Revelation 22:1

The Water and the Tree of Life; the Service and the Kingdom of God’s Servants. Chap. 22 Rev_22:1-5

1. pure] Should be omitted.

river of water of life] See Rev_7:17, Rev_21:6.

clear] Bright would perhaps be more accurate.

proceeding out of the throne &c.] In Ezekiel’s vision (chap. 47) the River proceeded out of the Temple, here out of the Temple’s antitype. We are also meant to think of the River that watered the ancient paradise, Gen_2:10, and of such parallels to Ezekiel’s vision as Psa_46:4; Psa_65:9; Zec_14:8. The original type, of which these Prophecies are developments, is the fact that there was a natural spring, that of Siloam, in the precincts of the Temple at Jerusalem. We are not told here, as in the old Paradise, that the River is fourfold: but if the City stands on a pyramidal mountain (see on Rev_21:16) it is likely enough that there is a stream running down each of its four faces, the throne which is the source being at the summit.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life,.... Not baptism, which used to be administered in rivers and pools of water; and which engaged to purity of life; and, the power and authority of administering which was from God and Christ; but in this Jerusalem state there will be no use nor need of ordinances; for Rev 22:1 belongs to the preceding chapter, and is a continuation of the same account, this being not a new vision, but a part of the former, which the same angel, as in Rev 21:9 proceeds to show to John: nor is the Holy Ghost intended by this river, whose gifts and graces are sometimes, for their plenty, purity, and quickening virtue, compared to rivers of living water; and who is a pure and holy Spirit, and proceeds from the Father and the Son: nor the doctrine of the Gospel, which comes from the blessed God, and is the Gospel of Christ; and, when purely and faithfully preached, is clear as crystal; and is the means of conveying spiritual life to men, and of supporting it in them: nor the ultimate joys of heaven, which may be called a river of pleasure, for the fulness and variety of delight; pure, and clear as crystal, for the holiness and perfect knowledge of that state; and be said to proceed from the throne of God and the Lamb, being the free gift of God through Christ; but this state is not designed here: rather, therefore, by this river is meant the everlasting love of God, which may be compared to a river for its largeness and abundance, its height and depth, its length and breadth; and for the large displays of it in this state, when its waters will increase, and be a broad river to swim in, and be unpassable; and for the streams of it in election, redemption, calling, justification, pardon, adoption, and eternal life, which make glad the city of God; and for the pleasure it yields, and the fruitfulness it gives to those who drink of it: it may be called a river "of water of life", because in the present state of things it quickens such who are dead in trespasses and sins; revives the saints when dead and lifeless, supports their spirits, and is a cordial that preserves from fainting; it keeps and secures from dying the second death and is the spring and source of eternal life; and that itself will last and flow for ever, it is ever running water, it is everlasting love: and it may be said to be pure and

clear as crystal, it being free from all hypocrisy and dissimulation, being real, hearty, and sincere, both in the Father and in Christ, of which the fullest proofs and demonstrations are given; and being clear of all motives and conditions in the creature, by which it might be influenced; and it engaging to purity and holiness of life and conversation; for the doctrine, which brings the account of it, and the inward principle of grace, which is the fruit of it, and every discovery of it, have a tendency hereunto:

proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; not taking its rise from man's obedience, nor from his love to God, nor from his faith in Christ; for the love of God is prior to all these, and is the spring and cause of them, and therefore cannot be moved and influenced by them; but it has its origin from the sovereignty of God and of Christ, signified by the throne of both, who will be gracious to whom they will be gracious; nor can any reason be given why they love any of the sons of men, but their own sovereign will and pleasure; this is the sole motive, spring, and cause of their love; and God and the Lamb being mentioned together, shows both the equal dignity of their persons, being on the same throne, and the equality of their love to the inhabitants of the new Jerusalem: and thus, as a river adds to the pleasure, use, convenience, and wholesomeness of a city, this glorious city is commended by such a river running by it, or in the midst of it: there may be an allusion to the river which ran out of the garden of Eden, for this will be a paradisiacal state, Gen 2:9 or rather to the waters in Eze 47:1 which came from under the threshold of the Sanctuary; though this river proceeds not from the temple, there being no temple in this state, but from the throne of God and the Lamb, which is instead of it.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rev_22:1

A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal

The life river

I.

It is a river of heaven. They that drink of it must drink immortality and love. It is the river of God.

II. It is a river of grace. It flows from the throne of the Lamb; and everything that has connection with the Lamb is necessarily of grace.

III. It is a river of power. It comes from the throne--the throne of God; and therefore possessing the properties of that throne. It communicates power into the soul of every one that drinks, or even that walks along its banks. The power and authority of God are in it; for it issues from the fountainhead of universal power.

IV. A river of purity. A pure river of water of life! Like the Lamb from whose throne it comes, who is without blemish, and without spot! Like the city through which it flows, into which nothing that defileth shall enter! As it pours its heavenly waters on us now, it purifies.

V. A river of life. Wheresoever the river cometh it quickeneth (Eze_47:9). Each drop is life-giving; it contains everlasting life, for the Spirit of life is in that river.

VI. A river of brightness. The words clear as crystal should be bright as crystal--the same word as in Rev_22:16, the bright and morning star. It is river of splendour, Divine and heavenly splendour. (H. Bonar, D. D.)

The river of life: or the spiritual enjoyments of the heavenly life

I. The spiritual enjoyments of the heavenly life are abundant in their measure. And He showed me a pure river. Great cities are generally built on the banks of rivers to ensure health, commerce, and pleasure. The spread of the Gospel is sometimes set forth under the emblem of a river (Eze_17:1; Hab_2:14; Psa_16:4). Here, however, we have the spiritual enjoyment of redeemed and glorified humanity imaged forth. St. John did not see a brook, or a well, but a river flowing from the great Throne. The spiritual enjoyments of heaven are not scanty. On this river the richest products will be borne to glorified humanity.

II. The spiritual enjoyments of the heavenly life are pure in their nature. Pure--Clear as crystal. Are we to judge of the purity of water by its cleansing properties? Then none so pure as this which flows from the Throne of God, as it can purify the unclean soul. It can wash out sins of the deepest dye from the garments of the moral nature, and make them white as no fuller on earth can whiten them; hence, the faultless multitude before the throne.

III. The spiritual enjoyments of the heavenly life are invigorating in their energy. Water of life. This great river of heaven is not sluggish in its flow, but quick and rapid. It gives life and verdure wherever it comes. The things of earth are dead and barren, but when touched by the influence and grace of the Divine Spirit they teem with vitality. But the life of the soul now is nothing in intensity as compared with what it will be when it attains the enjoyment of heaven. Then it will become possessed of an immortal vitality which shall know from decay or decline.

IV. The spiritual enjoyments of the heavenly life eternally meet the needs of the human soul. The thirsty there have a river at which they can drink, and which will never be exhausted. The Divine gifts in heaven will be adapted to the requirements of our renewed and glorified natures. Thus the soul will be made glad.

V. The spiritual enjoyments of the heavenly life are the outcome of the sovereign mercy of God. Out Of the Throne of God and of the Lamb. And so all the spiritual enjoyments of heaven, in abundance, in purity, in life, in satisfaction, and in perpetuity will be the outcome of the Sovereign Grace of God as exercised through and manifested in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ. Lessons:

1. That we should prize the ordinances through which the water of life is conveyed to men.

2. Contemplate the active spiritual enjoyment of the good. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Divine love river

I. Exhaustless. It rises from the infinitude of the Divine nature--a source unfathomable.

II. Universal. This river rolls everywhere. It rolls under the universe: and all things float on its waves. It refreshes and beautifies all.

III. Ever flowing. The inexhaustible fountain is always active, outpouring itself. Creation is a work never finished, for the river of Divine love is overflowing.

IV. Restorative. It at once resuscitates and cleanses: it quenches thirst and removes defilement. Christ is the channel through which flows this soul-restorative love. (Homilist.)

Christianity a transcendental system

I. It is transcendental in its Value. What on earth is of such worth as water? But what is the character of this water?

1. It is a river--not a stagnant pool, a sleeping lake, or a purling brook; but a river, profound in depth, majestic in volume, resistless in movement.

2. It is a pure river. How pure is Christianity! How holy its morals, how morally perfect its leading character--Christ!

3. It is a pure river of life.

4. It is a pure river of life that is transparent. Clear as crystal.

II. It is transcendental in its Origin.

1. It proceeds from the throne--the centre of universal authority. Christianity is a code rather than a creed, more regulative than speculative.

2. It proceeds from the throne of God. Christianity is a Divine system; its congruity with all collateral history, with our moral intuitions, with all our a priori notions of a God, proves its Divinity.

3. It proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Christ has to do with it. Conclusion: Such is the gospel. Value river. Kind Heaven, speed the course of this river! May it penetrate every region of the world, and roll its waves of life through every heart! (Homilist.)

Heaven

I. Wherein the glorified life in heaven will be similar to, and wherein it will differ from, spiritual life on earth.

1. The first truth that meets us in this passage is, that the influences which will sustain the future life in heaven are described in precisely the same figurative language as that used by our Lord and the inspired writers in relation to the spiritual life on earth. That which John saw flowing in the midst of the street from its perennial source in the throne of God and the Lamb was a river of water of life. This is exactly the language used in Scripture to indicate the powers and influences which sustain the spiritual man in this world. Isaiah invites men to partake of spiritual blessings in the words: Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. Jeremiah thus laments over the unfaithfulness of the Jews: For my people have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. We are clearly taught, therefore, by this vision of the apostle, that while the outward condition of the life in heaven will be vastly changed, the weak and sinful body giving place to one like the glorified body of Christ--yet the life itself will be the same. We shall then continue to be what we begin to be now. Heavenly life, in its deepest and inmost reality, is begun on earth. As, in the unopened bud, there are in microscopic form all that will afterwards expand into the flower; as, in the child, there are all the incipient faculties that will afterwards develop into the full power and maturity of manhood; so with man as a spiritual being. Grace is the infancy of glory, and glory is the manhood of grace. Natural death, which, when seen from the human side, appears an overwhelming catastrophe, can have no power over that life--it only separates the germ from the material husk in which it has been enclosed.

2. As then the future life will be a continuation under changed conditions of the life we possess now, it follows not only that present experience must in its measure be the only true interpretation of the future, but, further, the glory of that future life reflects light back upon the present. It becomes us not only to fix our hopes upon the blessings yet in reserve, but to prize highly those we have already received. While we think of heaven as the one hope of the present life, let us learn to set more value on and use more diligently the grace which sovereign mercy has already bestowed.

II. Wherein the glorified life in heaven will differ from spiritual life on earth.

1. Observe, as the first special characteristic of this water of life, that it flows in a river, at once suggesting the idea of unfailing abundance. Our great rivers never become dry. Generations of men are born and perform their part in life and then die, while the rivers of which they drank, and beside which they built their cities, remain the same. Some, like the Nile, have been flowing from long before historic times. Men may come, and men may go, but they flow on for ever. And the blessings that will be given in the future to sustain the spiritual life of the believer are here symbolised by a river of water of life, denoting certainly, among other things, that in heaven there will be an unfailing abundance of whatever is necessary to sustain the life and growth of the spiritual nature. No pressing need will ever darken the brightness of that Divine home, or promote the decay of spiritual vigour. The river flows from the throne of God and the Lamb. Its source is perennial. Sooner shall all the powers of the universe fail; sooner shall God Himself cease to be God, than the fountains from which spiritual blessings flow become dry or empty.

2. Observe, as a second point, that John saw the river of water of life flowing in the midst of the street. To understand the symbolism here, we must remember that the street is the place where men meet together, where they pursue their varied occupations. And the golden undefiled street of the New Jerusalem represents the scene of the common activities of the life there. And the position of the river flowing in the midst of the street teaches the truth that whatever the occupations may be, there will be nothing in them antagonistic to the highest interests of the spiritual life. Now the street is the scene of ears and toil. Here on earth it is the place where temptations have to be met, where sin assaults and wickedness displays itself. No river of water of life flows in the midst of our streets, but rather the waters of ungodliness and iniquity. The man who longs for communion with God does not go into the open highways of human traffic to find strength and peace: he goes, rather, into his closet. He must put the world outside in order to pray for the lessening of the power of the world within. But in heaven fellowship with God will need neither abstraction nor privacy. Every occupation will harmonise with the highest aspirations of mans renewed nature. All outward things will perfectly accord with and promote the well-being of his spirit.

3. Observe, further, John speaks in the most emphatic manner of the purity of that river. A pure river of water of life clear as crystal. Spiritual influences, the truth that enlightens, the Divine grace that quickens and sustains the spirit, are in themselves always pure. But how continually on earth they become dimmed and weakened by mixing with what is human and worldly! How strangely truth becomes mixed with error, and Divine influences marred and weakened by human passions and prejudices! What man can maintain that he has received and holds only the truth? that he has made no mistakes? that in him the grace of God is unmarred by any human weaknesses or by any contrary affections? But in heaven the river of water of life is pure, clear as crystal; it has no admixture of error or imperfection; it has never become adulterated by inferior elements.

4. Then observe, as a last point, this vision of John teaches that in heaven faith will give place to sight. John saw the river of water of life proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb. How much of unbelief and misbelief mingles with the strongest faith on earth! How insidiously doubts creep into our minds and rob them of their joyful confidence! There are times when our fear suggests that the ground of our faith is slipping away from beneath our feet. But those who will drink of that pure stream will behold the source whence it comes; they will have no need of faith, and they will have no temptation to doubt. Every joy will be permeated and intensified by a sense of blessed certainty that it is the true gift of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. (W. H. King.)

The river of life

I. Its source.

II. Its progress.

III. Its properties.

1. Living. Water of life (Joh_4:10).

2. Pure (Eze_36:25; Eph_4:30).

3. Bright. Clear as crystal. Radiant with light. Illuminating.

IV. Its effects.

1. Quickening (Eze_47:9; Joh_4:14; Joh_7:37-39).

2. Beautifying (Isa_35:1; Isa_35:6-7; Isa_58:11).

3. Fructifying (Rev_22:12; Jer_17:8; Psa_1:3; Isa_55:1; Rev_22:17). (E. H. Hopkins.)

Gleaming as crystal

If we are to understand the New Jerusalem properly, we almost need to have been citizens of the old. Observe, then, that the ancient Jerusalem was not situated, as most cities, on the banks of some river, or the shore of some sea. It stood in a peculiar position, at some distance from either: it was badly watered; we read of a pool or two, of a little brook, of an aqueduct and some other artificial water-structures. Bearing this fact in mind, you will understand how forcible an appeal to the imagination would be contained in the verse of the 46th Psalm, which tells of a river that should make glad the city of God. In evidence of the foregoing you may notice the following remark of Philo on the verse quoted: The holy city, which exists at present, in which also the holy temple is established, is at a great distance from any sea or river, so that it is clear that the writer here means figuratively to speak of some other city than the visible city of God. It is evident, therefore, that the mention of a pure, fresh stream flowing through the midst of Jerusalem was a figure of a very striking nature; and we say that the basis of this magnificent description in the Apocalypse lies in the insufficiency of the water supply of the ancient city. The life of the future, and by that we mean heaven on earth as well as heaven, shall be as different from that which you are now realising as the water supply of Jerusalem would be if a river flowed in the midst, from what it is now with merely Kidron and Bethesda and Siloam and Solomons Pools.

1. It is not a standstill life: no one can stand still who lives with God. There must be fresh discoveries of truth and duty every day; and fresh inquisition made into the heights and depths of Redeeming Love. Abandonment to God must mean advancement in God.

2. Neither in earth nor in heaven is the life to be an intermittent one. There should be no such word as revival in the dictionary of the Christian Church: we want life, not revival. You hear people saying of certain religious movings--They are having quite a revival; alas! and were they dead before? Indeed, I am sure this intermittent fountain expresses only too accurately the lives of many of us. The best that God can do with us is to make us an occasional blessing--a sorrowful thing to confess when there are suffering ones around waiting and watching the surface of our hearts to see whether there is any moving of the water.

3. It is not a life for which the world is too strong, and which cannot therefore be kept pure. It is not figured by a little brook, as Kidron, defiled with all the impurities of a city, and that an Oriental city. And yet how many lives there are of which we have to say, The world is too strong for them; well-intentioned people, but feeble in grace, and who have received but little of the Life of God.

4. It is not a humanly-devised life, as Solomons aqueducts. Our faith stands not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The Divine Life is not sect, and it is not system. The channel of a sect! it is a pipe that bursts when the tide of life rises beyond a certain point. The channel of a system I it is an aqueduct through which, if one stone be taken out, the water ceases to reach you. If one travels on the continent, one can see (I think it is at Avignon) the ruins of the ancient Roman aqueduct; but the Rhine and the rest of the rivers of God flow on still, full of water.

5. Finally, we may say, that the Life is one of absolute dependence, and is conditioned on the sovereignty of God and of the Lamb. Grace and the Holy Ghost are the portions of the dependent soul: they only flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb. (J. Rendel Harris.)

