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Revelation 22:21: Grace.

²¹ The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen. NIV

Throughout these past six months, Tom Wright has helped us again and again with his observations on the book of ‘Revelation’. Here is his comment on the last verse:

‘The letter – it always was a letter, as well as a prophecy and a revelation – ends as it should, with a closing greeting. ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all’ (verse 21). But, however conventional, this greeting now carries the freight of the entire book. It is dense with a thousand images of ‘grace’, pregnant with the power of the word ‘Lord’ when spoken under the nose of Caesar, sparkling in the still-open invitation to ‘you all,’ and above all delicious with the name, the name that is now exalted high over all, the name of the slaughtered lamb, the name of the one we love and long to see. This book has been a revelation of Jesus, a testimony to Jesus, an act of homage to Jesus. This word. This book. This prophecy…Coming soon. This Jesus.’ ‘Revelation for Everyone’, p.207.

I began to write these Bible notes a number of years ago as a result of an inner ‘prompting’. Just recently, I felt a similar prompting to stop. Such promptings have played a major role in my life and ministry, and I know I cannot afford to ignore them. It’s been a privilege to seek to obey God in putting these thoughts ‘out there’, and I’d like to thank all of you who have made use of them. I also have a special ‘thank you’ for those of you who have communicated with me from time to time, and told me how the notes have helped you. I’m grateful for your encouragement.

As I sign off, let me encourage you to keep reading THE BOOK of books – God’s Book, the Bible. It is mighty; it is life-changing. No notes on Scripture (and there are a lot out there!) can ever replace Scripture itself. As you read it, remember, if you’re a Christian, the Author lives within you. You can ask Him for understanding and He will help you.

I take my leave, echoing John’s prayer that the ‘’grace of the Lord Jesus’’ will be with you.

Stephen.

Revelation 22:17: ‘Come!’

^“17 The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” NIV

As we have seen, in this final chapter of Revelation, there is a repeated emphasis on the theme that Jesus is coming soon. In response to this, John’s prayer is (and it should be the prayer of the whole church): ‘’Amen. Come, Lord Jesus’’ (20). But there is also, in the seventeenth verse, the gracious, and repeated, invitation to the ‘’thirsty’’ to ‘’come’’ and ‘’take the free gift of the water of life.’’ These words surely draw from the well of Isaiah 55. Verse 1 of that chapter says:

‘’Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.’’

 Words of Jesus are also brought to mind:

‘’If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink’’ (John 7:37).

The invitation stands for all the spiritually thirsty today. Jesus will not fail to deliver on His promise. You and I can prove its truth. Salvation is a free gift. Let the church echo this message, and repeat it throughout the world. As the old hymn says, ‘Now none but Christ can satisfy…’

Revelation 22:16-17: Jesus is.

¹⁶ ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.’¹⁷ The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. “NIV

Jesus is everything we could ever want or need. He is what our starving souls are hungering for, if we but knew it.  In John’s gospel, 7 ‘’I am’’ statements made by Jesus are recorded. Most commentators would see an implicit claim to divinity in Jesus’ use of this great Old Testament Name for God.

I was reflecting on the fact that John also wrote ‘Revelation’, and there are a number of ‘’I am’’ sayings of Jesus in this last section of the book:

‘’I am coming soon!’’ (7, 12 & 20);

‘’I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End’’ (13; see 21;6. Note that Jesus and God speak the same words, and we know that both share the throne);

‘’I am the Root and Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star’’ (16; see 5:5, 2:28; Romans 13:12).

Richard Bewes writes regarding this last statement:

‘…here is a title of Jesus to make the most pessimistic heart thud with expectation! A new age is going to dawn, and it will be Christ who ushers it in… The bright Morning Star is there before our gaze. And tomorrow belongs to us!’ ‘The Lamb Wins’ pp.149/153.

‘This Morning Star is a sign of the dawning of a new day after a long night of tribulation – a sign of the new day of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.’ Tom Hale: ‘Applied New Testament Commentary’, p.997.

