I Saw No Temple There
I SAW NO TEMPLE THERE
REVELATION 21:22–22:5
The life of eternity begins here on earth.
We think of a temple normally as a place where people worship God. In fact, both with the tabernacle and the temple the real purpose was to separate the worshipers from God. Only the high priest could come one day each year into the Most Holy Place with its cherub throne for God; only priests were allowed in the Holy Place when they were carrying out their duties. The ceremonially clean Israelite man could come into the court of the tabernacle and the inner court of the temple only as he brought his sacrifices. In the tabernacle court there was no room for the woman or the man without a sacrifice. In the temple John had known, the Court of the Israelite, the Courts of the Women and of the Gentiles had decreasing stages of sanctity, but in the strictest sense they were not part of the sanctuary. The reason for the separation was to keep apart divine holiness and human sin. Already Jeremiah foresaw the day when Jerusalem, not the ark, would “be called the throne of the Lord” (Jeremiah 3:17). Now the vision is fulfilled. Sin has gone, so the dividing walls have, too (21:22).
“Night shall be no more” (21:25; 22:5); physical conditions under the conditions of eternity are unknowable. Once again we have symbolism, where night and darkness represent evil, sin and absence of God (see also John 1:5; 1 John 1:5), even as the sea in 21:1 is once again lawlessness.
One of the great weaknesses of traditional theology is that it tends to overlook in practice the universality of atonement and makes the church the only sphere of salvation. Yet we have “the nations … and the kings of the earth” (21:24) in addition to the city, ie the church. Among them there is not perfection, for unlike the church they need “healing” (22:2) even in eternity.
We are given three aspects of the eternal state. “His servants,” literally slaves, “shall worship him” (22:3); neither the Christian’s title nor occupation (see Romans 12:1) has changed, only the degree of perfection. “They shall see his face” (22:4): though we now see in a mirror dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12), the fellowship implied has already begun. “His name shall be on their foreheads”: this awaits Christ’s coming (1 John 3:2), but the process of transformation is already going on (2 Corinthians 3:18; see also 14:1).