The throne of God and of the Lamb.--

The coronation of the Lamb

Regarding here the mere grammar of the words, we have a partnership Deity presented. But the matter I have now in hand is not the plurality encountered, but the name; to trace the ascending progress, issued in the final coronation, of the Lamb. The ascending stages of this progress we shall best discover if we glance at the Scripture record of the story. The word lamb begins of course at the creature, and the creature required, first of all, to be created, having just the qualities of innocence, inoffensiveness, incapacity of resentment and ill-nature, ready submissiveness to wrong, necessary to the intended meaning, and the finally sacred uses, of the word. Lambs of nature were first-stage symbols, for the due unfolding of the Lamb of religion. Then follows, we may see, a process in which artificial meanings are woven into and about the words and images provided, by the religious uses of sacrifice; for God is now to be displayed in the dear passivities of sacrifice. Abel. Sacrifice of Isaac. Passover (Isa_3:1-26; Isa_53:1-12.). At last the fulness of time is come; when a strange new prophet appears, announcing the kingdom of God now at hand. Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Now at last the advances and preparations of so many ages are ended, the Lamb of God is come. And then what does He Himself do, three years after, when He encounters the two disciples going back, heavy-hearted, into the country, but open to them all the ancient scripture, showing out of it how certainly Christ ought to suffer, and so to be the Lamb of prophecy. And what does He give them to see, in this manner, but that all sacrifice and passover are now fulfilled forever in His Divine passion? Then, passing on a stage farther, we are completely certified in our impressions, by the discovery that, at this same Lamb and passover blood, all apostolic preaching begins. Gods new gospel of life is the revelation of the Lamb. For this, says Philip to the eunuch, is the prophets lamb that was dumb before His shearers. And this, says Peter, is the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

1. What does it signify, that God has now the Lamb throned with Him, but that He is now to be more and more distinctly conceived as a susceptible being; to be great, not as being absolute, or an infinite force, not as being impassive--a rock, a sea, a storm, a fire--but as having great sentiments, sympathies and sensibilities. Nothing has been so difficult for men as to think of God in this manner. The human soul is overborne, at first and for long ages, by the satutral dimensions of God; filling up this idea with mere quantities; putting omnipotence in the foreground, and making Him a grand positivity of force; adding omniscience, or absolutely intuitive knowledge, adding also will, purpose, arbitrary predestination, decrees: exalting justice, not as right or rectitude, but as the fearful attribute of redress, that backs up laws regarded mainly as rescripts of will in God, and not as principles. He has always been at work to mend this defect in us; protesting by His prophets, in the matter of His sensibilities, that He is hurt, offended, weary, was grieved forty years, that in the affliction of His people He was afflicted, and bare and carried them all the days of old. All this in words to little or no effect; but now He shows us in the Lamb, as the crowning fact of revelation, that He is a God in moral sensibility--able to suffer wrong, bear enemies, gentle Himself to violence, reigning thus in what is none the less a kingdom, that it is the kingdom and patience of Jesus. Physical suffering is of course excluded by the fact of His infinite sufficiency, but that is a matter quite insignificant for Him, compared with His moral suffering. Under such conceptions of God we of course approach the great matter of atonement, in a wholly different predisposition. We shall look for something that belongs to the Lamb, something in the nature of suffering patience, and sorrow. What we call grace, forgiveness, mercy, is not something elaborated after God is God, by transactional work before Him, but it is what belongs to His inmost nature set forth and revealed to us by the Lamb, in joint supremacy.

2. Gods nature itself is relational to both sin and redemption. Sometimes we begin to imagine that the sense of sin is likely, as things are just now going, to quite die out. No, the Lamb is in the throne, and it is impossible henceforth, that a God unrelational to sin, or a fate unbeneficently relational, should ever be accepted by the settled faith of the world. Simply to think the supreme eminence there of the Lamb is to look on Him we have pierced, and see Him rising higher and yet higher, age upon age, and feel the arrows that were hid in His sorrows growing even more pungently sharp in our guilty sensibility. All the more resistless too will be the stabs of bad conviction, that they are meant to be salutary, and are in fact the surgery of a faithful healing power. We are also shown by this revelation of the Lamb in the throne, and shall more and more distinctly see, that the nature of God is, in like manner, relational to redemption. The two points, in fact, go together and are verified by the same evidence. It is not for one moment to be imagined that Christ the Lamb has somehow softened God and made Him better. He came down from God as the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world, and the gospel He gave us is called the everlasting gospel, because it has been everlastingly in God, and will everlastingly be. Gods nature is so far relational to redemption, that His glorious possibilities are bleeding always into the bosom of evil. There is a fixed necessity of blood, and He has the everlasting fountain of it in His Lambhood. So that condemnation for evil, or sin, is not a whir more sure to follow than forgiveness, sweetened by self-propitiation.

3. Having the Lamb now in the throne, it will be more and mere clear to mens thoughts that Gods most difficult and really most potent acts of administration are from the tenderly enduring capacity of His goodness, represented by the Lamb. The richness and patience of His feeling nature, in one word His dispositions, are the all-dominating powers of His reign. What He is in the Lamb--determines what He is and does universally. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)

The throne of God and of the Lamb

I. Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Look at Him in the dawn of His ministry, when first He comes within the range of mortal vision--a man, a lowly man, one chosen out of the people. He lived and He died in the presence of many witnesses: what further evidence could be desired that Jesus was a man and not a myth, a lamb-like man, and none of your pretenders to greatness? His character, too, is so purely natural that the example of excellence He sets needs no explanation. How lamb-like He is I Thus you see the Lamb of God among men: will you track His footsteps still farther on till He becomes the Lamb of sacrifice, and actually takes the sin of man upon Himself, that He may bear its penalty?

II. Behold the throne. Let us see it first from the Lambs side of it. Of course there is only one throne: God and the Lamb are not divided. The Lamb is God, and the interests of God and the Lamb are one. Acknowledging the oneness of the throne, we proceed to inspect it from the point of view in which the Lamb chiefly challenges our notice. You will remember that He is portrayed to us as the Lamb in the midst of the throne. The midst of the throne means the front of the throne, according to the Greek. The Lamb was not on the throne in that vision, but standing immediately before it. That is a position in which our Lord Jesus Christ would have us see Him. To the awful throne of God there could be no access except through a mediator. The throne of heaven is the throne of God and of the Lamb. His dominion over nature always appears to me a delightful contemplation. Lord of all the realms of life and death, His providence runs without knot or break through all the tangled skeins of time. All events, obvious or obscure, great or small, are subject to His influence, and fostered or frustrated by His supremacy. The Lord reigneth, and of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end. Well, that is the aspect of the throne from the side of the Lamb. Let us now take another look and behold the throne of God. The throne of God is the throne of the Lamb. The throne of God, if we view it as sinners, with a sense of guilt upon our conscience, is an object of terror, a place to fly from. Henceforth eternal praises to His name, the throne of God is the throne of the Lamb. It is a throne of righteousness, but no less a throne of grace. There, on the throne of the Almighty, mercy reigns. According to the merit of the sacrifice and the virtue of the atonement all the statutes and decrees of the kingdom of heaven are issued. The altar and the throne have become identical. One fact remains to be noticed--it is this: the throne of God and of the Lamb is in heaven. We must pass beyond this earthly region, and join the company of those who people the celestial realm before we can see the throne of God, so as to obtain a complete view of it. Is not this among the chief joys of heaven? What hallowed communion with Him we shall there enjoy. In His Church below He has given us some pleasant foretaste of His sweet converse; but there the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall always feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of water. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev 22:1-2. And — Proceeding with his description of the heavenly city, the apostle observes, he — That is, the angel who condescended to be his guide on this occasion; showed me a pure river of the water of life — The ever fresh and fructifying influence of the Holy Spirit; see Eze 47:1-12, where also the trees are mentioned which bear fruit every month, that is, perpetually. Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb — All things that the Father hath, saith the Son of God, are mine; even the throne of his glory. In the midst of the street of it — Here is the paradise of God, mentioned chap. Rev 2:7; and on either side of the river was the tree of life — As this river ran through the chief street in the midst of the city, so there were planted on each side of it beautiful trees, not only to serve for ornament and refreshment, but which, like the tree of life in paradise, should make the inhabitants immortal; which bare twelve manner of fruits — Which produced a great variety of pleasant fruits, and in such plenty, that ripe fruit was yielded every month — So that all might freely partake of them at all seasons. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations — That is, for the preserving, not the restoring, of spiritual health; for no sickness or infirmity, of mind or body, is, or can be there: beneath the salutary shade of these trees no disease can ever invade any individual of the nations of the saved, but perpetual health shall exist and flourish in them all.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Vision ended. The Lord is at Hand

The inner life of the heavenly Jerusalem is described. Then the 'Revelation' closes with the repeated assurance that Christ is at hand, and with the yearnings of the Church and of St. John for the joy of. His advent.

1-5. In the New Jerusalem, the blessed life of Eden is more than restored. There is a river of life (cp. Gen_2:10), i.e. the Holy Spirit: cp. Joh_4:14; Joh_7:37. Cp. also Eze_47:1; Joe_3:18; Zec_14:8, in which prophecies the waters come from the Temple: here there is no Temple, and the waters flow from the throne of God, i.e. they are the result of God's immediate presence, and of His fully accepted government (Rev_22:1). On either side of the river as it flows in the midst of the street is a grove of trees, the tree of life: cp. Gen_2:9; Eze_47:12. The fruit is always available, for there is a fresh crop every month: cp. the manna, Joh_6:31. The leaves healed the sin of the 'nations' within the city, and the fruit nourishes their life. In the tree we see the cross on which Christ hung as precious fruit (Rev_22:2). Now, too, as He became 'a curse for us' (Gal_3:13), the curse of Eden (cp. Gen_3:17, Gen_3:22.) is taken away: cp. Zec_14:11. Over the 'sweet societies' of the Redeemed, God and the Lamb reign for ever. The Redeemed offer up worship face to face with God (the 'beatific vision') (cp. Psa_17:15; Mat_5:8, 1Co_13:12; 1Jn_3:2) and receive His Name, i.e. are marked as His (see on Rev_7:3 and Rev_14:1), and transformed into His likeness (Rev_22:3.). And as His glory thus shines upon and enters into them, they 'reign,' i.e. their life can develop and expand to its fullest powers, there being no evil ('curse,' Rev_22:3) in them to be restrained, nor hindering circumstances without to restrain them (Rev_22:5).

1. Clear] RV 'bright.' If. And of the Lamb. In the midst of the street.. river] RV 'and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that.'

2. Manner] RM 'crops.'

5. Candle] RV 'light of lamp.'

6-9. Affirmation of the truth of the vision which is now concluded, and of the near approach of that of which it tells (Rev_22:6-7). St. John, knowing the angel has finished his task and is about to leave him, falls before him in worship, as in Rev_19:10, but is again charged to worship God alone (Rev_22:8.).

6. The Lord God of the holy prophets] RV 'the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets': cp. 1Co_14:32.

The meaning is that the words of the Christian prophets do not speak their own mind, but God's. 7. Christ's voice breaks in: cp. Rev_16:15.

8. RV 'And I John am he that heard and saw these things.'

10-15. The vision is not to be sealed, as was Daniel's (cp. Dan_12:4), because it is for immediate use (Rev_22:10). Those who 'will not turn and repent because of the Revelation which Christ has now completed, will not, cannot have any greater power brought to bear on them before He comes again: cp. Luk_16:31;' (Benson) (Rev_22:11-13). Happy are they who are purified, through faith, by His blood (cp. Rev_7:14), for the life and joy of the city are for them (Rev_22:14.).

10. Seal not] RV 'seal not up': cp. Rev_10:4.

11. Cp. Eze_3:27; Eze_20:39; Dan_12:10. Unjust] RV 'unrighteous.' Be unjust] RV 'do unrighteousness.' Be filthy] RV 'be made filthy.' Be righteous] RV 'do righteousness.'

Be holy] RV 'be made holy.'

12-15. Spoken by Christ: cp. Rev_22:7, Rev_16:15.

14. Do his commandments] RV 'wash their robes.' Right] RV 'the right to come.'

16f. The Messiah attests the Revelation (Rev_22:16). The Holy Spirit in the Church (cp. Rom_8:16), and the Church herself, hearing His voice, call for His advent, and, at the same time, invite all who will to take part with the Church in this joyful expectation (Rev_22:17).

16. The root, etc.] The reference is to the Messiahship of our Lord, as son of David, and as the 'star' of Balaam's prophecy: cp. Rev_2:28; Rev_5:5; Num_24:17; Isa_11:1, Isa_11:10; Mat_1:1; Mat_22:42.

17. Bride] see on Mat_21:2. Heareth] see on 18. Athirst] cp. Mat_21:6. Freely] cp. Isa_55:1.

18f. A warning that the book is not to be falsified by addition or excision: cp. Deu_4:2; Deu_12:32.

19. Book of life] RV 'tree of life.'

And from the things] RV omits.

20f. Christ sums up the book by announcing His speedy advent, and St. John prays for it (Rev_22:20). The book, and with it the Bible, closes in prayer for that in which all its blessings are contained, 'the grace,' i.e. the manifested love, 'of the Lord Jesus' (Rev_22:21).

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

d. Its river and tree of life—Close of Apocalypse, Rev_22:1-5.

1. And—The entire passage, Rev_21:1 to Rev_22:5, should be read as one unbroken description. He—The angel interpreter of Rev_21:9; Rev_21:17.

Clear—Rather, bright, radiant.

Throne—The royal seat of the eternal KING. We may suppose its position central, the most illustrious point in the luminous capital.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he showed me a pure river. Omit "pure." "And" connects this part of the vision with what precedes. (Rev_21:9-27) It would have been better, perhaps, if the twenty-first chapter had included the first five verses of the twenty-second, so as to take in the whole of the description of the heavenly Jerusalem. But there is a break at this point, as is indicated by the repetition of "And he showed me," which points to a new phase or section of the vision. In the previous section (Rev_21:9-27) the angel had showed St. John the city and its wails with their gates and foundations; in this section he shows him the river of the water of life, and the tree of life. The latter part of each section is occupied with the evangelist"s own observations, (Rev_21:22-27 Rev_22:3-5) for we cannot suppose that the phrase, "these words," in ver. 6, is intended to apply specially to anything in these particular sections. He is the angel mentioned in ver. 9, and again referred to in vers. 10, 15, 16, 17. Most probably the pronoun "he" in ver. 6 does not refer to the same angel as this one. River. The source of this stream, its course or channel, and its fertile banks, are mentioned or implied in what follows; but there is no reference to any estuary or mouth: eternity is the ocean in which this river is lost. Of water of life. Udwr zwhv is perhaps identical in meaning with "living water," udwr zwn , but is properly distinguished from it in translation. The two expressions are peculiar to St. John"s writings in the New Testament; the genitival form, which is the more Hebraizing, only occurs in this book in Rev_7:17 Rev_21:6 Rev_22:1, Rev_22:17; whereas the participial and more classical form is confined to the Gospel. (Joh_4:10 Joh_7:38) "Living water," in its simplest literalness, means such water as is pure, flowing, clear, fresh, and wholesome; not stagnant, or turbid, or salt. Hence it is a proper term for the water of a beautiful and fertilizing river. Here, however, the genitival form reminds us of the familiar expression, similarly moulded, "the tree of life," which inclines us to think that" water of life" signifies water possessing life giving powers, water which restores, refreshes, supports life, and is therefore to be compared with "living water" taken in its spiritual sense. Of this whosoever drinketh shall never thirst again; when it has been once received within the soul, it becomes a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (Joh_4:14)

Clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; clear, or transparent. We seldom use the rendering of the Revised Version, bright, as an epithet of water. As crystal (see note on Rev_4:6, the only other place in the New Testament where the word occurs). The source of the river was in the Divine throne, the seat of the Triune God and the crucified Saviour. All eternal life is derived from our heavenly Father by the Holy Spirit for the sake of the Redeemer.

Vers. 1-5. (See preceding homily)

HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-6. The conditions of blessedness.

These must be thought of as first on earth, afterwards in heaven. The river of the water of life must be the life giving and sustaining power of the Holy Spirit. It is life life indeed and of a truth. But man has no life apart from God, and most truly no spiritual and blessed life. "The fountain of life is with thee." It would not be improper to include here the idea of "the Word of life;" for by the Word only are the seeds of life sown in the heart, and by the Word the ever present Spirit refreshes and revives the weary and dying. This life giving Word, made powerful by the heavenly life giving Spirit, spreads healing and joy, loveliness and verdure, wherever it comes. But we cannot separate these elements; they are one. And beautiful is the figure of the life giving river, "bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb." But the issue of the above is presented to us in the following verses.

I IN THE UTTER DESTRUCTION OF THE CURSE AND CONSEQUENCE OF SIN. The first and last, the complete idea of the evil results of sin, is to be found in "the curse." It is now removed. Blessing prevails. Happy they over whom the shadow of a curse falls not! So far of the negative results. The positive follow; and the blessedness of the righteous is set forth

II IN THE SUPREME AUTHORITY OF THE MOST HIGH. In obedience is life and blessedness. His laws are holy, just, and good. The perfectness of life is reached when God reigns perfectly in the hearts of his people; when there his throne is set.

III IN THE UNVARYING OBEDIENCE OF THE HOLY PEOPLE. "His servants shall do him service.

IV IN A GRACIOUSLY PERMITTED APPROACH TO GOD. "They shall see his face;" they know him. It is the approach of love. It is the child before the face of the Father.

V IN THE SIMILARITY OF NATURE. The Divine Name is on the forehead. This is at once an attainment and a reward.

VI IN THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE AND THE DECEPTIONS OF ERROR. No night. No mere earthly illumination. The Lord God himself, by his own direct illumination, giveth them light. They who follow the light of life walk not in darkness.

VII IN EVERLASTING EXALTATION AND HONOUR. "They shall reign forever and ever. R.G.

HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS Ver. 1. Christianity a transcendental system.

"And he showed me," etc. Philosophers have their transcendental theories, but Christianity transcends their highest speculations. Taking these words as a symbolic representation of it, we make two remarks.

I IT IS TRANSCENDENTAL IN ITS VALUE. It is "water." What on earth, what throughout the whole material universe, so far as we know, is of such worth as water? So impressed were some of the greatest sages of antiquity with its value, that they regarded it as the first principle, the fontal source of all things. But what is the character of this water?

1. It is a "river." It is not a stagnant pool, a sleeping lake, or a purling brook; but a river, profound in depth, majestic in volume, resistless in movement.

2. It is a "pure" river. No impurities have been drained into it. Its channels are clean; it is fresh and pure from the holy heavens. How pure is Christianity! How holy its morals, how morally perfect its leading character, Christ!

3. It is a "pure" river of life. It not only diffuses life through all the regions through which it rolls its waters, but goes up into the air, forms clouds, sails through the heavens, and discharges itself upon the barren bills, thus giving life to the world. Christianity is a quickening system; it quickens intellect, conscience, heart.

