Revelation 21:22-27

June 6 2021

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts around 19:45 in the audio file.

Or, All Glory All the Time

Series: Just Conquer #61

Introduction

This coming Thursday is the anniversary of Mo and I’s move to Marysville twenty years ago. Marysville hasn’t always been as great of a city as it is these days, and Lord willing will be still to come. But one of the things it’s always had going for it in my mind, other than the number of auto parts stores, is how often it rains.

We moved from the Los Angeles area, having lived all our married life up to that point in Santa Clarita. Not only is it hot in the summertime, it only rains 34.1 days annually, one of the least rainy places in CA. Near the end of our time there, I would wake up and lament that it was sunny again. Twenty years in this Western WA cloudy-skies climate has caused an increase in my gratitude to God for sun, but when the sun comes up at 4am and goes down at 10pm, I don’t mind finding some dark.

Our future as God’s people is brighter than any southern California imagination.

The sun shall be no more your light

by day,

nor for brightness shall the moon

give you light;

but the LORD will be your

everlasting light,

and your God will be your glory.

(Isaiah 60:19)

This comes near the end of Isaiah’s prophecies, and John’s vision near the end of Revelation picks up the same thread. God will be the everlasting light, our everlasting light. There will be no night. It will be all glory all the time.

John began to describe what he saw about the New Jerusalem coming down in verse 9 of chapter 21. He saw the walls, the gates, the measurements, the materials, all with radiant glory. Now John moves to some of the internal features of the city, and four significant things are not found.

No Temple (verse 22)

An angel invited John to see in verse 9 and took him to a high mountain in verse 10. He sees here in verse 22, and again at the start of chapter 22. He starts with an astounding absence.

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

The word temple typically refers to a sacred location where God/a god met with worshippers. After the (temporary tent) tabernacle, the Jews had two separate temples (the first built by Solomon and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the second temple rebuilt by Zerubbabel after the exile and destroyed by the Romans in AD 70). Ezekiel saw an eschatological temple (Ezekiel 40-48), and the Jews “consistently affirmed the hope of a final, material temple structure on a scale greater than any before” (Beale). Either that temple is rebuilt around and during the Millennial kingdom (and not carried over into the new heaven and new earth), or, as others claim, the City-Bride in Revelation 21 is the temple.

But why would Ezekiel’s vision center on the temple and then John go out of his way to say that he saw no temple?

Note that the people are the city, and God dwells with them (verse 3). Then God Himself is the temple, and men enjoy His presence. He is the Lord God the Almighty (ὁ παντοκράτωρ) and the Lamb. Again the divine nature of the Lamb is put in the spotlight.

There is no temple made of materials or of men, which argues against a spiritual application of Ephesians 2:20-22. That really is a fantastic passage, which figuratively describes the church as the dwelling place of God. But in Revelation, the redeemed are a City, the wall around the city has apostle foundations, but that does not make us the eternal temple, and in fact, John says explicitly that God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple.

No Sunlight or Moonlight (verse 23)

When it comes to the light of the world, God and His Son are it.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

The city itself is lit by the glory of God, and[...]