Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #24 of Revelation, chapter 22 and we are going to read Revelation 22:20-21:
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
We have come to the concluding statements of the Book of Revelation and the Lord Jesus is the one who is in view as we read, “He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.” Chris is the one that has given His testimony and the testimony is the entire Bible: “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,” Jesus said. The entire Bible is the revelation of Jesus Christ, but, in particular, God called this Book the Book of Revelation and He called it “the Revelation of Jesus Christ” in Revelation 1:1:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass…
Even though the whole Bible is the revelation of Christ, this final Book concluded God’s divine revelation and God is specifically saying that it is “the Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Again, it says in Revelation 22:20:
He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly.
This is the third time in this chapter that the Lord has said this: “Surely I come quickly.” And He says it six times in total in the Book of Revelation. Three times it was said in chapters 2 and 3 in connection with the churches and Christ’s intention to come in judgment upon the churches and congregations. All three times identify with the judgment that would begin at the house of God in 1988 at the end of the church age when Christ came as a thief upon the churches.
Now in this final chapter of the Bible, God says three times, once again, “I come quickly,” and these statements identify with Christ coming as a thief on May 21, 2011 to begin the Day of Judgment, as God brought spiritual judgment upon the world. As we have discussed before, Christ did “come quickly” even though it had been about 2,000 years since He made this statement in the 1st century AD. Some people do not understand how this can be considered as coming “quickly,” but what He means is that He will come “at the first possible moment,” according to His timeline. For example, Jesus told the churches that if they were unfaithful, He would “come quickly” and remove their candlestick and, yet, God gave the churches 1,955 years to repent. That was according to His time table, but then came the end of the church age and Christ came quickly, without a moment’s hesitation, to remove their candlestick and take away the light of the Gospel from the churches.
At that point, there would be the predetermined 23-year Great Tribulation period from May 21, 1988 through May 21, 2011, followed by the commencement of Judgment Day when Christ came “quickly,” at the first possible instant. Immediately after the Tribulation, Christ came in spiritual judgment and put out the light of the Gospel to the entire world. God has kept His Word in both instances and now we are just waiting for the completion of this final judgment period and the destruction of all things as Christ completes His coming. He began to come by shutting the door to heaven and He took His seat as the Judge of the whole world and He will complete this period of judgment, in all likelihood, on October 7, 2015.
It goes on to say in Revelation 22:20:
… Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus…
The word “amen” is found about 50 times in the New Testament and it is a word that really comes from the Old Testament. There is a Hebrew word that would be pronounced “amen,” so this basically a transliteration of the Hebrew into the Greek. The word “amen” means “truly.” It means “verily” or “let it be.” Again, this would be the people of God responding to the Lord’s statement that He is coming quickly: “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” We talked about this in a recent study, where God’s people have a desire for the Lord to fulfill His promises and complete the salvation that He has promised to his people as they receive the new earth and they are equipped with their new resurrected bodies and all the other glorious promises of the Bible. Here, the people of God are in full agreement with Christ. As Jesus says He is coming quickly, the people of God say, “Amen,” or “Let it be.” We desire for Christ to come and fulfill all things, even though it will bring about the end of unsaved mankind and we do not desire harm for them. We would want all to have the grace that God has bestowed upon us, but we understand that God says, “I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy,” and God’s will is always perfect. Therefore, we desire for the perfect will of God to be done.
Finally, it says in Revelation 22:21:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
It is always appropriate for God to mention “grace.” Actually, this follows a pattern the Lord established in the New Testament, especially in the Epistles. For instance, it says in Ephesians 1:2:
Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
That opens the Epistle of Ephesians and then it says in the closing verse of the Epistle in Ephesians 6:24:
Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.
Also, it says in Galatians 1:3:
Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ,
Then in the closing verse of the Book, it says in Galatians 6:18:
Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
This is how it is with the Epistles of Colossians, Philippians, 1Thessalonians, 2Thessalonians, 1Timothy, 2Timothy, Titus and Romans. In all these Epistles God mentions grace at the beginning of the Book and at the end of the Book. It is how the Lord worked it out in Revelations 1:4:
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
So the Book of Revelation begins by mentioning grace and now it ends in Revelation 22:21:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
It follows the pattern that is found in numerous Books of the New Testament and it is a very excellent pattern because God’s salvation program is all of grace. It is all by the grace of God that anyone becomes saved and God is writing to His elect or those that have been saved by grace, as He says in Ephesians 2:5-8:
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Grace is the gift of God as the Lord bestows grace upon the one He has chosen to save and through that grace they enter into the kingdom of heaven. And God’s plan in the ages to comes it to “show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us.” Grace is not only for this world, but it is for the world to come, so it is a very fitting thing for God to mention as He finishes writing the Bible. His last verse is a reference to this grace: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” This is the best thing we could desire for anyone. May God’s grace be with you and may you have been the recipient of the grace of God in the day of salvation. That is what God’s people have always prayed and even today when God has ended His salvation program and is no longer saving people, we can still pray, “O, we hope and pray that perhaps the Lord has already bestowed his grace upon you before He stopped saving people.”
Then the verse ends with the word “amen.” This is the last word of the Bible. Again, this word comes from the Hebrew and it is a word that would be pronounced as “amen” and it is Strong’s #543 and it is translated in the Old Testament as “amen,” or “so be it” and it is translated as “truth” in Isaiah 65, verse 16. It is translated as “so be it” in Jeremiah 11:5:
That I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day. Then answered I, and said, So be it, O JEHOVAH.
It is like saying, “Amen, O JEHOVAH,” but “so be it” is a good translation even though it is only translated this way one time. We can see that God is expressing a wonderful thing. He is telling Jeremiah of His intention to give them a land flowing with milk and honey and Jeremiah agrees and responds, “So be it, O JEHOVAH.” It is sort of like God saying, “I will create a new heaven and new earth and I will put my people into this new heaven and new earth,” and all of God’s elect respond, “So be it, O JEHOVAH,” or “May it be according to your Word. So be it. We desire this and we agree with your stated will and we wait upon you to bring it to pass.”
I want to make one last comment about this word “amen.” It is the last word of the Bible, but it is also the last Word in 24 out of the 27 New Testament Books. If you look at the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the final word is “amen.” If you look at many of the Epistles, the final word is “amen.” The Book of James and 3John and Acts are the only three Books in the New Testament that do not end with the word “amen.” The word “amen” is basically giving agreement to all the Books of the Bible and it is saying, “Let all the things God has stated come to pass. So be it, O JEHOVAH. May it be so.” So this is the 24th time God has ended a Book with “amen” in the New Testament and, in this case, it closes the Book of Revelation and affirms the desire that every Word in the Book come to pass and, likewise, it is a final declaration to the entire Bible (in the volume of the Book) and it sums up the desire of God and the desire God has imparted to His people by the new spirit He has given them: “So be it, according to the righteous judgment of God regarding His salvation program and His final plans for this world.” God will shortly take care of matters concerning this world and God will institute His plans for eternity to come and His people say, “So be it, O JEHOVAH. Amen.”