Revelation 22:6; The Lord God of the Holy Prophets

Revelation 22:6 (KJV)  And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. 

The special function of a revelation angel does not receive explicit mention until Revelation 17:1.

Revelation 17:1 (KJV)  And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters: 

The words “and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done” are a direct reference to Revelation 1:1 and the purpose of the whole book in a clock of revealed certainty.

More specifically, the verbal agreement of “the things which must shortly be done” with the identical expression of Revelation 1:1 shows that this verse begins the conclusion of the whole book (Lee). The content of the seven-sealed scroll in chapter 5 have now been exhausted. The seventh seal, seventh trumpet, and the seventh bowl have concluded, and “the mystery of God” (Revelation 10:7) has reached its climax.

Revelation 1:1 (KJV)  The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: 

Revelation 10:7 (KJV)  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. 

The miseries and conflicts described in the book will begin shortly (Hailey). The problem represented by the predicated nearness of the consummation “which must shortly be done” was a subject of consideration in Revelation 1:1. One should not divert attention away from the imminence of these events by suggesting that God is more interested in the fulfilment of His redemptive purposes in the present than in satisfying our viewpoint on timing (contra Mounce) or by thinking of Jesus’ coming as occurring at a crisis in the life of an individual – particularly his death – or at a time when the state makes an totalitarian demands that a Christian cannot follow (contra Ladd and Mounce). It is also wrong to state that imminence is a moral rather than a chronological Christian doctrine. To be sure, it carries a moral mandate with it, but the fact that God has not furnished an infallible timetable for Christ’s return should not eliminate the attitude of the urgent expectation that has characterised the church throughout the centuries of her history (Mounce).

[Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8-22 – An Exegetical Commentary, Moody, 1995, 496-497]