Something lately has been inspiring me to read about the New Jerusalem and how life will be different after all things are made new. Maybe you know the song, No More Night, famously sung by David Phelps. It’s essentially about the New Jerusalem, where we understand that there will no longer be any sorrow, crying, or pain (Revelation 21:4). I love the chorus:
No more night, no more pain
No more tears, never crying again
And praises to the great, "I am"
We will live in the light of the risen Lamb
Notice the last line: we will live in the light of the risen Lamb. That always sounded nice, but I never thought too much of it. Yet while reading through Revelation 21 and 22 these past few days, that idea of no more night really struck me differently than before. You see, I always assumed this “night” that the song talks about was a spiritual night. We will finally no longer live in spiritual darkness! And this is true. But as I delved into the Bible, I realized that Revelation also speaks about a very literal light as well. Revelation 21:23-25 reads:
“And the city [the New Jerusalem] has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there.” (NRSV)
Did you catch it? The New Jerusalem has no need of the sun. And what’s crazy to me is that, even without the sun, there will be no night. What?! When we think of it in our earthly terms, if the sun is absent, then it is nighttime. But here the Bible is telling us that there will be no sun (and not even the moon!), yet even without that we will still be experiencing endless day. How? Because Christ will be that sun for us. He will be shining all the light out to us that we will ever need, and it will be so strong that there will never even be night.
In the following chapter, again, the Bible says:
“And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5, NRSV).
The fact that these passages not only talk about the literal sun, but also mention this idea twice, made me stop to really think about it. Whenever we see something repeated in the Bible, we know that there is an emphasis being placed there. In other words, this is something important. But what is the importance? What’s so special about there no longer being any need for the sun?
The past few days as I’ve been contemplating this, I’ve thought about what the sun is good for. Light, warmth, nutrients, growth, regulation... and that’s when it hit me. While the sun is necessary for life here on Earth, there will be no need for it in the New Jerusalem because Christ will literally be all we need. We will get everything – all our sustenance – from Him. Why have a sun if it’ll be useless? It won’t be able to compare with Christ even one bit and will just be drowned out. Christ will already be providing us all our sustenance – the sun will no longer be needed. Every literal thing we will ever need will be found in Christ. Our spiritual sustenance, our physical sustenance, all of it. How beautiful is that? The light and warmth and everything else the sun provides to maintain life will all be found in Christ.
And now realizing this has put whole new meaning to me when I think of Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). We will truly be living – both spiritually and physically – in the light of the risen Lamb.