Revelation 21:21 And the twelve
gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street
of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. 22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 23
And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in
it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
In the ancient world, starting
with Cain’s son, Enoch, in Genesis 4:17 the city was a religious entity, a type
of church, started all at once with invited families who would share in the
same worship and the same gods, although the individual family would have its
own singular worship and gods which represented their lars familiaris or
familiar spirits, the guiding divinities of ancestor’s dead.[1]
The saints are the invited ones here with earthly historical comparisons as in the
Roman biographer and historian Plutarch’s explanation of how Romulus founded
Rome and Theseus Athens.
Each home in the ancient world was
to have a sacred flame which was the religious center of the home and must not
be permitted to go out.[2]
This eternal flame like the lamp in the tabernacle in Exodus 27:20 must never
go out. In God’s city He is the light and the glory of it and there is no need
for any other. In this passage we can see the religious significance of the sun
and the stars as evidence of God’s sacred handiwork, placing in our temporal
tabernacle lights that reflect on earth that never go out.
Isaiah 60:19 The sun shall be no more thy light by day;
neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall
be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 20 Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall
thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and
the days of thy mourning shall be ended.
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