Verses 6–21 of chapter 22 form the Epilogue of the book of Revelation. This section consists of a number of rather loosely related utterances that are difficult to assign with any certainty to specific speakers. The difficulty of identifying speakers is only superficial because ultimately we hear the voice of Christ, whether echoed by the angel or recorded by the prophet.1 It is unnecessary to account for the disjointed nature of the Epilogue by conjecturing that John left only a rough draft that needed additional rewriting and a final edit. The material itself has determined the form it has taken. Although falling into a number of short sections, it sets forth but two major themes: the authenticity of the book as a divine revelation,2 and the imminence of the end.
The similarities between the Prologue and Epilogue of Revelation have often been noted. The book is a genuine prophecy (1:3; 22:6, 9–10, 18–19) by a duly commissioned prophet (1:1, 9–10; 22:8–10) to be read in the churches (1:3, 11; 22:18) for the encouragement of the faithful (1:3; 22:7, 12, 14). These and other similarities support the view that the Prologue may have been the last part of the book to be written and thus reflects the influence of the Epilogue.3 In any case, this is deliberate inclusio.
6The angel said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.”
7“Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.”
8I, 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. 9But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”
10Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. 11Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.”
12“Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13I 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. 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.
6 The speaker is the angel of the preceding paragraph who showed to John the eternal city with its crystal river and life-giving tree. He now attests the genuineness of the entire revelation. The words that relate the visions of things to come are trustworthy and true. They are worthy of belief because they correspond to reality.
As in the Prologue, it is an angelic intermediary who is sent to show to God’s servants “the things that must soon take place” (cf. Rev 1:1). It is through God’s servant John that the message then goes out to the members of the churches—the servants of 22:6 (cf. v. 16). The source of the revelation is the Lord, who is further described as “the God of the spirits of the prophets.” The “spirits” (note plural) are the “natural faculties of the prophets, raised and quickened by the Holy Spirit.”4 It is unnecessary to decide between OT and NT prophets because in either case the same prophetic function is being carried out. All true prophecy originates with God and comes through people moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:21).5
The nearness of the consummation, as reflected by the clause “that must soon take place,” is not a problem peculiar to Revelation. Paul, as well, writes that the time is short and that people must adjust their manner of life accordingly (1 Cor 7:29–31). In one of his earliest letters the apostle includes himself with those who are to be alive when Jesus returns (1 Thess 4:15). One answer to the problem of this as-yet-unfulfilled expectation is to hold that God is more concerned with the fulfillment of his redemptive purposes than he is with satisfying our ideas of appropriate timing. All the issues that find their complete fulfillment in that point in time yet future when history will verge into eternity, are also being fulfilled in the ever advancing present. The end and the beginning are but two perspectives on the same great adventure. The final overthrow of evil was determined from the beginning and has been in force ever since the defeat of Satan by the sacrificial death of Christ and his triumphal resurrection.
7 From this point forward we encounter a number of changes in speakers. Here the words “Behold, I am coming soon” are those of the risen Lord.6 The coming of Christ is to be “soon.”7 It is best to take the utterance at face value and accept the difficulty of a foreshortened perspective on the time of the end rather than to reinterpret it in the sense that Jesus “comes” in the crises of life and especially at the death of every person. Revelation has enough riddles without our adding more. Matt 24:42–44 counsels every generation to be on the alert for the return of the Son of man. An infallible timetable would do away with that attitude of urgent expectation that has been the hallmark of the church down through the centuries.
We come now to the next to the last of the seven beatitudes in the Apocalypse (1:3; 13:13; etc.). It is pronounced upon those who stand fast in the great persecution about to break upon the church. They are those who keep the prophetic injunctions of the book. Note again the insistence of the author that his visions of the end constitute genuine prophecy. Under the impulse of the Holy Spirit he has faithfully recorded what God has revealed concerning the end of all things (cf. 1:3; 19:10).
8–9 John now attests that he has actually heard and seen all the things that are recorded in the book. His literary product is not the result of any flight of imagination. Then, curiously—since in Rev 19:10 he was corrected by the angel for the same ill-advised act—he falls before the angel to worship him for his role as revealer and interpreter.8 It is the vision of the New Jerusalem which is primarily in view, although the response of the Seer comes as the culmination of the entire series of revelations.
John is prevented from carrying out his intention by the angel, who explains that he himself is a fellow servant with John, the other prophets, and those who keep the words of the book.9 The worship of angels, although prohibited, did exist among the Jews before the Christian era.10 This tendency seems to have made some inroads into the Christian community (cf. Col 2:18),11 although it was strongly resisted. Since angels are fellow servants with the redeemed, they may be esteemed for their contribution but are not in any way to be worshiped. This honor is reserved for God alone. The angel’s exhortation, “Worship God!” puts in the most succinct form possible the theme of the entire book.
