“I COME QUICKLY”

Hugo McCord

Three times in the last chapter of the last book of the Bible Jesus told John, “I come quickly” (Revelation 22:7, 12, 20).

I. WHAT DOES “QUICKLY” MEAN?

In 30 A.D. Jesus foretold that Jerusalem would be completely destroyed: “not a stone here will be left on another” (Matthew 24:2). In 70 A.D. his prediction was fulfilled by the Roman army under General Titus, so much so that a visitor said the site looked “as if it had never been inhabited.”

“Immediately” (eutheos) after that awful “tribulation,” Jesus also foretold, “all the tribes of the earth” will “mourn” as they “see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:29-30).

But Jesus did not reappear “immediately” after 70 A.D., nor has he in nearly 2000 years afterward. However, from the Lord’s viewpoint, someone said that only two high points in history remained after his death and resurrection, namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and the second coming of Christ. This stretched-out meaning of “immediately” is supported by the fact that Jesus said he did not know the “the day nor the hour” of his second coming (Matthew 24:36; Mark 13:32).

But in 96 A.D., when Jesus spoke from heaven to John on the isle of Patmos, he promised, even three times, “I come quickly” (tachu, Revelation 22:7, 12, 20). Had he now learned from the Father that he would be returning “quickly”?

But, as we understand the word “quickly” (speedily, soon, without delay), there is no way to stretch it out nearly 2000 years. Furthermore, even before 70 A.D., about 45 A.D., the inspired James used a word similar to Jesus’ word “quickly” (tachu), writing that the “coming of the Lord draweth nigh” (eggidzo, James 5:8). In addition, and still before 70 A.D., about 65 A.D., the apostle Peter used the same word that James had used, writing that “the end of all things is at hand” (eggidzo, 1 Peter 4:7).

However, Peter reminds us that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one day,” and that the “Lord is not slack concerning his promise” (2 Peter 3:8-9). In addition, the author of the book of Hebrews shows us that, as the Lord looks at time, 2000 years or more are “a very little while” (Hebrews 10:37).

So I learn that Jesus’ word “quickly” has much elasticity. In addition, the Father could be extending “quickly” to give more sinners a chance to be saved, since we are told to “account that the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation” (2 Peter 3:15).

II. THE COMING STATED THREE TIMES

1. The First Statement:

Behold, I come quickly; blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book (Revelation 22:7).

Everything in the book of Revelation that teaches a Christian how to live, keeping him alert, working, and happy, is wrapped up in one verse: “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).

2. The Second Statement:

And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be (Revelation 22:12).

While Jesus was on the earth, long before he gave the second statement to John in 96 A.D., he had promised a reward to his disciples: (1) those who had been persecuted “for my sake” (Matthew 5:10-12); (2) those who had given to “little ones” a “cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple” (Matthew 10:42); and (3) those who had learned to “love” their “enemies” (Luke 6:35).

A specific reward every soul-winning Christian will receive is to see and be with those in heaven whom he had converted on the earth: “he that planteth and he that watereth” will “receive his own reward according to his own labour” (1 Corinthians 3:8). If a Christian’s converts do not “continue in the faith, grounded and settled” (Colossians 1:23), and miss heaven, the soul-winner “shall suffer loss” (1 Corinthians 3:15), not seeing the backsliders in heaven. But if his converts “abide” in the faith, the soul-winner will “receive a reward” (1 Corinthians 3:14), seeing and being with those in heaven whom he brought to Christ. Paul looked forward to his associating again with his beloved Thessalonian converts in heaven:

For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of exultation before our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? Is it not you? You are our glory and joy (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20).

In the Lord’s second statement to John, the promised reward is based on work: “to give to every man according as his work shall be.” Even giving a cup of cold water is work. Faith in Jesus is a mental work (John 6:29). Repentance (metanoia, a change of mind) is a mental work (Acts 11:18). Confession “with the mouth” (Romans 10:9) is physical work. Baptism is passive, but it requires physical work.

Salvation after baptism is not without work: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Paul complimented the Thessalonians because of their “work of faith and labour of love” (1 Thessalonians 1:3). Christians have a “faith that worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6, and they know that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), and that God “will render to every man according to his work” (Romans 2:6). Those who continue in “well-doing” will enjoy “glory and honor and immortality, eternal life” (Romans 2:7).

However, when good workers “have done all those things which are commanded,” they know that “eternal life” is not “reckoned” of “debt” but of “grace” (Luke 17:10; Romans 4:4). All the good works in the world can never cancel a sin. There is no “Treasury of Merit.” Only through Jesus’ “blood” is “the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7).

Salvation from sin is by “grace,” and “not of works,” though there is no heaven without the “good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Christians do not “boast” about their “good works,” but humbly acknowledge that “we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10). Christians disclaim salvation “by works of righteousness which we have done” (Titus 3:5). Instead, they attribute salvation to the Lord’s “mercy, through the bath of the new birth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

3. The Third Statement:

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:20).

Thus Jesus reassured John of the certainty of his second coming by the word “surely” (nai, yes, yes indeed, certainly). Then the words that the expectant and hopeful John wrote, after hearing Jesus’ third affirmation of his coming, tell us of the smile on his face: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

Similarly, all Christians today look forward with happiness to seeing their Lord for the first time. However, most people do not look forward to the Lord’s coming. At his coming, men and women of “the faith” (Luke 18:8) will be hard to find. Many people will hear his words, “I know you not,” and will be “weeping” (Luke 13:25, 28). Sadly, their way of life is “wide” and “broad” leading to “destruction,” instead of the “narrow” way leading to “life” (Matthew 7:13-14). Indeed, “all the kindreds of the earth shall wail” when they see Jesus (Revelation 1:7).

On the contrary, Paul, like John, looked forward with pleasure to seeing Jesus, and so from death row in Mamertime Prison he wrote:

I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. ... Henceforth there is laid up for me crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all those also who love his appearing (2 Timothy 1:10; 4:8).