Revelation 22:5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Many times we take things for granted that we enjoy every day. Take the joys of having light readily available at the flip of a switch. Just over a hundred years ago, the availability of electricity in homes made electric lights widely available. But it wasn’t until the federal government pushed for the electrification of the rural parts of America that everyone began to benefit from it.
Think about life without electric lights. No internet. No email. No social media. No light going on inside your warm refrigerator. No TV. No mobile phone.
You see, small things do make a big difference even in today’s world. No transport yourself back 2000 years where the light in your house came from a small oil lamp the size of the palm of your hand. It gave a small amount of light for essential tasks once the sun went down, but little more than that.
So as our text tells these first century readers and hearers about this new heaven and earth not needing light, it would be unimaginable. Instead of the source of light being the sun or an oil lamp, the LORD will give them light. We don’t know the details of this new light, but it is highlighted as one of the benefits of this new dwelling place of God and humanity.
They will live in a place where a river brings the water of life, the trees bring abundant, year round food, and the trees’ leaves bring healing for all nations. But this isn’t the best thing this new city will have.
Right in the middle of the cit God’s throne and His presence will be manifested. We will be able to see His face, something that used to result in death. At that time, seeing God’s face will be a life-giving event.
We will also bear His name on our foreheads. We will be marked in some unspecified way as His. This is in contrast to those who received the mark of the Beast which was outlined earlier in this book. This who had that mark received judgment. God’s mark symbolized the possession of life.
And we will reign here on earth for ever and ever. This was God’s plan from the beginning. He made the heavens and the earth and reigns over both. But He gave us authority to reign over this place, to bring order out of chaos, to bring out the very best that the earth and humanity has to offer.
There are solutions to humanity’s problems. They don’t start with science, they start with a correct relationship with God. They then flow from there. Science when brought under the lordship of Christ is a wonderful thing. It will be guided toward great and lofty things, things that glorify the Creator, not try to dismiss His existence.
The reason we keep looking for life out there in the universe is an attempt by science to dismiss God’s rule and reign over the universe. If life isn’t unique to this planet, the scientists and philosophers argue, then there is no need for god, no uniqueness to humanity, no need for God or Savior.
But we get a glimpse into a world where the LORD still reigns, and is accessible to humanity. He provides the light by which we can search into the darkness and discover all the possibilities of His creation. It is in His light that we can excel at this human endeavor, and in the process show the greatness of our God.
The Arnold Journey 