Revelation 22:20

Verses 18 and 19 are one warning in two halves, one against adding to the book and one against taking away from it. They come right after the visions of the New Jerusalem, the river of life and the tree of life, and the blessing on those who obey God’s commands and come into these things (Revelation 22:1–14). The verses just before have also repeated that Christ is coming and that these prophecies are certain (Revelation 22:6–7). So the warning is spoken with the holy city still in view, and what a person puts at risk by tampering with this book is the very life the book has just described.

God has given this kind of charge before. Moses told Israel, “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it” (Deuteronomy 4:2), and Proverbs says, “Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar” (Proverbs 30:6). Israel kept its sacred writings with great care, and writers among the Greeks and Romans sometimes closed their works with words meant to protect them from corruption. The warning at the end of Revelation carries far greater weight than an author’s care for his book, because it comes from God and names God himself as the one who will act.

Each half of the warning makes the penalty match the offence. The one who adds will have plagues added to him, and the one who takes away will have his part taken away. God’s justice fits the wrong done, and his word is kept safe by the God who gave it.

Behind these two verses stands Christ himself. He is the Word of God (John 1:1), in whom the fullness of God dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9) and in whom are hid “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). To add to what God has revealed implies that the revelation given in him falls short, and to take away from it diminishes the truth he embodies. He is the Alpha and the Omega (Revelation 22:13), and in him God’s plan and the prophetic word reach their end.

So the judgment in these verses is the decree of the Lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:6), who is also King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:16). His authority guarantees that the prophecy is true and complete. And since names are written in the book of life only through him, turning from his word means turning from the one who gives life and opens the city.

After the new heaven, the new earth and the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21, the last chapter turns to closing charges, blessings and promises. The speaker in verse 20 is Jesus, “the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:5), who has testified everything in this book. This is the third time in the chapter that he says he comes quickly (Revelation 22:7, 22:12), and this third promise draws John’s reply.

“Surely” is the Greek nai, yes, indeed, and it makes the promise firm. “I come” is érchomai, the ordinary verb for coming or going. Here it is the Lord’s own coming, the visible return of the Son of Man on the clouds (Matthew 24:30), whom every eye shall see (Revelation 1:7). It is the coming promised when he ascended (Acts 1:11), the Lord’s return with the raising of the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). He told his disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them and will come again (John 14:3), and he will appear a second time to save those who wait eagerly for him (Hebrews 9:28). Every one of those promises meets its fulfilment in this one.

John wrote to churches under heavy pressure. Revelation was written most likely around A.D. 95, under the Emperor Domitian, when believers were pressed to take part in worship of the emperor, and some suffered and died for refusing. To them the promise of Christ’s coming brought encouragement, hope and the assurance that God would vindicate them, and it brings the same to his people now.

Then comes “Amen”, the word amḗn, which comes from Hebrew and means firm or trustworthy. It is a strong affirmation, “verily” or “so be it”. And John prays, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” “Even so” is nai again, the same yes that opened the promise, so Christ’s promise and his servant’s prayer answer each other with the same word. God has said yes to his coming, and his people say yes back.

John speaks here for the whole church. The early believers had a prayer in Aramaic, “Maranatha”, “Our Lord, come!” (1 Corinthians 16:22), and this verse prays the same thing. It longs for the end of suffering and for God’s kingdom made complete, and above all it longs for the Lord Jesus himself, the one his people love. Our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we look for the Saviour, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body (Philippians 3:20–21). While we wait, Paul says, “your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

After the warnings of verses 18 and 19, the Bible’s final verse is a blessing: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Revelation was sent to seven churches in Asia Minor by John, exiled on Patmos, and ancient letters commonly closed with a blessing as a solemn farewell. Paul’s letters close the same way (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Grace, cháris, is favour and kindness freely given. The Greeks used charis for favour or goodwill, and in Scripture it is God’s unearned, active love toward us in Christ, a gift that brings joy and good. We are saved by grace through faith, as a gift (Ephesians 2:8–9). Where sin has abounded, grace has abounded far more (Romans 5:20–21), and we come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).

This grace belongs to “our Lord Jesus Christ”. “Lord” is kýrios, one who has supreme authority, a master or sovereign, and given to Jesus it confesses his rule over all creation and his right to our worship and obedience. The little word “our” shows that his people know him as their own. He is the source of this grace and its very embodiment. It came to us in the Word made flesh (John 1:14), in his death for us (Romans 5:8) and in his resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). The same grace will carry his people into the new heavens and new earth, where God dwells with them (Revelation 21:3–4).

“Be with you all” reaches every hearer of this book, and with them every believer in every age, as wide as the command to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19–20). To be “with” us is to stay. The grace that began our salvation stays with us in every circumstance, with strength, comfort and guidance, until the Lord comes.

These four verses leave us with a word that is complete and holy, kept safe by the God who gave it, so that what we read is what he meant us to have. They give us a promise from Jesus’ own mouth that he is coming, made firm with a yes, and a prayer to answer it, the same prayer the first believers prayed. And they place over all of us, after every warning and judgment in Revelation, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The God who shows himself here is just and faithful, and the last thing he says in his word is that his grace is with his people.