Search
In this message we will continue to consider Christ as the Husband of the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 21:23 says, “The city has no need of the sun or of the moon that they should shine in it, for the glory of God illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Christ is the city’s lamp with God as the light in Him. Christ, the Lamb, is the lamp, and in Him is God as the light. Here we see the Lamb as the One who holds God within Him as light because the Lamb is the lamp, and God is the light in the lamp. This indicates that Christ as the overcoming Redeemer holds God within Him. This is the ultimate consummation of the Lamb.
Just as light cannot be separated from a lamp, so God can never be separated from Christ. If light is separated from a lamp, the light is no longer present, and if the lamp is separated from the light, it no longer functions, because it does not have light. Hence, light is one with the lamp. Likewise, God is the light, and Christ as the Lamb is the lamp. They cannot be separated; They are two in one.
As the Lamb, Christ is the redeeming One. Without Him as the redeeming One, we can never come to touch, to contact, God as light since we are so sinful and in darkness. Because no one can stand before God in His light, we need redemption; that is, we need the Lamb. It is only by redemption and by the blood that we can come to contact God. First John 1 says that God is light and that when we come to fellowship with Him, we are in the light (vv. 5, 7a). Then when we are in the light, we see how sinful we are; hence, we need the blood of Jesus to cleanse us (v. 7b). We can testify of this from our experience. Whenever we contact God as light, we have the sense that we need redemption, the redeeming blood of the Lord and the Lord as the Lamb. Christ as the Lamb, the redeeming One, is the Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). Through Him and in Him we can contact God, and in Him and through Him God can reveal Himself to us. Today God as light is in the Lamb, the redeeming One, and in eternity Christ will still be the Lamb in whom God as light will be experienced by us.
Furthermore, the Lamb is the expression of God. God is the light, and Christ is the lamp. The light needs the light-bearer. We should never separate Christ from God or God from Christ. Actually, God and Christ are one light. God is the content, and Christ is the light-bearer, the expression. This understanding of the Trinity is different from traditional teaching. Revelation 21:23 describes God as the light and Christ the Son as the lamp. As the light is in the lamp to be its content and to be expressed through the lamp, so God the Father is in the Son to be expressed through the Son.
Just as the light is in the lamp and is one body with the lamp, so God is in Christ and is one body with Christ. God is the content of Christ, and Christ is the expression of God. Christ and God are one. In eternity the Lamb as the lamp will shine with God as the light to illuminate the New Jerusalem with the glory of God, which glory is the expression of the divine light.
In the New Jerusalem the Triune God is not only our light but also our lamp. If we have light without a lamp, the light is not properly formed. We may illustrate this by electricity. Electricity produces light, but the light is in a light bulb. Without a light bulb, the electricity by itself might harm us.
Christ is the lamp, and God within Him is the light. This means that the Triune God is our light, and He is properly formed in His embodiment, the Son. The principle is the same with the lampstand. The lampstand is the form, and within the lampstand there is the burning oil. Moreover, seven lamps are on one lampstand (Exo. 25:37; Zech. 4:2; Rev. 4:5) to express the light, and the lamps contain the light of the lampstand. Today our light is not only Christ but Christ as the lamp with God as the light.
In Revelation the Lamb is the redeeming person, and this Redeemer is the lamp (21:23). The Lamb as the lamp is altogether for expression. All the light bulbs are for expressing the light contained within them. The entire New Jerusalem is under the expression of Christ the person as the lamp. We may liken the lamp to a big bulb which is able to enlighten a city whose breadth, length, and height are vast. Such a large entity has only one lamp, which is Christ. God the Father as the light needs a lamp; without an adequate lamp or bulb, an electrical light will not shine in an enlightening way. In like manner, without Christ the Lamb being the lamp, God could not shine in an enlightening way.
If God did not shine, we would not be able to see His golden, divine nature. But God shines within the redeeming Lamb as the lamp in an enlightening way. The Son, being the Lamb in His person, is the lamp to express all that the Father is as the light and as the source of the divine riches. All the divine riches are embodied in this lamp. We may say that a light bulb is the embodiment of the electrical light, that is, the embodiment of the electrical “riches.” Because we are under the shining of the Son as the embodiment of all the divine riches, we can enjoy these riches. The light establishes and confirms us in our experience of the Triune God.
