LIGHT OF THE CITY

After the glimpse of conditions in the ‘eternal state’ earlier in this chapter, vv. 1-8, John is given a further sight of the millennial kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is shown a glorious temple city descending out of heaven ‘having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal’, Rev. 21.11. This light has a beautiful, brilliant transparency, tinged with the green of the jasper, restful and delightful to the eye. The source of that light is divine, ‘the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof’, v. 23.

It will help us understand this scene if we consider at what point the descent of this city is arrested. It comes down out of an open heaven, Rev. 21. 10, until it is poised in the air above the restored land of Israel. It is the administrative centre of the millennial kingdom, the angels of God ascending and descending just as Jacob dreamed at Bethel, Gen. 28.12, and the Lord spoke of to Nathanael, John 1. 51. In this celestial city, bathed in the light of the glory of God, the Lamb is the ‘lamp’ (a different word in the Greek from ‘light’). The Spirit employs this word to teach us that even in a scene where the glory of God is the light, the intrinsic glory of Christ is pre-eminent. His personal glory will outshine all else!

The light of divine glory does not only shine within the city, but it radiates from it, so that ‘the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it’, v. 24. Shining down through the transparent streets, v. 21, the glorious light is diffused through the precious stones that form the foundations, v. 19, so that men on earth, looking up, see this city as one breathtaking sight of divine glory. Thus will the prophetic word concerning Israel be fulfilled, ‘The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory ... and the days of thy mourning shall be ended’, Isa. 60.19-20.