22.2 Worship: We Will Worship the Lamb of Glory

Table of Contents

The Text

Revelation 5:8-14 (CSB) When he took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and golden bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song:

You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slaughtered,
and you purchased people
for God by your blood
from every tribe and language
and people and nation.
You made them a kingdom
and priests to our God,
and they will reign on the earth.

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and also of the living creatures and of the elders. Their number was countless thousands, plus thousands of thousands. They said with a loud voice,

Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered
to receive power and riches
and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and blessing!

I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say,

Blessing and honor and glory and power
be to the one seated on the throne,
and to the Lamb, forever and ever!

The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

The Chapter

Religious worship is to be given to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to him alone; not to angels, saints, or any other creatures; and since the fall, not without a mediator, nor in the mediation of any other but Christ alone.

The Confession

Matthew 4:9–10 (CSB) And he said to him, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus told him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

John 6:23 (CSB) Some boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks.

Matthew 28:19 (CSB) Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Romans 1:25 (CSB) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

Colossians 2:18 (CSB) Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind.

Revelation 19:10 (CSB) Then I fell at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who hold firmly to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

John 14:6 (CSB) Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

1 Timothy 2:5 (CSB) For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus,

First and foremost, we are to worship the Triune God by and of and through the begotten Son of God, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ Our Savior. There is no other name by which we are saved. There is no other name that we have free and untethered access the Father. There is no other way to worship God without Christ. To do so without Christ is all in vain.

How do we know that our way to the Father is only through the Christ? Look at the first encounter of the first worshipper of our Risen Christ:

John 20:11–18 (CSB)
11 But Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. As she was crying, she stooped to look into the tomb.

12 She saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus’s body had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.

13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “Because they’ve taken away my Lord,” she told them, “and I don’t know where they’ve put him.”

14 Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know it was Jesus.

15 “Woman,” Jesus said to her, “why are you crying? Who is it that you’re seeking?” Supposing he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you’ve carried him away, tell me where you’ve put him, and I will take him away.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” Turning around, she said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!”—which means “Teacher.”

17 “Don’t cling to me,” Jesus told her, “since I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them what he had said to her.

Go and tell them, Mary. Proclaim this good news: that Christ have completely bridged all of eternity. The gap between us and God was infinite. We know this because we felt this gaping hole that is in our hearts and we continually try to fill it with everything but God. We build towers. We build grand gatherings. We carve our own idols. We turn to our own lusts. And we are left in despair. The gap was infinitely wide and we are so finite because we are created creatures broken and marred by sin.

Titus 3:3–5 (CSB) For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Christ is the Infinite God that bridges the infinite gap between finite sinners and the Infinite Father sealed by the Infinite Spirit. Christ alone is the mediator between the children of God and God our Father.

That is why whatever we do, whatever and however we glorify God, it is always in the strongest name of the Son of God. And his name is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.