4. It is a "pure" river of life that is transparent. "Clear as crystal." This river, like a perfect looking glass, mirrors the bright heavens above, and all the objects around it. How transparent is Christianity! It can be seen through and through. What character was ever so transparent as the character of Christ? You see with a glance the one ruling principle that worked all his faculties and explained his life love. Here there is a transcendental system that roils in the moral domain of earth like some mighty Amazon in the material. What would man"s moral world be without it? At, what?

II IT IS TRANSCENDENTAL IS ITS ORIGIN. Whence does this river take its rise? Where is the fountain head? Not on earth, not from any particular province of the universe, but from the "throne of God and of the Lamb.

1. It proceeds from the "throne." It comes from the centre of universal authority. Christianity is a system of authority. It is a code rather than a creed; it is more regulative than speculative.

2. It proceeds from the throne of God. There are many thrones. We read of thrones and principalities, etc. But this is the throne from which all other thrones derive their authority, to which all are amenable the throne of God. Christianity is a Divine system; its congruity with all collateral history, with our moral intuitions, with all our a priori notions of a God, proves its Divinity.

3. It proceeds from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Christ has to do with it. It contains his life, it mirrors his character, it bears on its majestic bosom his provision for the world.

Such is the gospel. Value this river. What are other books compared to the gospel? Mere puddled pools to the Mississippi. Kind Heaven, speed the course of this river! May it penetrate every region of the world, and roll its waves of life through every heart! D.T.

Divine love a river

"He showed me a river." "There is a river," says the psalmist, "the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God." Divine love is indeed a river.

I EXHAUSTLESS. It rises from the infinitude of the Divine nature a source unfathomed and unfathomable.

II UNIVERSAL. This river rolls everywhere. It rolls under the universe, and all things float on its waves. It refreshes and beautifies all. The ancient sages considered water h arch . We scarcely wonder at this when they saw water everywhere in the material world. But water is but the symbol of love. Love is indeed h arch .

III EVER FLOWING. The inexhaustible fountain is always acting outpouring itself. Creation is a work never finished, for the river of Divine love is overflowing.

IV RESTORATIVE. This river to human souls is restorative. It at once resuscitates and cleanses; it quenches thirst and removes defilement. Christ is the channel through which flows this soul restorative love. "Flow down, thou stream of life Divine, Thy quickening streams deliver; Oh, flow throughout this soul of mine Forever and forever! "Flow down, and cause this heart to glow With love to God the Giver That love in which all virtues grow Forever and forever. "Flow down, as flow the ray and rain, In vital work together, Refreshing roots and quickening grain Forever and forever. "Flow down, as flows the living sun Upon the sparkling river, Which, chanting to the boundless, run Forever and forever. "Flow down, revive this famished soul, And bear away all error; And I will praise thee, God of all, Forever and forever. D.T.

Subjective Christianity: 1. A river.

"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." All along this book of gorgeous imagery and symbol we have been looking at Christianity as a subjective reality. Objective Christianity is simply a speculation; a thing of criticism, imagination, and logic; a thing for men to quarrel about, and even to fight about at times. It is a creed nothing more. But subjective Christianity is a life; it is the creed eaten, digested, and transmitted into the blood and fibre of the soul. In this verse this life appears in three aspects.

I AS FLOWING. It is a "river," not a stagnant lake, confined within certain banks, without any progressive motion, but a river flowing on, winding its way through every faculty of the soul, and giving to all new freshness and vigour.

II AS TRANSLUCENT. "Pure river of water of life, clear as crystal." What object in nature is more sublimely beautiful than a deep flowing river, so pure as to mirror all the pearls and shells and living creatures that lie fathomed below, and all the shifting clouds and brilliant orbs that circle above? Vital Christianity is essentially clear and cleansing; it flows through the soul, and leaves no "spot" or "wrinkle," or any such thing.

III AS IMPERIAL. "Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." It does not spring from any human fountain. It is from the primal force of all life God and the Lamb. It is a river, "the streams whereof make glad the city of God." "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. D. T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THE RESTORED PARADISE, AND THE EPILOGUE

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

THE first five verses complete the description of the new heavens and new earth. There is evident reference in the figures of the tree of life and the river that flows by the trees, to the first and forfeited paradise. The Epilogue is brief, but pertinent and impressive. The angel-guide and interpreter reassures the seer that all which has been disclosed is certain; and he repeats what was said in the prologue to the book respecting its design to unveil the future to the servants of God, and to disclose the blessedness of those who keep in mind what has been revealed. John, filled with reverence and astonishment, falls again at the feet of the angel, to do him homage; but he is warned by the angel that he himself is only a fellow-servant of God, and a fellow-labourer with the prophets who disclose the Divine will. The angel, moreover, warns him not to seal up the book, as if it were to be reserved for some distant period. On the contrary, the time is near—i.e., the time when the series of events commences. Jesus Himself is introduced as closing the scene. He declares that He has sent His angel to make the disclosures which the book contains, and that He is the promised Messiah of the Old Testament, the Offspring of David, and the Light of the World. To His promise that He will come quickly, the Spirit which speaks in His prophets, and the bride, i.e. the Church, respond and say, Come! All, moreover, who read or hear the words of the book are exhorted to unite in the expression of the same ardent desire.

Rev_22:1. Proceeding out of the throne.—Compare Ezekiel 47; Gen_2:10.

Rev_22:2. Nations.—Apparently those outside the city.

Rev_22:3. Curse.—Compare that pronounced on the ground because of Adam’s sin.

Rev_22:4. See His face.—To be understood as implying some manifestation of God, answering to the capacities (senses) of the redeemed. Sight of God as the absolute Being is inconceivable for any who are in creature conditions.

Rev_22:15. Dogs.—Dogs are regarded in the East as unclean animals. Compare Rev_9:21, Rev_21:8.

Rev_22:18. Any man shall add, etc.—See Deu_4:2; Deu_12:32. “The parallel of those passages proves that the curse denounced is on those who interpolate unauthorised doctrines in the prophecy, or who neglect essential ones, not on transcribers who might unadvisedly interpolate or omit something in the true text. The curse, if understood in the latter sense, has been remarkably ineffective, for the common text of this book is more corrupt, and the true text oftener doubtful, than in any part of the New Testament. But it may be feared that the additions and omissions in the more serious sense have also been frequently made by rash interpreters. It is certain that the curse is designed to guard the integrity of this book of the Revelation, and not to close the New Testament Canon. It is not even certain that this was the last written of the canonical books” (W. H. Simcox, M.A.). St. John simply means to prohibit, in the most solemn manner, all tampering with his own work.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Rev_22:1-21

The Permanence of Evil.—It cannot be assured that the subject dealt with in this chapter is the “final restitution of all things.” It may even be fairly disputed whether the book of Revelation is in any sense historical. It is so manifestly a teaching by symbols and prophetic figures that we do not wisely associate with it a chronological order. Its scenes may be synchronous in many cases, descriptive of what occurs in different parts of the earth. It may even not be descriptive at all, but suggestive of moral or immoral forces, and of varying Divine judgments. Without attempting to explain what the book of Revelation is, we may with confidence affirm that the meanings of it are too uncertain for us to build perplexing doctrines upon it. And certainly, to conclude that evil will continue after the final issues of the great redemption are reached, and to base that conclusion on the passage now before us, would be wholly unwarranted. Apart from preconceived and biassing notions, the reference of the passage would seem to be a very simple one. John is bidden not to “seal up the sayings of the prophecy of this book,” because the time of closing up, though at hand, is not come; and until it does come, preaching and prophecy must be agencies working amongst men. Evil men will be going on in their evil, and need warnings; good men will be growing better through much struggle, and so will need much encouragement. The very point is that there is no fixity yet, and so for every one there is hope. The passage is really an echo of the parable of the tares. “Let both grow together until the harvest,” even if it should seem to you that the harvest is close at hand. Rev_22:11 is rather a statement of fact than a direction of conduct, or a prophecy of the future, and this is indicated by the correction of the Revised Version. The results of the preached gospel are always such as described here: “to some it is savour of life unto life, to others of death unto death”; but we must go on preaching that gospel, even if the apparent issue be a confirming men in their sin. Bishop Boyd Carpenter takes a somewhat different view: “What does Rev_22:11 mean? Does it mean that the time is so short that it is hardly sufficient to allow of men reforming themselves so as to be ready for their Lord, and that, therefore, the lesson is: Let those who would be ready for Him remember that now is the day of salvation? This is the view adopted by some; it contains a truth, but the meaning of the verse seems more general. Is it not the declaration of the ever-terrible truth that men are building up their destiny by the actions and habits of their lives? ‘Sow an act—reap a habit; sow a habit—reap a character; sow a character—reap a destiny.’ The righteous become righteous; the godly become godly. So, slowly but surely, may the power of being masters of our fate pass out of our hands. It is in this law of our nature that the key to many of the darkest problems of the future may lie; and not without a solemn declaration of this law does the book of Revelation close.”

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Rev_22:2. The Tree of Life.—Here we may compare the homa-tree of the Persians, growing at the spring Ardvisura, which comes from the throne of God; the kalpasoma-tree of the Hindus, which furnished the water of immortality, the libation of the gods; the tuba-tree of the Arab; the lotus-tree of the Greeks; the tree of Assyrian sculpture, adorned by royal figures, and guarded by genii, just as, in the Bible-story, it is guarded by the cherubim … With the tree of knowledge we may compare the large part played by trees in Chaldean magic; the burning bush from which God’s angel appeared to Moses; the oak of the diviners at Shechem; the palm-tree under which Deborah prophesied; the oak of Ophrah where an angel appeared to Gideon; the rustling in the tops of the balsam trees, which indicated to David that God had gone on before him in the battle; the prophetic trees of the Arabs; the “tree of light” of the Assyrian; the laurel-tree of Delos; the tree of Delphis.—W. R. Harper.

Rev_22:4. “The Vision of God.”—The vision of God is threefold: the vision of righteousness; the vision of grace; the vision of glory.

I. Righteousness includes all those attributes which make up an idea of the Supreme Ruler of the universe.—Perfect justice, perfect truth, perfect purity, perfect moral harmony in all its aspects. It is a vision of awe, transcending all thought. A vision of awe, but a vision also of purification, of renewal, of energy, of power, of life.

II. The vision of righteousness is succeeded by the vision of grace. When Butler, in his dying moments had expressed his awe at appearing face to face before the moral Governor of the world, his chaplain, we are told, spoke to him of the blood that cleanseth from all sin. “Ah, this is comfortable,” he replied; and with these words on his lips he gave up his soul to God. He only has access to eternal love who has stood face to face with eternal righteousness. The incarnation of the Son is the mirror of His Father’s love.

III. The mirror of love melts into the vision of glory.—Here we catch only glimpses at rare intervals, revealed in the lives of God’s saints and heroes—revealed, above all, in the record of the written Word, and in the incarnation of the Divine Son. There we shall see Him face to face—perfect truth, perfect righteousness, perfect purity, perfect love, perfect light; and we shall gaze with unblenching eye, and our visage shall be changed.—J. B. Lightfoot, D.D.

Rev_22:5. The Royal State.—The Church of the future is the theme of the latter part of the book of Revelation. One class of expositors asserts that the brilliant description of the New Jerusalem herein contained can only apply to the final glorified state of the Church in its heavenly home. Others think that the glowing figures represent the earthly prosperity of the Church when the Messiah shall reign among His people in His spiritual Person. As time is the interpreter of prophecy, we may rest assured that an agreement of view cannot be expected beforehand. We are inclined to regard the whole book as the last legacy of inspiration to the Militant Church, and that its prophecies relate to her earthly course. Taking the Bible generally, and the New Testament specially, in which we find the fuller revelation of immortality, the heavenly state is nowhere fully set forth. We may almost say that the references to heaven are mere hints, and not descriptions of that glorious state. It would appear strange, therefore, that the whole subject should be treated, and at such length, in the one book. But to regard the whole as a prophetic utterance, in the highest language of imagery, of the prosperity of the Church in its latter days, when all its struggles are over, is no strain upon either imagination or faith. Indeed, such a picture is welcome, as the calm is welcome after the storm. There was once a strife among the disciples: which of them should be accounted the greatest? This arose from the expectation, which then prevailed, that Jesus would set up again the throne of David, and restore the kingdom to Israel. The contention was, Which of the disciples should occupy the highest stations in the new kingdom? The historian has not given the claims which were preferred. The Book never satisfies mere curiosity. The Saviour’s answer is given in full: “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.” At first sight, the statement seems to sweep away every aspiration, and for a moment the disciples felt a keen disappointment. The tension was slackened when He further said, “I am among you as he that serveth.” They had seen nothing in His treatment, either of themselves or others, which might lead to the thought that He was about to ascend the thronesteps. The one thing which they had seen—service—pointed in the opposite direction, as service was generally regarded. A life of constant toil and privation, which at times was violently assailed, had nothing in it to encourage the hope of wearing a crown and swaying a sceptre. Thus He brought the disciples down; but only to a level with Himself. He brought them down, however, to lift them up in another direction, yea, in an unexpected direction—that of service. The lift He gave them brought them up, not only near, but to the throne. “Ye are they which have continued with me in My temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as My Father hath appointed unto Me; that ye may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The language is figurative; but it points out to us that one truth, that service alone will satisfy the highest and noblest aspirations of the human heart. To do good is to reign with Christ in His kingdom. The text refers to a period when the service of the Church will be so great as to command universal approbation.

I. The ascendency of the Christian character.—“And they shall reign for ever and ever.” Although the specific promise which the Saviour made, and which we have now quoted, indicates a favour to be bestowed on the twelve apostles, yet in the light of other Scriptures it cannot be so confined. The ascription of praise by the Church at the beginning of the book of Revelation, includes the idea: “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.” Looking at the grand era of gospel ascendency which these chapters set forth, the prophet Daniel said, “And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers shall serve and obey him.” Take also the words of St. Paul in Rom_5:17 : “For if by one offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” The same apostle also says in 2Ti_2:12 : “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” In the third chapter of this book and the last verse, we have this remarkable declaration: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne.” And now we will look at some of the attributes of the Christian character, which will make its ascendency inevitable.

1. Founded upon Christ. Jesus Christ is its source. It partakes of the character of Christ: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1Pe_2:9). In the margin, for praises we have virtues, which is the more correct reading. Then let us think of those virtues which adorned the Saviour’s life. There was an intense love of the truth. Purity marked every step. Benevolence flowed through the whole. If any one asks why the life of Jesus of Nazareth stands out pre-eminently, that is our answer. We do not stop to prove that truth, holiness, and love, are the imperishable materials with which to build up life, for the life of Jesus is our witness, which has stood the severest test for nearly two thousand years. We do not deny that other characters have outlived their generation, and have come down to us with much force, but we know that the indestructible elements in them are truth, honour, and goodness. Men who have distinguished themselves in one of these departments have created a life whose impetus overcomes the ravages of time. Above all others, the love of truth, the purity of example, and the love of man, are seen in the character of Christ. We do not think that His miracles, or even His tragic death, would have preserved His name independently of His teaching and loving-kindness. Jesus lives, not only in His heavenly mansion, but also in the lives of His followers, as He said, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” The fact that Christians disseminate the light of truth, received from the Saviour, and are the salt of the earth in the morality of their life, with which they blend every effort to be the benefactors of their day and generation, assures us of the ascendency of their character. There is in truth an inherent force, before which ignorance and error must disappear. The truth, as it is in Jesus, is the power that sways their thoughts. Truth is royal; its mandates are from the throne, and its influence must prevail. The Almighty has said over the darkness of mankind, “Let there be light,” and there is light, which increases more and more unto the perfect day. If, again, we think of another force, concurrent with truth—the force of purity—in the nature of things it must gain the ascendency over sin. St. Paul sets forth the thought in Rom_5:20-21 : “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Righteousness is the foundation of all prosperity—personal and national. When the moral instincts of humanity are awakened by the gospel, it will become evident that sin is suicidal. Every Christian, therefore, brings this evidence against sin in the court of conscience; and we know what will ultimately be the verdict. We have already seen the overthrow of barbarous customs, evil habits, and many national sins. We confidently expect the day when “holiness unto the Lord” will be written on the bells of the horses. In the fact that the beneficial must become universal, we need not hesitate to believe. The Church witnesses for Christ in being His almoner to the world. Christianity’s highest credentials are the many humane institutions which it has planted in every land. Every Christian is a boon to Society. Directly and indirectly his life is a benefit to others. His motto is to do good to all men, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

2. Inspired by the Holy Spirit. If the character of Jesus is the basis of the Christian life, it may be questioned whether it is possible to maintain such a high ideal. Are we not all feeble imitators of a character which we cannot reproduce? This is very much the view which the world takes of the matter. It cannot be otherwise, because the force which sustains and inspires the Christian life is unperceived by mortal sense. The promise which the Blessed Lord gave His Church is worthy of fresh attention: “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” The words may have a special application to the apostles, but it is also a promise of universal application to believers. The chronicler of the words, St. John, in the first epistle, says, “But the anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall know Him.” By the anointing we are to understand the influence of the Holy Spirit, by which we know Christ; yea, it is the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us. The very birth of the Christian character is of the Spirit: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” When we bear in mind that Christians are daily under the power of the Holy Ghost, it is more than conceivable that they can reproduce the excellencies of the life of Jesus. We do not assert that this is always the case, because we often grieve the Spirit, and sometimes we quench the holy fire. But Christ is living now in His saints; they are enabled, in a measure, to set forth the truth, afford a holy example, and do the works of charity, The power which lifts the soul out of darkness into light, and cancels the bond of slavery by the new birth, can make the new life triumphant. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1Jn_5:4-5). Faith in Jesus Christ is an active principle, fired into action by the Holy Ghost. The influence is permanent, and not transitory, as the influence of the world. “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” St. Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ that strengthened me.” He received that strength in his spirit by communion with the Master. So also the weakest saint has power to rise above surrounding influences, for there dwells in his heart the Living Christ. To the world Jesus of Nazareth is only an historical character; one who acted His part, and on whose life the curtain of eternity fell; but, by virtue of the indwelling Spirit, the Christian has stepped before the curtain to continue the representation, and bring every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

II. The distinction of the Christian character.—We have said that the language of the text is figurative, but it is intended to convey the idea that those who love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ will be exalted. Human nature has aspirations. They have their legitimate place in our life. God has placed everything under our rule: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.” Checked by the Fall, as we have it elsewhere—“But now we see not yet all things put under him”—the scope of man’s action has been circumscribed. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.” And where we see Jesus we also see His saints. It was His last prayer that His disciples should be with Him, to behold His glory.

