The Coming WorldSample

Inside the City

John has watched the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven. He now moves inside the city and describes only a few features, but those he does describe are mind-blowing (Rev. 21:22-27). He lives in a Jewish culture, so immediately he notices there is no temple in the city. He explains that “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (v. 22). The temple in the Old Testament was a place to worship God, but it also separated God from the people—behind two curtains in the Most Holy Place (Heb. 9:3). Now John sees God openly present with the people.

The second thing John sees here is that “the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (v. 23). In fact, “there will be no night there” (v. 25). The light of God’s glory would make the light of the sun and moon insignificant. Isaiah describes it like this: “The moon will be dismayed, the sun ashamed; for the Lord Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders—with great glory” (24:23). Of course, this is figurative language, but the point is clear.

Then John writes of the inhabitants of the new earth: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it” (v. 24). There are nations inhabiting the new creation who conduct commerce with the city. The image has changed. Up to this point, all we have seen is the city; now we see the new earth populated by an international society. The redeemed will populate the whole earth and form nations. And the nations will function as distinct cultures with accomplishments suitable to their own nature. John tells us, “The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (v. 26).

The last thing he tells us here is “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (27). Life on the new earth is to be free of sin and its effects. This is something to look forward to.

Prayer: Father, give me a heart that looks forward to the coming world. Let me not be too comfortable in this world, but let my perspective be governed by what You have in store for us.