Surely
I Come Quickly
Why
"quickly" describes how Jesus is coming, not when He will come.
By Rusty
Entrekin*
The Greek word translated
"quickly" in Rev 22:20, quoted in the title above, is the adverb tachu (Greek tachu).
According to Thayer, it means "quickly, speedily (without delay)." The
word occurs thirteen times in the NT. Twelve times it is translated
"quickly". Once is it translated "lightly."
Here are all of the occurrences of tachu
outside of the book of Revelation.
Matthew 5:25 "Agree with your adversary
quickly, while you are on the
way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge
hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.
Matthew 28:7 "And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen
from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there
you will see Him. Behold, I have told you."
Matthew 28:8 So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great
joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.
Mark 9:39 But Jesus said, "Forbid him not: for there is no man which
shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me." [Some
translations render tachu
"soon" here, but that is an interpretative translation, and I believe
it is a mistaken one as well. I will explain why below.]
Mark 16:8 So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they
trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they
were afraid.
John 11:29 As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to Him.
In each of these instances, note how this adverb denotes quick, sudden
action. Take just a moment and substitute the word "soon" for "quickly"
in the verses above. In all these instances, "soon" does not fit the
sentence as well as "quickly" does, because swift action is being
described rather than action sometime in the near but indeterminate
future.
Mark 9:39 may seem to be an exception, but it actually is not, because
even here tachu conveys the
idea of speaking too quickly, without weighing one's words
first. This
verse also demonstrates that tachu
can be used to describe a swift action which takes place after a period
of time has gone by.
Recently, a friend objected to this observation by saying, "In none of
the these verses does the writer mean that the action will take place
suddenly 2000 years from now."
That is true, but it is an irrelevant and misleading objection, for
several reasons:
1) In Matthew 28:8, Mark 16:8, and
11:28, the biblical writers are
describing past events, not events that will occur in the future.
2) In Matthew 28:7, "go quickly" is an imperative command that is
obviously meant to be obeyed immediately.
3) Matthew 5:25 demonstrates just how misleading the above objection
is. Here, Jesus commands "Agree with your adversary quickly while you
are on the way with him." Who knows how much time may pass before you
find yourself in a situation like this? Ten, twenty, thirty years or
more? The idea behind this is to agree with an adversary quickly and
immediately when you find yourself in this situation.
4) In Mark 9:39 Jesus said, "there is no man which shall do a miracle
in my name that can lightly speak evil of me." A long period of time
might go by after a man has done a miracle in Jesus' name. But that man
still will not be able to hastily speak evil of Jesus. He will hesitate
and check himself before saying such a thing, because he has seen the
power of God displayed in the name of Jesus.
And so we see that when tachu
is used, it does not necessarily mean that the action takes place right
away, or even that the action will take place in the near future.
Rather, it simply describes the speed and suddeness of an action once
it has been initiated.This implies nearness in time only after the
action has begun. As we are about to see, the first two uses of the
adverb tachu in the book of
Revelation illustrate this very well.
The Uses of the Adverb tachu
in Revelation
There are seven uses of the adverb tachu
in the book of Revelation. Six of these regard Christ's coming:
Revelation 2:5 remember, then, whence
thou hast fallen, and reform, and
the first works do; and if not, I come to thee quickly, and will remove
thy lamp-stand from its place - if thou mayest not reform; (YLT)
Revelation 2:16 Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will
fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
Note that in both of the above two verses, Jesus offers the offending
churches time to repent. The idea here is that if they do not repent
now, they will not have time to repent when He comes, because when He
comes in judgment on churches and individuals, He comes quickly and
suddenly.
Now let's look at the other instances of tachu in the book of Revelation.
There is no reason to believe that Jesus is speaking differently in
these verses than he did in the two above.
Revelation 3:11 Behold, I come quickly;
hold fast that which thou hast,
that no man take thy crown.
Revelation 22:7 "Behold, I come quickly." Blessed is he that keepeth
the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
Revelation 22:12 "And behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me,
to give to every man according as his work shall be.
Revelation 22:20 He that testifieth these things saith, "Surely I come
quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
The other use of tachu
regards the coming of the third woe:
Revelation 11:14 The second woe is
past; and behold, the third woe
cometh quickly.
Significantly, in every one of these seven instances, the verb
translated "come" (erchomai) is in the present indicative tense, not in
the future tense. So how should we take Jesus' words in the
first six
verses above? Curtis Vaugnhan and Virtus Gideon, in A Greek Grammar of
the New Testament, state that there are four regular, and four special
uses of the present indicative in Greek ( page 136). Let's look
at
these to see which one fits best, along with some scriptural examples
of these uses which Vaughan and Gideon give.
The most common of these, the descriptive, describes an act in
progress. Did Jesus mean that He was already in the process of coming?
