Underestimating the Curse of Revelation 22:19

“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Rev. 22:19

This post begins from the perspective of leaving the application of Revelation 22:19 up to the Author of the curse. What exactly must transpire to receive its damning application falls to the Judge of all the earth. Genesis 18:25, “That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” Rather than being weigh laid with the application we shall simply say that the curse is valid and applicable to those God deems to have corrupted the inviolability of His Word.

Allestree makes an interesting observation on this passage. Some might argue that the curse applies only to the Book of Revelation, which of course, it must. John’s vision closes with these specific words. But Allestree sees the curse within a canonical context, thus heightening its severity. The Book of Revelation does not stand isolated from inspired Scripture but by inspiration becomes part of the collective, “All Scripture,” 2 Tim. 3:16 and “Every word” of Prov. 30:5. He writes,

“If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, says Saint John, Revel. 22:19, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Like, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this Book. What vengeance therefore awaits those, who have taken away not only from one Book, but at one of the Books themselves, even all the Scriptures, the whole word of God?”[1]

The “vengeance” of God’s curse, as Allestree puts it, is magnified 66-fold when Revelation is considered canonically. Certainly, the curse would be eternally damning if a single book of Scripture were corrupted, but by the corrupting of one, sixty-five other canonical texts the whole of inspired Scripture were corrupted, how much more severe the vengeance of God. Allestree, with his Reformation era colleagues, recognizes Scripture as the authentic word of God not to bifurcate or expand. And this authentic inspired word has divinely set linguistic boundaries that are so certain that the moving of these linguistic boundaries by expansion or contraction results in a soul’s eternal damnation. It would be severe enough if applicable only to a single book of Scripture, but as part of the whole, the corruption of the text carries an intensified, eternally damning penalty.

I suppose, if you do not believe that Scripture has linguistic boundaries, this post sounds like more pre-critical drivel. But then again, if pre-critical analytics of the passage are indeed correct, have the scholars whose business it is to manipulate Scripture entered a precarious realm of God’s eternal vengeance for the sake of a few bucks and professional recognition? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

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[1] Richard Allestree, The Lively Oracles Given to us or The Christian’s Birth-right and Duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the Author of the Whole Duty of Man (At the Theater in Oxford, 1678), 178-79.