A Light to the Nations
[Read Revelation 21:22-27]
There are two different types of joy that we experience over the holiday season. On the one hand, many of us get to experience the joy of reuniting and reconnecting with our family. We get the opportunity to get caught up on all the things that have happened in their life since the last time you were together. We get the opportunity to talk to them about all of their difficulties and dreams. We get to have good conversations, good food, and an all-around celebratory time with them in these moments and if we take a moment to step back from all of the hustle and bustle and chaos of the moment, we feel a real, true, deep joy over it all. Something inside you looks out at all of it and says, “God has truly blessed us and I’m very thankful for that.”
The other type of joy comes after all of that—after all of the chaos, after all of the busyness, after all of the traveling. The joy comes when you finally arrive back at your house, get the vehicle unpacked, and finally get to sit down and rest for a bit. It’s not that you didn’t enjoy all of the hustle and bustle of reconnecting with your family, but you’re tired and need rest. As a result, there’s another joy that comes as you simply sit down in your own house and decompress. Of course, there’s still that little voice in your head saying, “God has truly blessed us with our family” but now it’s also saying, “God has truly blessed us with some peace and quiet and rest. I’m very thankful for that too.”
As I prepared this final sermon of our Advent series—yes I know it’s no longer Advent—it struck me that BOTH of the joys are combined when we arrive in the heavenly city. In that moment, we will have the epitome of feeling God’s blessing on our life, clearly seeing all that he’s ever done for us, what he’s doing for us, and will continue to do throughout eternity, and we will feel blessed. We will have the epitome of a family reunion, reconnecting with all of our faithful relatives throughout the centuries, and we will feel blessed. We will gather in the midst of this at the wedding supper of the Lamb and we will celebrate and rejoice and worship God for who he is and what he has done. And yet, in the midst of all of that seemingly busyness, we will also experience the complete restfulness of being home, resting after a long journey. It will all be mixed together in a beautiful way that extends throughout eternity.
This is what we’ve been focusing on throughout Advent—this longing for our true home in the midst of exile. While this Sunday is not part of Advent, it is still part of the Christmas season, and in particular is called Epiphany—which we’ll talk about later. So, I thought it would be good to spend one more week on this topic before moving onto our next series through the book of Micah.
As I have been doing throughout this series, I want to take us back before we look forward. This morning’s passage is from the book of Revelation, but in order for us to understand the book of Revelation, we must first understand the Old Testament (as a brief aside, I think this is something that most people don’t understand, that Revelation is very connected to the imagery and promises of the Old Testament and that you cannot understand the book apart from the Old Testament). We’re not going to go through the entire Old Testament, just one portion that is extremely relevant to this morning’s passage. I’m also not going to go through the entire chapter this morning because of time constraints, but I encourage you to read the entire chapter of Isaiah 60 this afternoon for more context.
As we look at portions of Isaiah 60, remember what is happening at this point in time. Remember that this comes to God’s people while they are in exile in Babylon—while they are in one of the darkest periods in the history of God’s people. They’ve lost everything and have been taken to a foreign land. It feels like they have been trapped in darkness, wondering if they will ever get out.
In the midst of that, God comes to them and says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1–2, ESV). God comes to his people and acknowledges that darkness has covered the earth—a deep, thick darkness that seems impenetrable. Yet, he tells them to get up and be ready, because he is coming and when he comes so will his light and his glory. The light and glory of God are coming in such a way that they will be like the sun coming over the horizon, pushing back the darkness until it is completely gone. Even more, God promises, “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, ESV). The light and glory of God will never fade away, but will be an everlasting light—where the darkness will never be able to return.
Later he also says this to them, “Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders…Your people shall all be righteous…” (Isaiah 60:18, 21, ESV). Remember that they are in exile because of their faithlessness, and because of the violence and destruction at their own hands. They’re in exile because they have lacked righteousness. Yet, God is promising them a day when they will ALL be righteous, and as a result, a day when there will be no more violence, no more devastation, no more destruction.
God also gives them another powerful promise: “And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you…the wealth of the nations shall come to you…They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall bring good news, the praises of the LORD.” (Isaiah 60:3–6, ESV). Don’t forget that this is being spoken to a conquered, helpless people. In the midst of that God tells them that one day, they will not be drug off to other nations, but the other nations will be coming to them. The other nations will see their light and come. The other nations will come with gifts of gold and frankincense to worship the one true God.
Then, notice the final line of this promise: “I am the LORD; in its time I will hasten it.” (Isaiah 60:22, ESV). There it is again, isn’t it. In its time—in God’s time. He gives them these beautiful powerful promises in the midst of darkness and despair and then tells them that they can be confident that these things will happen, they will come to pass, they should not doubt that because he is the LORD. Yet, these things will come to pass in his time. So, until then, they wait and long for these things.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it will be a helpful reminder here again. Prophecy is fulfilled on various horizons. Many of the prophecies from the Old Testament were fulfilled in the Old Testament—to some degree. Then they were fulfilled in the New Testament, and will eventually be fulfilled completely in the heavenly city. That’s just how God does things. So, it’s natural for us to look for ways in which these promises in Isaiah are fulfilled in the New Testament—and those ways are very clear.
When we look to the promise of light and glory shining in the darkness, we see how that is clearly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Not only do we see the shining light and glory from the angels as they announce his birth, but we also hear John describe Jesus’ coming to earth in this way: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” (John 1:4–9, ESV). This is John’s way of saying, “Remember that promise from the book of Isaiah, that light would shine in our darkness? That’s what is happening in Jesus Christ!”
