Light to the Nations

The city that descends from heaven in Revelation 21:9-22:5 shines with the glory of God. She is a light to the nations: “nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it” (v. 24). That image provides a neat model of mission.

The city is the church, a city among the nations. It is the light source. The nations are not a light source, and without the light from the city the nations would be in darkness. When the church’s light is dim, when the church herself is in darkness, the nations are dark and leave their people groping in a void. National life can be arranged so as to darken rather than illumine the people who live in it. Nations in darkness produce works of darkness; not only their moral works, but their cultural products, are dark. Nations without the light of the city produce dark poetry, paintings, films, dramas, music.

Yet nations need not be dark. When the church shines, nations receive light. But more: In the nature of the case, everything that receives light reflects light and so shines. Everything that receives light is light. When the sun rises, everything becomes light. Nations receive light from the city, and they become a reflected light. Literally: Nations can be so illumined and transfigured by the gospel that they become lights to their citizens; institutional structures, customs and habits, the organization of space and time, social arrangements, legal establishments, rituals and ceremonies – the whole of national life can become a set of encouragements toward faithfulness and true worship. This is Christendom: Nations receiving the light of the glory of God that streams from the church so that they become reflectors of that light.

Revelation 21 explicitly refers to the reflection. The glory of God illumines the city and shines out to the nations, and that glory is returned to the city in the form of the treasures that the kings and nations bring to the city. Light goes out, and that light congeals into cultural products that are brought back to the city to make it even brighter. Nations that receive the light of the city thus produce works of glory – not only moral works, but cultural products that adorn the city.

Through this double movement – light shining out and reflected back, glory shining out and glory streaming in – the adorned city adorns the nations so that nations adorn her in turn. Through that process, the world comes more and more to resemble the final city, which simply is the new heavens and new earth, the adorned bridal city that is coterminus with new creation (21:1-8). When that city finally descends, there will be no more nations, because they will be so fully illumined that they will be indistinguishable from the heavenly city, so fully adorned with glory that they will be incorporated into the bridal glory of new Jerusalem.