Sunday School Notes: Revelation 22:6-11

⁶ And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true, and the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets sent his angel to show to his servants what things must happen soon. ⁷ And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed [is] he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” ⁸ And I, John, am the one hearing and seeing these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed these things to me. ⁹ And he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and the prophets and those keeping the words of this book. Worship God!” ¹⁰ And he says to me, “Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. ¹¹ Let the unrighteous one be unrighteous yet, and let the impure one be impure yet, and let the righteous one do righteousness yet, and let the holy one be holy yet.”

Continuing the final exhortations and instructions, the angel, probably the same one from 22:1, tells John that what he’s about to say is “faithful and true.” We last saw this phrase in 21:5 before the vision of the new Jerusalem. God Himself spoke from the throne telling John to write these “faithful and true” things. Having finished recording the description of the new Jerusalem, the angel now reminds John that the rest of what he’s about to see and hear is equally important. These things too are faithful and true.

The Spirits of the Prophets

The “spirits of the prophets” probably refers to those throughout history who have been used by God to communicate prophetically to His people. This includes both Old and New Testament prophets, and even John himself. Remember 10:8-11, where John was given the little scroll to eat that was sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach? We noted how this was symbolic of John’s prophetic calling. The idea of prophecy, that is, boldly proclaiming the truth of God, can be sweet to those who receive it and bitter to those who don’t.

Throughout history, God has sent His spirit-enabled prophets to reveal His mind and intentions and exhort His people to faithfulness. We’ve seen this through the many Old Testament allusions and citations in Revelation. Now God has sent His angel to show His people, through John’s recording of all that he has seen and heard, the things that must happen soon.

How Soon Is Soon?

There are various ways we can understand “must happen soon,” and they are not mutually exclusive: these things have to happen, they will happen soon, and it’s necessary that they happen soon. First, because God is sovereign and He only has one plan, these things must happen. There’s no way they can’t happen. Next, because God has a plan that doesn’t include unbelievers, earth-dwellers, living forever without a final judgment, it’s necessary that these things happen soon. Finally, because God is gathering His people, and there is a finite number of those people, and He doesn’t want His people to suffer on this earth indefinitely (6:11), these things must happen soon.

In 1:3, John warned that “the time is near.” Of course, “near” and “soon” are relative, especially given that the Lord plans from an eternal perspective. While it seems as if the church has been waiting a long time (two thousand years is a long time), remember 2 Peter 3:8. A day is as a thousand years to the Lord–that is, a day to the Lord may be a very, very long time on our time scale. By the Lord’s timing, we may still be the early church! And yet we only have a relatively short time to wait. We’ll come back to this in 22:10 below.

Who’s Speaking–Jesus or an Angel?

“Behold I am coming quickly,” says… the angel? Or Jesus? The ESV and other translations indicate this as a change in speaker. The earliest Greek manuscripts don’t have any punctuation marks, which isn’t a problem most of the time because there are ways from the context as well as indications in the narrative that show when someone else is speaking. However, we have none of those here, which leaves us with the question: who’s saying what? Is this still the angel speaking from 22:1?

If you’ve been following the visions, and know basic Christian theology, you’ll know that the church has been eagerly expecting the return of Jesus for the final judgment of all things. The person speaking here saying “I am coming quickly,” is, therefore, either Jesus or someone speaking on behalf of Jesus. It’s possible the angel who appeared to John in 22:1 is actually Jesus, however, John had seen Jesus and would no doubt have identified the angel as Jesus if that’s who it is. Also, John identified the angel as one of the seven carrying the seven bowls of wrath in 21:9.

There are two options that I think are more likely. We could have a change of speaker that we are supposed to intuit from the context and from what the new speaker says. This seems to be the option taken by most modern English translations. On the other hand, the angel could be speaking on behalf of Jesus, quoting Jesus’s words to John exactly as he heard them. This would be like reading, say, Paul’s letter to the Romans in a Bible study. When it says “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you,” you wouldn’t change the pronouns to “Paul thanks his God through Jesus Christ for all of them” because everyone in the study understands you are quoting Paul’s words. Similarly here, the angel could be saying “I am coming quickly” expecting John to understand he’s quoting Jesus’s words.