1. The elevation will be above the force of circumstances. Every Christian on earth has to fight with difficulties. Life here is a struggle. We have to contend with evil influences: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” That day the strife will be over. The saints will look down from their thrones on the vanquished foes. Trials will be over, and mortality will be swallowed up of life. Death will have no sting, and the grave will be despoiled of victory. We shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us, and gave Himself for us. Each will receive the crown of righteousness, which shall never fade.

2. The elevation will be the highest to which God can raise us. The idea of a throne and a kingdom suggests that the greatest honour will be conferred on the followers of Jesus. High as our aspirations may now be, they shall be more than fulfilled. Such a prospect calls upon us to be faithful, even unto death. Our life is brief in which to win a crown. The steps to the throne are many. Fight with sin; conform to the will of God; lead men to Christ, and build up the Church. Such a life has an upward tendency, and will continue its course until Jesus shall come.—“Weekly Pulpit.”

Rev_22:11. Permanency Stamped on Human Lives.—Our condition in the coming life absolutely depends upon our conduct in the present life. “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” This has a most practical bearing. It crowds our present life with opportunities, and weightens every act of life with eternal relations.

I. The present world is a world of change.—The air we breathe seems to be always the same, and yet there is nothing so variable, so constantly altering its place and its constituents. Every blade of grass, every tree-leaf, is in the day-time taking something from it and adding something to it, and in the night-time reversing the order. The mountains seem to keep their place, but the truth is that the so-called “everlasting hills” are ever varying their forms, and weathering down into the plains. But the present changeableness of everything is hopeful, for it involves the possibility of moral reformations. If Adam and his posterity had kept their integrity, the stamp of permanency might have been put on earth and life. As it is, the tree of life must be watchfully guarded, for the hope of humanity lies in the possibility of becoming other than it is. Now is the day of possible reformations. Now the prodigal may come back home and be again a son. Now the poor woman whose life-story is a tale of shame and sin may change into the penitent, pouring tears on the feet of Jesus and hearing words of gracious pardon. St. Paul may throw aside the old spirit of persecution and change into a preacher of the faith he once sought to destroy. “He that is unjust may become just, and he that is filthy may become holy.”

II. The future world is a world unchangeable.—This earthly scene is pictured for us in the unrest of the sea. The future scene is pictured for us by the absence of the sea. “There shall be no more sea.” Unchangeable! How nearly impossible it is, with our present ideas, to appreciate that word! There will be no change, because the people shall be all holy. God is unchangeable; but why? Because “all His works are done in truth.” “Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints.” “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.” Then holiness must be the secret of our rest. We are to be first partakers of His holiness, and then partakers of His rest. But the unchangeableness of the future world is its woe, as well as its glory. To the Christian the thought of the unchangeable time is delightful, because his present distress is caused by the incompleteness and inconstancy of his righteousness now. St. Paul gloried in the future because he was to have a crown of righteousness; a crown, as the pledge and seal of established, perfected, eternal righteousness. But the thought of the unchangeable time is a distress to the man who is living in sin, for it means that reformation will be no longer possible. What he is he will have to be. “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still;” he has fixed for himself his moral characteristics in his life-experience, and it must be stamped with the seal of eternity.

Rev_22:17. Water of Life.—Some of the South Sea Islanders have a tradition of a river in their imaginary world of spirits, called the “Water of life.” It was supposed that if the aged, when they died, went and bathed there, they became young, and returned to earth, to live another life over again.—Turner’s “Polynesia.”

The Perpetual Invitation.—“Every thing which God has made He treats according to the nature He has given it.” A memory of this fundamental principle will greatly help us in our thoughts of God. A gross idea of omnipotence is a very constant source of misconception; but, in the nature of things, and according to the Scriptures also, there are certain cannots even to God. One of these cannots is: He cannot deny Himself. Now, if God should treat anything which He has made against the nature He has given it, that would be a denial of Himself. So, when I think of God’s omnipotence, it is not right for me to think about it in any such way as to suppose that He could do anything which would deny what He had already done; I am rather to think of it as such Divine power as can do anything to anything according to the nature impressed by God upon that thing, and not otherwise. So God cannot treat a human soul as He would a stone; nor can He treat a human soul as He would an animal, for there is something belonging to the nature of the human soul that does not belong to the nature of animal or stone. Now, in what does this diverseness of human nature, which thus necessitates diverseness of Divine treatment, inhere? In many things, but eminently in this, that to man has been given by God the power of choice, and therefore God must treat a human soul, not as a stone, nor as a horse, but as a something thus endowed with the power of a rational moral choice. So, if any man, as men are so apt to do, looking forth upon the material workings of the Divine hand, or upon its workings in realms lower than that in which man moves, should say, Surely God is omnipotent; surely I need not trouble myself about the management of my soul; surely if God means to convert me He can seize me in the grasp of His power and convert me, whether I will or no; surely I can go carelessly on, choosing the wrong, waiting for Him to make me choose right;—then that man thinks wrongly, and at his soul’s peril, for he forgets that, since God cannot deny Himself, God must treat him according to the nature of the rational, moral, responsible soul he is. Upon that power of choice which God has given man, God will never, can never, rudely break. The Holy Spirit, powerful as are His influences, and helpless as we should be without them, never, in the slightest, so intrudes upon the integrity of our human, moral choices that they are not kept intact. So, then, this Scripture is the perpetual appeal and invitation of God to us to come to Him, to accept Him.

1. The Spirit says, “Come.” The impact of the Divine Spirit upon the human spirit is perpetually asserted in the Scriptures.

2. The Church says, “Come,” by its existence, by its doctrine, by its examples, by the Scripture on which it is founded, and which it, in turn, holds forth and declares.

3. He who hears may say, “Come.” Christianity is democratic. A man need not wait for the calling of any priestly and separated class.

4. But there is a call internal. He that is athirst may come. Our spiritual longings are the internal invitations to God.

5. And whosoever Will—it hinges there. And freely if you will.—Anon.

Rev_22:20-21. The Last Words of the New Testament.—St. John did not know that he was closing the canon. If he had known, be could not have closed it more appropriately. The vision granted to him seems to rapidly sketch the ages of the Christian dispensation. It seems to indicate the various forces which, taking various shapes, would put the Christian faith and the Christian Church in peril. The last words gather up two things: the cheering message of the Church’s Lord; and the proper attitude for the Church to preserve.

I. Christ’s last message to His Church.—“Surely I come quickly.” We have to keep ever in mind two thoughts concerning Christ’s relations with His Church. 1. Christ is always (all the days) with His Church. 2. Christ is now, sensibly, absent from His Church. Both are true. Meeting the latter we have the promise, “Lo, I come quickly.” Messiah is coming. That was the great hope held before the ancient saints. And the promise was fulfilled. But the fulfilment came in God’s time, not in their time; in God’s way, not in their way; for God’s purposes, and not for theirs. Christ is coming. That is the great hope ever inspiring the saints of these later days. But our conceptions may be no nearer the truth than were the conceptions of the ancient saints. He may not come just at the time that we fix, in the way that we plan, or for the precise purposes that we imagine. There is, indeed, some sense in which He is coming quickly. He is making no needless delay. We say, “O Lord, how long?” He says, “Quickly.” And we should be continually braced up by the thought that it may be even now. Of this much we may be well assured: He will come for—

(1) inspection of work;

(2) reward of work;

(3) trust of higher service.

II. Man’s last response to the Church’s Lord.—“Amen. Come!” The attitude is one of expectancy and desire. The Church ever wants to have her Lord sensibly nearer. The tone in which we daily say, “Lord Jesus, come quickly,” is the revelation of our spiritual state and condition.

1. If we are fainting with the weariness of continued work, there will be no bright tone in our soul-cry, “Come.”

2. If we are giving way to unbelief, the soul-voice will be, at least temporarily, silenced.

3. If we are neglecting our spiritual duties, we shall have no heart to cry, “Come.”

4. If we are allowing ourselves to be over-mastered by the worldly spirit, we shall even find that we are praying against His coming. Can you say, “Lord Jesus, come quickly,” “Amen. Come”? Can you say it right, and with the right tone? With the solemn judgment-figure in your mind, can you say it? With the glorious coronation-figure in your mind, can you say it? It is no cry to be kept for the death-hour. It is the soul-cry of every hour, when the soul is truly “alive unto God.”

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Revelation

THE CITY, THE CITIZENS, AND THE KING

Rev 22:1-11

Is the vision of the New Jerusalem to be realized in the present or in the future? Such features as the existence of ‘nations’ and ‘kings of the earth’ outside of it {vs. 21, 24}, and leaves of the tree of life being ‘for the healing of the nations,’ favour the former reference, while its place in the book, after the first and second resurrections and the judgment and at the very end of the whole, seems to oblige us to hold by the latter. But the question must be answered in the light of the fact that the Christian life is one in essence in both worlds, and that the difference between the conditions of the society of the redeemed here and there is only one of degree. The city ‘has already come down from heaven; its perfect form waits to be manifested.

The passage is partly the close of that vision {vs. 1-5}, and partly the beginning of the epilogue of the whole book {vs. 6-11}. The closing description of the city is saturated with allusions to Old Testament prophecy.

It is like the finale of some great concerto, in which the themes that have sounded throughout it are all gathered up in the last majestic, melodious crash. Here at the farthest point to which mortal eyes are allowed to pierce, the ‘tree of life’ that the first of mortal eyes had looked on waves its branches again. The end has circled round to the beginning. But now there is no more prohibition to pluck and eat, and now it grows, not in a garden, but in a city where the perfection of human society is entered into.

Here, on the last page of Scripture, the river, the music of whose ripple had been heard by Ezekiel and Zechariah bringing life to everything that it laved, and by the Psalmist making glad the city of God,’ flows with a broader, fuller stream, and is fouled by no stains, but is ‘clear as crystal.’ River and tree have the same epithet, and bring the same gift to the citizens. All the blessings which Jesus gives are summed up, both in John’s Gospel and in the Apocalypse, as life.’ The only true life is to live as God’s redeemed servants, and that life is ours here and now if we are His. It is but a ‘stream’ of the river that gladdens us here, the fruit has not yet its full flavor nor abundance.’ It is life, more life, for which we pant,’ and the desire will be satisfied there when the river runs always full, and every month the fruit hangs ripe and ready to be dropped into happy hands from among the healing leaves.

In verses 3 and 4 we pass from the city to the citizens. Perfect purity clothes them all. There shall be no more anything accursed’; that is, any unclean thing drawing down necessarily the divine ‘curse,’ and therefore there shall be no separation, no film of distance between the King and the people, but ‘the throne of God and the Lamb shall be therein.’ The seer has already beheld the Lamb close by the throne of God, but now he sees Him sharing it in indissoluble union. Perfect purity leads to perfect union with God and {or rather in} Christ, and unbroken, glad submission to His regal rule. And that perfect submission is the occupation and delight of all the citizens. They are His bond-servants,’ and their fetters are golden chains of honour and ornament. They ‘do Him service,’ ministering as priests, and all their acts are ‘begun, continued, and ended in Him.’ Having been faithful over a few things, they are made rulers over many things, and are yet bond-servants, though rulers.

In that higher service the weary schism between the active and the contemplative life is closed up. Mary and Martha end their long variance, and gazing on His face does not hinder active obedience, nor does doing Him service distract from beholding His beauty. His name shall be in their foreheads,’ conspicuous and unmistakable, no longer faintly traced or often concealed, but flaming on their brows. They are known to be His, because their characters are conformed to His. They bear ‘the marks of Jesus’ in complete and visible assimilation to Him.

The vision closes with an echo of Old Testament prophecy {Isa 60:19}. ‘No night’ - perhaps the most blessed of all John’s negative descriptions of the future state, indicating the removal for ever of all the evil and woe symbolized by darkness, and pointing to a state in which no artifices of ours are needed to brighten our gloom with poor, man-made candles, nor any created light, though mighty and resplendent as the sun, whose beams fade into invisibility before the immortal radiance that pours out for ever from the throne, brightening every glorified face that is turned to its lustre. Thus seeing, serving, and being like ‘God and the Lamb,’ they, as a consequence, shall reign for ever and ever,’ for they are as He is, and while He lives and reigns they also live and reign.

With verse 6 begins the epilogue. An angel speaks, the same as in chapter 1:1 - is represented as ‘signifying’ the ‘revelation’ to John. He now, as it were, sets his seal on his completed roll of prophecy. To discriminate between the words of the angel and of Jesus is impossible. Jesus speaks through him. ‘Behold, I come quickly’ cannot be merely the angel’s voice. As in verse 12, a deeper voice speaks through his lips. The purpose of that solemn announcement is to impress on the Asiatic churches and through them on the whole Church through all time, the importance of keeping ‘the words of the prophecy of this book.’ ‘Quickly’ - and yet nineteen hundred years have gone since then? Yes; and during them all Jesus has been coming, and the words of this book have progressively been in process of fulfilment.

Again, the speedy coming is enforced as a reason for not sealing up the prophecy, as had been commanded in chapter x. 4, and elsewhere in the Old Testament. And a very solemn thought closes our lesson - that there is a moment, the eve of any great day of the Lord,’ when there is no more time or opportunity for change of moral or spiritual disposition. ‘Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now.’ Let us ‘redeem the time,’ buy back the opportunity while yet it is within our grasp.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 22:1-5

Rev 22:1-5.

After the coming, Jerusalem and her blessings are once more revealed. In the opening verses of this chapter we find the glories of the redeemed.

Unspeakably beautiful and glorious are the concluding statements of this glory-section of the Revelation. Seven glories of the Redeemed are enumerated. 1. There will be no more curse. It means a perfect sinlessness; perfect holiness. 2. The throne of God and of the Lamb is there and the redeemed are forever linked with that throne. It is a perfect and blessed government which can never be disturbed by disorder. 3. His servant shall serve Him. Heaven will not consist in idleness. The holy city knows of service. And the service the saints will render to God in glory will be a perfect service. What will it be? We do not know what service it will be. God will have many surprises for His saints in glory. 4. There is also an eternal vision. “And they shall see His face.” Oh! joy of all the joys in glory to see Him as He is and never lose sight of Him in all eternity. 5. His name shall be in their foreheads. It tells of eternal ownership and eternal possession. His name and the glory connected with it will be ours in eternal ages. 6. An eternal day. No more night; no need of any light. He is the light for all eternity. 7. An eternal reign. And they shall reign forever and ever. What glory and blessedness all this means. Such are the coming glories of the redeemed.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

22:1-2 This part of John’s vision of the city deals with God’s provision of water and food for his people (cp. Exod 16:4, 22-24; Ezek 47:1-12; John 4:10; 6:32-35). Although God originally made a “garden of delight” (Eden) for Adam and Eve, they disobeyed him and lost it (Gen 2–3). Now Eden is refashioned and united to the celestial city as God’s marvelous gift for his faithful people.

22:1 the water of life: See 7:17; John 4:10-15; cp. Exod 17:1-7; Isa 55:1; Ezek 47:1-10; Zech 14:8.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Rev 22:1. Ποταμὸν[238]) See App. Ed. ii. In the mention of clothing, the Apocalypse more than once uses together καθαρὸν λαμπρὸν; in other places, either καθαρὸν separately, or λαμπρὸν separately, as by far the most weighty part of the authorities here read.

[238] ABh Vulg. Hilar. 22 reject καθαρόν: which Rec. Text without the oldest authorities adds.—E.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev_22:1-5. The continuation (καὶ ἔδειξέν μοι, cf. Rev_21:9 sq.) and completion of the description of the glory prepared for believers in the new Jerusalem. Here, also,[4375] in connection with the statement of what John beheld, the express admonition occurs corresponding to the paracletic purpose of the entire revelation (cf. Rev_22:12 sqq.), that only the servants of God, the victors (chs. 2, 3), can attain that blessedness.

[4375] Cf. Rev_21:27.

πόταμον ὕδατος ζωῆς, κ.τ.λ. In this paradise of God,[4376] there is a stream[4377] whose water is water of life, so that they who drink thereof[4378] receive life through this water. The description depends, as already Eze_47:1 sqq., Zec_14:8, upon the prototype, Gen_2:10.

ἘΚΠΟΡΕΥΌΜΕΝΟΝ, Κ.Τ.Λ. Cf. Rev_4:6. The throne which belongs to God and the Lamb[4379] is the source of this stream, for only through the mediation of Christ as the Lamb, is the participation of believers in the eternal life of God inferred. [See Note XCVII., p. 494.]

ἘΝ ΜΈΣῼ Τῆς ΠΛΑΤΕΊΑς, Κ.Τ.Λ. It is, in a formal respect, very harsh if the ἘΝ ΜΈΣῼ be referred only to Τ. ΠΛΑΤ. ΑὐΤ.,[4380] while the Κ. Τ. ΠΟΤ. depends upon the succeeding ἘΝΤΕῦΘΕΝ ΚΑῚ ἘΚΕῖΘΕΝ; it is more natural[4381] to refer the ἘΝ ΜΈΣῼ to both Τ. ΠΛΑΤ. ΑὐΤ. and Κ. Τ. ΠΟΤ., so that the additional designation ἘΝΤ. Κ. ἘΚΕῖΘ, more accurately declares that the trees, on both sides of the river, stand on the space lying between the street and the river, i.e., on the right and the left banks.[4382]

Τῆς ΠΛΑΤΕΊΑς. John has in view a particular street, the main street through which flows the one particular river.

