Revelation 22 Discussion

A river clear as crystal. A tree that never stops bearing fruit. A final promise that cuts through every anxious headline: Jesus says, “Surely I am coming soon.” We open Revelation 22 and follow its closing images all the way to the heart of Christian hope, where eternal life isn’t vague or wispy but centered on the presence of God and the Lamb.

We talk through the river of life and the tree of life as “Eden, but better” and ask what the new heaven and new earth might actually be like. If resurrection is physical, what does that imply about our bodies, our work, and even the limits we assume will always be there? We keep the tone honest and curious, letting the chapter push back on shallow ideas of heaven and replace them with a bigger, sturdier vision.

Revelation 22 also brings sharp edges: a warning not to add to Scripture or subtract from it, and a call to handle God’s word with reverence. At the same time, the chapter ends with an open door. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” If you’re thirsty, the water of life is offered freely, and “wash your robes” lands as a simple picture of faith in Jesus Christ, not self-improvement.

If you’re searching for a clear Bible study on Revelation 22, end times hope, the second coming of Christ, and the gospel invitation that still stands today, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, leave a review, and tell us: what part of Revelation 22 gives you the most hope right now?

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Welcome And Chapter 22 Roadmap

Pastor Plek 0:10

Welcome back to a chapter today. Keeps the devil away. We're going to talk Revelation chapter 22, the last chapter of the New Testament, and we are going to uh outline, observe, interpret it, and apply it so that you can be equipped to be engaged in God's word wherever you live, work, or play today. All right, so chapter 22, verses 1 through 5 talk about the river and the tree of life. The angel shows John the river, the water of life, clear. It's crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. On either side of the river stands the tree of life, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, yielding fruit every month. All right, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and there's no longer any curse. Then you got verses or yeah, six through eleven, the certainty of Christ's return. He just lets everyone know, I am coming soon. Then uh verses 12 through 17, you got Christ's final invitation and warning. Behold, I am coming soon, and I'm bringing my recompense with me. And then finally, everyone's gonna say, Come. Everyone who thirsts is invited to receive water of life freely. And then the final warning and benediction, uh, one more time. He says, Surely I'm coming soon. And everyone says, Amen. Come,

River Of Life And Tree Of Life

Pastor Plek 1:23

Lord Jesus. All right, let's get into some observations. What you see here, Holando.

Pastor Holland 1:27

Another just beautiful um picture here, the river of the water of life. It says bright as crystal. Um, and then there's uh there's the tree of life on either side of the river. And so you see like Eden um multiplied. You see like Eden, but better. Things are not just restored to what they were like in the garden before sin, they're enhanced, you know, increased, multiplied, way better.

Pastor Plek 1:55

Isn't this what Adam was supposed to do? Yeah, he was supposed to take care of the earth, subdue it, bring it to civilization because he trusted God, and then God was gonna bless him. And now here it is because the new Adam has done it. Yeah.

Pastor Holland 2:10

Amen.

What Jesus Means By Soon

Pastor Plek 2:11

Okay. What about um the fact that Jesus keeps saying, I'm coming soon?

Pastor Holland 2:15

Yeah, coming soon. And what does that mean? Soon means um, you know, any time now.

Pastor Plek 2:25

You know, it kind of reminds me of whenever you're watching a football game, and then your wife says, Hey, we gotta go. And then he's like, It's the game's almost over, it's gonna end soon, because you know there's like 10 minutes left, and then she thinks 10 minutes, but you know it's actually like an hour and a half. And that's kind of what it's like to me of like how the word soon comes out.

Pastor Holland 2:47

Yeah. Soon, I mean, you think of the verse where in um is it Second Peter, uh, a day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. So the idea of God being outside of time and uh, you know, soon, soon is a relative term, you know, if if like I'm flying to another country and I'm only an hour away, and I say, I'll be there soon, you know, compared to the 14 hours I've been on the plane, one hour is soon. But if someone's like bleeding out and dying and they're like, is the ambulance almost here? I'm like, it'll be here soon. Hopefully, you mean like a minute, not an hour, right? So it's soon is relative. And when you think of God and history, yeah, um, yeah, it's it leaves it a lot of options for what soon

New Earth Curiosity And Big Questions

Pastor Holland 3:36

means.

Pastor Plek 3:36

Yeah. All right, how about this? Just looking at the new heaven, new earth. Uh, eternal life is centered on God's presence. Everything flows out of him through him. It's all about him.

Pastor Holland 3:44

And you don't need you don't need sun or moon anymore.

Pastor Plek 3:47

Yeah, done. I think that's pretty cool. Are we gonna do away with the solar system?

Pastor Holland 3:51

Yeah, like um, or or are they So is our attempt to get to Mars just trivial? Okay, here's a question. Th these last few chapters of Revelation, I talk about with my kids all the time. It's like our favorite thing to talk about and like what it's gonna be like. Yeah. And what are we gonna do? Um, what's you know, our in our resurrected bodies, are you do you still eat and go to the bathroom? I I think you still eat for sure, but do you go to the bathroom? Or it's like filthiness. Yeah, there's no does the food just perfectly absorb into your body and you don't have to expell it.

