And I saw no temple therein. For the Lord God Almighty is the temple thereof, and the Lamb.
και ναον ουκ ειδον εν αυτη ο γαρ κυριος ο θεος ο παντοκρατωρ ναος αυτης εστιν και το αρνιον
7 Church Fathers comment on this verse · 8 commentaries
There is no need of a temple for the city that has God as its shelter and protection, in whom we live and move and have our being. For according to the promise, He is both the temple of the saints and the One who dwells in them, as He lives and walks in them (2 Cor 6:16). The Lamb signifies the Lamb of God, slain for us, with whom the Life-giving Spirit is essentially united, and who is presented below under the image of the river.
Thus a temple was built by God so that men gathered within the temple precinct might glorify Him whom neither the world nor a temple can contain. Since God is invisible, minds might apprehend Him through the action of faith. But where He reveals Himself to the faithful, no temple is needed, nor is there one, because He who sanctifies the temple is known by all face to face.
For what use is a temple when God is present and, in some manner, dwells together with the saints, and when He can be beheld as far as this is attainable? The divine apostle called the present knowledge of God “as through a dim glass, in riddles,” and the future knowledge “face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). Someone may rightly ask why God Almighty is mentioned here, that is, the Father of the Lord and of the Lamb, the Son of God, but not the Holy Spirit. To this one must answer: beloved, by saying “Lord and God” he has named the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, for this is God. By adding “the Lord God Almighty,” he designates the Most Holy Trinity through three names.
Someone will also ask this: after mentioning the much-honored Trinity in the words, “the Lord God Almighty is its temple,” why does John especially mention for us the Lamb, who is Christ? Does this mean that we no longer think of the Trinity? Let it not be so, one may answer. We have not been taught this, but rather that, when both the Most Holy Trinity and the Lamb are mentioned, the verse signifies that one of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity is the Incarnate One. It also signifies that the Son with His flesh shares in the fullness of the Trinity and is not now without flesh in heaven. For John descriptively designated the incarnate Son by the name of God, who is the Son, and by the name of the Lamb. The Lamb is also Christ Himself incarnate, consubstantial with us and endowed with a rational soul. With this flesh the Word was united according to hypostasis.
As the body consists of separate members, so the temple is composed of precious stones. The author seems unwilling for us, who are attached to material devices, to imagine here anything suggested by fleshly habit. Preventing us from thinking in this way, he says: “But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb.” For the Church, especially after the removal of the tares, rejoices in the elect alone and remains sanctified in God, as though resting in the whole Temple. Thus the Church receives a blessed dwelling place in Him from whom she has the beginning of her existence and has learned the meekness of salvation. Her whole substance is composed of three things: being, knowledge, and love. God created her so that she might be established. Having called her, He enlightened her. Having chosen her, He made her blessed, when in the promised glorification He caused her, perfected, to dwell in Him. She no longer walks by faith, but rejoices before His face.
The souls of the righteous, clothed in glorified bodies, will receive the direct impression of the majesty of God. As the Apostle Paul says, the saints will see God face to face (1 Cor 13:12).
By what features is the inner life of the inhabitants of the heavenly city described? This means that heavenly religion is wholly spiritual and without rites. There the one pure and unveiled truth will be directly received and known by all. There will be no need of a material temple, because worship will be offered directly to the Lord God in the living image of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, the heavenly city needs no illumination, for the glory of God illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb; cf. Isa 60:19. This means that every member of the Church of God in heaven will be wholly embraced by the Spirit of God. Each will be abundantly illumined by the light of the knowledge of God and of the glory of God.
There the vision of the glorified humanity of Jesus Christ will be the source of ineffable joy in His blessed Kingdom. Thirdly, the population of the heavenly city is most diverse and mixed, for all “the saved nations will walk in His light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory and honor into it”; cf. Isa 60:19. That is, all nations converted to Christ, together with their faithful and Christ-loving kings, will be among the blessed inhabitants of the heavenly city. Fourthly, the gates of the heavenly city “will not be shut by day, and there will be no night there”; cf. Isa 60:11. This means that the heavenly Church will feel no need to secure herself against any persecutions or night attacks. Undisturbed peace and complete safety will reign in her. Finally, the seer points out the general inner mark that characteristically distinguishes the heavenly Church from the earthly. In the latter, without violating her general holiness, good still lives together with evil, and tares grow together with wheat. But in the heavenly Church only what is good, glorious, and honorable will be gathered together from all nations. All that is evil and sinful, accumulated throughout the whole course of world history, will be separated from there. It will be as though poured into one foul pool, whose impurity will in no way and from nowhere touch the dwelling of the blessed spirits.
As a special and distinguishing feature of the new Jerusalem, the seer indicates that there is no temple in it: “And I saw no temple in it” (Rev 21:22). As though foreseeing that this strangeness would seem too striking and unbelievable, and that people would ask how the city of God can be without the temple of God, he immediately explains why this is so. “For the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb.” It is as though he said this: humanity there is perfected and raised so high that created things do not obstruct or conceal from it the presence of God. There they enter this holy presence directly, having no need of a special holy place representing this presence. There is no need of a temple, because man lives in God and in Christ as in a temple.
In Him Himself, without difficulty, he finds all that we struggle to penetrate through the temple. Even there the created eye does not encompass the uncreated light, and therefore some condescension and tempering of the unapproachable light is needed. This is accomplished there by the revealed light of the God-man Jesus. By His humanity He brings down and tempers the light of the Godhead. By His Godhead He illumines humanity and makes it blessed. “Its lamp is the Lamb.”
We know of one state of humanity in which it needs no temple. This is the state of the new Jerusalem, under the new heaven and on the new earth. Yet this very fact proves the need for a temple in other states, and specifically in the one in which we now find ourselves. As a special and distinguishing feature of the new Jerusalem, the seer indicates that there is no temple in it: “And I saw no temple in it” (Rev 21:22). As though foreseeing that this strangeness would seem too striking and unbelievable, and that people would ask how the city of God can be without the temple of God, he immediately explains why this is so. “For the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb” (Rev 21:22).
It is as though he said this: humanity there is perfected and raised so high that created things do not obstruct or conceal from it the presence of God. There they enter this holy presence directly, having no need of a special holy place representing this presence. There is no need of a temple, because man lives in God and in Christ as in a temple. In Him Himself, without difficulty, he finds all that we struggle to penetrate through the temple. Even there the created eye does not encompass the uncreated light, and therefore some condescension and tempering of the unapproachable light is needed. This is accomplished there by the revealed light of the God-man Jesus. By His humanity He brings down and tempers the light of the Godhead. By His Godhead He illumines humanity and makes it blessed.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 19 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS