Revelation 22:7-15: ‘Outside’

7 ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, ‘Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!’10 Then he told me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near. 11 Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.’12 ‘Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.14 ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practise magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practises falsehood.NIV

There are people who preach that no-one will be excluded from God’s Kingdom. We might like to think that, but it’s not congruent with what we have read in ‘Revelation’ (and still read in this last chapter), and it doesn’t fit with what we read in the rest of the Bible. In the end, there will be those who find themselves ‘’Outside’’ (15) God’s glorious future. They will be there because of their refusal to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus. Just as in the story of Noah and the ark, there will come a day when God shuts the door (Genesis 6:16). Only those cleansed by Christ’s blood (14) are free from sin and therefore confident to enter. Those truly saved show it in sanctified lives (15). By their fruits they are known.