Pastor Plek 4:26

Because there's no filthiness. So every food is perfectly no toilets in heaven. No toilets.

Pastor Holland 4:30

Now you you can't die and there's no pain or crying. And also no children. No, no, well, yeah. There's no babies, right? There's no making new babies. Right, right. But yeah, what age will you be? Right. Will you be, and so again in like Narnia, it it's like people's age change to kind of like um fit the situation. They're they're kind of like like Jesus at 33 years old. Is that like peak human age? Right. Your brain is fully developed. And so whether you were 17 or 70, you go to 33-year-old version of yourself. Yeah, and then you can't get hurt. So, but what if you like jump off a cliff, you just hit the ground and roll? Or can you fly? Can you fly? Can you teleport? Jesus flew up into the sky when he ascended. He teleported through walls in this resurrection. Anyway, so many questions. Um I think about all these things.

Pastor Plek 5:22

Uh I don't remember why I started talking about because what what is this gonna be like when we talked about is there a you know, is there Mars?

Pastor Holland 5:30

Oh, sun and moon and Mars. Okay, that's where I was going. Interplanetary travel. Are we gonna do that? Uh you see it seems like Earth, the new earth, and dwelling with God there is central. And that you don't there's no reason to like, you know, leave that. God doesn't command us to populate other planets or anything, but can you visit them? I guess you go look at like some dust somewhere, like or will you just not be interested because the new new earth and new heaven is so awesome that you just don't know.

Pastor Plek 6:01

Like human innovation is gonna be at its ultimate peak. And so people are inventing new stuff all the time. And so it's like every day is cooler and cooler with all the new stuff, and you get to celebrate. Wow, that was amazing.

Pastor Holland 6:12

Yeah, we're definitely not going to be disembodied spirits playing harps on clouds forever. There's a new earth, yep, a material earth, and um material trees and river and city, and we will have material bodies, um, physical resurrection bodies living in this material earth, but it'll be a perfect earth. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome.

The Warning Against Changing Scripture

Pastor Plek 6:34

Okay, so here's another thing I just noticed or made an observation about God's word like must be handled with reverence. If anyone adds to this, yeah, plagues are gonna be added. If you take away, like it's gonna be bad for you. So do you think this is the bet most well-copied book in the New Testament? Uh, I don't know. You know, I wonder if this one has the least errors.

Pastor Holland 6:56

Well, I think this would apply to all of God's words, though, wouldn't it? Well, God said similar type of things in like Deuteronomy. Sure.

Pastor Plek 7:03

But I mean, just like it's right here in Revelation. So wherever it's written, I'd you know, it wasn't canonized, the Bible wasn't canonized until 323. So you're like, at least this one, everyone's like, this is the word of God. We gotta get it right. I gotta write down exactly what John wrote. Um that'd be like kind of scary if you're the guy, you know, tasked with copying. Yeah. Uh yeah, terrifying. You gotta really pay attention.

Pastor Holland 7:29

Can't fall asleep on the job or plagues, plagues forever.

Wash Your Robes And Come Drink

Pastor Plek 7:34

All right. Um, how about I love that also there's just this invitation. He's coming soon, he's coming soon, but hey, you can turn your life to him now.

Pastor Holland 7:43

Yeah. And you know, that's that's where it says, you know, blessed are those who wash their robes. What does it mean to wash your robes? It means to put your faith in Christ. Okay, let's get into uh nature of man. Uh, what do you see here? Um, we need to wash our robes. Again, I take this symbolically as we are unclean, sinful, um, inherited from Adam when sin entered creation. And the only way to be clean and enter into covenant with God, a relationship with God, is to put your faith in Jesus Christ. But I also take that literally. Like you probably should wash your clothes. Yeah. That's good. I don't think that's what he means by this, but he assumes that everyone does wash their clothes, or else the meaning of the metaphor would be missed.

Pastor Plek 8:27

Good. It's good. All right. How about humanity was created to enjoy fellowship with God? Like that was like our whole purpose, and here it is finally lived out.

Pastor Holland 8:36

Um, it's really important that we worship God alone. Uh again, you have John falling down to worship the angel that shows up to him, and the angel says, Stop it, you know, worship God alone. Um, and so we we need to make sure

Isaiah Echoes And Living Water

Pastor Holland 8:52

that we are only worshiping the one true God.

Pastor Plek 8:54

Uh, how about like the invitation to drink the water of life? Like, obviously, this kind of reminds me of, you know, John 4 of the woman at the well, and maybe that's what he's pulling for, pulling from um on that one. But like, here it is he come and drink from the water of life. This points to humanity's has a deep spiritual need to refresh the thirst of a soul.

Pastor Holland 9:17

Yeah, Isaiah 55 as well. Um, I think he's pulling from. Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters. You who have no money, come buy and eat. Yeah, come by wine and milk without money and without cost. Um, and so there's this invitation in Isaiah. Isaiah, a lot of revelation, these final chapters is mirroring what we find in Isaiah about new heavens, new earth, new creation, what what all that's going to be like.

