Come, Lord Jesus: the river, the tree and what eschatology means

Revelation 22 closes the book. It was written as a letter to seven churches in Roman Asia, most likely about AD 95 under Domitian, though a minority hold to Nero's time. The book is a circle: it opens with a blessing on those who read and hear, a greeting of grace and the promise that Christ is coming (1:1-8), and it ends with the same blessing, the same promise and the same grace (22:6-21). The first hearers were small congregations in cities that celebrated the emperor as lord. The epilogue is addressed to them and to the lector who read the book aloud in worship (1:3). It is a liturgical close in which voices alternate: the angel, John, Jesus, and the Spirit and the bride. The book ends not with a vision but with a prayer, which the earliest Christians prayed in Aramaic as maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22; Didache 10:6), a word that can mean either 'Our Lord, come' or 'Our Lord has come'.

Revelation's acceptance in the early church was not uniform. It was widely received in the West, while Dionysius of Alexandria in the third century doubted that the apostle John wrote it, and the Orthodox churches have not traditionally included it in their regular cycle of public readings.

• The first half of the chapter is vision, in the images of Eden and of Ezekiel.
• The second half is epilogue, a letter-ending that gathers the main concerns of the book. The voices change quickly: in verses 6-11 the speaker is the angel, in 12-16 Jesus, in 17 the Spirit and the bride, and in 18-20 John and Jesus again. Marking who speaks keeps the reader from reading everything as the angel's words. The river and tree are those of Genesis 2:9-10 and Ezekiel 47:1-12, so the vision is a return to Eden with a difference.

Interpreters take the repeated 'soon' and 'the time is near' (22:6, 7, 10, 12, 20; compare 1:1, 3) in at least four ways, and each sets the book's timeline differently. Preterist readers (Gentry, Chilton) hold that the words mean what they say to the first hearers, and that most of the book's judgments fell in or near the first century. Their case is that John says the time is near and that Jesus tied the coming judgment to 'this generation' (Matthew 24:34). Futurist readers (Walvoord, Ryrie) take it as 'swiftly' or 'suddenly' once the events begin, as with Jesus coming like a thief (3:3; 16:15). Idealist readers (Hendriksen, Beale) take it as a permanent urgency, because the last days began with Christ's first coming, and 2 Peter 3:8-9 says that a thousand years are like a day. Historicist readers read it within a longer sequence. The four millennial views do not decide the question. All agree that the word is a promise and that it carries both urgency and certainty.

The warning in verses 18 and 19 recalls Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32. In Revelation it protects this book's testimony from alteration. It is a seal on this prophecy, not a statement about the canon as a whole, though Christians have seen it as a fitting close to the canon. Our understanding of the passage is limited to this: 'soon' joins the imminence of the first hearers' hope to the certainty of the whole, and the epilogue's weight falls on the invitation to come.

22:1-2. The angel shows John a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the street of the city. On both sides stands a tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, one crop each month, and the leaves are 'for the healing of the nations'. The picture draws on two sources. In Genesis 2:9-10 a river flowed out of Eden and the tree of life stood in the garden. In Ezekiel 47:1-12 a river flows from the temple, and on its banks grow fruit trees whose leaves are for healing. John joins them: the river comes from the throne, because the Lamb is the temple. Some readers take 'the healing of the nations' as a sign that wounds of the world are healed in the city; others take it as a picture of the redeemed nations' wholeness.

22:3-5. 'No longer will there be any curse.' This reverses Genesis 3:14-19 and fulfils Zechariah 14:11. The throne of God and of the Lamb is in the city, and his servants will worship him. 'They will see His face', which Moses was not permitted to do (Exodus 33:20), which the Psalmist longed for (Psalm 17:15) and which Jesus promised to the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8). His name is on their foreheads (3:12; 14:1), opposed to the mark of the beast. There is no night, and they will reign forever and ever, as the human vocation of Genesis 1:26-28 is fulfilled.

22:6-11. The angel says the words are faithful and true, and that the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants 'what must soon take place'. Jesus speaks in verse 7: 'Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of prophecy in this book.' It is the sixth of seven blessings in the book (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14). John falls at the angel's feet, as he did in 19:10, and is stopped again: worship belongs to God. The angel then says not to seal up the words. In Daniel 8:26 and 12:4, 9 the vision was to be sealed because it concerned distant days. Here it is unsealed because the time is near. Verse 11 echoes Daniel 12:10 and does not command evil. It states that the coming will find people settled in what they have chosen.

22:12-16. Jesus speaks in his own voice. 'My reward is with Me, to give to each one according to what he has done' draws on Isaiah 40:10 and 62:11. 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End' takes three titles used of God in 1:8, 17 and 21:6, and applies them to Jesus. Those who wash their robes have the right to the tree of life and may enter the gates. Ancient manuscripts differ here: the best-attested reading is 'wash their robes', which fits 7:14, while the Greek text behind the King James Version reads 'do his commandments'. Outside are the dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral, murderers, idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. 'I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star' joins Isaiah 11:1, 10 with Numbers 24:17 and the promise of the morning star in 2:28.

