In connexion with thoughts like these, we see the peculiar propriety of that declaration as to Himself and His purposes next made by the Redeemer: _Behold, I come quickly._ He comes to wind up the history of the present dispensation. _And My reward is with Me, to render to each man according as his work is._ He comes to bestow "reward"[595] upon His own; and there is no mention of judgment, because for those who are to be rewarded judgment is past and gone. _I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end_, the words again taking us back to the language of the Prologue,[596] upon which follows a blessing for such as _wash their robes_, for those otherwise described in the Prologue as "loosed from their sins in His blood,"[597] and in chap. vii. 14 as having "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." These _have the right to come to the tree of life, and they enter in by the gates into the city_. A different order might have been expected, for the tree of life grows within the city, and it is the happy inhabitants of the city who eat its fruits. But this is the blessed paradox of faith. It is difficult to say which privilege enjoyed by the believer comes first, and which comes second. Rather may all that he enjoys be looked on as given at once, for the great gift to him is Christ Himself, and in Him everything is included. He is the gate of the city, and as such the way to the tree of life; He is the tree of life, and they who partake of Him have a right to enter into the city and dwell there. Why ask, Which comes first? At one moment we may think that it is one blessing, at another that it is another. The true description of our state is that we are "in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."[598] To enhance our estimate of the happiness of those who are within the city, there comes next a description of those who are without. They are first denoted by the general term _the dogs_, that animal, as we learn from many passages of Scripture, being to the Jew the emblem of all that was wild, unregulated, unclean, and offensive.[599] Then the general term is subdivided into various classes; and all of them are _without_, not put out. They were put out when judgment fell upon them. Now they _are_ without; and the door once open to them "is shut."[600] The last words follow:-- I Jesus have sent Mine angel to testify unto you these things for the Churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright, the morning star.