Since tachu conveys the
meaning of sudden, swift action once it occurs, even the preterist
notion of Jesus coming one to five years after the writing of
Revelation is too slow to fit this idea.
The durative use, which describes ongoing, continual action, also does
not seem to fit here either.
The gnomic use could fit. It describes a general or timeless truth,
such as "Every house is built by someone." (Heb 3:4)
The iterative use could also fit. It describes something which occurs
at successive intervals: "I die daily." ( I Cor. 15:31). Both the
gnomic and the iterative uses would reflect our Lord's
frequent, unseen
comings in judgment of nations and individuals. Two of the six "coming"
statements in the book of Revelation are indeed individual applications
of the idea that He comes swiftly to persons and churches with
chastisements:
Revelation 2:5 remember, then, whence thou hast fallen, and reform, and
the first works do; and if not, I come to thee quickly, and will remove
thy lamp-stand from its place- if thou mayest not reform; (YLT)
Revelation 2:16 Repent, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will
fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
However, although these verses do establish the fact that there are
individual comings of our Lord, since Jesus uses the words "to thee"
and "unto thee" in the above two verses, the form of the present tense
used here is probably the special use of the present indicative called
the futuristic present. An example of the futuristic present is "If I
go away, I am coming again and will receive you to myself." (John
14:3). We use the futuristic present in English, also: "The President
is coming to Atlanta."
The other three special uses of the present tense, the historical
(describing a past event), the perfective (a completed event), and the
conative (an act contemplated or attempted), do not fit at all. And so
the futuristic present is the best fit.
Note that in John 14:3, when Jesus used the futuristic present to say,
"If I go away, I am coming again and will receive you to myself," He
did not mean that He was currently in the process of coming. Rather, he
simply meant that the event was going to happen in the future. And so
it is erroneous to claim that our Lord's use of the futuristic present
in the verses above indicates that He was already in the process of
coming quickly, in the sense of "soon." Obviously, since He stated that
He is coming quickly, His coming would have occurred immediately if
that was His meaning.
Rather, since the adverb tachu
indicates swift, sudden action, Jesus must be describing how He is
coming, rather than when He will come.
The futuristic present conveys the idea of imminence. When we speak of
the "imminent" collapse of communism, we mean that it is bound and
certain to happen, and that this sure and certain expectation looms
over communist dictatorships.
Are there other passages in scripture that support this idea of Jesus
returning swiftly rather than soon? Yes. There are many passages
that indicate that Jesus will return suddenly:
Matthew 24:27 For as the lightning
cometh out of the east and shineth
even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
{Note that here the coming of Jesus is likened to the coming of
lightning.}
Matthew 24:42 "Watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord
doth come.
Matthew 25:13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour
wherein the Son of Man cometh.
Mark 13:33-37 "Take ye heed, watch and pray; for ye know not when the
time is. For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left
his house and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his
work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch ye therefore, for ye
know not when the Master of the house comethat evening, or at
midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning lest coming
suddenly, He find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto
all: Watch!"
Luke 12:35-39 Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning.
And you yourselves be like men who wait for their lord, whenever he
shall return from the wedding, so that when he comes and knocks, they
may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord
will find watching when he comes. Truly I say to you that he shall gird
himself and make them recline; and coming up he will serve them. And if
he comes in the second watch, or comes in the third watch, and find it
so, blessed are those servants. And know this, that if the master of
the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have
watched and would not have allowed his house to be dug through.
Luke 12:46 the lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh
not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him
asunder and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
Luke 17:31 In that Day, he that shall be upon the housetop and his
goods in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And he
that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
Luke 18:8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless
when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?"
Luke 21:36 Watch therefore, praying in every season that you may be
counted worthy to escape all these things which shall occur, and to
stand before the Son of man.
1 Thessalonians 5:2-4 For you yourselves know perfectly that the Day of
the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they are saying,
"Peace and safety," then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail
upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren,
are not in darkness, that that Day should overtake you as a thief.
1 Thessalonians 5:6 Therefore let us not sleep as the rest do, but let
us watch and be calm.
Revelation 3:3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard; and
hold fast and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on
thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon
thee.
Revelation 16:15 "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that
watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his
shame."
There are also many verses which indicate that it will be a long time,
from a human perspective, until Jesus returns. Jonathan Edwards wrote:
"Christ often speaks of his last coming, as that which would be long
delayed." The idea of Jesus returning swiftly or suddenly rather than
"soon" better harmonizes with these passages:
Matthew 24:48 But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My
lord delayeth his coming;
Matthew 25:5 While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
Matthew 25:19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and
reckoneth with them.
Mark 13:34 For the Son Of Man is as a man taking a long journey, who
left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man
his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
Luke 12:39 And this know, that if the master of the house had known
what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not have
suffered his house to be broken into.
