Greetings and salutations.

Welcome to Life and Books and Everything.

This is Kevin DeYoung.

Today I'm reading a brief devotion.

I wrote for By Faith.

That's the magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America.

They are running a series of devotionals in celebration of the PCA's 50th anniversary,

and I was able to write one recently here at the beginning of February, and here it is. Revelation 22, 18 through 19.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them,

God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away the words

of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book, Revelation 22, 18, and 19.

This injunction comes from Deuteronomy, chapter 4, chapter 12, see also chapter 18, and is typical of covenantal formulas.

At the close of ancient covenants,

after the stipulations had been laid down and the blessings and curses enumerated, there was often a warning against tampering with the covenant. The admonition was meant to underscore the

sanctity of the text and the severity of judgment that would befall anyone who would dare to alter in the

slightest what had been written down. The fact that Revelation closes with this formula suggests

that John understood that as the last living apostle, his writing marked the end of an era.

Well, he may not have known he was writing the last book of the Bible or even thought

in those exact terms. He certainly could have known that the time for writing new covenant documents

was closing, and thus it was necessary to apply the same covenantal warning found in Moses to his own

letter. Most immediately, John was warning against tampering with anything in the letter he had just

written. More broadly, however, he was providing a fitting conclusion to the whole Bible.

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