What Does Revelation 3:20 Mean?

**13. receive--**"shall carry off as their due." **reward of--**that is, for their "unrighteousness" [Alford]. Perhaps it is implied, unrighteousness shall be its own reward or punishment. "Wages of unrighteousness" (2Pe 2:15) has a different sense, namely, the earthly gain to be gotten by "unrighteousness." **in the daytime--**Translate as Greek, "counting the luxury which is in the daytime (not restricted to night, as ordinary revelling. Or as Vulgate and Calvin, "the luxury which is but for a day": so He 11:25, "the pleasures of sin for a season"; and He 12:16, Esau) to be pleasure," that is, to be their chief good and highest enjoyment. **Spots--**in themselves. **blemishes--**disgraces: bringing blame (so the Greek) on the Church and on Christianity itself. **sporting themselves--**Greek, "luxuriating." **with--**Greek, "in." **deceivings--**or else passively, "deceits": luxuries gotten by deceit. Compare Mt 13:22, "Deceitfulness of riches"; Ep 4:22, "Deceitful lusts." While deceiving others, they are deceived themselves. Compare with English Version, Php 3:19, "Whose glory is in their shame." "Their own" stands in opposition to "you": "While partaking of the love-feast (compare Jude 12) with you," they are at the same time "luxuriating in their own deceivings," or "deceits" (to which latter clause answers Jude 12, end: Peter presents the positive side, "they luxuriate in their own deceivings"; Jude, the negative, "feeding themselves without fear"). But several of the oldest manuscripts, Vulgate, Syriac, and Sahidic Versions read (as Jude), "In their own love-feasts": "their own" will then imply that they pervert the love-feasts so as to make them subserve their own self-indulgent purposes.