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The Lord Jesus receive latreuo (Revelation 22:3)

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  • The Lord Jesus receive latreuo (Revelation 22:3)

    A. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe the Lord Jesus is not God and so therefore should never be worshiped.
    1. Reverent adoration should be expressed only to God. To render worship to anyone or anything else would be a form of idolatry...True Christians do well to direct their worship only to Jehovah God, the Almighty (Awake! April 8, 2000, page 26+27). Since "every prayer is a form of worship" (The Watchtower, December 15, 1994, page 23) this would mean that praying to the Lord Jesus is not allowed.



    B. Revelation 22:3-4
    There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads (Revelation 22:3-4, NASB).

    1. The Greek word for "serve" is "latreuo".

    2. Some that deny the Lord Jesus is God believe that latreuo is never rendered unto the Lord Jesus. It is due only to the Father. For example: However, in the New Testament the word latreuo refers to worship or service that is applied legitimately only to the Father (Acts 24:14)
    http://elijahreturns.hubpages.com/hu...snt-God-Part-2

    3. The evidence demonstrates that both God and the Lamb (the Lord Jesus) receive latreuo in Revelation 22:3.
    a. His servants refers to both God and the Lamb (Revelation 2:20; 7:3).
    b. His face refers to both God and the Lamb (Matthew 5:8; 1 John 3:2).
    c. His name on their foreheads refers to both God and the Lamb (Revelation 14:1).
    d. Is there another passage in Revelation that will demonstrate by its syntax that the Lamb is being referred to when it reads "Him" in Revelation 22:3? Revelation 20:6 reads:
    Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years. (NASB)
    According to verse 4 the "Him" of Revelation 20:6 refers to the Lamb.
    Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. (NASB)
    Revelation 20:6 then lets us know that the Lamb is included as the recipient of latreuo in Revelation 22:3.

    4. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever (Revelation 22:5, NASB).
    a. If someone insists that it is only God since the text reads that the "Lord God will illumine them" then see Revelation 21:23.
    And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 21:23, NASB).

    5. Notice the sending of the angel is attributed to both God and the Lord Jesus:
    And he said to me, "These words are faithful and true"; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show to His bond-servants the things which must soon take place (Revelation 22:6, NASB).
    "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star" (Revelation 22:16, NASB).

    6. There are scholars who agree that both God and the Lamb receive latreuo in this passage.
    a. NIDNTT: One of the gifts of final perfection is that the victors will bear the name of the Lamb (Rev. 3:12; 14:1; 22:4) (2:654, Name, H. Bietenhard).
    b. TDNT: The servants of God bear on their foreheads the seal of God, the name of Christ and God. This protects them against divine judgment, against the apocalyptic plagues, Rev. 7:3; 9:4; 14:1; 22:4 (4:635, metwpon, Carl Schneider).
    c. TDNT: As Victor He is the Lord of lords and King of kings (17:14; 19:16), celebrating His marriage festival with the community (19:9) and ruling His own as partner of the throne of God (22:1, 3) (1:341, arnion, J. Jeremias)
    d. Vine: to God and Christ ( "the Lamb" ), Revelation 22:3 (Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, Serve, page 1021).
    e. Robertson: "Their" (autwn) means the wrath of God and of the Lamb put here on equality as in 22:3 (Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament, Revelation 6:17).
    http://www.studylight.org/com/rwp/view.cgi?bk=65&ch=6
    f. G.K. Beale: That "they will serve him" likely does not refer only to God or only to the Lamb. The two are conceived so much as a unity that the singular pronoun can refer to both. This may find a parallel in 6:17b...possibly in reference to both God and the Lamb (see on 6:17; cf. also 11:15). That both are sitting on only one throne and together form one temple (21:22) enhances their perceived unity (The Book of Revelation, page 1113).
    g. G.R. Beasley-Murray: But observe: his servants serve him. Whose servants, and who is served? God, or the Lamb, or God and the Lamb? It is difficult to interpret the statement in reference to the Lamb alone, who is the immediate antecedent of his. Still more difficult is it to refer to God alone. We must assume, therefore, that the third alternative is correct: God and the Lamb are viewed as a unity in so real a fashion that the singular pronoun alone is suitable to interpret them.#1
    Footnote #1: So Holt, who observes that the same phenomenon is observable in 11:15, 'The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever...' The unity is the reason why the Christ is seated on the throne with God. 'The Christ stands in God's place, without thereby removing God himself to an unapproachable distance; they melt into a unity of function. God's role as Lord over the world and Regent of the end time has at the same time become that of the Christ' (op. cit., pp. 202f) (The Book of Revelation, page 332).
    h. R.T. France: not only is Jesus ('the Lamb') regularly associated with God in His glory and sovereignty (e.g. Rev. 7:14-17; 11:15; 12:10; 14:1, 4; 20:6; 21:22f.; 22:1-4)#29 but worship and praise are offered to Him equally with the Father (Rev. 1:5f.; 5:8-14; 7:9-12; 22:3).
    Footnote #29: Note the remarkable use of singular pronouns to refer to 'God and the Lamb' in 22:3f.; cf. 11:15; 20:6. ("The Worship of Jesus - A Neglected Factor In Christological Debate?", Vox Evangelica 12, c. 1981, pages 19-33 -> This quote is found on page 30).
    i. Robert L. Thomas: The singular pronoun autw capitalizes on the unity of the Father and the Son (cf. John 10:30). It is difficult to see this priestly service rendered to one of the two persons to the exclusion of the other (cf. 11:15) (Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary, page 486-487).

