I Come Quickly

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”  Revelation 22:20

This is the next-to-the-last verse in the Bible, and it contains the last promise in the Bible. The final promise of the Lord is that He would come back to earth again “quickly,” but it has been almost 2,000 years since He made the promise, and He hasn’t come yet. Evidently, the word “quickly,” as He used it, did not mean “immediately.”

As a matter of fact, this promise appears no less than six times here in Revelation (Rev. 2:5, 16; 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20). The first three are in Christ’s messages to the churches at Ephesus, Pergamos, and Philadelphia, respectively. The last three are in His final message to all churches (Rev. 22:16) the Lord Jesus has not forgotten His promise for “as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us” (2 Cor. 1:20). Furthermore, many spiritual believers in every previous generation have been looking for His coming “quickly,” as He promised, yet they all have died before its fulfillment.

It seems evident that “quickly” must be understood in the sense of “suddenly.” For this reason “at an hour when you do not think He will” (Matt. 22:24), and it will occur “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Cor. 15:52), when it happens. It does seem that all the signs of the nearness of His sudden coming are being fulfilled today, except perhaps one. “The gospel must first be preached to all the nations” (Mark 13:10), “as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).

Even this is now being done, it seems. In any case, it is vitally important that we “abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming” (1 John 2:28). “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”