Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 3:2

Revelation 3:2. Become watchful. Sardis had failed to ‘watch,' the very sin into which spiritual pride is sure to fall. Therefore must she first of all awake, discover what her temptation is, and put herself on her guard against the foe.

And stablish the things that remain which were ready to die; that is, which were ready, at the moment when the searching eye of her Lord was first directed towards her, to sink into the state characterized as ‘dead.' Christian graces, not persons, are alluded to, a part of the church's ‘works' that had as yet been preserved from the too complete degeneracy by which she had been overtaken.

For I have found no works of thine fulfilled before my God. In no part of the Christian life had Sardis reached that perfect spirituality after which she was to aspire. Spirituality is Christ's perfection, His consummation in His state of glory. At the right hand of the Father He is ‘spirit,' not to the exclusion of a body, but with a ‘spiritual body,' a body completely accordant and harmonious with that state of spirit in which He is. But the Church is Christ's fulness; and so long, therefore, as she is not spiritual, her works are not ‘fulfilled.' It is difficult to say why we should have the word ‘my' prefixed to God; but the probability is that it is for the purpose of bringing out that true nature of God which leads Him to demand spiritual worship. ‘My God,' ‘the God for whom and in whom I live, who am your ascended and glorified High Priest and King.' The Pharisee might think that God would be satisfied with outward profession: the heathen might offer Him a merely formal service. Jesus knew that He was ‘spirit' (John 4:24), and that only in spirit could He be worshipped.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 3:2

Old Testament

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