To Walk with Him in White

The message to the church in Sardis is among the most condemning messages in the New Testament, and unfortunately one that is very applicable to popular Christianity in the West today.  In three brief verses (Revelation 3:1-3), Christ calls the Christians in Sardis to account for gross hypocrisy.  They claim Christianity and new life in Christ, but they evidently don't live it out.  They are living in the world, as if dead to Christ.  They are not watching for Him; they are not working for Him, they are simply too busy with other stuff.  These days, so many Christians in America and Europe are doing the same.  Though they claim the name of Christ, all that does is get them to church every Sunday.  They do not live new lives for Christ or have any passion for Him.  Instead, they have passion for everything in the world around them, which chokes out their life in Christ (if, indeed, they had any to start with).  This is why many churches in the west "have a reputation for being alive, but...are dead."

But these first three scathing verses do not describe all Christians in the West, nor did they describe all Christians in Sardis.  For He says in verse four:

"Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy."  -Revelation 3:4

This verse describes many Christians, and personal friends of mine, in the West.  These people have not soiled themselves with the stuff of the world: they are worthy of God and they will walk with Christ in white.  This does not mean that they are sinless or are not as sinful as the "dead" from verse 1.  No one is sinless (Romans 3:23, my memory verse most recently--yay! B-pack!) and God often uses the worst of people to be the best of Christians, in order to demonstrate that the greatness of Christianity is not the people who follow it but the Christ who saves and leads them (2 Corinthians 4:7).  However, such people are clensed from sin their faith in Christ, so that their garments are unsoiled (Isaiah 1:18).  The result is that Christ will be with them in a very special way: they will walk with Him in white.  The overtones of marriage in the verse are deliberate.  These people are a part of the Bride of Christ and will someday enjoy the most intimate relationship with Him that is possible, a relationship which is rudely prefigured here on earth by human marriage.  Yet even the best of marriage and the most wonderful of weddings will not hold a candle to the splendor of this union (1 Corinthians 2:9), which will take place at the end of time and last for all eternity.

I would do well to remember this more often about my friends, to better appreciate them and encourage them in their pursuit of God.  But I know that this verse also applies to myself, and this is just as challenging.  To be sure, the promise to walk with Him in white is one of the most wonderful promises in the Bible, if not the most wonderful.  But that's just the problem.  It's too wonderful.  I'm certain it's too good for me, that I'm not worthy, that God would never really give someone like me something so good as all of Himself.  To be perfectly frank, I am amazed He even keeps me around and I'm speachless that He actually has plans for my life, wonderful plans, too!  When we get to talk of heaven, and how it will actually be (as in beyond the cheezy images of clouds and harps and beyond the misconception that Heaven will be like a concert I can where I can sneak into the back row)--an incredibly intimate relationship, a marriage, with Christ--, that's when I get out of my comfort zone and tend to clock out mentally.  I know that Heaven is wonderful and the union I and every believer will experience there will be inexpressibly blissful, but I cannot possibly imagine that I deserve even my next breath, much less this.  I fear that to enter upon or even consider such a relationship is to be found counterfit because of my unworthiness and sin.

And yet, Christ counters this fear with this verse, ending by saying of all those who will walk with Him in white: "they are worthy."  That is why they will walk with Him in white.  That is why we will walk with Him in white.  Not because Christ is loose with His favor and lets any Tom, Dick, or Harry come in.  He isn't.  Yes, there is grace for even the greatest of sinners, and yes, it is available to all.  Yes, it is definately true that salvation is by grace, through faith, and not at all by human merit.  And yet, it is also true that when we reach Heaven, we will be worthy of it.  Indeed, Christ is so bold as to put it in the present tense: "they are worthy."  How, then is this possible?  The answer lies in the cross of Christ.  It is He who makes us worthy, because when He took our sins on Himself at Cavalry, He also gave us His perfect righteousness and worthiness (2 Corinthians 5:21).  This is not merely in God's eyes, or just in a spiritual sense.  For now, indeed, we feel unworthy and do unworthy things, but Christ also changes that, through the Holy Spirit working in us to conform us to the image of Christ.  Because of Christ, I have nothing to fear.  I must stop considering myself unworthy and rejecting His love, for He has made me worthy to receive it, by the price of His own blood.