The Glory of the Nations in Revelation
(avg. read time: 2–4 mins.)
As my final post on Revelation until my Christmas series, this one will be mercifully brief, in contrast to nearly all of my other recent Revelation posts. Near the end of the book, there is this interesting promise: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it, its gates will never be closed by day, for there will be no night there, and they will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it” (Rev 21:24–26). We will not be going through all of these details here, but I want to focus on two aspects of this text. One, who are “the nations” in this text? Two, what does it mean for them to bring their glory into the city of the new Jerusalem?
On the first matter, it is important to remember that Revelation, in invoking these promises from the OT, may present fulfillments of the OT in unexpected ways. The stress on fulfillment is more important than rigorous consistency in imagery, which is used symbolically anyway. As we have noted previously, this text presents the fulfillment of promises like Isa 60 in particular. Even as the promise is fulfilled in surprising ways, it is still important for John to stress that this vision fulfills God’s long-established promises, and so the nations are referenced. It is not that the nations are somehow residing outside of the new Jerusalem and are separate from the faithful who have been promised a place in it (particularly considering 22:15). Rather, the nations are mentioned to signify that God’s promises concerning them will be fulfilled, and that this will be because, as has been stated elsewhere in Revelation, the gospel is proclaimed to them all and the people of God are composed of them all (5:9; 7:9; 14:6). Particularly noteworthy is the quote from the song to God in 15:3–4: “Your works are great and marvelous, Lord God Almighty your ways are just and true, King of the nations. Who should not fear [you], Lord, and glorify your name? Because you alone are holy, because all the nations will come and will worship before you, because your righteous deeds will be revealed.” The nations are thus those who are included in the new creation as worshipers of God, and the term implies a focus on the non-Jewish faithful who join the Jewish the faithful in this worship. The fact that they walk by the light of the city is, in line with what was said in the previous sentence of 21:23, an indication that they walk by the glory of God, the God they themselves will glorify.
On the second matter, it is notable that the Isa 60 text refers to the nations bringing their wealth/riches into the new Jerusalem. In Revelation this is translated in more general terms of “glory.” Of course, the term has several possible senses, including ones that overlap with wealth. But in the context of Revelation, “glory” either refers to the magnificent splendor of God and angels (15:8; 18:1; 21:11, 23) or to what is ascribed in worship (1:6; 11:13; 14:7; 16:9; 19:1, 7). The latter sense is especially clear when “glory” and “honor” are paired together (4:9, 11; 5:12–13; 7:12), with or without other ascriptions. In this context, then, what the nations bring to the new Jerusalem is their worship, their devotion of all that they are, all that God has given them, to that same God. In this way, one could also think of them giving their wealth to God, in that they have what they have to give because God gave it to them in the first place.
How this will look is something we will need to wait until the new creation to find out for sure. I am inclined to think that at least part of what this means is that, as God has not left himself without a witness to all nations (Acts 14:15–17; cf. 17:22–29; Rom 1:18–20), the nations will bring together God’s revelation to each. All will come to see how the various parts of the biblical story are woven together (as Christ himself taught initially, as attested in Luke 24 and elsewhere in the Gospels), how our individual stories are interwoven with the biblical story, how our group stories are interwoven with the biblical story, and how God was preparing peoples, nations, and languages around the world to receive the gospel and the larger biblical story it is a part of. We will see more clearly how this testimony from God refracted the light of the biblical story, thereby showing his refracted, reduplicated, and resplendent glory. This is not unlike the phenomenon of parhelia (or “sun dogs”), when unsullied ice crystals in the air refract the light of the sun and give the impression of multiple (albeit, lesser) suns in the sky for a brief time.
As I said, this is shorter than my typical fare, but I am curious if you are interested in having more of these brief explorations and meditations for next year (plans for the rest of the year are already covered).