ΞΎΛΟΝ ΖΩῆς. Cf. Rev_2:7. The expression designates the entire mass of trees in general.[4383]

ΠΟΙΟῦΝ ΚΑΡΠΟῪς ΔΏΔΕΚΑ, Κ.Τ.Λ. Cf. Eze_47:12. The meaning is correctly described already by Andr.: ἈΔΙΆΛΕΙΠΤΟΝ ΤῊΝ ΤῶΝ ΚΑΡΠῶΝ

ἝΚΦΥΣΙΝ.[4384] In eternity, the continually growing fruits of the tree of life serve the blessed for food. See similar descriptions of the rabbins in Wetst.

ΚΑῚ ΤᾺ ΦΎΛΛΑ, Κ.Τ.Λ. This is to be referred to the heathen[4385] dwelling outside of the city, as little as Rev_21:23 sqq. But against the context also is the explanation of Hengstenb., that, in the present period, the life-forces arising from the Jerusalem, even now in heaven, are to heal the sickness of the heathen, i.e., to effect their conversion; for what is expressed concerning the leaves of the tree of life refers to the same time as that which is said of the fruits. This has been correctly acknowledged by those who have thought of the conversion, in the future world, of heathen to whom in this life the gospel has not been preached,[4386] or of the full development of the weak faith of the heathen.[4387] But both are contrary to the purpose of the context, which, just because of their faith, makes the heathen[4388] share in the glory of the city. By the words ΚΑῚ ΤᾺ ΦΎΛΛΑ, Κ.Τ.Λ., in an entirely similar way the eternal refreshment and glorification of believing heathen are especially emphasized, as the preceding words ΞΎΛΟΝ ΖΩῆς

Τ. ΚΑΡΠῸΝ ΑΎΤ. indicate in general the blessed satiety of the inhabitants of the new Jerusalem, of whom no special class whatever is mentioned. In connection with this, the expression ΕἸς ΘΕΡΑΠΕΊΑΝ Τ. ἘΘΝ. is as little to be pressed, in the sense that a still present sickness of the heathen were presupposed, since it might possibly be inferred from Rev_21:4, that the tears which God will wipe away from the blessed are the sign of pains still endured; but as the tears which are wept because of earthly sorrow are wiped away in eternal life, so the healing leaves of the tree of life serve for the healing of the sickness from which the heathen have suffered in their earthly life, but shall suffer no longer in the new Jerusalem. If they were previously hungry and thirsty, now they are also to be satisfied;[4389] if they were previously blind, miserable, and without the power of life,[4390] now they are to share in the enjoyment of all glory, holiness, and blessedness.

ΚΑῚ ΠᾶΝ ΚΑΤΆΘΕΜΑ ΟὐΚ ἜΣΤΑΙ ἜΤΙ. Cf, Zec_14:11. After all upon which Gods curse rests has reached its own place, and been eternally separated from the blessed communion of saints,[4391] nothing of the kind can any longer be found in the city, wherein, now, also,[4392] are the throne of God and of the Lamb, and that, too, immediately near, so that all servants of God, all inhabitants of the city, who, as belonging to God, bear his name upon their foreheads,[4393] see his face.[4394]

αὐτοῦ belongs to the chief subject ὁ θέος

καὶ νύξ, κ.τ.λ. Only by an artificial expedient does Züll. find here something entirely new, in comparison with what is said at Rev_21:23; Rev_21:25.

καὶ βασιλεύσουσιν, κ.τ.λ. With the richest and, at least, a figurative expression, John concludes his announcement of the future glory of believers, by at the same time emphasizing the eternal duration of that happy state as explicitly as in the description of the judgment upon enemies.[4395]

[4376] Cf. Rev_2:7.

[4377] Cf. Rev_4:6, Rev_7:17.

[4378] Cf. Rev_22:17.

[4379] Cf. Rev_7:17, Rev_5:13.

[4380] Andr., Vitr., Beng., Züll., De Wette, Hengstenb., Ebrard, Bleek.

[4381] Cf. Rev_5:6. Ewald.

[4382] Cf. Eze_47:7; Eze_47:12.

[4383] Beng., De Wette, Ew., etc.

[4384] [The perpetual growth of fruits.]

[4385] Ewald, Züll.; cf. also De Wette.

[4386] Beng.

[4387] Ebrard.

[4388] Rev_21:23 sqq.

[4389] Cf. Rev_22:17; Rev_7:16.

[4390] Cf. Rev_3:17.

[4391] Rev_20:10; Rev_20:15, Rev_21:27.

[4392] This is (cf. Jos_7:12; Beng.) the inner connection with what follows, which, however, appears to be formally annexed by the καὶ.

[4393] Rev_14:1, Rev_3:12.

[4394] Cf. Rev_21:3, Rev_7:15.

[4395] Rev_10:10; cf. Rev_20:14 sq.

NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR

XCVII. Rev_22:1. ποταμὸν ὕδατος ζωῆς

This has often been interpreted as referring to the Holy Spirit (Gerhard, Lightfoot, Calov., Philippi, etc.). Thus Calov.: By the river of water of life ἐκπορευόμενον from the throne of God and of the Lamb, we understand the Holy Spirit, whose personal characteristic, as they say, is ἐκπόρευσις (Joh_15:26), from the Son, no less than from the Father, the throne of majesty.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev 22:1-5. THE WATER AND THE TREE OF LIFE, THE SERVICE AND THE KINGDOM OF GOD’S SERVANTS

1. ποταμόν. Text. Rec[863] has καθαρὸν ποταμὸν with 1.

[863] Rec. Textus Receptus as printed by Scrivener.

1. ποταμὸν … ζωῆς. See Rev 7:17, Rev 21:6.

ἐκ τοῦ θρόνου. In Ezekiel’s vision (chap. 47) the River proceeds out of the Temple, here out of the Temple’s antitype. We are also meant to think of the River that watered the ancient Paradise, Gen 2:10, and of such parallels to Ezekiel’s vision as Psa 46:4; Psa 65:9; Zec 14:8. The original type, of which these Prophecies are developments, is the fact that there was a natural spring, which fills the pool of Siloam, in the precincts of the Temple at Jerusalem. We are not told here, as in the old Paradise, that the River is fourfold: but if the City stands on a pyramidal mountain (see on Rev 21:16) it is likely enough that there is a stream running down each of its four faces, the throne which is the source being at the summit.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ch.

22:1-5.] The end of the description: the means of healing for the nations (1, 2): the blessedness, and eternal reign of the glorified servants of God (3-5).

And he shewed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, coming forth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb (which throne is one and the same: see ch. 3:21, and note on ch. 20:11. The O. T. passages in view are Gen 2:10; Eze 47:1 ff.). In the midst of the street of it (the city), and of the river, on one side and on the other (the gen. ποταμοῦ is governed by ἐν μέσῳ as Ewald and Düsterd. al., not by ἐντεῦθεν κ. ἐκεῖθεν, as De Wette: the meaning being that the trees were on each side in the middle of the space between the street and the river. See Eze 47:7), (was) the tree of life (ch. 2:7; Ezek. ut supra ff., i. e. trees of the kind described: as in Ezek.), producing twelve fruits (kinds of fruit, Eze 47:12), according to each month yielding its fruit (Ezek. ut supra): and the leaves of the tree (are) for healing of the nations (so exactly, Ezek. ver. 12: “and the leaf thereof (φύλλον is read for ἀνάβασις, in LXX, by “alii apud Tromm.”) for medicine.” On the sense of ἐθνῶν, the nations outside, see above, ch. 21 end). And every curse (accursed thing, see below. κατάθεμα, another form of κατανάθεμα; in ref. Matt. we have the verb καταθεματίζειν) shall exist no longer (cf. ref. Zech. There shall no more be those accursed things which bar the residence of God among His people: see Jos 7:12, which shews that these words are in close connexion with what follows): and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in her, and His servants shall serve Him (in ministration and holy service, see ch. 7:15), and they shall see His face (be close to Him, and know Him even as they are known, Mat 5:8), and His name (shall be) on their foreheads (ref.). And night shall not be any more (ch. 21:25), and they shall have no need of the light of a lamp or (and) of the light of the sun (ch. 21:23), because the Lord God shall shine (shed light) upon them: and they shall reign (De Wette well remarks, in a higher sense than in ch. 20:4, 6) to the ages of the ages.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Here is absolved and finished the description of the celestial Church (as I showed before, Rev. 21:12) by the effects in 5 verses, and then this book is concluded in the rest of the chapter. The effects proceeding from God, who dwelleth in the Church are these: the everlasting grace of God in this verse, the eternal living of the godly, as Rev. 2:7, the eternal fruits which the godly bring forth unto God, themselves and others, verse 2, freedom and immunity from all evil, God himself taking pleasure in his servants and they likewise in their God, verse 3. The beholding and sight of God, and sealing of the faithful from all eternity, verse 4, the light of God, and an everlasting kingdom and glory, verse 5.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The heavenly state which was before described as a city, and called the new Jerusalem, is here described as a paradise, alluding to the earthly paradise which was lost by the sin of the first Adam; here is another paradise restored by the second Adam. A paradise in a city, or a whole city in a paradise! In the first paradise there were only two persons to behold the beauty and taste the pleasures of it; but in this second paradise whole cities and nations shall find abundant delight and satisfaction. And here observe,

I. The river of paradise. The earthly paradise was well watered: no place can be pleasant or fruitful that is not so. This river is described, 1. By its fountain-head - the throne of God and the Lamb. All our springs of grace, comfort, and glory, are in God; and all our streams from him are through the mediation of the Lamb. 2. By its quality - pure and clear as crystal. All the streams of earthly comfort are muddy; but these are clear, salutary, and refreshing, giving life, and preserving life, to those who drink of them.

II. The tree of life, in this paradise. Such a tree there was in the earthly paradise, Gen 2:9. This far excels it. And now, as to this tree, observe, 1. The situation of it - in the midst of the street, and on either side the river; or, as might have been better rendered, in the midst between the terrace-walk and the river. This tree of life is fed by the pure waters of the river that comes from the throne of God. The presence and perfections of God furnish out all the glory and blessedness of heaven. 2. The fruitfulness of this tree. (1.) It brings forth many sorts of fruit - twelve sorts, suited to the refined taste of all the saints. (2.) It brings forth fruit at all times - yields its fruit every month. This tree is never empty, never barren; there is always fruit upon it. In heaven there is not only a variety of pure and satisfying pleasures, but a continuance of them, and always fresh. (3.) The fruit is not only pleasant, but wholesome. The presence of God in heaven is the health and happiness of the saints; there they find in him a remedy for all their former maladies, and are preserved by him in the most healthful and vigorous state.

III. The perfect freedom of this paradise from every thing that is evil (Rev 22:3): There shall be no more curse; no accursed one - katanathema, no serpent there, as there was in the earthly paradise. Here is the great excellency of this paradise. The devil has nothing to do there; he cannot draw the saints from serving God to be subject to himself, as he did our first parents, nor can he so much as disturb them in the service of God.

IV. The supreme felicity of this paradisiacal state. 1. There the saints shall see the face of God; there they shall enjoy the beatific vision. 2. God will own them, as having his seal and name on their foreheads. 3. They shall reign with him for ever; their service shall be not only freedom but honour and dominion. 4. All this shall be with perfect knowledge and joy. They shall be full of wisdom and comfort, continually walking in the light of the Lord; and this not for a time, but for ever and ever.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER XXII.

The river of the water of life, 1.

The tree of life, 2.

There is no curse nor darkness in the city of God, 3-5.

The angel assures John of the truth of what he has heard, and

states that the time of the fulfilment is at hand, 6, 7.

He forbids John to worship him, 8, 9.

Again he states that the time of the fulfilment of the

prophecies of this book is at hand, 10-12.

Christ is Alpha and Omega, 13.

The blessedness of those who keep his commandments; they

enter through the gates into the city, 14.

All the unholy are excluded, 15.

Christ sent his angel to testify of those things in the

Churches, 16.

The invitation of the Spirit and the bride, 17.

A curse denounced against those who shall either add to or

take away front the prophecies of this book, 18, 19.

Christ cometh quickly, 20.

The apostolical benediction, 21.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXII.

Verse 1. Pure river of water of life] This is evidently a reference to the garden of paradise, and the river by which it was watered; and there is also a reference to the account, Eze 47:7-12. Water of life, as we have seen before, generally signifies spring or running water; here it may signify incessant communications of happiness proceeding from God.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(1) And he shewed me a pure river . . .—The adjective “pure” must be omitted, as it is wanting in the best MSS. The river is full of water, and that water is the emblem of life: it is the beautiful symbol of life in its gladness, purity, activity, and fulness. The garden of Eden (Gen_2:10) had its river. Even in the wilderness Israel had from the smitten rock the water which gushed out like a river (Psa_105:41). Prophets, in their pictures of the ages of blessing, almost invariably introduced the river, or broad stream. Joel saw a fountain out of the house of the Lord (Joe_3:18). Zechariah spoke of living waters from Jerusalem (Zec_14:8); but Ezekiel had the fullest vision when he beheld the stream which deepened and broadened in its onward progress from under the threshold of the house of God, and carried life in its train: everything lived whither the water came (Eze_47:9); thus did all prophets speak of the river of God’s pleasures (Psa_36:8). The teaching of our Lord threw new light on the prophetic imagery; the pure delights of spiritual joy and communion with God were vouchsafed to men by the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life. In the bestowal of that spirit of life did Christ give true satisfaction to the thirsting souls of men. (Comp. Joh_4:10-14; Joh_7:37-39.) The source of the river is in the throne. Ezekiel’s river took rise in the temple; but in our vision there is no temple (Rev_21:22). We are brought nearer, even to the throne: it is the throne (not “thrones”)—one throne of God and the Lamb. (Comp. Rev_3:21.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Ver. 1. A pure river] Not muddy as Nile, but clear as Calirrho. The allusion seems to be to that earthly paradise so well watered, Gen 2:8-14, or else to Eze 47:1-12. This river is Christ, Joh 4:14, and so is that tree of life, Rev 22:2. The second Adam is a quickening spirit. Apollonius telleth us (lib. 3, Argonaut.) that in the court of Aeta, king of Colchis, were three fountains, which flowed, one with milk, another with wine, and a third with honey. In heaven there is all this and more.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life - In the New Jerusalem; the happy abode of the redeemed. The phrase “water of life,” means living or running water, like a spring or fountain, as contrasted with a stagnant pool. See the notes on Joh 4:14. The allusion here is doubtless to the first Eden, where a river watered the garden (Gen 2:10, seq.), and as this is a description of Eden recovered, or Paradise regained, it was natural to introduce a river of water also, yet in such a way as to accord with the general description of that future abode of the redeemed. It does not spring up, therefore, from the ground, but flows from the throne of God and the Lamb. Perhaps, also, the writer had in his eye the description in Eze 47:1-12, where a stream issues from under the temple, and is parted in different directions.

Clear as crystal - See the notes on Rev 4:6.

Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb - Flowing from the foot of the throne. Compare Rev 4:6. This idea is strictly in accordance with Oriental imagery. In the East, fountains and running streams constituted an essential part of the image of enjoyment and prosperity (see the notes on Isa 35:6), and such fountains were common in the courts of Oriental houses. Here, the river is an emblem of peace, happiness, plenty; and the essential thought in its flowing from the throne is, that all the happiness of heaven proceeds from God.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

A river of water of life, or of living water. It is spoken with allusion to the rivers of paradise and to the tree of life. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

And he; the angel, who showed him all before mentioned.

Showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal: no place can be happy without the accommodation of water; those places have the best accommodation of it that are near a river, especially a pure river. To let us know, that in heaven there shall be no want of any thing that can make the saints happy, it is described as having by it, or running through it, a pure river, whose water is clear, and no ordinary water, but such as giveth and preserveth life. What could this signify, but the pure and unmixed joys of heaven?

Proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; flowing from the saints thee enjoying of God and Jesus Christ.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

And he showed me a river of the water of life - The ever fresh and fruitful effluence of the Holy Ghost. See Ezek. xlvii, 1-12; where also the trees are mentioned which "bear fruit every month," that is, perpetually. Proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb - "All that the Father hath," saith the Son of God, "is mine;" even the throne of his glory.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Of the Certain Bliss of Eternal Life.

The river of water and the tree of life:

v. 1. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

v. 2. In the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

v. 3. And there shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him.

v. 4. And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads.

v. 5. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever.

The prophet, in the attempt to give a concrete description of the glories of the Church of Christ in her final perfection, gives still further details of the picture which he began in the foregoing chapter: And he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, coming forth out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Just as a great stream or river watered the Garden of Eden, so here the heavenly Paradise receives its water from a healing stream of perennial waters issuing from the throne of God and of the Lamb Himself. This feature would be sure to make the city prosperous and secure, and would insure to all inhabitants of the city an abundance of refreshing, healing aster throughout eternity.

A very prominent feature or landmark is now described: In the midst of her streets and along the river on either side the tree of life bringing forth twelve fruits, each month yielding its own fruit; and the leaves of the tree arc for the healing of the nations. So the river of the waters of life, which flowed through the streets of the city, was lined on either bank with the trees of life, much as there was a single tree of life in the earthly Paradise, Gen 2:9. Just as the waters of the living stream were open to all the inhabitants, so also the fruits of these trees of life were accessible to all those that lived in the heavenly city. There would never be a lack of fruit, some of it always being in season on account of the fact that a new crop ripened every month. The very leaves of these wonderful trees would have their value; for they would serve for the healing of the nations assembled in the heavenly city, to keep them forever happy and contented in true heavenly bliss. This indicates that we shall be nourished spiritually in the home above, that our heavenly life and our salvation will be sustained and increased by the very richest of gifts of God’s grace. We shall have an abundance of heavenly blessings and yet desire ever more of the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That, truly, will be life in the word’s fullest and truest sense.

