Sunday School Notes: Revelation 22:17-21
17 And the Spirit and the Bride say “Come!” And he who hears let him say “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come, the one who wants let him freely receive living water [or water of life]. 18 I myself testify to the one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone should add to these things, God will add to him the plagues written in this book. 19 And if anyone should take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his portion from the tree of life and from the holy city of the things written in this book. 20 The one testifying to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon [or quickly].” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! 21 The grace of the Lord Jesus [be] with all.
At last, after 8 years, we come to the concluding exhortations and warnings. 😀
Come, Lord Jesus!
In light of all that John has presented to us, both in terms of the spiritual warfare going on around us, and the promises we have in Christ at his return, who among us wouldn’t join in the chorus of “Come, Lord Jesus!”? This seems to be in response to Jesus telling us in verse 12 that he is coming soon. Among the chorus of voices are “the Spirit and the Bride.” I understand the Spirit here to be the Holy Spirit, the one who has spoken through the prophets and through John. The Bride is, of course, the church, though it’s interesting John refers to the church as the Bride, since up until now that name has referenced the consummated church, the church fully redeemed and glorified. However, John is here applying that title to the church now (he uses the present tense “they say,” legousin, not the future tense erousin). It’s possible he’s distinguishing between the true church and the false church, where the true church is the invisible church, those who have been regenerated by the Spirit and earnestly desire the Lord’s return. It’s also a fact that, from God’s eternal perspective, we are the Bride of Christ. In other words, God treats those who belong to Jesus as redeemed and sanctified, even though we are not yet what we will become.
He Who Hears vs. He Who Is Thirsty
“He who hears” recalls the repeated refrain from the letters to the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3: “He who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (see 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). Having addressed the corporate church, John now speaks to individuals. Those who hear are those whose ears, hearts, and minds have been opened by the Spirit to receive the truth of the gospel and the message of hope and promise contained in these visions. John exhorts each of these to say, “Come!” Again, their desire for the Lord’s return is an indication that they are among the heaven-dwellers, the new Jerusalem.
I see a difference between the one who hears and the one who is thirsty. While the one who hears is one who has already received Christ and responds to the prophecy in Revelation positively, the one who thirsts is one who, like the woman at the well in John 4, has not yet come to Christ but recognizes the call of the gospel and is ready to respond. We discussed the meaning of “the water of life” at the beginning of chapter 22 both as a fulfillment of Ezekiel 47 and Zechariah 14 and in relation to John 4. Jesus told the woman at the well that this water that only he can offer her wells up to eternal life. She responded enthusiastically, asking him for this water. The incident finishes with her going back into the town to tell everyone about Jesus. In other words, she came to Jesus spiritually thirsty and left with that thirst eternally quenched.
This is why I think the “thirsty” are those who are still unbelievers, perhaps on the periphery of the church, or even within the church, and who are ready for harvesting. The call for them to freely receive living water is a call to which they will respond, adding their voices to those crying out for Jesus to return.
A Warning
The language of verses 18 and 19 has a legal ring to it. Verse 18 opens with the Greek verb martureō, which commonly means to bear witness or testify. The ESV looks ahead to what the verses say and translates the verb “I warn,” which is appropriate since these verses are indeed a warning. However, there is a legal aspect to these verses that help us understand what he means by “taking away” and “adding to” the words of the prophecy. I’ll return to this a moment. While these are not the words of Jesus, John is speaking under inspiration so the things he says must be taken seriously.
Notice that John’s words are not directed to everyone but to those who hear these words, which in his contemporary context would have been the churches to which this letter originally went. Bear in mind that the letter would have been read aloud to the congregations and perhaps later copied for distribution. This further underscores the fact that the intended audience for Revelation is the church, and its purpose is to communicate hope to those who are in Christ and serve as a warning to those who are not.
This Book: Revelation or the Bible?
Also notice the scope of the warning: tou bibliou toutou, this book. John is warning people not to add to or take from the words of the letter or book he is composing. There are many who believe this verse refers to the entirety of Scripture, and quote it in response to false teachers and cult groups who twist the Bible to serve their own doctrinal purposes. There are plenty of places in Scripture where we are exhorted to handle God’s word correctly and warned against those who distort God’s word. But if we’re going to be true to our interpretive principle, understanding first what this meant to John and his audience and then what it means to us, we have to acknowledge that this isn’t one of those verses. The only collection of Scripture John’s audience might have had was the Old Testament, and they would probably have only known it in Greek translation (the LXX, or Septuagint). Collections of the Gospels or Paul’s letters may have been in circulation by the end of the first century, as well as other documents that came to be part of the New Testament, but not everyone had access to them all. We know from the writings of the Apostolic and Early Church fathers that these works were considered inspired and authoritative. However, for various reasons, most significantly persecution and the risk of owning copies of Christian writings, it wasn’t until a few centuries after John’s time that we start to see entire collections of what we call the New Testament. I think it’s notable that one of these collections, Codex Sinaiticus, probably the earliest Bible we have, dates from after Emperor Constantine declared Christianity a legitimate religion and persecution ended (at least for a while).
It’s also true to say that of all the books of the New Testament, Revelation is the one that’s been most prone to manipulation. The nature of the work, with its visions and its clear testimony regarding the person of Jesus and the consequences of unbelief, makes people uncomfortable. So while this warning could indeed be applied to other New Testament books, it is clearly applied here specifically to Revelation. The Lord wants us to accept the testimony of what John tells us without qualification, and to stand firm on these words as the very words of God.
