14 “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”
Since the beginning, God has caused His presence to be known. From the Garden, to indwelling the Tabernacle, to Solomon’s Temple, and to the Second Temple, God has lived among His people. The New Testament continues the itinerary, opening at the end of the Second Temple period with the birth of Christ, Who is the Temple of God. One is destroyed, the other crucified. With the resurrection of Christ, the church has become the temple of God. The Church, those who follow Christ, will continue to be the temple of God, olam, forever. The New Testament concludes with the destruction of all that exists. Still God’s people will be the Temple.
God is Zealous for His Temple. The Temple is corrupt when people act outside the laws given to Moses on Mount Sinai, summed up in Luke “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”10:27 The one time Jesus is portrayed as angry, it was related to a failure of both.
For many God is identified primarily with wrath. The truth is, God wants to be present with us but disobedience and corruption generate wrath and separation. One day, the wrath of God, reaching its height, will be poured out on the earth, leading to its destruction. We have the records of the destruction of Solomon’s temple, of the Second Temple, and the crucifixion of Christ. In the Future we will see the destruction of the earth and all else that exist.
Separation from God is Death, yet God created us for life. Failing to love God and neighbor separates us from God. Sacrifice may seem abhorrent to the sensibilities of a modern world, so crude and messy. Under the Mosaic Covenant, shed blood created a temporarily atonement for God’s people. This Changed with Jesus, who became the Passover Lamb, dying, that death would pass us by forever. The veil, separtating Gbecame attentive od’s people from His presence, in the Second Temple, was torn in two after the death of Christ, signifying that the veil between humanity and the presence of God was abolished. The way to God’s presence became permanently available through the flesh of Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Christ.
This overview is the result of considerng Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the Second Temple. Parallels with the destruction “of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns”7 and the money changers in the second temple will be expanded under future links
14 “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”