/The Ultimate Issue of the Universe

The Setting and Background of the Issue

Matthew 4:8-10; 1 Corinthians 15:28; Revelation 21:22; 22:3

"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."

"...That God may be all in all."

"...The Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof."

These closing words of the New Testament in the book of the Revelation, from which we have read the small fragment, contain those factors which sum up the spiritual history of this universe. It is helpful and instructive to go right to the end of things as we have them in the Word of God, and just to note what the end is, to see what is the last word in it all. There is a sense in which Revelation 21 is a final utterance. There will be other things said before the book closes, but up to this everything, the history of this universe, has been heading right through the ages. And how does it terminate, what is the end of it all? As I have said, in a sense, it is this - "I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof." This contains the great factors in summing up spiritual history. First, the Lord God the Almighty; second, the Lamb; and in connection with that the third thing is said - "no more curse" (Revelation 22:3-1, 2), the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb, are, as you note, linked into the Temple, they ARE the temple. The Lamb and the curse are connected in that they signify the challenge to the Lord God the Almighty, and its answer. The curse suggests the entering in of something which was a challenge to God's place of unreserved Lordship; the Lamb is the answer to that challenge. So we have these three factors here which lie back of this long and terrible history.

By the way, there is a finality here in the  matter of interpretation. It is that the spiritual is the right and the essential interpretation, not the temporal or the sentient. So far as the Temple is concerned, ultimately it turns out to be God and the Lamb. You have reached finality in the whole history of temples and lambs, sacrifices, priesthood and every such thing. When all is said, and all is done, and all that could be seen through history is passed, it all turns out to be a spiritual matter. This temple matter, what is it all about? This Lamb matter, what is it all about? It is God the Almighty and the Lamb. With what has it got to do? - a curse, a challenge, a false thing entering into God's universe which has to be eliminated in order that actually, not only positionally, but actually, God may be all in all.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 2 - (Worship - The Ultimate Issue)