Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)

The last prayer in the Bible is also one of its shortest — and yet it’s layered with heartache and anticipation, with distress and hope, with agony and joy. Can you imagine the apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23), savoring those three words — “Come, Lord Jesus!” — while he was abandoned among criminals on the island of Patmos? Does the promise that Christ will come again ever feel sweeter than when life on earth feels harsh and unyielding?

It’s almost as if John tries to draw the risen Jesus out of heaven, praying with all his might. The barren, rocky ground beneath his knees was more than a prison; it was a model of the curse, twenty square miles overrun with the consequences of sin. Suffering does this. It opens our eyes wider to all that sin has ruined, just how much pain and havoc it has wrought in the world. And, in a strange way, suffering often awakens us to the promise of his coming.

Weakness and illness make us long all the more for new bodies. Prolonged relational conflict makes us long all the more for peace. Wars and hurricanes and earthquakes make us long all the more for safety. Our remaining sin makes us long all the more for sinlessness. “Come, Lord Jesus!” is the cry of someone who really expects a better world to come — and soon. Suffering only intensifies that longing and anticipation.

Many Prayers in One

The prayer “Come, Lord Jesus!” is really many prayers in one. What will happen when Christ finally returns? The opening verses of Revelation 21 tell us just how many of our prayers will be answered on that day.

Come, Lord Jesus, and dry our tears. Followers of Jesus are not spared sorrow in this life. In fact, following him often means more tears. Jesus himself warned us it would be so: “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). But one day, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4). In that world, we will not have tribulation, or sorrow, or distress, or persecution, or danger. When he returns, we’ll never have another reason to cry.

Come, Lord Jesus, and put an end to our pain. Some long for the end of heartache; others feel the consequences of sin in their bodies. Pain has followed them like a shadow. Revelation 21:4 continues, “. . . neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.” Can you imagine someone who has battled chronic pain for decades waking up one morning and feeling no more pain? It will be like a man who has never seen anything clearly finally putting on his first pair of glasses — except the sufferer will feel that sensation in every muscle and nerve. The absence of pain will free his senses to enjoy the world like never before.

Come, Lord Jesus, and put death to death. Jesus came to dethrone death. Hebrews 2:14–15 says, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Every one reading this article was once enslaved to the fear of death. But death lost its sting when the Son of God died. And one day, death itself will die. When the Author of life comes, “death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4).

Come, Lord Jesus, and rid us of sin. This burden may be more subtle in these verses, but it would not have been subtle in John’s imagination. He writes in verse 3, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” And he knew that God cannot dwell with sin. For God to come and dwell with us, he will have to first eradicate the sin that remains in us — and that’s exactly what he promises to do. The sin that hides in every shadow and behind every corner will be suddenly extinct. He will throw every cause of sin into his fiery furnace (Matthew 13:41). “When he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

“In the world to come, we will have nothing to fear, nothing to mourn, nothing to endure, nothing to confess.”

Come, Lord Jesus, and make it all new. In other words, anything not included in the prayers above will be made right too. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). Nothing here will go untouched. Whatever aspect of life on earth afflicts you most, it will be different. Whatever fears have plagued you, whatever trials have surprised you, whatever clouds have followed you, they all will be transformed — in the twinkling of an eye — and stripped of their threats. In the world to come, we will have nothing to fear, nothing to mourn, nothing to endure, nothing to confess. Can you imagine?

More than a prayer for relief, or safety, or healing, or even sinlessness, though, “Come, Lord Jesus!” is a prayer for him.

His Presence Is Paradise

The burning heart of John’s three-word plea is not for what Jesus does, but for who he is. This is clear throughout the book of Revelation. The world to come is a world to want because Jesus lives there. John’s prayer, after all — “Come, Lord Jesus!” — is a response to Jesus promising three times in the previous verses, “Behold, I am coming soon. . . . Behold, I am coming soon. . . . Surely I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:7, 12, 20).

“The world to come is a world to want because Jesus lives there.”

