In this mutual abode, where both God and His redeemed abide, the redeeming God as the Father with the redeemed as the Father’s many sons form a royal household.
In this royal divine household the sons as priests, the royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9), serve the Father and as kings reign over the nations as its subjects (Rev. 22:3b-5; 21:24-26; cf. section II. I. 7. a. in Chapter Six).
Thus far we have considered the base with the street, the gates, the wall of the city with its foundations, the center for the administration and the supply of the city, and the temple where God’s serving ones, the priests, dwell. In constructing a house, the last thing is to install the electrical wires to bring in light. As the divine, organic building, the New Jerusalem has its light with its shining (vv. 23-24a).
The light of this organic building is the glory of God in the Lamb (the Redeemer) as the lamp (v. 23b). Therefore, this building has no need of the sun or the moon, the natural light created by God, and the lamp, the artificial light made by man, and there is no night (vv. 23a, 25; 22:5a). In the New Jerusalem God is the light and Christ is the lamp. Although there will be no night there, there is still the need of light. However, the light is not the created light or the artificial light made by man, but God Himself in the Lamb as the lamp.
The glory of God as the light is in the redeeming Lamb as the lamp shining through this organic building as the light’s diffuser. This indicates that the Triune God is one with His redeemed in His expression (as what is revealed by the Son in John 14:20) shining as light over the nations. In the New Jerusalem there are the light, the lamp, and the diffuser to shine the divine light out. In John 14:20 the Lord said to His disciples, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” This shows that the light is in the lamp, and the lamp is in the diffuser. The light is God the Father, the lamp is God the Son, and the diffuser is the Body of Christ, the New Jerusalem, to shine the divine light over the nations, the peoples who live around the New Jerusalem.
The nations will walk by the light of this organic building. Thus, the entire eternal kingdom of God will be under the shining of God’s glory in the Redeemer through the redeemed as the diffuser. The eternal kingdom of God includes the New Jerusalem and the nations around it. The redeemed who constitute the New Jerusalem are the kings to reign, and the nations around the New Jerusalem are the subjects.
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