22:17-21. The Spirit and the bride say 'Come!' The hearer is invited to say it too, and the thirsty are invited to drink the water of life freely (Isaiah 55:1). The call may be addressed to Christ, as in verse 20, or to the thirsty, and the sense is probably both. John then testifies against adding to or taking away from the words of this book of prophecy. The one who testifies to these things says, 'Yes, I am coming soon.' The reply is 'Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!' The last sentence is a blessing: the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.

What do the main readings agree on at this passage? That the Bible ends in a return to Eden transformed: a garden-city, a river, the tree of life, humans who see God's face, and no curse. The pattern of exile and return that runs through the Bible is closed. That the Christian hope is first a person: the Lord Jesus is coming, and the book ends in prayer for his coming. That only God is to be worshipped. And that the invitation continues until the end.

The conclusion of the course: what eschatology means. 'Eschatology' comes from the Greek eschatos, 'last', and is the study of the last things: the end of each life, the end of history and the renewal of creation. In the Bible it is not a separate topic at the back of theology but the direction of the whole story, from creation to new creation. The New Testament holds that the last things have begun. Christ's resurrection is the 'firstfruits' (1 Corinthians 15:20), the Spirit is the down payment of what is to come (Ephesians 1:13-14), and the last days began with the Son (Acts 2:17; Hebrews 1:1-2). Scholars have called this inaugurated eschatology, or the 'already and not yet': Geerhardus Vos, Oscar Cullmann and George Eldon Ladd described it from different sides, and Cullmann's picture of a decisive battle already won, with a final victory still to be celebrated, is widely used. It stands between two extremes the church has rejected: an eschatology wholly future, which leaves the present empty of hope, and one wholly realized, which says nothing remains to come.

Where do the traditions converge? On what the creeds confess. The Apostles' Creed says that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and affirms the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. The Nicene Creed says that he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, that his kingdom will have no end, and that the church looks for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, Baptist and Pentecostal churches confess these things. Behind the creeds lie texts that run through the whole canon: Acts 1:11, 1 Corinthians 15, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Romans 8:19-23 and 2 Peter 3:13. Four points can be stated across the traditions: Christ will come visibly and in glory; the dead will be raised; there will be a final judgment in which evil is undone and death destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26); and the end is new creation in God's presence (Revelation 21:1-3). The passages of this course keep returning to these four points.

Where do they differ, and why? The questions are these. Whether the thousand years of Revelation 20 are the present age, a coming golden age, or a future reign on earth. Whether the church is taken up before, during or after a period of tribulation, among premillennialists. How the promises to Israel are fulfilled, as Romans 9 to 11 and the Old Testament prophets bear on it. Whether the beast is Rome, a pattern or a final figure. Whether the new creation is renewal or replacement. What happens between death and resurrection, where Catholic teaching on purification after death differs from the Protestant churches. And the final destiny of the lost, where the large majority of the church's tradition holds that punishment is unending, some evangelical writers hold that the lost are finally destroyed, and a smaller number hope that all may be saved, a hope the main traditions have not accepted as teaching. The reasons for the differences are in the sources. Apocalyptic compresses time and speaks in symbols, so sequence is left open; prophecy has a double horizon of near and far, which readers weigh differently; Paul's order in 1 Corinthians 15:23-24 is compressed; and the traditions differ about how literally Old Testament promises are to be taken.

How can both be held? By distinguishing three levels.

• The first is what the whole church has confessed, held as settled.
• The second is what serious readers on each side argue from the same text, held with conviction and without contempt.
• The third is conjecture, such as dates, names and maps, held loosely, since Jesus said that no one but the Father knows the day (Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7). The New Testament itself uses these doctrines to shape perseverance, comfort and holiness (1 Thessalonians 4:18; 2 Peter 3:11-13; 1 John 3:2-3; Revelation 1:9), not to supply a timetable. Our understanding of what Revelation as a whole teaches is that the book unveils the reign of the crucified and risen Lamb over history, names the powers that oppose him, and promises that they and death will end and that the world will be made new. That is the core every reading shares.

The final chapter is the clearest in the book on who Jesus is. He is on the throne: it is the throne 'of God and of the Lamb' (22:1, 3), a singular throne. He is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, titles that Isaiah 44:6 and 48:12 gave to the LORD. He is the Root and Offspring of David, so that the promises to David, from 2 Samuel 7 and Isaiah 11:1, 10, are fulfilled in him as both the source of the line and the descendant who completes it. He is the bright Morning Star, which fulfils Numbers 24:17, where a star comes out of Jacob and a scepter rises out of Israel. He is the one who speaks, who judges according to deeds, and who is coming.

The Lamb is at the centre of the city. The river flows from his throne. The tree of life is available because of his blood, and the right to enter is by washing robes in it (7:14). The Gospel of John records his invitation to the thirsty (John 7:37-38), and Revelation 22:17 gives it again. He removes the curse by taking it (Galatians 3:13). The prayer Come, Lord Jesus is addressed to Jesus as Lord, as in 1 Corinthians 16:22, and a prayer of this kind addressed to Christ from the earliest days is a plain sign of the church's faith in his divine lordship.