Remember that promise in Isaiah that all of God’s people would be righteous? Where is that fulfilled? That’s fulfilled in Jesus Christ too. I could give you a hundred verses on this, but I’ll stick to one: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19, ESV). Through Jesus’ obedience—his perfect life and obedient death—he was righteous. All who look to him in faith, and trust him for the forgiveness of their sins, will also receive his righteousness. We will be declared righteous—not because of what we’ve done, but because of what Jesus has done. As a result, all of God’s people—all those of faith—will not be righteous as he promised.
We also see the fulfillment of the promise regarding the nations fulfilled in Jesus’ birth and life. We see it right away at the beginning in one of the traditional ways Epiphany is celebrated. We read, “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”…And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:1-2, 11, ESV). Isn’t that what Isaiah prophesied? The nations would come to worship God with his people. They would even show up with gifts—one of the examples he gave was gold and frankincense. Here we see people from far away nations coming to worship Jesus and bringing their gifts. And as Jesus’ ministry continues, he continues to tell his people that God’s promises are not just for those who are physical descendants of Israel, but the Gentiles—other nations—will also come in and become his people and worship him, bringing in their gifts as well. This was fulfilled in Jesus.
Yet, it wasn’t fully fulfilled. There is another horizon of fulfillment that is coming, which is what we read in the book of Revelation. As I mentioned before, many people talk about the Wise Men—or the Magi, or the three kings—on Epiphany, which is really just a tradition because we have no idea when they came to Jesus—many believe they actually came when Jesus was around 2 years old. Yet, it’s actually much more relevant to talk about the book of Revelation on Epiphany Sunday because that’s actually what Epiphany means. It’s a revelation. Or, if you wanted to continue to use the imagery of light and darkness, an epiphany is a “light-bulb-moment,” which is just another way to say that it’s a revelation.
When we get to the end of the book of Revelation, we’re given images of the heavenly city. Yet, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a description of an actual city. Right before we’re given this image, John is told by an angel, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:9, ESV). The bride, the wife of the Lamb, is the church—the people of God. So, even though he goes on to describe a city, he’s describing the people of God and what we’ll be experiencing in eternity.
Here’s what we’re told: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 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…and there will be no night there.” (Revelation 21:22-23, 25, ESV). Right away, we see a massive connection to Isaiah 60, don’t we? There will be no night there, and there will be no need for the sun, nor the moon, because God’s glory and light will shine so powerfully that they are absolutely unnecessary. It’s showing the reality that all of the wickedness, confusion, blindness, hardness, difficulty, trials—anything that would be considered darkness will be removed. It will be nothing but light and the glory of God.
We also see that there will be no temple because God and the Lamb are the temple. Again, a reminder that the temple is the place where you enter into the presence of God. So this is saying that God’s presence will be so full on this day, that a temple is not needed. We will experience the presence of God in a way that we have never experienced, and we will continue to experience that presence for the rest of eternity.
We’re also told: “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Revelation 21:27, ESV). Again, this is the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah’s promise that they will all be righteous. On that day, we will not only be declared righteous, but we will be made fully righteous. On that day, we will not simply be declared clean, but we will be made clean in such a way that we will never be dirty again—we will never sin or be tempted to sin again.
Finally, we see the ultimate fulfillment concerning the nations. We read, “By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it…They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.” (Revelation 21:24, 26, ESV). This has been misunderstood quite a bit over the years because of the translation of the word “nations,” which isn’t a great translation. The word is ethnos which helps you get a better understanding of what is being talked about here. It’s not talking about nation states, as we would consider them, but different ethnicities—or as some people call them “people groups.” The people of God will be filled with people from every tribe and tongue and nation, and they will bring in their particular gifts as a way of bringing worship and honor and glory to our God.
It’s such a beautiful picture. As I mentioned at the beginning of my sermon, it’s a picture of a massive celebration with all of God’s people throughout history, from every tribe and tongue and nation, yet a celebration that is filled with rest and peace and joy because there’s no more wickedness or darkness, but only the light and glory and presence of God filling everything in a way that is beyond our comprehension in this life. This is the picture of the home we long for in this life.
How does that beautiful picture help us now? How does that beautiful promise help us now in the midst of our current exile and darkness? I can definitely hear someone say something like, “Well that’s just great, but seeing this beautiful picture of what may be doesn’t help me with where I’m at right now.” But that’s actually wrong. As I like to remind us, God is much smarter than we are. If he thought it was important to give his people this message, and to paint this beautiful picture for them in the midst of their exile, it’s still important for us in the midst of our exile. So, how is it helpful?
There are a variety of ways, but let me share one that’s been on my heart and mind lately, and it connects with one of our sermons from earlier about Moses. How did Moses make it through all of the trials and difficulties he experienced? Here’s what we’re told in Hebrews, “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” (Hebrews 11:24–26, ESV). What enabled Moses to endure the suffering and mistreatment he faced? What enabled Moses to give up all of the riches and power and pleasure that came from being a prince of Egypt? Notice the last line. He was looking to the reward—or as it says elsewhere in Hebrews 11, he was looking for a better city, a heavenly city that has been prepared by God. That’s what enabled him to endure. That’s what enabled him to give up all of the comforts he had in Egypt when God called him. By faith, he kept his eyes on this beautiful, powerful promise of God and was continually reminded that the riches and comforts of this world are NOTHING compared to the riches and comfort and peace and joy that come in the city God has prepared for us. And because of that reality, he lived not for the riches and wealth of this world, but for the city that God had prepared for him.
This is how we live in the midst of exile. We live with this beautiful heavenly city in front of our eyes at all times, always reminding us what we’re living for, always reminding us about the end goal and purpose of our lives. That vision will pull us through hard times. That vision will give us hope in the midst of our darkest nights. That vision will continue to equip us to actually live as people of the light in the midst of the darkness. That vision will ultimately pull us all the way through this life and into the next, when we will finally be home with God’s people, and God himself for the rest of eternity.