In Revelation 3:5 the Lord said to the church in Sardis that “he who overcomes” will be clothed “in white garments.” This indicates that Christ is the white garments to clothe the overcomers. To overcome here is to overcome the deadness of the Protestant churches, that is, to overcome dead Protestantism. To walk in white garments is to have a living that is unspotted by death and that is justified and approved in life by the Lord. The promise of being clothed in white garments is a prize to the overcomers in the millennial kingdom. What they have been walking in during this age will be a prize to them in the coming age.
White garments refer to livingness. To be living is to wear the white garment. If we are spiritually dead, we are dirty; such a dead person is the dirtiest one. Also, if we are dead, we are naked. We need the living garment to cover us; this living garment is Christ Himself wrought into us by the living Spirit. The only way to have this garment is to turn to the spirit.
Every Christian needs two garments. The first is the garment of salvation, signifying Christ as our righteousness objectively. In Luke 15, when the prodigal son returned home, the first thing the father did was to have the best robe placed upon him. Wearing that robe, the prodigal son was justified in the presence of the father. He had been a pitiful beggar, no longer worthy to be with the father. But once he had the robe upon him, he was justified and approved. This means that he was justified in Christ and that Christ became his justifying covering. He was covered by Christ as his righteousness. Thus, the garment of justification is for salvation.
However, besides this garment of justification, we need another garment to make us approved and well pleasing to the Lord. The “fine linen, bright and clean” in Revelation 19:8 denotes this second garment. According to typology, the queen in Psalm 45 has two garments: one for salvation and the other for her to be with the king in His reign (vv. 8, 13-14). We must run the race and reach the goal. As we are running the race, there are many things that would frustrate us from reaching the goal. But after we have been saved, we need to mature and overcome all frustrations and distractions. Yes, we have been saved and justified and have the first robe for our salvation. But we must go on to maturity and reach our destination (Heb. 6:1). If we do so, then we will receive a reward. This is not a matter of Christ as our objective righteousness but of experiencing Christ as our subjective righteousness. Christ as our objective righteousness has been put upon us, whereas Christ as our subjective righteousness comes out of us. We must live out Christ as our second garment. This garment is for the reward. The white garments mentioned in Revelation 3:5 refer to this second garment. When we have this second garment, we are well pleasing to the Lord and will receive the reward.
In Luke 15 the best robe is for our justification, our salvation. In Revelation 19 the fine linen is the wedding garment of the bride. In Revelation 3 the white garments are the clothing of the overcomers for them to express Christ. Therefore, Christ is our garment for our justification, for our marriage to Christ, and for our covering to enable us to express Christ, not ourselves.
In verse 4 the Lord said, “You have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments, and they will walk with Me in white because they are worthy.” The defiled garments indicate the presence of death or the absence of life. To be an overcomer in that kind of situation is to keep oneself from death. This means that we need to be living and strong, and we must have an impact. Even when we stand up to share a testimony, we should not speak in a dead way. Rather, we need to speak with our spirit strengthened and released. We should overcome the dead situation in religion, conquer all kinds of death, and wear a white garment, with no stain of death.