Adding and Taking Away
But what does it mean to “add” or to “take away from” the prophetic words of Revelation?
Deuteronomy 4:1-2 and 12:32 use similar language, where the Lord warns His people against committing idolatry and following after the culture around them as they enter the Promised Land (a theme we’ve seen often in Revelation). They are to stay true to Him and His commandments. Cultural assimilation happens when the church bows to culture, denying God’s clear revelation to allow for “new” or “more enlightened revelations. Idolatry happens when we value the things of this world more than the Lord and are prepared to sacrifice at the altars of society’s “gods” instead of giving all to the Lord.
With that in mind, “anyone who adds to the prophetic words” in Revelation could be anyone who would say it’s okay to worship false gods, or who adds false teaching–perhaps teaching from false prophets–to the things God revealed to John. These are the ones leading God’s people astray with new and strange doctrines that God didn’t teach and that may even directly contradict things God revealed to John. “Taking away from” would include anyone trying to make these visions more palatable by editing out the “hard” teachings, or distorting the message of Revelation by leaving out important details or context. These are ways false teachers try to misdirect God’s people and draw followers for themselves.
The suffering promised to such people is to have additional plagues heaped onto them, or to have their share of the promised plagues increased. We find a parallel to this in Deuteronomy 29:20, a promise that those who turn away from the Lord and follow false gods or who maintain a “stubborn” heart even after hearing God’s Law will receive the curses contained in Deuteronomy and have their names blotted out from under heaven. In essence, God will say, “I never knew you” (Matthew 7:2-23).
The allusions to Deuteronomy draw attention to possible legal parallels, which is the “legal ring” I mentioned earlier. Deuteronomy 28 lists blessings and curses for those who keep or break the covenant God made with His people. These kinds of covenant or treaty terms were common at that time, and the Lord uses them to help His people recognize the seriousness of covenant obedience in terms they would understand. It sounds like we have similar covenant-style treaty conditions here, where God sets before His people promises (e.g., the promises to the “overcomers” at the close of each letter in chapters 2 and 3), and conditions (e.g., God constantly exhorting the churches to live up to who they are in Christ, to shun idolatry and be bold in their stand for the gospel). The Lord also showed John plagues and calamities which are symbolic pictures of the plagues and calamities that have fallen upon the church over the centuries and continue to trouble the church to this day. In the closing verses of the book, the Lord reminds the church of her covenant obligation to be obedient and turn away from the snares of this world, otherwise, she will be subject to the plagues and calamities–and more! If we want to avoid being under the curse of God, we need to pay careful attention to these visions. Naturally, those who are truly in Christ have nothing to fear. They can rejoice in the hope and the promises God lays before them. It’s those who are not in Christ, the tares among the wheat, who need to worry.
Remember, these words are given to the visible church, which contains a mixture of saved and unsaved people. Like many of our congregations today, the churches John wrote to included people who looked and sounded Christian, who read the Scriptures, sang the hymns, amen-ed the prayers, and recited the confessions of faith with everyone else. But God knows the heart. These same people could be worshiping idols, either literally or figuratively, making a good show of being Christian but instead following after the things of the world. If their idolatry is not exposed in this life, it will most assuredly be exposed when the Lord returns. The “share in the tree of life and the holy city” that they lose is not a share they really had. They may have presumed to have it, and we might have likewise thought that they were fellow partakers, but that outward facade will be shown for the lie that it is. Their names were never in the Book of Life, which was written before the foundation of the world (13:8).
Final Testimony and Sign-off
John has testified in v.18 to the things in the book, and the angel testified to them in v.16. In 22:20, Jesus himself testifies in his own words, and John quotes him once again saying that he’s coming soon, so we know that Jesus does indeed affirm all the things in this book. John follows Jesus’s testimony with a hearty “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.”
Why do we have all these voices testifying to the things John has recorded in Revelation? It could be we’re still thinking in terms of the courtroom, where multiple witnesses bolster the claim to authenticity. They may also triple-underscore the need for God’s people to take these things seriously, not only because Jesus has added his voice to the testimonies, but also because Jesus is returning soon.
The true believer will echo John’s “Amen.” Those who know the Lord will most feel the tension–even war–between the world around us and the sin that assails us, and the way of truth we know. We who fight sin and temptation daily, hourly, moment-by-moment desire to be done with it all and receive our heavenly promise. While we long to see the lost saved, we grow weary of this world with its corruption, godlessness, lies, and deceit, and we hate how these things have permeated into the church. The desire of our heart is to see Jesus return and enjoy the marriage feast of the Lamb and share the new Jerusalem with our brethren in Christ. To be complete in our redemption; to serve the Lord perfectly, just as he created us.
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:22, Maranatha! This Aramaic phrase means, “O Lord, come!” and was possibly part of the early liturgy of the church, predating Revelation by as many as 40 or 50 years, perhaps more (depending on your dating of Revelation).
Verse 21 is a typical conclusion to a letter, reminding us that this book is in fact a letter to the church. We find similar endings in Paul’s letters (e.g., Romans 16:20; 1 Corinthians 16:28; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Galatians 6:18). The New Testament epistles usually address contemporary church issues in a way that has universal and timeless application, so it’s fitting that Revelation is in this form. As we have sought to do throughout this study, we need to be sure we understand it in its contemporary context, what it meant to the original audience, what it meant to the church throughout history, and what it means to us today. And for that, as for all of our lives as we walk with the Lord, we need His grace continually.
Maranatha!