    7. For those who believe the Lord Jesus receives latreuo but this does not prove He is God:
    a. The ministry denoted by latreuein is always offered to God (or to heathen gods...R. 1:25...Ac. 7:42) (TDNT 4:62, latreuo, Strathmann).
    b. In Biblical Greek always refers to the service of the true God or of heathen deities (The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, WM.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, copyright 1982, page 371).
    c. As used in the New Testament, the word latreuo denotes actions that are always evaluated positively when God is the grammatical object and negatively with reference to any other object (Karen H. Jobes in Moises Silva's "Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics", copyright 1994 revised and expanded edition from 1983, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, page 203).
    Is the Lord Jesus God or a heathen deity?

    8. TDNT: Calling on the Lord from a pure heart (2 Tm. 2:22) is the same as worship with a clear conscience (2 Tm. 1:3). In the formal speech of the Pastorals the pure conscience is the total standing of the Christian. This is particularly plain when the difference between the life of the Christian and that of the heretic is formulated in compendious confessions (7:918, sunoida, Maurer).
    Two points worth noting:
    1. Calling on the Lord Jesus from a pure heart (2 Timothy 2:22) is the same as worshipping God with a clear conscience (2 Timothy 1:3). The Greek word for "serve" in 2 Timothy 1:3 is latreuo. Since the same kind of worship that is to be given to God is to be afforded to the Son this proves that Christ is to receive latreuo. And latreuo is due unto God alone.
    2. The Christian is one who worships the Lord Jesus as God while the heretic is one who denies such actions to Him as God.

    9. For a very article on the Lord Jesus being the recipient of latreuo in Revelation 22:3 see the article by Sam Shamoun here:
    http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/latreuo.htm


    C. The Jehovah's Witnesses belief that the Lord Jesus is not to be worshiped runs contrary to what Revelation 22:3 affirms.
    Last edited by foudroyant; 06-25-2014, 10:31 AM.

  • #2
    Has the latreuo*described in Rev 22:3 -4 already occurred? or is the latreuo described*an event that will take place in the future?

    "There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads"
    Last edited by mudcake; 03-29-2016, 06:19 AM. Reason: error

    Comment


    • #3
      hey mudcake, Froud was banned a while back for some problems he had getting along with others. So he can't answer your posts.

      But welcome to Theologyweb!

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