Luke 17:22 And He said unto the disciples, "The days will come when ye
shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not
see it.
Luke 18:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, who cry day and night
to him, though he beareth long with them?
Luke 20:9 Then he began to speak to the people this parable; A certain
man planted a vineyard, and let it out to vinedressers, and went into a
far country for a long time.
Luke 21:24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be
led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down
by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of
this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that
blindness in part hath happened to Israel, until the fulness of the
Gentiles shall be come in.
Hebrews 10:36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done
the will of God, ye may receive the promise.
James 5:7 Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the farmer waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and
hath long patience for it, until he receiveth the early and the latter
rain.
2 Peter 3:8-9 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that
with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as
one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men
count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Revelation 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O
Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them
that dwell on the earth?
The Uses of the Noun tachos
in Revelation
Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich list the following definitions for tachos:
"speed, quickness, swiftness, haste" (p. 814). The noun tachos occurs
twice in the book of Revelation. Green's Literal Translation
translates
these two verses accordingly:
Revelation 1:11a A Revelation of Jesus
Christ, which God gave to Him to
show to His slaves things which must occur quickly.
Revelation 22:6 And he said to me, These words are faithful and true.
And the Lord God of the holy prophets sent His angel to show His slaves
what must happen quickly.
Young's Literal Translation also translates tachos as "quickly" in
these two verses.
Thomas Ice writes regarding these two occurrences of tachos:
The two times that this noun appears in Revelation (1:1; 22:6), it is
coupled with the preposition en, causing this phrase to function
grammatically as an adverb revealing to us the "sudden" manner in which
these events will take place. They will occur "swiftly."
The tense of "occur" and "happen" in both of these verses is aorist.
This tense, according to Moulton, presents "an event as a single whole,
without regarding the time taken during its accomplishment."
(Introduction to the Study of New Testament Greek, page 190).
But combined with en tachei,
the literal sense is "things
which must
occur in speed" in Rev 1:1, and "what must happen in speed" in Rev 22:6.
There is a passage in Luke which demonstrates that "in speed" is the
natural meaning of en tachei
rather than "soon":
Luke 18:7 And shall not God avenge His
own elect, who cry day and night
unto Him, though He bear long with them?
Luke 18:8 I tell you that He will avenge them speedily {Greek: en tachei}. Nevertheless when the
Son of Man cometh, shall
He find faith
on the earth?"
According to Robertson, "long" in verse seven indicates God's
forbearance with the wicked:
God delays taking vengeance on behalf of his people, not through
indifference, but through patient forbearance. {Robertson's
Word
Pictures}
And so the word "long" indicates that en
tachei cannot
mean "soon"
here. Instead, it must mean "in speed." This passage proves that en tachei is indeed used in the NT
to describe a sudden,
speedy action
that occurs after a long time period.
There are only four other occurrences of en tachei in the
NT. Try
substituting the word "soon" in the following verses that use en
táchei:
Acts 12:7 and lo, a messenger of the
Lord stood by, and a light shone
in the buildings, and having smitten Peter on the side, he raised him
up, saying, 'Rise in haste,' and his chains fell from
off his hands.
Acts 22:18 and I saw him saying to me, Haste and go forth in haste out
of Jerusalem, because they will not receive thy testimony concerning me;
"Soon" does not fit in any of these verses!
The word "soon" could be substituted in the remaining two verses, but
this does not mean that it should be. Rather, given the fact that it
would not fit at all in all of the other instances, it probably should
not be translated that way:
Acts 25:4 Then, indeed, Festus answered
that Paul is kept in Caesarea,
and himself is about speedily to go on thither, (YLT)
Romans 16:20 and the God of the peace shall bruise the Adversary under
your feet quickly; the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Amen! (YLT)
And so it seems much more likely that the words en tachei
in Rev 1:1
and 22:6 refer to how the events described in Revelation will take
place rather than when they will take place.
If we take Rev 1:1 and 22:6 to mean that all of the things in the book
of Revelation will take place "soon", then this causes problems for the
full preterist view, because under it, all of the events in the
millennium must be compressed into the 1-5 years full preterists claim
occurred between the writing of the book of Revelation and it's
supposed complete fulfillment in 70 AD. Rather, the correct sense seems
to be that some of the things in the book will take place "in haste."
In Conclusion
To summarize, the preponderance of NT Greek usage leads us to believe
that the adverb tachu,
combined with the verb "come" in the present tense, describes how Jesus
is coming rather than when He will come. Likewise, the related noun,
tachos, indicates the manner
in which the events of Revelation will
happen, rather than the time when they will transpire.
* From a post on TheologyWeb, by Rusty Entrekin (www.thingstocome.org)