10 The speaker in vv. 10 and 11 is probably the angel, but it matters little because behind all the instruction and admonition of the Epilogue lies the will of the risen Christ. What is important is that the “sealed-up” characteristic of apocalyptic is now discarded. The visions that John has seen are prophetic and intended to be heard and understood.
In the last chapter of Daniel the prophet is told to “close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end” (Dan 12:4). Considerable time is to elapse before the fulfillment of all that Daniel has predicted.12 Not so in the Apocalypse. The crisis is imminent, and John is not to seal up the prophecy of the book. Since “the time is near,” the message of judgment and hope is to be proclaimed among the churches.13 This raises once again the problem of a postponed consummation. In view of the fact that nearly two millennia have passed since the announcement that the time was at hand, some have concluded that John was simply wrong in his eschatological expectation. Writers with a higher view of the reliability of Scripture usually take the phrase in a less than literal way. For instance, the end is always near in the sense that each successive Christian generation may be the last,14 or the return of Christ at the rapture makes the end always impending during the church age.15 One of the more helpful suggestions is that the Apocalypse has a twofold perspective: it is primarily concerned with the struggle between Christ and Antichrist that comes to a climax at the end of the age, but this struggle also existed between church and state in the first century and has surfaced in history whenever the state has made totalitarian demands.16 Thus the time has always been at hand. The tension of imminence is endemic to that span of redemptive history lying between the cross and the parousia.
11 From the perspective of the Seer the end is so close that there is no longer time to alter the character and habits of people. Those who do wrong will continue to do wrong, and those who are morally unclean17 will continue in their vile condition.18 The major thrust of the verse is that since the end time is now at hand people are certain to reap the consequences of the kinds of lives they have led. The time arrives when change is impossible because character has already been determined by a lifetime of habitual action. The arrival of the end forecloses any possibility of alteration.19
12 Once again (see v. 7) Christ announces that he is coming soon. This time, however, he replaces the beatitude with the promise of reward. He will bring with him a reward for each person based upon what each has done. The distribution of rewards on the basis of works is taught throughout Scripture. Jer 17:10 is representative: “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Paul teaches that God “will give to each person according to what he has done” (Rom 2:6), and Peter declares that God “judges men by their actions” (1 Pet 1:17, Phillips).20 The reward will be spiritual blessedness to the righteous but judgment for those who are evil. It is the quality of a person’s life that provides the ultimate indication of what that person really believes.
13 In 1:8 and 21:6 it was God who identified himself as the Alpha and the Omega. Now the risen Christ applies the title to himself. Its meaning is essentially the same as that of the two following designations—“the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End”—the first of which Christ has already applied to himself in 1:17 and 2:8. The names set him apart from the entire created order. He is unlimited by time, and in that all things are found both in the Father and in the Son the attributes of the former belong to the latter as well.21
14 John now writes a seventh and last beatitude. A blessing is pronounced on those who wash their robes, that is, those who remain undefiled by their steadfast refusal to comply with the demands of the beast. In 7:14 the great multitude around the heavenly throne clothed in white robes are “they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” It is instructive to note that in Rev 7:14 the verb “washed” was aorist, denoting an action belonging to a specific point in time, while in the verse under consideration the participle “those who wash” is present tense, suggesting continual action.22 One is reminded of Jesus’ injunction to Peter, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet” (John 13:10).23
Those with white robes are blessed in that they have the right to the tree of life (note the tie to the preceding vision). Eternal life is the reward of faithfulness in the face of tribulation. To “go through the gates into the city” is another way of portraying the same condition of eternal blessedness. The city represents the eternal dwelling place of God and redeemed humanity; the tree of life is a symbol of immortality.
15 Having described the blessedness of believers, John now speaks of those who have no right to the tree of life and may not enter the heavenly Jerusalem. Five of the six designations are also found in the slightly longer list in 21:8 of those whose lot is the fiery lake of burning sulfur.24 The verse does not intend to teach that in the eternal state all manner of wicked people will be living just outside25 the heavenly city. It simply describes the future with the imagery of the present. The contrast is between the blessedness of the faithful and the fate of the wicked. John’s concern is not chronology but the use of powerful images to convey truth.
John describes six (or perhaps seven, depending upon how one views the two kinds of liars) types of evildoers who are excluded from the city. The term “dog” is used in Scripture for various kinds of impure and malicious persons. In Deut 23:17–18 the term designates a male cult prostitute.26 In the Jewish culture of first-century Palestine it was used in reference to the heathen (Matt 15:22ff.), and in Phil 3:2 Paul turns the tables and applies it to the Judaizers. Those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters, and all liars are to be excluded along with the dogs. To love and practice falsehood is to be totally devoid of truthfulness. These have become like their leader, Satan, “who leads the whole world astray” (Rev 12:9; also 13:13–15; 16:14).