While the apostle wasted away in prison, he could see the Bridegroom on the horizon (Revelation 1:12–16). His hair white, like snow. His eyes filled with fire. His feet, like burnished bronze. His face, like the sun shining in full strength. The man he had walked with, talked with, laughed with, and surely cried with, now fully glorified and ready to receive and rescue his bride, the church. The Treasure was no longer hidden in a field, but riding on the clouds.

Even the vision of the new heavens and new earth in Revelation 21 makes God himself the greatest prize of the world to come: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). Yes, we want a world without grief, without pain, without fear, without death. But better to have a world like ours with God, than to have any other world without him. His presence defines paradise.

Randy Alcorn writes,

Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us. . . . We may imagine we want a thousand different things, but God is the one we really long for. His presence brings satisfaction; his absence brings thirst and longing. Our longing for Heaven is a longing for God. (Heaven, 166, 171)

A Second Coming

While the apostle’s brief prayer may be the most memorable invitation in Revelation 22, it is not the only one. The Bible doesn’t end only with a desperate plea for Christ to return, but also with a warm invitation to the weary, the suffering, the spiritually thirsty.

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Revelation 22:17)

As John anticipates Christ’s returning, gathering his people and wiping out all his enemies, his last thoughts are not of judgment, but of mercy. He ends not with smoke rising out of torment, but with a free and overflowing fountain held out to all who would come. His words ring with an old and glorious invitation, Isaiah 55:1–2:

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.

When Jesus comes, we will eat and drink and enjoy without end. Hunger and thirst will become distant memories. If sorrows have robbed you of sleep, if pain has made even normal days hard, if death has taken ones you love, if life has sometimes seemed stacked against you, if you can’t shake a restless ache for more, then come and eat with him. This world may be the only world you’ve known, but a better world is coming — and there’s still room at the table.

The strange machine along the streets of Madrid seized my attention.

Its long arms reached out and wrapped themselves around the trunk of a tree. Its motor vibrated those arms at high speeds so they could shake the tree violently. Its net sat suspended just beneath the lowest branches. As the machine buzzed and roared, a hundred ripe oranges fell from the branches to land in the net below — a hundred ripe oranges that could feed and satisfy a hundred people. That machine was carefully designed to release the fruit from the tree — to release it by shaking.

The nets filled with oranges remind me of something the apostle Paul once wrote about times of trial and tribulation, of deep sorrow and loss. He contended that Christians must be prepared to be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and even struck down — a collection of words meant to display the variety of ways in which God may call us to suffer (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).

The God who is sovereign over all things may lead us into times and contexts that are deeply painful. Yet we can be confident that our suffering is never arbitrary and never meaningless, for God always has a purpose in mind. Hence, Paul says more: we will be “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” For those in Christ, God’s purpose is never to harm us and never to ruin us.

“The God who is sovereign over all things may lead us into times and contexts that are deeply painful.”

So what is God’s purpose in our suffering? Why does God sometimes lead us away from the green pastures and still waters to call us instead to follow him into deep and dark valleys (Psalm 23)? These were questions that were much on my mind in the days, weeks, and months following the Lord’s decision to call my son to himself.

God Left Us Sonless

Nick, age 20, was at seminary and taking a break from his studies to play a game with a group of his friends when, in an instant, his heart stopped, his body fell to the ground, and his soul went to heaven. His friends tried to revive him, a passing doctor tried to revive him, responding paramedics and emergency-room doctors tried to revive him. But it was to no avail. God had called him home. And since God had summoned him to heaven, there was no doctor, no medication, and no procedure that could keep my son here on earth.

I don’t know why God determined that Nick would live so short a life, why he would leave this world with so little accomplished and so much left undone. I don’t know why God determined to leave Aileen and me sonless, Abby and Michaela brotherless, Ryn fiancéless and ultimately husbandless. I don’t know why God did it — why God exercised his sovereignty in taking away a young man who was so dearly loved, who was so committed to serving Jesus, and who had so much promise. But I don’t need to know, for, as Moses said, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29).

While I don’t know why God did it, I am already beginning to understand how God is using it.