This heavenly bliss is further outlined: And every accursed thing will be absent; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in her, and His servants will minister to Him; and they will see His face, and His name will be upon their foreheads. The bliss of heaven will not be spoiled by the presence of any person that has made himself liable to the curse of God by a life of unbelief and sin; for all such cursed will then be in the place of the damned. In the heavenly city, our eternal home, we shall have the throne of God and of the Lamb, our Redeemer, before us, in our presence, all the time. We all shall have the pleasure, the holy joy, of an unfettered and unspoiled, worshipful devotion to our God and to Christ. For the very summit of our heavenly bliss will be reached in our seeing the face of God and of our Savior all the time, world without end, even as we shall wear His name on our foreheads as His own, purchased and won by Him with His precious blood. It will be the most intimate and happy fellowship and confidence which can possibly obtain; it will make us partakers of the supreme perfection of happiness which is God’s from eternity and to eternity.

Still another feature is added: And night will no more be, and they will not have need of the light of a lamp or of the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine upon them, and they will reign forever and ever. This thought is the same as that of chap. 21:25. As perfected saints we shall dwell in eternal light. The dark night of sin, of ignorance, of error, of sorrow, of death, will then have passed away, and the bright day of justice, of knowledge, of righteousness, of truth, of salvation, of life, will be upon us without end. The light of Christ’s countenance will surround us always, making every other light to which we have been accustomed in this world altogether superfluous. We shall live with Christ, and not only that, we shall reign with Christ in eternal power, glory, and happiness.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rev 22:3

The Service of God.

I. If we call Christ Saviour, we must also call Him King; we must not pick and choose among the elements of the Gospel, and cast aside such parts of it as may press too hardly on our own craving to have our own way. Even when, in some most comfortable words, He bids us to come unto Him, and promises rest and relief from a heavy load, it is on the condition of taking upon us instead His easy yoke and light burden. The relation between a bondservant, or slave, and a master whose rights over him were absolute, a relation which Christianity was to undermine, but which for the time was suffered to exist, is utilised, so to speak, for the purpose of enforcing this great lesson. Four times does St. Paul, himself the Apostle, as he is called, of spiritual freedom, adopt the title of "a slave of God," or of Christ, a title used also by St. Peter, by St. John, by St. James, and by St. Jude. It is remarkable, too, that in the text the expressions are combined, "His servants shall do Him service for wages."

II. This thought will brighten and elevate the homeliest forms of every-day duty by bringing them under the obligation of personal service to a most equitable and Divinely generous Lord. We can do anything that is good and innocent, and everything that is part of our daily duty, as unto Him. Yes, and all helpful service of men will find fresh motive-power in the service of their and our Saviour. We shall be in a true sense serving Him when we are serving our fellow-men in Him and for His sake.

W. Bright, Morality in Doctrine, p. 130.

Rev 22:3

Thus, we see, the book closes where it begins. This text embodies all that is contained between its two covers. We have got back to Eden at last; we have got back to the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God, and to the river of the water of life, and to the land of gold. Very long has been the wandering of the sad human family, the poor, unhappy, cursed, afflicted human race, but the end is reached, and although the curse was pronounced at the beginning, the winding up of all, the close of the matter, is that there is no curse. Consider, then, the curse, its origin, its nature, its penalty, the method of its repeal, and the prospects which its repeal opens to the eyes of believers.

I. The curse is visible. There is a pestilence that walks in darkness; there is a destruction that wastes at noonday; there is the law of sin and death, in which the curse of God is. Remark, again, how it reigns. The region of the curse is the region of the law; it is the region of tribulation and anguish. If we are in the region of the law, we are where the fire burns, and the storm tosses, and the steel pierces, and the poison kills, and the lightning cleaves, and time frightens by its limitations, and space by its contradictions and contractions. On some Mount Carmel God is always answering by fire, and the red curse of the wrath is manifested.

II. "There shall be no more curse." What is implied in this removal? Why, in fact, all experience here tends to teach it concisely. Now, you are to understand that Christ is the great power of God. You perhaps say, "That is nothing new." No, it is not, but it needs to be affirmed and asserted again and again with power. The whole nature of our redemption has no other end but to remove and extinguish the wrath that is between God and man. When that is removed, man is reconciled to God. Where the wrath is, there is that which must be atoned for; there is the cause of the separation between God and man; there is that which Christ came into the world to extinguish.

III. "There shall be no more curse." The sailor longing to set sail passes to and fro upon the shore, waiting the return of the tide, for when the tide returns the ship shall clear the harbour, and fly before the wind, and hasten home, and man can calculate the return of the tide; the astronomer, curious in speculation, waits upon his watch-tower, and notes in the heavenly places beyond the return of a planet or a comet, and by signs he can forecast the return of a luminary to its place in these skies; the feet of affection pace the stones of the station, waiting the return of the train, that the weary heart may be refreshed by the old face, and man can calculate the return of a train. But what of the return of a soul, nay, the return of a race of souls to their home and their allegiance, like weary birds returning to their rest? Then the strain of a glad universe shall be, "No more curse, no more pain, no more separation of lovers and friends, no more sickness, no more sighing, and no more death!" "They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

E. Paxton Hood, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 375.

Rev 22:3

The Services of Heaven.

This promise, or prophecy (to a child of God, all promises are prophecies, and prophecies are promises), this prophetical promise, is the last and the best in the Bible. It seems purposely reserved to be the crowning point, for to be with God, to be near God, to see God, to know God, to enjoy God, to be like God, are all subordinate to serving God! But we must unlearn our common ideas, if we would understand this. For "service" has been so abused, by the unfaithfulness of the servants and the inconsideration and severity of the service, that the very name of "service" is degraded.

I. When this promise is to take effect, and that perfect "service" is to begin, it would be presumptuous to attempt to define too accurately. We must be careful in lifting the veil which screens the sanctuary. Yet it is no forbidden curiosity which follows longingly and lovingly those who are gone, and which yearns to ask, "Where are they? What are they doing? Are they cognisant of us? Though we cannot see them, is there any actual communion with us now? In their quiet resting-places, are they engaged, and how? Or is all action suspended a while, and do they wait for us?" This paradise—where the disembodied souls of the saints are till the Second Advent, as we gather from the intimations which are given to us—is characteristically a state of rest—of rest as in some measure contrasted with, and preparatory to, that state of active enjoyment which we shall have when we have regained our bodies, and of which these bodies are the necessary instruments. The images, which are used to describe the condition immediately after death, all point to rest. Seven times we have the expression, "enter into rest." And even sleep is used as the metaphor of death. And we have the analogy of the Sabbath-day and of the entrance into the land of Canaan; and it seems a gracious and fit arrangement, and according to God’s tender mercy, and it commends itself to our feelings and experiences, that, after the toils and conflicts of life, there should be a season of special repose and refreshment. It is not to be believed for a moment that this interval is a time of unconsciousness or dull nonentity. St. Paul would not have hesitated, as he did, in his letter to the Philippians, whether it was better to live or die, if the state after death till the resurrection were a state of inaction. It would be better, certainly, to a mind such as his to remain here and work, than to be nothing and do nothing for a great many years. But the rest of paradise, as I believe, will be such a rest as the Christian needs and loves, passed with Christ, contemplating Christ, delighting in Christ, learning from Christ, properly learning, especially such things as shall be needed for future service. Nor can I conceive that even this quiet period shall be altogether without activity, for we are so constituted that we can hardly think of a sphere of positive enjoyment not combined with action. But rather will it be such employment as is most restful. We have the two beautifully blended in that description of the souls in paradise, which is perhaps given us for this very end, to show the union, "They rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness."

II. During that "resting" period, it is pleasant to us to know that they and we are in perfect sympathy in the longing which the whole Church has for the Advent. We are looking to the same point on the horizon, for they too expect, in the perfection of their being, to rise. "How long? How long?" "Even we"—as St. Paul says of us—"who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." But when He shall come in whose presence when He lived upon earth all death awoke to life, on that great Easter morning, the souls of saints which sleep shall rise in the springtide of their beauty, and each soul shall mate itself again to its body, no longer, as now, a clog, to drag it down to the dust, but to be wings to its joy, to do all its will; then shall our perfected and glorified being begin to fulfil the far end of its existence: "His servants shall serve Him."

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 69.

Reference: Rev 22:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1576.

Rev 22:3, Rev 22:5

Servitude and Royalty.

I. "His servants shall serve Him." Such is the title of the glorified. In heaven itself there is no emancipation from the bonds of God. The holy nations are eternally bound in absolute obligation to the will of God and of the Lamb. It is no part of the Creator’s promise to raise, to educate, the creature to independence, to self-dependence. That could not be without a profound and fatal contradiction. The created soul could not be the basis of its own being, nor could it be the source of its own joy and power or the law of its own eternity. We read what is but likely when we read that the nearer and the clearer is the sight of the Creator granted to the creature, the better the creature recognises the blessedness of self-surrender. The nearer the approach, the more entire the service. Even within the most living circles of the Christian Church just now the sense of duty surely is not at its strongest. The will to do our Divine Master’s will, not our liking, but His bidding; the sober strength of Christian character; the weight and fixity of principle; the jealousy that conscience is kept void of offence in the plain duties of the common day—these are not things so often to be found. Nevertheless these things are essentials in the seed sown here which is to issue in the life of heaven. For it is written that His servants there shall serve Him still.

II. "They shall reign for ever and ever." Such is the twin promise of the better life. The bondmen of the Eternal, in that existence of endless duty, shall for ever reign. Even in the present world the true servant of God, in proportion to the reality and simplicity of his servitude, receives some foretastes of his royalty. There is no independence upon earth so strong, and so nobly strong, as that of a Christian who wills wholly to be Christ’s servant.

H. C. G. Moule, Christ is All, p. 203.

References: Rev 22:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 824; J. B. Lightfoot, Church of England Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 369; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 308. Rev 22:4, Rev 22:5.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 282. Rev 22:5.—W. C. E. Newbolt, Counsels of Faith and Practice, p. 57; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 200; G. W. Conder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 44; Preachers Monthly, vol. v., p. 52. Rev 22:7.—R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 437.

Rev 22:10

The Love of Goodness the Safeguard of Faith.

I. Observe, our Lord says, the "time is at hand," and "I come quickly," although in the preceding prophecy the course of trials to which the Church would be exposed is described as running through a long succession of ages. Undoubtedly to every reader of these words in every age the time is at hand, and his Lord is coming quickly: his own time of watching, of trial, of temptation, is passing away with every hour; and the longer we live, the shorter seems the period which we have lived through, and the space between our life and our death seems continually a more insignificant point in the midst of eternity. But the more literal sense of the words of the text seems to imply that the end of the world was near at hand when compared with the period that had elapsed since its first creation. Whether this be so or not is far beyond the reach of human foresight; but the exceeding rapidity with which society has been moving forward in the last three centuries seems to show that man’s work of replenishing the earth must, in the common course of things, be accomplished before much more than two thousand years from the time of Christ’s coming shall have passed away.

II. It cannot be too often repeated that it is nothing but a thorough love of righteousness and goodness that can, with the blessing of God, keep our faith alive. To a good man the evidence of the Gospel is abundantly satisfactory; to a bad man it seems to have no force at all. Unless our principles support our faith, our faith will not long support our principles. "He that is holy, let him be holy still." He will grow steadier and steadier in his faith in proportion, as he dreads sin more and is more watchful over his life, and heart, and temper, and learns to deny himself and to love his neighbour, and thus become more and more conformed to the Spirit of God.

T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 118.

Rev 22:11

The End of our Probation.

The very pole on which all Christian morality turns is just this: we must be judged "according to our works," the "things done in the body," by which we must understand comprehensively all the realities of conduct, not things done only in contrast with words spoken or thoughts harboured. The whole sum of inward and outward realities goes to make up the man as judgment will find him. They all tend alike to strike the balance of character, of which human justice takes, as it needs must, but an imperfect account, but which Divine justice will sum, and weigh, and measure perfectly.

I. From all these elements of thought, word, and deed, the text seems to teach that there results a character fixed and determined, and which, by the laws of God’s moral universe, must abide for evermore. Nothing can: change the unjust and filthy into the righteous and holy character; nothing can vitiate or blemish perfect righteousness and holiness when completed in its course of development and ratified by God’s judgment. This truth stands on an even broader basis than that which Christianity itself has reached. Those under the law of habit outnumber those under the law of Christ.

II. But further Holy Scripture teaches that that judgment not only pronounces and decides, but actually separates between the righteous and the wicked. The mixed state, good and evil, so full of hopeful and yet of fearful elements, cannot last for ever. If it be prolonged indefinitely in other moral spheres of creation, yet for us it must cease, and that soon. Look, while you may, on the lovely side of God’s eternal promise. There fix heart and hope, till you become persuaded of it and embrace it.

H. Hayman, Rugby Sermons, p. 77.

References: Rev 22:11.—A. Dawe, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 234; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 319.

Rev 22:13

Christ the Alpha and Omega.

I. Christ is the Alpha and Omega in relation to Christianity and providence. Christianity is at this day the great upholder of Theism in the world. It has unspeakably distanced Judaism, whose testimony against idolatry it has taken up, and also Mahometanism, whose witness for the unity of God is nowhere going forth with visible conquering power. But Christianity is more than simple Theism. There is a Trinity in its unity, and this gives it a richness, a grandeur, an adaptability to the fallen state of man, of which mere Theism is incapable. Hence the Son shines in the Christian firmament as the true God along with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and thus the Divine works of creation and providence are connected with His name. Over the wide universe everything shall at last be found to be under Christ’s feet, not necessarily in the way of loyal subjection, but in the way of bearing witness to one ascendant will, which orders all things, even evil, for the best.

II. Christ is the Alpha and Omega in relation to redemption. He is the Alpha and Omega in regard to redemption—(1) as a Divine saving plan. We cannot ascend to the origin of this plan, for it is from eternity. But, as far as we can rise, Christ is seen to be its fountain-head, and with His purpose of devotement it is bound up. (2) As a personal Christian experience. When is it that any One of us becomes a Christian? Is it not when Christ draws near and talks to us, as to the disciples on their way? We have no experimental Christianity apart from Him. (3) As a collective spiritual history. Christianity was never intended to be a solitary experience or a multitude of single experiences. It was to be a society, a Church. And He who bears up the Church so long in such a world must be nothing less than Divine. It was the saying of Voltaire that Christianity would not survive the nineteenth century; but what has the nineteenth century not done for Christianity? It has sent the Gospel anew into all the world. It has gathered in the islands of the South, and shaken the mighty pagan faiths of India, China, and Japan. It has stirred up its missionaries from the far West to preach the old faith in Egypt and in Palestine, and where the disciples first received the Christian name. It has devoted its noblest children to face death for Christ in depths of Africa which Voltaire never heard of; and it has even employed the press at Ferney that printed his own works, and, it may be, this very prophecy against the Gospel, to publish in new tongues the true oracles of God. (4) Considered as an endless development. When we speak of eternity, we feel that we are dealing with a quantity which, whether as applied to man’s natural endowments or destiny in Christ, overtasks all our powers alike of conception and description. Christ "openeth, and no man shutteth," holding in His hands "the golden key that opes the palace of eternity."

J. Cairns, Christ the Morning Star, and Other Sermons, p. 18.

Reference: Rev 22:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 546.

Rev 22:14

The Last Beatitude of the Ascended Christ.

I. If we are clean, it is because we have been made so. The first beatitude that Jesus Christ spoke from the mountain was, "Blessed are the poor in spirit"; the last beatitude that He speaks from heaven is, "Blessed are they that wash their robes." And the act commended in the last is but the outcome of the spirit extolled in the first. For they who are poor in spirit are such as know themselves to be sinful men; and those who know themselves to be sinful men are they who will cleanse their robes in the blood of Jesus Christ. (1) This mysterious robe, which answers nearly to what we mean by character, is made by the wearer. (2) All the robes are foul. (3) The foul robes can be cleansed; character may be sanctified and elevated.

II. The second thought that I would suggest is that these cleansed ones, and by implication these only, have unrestrained access to the source of light: "Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life." That of course carries us back to the old mysterious narrative at the beginning of the book of Genesis. The tree of life stands as the symbol here of an external source of life. I take "life" to be used here in what I believe to be its predominant New Testament meaning, not bare continuance in existence, but a full, blessed perfection and activity of all the faculties and possibilities of the man, which this very Apostle himself identifies with the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ. And that life, says John, has an external source in heaven, as on earth.

III. Those who are cleansed, and they only, have entrance into the society of the city. The city is the emblem of security and of permanence. No more shall life be as a desert march, with changes which only bring sorrow, and yet a dreary monotony amidst them all. We shall dwell with abiding realities, ourselves fixed in unchanging, but ever-growing, completeness and peace. The tents shall be done with; we shall inhabit the solid mansions of the city which hath foundations, and shall wonderingly exclaim, as our unaccustomed eyes gaze on their indestructible strength, "What manner of stones and what buildings are here?" And not one stone of these shall be thrown down.

A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 43.

Reference: Rev 22:14.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 369.

Rev 22:16

Two important lessons may be learned from this subject:—

I. All Christians should seek to be sons of the morning. As lamps do not talk, but shine, so should religion shine forth in beneficent and useful lives.

II. We should be striving to make others share in the blessed privileges which we ourselves enjoy. Christians may be saying, both by word and by example, to all with whom they come in contact, "We are travelling eastward to the land of the morning." A new glory is thrown round the Christian character while seeking to make known to others the perfections of God’s love and mercy. In order that we may each shine in our measure, we must learn to turn ourselves often towards Him from whom our light is derived.

J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 59.

