Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

22:10-16
God face to face (cf. v. 4). Again, this shows that the
blessings enumerated in these closing chapters are not
reserved for the consummation alone, but have already
been granted to God’s people; otherwise, the angel
would have accepted St. John’s act of reverence. We
have direct access to God’s Throne.
That this incident had to be repeated almost word-forword
demonstrates both the centrality of this concern
to the apostle, and how hard it is for us to learn it. It
may well be said that the most important teaching of
the Book of Revelation is that Jesus Christ has ascended
to the Throne; and the second most important
lesson is that we have ascended to heaven with Him.
10 And he said to me: Do not seal up the words of
the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Again
the angel emphasizes the imminence of the prophecy’s
fulfillment. For this reason St. John is forbidden to seal
up the words of the book. We have already had
occasion (on 10:4) to contrast this with the command
to Daniel to “conceal the words and seal up the book
until the time of the end” (Dan. 12:4). Because his
prophecy spoke of the distant future, Daniel was
ordered to seal it up; because St. John’s prophecy refers
to the imminent future, he is ordered to set it loose.
“Indeed, these are the very days for which Daniel
wrote, and St. John has been inspired to ‘unseal’ him.” 9
11 Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and
let the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one
who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and let
the one who is holy, still keep himself holy. The great
battle of the first century was reaching its climax, and
the angel calls for the differentiation of the righteous
and the wicked, the attainment of “epistemological
self-consciousness” through differing responses to God’s
grace; 10 it constitutes a prayer “that the world may
come out black and white, so as to be ripe for judgment.”
11 Self-consciousness on both sides of the
contest is always a prelude to judgment (cf. Ezek. 3:27:
“He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let
him refuse”).
12-13 The Lord again promises the imminence of His
coming judgment on Israel and deliverance of His
Church: Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward
is with Me, to render to every man according to what
he has done (cf. 2:23; 20:12-13). Christ had promised
that this would be the result of His first-century
Coming in His Kingdom (Matt. 16:27-28). Confirming
the promise with an oath, He swears by Himself as the
Lord of history, the sovereign Controller of all things: I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,
the Beginning and the End.
14 Continuing to speak through the angel, Christ
pronounces the Seventh Beatitude of Revelation:
Blessed are those who do His commandments, the
present participle emphasizing the ongoing duty of
obedience. God requires not just a one-time profession
of faith, but a continuing life of repentance and confessing
Christ. Obedience characterizes the redeemed,
as St. John declares elsewhere:
And by this we know that we have come to know Him,
if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have
come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments,
is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever
keeps His Word, in him the love of God has truly been
perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: The one
who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the
same manner as He walked. (1 John 2:3-6)
These alone have the right to the Tree of Life
(promised to the overcomers in 2:7) and may enter by
the gates into the City (promised to the overcomers in
3:12). Again, we should note that the nations of the
earth will enter into the City (21:24-26), which means
that the nations and their rulers will be characterized
by righteousness, by the world-conquering faith of the
overcomer.
15 Christ provides another catalogue (cf. 21:8), a
sevenfold one this time, of those who are excluded from
blessing, banished outside the City, into the fiery
Gehenna (Isa. 66:24; Mark 9:43-48). First are
mentioned the dogs, scavengers that are regarded with
disgust and revulsion throughout the Bible (cf. Prov.
26:11). In Deuteronomy 23:18, sodomites are called
“dogs,” 12 and Christ equated dogs with the unclean
nations (Mark 7:26-28). St. Paul applies the term, in
what must have been a shocking reference, to the false
circumcision, the Jews who had betrayed the Covenant
by rejecting Christ (Phil. 3:2) and have thus joined the
heathen and the perverts. That is probably the
reference here (cf. 2:9; 3:9). God does not give what is
holy unto dogs (Matt. 7:6). The other categories
mentioned in this verse, the sorcerers and the
fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters, and
everyone who loves and practices lying, are also listed
at 21:8, 27. Christians have renounced all these
ungodly actions by their baptism to newness of life.
16 I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you
these things for the churches; the word you is plural,
meaning that St. John’s audience is directly addressed
by the Lord; and the message is for the churches
generally (“all the saints,” v. 21). Christ repeats the
lesson of 5:5, that He is the bringer of the New
Covenant, the “Charter for Humanity” through which
all nations will be blessed: I am the Root and the
Offspring of David, both the Source and Culmination
of the Davidic line. Hengstenberg comments: “Because
Jesus is the root, he is also the race of David. In him
alone is the race preserved; while otherwise it would have
vanished without a trace. The race of David is more
than his offspring; it indicates that the race of David
should, save for Christ, have ceased to exist. The race
of David is here brought into view in respect to the
9. Austin Farrer, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (Oxford: At the Clarendon
Press, 1964), p. 225.
10. See Gary North, “Common Grace, Eschatology, and Biblical Law: Appendix
C (below).
11. Farrer, p. 225.
12. See Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: The
Craig Press, 1973), pp. 89f.
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