Christ the Light of Heaven
C. Bradley, M. A. Revelation 21:22-23 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.… I. WHAT CHRIST IS IN HEAVEN. He is the Son of Man, it says; for it calls Him "the Lamb," the same name that was applied to Him in His human nature on earth, and a name which will not admit of being applied to Him as the everlasting God. It involves in it an idea, not at variance with divinity, but yet quite foreign to it. Further, this name sets Him forth as retaining in heaven the marks of His sufferings on earth. This teaches us not only the blessed truth that we shall see in heaven the Saviour who bled for us, but that we shall see Him as the Saviour who bled for us; we shall never look on Him without beholding in Him that which will remind us of His dying love. But again — our Lord is styled also in this text "the glory of God." I say, our Lord is so styled, because it seems quite evident that the glory of God and the Lamb mean here one and the same object. The apostle evidently speaks as though by God and the Lamb he meant the same Person; as though he could not separate them in his mind; as though, in fact, they had been presented to him in this vision but as one object, and were but one object. And we are to infer more from this, than that the ascended Jesus is acknowledged in heaven to be God and Lord; we are warranted to infer that no other God or Lord is seen or thought of in heaven; and more also — that Christ's human nature is as complete a manifestation of the Divine glory as even heaven itself can understand or bear. II. WHAT CHRIST IS TO HEAVEN. He is in it as the Son of Man, the once crucified Son of Men, the glory of God; He is to it a light, and all the light it has. There are two ideas generally connected with the word "light" in Scripture, when used in a spiritual sense — one primary idea, knowledge, because light shows us things as they are; and then a secondary idea, joy, because a right knowledge of spiritual things imparts joy. When therefore we are told that there is light in heaven, that God dwells in light there, that the inheritance of the saints there is an inheritance in light, we are to understand that heaven is a world of knowledge, and such knowledge as gives rise to pleasure and joy; that we shall not lose our character as intellectual beings there; that our minds and understandings will go with us to heaven, and be called into exercise in heaven, and have everything brought before them that can expand, and elevate, and delight them. But whence is this knowledge to come? The text tells us. It traces it, observe, to the glorified Jesus as its source. God in Christ, it says, and in Christ as the Son of Man, is the author of it. "The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it." In this imperfect state of the Church, we need the sun and the moon, all the help we can obtain. We want the assistance of created things to impart knowledge and joy to us — Scriptures, and ministers, and sacraments, and ordinances. But not so in heaven. III. THE GREATNESS OF THIS HEAVENLY HAPPINESS. This is evidently the point to which the text is intended to bring us. Its design is to show us how much happier a world heaven is than earth, and how much happier the Church in heaven is than the Church on earth. It supposes, you observe, the Church to have some blessedness here. It has its sun and it has its moon, some sources of knowledge and joy, and these quite sufficient, not to meet its desires, but to answer the purposes of its present condition. But then it implies that these sink into nothing, when compared with the light which will shine on it, the knowledge and joy which will be imparted to it in the heavenly city. 1. The light that flows immediately from Christ in glory, is clearer and brighter than any ether light can be. There is more of it, and what there is of it is of a purer nature. 2. The knowledge we shall have in heaven is not only more accurate than any we can attain here, it is a knowledge more easily acquired. How difficult do we sometimes find it now to lay hold of Divine truth! What a process we are obliged to pass through in order to arrive at a clear comprehension of the simplest truths of the gospel! Now in heaven a glance will teach you. Knowledge will flow like a stream into our minds, and bring happiness with it, and this every moment, and this for ever, without mixture, without interruption, withoutend. (C. Bradley, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. WEB: I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.