Rev 22:16

When Christ rose from the grave, it was not, properly speaking, the Church’s sunrise: that has not yet taken place; that will be when He comes again, in the blaze of His glory—one universal glow, like the morning spread upon the mountains. But what rose was that beautiful "star" which harbingers the sunrise, making the early dawn and telling us that the day is coming: its pledge and earnest. Mark the differences. When Christ came out of His grave, it was "not with observation." It was silent and unnoticed. When He shall come again in His kingdom, it will be with the archangel’s trump, visible and refulgent, even "as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven," even as "the morning star" steals upon the night, but the sun rises in his full-orbed splendour. And when Christ walked this earth after His resurrection, it was light, sweet light; but it was partial light, light to a few, light shrouded, light mingled with the darkness. But when He returns it will be a radiant world: "The Lamb will be the Light thereof;" just as "the morning star" shines in twilight, but when the sun comes it is all a sea of brightness. And the risen Christ was to set again; He appeared for a little while, and then He passed away with the light of the Spirit, which shone—we have His own authority for saying it—which shone more brightly than His own. But when He comes back again the light of His presence will never go out; like as "the morning star" sheds its ray for a little space, but the orb of day rolls on in his might, and "rejoices as a giant to run his course." And Christ’s mission after He rose was chiefly to speak of the things of the kingdom, to tell of another breaking of love and joy upon this earth, the pioneer to a happier day, again true to the parable of nature, for the "morning star" seems made for little else but to proclaim that the day is coming to us.

I. Now, see it thus in your heart, if "the Lord is risen upon you." The light is there. And there is a distinct, clear beam. But as yet the chief effect of that is twofold: it makes the darkness of your heart more perceptible and more felt, and your desires are being sent on by it more longingly for a day which it testifies to you to be very near. Therefore avoid two mistakes. Do not think that you are not risen, or rather that Christ is not risen in you, because there is much surrounding darkness in your soul, and you feel that darkness deeper and drearier than you ever felt it before. That sense of darkness is an index of "the morning star." Without "the star" you would scarcely know that it was dark. Only, it shows that it is not yet day, not that "perfect day" for which we look. On the other hand, do not expect to live a resurrection-day as if it were an ascension-day. We are now living a resurrection-life, as many of us as are indeed baptised into the Lord Jesus Christ; and every Easter comes to remind us of our resurrection-life, and every Easter we should get a little higher than before. A believer’s life is full of resurrections. But persons sometimes speak of resurrection-life as if it were to be a life of confidence and no fear, all praise and no prayer; but it is just because it is resurrection-life that you are to walk humbly, watchfully, expectingly. Resurrection-life is spiritual, but it is not glorified, just as our Lord in "the forty days" was spiritual, but not glorified till He ascended into the heavens. You are under "the bright and morning star," but you have not yet the sun.

II. And here is the solution of the secret of our earth in its present state. There is the light of the truth in this world, light just enough to show that more light is wanted, and what light can be, and what light will be. But the light of truth is straggling in the best; sometimes it seems nothing to cope with the thickness of the error and the wickedness which are about on every side. It can scarcely penetrate it. Nevertheless the light shows God’s presence and God’s faithfulness; and it keeps faith and hope alive, for it is the interval of the reign of the "morning star" before the sun comes. "But," you say, "is this all that Christ is to His Church now: only a star?" Yes, by comparison with what He will be. But, remember, "the morning star" makes the daybreak sure; and "the morning star" is lovely and brilliant compared to the midnight that would be without it: and nobody can tell what the state of this world would be without the direct and indirect rays of the Lord Jesus Christ.

III. But let me reduce the image to one or two practical instructions. Christ gradually develops. The believer’s light gradually but certainly increases. It was not a sun, but a "star," that shone on Bethlehem; and the sun itself pales and loses itself in the new Jerusalem, before that brightness where "the Lamb is the Light thereof." It is "the morning star." Every lesson of Easter Day is a lesson of earliness. The women were early; the angels were early; Christ was early. "The morning star" is early. To a Christian view every new morning, as it springs out of night, is a little resurrection. Let it find you early, since it is the characteristic of the things that are high that they are early. Resurrection and earliness go together. They say that in nature all vegetation springs the fastest and makes its largest shoots in the very early mornings. And it is a fact as certain in grace as it is in nature that in due time the "morning star" becomes the "evening star," and he who in his youth has had the "morning star" will find it his "evening star" in his age and death. And life ought to be a joyous thing. True, it is in the midst of things that are within and without still steeped in sorrow; but the path of religion is a line of light, which falls true athwart the darkness; and every Christian walking there, catching something of the brightness of "the morning star," is to be himself in this world a reflection to break the gloom and speak for God. He stands in the track of the promises; and he should be a man radiant in his spirit. Nevertheless, however many your joys may be, the best of this world is, after all, twilight. Some of us know it too well. The clouds that wrap us in are still so black, the sin within, the trials and perplexities around us, our own and others’ griefs. But if Jesus has risen in your soul, I tell you, by that faint streak of light, however faint, it is morning, real morning, a morning that will never quite darken over again. There are, and there will be, shadows till He comes; but, by the token of that faint light, "the night is far spent, and the day is at hand."

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 165.

Rev 22:16

The book of Revelation has a peculiar charm which all readers of Scripture more or less feel. It attracts the child by its shifting scenes, its bright pictures, its grand, mysterious glimpses of the future. It satisfies the man of more mature understanding and taste with the lofty truth and harmony that reigns all through its mighty world of symbols and visions—a world which exhausts the stores of the Old Testament, and then imagines new. In more senses than one this book is the "revelation of Jesus Christ." No part of the Bible so fully unfolds the glories of His reign, adorns Him with such a profusion of titles, or pours out such a tide of love and adoration on His person. The style is transfigured, like the person, adding to the depth and tenderness of the Gospel the lofty sweep and rich colouring of the prophets. The whole book is, as it were, linked together by the one grand figure of the first of our texts, taken from the close: "I am the bright and morning star," as it returns upon its beginning: "And I will give him the bright and morning star."

I. Christ is to His people the morning star of time, and will be to them the morning star of eternity, because His light shines after darkness. Every sinner to whom Christ has not appeared walks in darkness. All Christians alike have come out of darkness, and come out of it at the signal of Christ’s rising. All trace the grand transition to His appearing in their day, and with a full and swelling heart take up the same words of thanksgiving: "Through the tender mercy of our God, the dayspring from on high hath visited us."

II. Christ is to His people the morning star of time, and will be to them the morning star of eternity, because His light transcends all comparison. "In all things He hath the preeminence." Christ is pre-eminent—(1) in His titles; (2) in His offices; (3) in His history. (4) What He is to His people, He is alone.

III. Christ is the morning star of time, and will be the morning star of eternity, because His light ushers in perpetual day. Christ is not compared to the evening star, though it be in itself as bright as that of the morning, and indeed the same, because in that case the associations would be too gloomy, and the victory would seem to remain for a time on the side of darkness. With Christ as the morning star, the victory is decided from the first, and Night can never resume her ancient empire. The dawn may be overcast, but the day still proceeds.

J. Cairns, Christ the Morning Star, and Other Sermons, p. 1.

Rev 22:16-17

I. Man is so constituted by his Maker as to have the power, when any course of action is proposed to him, to determine and decide whether he will accept the advice and act on it or not. He may say, "I will" or "I will not," when the Spirit and the bride say, "Come." At the same time, man is not to forget that, although he has the control of his will, his volitions are nevertheless influenced by motives; and therefore to our motives much attention is due. Some strong counteracting motive must exist if a man shall refuse to attempt what it is obviously his interest to do. Hence it is that it becomes important for us to consider not only what a man is invited to, but also what he is called from. When he refuses an invitation to draw near to the King of kings, we must seek to understand what motive exists to prevent his coming.

II. When the Spirit and the bride say, "Come," you are not of necessity called from the business of the world or from those worldly advantages and enjoyments which business is undertaken to procure. If business be allowable, it is allowable also, within the prescribed boundaries, to enjoy the fruits of your industry. The Spirit and the bride call you from that absorption in worldly business which leaves you no time, no mind, for high and holy thoughts on high and heavenly subjects, no time, no mind, to reflect upon life and death, upon time and eternity, upon heaven and hell, upon salvation and a Saviour, upon damnation and Satan.

III. To whom are we called? We are called to Him who in our text describes Himself as the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star. We are launched on a troublous ocean. Many conflicting duties must occupy our attention and thoughts. Therefore our eyes must be fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the star which shines in all the brightness of the Deity; we must look to His guidance by studying the sacred Scriptures, so that we may steer our course according to the principles which for our direction and guidance are there revealed. To this we are called by the Spirit and the bride.

W. F. Hook, Parish Sermons, p. 352.

Rev 22:17

The Will.

I. We must believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. We see it in nature. With whom took He counsel in creation? It was at His sovereign will the Himalayas raised their heads; it was at His sovereign will the depths of the ocean were dug deep. We see it in providence. He gives or withholds the rain; causes one child to be born in a palace and another in a hovel. Nor has He abdicated His sovereignty in the sphere of grace. His purposes stand fast; His will must be done. But I believe also that man is a moral agent, endowed with the instinct of will, not a mere puppet in the hand of fate. We are not Mahometans, and we do not believe in a Kismet from which there is no escape. We acknowledge the harmony that must exist between the sovereignty of God and the will of man in nature, as, for example, in the case of the farmer. We know he may plough in vain and sow in vain unless God grants the rain and the sunshine, that the harvest is absolutely in God’s hands; but we also know that if the farmer therefore folds his hands and neither ploughs nor sows, his barns will be empty in the harvest-time. These two things are quite compatible: the Divine sovereignty and the free agency of man; and herein consists the glory of God. He performs His purposes not by mere machines, but by living moral agents, who have this power of will. We all acknowledge that the power of the statesman, who moulds the will of the people, is of a higher order than the power of the blacksmith, who moulds a dead, resistless piece of iron to his purpose. So God carries out His own will, though liable to be crossed at every turn by the will of man.

II. (1) The will of man is conditioned by his creation. God’s will as Creator is absolute. Man’s individuality, the basis of his character and of his faculties, is given to him by his Creator; and no human being can attain a higher degree of perfection than has been planned for him in the possibilities of existence. (2) His will is conditioned, not only by creation, but by heredity. It was by this law of heredity that Adam’s sin was transmitted to the generations yet unborn, and rendered it harder for every son of man to refuse the evil and choose the good. (3) The will of man is conditioned also by his surroundings.

III. Two things were put before man between which he was to choose: a life in God and a life in the world independent of God. And there were implanted within him two impulses: one towards the world, which sought only for happiness, to appropriate as much as possible to one’s self; the other towards God, which sought rather for blessedness, and which found its centre not in self or in the world, but in God. Man chose the worldly impulse, which led to a life centred either in the world or in self, and now the things which should have been for our wealth have become to us an occasion of falling. It is the Spirit of God who strengthens the impulses towards holiness, towards God. Yield to them, and they will become stronger and stronger; resist them, and you will become stronger towards evil, until you become Gospel-hardened, and the grieved, rejected Spirit of God leaves you to the doom which your own will has chosen.

E. A. Stuart, Children of God, p. 159.

Man Unwilling to be Saved.

The free, unlimited offer of the Gospel necessarily involves a provision for all human wants, a removal of all external obstacles, a provision of unlimited value and unrestricted sufficiency, a provision within the reach of every one to whom it is presented, and who is charged with its acceptance upon the peril of eternal death. For ourselves, we cannot see how we can separate such an offer from man’s responsibility as to the result. The two doctrines must stand or fall together. If it is true that whosoever will may take of the water of life freely, it must be true that if man partakes not, it is because he will not.

I. The difficulties of religion are not found in its obscurities; the insuperable obstacles to obedience are not found in any outward circumstances. A child has understood the Gospel so as to embrace it, and men have walked with God in the midst of abounding sensuality and crime. But those difficulties are found in the spirituality of the Gospel, in the holiness of its principles, and the self-denying nature of its duties; the child of sense will not govern himself by faith, the being of earthliness will not submit to spiritual influences, and the slave of appetite will not put a curb upon his passions. Did men but love the truth as they love error, love holiness as they love sin, regard the glory of God as they do their selfish gratifications, the obstacles to religion would vanish, and the path of life would be as plain and easy to travel as is now the path into which their desires lead them.

II. This doctrine of man’s responsibility for his own salvation is not only uncontradicted by, but is in perfect keeping with, the entire strain of the inspired record. Men take refuge in God’s election only that they may garnish and persevere in their own election, and every man ought to know better, and does know better, than to say, "If I am not elected, I cannot be saved."

E. Mason, A Pastor’s Legacy, p. 294.

Rev 22:17

Two voices are distinguished by St. John in his trance as going forth into the world with invitation and appeal, not one, but two, an outward and an inward: those of the Spirit and the bride. There are two things, the within and the without; even when an idea is communicated from one to another, there are the idea of the communicator and the idea of the recipient.

I. So it is always that the Spirit becomes audible and impressive and receives power, namely, through a form. A bride has to be found for it to make it vocal and to enable it to speak movingly. One cannot help thinking at times of the amount of latent power that sleeps around us in sensations and emotions as well as in visions and ideas which are never expressed, of the possible effects if that which some silent or stuttering souls are seeing and feeling could be adequately articulated, of the untold life stories, of the untold heart experiences, as well as brain dreams, the true and perfect telling of which would thrill us deeply. We are constantly missing much that would rouse, or pierce, or melt, because, forsooth, the Spirit lacks the bride.

II. But consider again. Here are certain beautiful ideas, such as ideas of truth, fidelity, generosity, heroism, love, self-sacrifice and devotion. We can revolve and brood on these, but what is it that makes them flash and burn, and causes us to be penetrated with them? Is it not their embodiment in some witnessed or reported deed, in some human life and character? The cross, at all events, has been of great importance in lifting the transcendent Jesus into view, in aiding His transcendent spirit to attract and captivate. His tragic and pathetic end has been the bride through which the voice of His incomparable work and sweetness has been heard and has prevailed. What the Spirit wants always, in order that it may be present among us, is just a Man; the power of Christianity is the Man Jesus Christ.

S. A. Tipple, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 328.

What is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper?

When a man considers with himself whether he ought to present himself at the Lord’s Table, frequently he is beset with a host of difficulties and questions as to what is required of him and as to his own fitness. Where shall he go for safe guidance? I reply that he need go no further than the catechism which he learnt as a child.

I. It is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper "to examine themselves whether they repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life." Beyond all doubt this must be required, and it is a most reasonable requirement, for, to take no higher view of the Sacrament than this, we may regard it as a mutual pledge given by Christians to each other that they will keep the commands of Christ. The requisites for coming to the Lord’s Table are identically the same with the requisites for being a Christian in life and reality, and not only in name.

II. It is required that those who come to the Lord’s Supper should "have a lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death." This is clearly only that duty which is required of every one who desires to call himself without profanity and without hypocrisy by the holy name of Christ.

III. Those who come to the Lord’s Supper must "be in charity with all men." Quite a reasonable requirement this, if we remember that the Lord’s Supper was regarded from the earliest times as a feast of love or charity. In confessing that he is unfit for the Lord’s Supper, a man is really confessing that he is unworthy to be called a Christian at all.

Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 132.

The Drawings of the Spirit.

I. At the time when St. John wrote, the Church had just passed into the dispensation of the Spirit. The Old Testament was evidently the dispensation of the Father, looking on to the Son. Then came the revelation—I do not call it the dispensation—the revelation of the Son, short, eloquent, beautiful, preparing the way for the dispensation of the Spirit. That dispensation commenced at the ascension of Christ, when, according to His promise, He poured out the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. From that date it has been emphatically the era of the Spirit, the era of the dispensation under which we are now placed. How much longer it will last we do not know. But then will come in all its fulness the dispensation of Jesus Christ, that glorious and wonderful period to which all prophecy points its finger, and to which the dispensation of the Spirit now is preparatory. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." And you must remember that the dispensation of the Spirit is higher, more powerful, more responsible, than the dispensation of the Gospel during the life of Christ upon earth. Therefore Christ said to His disciples, "The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto My Father." Even so it came to pass; for whereas Christ did not certainly in His own person convert more than five hundred, the Spirit scarcely arrived but in one single day He converted three thousand. And for the same reason Christ also added those otherwise strange and almost incomprehensible words, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you," showing again that the dispensation of the Spirit was greater than Christ’s own personal ministry in His humiliation. So once more, and still stronger, He said, "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." Therefore we may reverently say that up to this moment what the Spirit says and what the Spirit does, whatever it be, is the best of anything that has ever yet been upon the face of this earth. Hence it is matter of the deepest joy, and worthy to stand where it does, at the very close and summit of the revelation, that what the Holy Ghost says is "Come."

II. The Father sends many a gracious providence, some sad, some happy; but it is the Spirit who gives the providence its voice. The Son exhibits the marvellous spectacle of the cross, and Himself hanging thereon; but it is the Spirit which makes that cross to speak to the poor sinner’s heart: "Come." For the Spirit is that which first makes an unseen thing a substance to the mind, and then changes the substance from a thing without to a reality which lives in a man’s soul and mingles with his being. It is quite certain that very generally it is the bride which is the organ of the Spirit’s voice. I suppose that there have been instances in which a man has been converted to God by the Bible and the Spirit within him without the operation of any human agency whatever. Doubtless God may do so, and I think I have read or heard of some such proofs of God’s sovereignty and sufficiency; but they are to the last degree rare. It is the bride who is essentially the Spirit’s organ, that gives effect to the Spirit’s will: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come."

