs, deformed negroes, satyrs, and idiots; also whistles, marbles, and many other things in a sufficiently good state of preservation, which compare well with similar products of our modern civilisation. The religion of Islam, indeed, forbids such representations now, yet it cannot prevent little girls playing with dolls, nor boys amusing themselves with mimic horses, sheep, and carts, nor both from eating the sugar birds, horses, and men of the candy-seller, himself a Muslim.”—Van Lennep.
A few mud huts, inhabited by Turkish herdsmen and a mill or two, contain all the present population of Sardis.
Revelation 3:5. White the Royal Colour.—Most persons believe that purple was the colour of royal robes in our Lord’s day. So the author believed when, riding over the valley of Sharon, he saw a lily in bloom, and was satisfied that it must be a genuine facsimile of the New-Testament flower. On dismounting from our horse, we found its rich velvet corolla to be of a dark purple. “There,” we exclaimed, “is the lily that vied with Solomon in his glory.” But careful investigation has compelled us to give up our impression. We are satisfied that the royal colour of all the monarchs in our Lord’s day was white. The Persian mingled the blue with the white (Esther 8:15; confirmed by Xenophon). Solomon’s royal attire, when visited by the Queen of Sheba, was white (Josephus, I. Rev. 8:7; Ecclesiastes 9:8). The high priest, on the great day of atonement, wore a robe of white linen (Exodus 28:2; Exodus 28:40). Mordecai’s was blue and white, with a crown (Cyropedia, lib. viii. 23). Alexander entered Jerusalem robed in white. Our Lord, in coronation robes, appeared in white on Mount Tabor. The kings slain were so many that their robes made the battle-field “white as the snow in Salmon” (Psalms 68:14). Herod’s robe was resplendent with silver tissue, woven through the linen (Acts 12:21; Josephus). Angels who appear to Cornelius, and were seen at the sepulchre, were clothed in white, and the saints, advanced to thrones and crowns, wear white coronation robes as kings and priests unto God (Revelation 1:6; Revelation 3:5). “Shushan, the Persian word for lily, signifies white” (Gesenius). Pilate clothed our Lord in a purple robe (worn of Roman nobility). Herod clothed Him in a white robe (Greek, “gorgeous,” or “shining”), Luke 23:11.