Lamentation Without Resentment

On the streets of Madrid, a machine shakes the orange trees to cause them to release their fruit. It shakes them violently, shakes them so hard that it almost looks as if the branches must snap, as if the trunk must splinter, as if the entire tree must be uprooted. Yet this is the way it must be done, for the delicious fruit is connected tightly to the inedible branches. And the moment the machine has collected the fruit, I observe, it ceases its shaking, it furls up its net, it withdraws its arms, and it backs away, leaving the tree healthy and well, prepared to bear yet another harvest.

And just like that machine shook the orange tree, Nick’s death has shaken me and shaken my family and shaken my church and shaken Nick’s friends and shaken his school — shaken us to our very core. Yet this shaking, though it has been violent and exceedingly painful, has not caused us to break. We have raised our voices in lamentation, but never in rebellion. We have raised hands of worship, but never fists of rage. We have asked questions, but have never expressed resentment.

“God does not mean to harm us when he shakes us, but simply to release the fruit.”

To the contrary, as I look at those who love Nick most, I see them displaying fresh evidences of God’s grace. I see them growing in love for God, in the joy of their salvation, in the peace of the gospel, in their patience with God’s purposes, in kindness toward others, in the goodness of personal holiness, in faithfulness to all God has called them to, in gentleness with other people’s sins and foibles, and in that rare, blessed virtue of self-control. I see them bearing the precious fruit of the Spirit as never before (Galatians 5:22–23).

Shaken to Bear Fruit

Just as the fruit of the tree clings tightly to the branch, the evil within us clings tightly to the good, the vices to the virtues, the immoral to the upright. God does not mean to harm us when he shakes us, but simply to release the fruit — to do what is necessary to separate what is earthly from what is heavenly, what dishonors him from what delights his heart.

As I consider my wife, as I consider my girls, as I consider Nick’s precious fiancée, as I consider his friends and fellow church members, I see that they have been deeply shaken by his death — shaken by God’s sovereign hand. But I see as well that they have been shaken for a beautiful purpose. They have been shaken to bear fruit.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast.

Well, God is happy in himself. Amen. And God wants us to be happy in himself. Amen. If you start applying biblical categories here, you begin to ask this question: How does God’s joy become my joy? That’s our question today — a really good one — from a listener named Heather in Chicago.

“Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for this podcast,” she writes. “My question for you is about the nature of who God is and how he relates to our joy. Can you explain to me, from the Bible, the person and work of the Holy Spirit as the love and joy shared between the Father and the Son? I don’t quite understand this without making his person seem more like a force or a cosmic energy. And then how does the person of the Spirit enable us to experience God’s joy within us? It seems like those two realities connect, the person of the Spirit and the joy in us. But it doesn’t connect for me. Not yet. Can you help me understand these two dynamics from the Bible?”

I think it’s crucial, as we try to understand our relationship with the Holy Spirit, that we fix it firmly in our minds that we are dealing with a distinct person. Just fix it, so that whatever else is uncertain, don’t let that be uncertain: a person, a divine person, the third person of the Trinity.

Fellowship of the Spirit

In fact, I’ve been struck recently — even before I heard this question — how the New Testament encourages us to enjoy fellowship with each of the three divine persons of the Trinity, not just fellowship with God in the abstract or general way, but fellowship with God the Father, fellowship with God the Son, fellowship with God the Spirit. For example, 1 Corinthians 1:9 says that God called us “into the fellowship of his Son.” Second Corinthians 13:14 refers to “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” First John 1:3 says, “Our fellowship is with the Father.” So, we’re taught to have fellowship — communion, personal relations — with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

You know what book I would recommend, Tony: John Owen, Communion with the Triune God. Nobody, I don’t think, in the history of the church has helped people come to terms with what it means to relate to each person of the Trinity like John Owen. I would recommend Communion with the Triune God by John Owen.

Now, that implies that the Holy Spirit is a person — someone you can relate to, talk to — which is exactly the way Jesus spoke of him. He says in John 14:26, “The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he” — and yes, it is masculine, not neuter (to agree with spirit, pneuma) — “he will teach you all things.” So, he is distinct from the Father, because the Father sends him, and he’s a teacher when he comes, not just a force or gas.

“The New Testament encourages us to enjoy fellowship with each of the three divine persons of the Trinity.”

