<p>3:3- see on Jud. 16:20.</p><p><em>Therefore remember how you have received- </em>They are bidden recall their first conversion; at that time, believers 'receive' the Spirit (s.w. Jn. 14:17; 20:22; Gal. 3:2,14; 1 Jn. 2:27). To receive Jesus as Christ is to receive His Spirit (Jn. 1:12,16). The Corinthians received the Spirit, but were &quot;not spiritual&quot; at the time Paul wrote 1 Cor. 3:1. These believers were likewise being asked to remember the Spirit gift received, and to allow it to function within them.</p><p><em>And did once hear and keep it, and repent- </em>They needed to &quot;keep&quot; the Spirit they had been given. The idea of 'keeping' does not solely refer to obedience to commandments, but to allow the Lord's word, His gifted Spirit, to abide / remain within them.</p><p><em>Therefore if you shall not watch, I will come as a thief, and you shall not know what time I will come upon you</em>- The watching in view is not simply of themselves but of others; see on :2. &ldquo;I will come as a thief&quot; is an evident allusion to 1 Thess. 5:2 concerning the thief-like coming of Christ to the unworthy in the latter-day church.&nbsp;&nbsp; &quot;You shall not know what time I will come upon you&quot; implies that they <em>should</em> have 'known the hour'.&nbsp;&nbsp;This probably continues the allusions to 1 Thess. 5 - this time to :1: &quot;Of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you (faithful ones).&nbsp;For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night&quot; (AV). 1 Thess. 5:1,2 in turn alludes to Mt. 24:43 (R.V.): &quot;But this ye know&quot; that &quot;the goodman of the house&quot; would have watched if he knew when the thief would come. The wise at Thessalonica 'knowing' the times and seasons of the thief's coming therefore implies that their 'knowledge' was in terms of appreciating what the spiritual trials of the last days would be like.&nbsp;Rev. 3:3 brings all these strands together in warning the apostate members of the latter-day ecclesias. Not watching is equated by the Lord with not knowing the time. The evident allusion to the disciples not watching (Mk. 14:37) suggests that if we don't know the time, we will be like them- unprepared when we ought to be on the tiptoe of expectancy. The connection with the disciples also hints that when the Lord told them that they didn't know the time, he was in some sense rebuking them rather than making a general statement about the impossibility of <em>ever</em> knowing the time of his return.</p>