Second Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Revelation 22:12-21

[Here is the first pass at this weekend's lesson, including an explanation of what this is about.]

Verse-by-Verse Comments
12“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work.
(1) The person being quoted is Jesus. You have to be careful not to misread this passage. Jesus isn't saying that we need to work to gain a place with Him in eternity. Paul writes in the New Testament book of Ephesians:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Eternal life with Christ can't be earned. It belongs to those who repent (that is, turn away from sin as a way of life) and entrust their lives to Christ, the giver of eternal life. When we allow Christ into our life, we embrace a new way of living, a way of service that "God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."

In verse 14, John speaks of "those who wash their robes," that is, those who have been cleansed by the blood of Christ, the sacrificial Lamb, on the cross.

The "work" of a Christian is to turn from sin and follow Christ. Bryan Findlayson puts it this way:

The essential command that must be obeyed is the call to faith in Christ.

(See here.)

(2) Jesus begins this section by saying that He is planning on returning to the earth soon. These words are for us, no less than for John's original readers and hearers. Peter writes:

...do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. (2 Peter 3:8)

13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
(1) John uses the very term--the Alpha and the Omega--to describe Jesus in the prologue of this book. It refers to the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet and claims that Jesus is the first, the last, and everything. (For more, see here.)

14Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
(1) Revelation 7 talks about those who "have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." These are all who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ, the saints. They've been made clean by Christ's death on their behalf.

(2) This is the tree of life mentioned in Genesis and in last week's Bible lesson.

[More verse-by-verse comments, I hope.]