Either position is plausible, I think. The point remains the same whichever view you take: Jesus says he’s coming soon. The culmination of all the judgments and all that God has been doing all this time will soon happen.

Keeping the Words

He then issues a blessing: “Blessed in the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” Notice he uses the singular: prophecy. This whole book, the entire letter, is a single statement on what God has done, is doing, and will finally accomplish. “Keeping” the words of the prophecy involves both being attentive to the commands and exhortations and also possessing them, internalizing them. This prophecy is supposed to give hope to the church. We should keep these words close to us, especially during times of suffering, persecution, temptations to compromise, and when it seems as if the world is winning. The Lord’s blessing comes upon those who both heed and remember the things said in this book.

Verse 8 gives us a very clear indication that the speech of verse 7 has finished and John is picking up his narrative: “I, John, am the one hearing and seeing these things.” This is a neat bookend to 1:1-3, where John says that the revelation was given to Jesus’s servant, John. Now, at the end of the book, he finally admits, “I am that servant, John!” His point is that this isn’t an impersonal, third-hand account. The John who saw these things is the same John who wrote them. Possibly the very John who was known to the churches in Asia Minor to which this letter was originally addressed (see chapters 2 and 3).

1 John 1:1-4 uses a similar “legal” formulation testifying that the words contained in that letter are real and did happen: “That which was from the beginning which we have seen and we have heard…”

Worshiping the Angel–Again!

John then confesses that he attempted to worship the angel who showed him the things in the vision. We’ve already touched on the identity of this angel when we talked about who is saying what in this passage. We recall that in 1:1, John says that God made this whole revelation known to him by sending an angel to him. However, the first time we see an angel actually showing something to John is in 17:1 when one of the bowl angels takes John to see the judgment of the great prostitute. Prior to that, Jesus invited him to look at the visions, and one of the living creatures around the heavenly throne beckoned him to come and see the visions associated with the seals. After 17:1, the next angel who leads John to see something is the bowl angel in 21:9 who shows him the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.

While some might consider these angels to be a manifestation of Jesus, I’m inclined to see them as supernatural creatures, created by God to minister to Him and to His people, the church. I think the fact that both the 17:1 and 21:9 angels are connected with the bowls of God’s wrath shows that they are ministers of the wrath and not the originators of that wrath. Also, they present to John two contrasting images, the prostitute’s shame, and the Bride’s glory. John’s attempt to worship both angels also connects them and indicates that these are not divine beings but mere creatures on the same level as John.

Could the angel from Revelation 1:1 be the angel to whom John is referring to here? This might be the case if we understand “these things” to refer not just to the new Jerusalem, the prostitute, or the Bride but to the contents of the entire letter. Consider the structure of the book for a moment (as we have understood it thus far): Chapters 2-17 speak of the way things are currently (the “church age”), and 18-22 seem to refer to things that have yet to happen (the fall of “Babylon,” the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, the lake of fire, the new Jerusalem, and the new heavens and new earth). In which case, the things that must happen soon are the things shown to John by these two bowl angels.

I think the linguistic similarities between 17:1 and 22:8-9 point to this being the 21:9 angel that John is trying to worship. What of the 1:1 angel, then? This could simply be John’s way of saying that the contents of this letter are “angelic”–that is, supernatural and to be understood as not of earthly origin. Or this one angel could be superintending all that John sees either through Jesus, a creature, or other angels.

Why would John worship this angel? Didn’t he learn his lesson the first time he tried that? One possible answer is that he thought the angel was Jesus, however, John has already seen a vision of Jesus so he ought to know the difference. It’s also possible he was so overwhelmed by the experience that he had a sensory overload and, filled with awe, responded by bowing down to this splendid, seemingly superior supernatural being.