III. And who is "the bride"? A beautiful body, knit together in one holy fellowship, pure and spotless, spotless in God’s eyes for His sake who loves her, "arrayed in the fine linen which is the righteousness of the saints," and decked with the ornaments of grace. She has accepted Christ for her Beloved, and is bound to Him in a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten. In Him she has merged her name, her nature, her property, her being; while He pays all her debts, pledges Himself for all her wants, sustains her with His arm, satisfies her with His love. It is the Church, elected by grace, united by faith, sealed by baptism, kept by mercy, prepared for glory. And it is the Church, holding the Spirit, representing the Spirit, used by the Spirit, whose high part and privilege it is to be for ever crying, "Come, come." It is very difficult to determine whether when Christ said, as He stood on the margin of His glory, leaving it as His last injunction to His disciples, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," the command was limited to the ordained. The sequel, "baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," would lead us to say that it was confined to the ordained; but, on the other hand, the whole tone and spirit, as well as many express injunctions of the Gospel, make it certain that every one who is called is to be a caller, that we are all propagators of the truth, and that as "every man would receive the gift, so must he minister the same, as a good steward of the manifold grace of God." Therefore in some sense it is certain that the direction holds to the whole Church, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Sad were it for that person, whoever he might be, who was excluded from that highest and holiest title that is ever worn upon this earth, a missionary. But there appears to me to be a great truth in this fact: that it is the whole Church which is represented as saying that word "Come," the Church in its collective capacity, not as broken up into individuals. It is not this or that person, but the whole bride, that says, "Come." See two consequences. (1) The Church is meant to act, and ought to act, in missionary work, as a Church in its integrity, as one complete body. Would that there were such union, the whole Church going forth as a Church to the work of missions, and doing it as a distinct part of her system! There is not; there is none. If ever there is a pure Church, and if missions are needed then, doubtless we shall then work together as one in our completeness. As the bride is one, so will the Spirit be one, and the machinery one, and the voice one. And it will be a sweet and heavenly concord of sound, like music upon water: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." (2) But there is another and pleasant thought in the words. Is not the act or the word, the prayer or the appeal, every effort to do good, of one member of the Church, the exponent and the representative, and therefore the embodiment, of the whole Church? Is it not the Church’s way of putting itself forth to you? And therefore is not that action of one individual as if it were the action of the whole Church? Has not it in it the strength of the whole Church? It may be a comfort to some one who is labouring for God, in much-felt weakness and in barren solitude, to recollect, "I am part of the whole Church catholic; it is the Church that speaks and moves even in me, poor, miserable sinner that I am. There is all the power of the Church, the Head and the members, with me. It is not I, but it. The limb may well take strength from its union with the body, and the wave that breaks upon the shore has behind it the strength of the mighty ocean. And so it shall be the Church’s voice by me: ’The Spirit and the bride say, Come.’"

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 212.

References: Rev 22:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. v., No. 279; vol. viii., No. 442; vol. xxiii., No. 1331; vol. xxvii., No. 1608; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 165; Talmage, Old Wells Dug Out, p. 332; Ibid., Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 270; Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 329. Rev 22:20.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 79. Rev 22:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1618.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

St. John in this and the four following verses, goes on with the description of the heavenly Jerusalem, which he had begun in the former chapter; and here we have observable,

1. The city described, as having a clear river running through it, and this of the water of life; an illusion doubtless to the earthly paradise, Gen 2:4-20 which was well watered, without which accommodation no place can be happy; the heavenly paradise here, or the New Jerusalem, is said to have a pure river of water in it, denoting the pure and unmixed joys of heaven, and those rivers of pleasure which are at God’s right hand for evermore. Here is not a well of water, but a river, not a muddy or feculent water, but clear as crystal, not corruptible or dead, but living water, water of life.

Observe, 2. The head or spring of this river declared, from whence it doth arise; not from the hills, which may be cut off, diverted, or dried up, but it proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and therefore can no more fail than God and Christ can fail; no river can fail, unless the springs that feed it fail; the saints in heaven shall be refreshed with such consolations as flow from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and their comforts cannot fail until they fail. He showed me a pure river, &c. proceeding out of the throne of God.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

THIS is one of the many instances in the Bible in which the chapter division is in the wrong place. It here breaks the prophetical panorama of the heavenly metropolis, which is the last scene of these wonderful latter- day prophecies. Hence the division should not here appear.

1. The River of Life here described is in the city delineated in the preceding chapter.

2. The Tree of Life is also in the city. The twelve manner of fruits indicate the wonderful diversity of heavenly fruition, perfectly adapting and congenializing the heavenly state to every possible idiosyncrasy — social, intellectual, educational, and spiritual — appertaining to the entire heavenly host, from the most uncultured Hottentot to the champion apostle and the brightest archangel. The leaves of the tree are for the health of the nations. Healing, in the English, is misleading. The Greek therapeion is not a participle, but a noun. There are no diseases in heaven to be healed. This is a revelation against the probability of apostasy from the heavenly state. Lucifer and the angels fell long ago. This was before their probation expired. Our probation will expire at the end of the present life. Hence there is no probability that any of us will ever apostatize after we get to heaven. Sickness is the invariable precursor of death. If no ailment supervenes, death will never come. The Tree of Life is the symbol of perpetual immortality. Meanwhile, the very leaves of the tree are an effectual palladium against the slightest ingress of spiritual ailment. This tree is a beautiful evergreen, forever exhibiting its magnificent, umbrageous foliage, demonstrating to the multiplied millions of immortal eyes the transcendent reality that health never wanes, sickness never comes, and death is unknown. Hence the leaves of the tree, in their fadeless beauty, are a universal guarantee that perfect health is the constant and everlasting blessing of the glorified state.

3-4. “And there shall be no more curse.” This forever settles the question of future probation. If there is any probation in the transfigured state, it will never be forfeited by transgression, as in that case the curse would inevitably supervene. “The throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will serve Him, and they shall see His face.” This is a confirmation of the foregone conclusion that the New Jerusalem, poised in the firmament above this world, having reached the glorified state, is none other than the city of God, where He in His glory occupies the effulgent throne of the universe, and the Lamb that was slain and that liveth again shall focalize the adoration and admiration of glorified saints forever. Oh, how unutterably blessed to draw near and behold His face, all radiant with the love that brought Him from heaven to die for us poor sinners! “His name shall be in their foreheads.” The glorious experience of entire sanctification is this day notable for its efficiency in the superscription of the divine cognomen on the countenance. If, in these mortal tenements, the divine glory so radiates from the countenance as to enable us to read people like we read books, who can calculate the brilliancy of that splendor which shall beam from the physiognomies of the glorified saints, illuminated by the effulgent presence of God and the Lamb?

5. “Night shall not be there; they do not need the light of a lamp and the light of a sun, because the Lord God shineth upon them, and they shall reign unto eternities of eternities.” This verse climaxes John’s glowing description of the heavenly state. He winds up with the affirmation of the eternal reign of the saints. Not only this world marching on to the heavenly state, but one billion and one hundred and seventy millions of other worlds have been at least faintly apprehended by telescopic observation. Who can anticipate to what extent our Lord will use us in the administration, culture, and evangelization of these innumerable worlds? This glorious prophetical panorama winds up with these wonderful words: “Eis tous aioonas toon aioonoon;” i.e., “Unto eternities of eternities.” These profoundly significant Greek words define the reign of the saints in glory, the existence of God and the duration of the damnation of the wicked. Hence you see the ridiculous and nonsensical absurdity of Universalian dogmatism, which would refute the eternity of future punishment.

Thus winds up the wonderful panoramic, prophetic visions, which John saw on the Isle of Patmos. It is also the valedictory prophecy of the whole world, the celestial city and the glorified earth climaxing all. We now have fifteen more verses, constituting John’s apologue.

6. “The Lord God of the spirits of the prophets.” The prophet in all dispensations is the called and sent revelator of God’s truth. God imparts to each one of His prophets a spirit peculiar to the work He has called him to do. Hence the infinite diversity of prophetical idiosyncrasy. The called and sent blood-washed, fire-baptized preachers of the gospel are God’s prophets in the present age. Therefore, God is now showing them “the things which quickly come to pass.”

7. “Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he who keepeth the words of this book of prophecy;” i.e., the book of Revelation. Most people take but little interest in Revelation. Of course, they forfeit the blessing. Reader, do you believe this prophecy? Are you on the constant outlook for the Lord’s coming?

8. Here again John wants to worship the Apocalyptic Angel, of course misapprehending him for God.

9. Here we have God’s positive prohibition of angel-worship. It is simply another form of idolatry. This prohibition sweeps Romanism from the field.

10. Revelation has been a sealed book for ages, for long centuries even rejected, repudiated as spurious, denied a place in the sacred canon, and laid on the shelf. At the present day God is giving His people wonderful light on this book of mysteries. Oh, how He is lighting it up to the “Holiness people” The value of this book to the present generation is actually inestimable. Peter, James, Jude, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul have all left us most brilliant prophecies, revealing the wonders of the latter days. But John transcendently climaxes all. But a youth when called to the apostleship, he enjoyed the nearest proximity to Jesus, leaning on His breast. He was permitted to live a whole generation after all the other apostles were dead and gone. Hence he enjoyed wonderful experimental maturity. His spiritual illumination was transcendent, and his prophetic interpenetration and perspicacity illimitable. All his apostolic comrades prophesied tersely and isolatedly. John gives us the grand and wonderful panorama, sweeping down the intervening ages, not only to the end of the present Gentile Dispensation, when the Lord shall come in His glory and reign in triumph through the millennial ages, culminating in the final judgment, the earth’s cremation, and the end of time; but he sweeps right on, luminously revealing the re-creation of the earth and its ethereal environments, the glory of the heavenly state, when this world shall have been reannexed to the celestial empire, conferred upon the saints as a soldier’s bounty, reminiscent of fidelity and valor during Immanuel’s exterminating war against sin and Satan; the descension of the New Jerusalem into visible proximity, and the reign of the saints through all eternity.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Revelation Chapter 22

The connection of the holy city with the earth, though not on it, is everywhere seen. The river of God refreshed the city, and the tree of life, whose fruits ever ripe were food for the celestial inhabitants of it, bore in its wings healing for the nations. Only the glorified ever ate the fruit of constant growth; but what was manifested and displayed without, as the leaves of a tree, was blessing to those on earth. We see grace characterising the assembly in glory. The nation and kingdom that will not serve the earthly Jerusalem shall utterly perish-it preserves its earthly royal character; the assembly its own: the leaves of the tree it feeds on are for healing. There is no more curse. The throne of God and the Lamb is in it. This is the source of blessing, not of curse; and His servants serve Him; often they cannot as they would here. Note too again here, how God and the Lamb are spoken of as one, as constantly in John’s writings. His servants shall have the fullest privilege of His constant presence, shall see His face, and their belonging to Him as His own be evident to all. There is no night there, nor need of light, for the Lord God gives it; and, as to their state, they reign not for the thousand years, as they do over the earth, but for ever and ever.

This closes the description of the heavenly city and the whole prophetic volume. What follows consists of warning, or the final expression of the thoughts of and relationship with, Christ of the assembly.

The angel declares the truth of these things, and that the Lord God of the prophets-not as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, nor as directly teaching the assembly as dwelling in it by the Spirit -the Lord God of the prophets has sent His angel to inform His servants of these events. “Behold,” says Christ, speaking as of old, in the prophetic spirit, rising up to His own personal testimony, “Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he who keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.” The assembly is viewed, not as the subject of prophecy, but as “the things that are,” time not being counted, specially time to come. Those that keep it are those concerned in the book, who are warned that Christ will soon be there. No doubt we all can profit by it, but we are not in the scenes it speaks of. John, impressed with the dignity of the messenger, fell down and would have worshiped him. But the saints of the assembly even if made prophets of, were not to return into the uncertainty of ancient days. The angel was a simple angel, John’s fellow-servant, and fellow-servant of his brethren the prophets: he was to worship God. Nor were the sayings to be sealed, as with Daniel: the time was at hand. When it closed its testimony, men would remain in the same state for judgment or blessing. And Christ would quickly come, and every man receive as his work was. Rev 22:7 was a warning, in form of blessing, to those in the circumstances referred to, to keep the sayings of the book, but this Rev 22:12 is the record of Christ’s coming to the general judgment of the quick.

Finally, Christ announces Himself, having taken up the word in Person in Rev 22:12, as Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end-God before and after all; and filling duration. I suppose we are to take as the true reading: “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” The redeemed, cleansed ones, can enter there and feed on the tree of life; for I suppose it is the fruit here. Without are the unclean and violent, and those who love Satanic falsehood and idolatry, sin against purity, against their neighbor, against God, and follow Satan.

This closes the summing up. The Lord Jesus now reveals Himself in His own Person, speaking to John and the saints, and declares who He is, in what character He appears to say it to them. “I am the root and offspring of David”-the origin and heir of the temporal promises of Israel; but much more than that-He is the bright and morning Star. It is what He is before He appears, in both respects; only the former regards Israel born of the seed of David according to the flesh. But the Lord has taken another character. He has not yet arisen as the Sun of Righteousness on this benighted globe; but, to faith, the dawn is there, and the assembly sees Him in the now far-spent night as the Morning Star, knows Him, while watching according to His own word, in His bright heavenly character-a character which does not wake a sleeping world, but is the delight and love of those who watch. When the sun arises, He will not be thus known: the earth will never so know Him, bright as the day may be. When Christ is in this place, the Spirit dwells in the assembly below, and the assembly has its own relationship. It is the bride of Christ, and her desire is toward Him.

Thus “the Spirit and the bride say, Come.” It is not a warning from one coming as a judge and a rewarder, but the revelation of Himself which awakens the desire of the bride according to the relationship in which grace has set her. Nor is it a mere sentiment or wish: the Spirit who dwells in the assembly leads and suggests her thought. But the Spirit turns also and the heart of him who enjoys the relationship, to others. “Let him that heareth “-let him who hears the voice of the Spirit in the assembly join in the cry, and say, Come. It is one common hope, it should be our common desire; and the sense of what is coming on the earth and the sense of failure in things that are, ought only though it be in truth an inferior motive, to urge the cry in all. But while still here, the saint has another place also. Not only do his desires go after God upwards and the heavenly Bride groom, but he reflects God’s known character, by having His nature and Spirit as manifested also in Christ’s love and in possession of the living water, though not of the Bridegroom. He turns round and invites others “Let him that is athirst come,” and proclaims it forth then to the world, “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” Thus the whole place of the heavenly saint, conscious of the assembly’s place, is brought out in this verse, from his desire of Christ’s coming, to his call to whosoever will to come.

The integrity of the book is preserved by a solemn warning of the danger of losing a part in the tree of life [22] and the holy city. Christ then cheers the saint’s heart, by assuring that He would quickly come; and the heart of the true saint responds with unfeigned and earnest desire, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” And then, with the salutation of grace, the book closes leaving the promise and the desire as the last words of Jesus on the heart.

Let the reader note here that, in the beginning and end of the book, before and after the prophetic statements, we have in a beautiful way the conscious position of the saints. The first, at the opening of the whole book, gives the individual conscious blessing through what Christ has done; the latter, the whole position of the assembly thus distinguishing clearly the saints under the gospel from those whose circumstances are prophetically made known to them in this book. “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and made us kings and priests to God and his Father.” As soon as Christ is named (and it is so in both cases), it awakens in the saints the consciousness of Christ’s love and their own place in relationship with Him. They are already washed from their sins in His own blood, and made kings and priests to God and His Father-have their place and state fixed, before any of the prophetic part is developed, and in the coming kingdom will enjoy that place, not of being blessed under Christ, but of being associated with Him. Here they have their place simply in the kingdom and priesthood; it is individual title resulting from His first coming. They are loved, washed in His, own blood, and associated with Him in the kingdom.

At the end of the book, Christ is revealed as, the Morning Star, a place forming no part of the prophecy, but that in which the assembly, who has waited for Him, is associated with Him for herself, and the kingdom. (Compare the promise to the overcomers in Thyatira.) [23] This draws out in active love (not as before, simply being loved and what we are made)- love first directed towards Christ in the assembly’s known relation to Himself, then to the saints who hear, then to the thirsty, then to all the world. The desire of the assembly, as the bride with whom the Spirit is, is directed to Christ’s second coming for herself-to the possessing the Morning Star; then the Spirit turns to the saints, calling on them to say to Jesus, Come-to join in this desire. But we have the Spirit though not the Bridegroom; hence whoever is athirst is called on to come and drink, and thus the gospel proclaimed abroad, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” It is love acting in the saint all round from Christ to sinners in the world.

Footnotes for Revelation Chapter 22

22: The true reading here is “tree,” not “book,”; but the book of life is not life, nor our being written there final, though ‘prime facie’ register, unless indeed written there before the foundation of the world: but, even so, it is not the same thing the possession of life.

23: Compare the place of the bright cloud in Luk 9:1-62. There it is the Father’s, voice.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1, 2. And he shewed me a pure river of water of life. A symbol of the eternal life flowing from the Son of God as a fountain, which has been bestowed upon all who dwell in the heavenly city. Bright as crystal. Radiant with glory. The shining light which comes from the river shows the glory of the heavenly life. Proceeding. The fountain of this life is the throne of God and it has been bestowed by the Son.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

John continues to describe the new Jerusalem as the angel shows it to him.

showed me

Here "me" refers to John.

the river of the water of life

"the river flowing with life-giving water"

the water of life

Eternal life is spoken of as if it were provided by life-giving water. See how you translated this in Revelation 21:6. (See: Metaphor)

the Lamb

This is a young sheep. Here is it used symbolically to refer to Christ. See how you translated this in Revelation 5:6. (See: Symbolic Language)

the nations

Here "nations" refers to the people who live in every nation. AT: "the people of all nations" (See: Metonymy)

translationWords

angel

life

throne

God

lamb

cure

nation

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

The river is suggested partly by Ezekiel’s representation of the healing stream which was to issue from the new temple and flow through the dreary Ghor of the Jordan valley (Eze 47:1-12 ), partly by the reference (in a later apocalypse, Zec 14:8 ) to perennial waters issuing from Jerusalem as the dwelling-place of God in the new age. John has no use for Ezekiel’s idea that the stream would assist in the messianic transformation of nature. He changes the numerous trees on either side of the wady into the (generic) single tree of life, reverting as before (Eze 2:7 ) to the ideal of the Semitic paradise. Also, he drops the notion of the river sweetening the bitter waters of the Dead Sea. Cf. Pirke Eliezer, 51, aquae putei ascensurae sunt e limine templi atque scaturient prodibuntque. The Babylonian origin of the idea is outlined by Zimmern in Archiv für Relig. Wiss. 1899, 170 f. Unlike the earthly Jerusalem with its inferior stream, the new city is to be richly equipped with conduits and all that makes a city prosperous and secure (Isa 33:21 ).

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pure. Omit.

Clear [λαμπρον] . See on Luk 23:11. Rev., bright.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.