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Biblion Bible Commentary

Read the introduction to Revelation · About this commentary

Come, Lord Jesus

Revelation 22:18-21

18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. · WEB

The book is sealed against tampering, the third I-come-soon receives the Bible's last prayer, and grace has the final word of Scripture.

I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city.

The book closes with a tamper-seal, and the formula is Moses' own over the covenant: you shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it Deuteronomy 4:2 Deuteronomy 12:32. The prophecy that must not be sealed Revelation 22:10 also must not be edited: open to all, alterable by none. And the penalties are drawn from the book's own inventory with exact symmetry — the adder receives its plagues added; the subtracter has his part subtracted from tree and city: whoever tampers with the words forfeits the things the words give. A book this abused by history's decoders and revisers carries, in its last paragraph, its own warning label — the testimony of Jesus Revelation 22:16 is not raw material.

He who testifies these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon." Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus! Revelation 22:20.

The third I am coming soon of the epilogue Revelation 22:7 Revelation 22:12 — and this time it is answered. The seer, and the church reading over his shoulder, respond with the Bible's last prayer: Amen! Yes, come, Lord Jesus — the ancient Aramaic cry the first congregations prayed, Maranatha 1 Corinthians 16:22, given its Greek form as Scripture's closing petition. The whole book has been training its readers toward exactly this response: not calculation, not fear, not diagram — desire. The Spirit and the bride said come to the thirsty Revelation 22:17; the bride's last word turns the same syllable upward to her Lord. Everything the visions showed — the throne, the Lamb, the war, the city — resolves into wanting him to arrive.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with all the saints. Amen Revelation 22:21.

And then the letter-form closes what the letter-form opened Revelation 1:4: a benediction. The most tremendous book in Scripture — beasts and bowls, Babylon and Armageddon, the white throne and the descending city — ends in the commonest sentence of Christian correspondence: grace, with all the saints. It is the right last word twice over: for the book, whose every judgment defended and every promise delivered the grace the Lamb purchased Revelation 5:9; and for the whole Bible, which opened with creation and closes here — the last word of the last page, over every reader in every era of the long story: grace.

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