Pastor Plek 9:43

Isn't there the libation ceremony in John 8, um, where that he quotes from Isaiah, uh, and he's quoting from there and he says, All who are thirsty, and then he says, I am um the water, uh the water of life. Anyone, anyone who thirsts comes comes to me and they'll never be thirsty again. Um uh I think he says uh John 7, yeah, on the he goes, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. I yeah, whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And he I think that's where he's just really connecting it back to Isaiah, is it 50 five? And I think also Isaiah 12. Yes.

Pastor Holland 10:26

Anyway, and then Isaiah 65 and 66, the last two chapters, talk about new heavens, new earth, new creation. And, you know, uh verse 17 of Isaiah 65, see, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. John is pulling directly from this little uh trivia note. This is where in verse 25, a lot of people talk will say the lion and the lamb will lay down together. It's not what it says. It's the lion, it's a lamb and the serpent? Wolf wolf, wolf, Isaiah 65, verse 25. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. So everyone's gonna be a vegetarian. Uh, and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord. So the animals won't eat

Meat In Heaven And The Final Feast

Pastor Holland 11:20

each other. It doesn't say we won't eat the animals. Okay.

Pastor Plek 11:22

Just I just don't want to miss out on some steak, uh, some ribs.

Pastor Holland 11:26

Jesus' parables about heaven are about a king hosting a feast and with rich food and um and slaughtering the fattened calf. Okay. I'm convinced there's gonna be good meat in heaven. But if I'm wrong, uh okay. You know, hey, maybe there'll be tofu that looks like bead. Maybe we just eat the fruit from the the tree of life, right?

Pastor Plek 11:48

And that's all we've got to do. It's all really great. It's a great yogurt parfait.

God’s Faithfulness And Gracious Invitation

Pastor Plek 11:51

Yeah. All right. Um, how about let's get into the character of God? Okay. God's faithful to fulfill his promises. He uh from Isaiah to Revelation, he fulfills.

Pastor Holland 12:00

Yes. Um God is serious about um faithfulness to his word um for us. God really in in the warning about adding or taking away from this, yeah. This, you know, really showing God's character, but how much value and worth and authority he attaches to his word.

Pastor Plek 12:19

How about God is a gracious inviter? Amen. Like he is like, oh, hey, come, come on, come, come.

Pastor Holland 12:25

The spirit and the bride say come. Yeah, let's go. I love that. And it's it's mutual. You know, the next part, let the one who hears say come. Um, and so it's again the the picture of a bride and a groom is like so perfect for God and his people. Both of them are saying, Come, like I want, I'm inviting you, come to me. I want to be with you, I want to spend eternity with you. It's really beautiful.

SPEC Application And Hopeful Waiting

Pastor Plek 12:47

All right, let's get into some application here. Uh, SPEC is our um acronym, Sindovo Void, promise to claim. Uh, example, follow, command, obey our knowledge to believe. What do you got? Um, promise to claim Jesus' coming sin. Okay, Sindovaid, ignoring Christ's promise to return. Yeah. Don't ignore it. Or don't reject Christ's uh invitation to salvation. Um, that's the Sind of Void. What else?

Pastor Holland 13:15

Um I love, I don't know which category this fits into in spec, but I really love that the Bible ends with these words The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

Pastor Plek 13:28

And so knowledge to believe, grace is with you if you're a Christian.

Pastor Holland 13:30

Yeah, maybe, maybe, or just like I I don't know if it's a prompt, maybe a promise to claim, too, of just like God's grace is always gonna be with you. Those are the final words of the Bible.

Pastor Plek 13:40

So it's really encouraging to about almost the end of the Bible, uh, sin to avoid treating scripture casually or altering its message. Don't do that.

Pastor Holland 13:49

Yes, yeah. And to those who don't alter its message, promise to claim, blessed, verse seven, blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. To those who are faithful to scripture and who do cling to the promises and avoid the sins and follow the godly examples, right? Uh, obey the commands of scripture. There is a blessing for you.

Pastor Plek 14:08

Yeah, promise claim, he's coming back soon. I know I know that we've we've hammered it, but I feel like that's the end of the Bible is like, hey, wait with hope. Yeah. Um put your, you know, put your press your face up against the window and look up. He's coming back soon.

Pastor Holland 14:24

Yeah. Until then, knowledge to believe. When it says, um, let the evil doer doer still do evil, the filthy still be filthy, the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy, it's like Jesus' parable about the wheat and the tares growing together until the last day. Until he comes back, know that there are going to be evil people, wicked practices, you know, all the ugliness of sin and um wickedness of the world. Um, but the promise is that one day God will do away with all that.

Pastor Plek 14:56

I can't wait. Amen. Hey, thanks for joining us. I hope this has been a blessing to you if we've gone through the New Testament one chapter a day. And uh we'll see you again as we start all over on a chapter a day.