Revelation 22:20

He who testifieth these things saith, Yea: I come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus.

In this terse statement, "Christ sums up the book."[92] This also has the utility of revealing Christ as the author of the two previous verses. They are Christ's words, not even John's, much less the words of some nameless scribe.

Yea; I come quickly. Amen: come, Lord Jesus ... See under Revelation 22:17 for further discussion of the use of these expressions in the New Testament church. As Caird summed it up:

No one who has ever read John's book can have any doubt about what the prayer is asking. It is a prayer that Christ will come again to win in the faith of his servants the victory which is both Calvary and Armageddon.[93]

Caird also pointed out the responsive nature of this verse, indicating "its standing in the liturgical setting of the eucharist, answered by the eucharistic prayer maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22)."[94] Beckwith also identified these last words with the maranatha of 1 Corinthians 16:22.[95] See under Revelation 22:17 for the mystical double meaning of this expression. Any argument from this that the early Christians expected the literal return of Christ in their generation is absolutely untenable. Many scholars do not understand how the church of all ages prays, "Oh, Lord come," without any sense of failure due to his not having come in his Second Advent, even yet; but the answer is right here in the double meaning of this passage.

As Criswell said:

It is hard for us finite creatures of the dust and of time to realize, that there is no such thing as "time" with God. He sees the beginning; he sees the end; he sees the present; and all are alike to him. Even to us the coming of the Lord "is near," as near as the length of our life away.[96]

[92] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 1092.

[93] G. B. Caird, op. cit., p. 288.

[94] Ibid.

[95] Isbon T. Beckwith, op. cit., p. 780.

[96] W. A. Criswell, op. cit., IV, p. 180.