The apostle Paul picks up on this very reality of the Spirit as distinct from the Father and a very personal teacher in 1 Corinthians 2:10, 13, where he says, “The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.” What an amazing statement. “The Spirit searches . . . the depths of God. . . . And we impart [things of God] in words . . . taught by the Spirit.” So, Paul is just like Jesus. Paul is picking it up and continuing what Jesus taught. Jesus and Paul treat the Holy Spirit not as an impersonal force or power, but as a person who comes and teaches and indwells believers and who can be related to personally.

Spirit of a Spirit?

Then consider that Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” In other words, God is not material. He’s not physical. He is spirit, which means that when we say that one of the persons of the Trinity is the Spirit of God, we are saying he is the Spirit of a spirit.

Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to say the spirit has a Spirit? We are not saying he’s the image of the spirit or the radiance of the spirit or the logos or word of the spirit, all of which are said about the Son. So, what are we saying when we refer to the Holy Spirit of God, who is himself as Trinity spirit?

Here’s what Jonathan Edwards — who has helped me so much — says: “The word ‘spirit’ in Scripture, when used concerning minds . . . is put for the disposition, inclination, or temper of the mind.” For example, when Ephesians 4:23 says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” it refers to the disposition or temper of your mind. Edwards goes on,

So, I suppose when we read of the Spirit of God, who we are told is a spirit, it is to be understood of the disposition, temper, or affection of the divine mind. . . . Now, the sum of God’s temper or disposition is love, for he is infinite love. (Works of Jonathan Edwards, 21:122)

Now, when he says that, we must resist — as Heather pointed out — the temptation to think of love as a mere force or power rather than a person. Edwards is not denying the personhood of the Holy Spirit when he talks of him as the temper or the disposition or the love of God. Edwards is simply trying to put all the biblical pieces together.

Eternal Love of God

The New Testament doesn’t just come out and tell us in a doctrinal statement, “The Holy Spirit is a person,” or, “The person is the very embodiment of the love of God.” It doesn’t say that. The various statements of the New Testament point in this direction. But you have to put the pieces together, which means we need to be careful — oh, how careful — lest we go off the rails and become heretics. I think all of our human efforts — I’d say this in general now about Edwards, myself, or anybody else — to conceptualize the relationships within the Trinity need to confess that we see through a glass darkly until we know even as we are known (1 Corinthians 13:12), which means, “Be careful.”

“The Spirit, in his essence, is God’s joyful love, loving joy in person.”

Now, here’s another pointer to the question that Heather’s concerned about. First John 4:12–13 points to the Holy Spirit as the love of God in us. Here’s what it says: “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” So, if you put all that together, God in us, his love in us, his Spirit in us, all seem to point to the fact that the way the love of God abides in us is by his Spirit. That is his disposition, his temper. That is his love in person, abiding in us by the person of the Holy Spirit.

Eternal Joy of God

Now, the piece that remains to be added for Heather’s question is joy. This is added by pondering that the love that God is from all eternity is not a sacrificial love between the Father and the Son. They are infinitely beautiful, infinitely worthy of each other’s love, which means that they delight in each other infinitely. That’s what their love is.

“This is my beloved Son, with whom I am [totally delighted]” — that’s my paraphrase of “well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). To say that the love of the Father and the Son for each other is embodied in the Spirit is to say that the Spirit, in his essence, is God’s joyful love, loving joy in person, because God’s loving from eternity has been his enjoying from eternity. That’s how the persons of the Godhead have related to each other. They’re not disappointed; they don’t have to overcome any obstacles to delight in each other.

So, when Jesus says, “My joy I give to you” (see John 15:11), or when he says, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21), he is welcoming us into the fullest experience of the Son’s love for the Father. It seems right, then, to say this is experienced by being filled with the Holy Spirit, who is the very person who is the love of God and the joy of God. Paul speaks in 1 Thessalonians 1:6 of “the joy of the Holy Spirit,” the joy that the Holy Spirit gives by coming himself to live in us as the very love and joy of God.

I pray that God would help you, Heather, and all of us, as we humbly and carefully try to faithfully put the pieces of God’s precious word together.