The past two weeks, we’ve looked at two reasons for the Second Coming. This week, we look at the final purpose: the vindication of His name. Revelation 1:7–8 says:
“BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’”
John finishes verse 7 by saying, “So it is to be. Amen.” This is John’s response, and ultimately it’s every believer’s response, to the return of Christ. It combines the Greek affirmation, translated here as “So it is to be,” with the Hebrew affirmation, “Amen,” let it be. As John thinks about that day when Christ will return, he says, let it come.
To be sure, John is not—and Christians are not to be—vindictive towards those that Christ will destroy at His Second Coming. John is actually celebrating the justice of God because sin and rebellion must be punished. We understand that very reality. We cringe when justice isn’t done, when someone who’s committed a horrific crime isn’t properly punished. And even though our hearts break for the person who has been found guilty, humans celebrate the justice and the vindication of the victims. That’s what John is expressing here.
He’s celebrating the justice of God. And he’s celebrating the vindication of God and His people.
Speaking of Christians in the first century, Leon Morris writes, “The name of their God is reviled and their cause is despised, but this is not final. John records the overthrow of the wicked and the vindication of God and of good. And this he does not as a mildly interested spectator. He is wholeheartedly committed to the cause of God and he is eager that that cause be seen to prosper. So he does not simply record that the wicked will, in fact, be overthrown. Their overthrow means the triumph of good and the vindication of Christians who have suffered so much. John exults in it.”
Jesus is coming to vindicate His own name—we must understand that reality. Scripture teaches that Christ will return on an appointed day in the future. And He will do so at the command of His Father, because the Father intends to vindicate His name.