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And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty, etc. There are three ways of describing to others scenes unlike those with which they are acquainted.

1. A statement of those things which are not there, but which are found elsewhere within their sphere of observation.

2. A statement of those things which are found in them in common with those scenes with which they are familiar.

3. A statement of those things which are peculiar to them, and which are found in no other scene within their knowledge. These three methods are employed by the sacred writers in order to present to us the heavenly Jerusalem - the eternal inheritance of the good. The verses before us are a specimen of the first method. Certain things are here mentioned which belong to our earthly sphere, but which have no existence there, and this very negative description has a power to make on us a deep impression that heaven is a scene of transcendent blessedness. Looking a little closely into the negative record in the text, we may infer -

I. THAT IN THAT STATE THERE IS NO SPECIALITY IN THE FORMS OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP. "And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it" (ver. 22). A city without a temple would strike the common notions of men as atheistic. To the Jewish mind especially it would give the idea of a city to be avoided and denounced. The glory of the metropolis of their country was its temple. When the Prophet Ezekiel would cheer and animate them in their Babylonian bondage, he presents to them a graphic description of the temple that was to be reared in their city, with its ornaments and ordinances, its chambers for the priests, its altars for the sacrifices. Still, whatever might be the popular notions of men about temples, with their methods of worship:

1. Their existence implies spiritual blindness and imperfection; they are remedies for evils.

2. Their history shows that men, in many instances, have turned them to a most injurious account. They have nourished superstition. Men have confined the idea of sacredness and worship and God to these buildings. They have nourished sectarianism, the devilism of Christendom. Different classes have had their different temples and modes of worship, and often regard with sectarian jealousy and loathing those who kneel not at their altar and adopt not their theory of doctrine and ritual of worship. When it is said, therefore, that there is "no temple in heaven," it does not mean that there will be no worship in heaven, but that there will be no temple like that on earth, always implying imperfections and often used to foster the superstitious and sectarian. The reason assigned for the non existence of a temple in heaven is a very wonderful one: "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." God and his holy Son are not only the Objects of heavenly worship, but the very temple of devotion. All there feel not only that they have to render to God and his Son worship, but they are in them in the worship. All there feel that "in him they live, and move, and have their being;" that he is the very breath of their existence. Where he is - and he is everywhere - there is their temple, there is their worship. The doctrine of worship propounded by Christ to the woman of Samaria is there felt in all its intensity and developed in all its perfection. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The "no temple" in heaven really means "all temple" - worship everywhere, under all circumstances, and forever. Brethren, are we learning a worship here to prepare us for the worship yonder? Is our worship a thing of buildings, liturgies, ritualisms, and sects? Such worship will not do for heaven. Our conventional worship, in the light of the worship of eternity, is as contemptible as a rushlight in the beams of the noonday sun.

II. THAT IN THAT WORLD THERE IS NO NECESSITY FOR SECONDHAND KNOWLEDGE. "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" (ver. 23). Moons and suns are but secondary organs of light. The moon borrows from the sun; the sun, perhaps, from another orb; and that from another. The Fountain of all light is God himself, the is "the Father of lights." The grand central orb in the material universe catches his radiance, and flings it abroad on the million globes of space. When we are told, therefore, that the city will have no need of the moon and the sun, it figuratively expresses the idea that the holy tenants of that blessed state will have no need for any secondary means of knowledge. Here a secondhand knowledge is indispensable to us. Most of the knowledge we have is derived from others - parents, teachers, ministers, books. Knowledge about our own being and relations, about Christ and God and worship, come to us, not directly from God, the great Fountain of light, but through a variety of secondary agencies. Even the higher light of the Bible comes to us in this way. "Holy men of God spake as they were moved." It is moon and sun light; the light of secondary orbs we have here, and we cannot do without it. Not so in the celestial world. That spiritual intelligence in that blessed state will be derived from communion with spirit can scarcely admit a doubt. In that society, as here, there will be the teacher and the learner. But the idea symbolized by the verse is that that secondhand knowledge will not be needed, will not be indispensable as here. Here, like Job, we hear of God by the hearing of the ear; there we shall see him as he is, and be like him. He will be the Light, the clear, direct, unbounded medium, through which we shall see ourselves, and our fellow worshippers, and the universe. "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face." This light will he enjoyed by all the saved. "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it" (ver. 24). Observe:

1. The saved will be numerous. "Nations." "The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising," etc. (Isaiah 60:3-5).

2. The saved will be progressive. "They shall walk in the light," ever onward.

3. The saved are self-surrendering. "The kings of the earth do bring their glory." All the honours, even of kings, shall be laid in reverence at his feet. "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him."

III. THAT IN THAT WORLD THERE WILL BE NO APPREHENSION OF DANGER FROM ANY PART. "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there" (ver. 25). Never shut by day, then never shut at all, for the day there is eternal. Fear, which bath torment, and which often shakes our spirits here, as the wind shakes the leaf in the forest, will find no place in any breast in heaven. An unshaken consciousness of safety will reign universally. No fear of temptation; here we are bound to watch and pray lest we fall into temptation; we are surrounded by tempters on every hand. No seductive serpent will ever find. his way into that Paradise restored by Christ. Why should we say so? Has there not been a fall in heaven? Did not a host of bright angels leave their first estate? And may not such a rebellion again break forth? Never! Why? Because of the great amount of motive that now exists in heaven to bind the virtuous to virtue, the Christian to Christ, the godly to God.

1. There is a motive from a contrast between the present and the past.

2. There is the motive from the appearance of the Lamb in the midst of the throne. The memory of Calvary is a golden chain, linking all to the eternal throne of purity and love. There is no fear of affliction. We are told in the fourth verse that there shall be no sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. The countless ills to which flesh is heir will never find their way thither. There is no fear of death. Death here is the king of terrors. Through fear of death we are all our lifetime subject to bondage; but death will never enter there. The gates, then, might well be left open, for there is no fear.

IV. THAT IN THAT WORLD THERE WILL BE NONE OF THE INCONVENIENCES OF DARKNESS. "There shall be no night there."

1. Night interrupts our vision. It hides the world from our view, and is the symbol of ignorance. The world is full of existence and beauty, but night hides all.

2. Night interrupts our labour. We "go forth unto our labour until the evening."

V. THAT IN THAT WORLD THERE WILL BE NO ADMISSION OF IMPURITY OF ANY KIND. "And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life (ver. 27). Observe:

1. The excluded. All impurities of all kinds and degrees.

2. The included. All who are "written," etc. All who are registered on the grand roll of redemption. What a roll is this! - D.T.

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KJV: And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

WEB: I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.