15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
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."
17The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
18I 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. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
20He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
21The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.
Dig Deeper
Mark Twain once astutely wrote that "history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes." His point was in opposition to the old saying that "history repeats itself." In other words, Samuel Clemens, writing under the name of Mark Twain, believed that it wasn’t quite accurate to say that the same things happened over and over again throughout history, but that there definitely were patterns and cycles that seemed to repeat and that were eerily similar to things in the past. This fits in well with a unique characteristic of Hebrew prophecy in the Old Testament, as it was usually written with a specific near-future event in mind, one that foreshadowed a more distant even in the far-future.
Although it is not strictly-speaking a book of prophecy (rather Revelation is a work of apocalyptic, which had an intention of revealing some great truth rather than prophesying about future events) it does clearly prophesy many events which, when John wrote this book, were still in the near-future. The question for us to consider is the degree to which the events surrounding the end of the Old Covenant and the judgment of the Jewish nation and Temple foreshadow the Second Coming of Christ. This should not lead us to very same method of attempting to interpret Revelation based on newspaper headlines as though every new war or earthquake is a signal to the end of the world. That is not at all the intent of the Revelation. What it does foreshadow, though, and what we can learn from this book for our own time is the very real truth that Christ will return and that all people of every nation will have to answer to His authority.
22:15 - Jesus gives another sample list of the types of people that will be left outside of the city and the age to come. They are called dogs, a term of derision throughout the Bible (Prov. 26:11; Deut. 23:18; Matthew 7:6; Mark 7:26-28; Phil. 3:2) The point is that those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practice falsehood are not holy, they have not washed their robes, and God does not give what is holy to dogs (Matt. 7:6). Christians have renounced these type of actions by partaking of the first resurrection at their baptism.
22:16 - Here we have a wonderful verse to share with someone who would deny the divinity of Christ or the doctrine of the Trinity. In verse 13, Jesus refers to Himself as the "Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." These are all terms that can only apply to the one, true God. As if, to stress the point of the identity of the one referring to Himself with this Almighty God language, He says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. The word you is plural, which means that the readers of the Revelation are addressed directly by Jesus’ message. This message if for the churches. He is the Root and the Offspring of David. This is repeated from Rev. 5:5, and indicates that He is both the source and the culmination of the Davidic line. David Chilton, in Days of Vengeance, says "In Numbers 24:17, Balaam prophesied of Christ under the symbols of a star and a scepter; Christ’s scepter is promised to the overcomer in Thyatira (2:26-27), in an allusion to Psalm 2:8-9; then, as the promise to the overcomer continues, Christ offers Himself as the Morning Star (2:28), and that promise is repeated here, partly in order to complement the promise of Light in verse 5, and partly in keeping with other connections which this passage shares with the Letters to both Pergamum (the mention of idolatry and the allusion to Balaam) and Thyatira (the mention of sorcery and fornication)."
22:17 - The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’. This is a prayer offered up to Jesus, with the Spirit inspiring the bride to ask Jesus to come in His judgment. And let him who hears say, ‘Come’. In the beginning of the prophecy it was Christ who was asking to dine with the saints, now it is the saints who ask Christ to come. Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. Entrance into the Kingdom, the age to come, is available to all who wish to answer the invitation. This verse demonstrates the fact that salvation is a choice given to creatures who have been given free will.
22:18-19 - Now comes the most fear-inducing warning of the entire book: 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. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book (cf. 4:2; 12:32; 29:20). In Thy Kingdom Come: Studies in Daniel and Revelation, R.J. Rushdoony, comments: "In a very real sense, Revelation concludes Scripture. It speaks deliberately as a final word. Moses, in Deuteronomy 4:2, declared, ‘Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it. . . .’ Words were to be added by others, but the revelation would be one unchanging word. Now, with the conclusion of Scripture, adding or removing the ‘words of the book is forbidden; words can no longer be added. The self-conscious parallel and alteration are too obvious to be accidental. The last words have been given of the unchanging word."
22:20-21 - He who testifies to these things, the true and faithful witness, gives ones last assurance as to the immediacy of the words of this prophecy: Yes, I am coming soon. The Church answers: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. This is a call for the Lord to come quickly in his judgment, the same call Paul issued in 1 Cor. 16:22: "If anyone does not love the Lord—a curse be on him. Come, O Lord." But, the saints can rest assured that the grace of the Lord Jesus will be with Gods people. Amen.
Devotional Thought
The Church of the first century was waiting anxiously for Jesus to return in judgment upon the enemies of the Church, but they were warned throughout the Revelation to be prepared for that very event. For us this is history, but we now have the glorious Second Coming of Christ to look forward to. Are you prepared for that event? Have you done your best to prepare those around you?
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