Revelation 21:3 says, “I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them.” We need to pay attention to the plural noun “peoples.” We Christians are not God’s peoples; we are His sons. The peoples in this verse are not the sons of God but the restored nations. There will be several peoples, and each corporate people will be a nation on the new earth. By that time their rebellious nature will have been purged away. As the purged and restored nations, these peoples will live outside the New Jerusalem.
In the new heaven and new earth, God will dwell with His peoples, but He will not dwell in them. God will dwell in the New Jerusalem as the tabernacle, and the peoples will be around the New Jerusalem. In this way God will dwell with them.
The restored nations will enjoy the common blessings in the new heaven and new earth. These blessings are described in Revelation 21:4. “He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain—they shall be no more; for the former things have passed away.” In the new heaven and new earth there shall be no tears, no death, no sorrow, no crying, and no pain. Instead, in the new heaven and new earth there will be full satisfaction and rest; there will be no more cause of tears. Since death will be wholly swallowed up by life (1 Cor. 15:54) and cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14), in the new heaven and new earth there will be no more death. Not only will death itself be cast into the lake of fire, but the elements of death—sorrow, crying, and pain—will be abolished.
Revelation 21:3 and 4 speak of the nations, who are the descendants of the sheep in Matthew 25:31-46, whereas verses 5 through 7 refer to the sons of God, all the saints, the divinely saved ones through all the generations. When the sons of God are in the New Jerusalem, they will not have tears and therefore will not experience the wiping away of tears. Instead, the sons of God will have the full enjoyment of eternal life. The restored nations, who will not have the full enjoyment of eternal life, will have their tears wiped away by God. This will be God’s blessing to them. We may think that this is an intimate blessing and desire it for ourselves. If this is our desire, we may not be clear about the difference between the blessing of eternal life in the New Jerusalem and the blessing to the peoples on the new earth. We have received eternal life through believing in Christ, but we may not have the proper understanding of what the blessing of this life is and what the real blessing of eternal life will be in the New Jerusalem in eternity. God will not wipe away our tears but will supply us with the water of life.
The restored nations will inhabit the new earth around the holy city (Rev. 21:24). In the new heaven and new earth the nations who will be blessed to be the people will inhabit the new earth as their dwelling place around the New Jerusalem, which will be glorified with God’s glory and illumined with the divine light as the excellent glory of God in Christ. They will not participate in this divine glory and in this divine light, both of which will be a particular portion for the saints redeemed by Christ’s blood and regenerated by God’s Spirit. Yet they will enjoy the shining of the divine glory and of the divine light through the redeemed and regenerated saints in eternity.
Revelation 21:24a tells us that the peoples on the new earth will walk by the light of the holy city. The glory of God will illumine the New Jerusalem, and its lamp will be the Lamb (Rev. 21:23). For this reason, the city will have no need of the light of a lamp nor of the light of the sun, for the Lord God will illumine it (22:5). The glory of God as the light and the Lamb as the lamp signify that God in Christ will be the light of the New Jerusalem in eternity. In the holy city there will be no need of the sun, the natural light, nor of 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 is the light in which the nations will walk.
In the millennium the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold (Isa. 30:26). I believe that in the new heaven and new earth the light of the sun will be even brighter than this. Nevertheless, Revelation 21:24 says that the nations will walk in the light of the city. This indicates that the light in the city will be stronger than the natural light. God will shine through the city, and this shining will be brighter than that of either the sun or the moon. Actually, the nations will not need to walk in the sunlight or in the moonlight, for they will walk in the light of the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 21:24b says, “The kings of the earth bring their glory into it.” “Glory” here refers to the choice produce (Gen. 31:1, 16; Esth. 1:4). The kings of the earth here are the kings of the nations on the new earth. On the new earth there will still be kings, but they will be subordinate to the holy city. The fact that the kings will bring their glory into the New Jerusalem indicates that they will be subordinate to the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 21:26 tells us, “They shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.” Once again, glory refers to choice produce, and “honor” refers to preciousness in condition and dignity in position. The people’s bringing the glory and honor of the nations into the holy city indicates that they will be subordinate to the sons of God, who will be reigning as kings in the New Jerusalem.
The nations on the new earth will be preserved by the leaves of the tree of life to exist in the created and restored human life forever. Revelation 22:2b says, “The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” In the Bible, leaves are a symbol of man’s deeds (Gen. 3:7). The leaves of the tree of life symbolize the deeds of Christ. The regenerated believers will eat of the fruit of the tree of life, receiving Christ as the life and life supply inwardly, that they may enjoy the divine life for eternity. The restored nations, on the contrary, will be healed by the leaves of the tree of life, taking the deeds of Christ as their guide and direction, that they may live the created and restored human life forever.