Revelation 22:3-4 And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:… "No curse any more" — thus the last chapters of the Bible are in complete antithesis to the first. I. God, as Creator and Redeemer, is the very ground and fount of all Our existence, and in that PERFECT LIFE OF THE HEREAFTER it must be yet more manifestly true that "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). 1. "The throne of God shall be in it" — as indicating the absolute supremacy of God. "The Lord reigneth" now, but His reign is largely a reign of suspension, of waiting, of patience. If He does not crush and destroy His enemies, it is that He is "not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9); and if He does not immediately deliver His servants from all the seeming evil of life, it is because they need the discipline of pain and conflict, that they may be truly fitted for the perfect life. But to that life He will surely lead them; and even here we see a progress towards that consummation, as regards both the subdual of evil and the deliverance and victory of the good. 2. "The throne of God and of the Lamb" — as indicating that the supremacy shall be a supremacy of love. The people of God are familiarly known, in the Old and New Testaments alike, as God's flock; and how significant, then, that the Shepherd of the sheep should be spoken of as a Lamb — a Lamb of the flock of God — one of themselves, sharing their nature, and living their life! II. THE RELATION TO THIS REDEEMING GOD OF THE REDEEMED PEOPLE is set forth under three aspects — service, vision, likeness. 1. "His servants shall do Him service." The true idea of rest, not only does not exclude, but demands service, providing there be adequate motive, scope, and strength. And in that life the motive shall be the noblest, the scope amplest, and the strength untiring. How this thought ennobles, by anticipation, the proper training of our faculties here! 2. "They shall see His face." As here, so there, there shall be an alternation of working and beholding, of service and of fellowship. Our thought must be evermore replenished from His thought, our affection from His affection, our strength from His strength. Thus the ideal shall be ever growing in our soul, that we may act with growing intensity and success on the real — in that realm, as in this, achieving victory and laying hold of life. 3. "His name shall be on their foreheads." Such shall be the resultant alike of vision and of service. Thus, by taking in and giving out, by beholding and serving, shall we become for ever like the God we love. (T. F. Lockyer, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: |
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