Yes, Come, Lord Jesus

22:6-7Faithful and true, and coming

"These words are faithful and true. The Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show to his bondservants the things which must happen soon."

The angel repeats what 21:5 said about the words of God: they are "faithful and true." The Lord who sends him is "the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets," the God who spoke through the Old Testament prophets and now speaks again. John stands in a line with Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

Then the voice changes. "Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book." Most readers hear Jesus himself speaking here, as he clearly does later in the chapter. "Quickly" has been argued over for centuries. It may point to the suddenness of his coming, or to its certainty, or to the nearness that every generation of believers is meant to feel. Peter reminds us that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," and that the delay is patience: "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:8-9). Either way, the point is the same. We are to live as people who are expecting him. And the blessing is for the one who "keeps" the words, not only the one who understands them.

22:8-11Worship God alone, and leave the book open

"Now I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who had shown me these things."

John has done this once before (19:10), and it happens again. The glory of what he has seen may simply overwhelm him. The angel's answer is immediate: "See you don't do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God." The book that shows so much of heaven ends by saying that no vision, angel or experience is to be worshipped. Only God is.

Then comes an instruction: "Don't seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand." Daniel had been told to "shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4). Revelation is the opposite. The book is open, to be read, understood as far as we can, and obeyed.

Verse 11 is hard: "He who acts unjustly, let him act unjustly still." Interpreters take it in different ways. Many hear a solemn warning that the time for change is running out, in the way God told Ezekiel, "He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse" (Ezekiel 3:27). It is not a command to sin or a statement that no one can change. Verse 17 answers that, with a door still open.

22:12-16Jesus speaks: reward, Alpha and Omega, Morning Star

"Behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me, to repay to each man according to his work."

Now it is clearly Jesus. What people do is the evidence of whom they belong to, and it will be seen. This does not turn the gospel into wages. Paul wrote that "by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works," and then added, "we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works" (Ephesians 2:8-10). Works show the root. They do not buy the root.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." The title God claimed in Isaiah, "I am the first, and I am the last" (Isaiah 44:6), is spoken by Jesus.

Verse 14 reads in the WEB, "Blessed are those who do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life." Some ancient manuscripts and many modern translations have a different reading, about those who wash their robes, which echoes 7:14. Both fit the gospel: those who belong to Jesus have been washed, and they walk in his way.

Then Jesus names himself: "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify these things to you for the assemblies. I am the root and the offspring of David; the Bright and Morning Star." He is both David's source and David's descendant, the question he once put to the Pharisees (Matthew 22:42-45), and the star that many Christians link with the promise in Numbers 24:17. The dawn is coming.

22:17The Spirit and the bride say, Come

John hears the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!"

This is the heart of the chapter. The Holy Spirit and the church speak with one voice. The word "Come" can be heard two ways, and perhaps both are meant. It can be a prayer to Jesus: Come back, Lord. It can also be an invitation to people: Come to Jesus, you who are far off. The next lines favour the second, because everyone who hears is told to say "Come!" too. Everyone who hears the invitation becomes someone who passes it on.

Then it opens wide: "He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely." We have heard this before. At the start of the new creation, the one on the throne said, "I will give freely to him who is thirsty" (21:6). Isaiah had called, "Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters!" (Isaiah 55:1), and Jesus had stood up on the last day of the feast and cried, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!" (John 7:37). It is the last invitation of the Bible, and it is the same as the first.

The coming Judge and the welcoming Lord are the same person. His coming is the church's longing, and his welcome is for anyone who will receive the gift. Whoever comes, trusting him, is welcomed.

Paul ended a letter with an Aramaic prayer, Maranatha, which the WEB gives as "Come, Lord!" (1 Corinthians 16:22). It was prayed in Aramaic, the language Jesus most likely spoke. (A few scholars read it as a statement that the Lord has come, but the prayer reading fits the WEB's "Come, Lord!")

22:18-21A guard on the book, and the last word

"I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, may God add to him the plagues which are written in this book." The same solemn warning stands in the law of Moses: "You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it" (Deuteronomy 4:2). Many scholars see in such wording a protection for a covenant text. It does not mean we cannot differ about how to read a symbol. It means no one may twist the book to say what it does not say, or cut out what is uncomfortable.

Then the last exchange. The one who testifies says, "Yes, I come quickly." That is Jesus' final word in the Bible, a promise. And the church replies, "Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus." The Bible's last prayer is not for safety, wealth, or a map of the future. It is for him.

The last sentence of the whole Bible is this: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen." It does not end on a threat or a theory. It ends on grace, and it is for "all the saints," for everyone who trusts him. That is how the story ends, and every day of a believer's life can begin there.