This phrase had already occurred in Revelation 1:3. Time, we need to know, is an aspect of God’s created world and so under the Lord’s dominion. Time moves as fast as he allows, and he determines what happens in a given moment of time. In connection with the word near,
the phrase refers to the Day of the Lord, the time when he will appear. So the phrase demands preparedness to meet the sovereign Lord. In its present setting, the phrase instructs John to share this revelation and at the same time urges its recipients to take its content seriously precisely because the day of its fulfillment is around the corner.
10 And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.