Chapter Forty-Three -A Resplendent City -A Light for the Nations

This same prophecy also foretold:  "And nations will certainly go to your light, and kings to the brightness of your shining forth."  (Isaiah 60:3)  Revelation shows that these words would include New Jerusalem:  "And the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will not be closed  at all by day, for night will exist there. And they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it." -Revelation 21:24-26.  

Who are these "nations" walking by means of the light of New Jerusalem?  They are people, once a part of the nations of this wicked world, who respond to the light shed through this glorious heavenly city.  Foremost among them are the great crowd, who have already come out of "all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues" and who worship God day and night in company with the John class.  (Revelation 7:9, 15)  After New Jerusalem comes down from heaven and Jesus uses the keys of death and of Hades to resurrect the dead, the will  be joined by millions more, originally from "the nations," who come to love Jehovah and his Son, the Lamb-like Husband of New Jerusalem. -Revelation 1:18.   

Who, then, are "the kings of the earth" who "bring their glory into it"?  They are not the literal kings of the earth as a group, for they go down to destruction fighting against God's Kingdom at Armageddon.  (Revelation 16:14, 16; 19:17, 18)  Could the kings be some high-ranking ones of the nations who become a part of the great crowd, or are they resurrected kings who submit to God's Kingdom in the new world? (Matthew 12:42)  Hardly, because for the most part, the glory of such kings  was worldly  and has long since faded.  "The kings of the earth," then, who bring their glory into New Jerusalem must be the 144,000 who are "bought . . . out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation" to rule as kings with the Lamb, Jesus Christ.  (Revelation 5:9, 10; 22:5)  They bring their God-given glory into the city to add to its radiance. 

John continues: "But anything not sacred and anyone that carries on a disgusting thing and a lie in no way enter into it; only those written in the Lamb's scroll of life will." (Revelation 21:27) Nothing tainted by Satan's system of things can be a part of New Jerusalem.  Even though its gates  are permanently open, no one who "carries  on a disgusting thing and a lie" will be allowed to enter.  There will be no apostates  in that city  nor any members of Babylon the Great. And if any try to desecrate the city by corrupting its future members while they are still on earth, their efforts are brought to nothing.  (Matthew 13:41-43)  Only "those written in the Lamb's scroll of life," the 144,000 will finally enter into New Jerusalem." -Daniel 13:8; Daniel 12:3. 

Next time: Chapter Forty-Three -A Resplendent City - A River of Water of Life

From the book of Revelation