God and the Lamb are the Sanctuary

In the Old Testament time God’s people prepared a Tabernacle and later a Temple as God’s dwelling place on earth. In the New Testament time these physical buildings were replaced by God’s people themselves who are the Body of Christ. Second Corinthians 6:16 declares “we are the temple of the living God,” and similar words are in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and Ephesians 2:21.

Concerning New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:22 declares, “the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” Commentator Richard Lenski wrote about this verse:

Now, after the earth is new [Rev. 21:1] and is united to God’s heaven, the eternal union, which the Sanctuary [Temple] once represented, is effected. Now the Lord God, the Almighty, is this city’s Sanctuary, he and the Lamb. The eternal union is immediate, absolutely complete. God and the Lamb are not a Sanctuary in the center of this city, to which those in the city must go in order to commune with them. The whole city is the Sanctuary, the whole city filled with the glorious Presence, God and the Lamb are the Sanctuary, we are in union with them, a union to which nothing can be added in all eternity.*

Our union with God and he Lamb began from the death and resurrection of Jesus as He spoke in John 14 and 15. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (14:23). “Abide in Me and I in you” (15:4). This mutual abiding will continue much richer and stronger into New Jerusalem.

* R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Revelation, The Augsburg Publishing House, Minnesota © 1943, digitized by the Internet Archive (2025), https://archive.org, p. 643.

Posted by Don on August 28, 2026

https://newjerusalem12.wordpress.com/2026/08/28/god-and-the-lamb-are-the-sanctuary/