Our Triune God is our lamp, our light, and He shines within us through the lamp. This is our present experience and will be the coming New Jerusalem. The holy city will be the consummation of all that we have experienced for so many years. It will be an intensification and a consummation of our present experience. The New Jerusalem will not be something new to us in eternity future if we are now experiencing it.
Light is the nature of God’s outward expression (1 John 1:5). In the New Jerusalem light refers to God Himself who illuminates the entire city for His expression. God as the divine light, the light of life, is contained in the Lamb as the lamp (Rev. 21:23b). Without the redeeming Christ to contain the divine light, the divine light would “kill” us. With the redeeming Christ as the lamp, however, the divine light does not kill us but rather illumines us. First Timothy 6:16 tells us that God dwells in unapproachable light. In Christ, however, God becomes approachable. Outside of Christ, God’s shining is a killing, but inside of Christ, God’s shining is an illumining. Because the divine light shines through the Redeemer, this light has become lovable and touchable. Through the Lamb, the redeeming One, God’s light becomes an enjoyable shining for His dispensing. Since the day we were saved, we began to enjoy God as the divine light in the redeeming Christ illumining us all the time. Even today we should enjoy God in this way.
Revelation 22:5 says, “Night will be no more; and they have no need of the light of a lamp and of the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine upon them.” The light of the holy city is the unique, eternal, divine light in which the redeemed elect live and move within the city (21:23, 25). In the whole universe there are only three kinds of light. First, there is the natural light, the sun and the moon, created by God. Then there is the artificial light made by man. Third, there is the real light, the genuine light, which is God Himself. Revelation tells us that in the New Jerusalem we do not need the natural light of the moon and the sun or any artificial light. This is because we have the real light, which is the source of all the light. This light is God who shines within Christ and is diffused over all the nations.
In the ancient times the outer court of the tabernacle was lit by the sun during the day and by the moon at night, and the Holy Place was lit by the lampstand. In the Holy of Holies, however, there was no sun, no moon, and no lampstand. The light in the Holy of Holies was God Himself in His eternal glory. In the same way, the holy city in eternity future will have no need of the sun or of the moon because God Himself will be the light. This indicates that the entire city of the New Jerusalem will be the Holy of Holies. As we have seen, the measurements of the city in three dimensions also prove that the city is the Holy of Holies. Besides the New Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies in both the tabernacle and the temple is the only structure in the entire Scriptures that is equal in three dimensions. Similarly, the Holy of Holies is the only other place where there is need of no light other than God. This shows that in eternity the holy city will be the Holy of Holies. In the New Jerusalem God Himself in Christ will be everything to us. The Triune God will also be our light to enlighten us. Here we have the intrinsic essence of the New Jerusalem.
The glory of God as the light and the Lamb as the lamp signify that God in Christ is the light of the New Jerusalem in eternity. In the new city there is no need of the sun, the natural light, or any man-made lamp because God Himself will be the light, and Christ will be the lamp, shining out God to enlighten the entire city. This means that God in Christ is everything in the New Jerusalem. In the presence of the greatest light, all the lesser lights count for nothing. Outside the New Jerusalem there will still be day and night, but inside there will be no night (21:25).
Today we Christians actually have God Himself within Christ as our light. We do not need philosophy, the human-made light, and we do not need ethical teachings, such as those of Confucius. We do not need any kind of religious teaching because we have God Himself within us. We do not need someone to tell us to love our parents, for we have a divine light in us all day long shining within us to let us know that we should honor our parents. We need to realize, however, that Paul tells us to honor our father and mother (Eph. 6:2). If all Christians have God as the light within them, why does the New Testament still teach many things? In Ephesians 5:22 through 6:9 Paul unveils the kind of living needed in ethical relationships. He talks about the relationship between wife and husband, between children and parents, and between slaves and masters. These charges are not given in the first chapter of Ephesians but in the last two chapters. Before giving us this kind of teaching, Paul says in Ephesians 5:14, “Therefore He says, Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” The New Testament first reveals not the teaching but the divine light. Because we are still in the old creation, we may need this teaching. In the New Jerusalem, however, there will be nothing old and no teaching. If we care for the new creation and the inner anointing all the time, there will be no need of teaching. Because we are in the old creation, we may need teaching to remind us to awaken from our sleep.
According to the principle of the new creation, we have God in us as light. In Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). When we are fellowshipping with God, we do not need any other light. As long as we have Him, He is the light to us, and we do not need any teaching or doctrine. As long as we have the God who is light to us in our fellowship with Him, there is no need of anything else.
Psalm 119:130 says that the opening, or entrance, of God’s Word gives light. Day by day we need to enter into the holy Word. Then we will see and be in the light, which is God Himself through His Word. Therefore, we should not realize or do anything according to our natural ability or according to the education we have received. We have God as our unique light to apply to our life.
Today’s Christians are divided by many kinds of natural and artificial light, but we must be controlled by the unique, genuine, highest light. This light is our redeeming and shining God. We must apply this light to our daily walk. Many of the saints exercise their natural ability too much, even in the church life, and for this reason there are murmurings and reasonings (Phil. 2:14-15). We do not need the natural and the artificial light. For the building up of the Body of Christ, we need to walk and live under the divine, redeeming, and shining light through the word of God.
Just as the temple of the holy city is God Himself, the light is also God Himself. Apart from God and the Lamb, there is nothing in this city. In the New Jerusalem God is everything. The Lamb as the lamp shines with God as the light to illumine the city with the glory of God, the expression of the divine light. Because Christ is the light in the church, it is the same today in the church life.
God in Christ is the center of the New Jerusalem as the divine vessel. We may also say that Christ as the expression of God is the center of this divine corporate vessel. In the picture of the New Jerusalem, the invisible God is likened to light that shines with glory (Rev. 21:11, 23; 22:5). When light shines, it does a work. Light is a ruling power; it rules when it shines. Darkness, on the other hand, brings in confusion and disorderliness without any rule. In order to destroy a government, one must first throw everything in it into darkness. If all the lights in a major city were to go out, the whole city would be in darkness, and there would be robbery, looting, and killing. When the lights come back on, however, there is the ruling and governing, and order is restored.
In the six days of God’s creation for restoration, the first thing restored was light (Gen. 1:3). When God divided the light from the darkness, light came in to rule (vv. 4, 16). Where God is, there is light shining, and where God shines, there is the ruling power. If we have the presence of God in the church, we have light, we are in the light of God, we are in God as light, we are under the light of God, and all of us are ruled. All confusion is subdued, and all things are brought into order. If there is confusion among us, it means that we do not have God as light and that we are in darkness. Today the church is a miniature of the New Jerusalem. In this smaller New Jerusalem, if we have God as the center in Christ, we have the light, and the first thing light does is rule and keep everything in order.
When light shines, it also generates. Life comes from light. When the light of God shines into us, the life of God comes into us. Light always brings life to us. When we have God as light, we first have order and then life. We can see this in Genesis 1. On the first day when light came in, there was a dividing, and the keeping of order began. Before light came in, everything was in chaos. After light came in, light was divided from darkness, and things began to be kept in order. After this, the waters below were divided from the waters above, and life came out of this order. If there is the light of God, there are the ruling power and order, and if there are the ruling power and order, there is the generating power, the yielding of life. All kinds of lives came out because of the light. This is the picture in the New Jerusalem. God is the ruling center of the New Jerusalem as the shining light. From this light come all the riches of life. God is light, and from Him flows the river of water of life, and in this living water grows the tree of life.
The New Jerusalem will have a particular kind of light — the redeeming and shining God (Rev. 21:23). The redeeming God shines as the radiant God. The illuminating glory of God is the light within Christ, and the redeeming Christ is the lamp containing the light. God is always contained in Christ; He is the unique container of God. God’s glory is the light of the city, and God is contained by Christ as the content, shining out through Christ.
In the Bible darkness is a form of punishment. God punished the Egyptians with a thick darkness for three days (Exo. 10:22), and in the future God will punish Antichrist and his kingdom with darkness (Rev. 16:10). Part of the enjoyment in the New Jerusalem is that there will be no night. The city will be full of light, and this light is God the Father. He will be not only the nature of the New Jerusalem but also the shining light as an enjoyment to the entire city. The first enjoyment in the New Jerusalem is God as our light. Our experience today is the same. When we are left in darkness, that is a real punishment. When we open our entire being to Him, however, we are in the light, and the light is God Himself enjoyed by us in our daily life. We cannot live in darkness. We can live only in the light.
In the New Jerusalem there will be no night, for “night will be no more” (Rev. 22:5). In the new heaven and new earth there will still be the distinction between day and night, but in the New Jerusalem there will be no such distinction. Outside the city there will be night, but within the city there will be no night because we will have an eternal divine light, that is, God Himself. For the believers, there will be no night because in the holy city God Himself will be the “sun” that will never go down.