16 The angel who has guided John through the various visions of the book is now authenticated by Jesus himself. It is to the angel of Christ27 that the revelation has been delegated. The plural “you” indicates that it was intended for others besides John. It stresses that the revelation is not a private affair but for the entire church.28
Jesus identifies himself as “the Root29 and the Offspring of David.” He is the fulfillment of the Isaianic promise that the Messiah shall come forth as “a shoot … from the stump of Jesse” (Isa 11:1, 10; cf. Rom 1:3). In the throne-room vision of Revelation 5 he was “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” (v. 5). Jesus also calls himself “the bright Morning Star.”30 In the fourth oracle of Balaam the prophet declares that “a star will come out of Jacob” (Num 24:17). While the immediate reference is to David, in the passage under consideration it is transferred to David’s greater son.31 The star was a familiar symbol in Jewish writings for the expected Davidic king (T. Levi 18:3; T. Judah 24:1). The morning star is a promise that the long night of tribulation is all but over and that the new eschatological day is about to dawn.
17 Jesus has spoken in turn in vv. 12–13, 14–15, 16 of himself, of the blessedness of the faithful, and of the interpreting angel. Now John moves toward conclusion by inviting his readers in the well-known (to them) language of Isaiah. Verse 17 consists of four invitations. It is possible to take the first two as requests directed to Christ for his return and the second two as invitations to the world to come and take of the water of life. It is more likely that the first half of the verse should be interpreted by the second, and that the entire invitation is addressed to the world. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit,32 and the bride is the church (21:2, 9). It is the testimony of the church empowered by the Holy Spirit that constitutes the great evangelizing force of this age.
Those who hear and accept repeat the invitation to others who thirst for the water of life. Whoever wishes may take of this life-giving water without charge. John deliberately echoes Isaiah’s “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters … come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isa 55:1; cf. John 7:37). The threefold use of the present imperative (“come/let him come”) serves to extend the invitation until that very moment when history will pass irrevocably into eternity and any further opportunity for decision will be past.
18–19 The book draws to a close with a severe warning against adding to or taking away from its prophetic message. It is addressed not to future scribes who might be tempted to tamper with the text (nor to textual critics who must decide between shorter and longer variants!) but to “everyone who hears,” that is, to members of the seven churches of Asia where the book was to be read aloud.33 The warning is against willful distortion of the message. It is not unlike Paul’s stern words in Gal 1:6, 7 to those who would pervert the gospel.
Warnings of this nature were not uncommon. In Deut 4:2 Moses tells the Israelites, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it.” When the translation of the Septuagint was completed, it was ordered that they “pronounce a curse in accordance with their custom upon anyone who should make any alteration either by adding or changing in any way whatever any of the words which had been written or making any omission.34 The warning is a “stereotyped and vehement form of claiming a canonicity equal to that of the O.T.”35 The solemnity of the injunction suggests that the speaker is Christ himself.
Note again that the book is considered a prophecy. Apocalyptic imagery is pressed into the service of NT prophecy.36 The passage should be taken in a straightforward manner as a severe warning to the hearers not to distort the basic message revealed through John. To lose one’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city is an awesome punishment. Commentators who hold that this verse does not teach that people can lose their salvation interpret it to mean that it is a very serious matter indeed to tamper with the word of God.37
20 For the third time the Risen Christ speaks. The verse opens with his testimony that his coming will be soon,38 and closes with the Seer’s response, which echoes the church’s longing for that great day. “Come, Lord Jesus” (the earliest confession of the church) is the equivalent of the transliterated Aramaic in 1 Cor 16:22, maranatha.39 At the very close of the book is the confession that the answers to the problems of life do not lie in people’s ability to create a better world but in the return of the One whose sovereign power controls the course of human affairs.40 Redemptive history remains incomplete until Christ returns. It is for the final act in the great drama of redemption that the church waits with longing.
21 For an apocalypse to end with a benediction is unusual. Its presence may be accounted for by the fact that since it began as an epistle (1:4ff.), it would be appropriate to close with a benediction (cf. 1 Cor 16:23; Eph 6:24; etc.). The benediction is pronounced upon all who have listened to the book as it was read aloud in the churches of Asia. The final “Amen” is probably a scribal addition (in view of the weakness of manuscript evidence supporting its inclusion).41
With this the book of Revelation is complete. It has served to inform the readers of that day (and all subsequent time) that God is sovereign and that his eternal plan for the human race will in fact be carried through. During the interim there will be hostility and opposition, but what he has decreed must of necessity come to pass. People will be faced with the crucial decision of pledging their allegiance to the beast (and hence to Satan himself) or to the Lamb. Those who choose to wear the mark of the beast will ultimately share his fate. The great city Babylon will fall. Those who choose to follow the Lamb, who bears the marks of redemptive sacrifice, will ultimately be brought into eternal fellowship with God in the New Jerusalem. The end of all things has been laid bare before the readers of Revelation. All uncertainty regarding the eschaton has been removed. Believers are encouraged to remain faithful to their trust and wait expectantly for the return of Christ, who will forever put away all evil and usher in the eternal state of blessedness. “Amen. Come Lord Jesus.”