<p>3:18<em> I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may become rich- </em>John's writings continually allude to the power of the gift of the Spirit. It is the Spirit which is the true way to becoming enriched (1 Cor. 1:5; Eph. 3:16; the same word for &quot;prospered&quot; in :17). &quot;Buy from me&quot; obviously recalls the parable of the virgins, where the rejected go to buy oil cp. the Spirit all too late. The idea is that we can <em>now</em> do, spiritually, what the rejected will so desperately wish to do in the time of their condemnation, but will be unable to. Gold refined by fire is the figure Peter uses for Jewish converts who were being refined by the tribulations of the first century, both at the hands of the synagogue system and the Romans (see on 1 Pet. 1:7). The Jewish converts at Laodicea had flunked out of these testings by fire through their association with 'Babylon'; see on :17. The counsel to buy this refinement by fire would be another way of saying that they ought to have submitted to the tribulations, so that their faith would have been developed.</p><p><em>And to clothe yourselves with white garments, that the shame of your nakedness be not revealed- </em>In the latter day church scene, it seems some because of their refusal to repent, will then have a final tribulation at the end of the holocaust period.&nbsp;Their salvation is what the Lord searches for. There is the suggestion that this group may choose not to suffer the initial stages of the holocaust, in that Rev. 3:18 implies that they are only <em>counselled</em> to buy the golden faith that is produced by the fiery trial of the latter day tribulation.&nbsp;Thus as with offering the pinch of incense to Caesar, there will be opportunity to avoid the tribulation by some apparently tokenistic obedience to the beast. By doing this they will waste &quot;the space&quot; given &quot;to repent of her fornication&quot;, and will experience a final tribulation.</p><p>We are clothed with white garments at baptism. The appeal to clothe themselves with them is an appeal for re-conversion. They could cover their shame now- but they choose not to. And yet, unknown to them, in God's eyes these people foam out their own shame (Jude 13).</p><p><em>And anoint your eyes with eyesalve so you may see- </em>&quot;Eyesalve&quot; didn't really improve vision, but just as the Lord used the wrong idea of demons without correcting the science, so here. The idea is that they needed to apply something to help them 'see' differently, not least to 'see' themselves as they truly were before God (:17). That 'eyesalve' is surely the Spirit, which the Lord will give, but which we must be willing to apply. Anointing of itself implies pouring out the oil of the Spirit. For it is the Spirit which opens the eyes of our understanding (see on Eph. 1:18).</p>