Come

The Bible ends with an invitation, and the invitation is repeated four times in one verse by four different voices.

The Spirit says it. The bride says it. The one who hears is told to say it. And then it is addressed to whoever is thirsty and whoever wishes.

Which means the last instruction given to a reader of Scripture is to join in saying the word he has just heard.

You hear it, and then you say it. That is the whole mechanism of everything this volume has described.

And the terms have not changed since Isaiah shouted them in a market, on Day Two of last week. Whoever is thirsty. Whoever wishes. Let him take the water of life freely.

Free, at the end, exactly as it was in the middle.

The volume opened with a workman finding a scroll in a renovation and a king tearing his robe. It has said everything it knows how to say about that scroll.

That it is God-breathed, living and active, settled forever in heaven, refined like silver seven times, sweeter than honey, worth more than thousands in gold and silver, better than a man’s daily bread. That it is fire and a hammer that breaks rock, a lamp for the next step, a short sword at close quarters, seed in four kinds of ground, milk and solid food, a mirror, a goad and a nail, water for washing, dew on new grass, a stone men trip over, a plumb line against a wall, a trumpet that has to be certain, a polished arrow, an inheritance, a table set for people with no money — and, at the last, a rider whose name is the Word of God.

That its writers wrote and deposited and dictated and investigated and copied and collected, and left their own failures on the page, and searched their own writing without understanding it.

That twenty threads run from Genesis to Revelation without dropping a stitch: the seed, the lamb, the blood, the tree, the bread, the water, the Name, the dwelling, the Shepherd, the city, the marriage, the mountain, the light, the vine, the exodus, the priesthood, the rest, the covenant, the Spirit, and the book with the names in it.

And the Book’s own last word to the man holding it is not study harder.

Yes, I am coming soon.

And the answer — the last sentence written by a man in the whole of Scripture, before the closing benediction — is the shortest turn this volume has asked for, and the only one that has been available on every one of these hundred and forty days.

And the invitation is issued to two kinds of people in one line, which is worth carrying out of the volume. Whoever is thirsty covers the man who knows what he lacks. Whoever wishes covers the man who is not sure he is thirsty and comes anyway. Neither is asked to bring anything.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

The four occurrences of come in verse 17 are the same imperative, and the first two — the Spirit and the bride — are almost certainly addressed to Christ, answering His promise to come. The third and fourth turn outward to the hearer and the thirsty. One word, aimed in two directions.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus renders what Paul gives in Aramaic at 1 Corinthians 16:22 as Maranatha — our Lord, come. The prayer was evidently in use in the earliest church in its original language, which is one of the small pieces of evidence for how early the expectation was.

The invitation in verse 17 deliberately echoes Isaiah 55:1, studied last week, and John 7:37, studied in Week Six. The Bible’s closing offer is quoted from its own earlier pages.

The final verse of the canon is a benediction — the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. The last recorded word of Christ in Scripture is a promise about coming; the last recorded word of a man is a prayer that He would; and the last word on the page is grace.

Verse 21 closes the canon: the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Manuscripts differ slightly on the ending — with all, with all the saints, with God’s people — and the variation is the ordinary kind found in closing greetings. The last word in every reading is grace.

Look it upG2064 ἔρχομαι erchomai, to come · G1372 διψάω dipsao, to thirst · G2309 θέλω thelo, to will, wish, desire · G281 ἀμήν amen, so be it, truly

Where this touchesRevelation 22:17, 20–21 · Isaiah 55:1 (Week Nineteen, Day Two) · John 7:37–39 (Week Six, Day Five) · 1 Corinthians 16:22 · Revelation 3:14 (Week Seven, Day Three). The nineteen earlier turns were James 1:22–25, Ezra 7:10, the two builders, the Bereans, Colossians 3:16, Psalm 119:11, Acts 20:32, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Timothy 2:15, Deuteronomy 6, John 8:31, Luke 11:28, 2 Timothy 4:2, Revelation 1:3, Hebrews 2:1, Psalm 1, James 1:21, John 14:23 and Acts 2:42.