Whatever John’s reason for bowing down, the angel reminds him in language very similar to the angel in 17:1 that he is only an angel, a fellow creature and co-servant of the Lord–flee idolatry and worship God! One lesson we can derive from John’s experience here is that while angels are supernatural creatures, they are still creatures, just as we are. They are no better than John, the prophets, or anyone who “keeps the words of this book”–i.e., heaven-dwellers, or believers. True servants of God, whether human or angelic, always direct their worship to God, not accepting it for themselves or redirecting it to another (e.g., the Beast).

Living in a culture that is simultaneously dismissive of Christ and yet enamoured with the supernatural, it’s important we remember this. There are no “super Christians” or “super-apostles.” Even the angels are no better than us. We are all co-laborers and co-servants of the one living God. We may grant roles of authority and leadership to others, and we should accord such leaders the respect their positions are due. But the Lord doesn’t love R. C. Sproul, John Calvin, or Charles Spurgeon more than you or me. John’s audience would also need to be acutely aware of this, living as they did in Asia Minor with its abundance of idol-worshiping cults.

Don’t Seal the Words!

The angel then tells John not to seal up the words of the prophecy, unlike the vision of the thunders (10:1-4) where John was told to seal that up. I admit I have no answer why John was allowed tell of all he had seen except the thunders. What made the thunders vision special? We talked about it a little back when we discussed chapter 10. It could be that this vision was specifically for John, though I can’t see why he would be given a special vision in the midst of all these visions that are meant for the church. Alternatively, this vision might be something to be revealed after Christ’s return. The best answer we could come up with when we looked at this is that the visions so far had been sufficient. The thunders may have only further underscored what John had already seen, and he still had the bowls to see yet.

The main contrast here, though is no doubt with Daniel 12:8-13, where Daniel asks about the outcome of his visions and he is told that the words are shut up and sealed until the end. Now, in Revelation 22:10, what was sealed to Daniel is revealed to John and the church. Why? Because Jesus’s coming makes sense of everything Daniel saw. He didn’t have the lens of the gospel through which he could see the whole picture. At best he only had a partial understanding of the great truths God showed him.

The Time Is Near

John is told not to seal up these words because “the time is near.” Once again, we’re reminded of the fact that Christ’s return is closer than when we first believed, and we should take heart that our time here in this sin-soaked world is not forever. One way to look at statements such as this is to consider the nearness of the end not in terms of a time schedule, but rather like a sequential to-do list. If you start with creation, then list all the things God has accomplished (e.g., the Flood, Babel, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and the giving of the Law, all the covenants, the prophets, Christ’s coming, the church, and so on), and check off everything that’s been done, you find there’s only a handful of things left at the end. These would include the in-gathering of God’s people, Christ’s return, the final judgment, and our final consummation (the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem). From the point of view of this list, it certainly does look as if “the time is near.”

“Let the unrighteous one be unrighteous yet…” the angel says to John, almost as if he’s exhorting the wicked to be wicked. He also tells the righteous to be righteous and the holy to be holy which causes us no problems. But let the wicked be wicked?

This does look strange until you realize that it’s another allusion to Daniel 12:9-10. Not only is Daniel told to seal up the words he’s been given until the end, but that many will purify themselves and be refined, but the wicked will be wicked. The wise will understand, but the wicked will not. By reminding John of the words given to Daniel, with the light of the gospel he understands that this refers to the situation between the heaven-dwellers and the earth-dwellers. The one whose heart is inclined to keep these words, whose soul is shaken to repentance at the thought of God’s wrath and Christ’s return, this is the person who will be righteous and do right. Those who see the mighty works of God and stand firm against Him in rebellion, denying His existence and living lives according to their own understanding are those who are wicked and will do wickedness.

I think this also confirms that the command not to seal the words given to John is intended primarily as a fulfillment of Daniel 12:9-10. One allusion to the Daniel passage makes me suspicious. Two consecutive allusions to the same passage make it all but certain.