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.

Revelation 22:20: Agreeing with God.

²⁰ He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. NIV

In an article on prophetic preaching, Lee Eclov described the work of one artist, Cody F. Wilson, who has painted Isaiah, Jeremiah and Jonah standing on stilts. They have a different vantage point on life to everyone else. He goes on to say:

‘From their high stilts, prophetic preachers insist that people absorbed with the present refocus on the future God has promised. In some circles, eschatology has gotten a bad name. It is good and noble to explore the perichoresis of the Trinity but you better steer clear of “rapture” or “tribulation” or “the Rider on the white horse.” It can come off as the trailer trash of theology, all lurid speculation, the Bible’s “olde curiosity shop.” But prophets, while certainly not having the end figured out, “searched intently and with the greatest care” in trying to understand the future God promised in Christ. Our prophetic preaching should make room for some searching with great care. We do them a disservice if we pay less attention to their visions than they did. We will certainly not understand all the mysteries of Daniel, Zechariah, or Revelation, but how is it that some preachers have never preached any of them?

Prophetic preaching today needs to stand on stilts sometimes and look off into the future to the Second Coming, to the new heavens and new earth, and, yes, to hell. The future God has promised sounds a unique warning to complacent or sinful people who might not hear any other alarm.

But even more important than the warning to the complacent is the hope God’s saints so sorely need. Christians—at least young Christians—may not think all that much about heaven, but God’s people need to know all that God says about the future he has planned for us. They need biblical details, not just a sanctified version of ‘pie in the sky by and by.’ Prophetic preaching gives God’s people an ear for the voice of the archangel and the trumpet call of God. It gives anxious disciples Jesus’ word, “Do not let your hearts be troubled … . I am going to prepare a place for you.” Prophetic preaching takes Christians fixated on the week ahead to a high place from which they can see, with John, “a new heaven and a new earth,” and hear the voice that says, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people … . There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ‘

The last recorded words of Jesus in the Bible are: ‘’Yes, I am coming soon’’ (20). John articulates what the response of the church should always be: ‘’Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.’’

 These are the words of one in agreement with God; one who says, ‘Yes Lord, we want the future you have for us.’

Revelation 22:7,12, 20: A repeated refrain.

⁷ ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll.’

¹² ‘Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.

²⁰ He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. NIV

Three times in the last few verses of this book Jesus states that He is ‘’coming soon.’’ If the thought is repeated it must be important.

Someone may say, ‘Well, it’s two thousand years since John wrote these words, and Jesus still hasn’t come. That seems like a long time to me!’ But the Bible is its own interpreter and here are some words which help to shed light on things:

‘’But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief’’ (2 Peter 3:8-10a).

God has a different perspective on time to us. From heaven’s perspective, it’s only a couple of days since Jesus stood on this planet. ‘’Soon’’ He will return.

I heard a denominational leader say recently that the reason why so many Christians in other cultures are evangelising and church planting with such urgency is because they really believe Jesus is coming soon. But, he said, we don’t.

By and large that is true. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves afresh of our need to live in the future tense.

Revelation 22:6-9, 18–19: Building on Rock.

^“6 The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’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!’

¹⁸ I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. ¹⁹ And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.” NIV

To build on the Word of Christ is to build on Rock, whereas to build a life on any other foundation is disastrous (Matthew 7:24-27). As part of Scripture, ‘Revelation’ is ‘’trustworthy and true’’. This doesn’t mean we can understand everything in it, but it does mean we should treat it with the utmost respect, along with the rest of Scripture (18,19). This includes obeying all that we see we need to do as we read its pages (7, 10).

As a faithful ‘preacher’, the angel would not accept any honour that was not due to him, but called John (and through him every person in the church) to ‘’Worship God’’ alone (9).

Let every other preacher take note. We should:

• Have confidence in the truth of God’s Word;
• Call people to have faith and obedience in it;
• Seek to decrease that the Lord may increase.

As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says: ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever