Revelation Episode 33: A Final Invitation

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is episode 33 in our Revelation Bible Study podcast, the final episode entitled, A Final Invitation, where we’ll discuss Revelation 22:13-21. I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?

Andy

What an exciting last chapter in the Bible, the final word of God to the human race. And so, it’s fitting that it should culminate the entire message of the Bible, the message of the whole Bible, which is salvation through faith in Christ, and an invitation to the human race to read the words of the Gospel and take them to heart. And we’re going to see, in verse 17 in particular, the amazing and mystical partnership between the Holy Spirit and the church in the work of evangelism.

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read verses 13 through 21 in Revelation, chapter 22.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.”

And let the one who hears say, “Come.”

And let the one who is thirsty, come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

Andy, what does Christ say about himself in verse 13 as we begin, and how do we know that this is Jesus speaking here?

Andy

Well, I think from verse 12, “Behold I am coming soon. My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what he has done,” is clearly Jesus. And then, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” again, first and last meaning… And this language was ascribed to the Father at the beginning, but here, I think it’s Jesus as well because of verse 12. And then, all of this section in my Bible is in red letters. So the editors all felt that this is Jesus speaking and I think that’s true.

And you asked, “What does he say about himself?”

Well, in verse 13 he says, “I am the alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, and the beginning and the end.”

I think this is speaking about history, frankly. I think it’s giving us a very significant view of history as linear, having a beginning, a middle, and an end. So, you think of the analogies that are used, three of them here, Alpha and Omega, first, last, beginning and end. First and last, beginning and end are almost exactly kind of synonyms. Alpha and the Omega is alphabetical order, A to Z. And so, in that particular thing, think about 26 letters. There’s a finite number, and there’s a sequence. And that is the way I view history. That’s the way I think Christians should view history. It had a beginning; it progresses logically. It matters what happens before other things that happened. Sometimes the apostle Paul, for example, makes an argument, let’s say on circumcision saying, “Was Abraham justified before or after he was circumcised?”

It was not after, but before. He was circumcised after he was justified. And so, the idea is the sequence matters. And so, everything in history has a place. And Jesus is history. So, he makes these kinds of absolute statements about himself. For example, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:16).

History has a purpose, and Jesus is that purpose.

I am all three of those things. Not just, I teach the way, and I teach the truth, or I am truthful or I am living or I am alive or I recommend life. No, “I am the life.” And so, in this sense, he is claiming to be history. History has a purpose, and Jesus is that purpose. So, there’s a lot more we could say.

Eastern mystical views, Hinduism, people believe in a cyclical view of history, reincarnation, this kind of cycles that goes on and on. And there are cycles, there are cycles of seasons, but history is linear.

Wes

Andy, I think the answer to this next question may be wrapped up in something you alluded to, essentially that these same titles are given to the Father earlier in this very book. What do these titles teach us about Christ here with that connection in mind?

Andy

Right. So, the Father, the Son, the Spirit are all equally God. We believe in the doctrine of the Trinity. We think that there are some things that the Father can say, the Son absolutely can say, like, “I am God.” That’d be an assertion that both the Father and the Son could make.

There are some things that are only true of the Father and not the Son. Some things that are true of the Son and not the Father. For example, clearly the Father never became incarnate, he never suffered on the cross, He never bled, He didn’t ever have a body, et cetera. But in this case, these statements are made by both the Father and the Son. So, Jesus is history and so is the Father. The Father is history. I look at it this way, that almost like if we could anthropomorphize here, God has the idea and speaks the word out of his idea. And that’s Jesus. The Word, as John tells us, “In the beginning was the Word.”

And so, the Father had the plan from before the foundation of the world, and Jesus has lived it out. He has made it come to pass almost like a composer and then a virtuoso playing that music perfectly. As it says in Isaiah 53:10, “The will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.” So, God’s will establishes the plan and then Jesus lives it out. But both of these are true of God. God controls all of history, the Father, the Son, and we would also add the Spirit.

Wes

And what does verse 14 teach us about personal holiness in relation to going to heaven, and what’s the relationship between Christians washing their robes and the work of Christ on the cross?

Andy

Yeah, so fundamentally, we have to be perfectly pure to be welcomed into heaven. We’ve already seen that where the only ones allowed into the city will be those who are pure. It says in Revelation 21:27 of the new Jerusalem, “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

So, if you want to come into the city, you have to be perfectly pure. God is light. In him, there’s no darkness at all. God cannot even look on evil. And so, if we are going to come into the city, we have to be completely pure. But we are those who have been defiled by our sins. We have been made filthy by sin. And so, in order for us to be fit or qualified, Colossians 1 says, “Qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints, in the kingdom of light.” We have to be cleansed or purified by Jesus, and that is by His atoning blood.

And so, there is an instantaneous, perfect, once-for-all cleansing of sin that occurs at the moment of conversion. Justification, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness completely purifies us absolutely from anything that would defile and fits us immediately for heaven. Think of the thief on the cross. He didn’t do any good works at all. He just believed in Jesus, and he was instantly made pure. So, there’s no process of purification in justification. It’s instantaneous.

And Jesus talks about this at the foot washing where he comes to Peter, and Peter doesn’t want him to wash his feet. And then Jesus said, “If I don’t wash you, you have no part with me” (John 13:8). That lines up with this verse. “If I don’t cleanse you of your sin, you can’t come to heaven. I’ve got to cleanse you.”

And then Peter, always trying to get the upper hand and be the leader and take over, but you’re not going to do that with Jesus, says, “All right, fine then – not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well.”

Jesus said, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet. His whole body is clean, and you are clean though not all of you” (John 13:10), meaning Judas.

So fundamentally, Jesus instantaneously makes us clean. Also, Jesus says, “You are clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15: 3).

So, by the word of God, we are instantly purified, positionally purified by faith in Christ. “We have washed our robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14), as it said earlier in the Book of Revelation.

And as a result of that, we have the right to the tree of life, similar to John 1, which says, “As many as accepted him or received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

And then, as I mentioned in Colossians, “We are qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light” (Colossians 1:12).

Jesus also uses qualification language when he teaches in Luke’s gospel. Luke 20:35, he says, “Those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection of the dead…” So, they are qualified to share in the inheritance. So, it’s a beautiful thing. Jesus makes us worthy. He fits us or qualifies us. We have the right to eat the tree of life, and we have the right to go into the new Jerusalem.

Wes

Now Andy, we talked about some of the details of verse 15 and these particular sins, but I wonder if we could just summarize what is being communicated here. There’s this word, outside, that we want to understand, and we really want to see what does this list of sins as a whole teach us about holiness?

Andy

Yeah, those are great questions, Wes. First of all, the outside language, incredibly significant. Inside is an intimate right fellowship with God, being with God, the fulfillment of the statement made again and again in the prophets, “I will be their God, and they will be my people, you’ll be with me.”

“I want,” as Jesus says in John 17, “those whom you give me to be with me where I am.”

But then, hell is frequently spoken of as, outside. “Depart from me, you who are cursed.

And they are tied or bound, hand and foot and thrown outside into the darkness. So, there’s that outside language. And also, we have the picture of this, of the camp in the days of the Exodus and all that. And those that are put outside the camp, they’re cast out, they are rejects. And that’s why Jesus suffered outside the gate we’re told in Hebrews 13. He is basically rejected by the nation of Israel as all sinners should be. Now he was not personally sinful at all, but as our sin bearer, he was cast out and represented being cast out.

So outside means outside of everything good. Now, this is what’s mind-blowing. Hell is all about being away from any and everything that could ever be considered a blessing. So, when non-Christians speak cavalierly of being in hell where all their other friends will be, well, they won’t be friends. Friendship is a gift of God. All the common grace blessings that non-Christians have enjoyed, none of them will be in heaven. No beauty, no pleasure, nothing that they’ve enjoyed in the five-sense world, all of that is gone. So outside is darkness and curse and suffering and death, mourning, crying and pain forever. That’s outside and it’s terrifying. Inside is light and joy and feasting and flourishing in life. So, this is a terrifying thing.

And it says, “Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (Revelation 22:15). This is one of three different sin lists in Revelation of those that are excluded. And then there are many other sin lists in the New Testament. So, this is not comprehensive.

But he begins with the word, dogs. Now, in our day and age, many people have a tremendous affection for the family pet, almost always dogs. There’s something about the way God has made dogs that engenders connection with human beings and friendship and all that. We should not think that the Bible generally uses the word, dogs, that way. Generally, dogs, you could imagine like rabid or wild, like a pack of wild animals kind of thing, like wolves. Like imagine somebody that had a wolf for a pet. It’s like, nobody would do that. Maybe they do, I don’t know. People have odd pets. But these are unruly, wild beasts of people basically. Sometimes the word is also used of homosexuals. It’s also sometimes used by Jews of uncircumcised Gentiles, but that’s the word, dog. So basically, wicked human beings rejected, they’re outside.

Also, those who practice magic arts, sometimes the word is tied to drugs. So, it could be those addicted to drugs, but it could be those that are in the occult, they’re dabbling in the occult or immersed in it. And then of course, sexually immoral sexual sins, which are so rife in our culture of any sort. So that would be fornication, adultery, homosexuality, anything the Bible declares as sinful. And then murders, of course, idolaters. And then just a catch-all, anyone, everyone who loves and practices falsehood, that’s all sinners of any type, they’re outside.

Wes

What does verse 16 teach about Jesus’s love for churches and the role of angels as messengers?

Andy

All right, so verse 16 ties back to the very, very beginning of the Book of Revelation where it says, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him,” Jesus, “to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant, John.”

And so, we also have this in Stephen’s message where he says, “The law was put into effect through angels” (Galatians 3:19).

So, angels are frequently depicted as mediators of the actual word of God in a mysterious way. And it actually ties to the word, angel, itself. The word, the Greek word, angelos, means messengers. And so, they bring messages. So how that relates to the activity of the Holy Spirit and inspiration, I don’t know. But we know that angels brought Joseph, for example, dreams and warned Joseph in a dream. So, angels are able to bring ideas. So it could be that the doctrine of inspiration would be that God is the ultimate author of scripture. God, the Holy Spirit, is the direct advocate or the one who moves the control of the Spirit comes on the author. But angels in some way are entrusted with the actual words that then are written into the mind and heart of the writers. I don’t know what else to do with this type of thing, like Stephen’s statement that, “The law was put into effect through angels,” and that this statement, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony,” this testimony meaning the Book of Revelation to the churches.

So, at the beginning, Revelation 1, I don’t know, 3 maybe Revelation 1:1, 1:1, yeah. So go ahead and read that, Wes, 1:1.

Wes

Yeah. It says, “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant, John.”

Andy

So that’s consistent.

Andy

So, I don’t know how that works, bro. I just know that this is what the scripture says both at the beginning and the end of the Book of Revelation, an angel gave it to John.

Wes

It’s amazing, this message both at the beginning and the end, is one that’s intended to bring comfort. For all of the terrible visions that we’ve walked through in this book, ultimately, it’s meant to comfort and encourage the churches even as they will face these kinds of trials as they look forward to Christ coming. Now, what’s the significance of the titles that Jesus gives to himself in this same verse here in verse 16?

Andy

Well, they are revelatory. They teach us things about Jesus, but they’re also very mysterious. So, look at the first one, “I am the root and the offspring of David.”

So, root is origination. So, I’m where David came from. So, I am the one that created David, we could say in some sense, “I am David’s creator. I’m his originator. I’m the one that oversaw the entire human ancestry leading up to David and from David leading to me. And so, I am David and the genealogy that led to him and that followed him. I am the root of David, but I’m also the offspring of David. So, I am David’s creator, and I am David’s son. I am his descendant.”

So, this is the mystery of the incarnation. It’s incredibly powerful. Also, the root language we have in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 11, where it speaks of the root of Jesse that will come up, this idea of the root coming.

So, he is the originator of David and He is also the son of David. We also have this in Luke 1, when the angel comes and brings the message of the incarnation to Mary, the mother of Jesus, saying that he is the Son of God and he is also the son of David. He will be called Son of the Most High, and he will reign on the throne of his father David.”

So, David is his father and God is his Father. So again, the mystery of the incarnation, root and offspring of David. And then, “The bright and morning star.”

So, what this is, is in celestial beings, if you look up at the night sky, at the very, very, very end of the night when it’s still dark, so the dawn hasn’t come yet, frequently you can see a particular star that’s brighter than any of the others. We call it the morning star. Frequently, they’re planets. And Venus, for example, often plays this role in the nighttime sky. Now for myself, I’m usually in bed at the time, but you can imagine, “Oh, there’s the morning star.”

But what does it signify? It signifies that dawn is coming. So, the night is almost over and then dawn is coming. Jesus is the bright morning star saying, “This incredibly beautiful world is about to come.”

Wes

Now, if we put all this together in verses 13 and 16, Jesus identifies himself with nine titles. Why are there so many titles for Jesus? Why is this helpful for us?

Andy

Because no one title can capture everything that Jesus is. There’s just so many aspects to him, his relationship to time and history, His relationship to the Father, his relationship to sinful people who need to wash themselves, his relationship to the heavens, the stars, his relationship to Jewish genealogy. Jesus is all of that and much, much more. There are so many titles for God in the Bible, and there are also so many titles for Jesus because no one title suffices. And I think it’s related to the famous hymn, “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” The idea is he has many areas of jurisdiction and many things that he is responsible for. So, it just shows the greatness of Christ. And we’ll be all eternity studying the various aspects and elements of Jesus’s personality and his achievements.

Wes

Now, you mentioned even in our introduction, this partnership that’s described in verse 17, who is being invited to do what in verse 17, and what’s the significance, especially as we think about evangelism in our own lives, that the Bible ends with this invitation to come to Christ.

Andy

So, the people that are being invited are lost people, people who are on the outside of the kingdom of God but still alive and the judgment hasn’t come yet. They’re not outside of the new Jerusalem like we just mentioned. That’s a final state, an eternal state statement, outside forever are those… This is now… It’s for now. This present evil age, this present age of the gospel, this age of missions and evangelism. People who are outside can enter the kingdom of God. They’re being commanded to enter, to flee the wrath, and to come where it’s safe. To enter the ark, as it were, like the ark of Noah, Noah’s ark before the flood comes.

And so, people who are lost, they’re on the outside, are being invited to come now. And so, this is an evangelistic appeal. It’s not for me any different than other such appeals, such as in Matthew 11 and John 7. In Matthew 11, Jesus says, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

So, he’s inviting weary, burdened sinners to take his yoke, his kingly yoke on them, and learn from him and find salvation. Or in John 7, “On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink'” (John 7:37).

That’s exactly what he says here in this passage. The same thing, the consistency of the Bible is amazing. So those that are invited here are sinners who hear. So, we hope that they are elect, unconverted elect, who will hear this invitation coming from the Spirit and the Bride. And so, the invitation goes to anyone who’s thirsty. Are you thirsty? Then, come and drink. And drinking is a picture of salvation, just like eating the bread that came down from heaven is a picture of salvation. So, you are deeply satisfied when you drink the life that comes from Jesus.

Let me also say something about the partnership, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.'”

And so, who is it that’s giving this invitation? Well, the invitation is printed right here on the page. So, anybody that reads this can get it. And the Spirit has said that through John writing these words. And so, the Spirit is inviting people by the word. But we also know that God has entrusted to us the ministry of reconciliation. He has sent with Romans 10:15, beautiful feet… “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?”

And so, that’s the church. Also, we know that the Holy Spirit has empowered the church as it says in Acts 1:8, “You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth.”

So, there’s a mystical partnership between the Holy Spirit and the church, individual members of the church. Beautiful picture of this, by the way, in Acts 8:26 with Philip the evangelist, “An angel of the Lord came to Philip and said, ‘Go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.'”

He doesn’t tell him anything more. And Philip just obeys. He’s like, “What do you want me to do there?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just go.”

So, he goes down to this deserted road and then he sees a chariot and the Holy Spirit says to Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

And as he does, he hears a man reading Isaiah 53. It’s like, “Lord, now I see it. You want me to talk to this guy, right?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Wes

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Andy

And he said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

“How can I unless someone explains it to me?”

Holy Spirit is the instigator of evangelism. The Holy Spirit moves the church out.

And he invites him up into the chariot, and he shares the gospel and leads him to Christ. What a beautiful partnership there between the Holy Spirit and frankly an angel as well, and then Philip the evangelist, and then the Ethiopian eunuch. And so, the Holy Spirit is the instigator of evangelism. The Holy Spirit moves the church out. The Holy Spirit puts compulsions on people. Paul spoke of this about going to Jerusalem where he would most certainly be persecuted, maybe even put to death. And now he says, “Compelled by the Spirit, I’m going to Jerusalem.”

The Spirit drives him on. So, the Spirit is the one that positions evangelists and missionaries and puts them in certain places and then fills them with the word of what to say, how to reach out, like the Ethiopian eunuch, what to say, that could lead the person to Christ. And so, there’s this beautiful thing, and both the Spirit, Holy Spirit, and the Bride are saying, “Come.”

Now, Bride, from the previous chapter 21, is the church. And so, we are given the role to partner together with the Holy Spirit leading others to Christ. And Jesus said the same thing in his final words to his disciples, the night he was arrested. In John 15:26, he says, “When the Counselor comes, whom I’ll send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth,” Holy Spirit, “who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me and you also must testify.” So, there it is again, the beautiful consistency of the Bible.

Wes

That’s amazing.

Andy

So, the Spirit’s going to testify, and you also must testify together. So that’s that partnership.

So, the word to us as Christians is, “Oh, Lord, use me. Move in me. Give me a compulsion by the Spirit to open my mouth and share the gospel and be involved in the great work that you’re doing, which is winning lost people, inviting them from the outside in to come and drink from Christ.” That’s what I get out of 22:17.

Wes

Now, in verses 18 and 19, we get a sort of dual warning regarding the words of this book. Why is it dangerous to add or to take away? And how are we as human beings prone to this kind of addition or subtraction as it relates to the scriptures?

Andy

All right, so first of all, if you can neither add to nor take away from God’s word, then what is God saying about his word? It’s perfect. Don’t touch it. Imagine being there when Rembrandt’s finishing the Night Watch and he’s done. He’s put the last dab of paint on it, and you come and it’s like, “Wait a minute.”

It’s like, “No, no, no.”

Wes

“What about this over here?”

Andy

“Don’t touch it. All right? You don’t have the credentials, you don’t have my vision, whatever.” That’s Rembrandt, a human, flawed painter, though one of the greatest of all time.

How much more than God saying, “You have nothing to add to this. This is a complete word. Everything that needs to be said is said.”

What’s amazing is how many omissions there are. John talks about this. “I didn’t write about everything Jesus did. If I did, the world couldn’t contain the books. We didn’t tell you everything, but we told you everything you needed for salvation and to live a good life.”

And so, everything needed for life and godliness is here. Nothing could be added, and nothing should be taken away. Everything here is useful. So, what I would say is this ties into the doctrine of inspiration. All scriptures, God-breathed and useful. We do not argue that every word of scripture is equally useful. Not all stars are equally glorious. Star differs from star in glory. So, I think Isaiah and Romans and some of these other books are more radiant and glorious than Ecclesiastes or Judges or something like that. They don’t have the same role. We would never say that Isaiah and Romans are equally significant to the Book of Ruth. They’re not. Ruth is a helpful, quaint little story about how… Frankly, it’s like David’s family line we talked about earlier and relationship between Ruth and Boaz and gives us insight into, I think, a godly marriage. That’s about it.

It’s not equal in any way to the book of Isaiah. I mean the grand, glorious vision of the majesty of God, the Creator of the ends of the earth and of the heavens and the stars out in the cosmos, and Isaiah 53, “the suffering Servant,” and all of that. And then Romans, the consolidation of all the doctrine of the gospel. So no, they’re not all equally glorious and equally impactful. But everything in scripture is useful. So, we don’t strike anything out.

Now, let’s talk about how some have sought to add to this, and that would be cult leaders, like Muslims have the Qu’ran. It was added, it was additional beyond the scripture, and more significant for Muslims than the New Testament and the Old Testament. And certainly, the Book of Mormon was added. So, these are cult leaders that have added things to the scripture that God did not send them to add, because nothing needed to be added.

Also, I have a book in my office, which I have not read, but I’m inspired to go and look at it at least and see what it is. It’s the, Lost Books of the Bible.

Yeah, no, it’s like, Holy Spirit. It’s like whatever happened to that 67th book of the Bible, I was like, “I misplaced it.”

It’s like, “No, that didn’t happen.” So, nothing can be added, nothing should be added. And what gets added is cult stuff like Mary Baker Eddie’s writings or some of this other stuff.

What gets taken away? Well, who strikes things out? Well, theological liberals do where they say that the Bible’s a human book and not all of it is even true. And so, they go through and try to find the Word of God in the words that are here and they’re discerning. Or like Thomas Jefferson, editing the New Testament, getting rid of all the miracles and all this other stuff, and just leaving a bunch of moralistic teachings that he thought were appropriate. That’s people taking away. We cannot do that. By the way, Deuteronomy 2:4 says this three times in Book of Deuteronomy, “Do not add to his words and do not take away from them.” Says the same thing.

By the way, we also see how the Pharisees added additional regulations like Sabbath regulations. They didn’t want their people falling off the cliff, so they put additional fences and barriers and things that were never in the Word of God. And Jesus came and cleared them away. So, we cannot add, we cannot take away. Now what does he say here? He says, “I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.” Well, that’s terrifying. I mean, that’s hell. “And if anyone takes away the words from this book of prophecy, they are not going to share in the holy city.” They’re outsiders.

Now, the language here may be troubling, like, “take away his share.” It’s like you lost your salvation.

No, we don’t believe that. Nobody loses eternal life. You have it. You have it forever. But he’s just using the strongest possible language to say, “This book of the Bible is complete.”

Now you could ask, “Are we just talking about the Book of Revelation here or all of scripture?” But it’s not an accident that this is the last book of the Bible. And I think this statement closes the canon and goes to the entire Bible. And then, so I have answered…

Wes

What promise does Jesus make in verse 20? And why does he say this yet once more before we conclude the book?

Andy

I think he says it four times in this chapter, as I remember, at least three. He’s got it in verse 7, “I’m coming soon.” He’s got it in verse 12, “I’m coming soon.” He’s got it here, “I’m coming soon,” verse 20. Is there another one? I don’t know, but there’s at least three times.

Wes

At least three.

Andy

So why does he say that? Well, I think he wants us to have a sense of urgency, a sense of immediacy. As he does in all of his teachings in the gospels in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, when he touches on the second coming, he says, “You need to be ready at any and every moment. You need to be ready. I am coming soon.”

Also, it shows that he has a very different view of history and time than we do. It’s been 2000 years and to him, that’s soon. So, with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years. It seems like it’s been a long time, but he’s coming soon.

Wes

And it seems like our response should be that of John here, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” We should long for with great anticipation that day.

Andy

Yeah, I want to pick up on that as well. To me, this is a very, very good example of the dynamic of prayer. I’ve been teaching on prayer for the last number of weeks at our church, and I said, “We need to understand prayer properly.” Prayer is not giving God a new idea. You could never do that. Nor is prayer persuading God to do something that he doesn’t want to do, an idea he’s rejected so that you can strong will God into finally yielding to you and doing it your way. It’s neither that. Then what is prayer? Prayer is asking God to do something that he determined to do from before the foundation of the world, but just hasn’t done yet. This is a very good example of that. Has Jesus determined to come a second time? Did he determine that before the foundation of the world? Yes.

Wes

Yes.

Andy

Has he done it yet? No. So we pray that it would happen. So, this is a very good example of prayer. Jesus says, “I’m coming soon.”

And John says, “Come, Lord Jesus.” That’s a very good picture of prayer for me.

Wes

And the Book of Revelation concludes with these words, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.” What’s the significance of the way that the Bible ends? And what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage and really on this incredible book that we have walked through to together?

Andy

I think it’s fascinating that all of Paul’s epistles end in this same way. He begins by saying, “Grace be with you, and may the grace of our Lord go with you.” Kind of like you’re entering into a realm or a room or a house of grace, and you’re going to get graced as you read Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Romans, you read it. And then as you go out, “May the grace of God be with you,” as you go out from here.

We could almost picture that in our worship spaces. As people come for church, they come in to be graced and to receive blessings, and now go out in the grace of the Lord. So, as we leave the Book of Revelation, the grace of the Lord Jesus, be with you. May God’s grace go with you as you go out from here. And so, it’s a beautiful way to look at not just the end of the Book of Revelation, but the end of the Bible as a whole. “Amen,” he says, final word. And so, it’s beautiful.

all roads in the Bible, point to salvation through faith in Christ

What final words can I say on the Book of Revelation? There is no book like the Book of Revelation. We’ve had 22 chapters of overwhelming truths of things that the Lord thinks we need to know concerning things that have been, things that are right now, and things that will be, especially those things that are yet to come. It gives us a picture of the future that no other book of the Bible gives. And yet, we’ve noticed how supersaturated it is with Old Testament imagery. It’s a perfection and completion of many of the most significant themes in the Bible. But ultimately, all roads in the Bible, point to salvation through faith in Christ and the urgency of repenting of our sins and finding salvation through faith in Christ. And so that’s, for me, the final takeaway.

Wes

Well, this has been our final episode in our Revelation Bible Study podcast. I want to thank you for joining us on this journey and invite you to join us next time as we begin a study in the book of 1 John. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys Podcast. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.