Free Bible Commentary
“Revelation 21:22-27”
Categories: Revelation“I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 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. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
---End of Scripture verses---
Robert Harkrider commented the following on verse 22: “In the Old Testament the structure in which God would manifest himself was at first the tabernacle, then later the temple in Jerusalem. In the New Testament, construction of a building is unnecessary because the church on earth is the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph 2:21). After the final judgment, the sanctuary is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. Expositors who see these verses describing the church on earth reverse what the text says. The church on earth is the temple ‘of’ God, but this text says that in the new heaven and new earth the divine indwelling will be perfected so that God ‘is’ the temple!” I would also point out that God the Father (the Almighty) and God the Son (the Lamb) are clearly depicted as coequals in their eternal status, vastness and magnificence as the everlasting habitation of the inhabitants of heaven.
“The glory of God” will be all the light the heavenly city will need for perfect illumination (verse 23). As the saints of God trod upon the face of the earth, His word is “a lamp unto” our “feet and a light unto” our “path” (Psalm 119:10), but in the eternal realms above, “the lamp is the Lamb.” Homer Hailey wrote, “His glory, which the Jews called ‘the Shekinah,’ filled the tabernacle and temple. His glory is in the church by His Spirit…and now that glory is full and complete as He and the Lamb fill the new temple.” And yet again we see the equal glory shared by both the Father and the Son. While the unbelievers, the unrighteous and the disobedient will be “cast” to the realm of the “outer darkness,” separated from the illumination of the Almighty and the Lamb “in that place” where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:2); the redeemed in heaven “will walk” in the “light” of the city “for there will be no night there” (verses 24-25).
It is a beautiful and blessed thing to realize that “the kings of the earth will bring their glory” into the eternal abode of heaven (verse 24). Inspired Scripture assures us that “we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either” (1 Timothy 6:7). But this is a guarantee that we will transport none of our earthly wealth or possessions into the Great Beyond, and not that we will enter into eternity “emptyhanded”. Let’s draw our memory back to the words of Revelation 14:13: “And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Write, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!”’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.’” If we lead obedient and upright earthly lives, as kings and priests of God (Revelation 5:10) we will enter into eternity with our righteousness and integrity intact. Robert Harkrider astutely noted that this “shall stand as proof that God has not imposed upon man anything that was beyond one’s capacity to obey.”
People who choose the “wide path” of destruction over the “narrow way” of salvation cannot avoid the eternal consequences of their sinful decisions. No “unclean” person “who practices abomination and lying, will ever” set foot upon the streets of gold in beautiful city of God (verse 27). If your name is not “written in the Lamb’s book of life,” it is because you have poorly chosen the inferior pleasures of sin and disobedience that last but for a short season, and forfeited the excellent, eternal, exquisite riches and glory that God has prepared for those who love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. Friend, it ain’t worth it!
Please read Revelation 22:1-5 for tomorrow.
Have great day!
-Louie Taylor
