Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #6 of Revelation, chapter 22.  We are going to read Revelation 22:4-5:

And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study we discussed the first part of Revelation 22:4: “And they shall see his face,” and we saw that in the Bible God relates the “face” to “glory.”  In Exodus, chapter 33 Moses wanted to see the “glory of God” and God told him that he could not see His face, but He would show him His back parts.  Also, in 2Corinthians, chapters 3 and 4, the Lord made connection between “glory” and “face.” 

When the Bible says, “And they shall see his face,” it really has in mind that they shall behold the “glory of God” in its fullness.  At this time, we partially behold the glory of God.  We see God’s glory as He reveals Himself in the Bible and as we glean information about Him in the Scriptures.

But at the point that this world passes away and the new heaven and new earth has been created, God will reveal Himself as never before to His people.  He will dwell with them and they will see Him “face to face.”

It says in Psalm 17:15:

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

Here is an early reference to the resurrection and at that time God’s elect will receive their new resurrected glorified bodies to match their glorified souls and they will be one perfect “personality” without sin.  At that point God’s elect become qualified to behold the “face of God” and to see God’s glory.  Once they have had their sins removed they can behold the glory of God and not die.  As God told Moses long ago, “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.”  And that was because of man’s sinful condition, but when we are completely changed into sinless new creatures, then we are able and qualified to enter into the holy, holy, holy presence of God and to behold His glory.

Remember we read in the Gospel account of when Moses and Elijah met with the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration (as it is known).  Moses and Elijah and the Lord Jesus were shining brilliantly as the sun.  Both Moses and Elijah had already received their new resurrected bodies, so they were born again in both spirit and body.  That is what all the elect will be like on that last day.  Moses and Elijah had been qualified to meet with Christ.  Christ was not showing the fullness of His glory when He entered into the human race.  He emptied Himself of His glory to dwell with men.  But since Moses and Elijah were in their glorified condition, Jesus could also reveal His glory, so He is shining brilliantly as the sun and the disciples were fearful.  They could not even look upon Him, like the Israelites of old when Moses came down from the mountain and they could not look upon his face because it shone with the reflected “glory of God.” 

The glory of God shows forth the tremendous purity and holiness of the Almighty and it is only in that day when all God’s elect can behold His face, because we will be like Him, as it says in 1John 3:1-2:

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

We will see Him in the fullness of His glory.  We shall His face.  It goes on to say in Revelation 22:4:

… and his name shall be in their foreheads.

We have seen this kind of language a few times already in the Book of Revelation regarding the name of God in the foreheads of God’s people.  We have also seen the name of the beast in the foreheads of the unsaved.  The forehead is the place where the mind is located and in the Bible the heart, mind and soul are synonymous.  When God saved someone He gave him them a new heart or spirit or mind and in their minds (foreheads) they are completely desirous to do the will of God.  There is an ongoing desire to keep God’s commandments.  God’s people want to do this because God has changed the will of the individual and they have a new spirit that is without sin and it causes them to seek after God and His will.

Let us go back to Revelation, chapter 7 and look at a couple of verses where the “forehead” is mentioned.  It says in Revelation 7:3-4:

Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.

Then God lists 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes.  After we see that the 144,000 are sealed in their foreheads we read in verse 9 of the great multitude which no man could number, but it does not say these were “sealed” but it says they had their sins washed away.  And salvation is exactly what being sealed means, so the “144,000” and the “great multitude” were sealed in their foreheads because they are new creatures in Christ.

In Revelation 9 God describes Judgment Day and it says in Revelation 9:3-4:

And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

Again, those with the “seal of God in their foreheads” are the elect and the rest would be those that were not saved.  God did not change them and they have no Holy Spirit.  Their minds and their souls are not new and they do not have the “seal” of God and, therefore, they are being “hurt” during the time of judgment.  It is the unsaved that are “hurt,” but the true believers are not hurt because the “locusts” represent the true believers.  The message of the elect is that the door to heaven is shut and the light of the gospel has gone out and the rivers of the water of the Gospel has ceased to flow, but none of this hurts the elect because they have already been saved.  They are already inside the “door” and they already have the inner light of God’s Spirit within them.  They have no need of the Gospel waters unto salvation because the elect have already been saved by God. 

So we see in these verses that having the “seal of God in their foreheads” means that they have become saved.  In our verse it said, “And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.”  Everyone in this place is saved because everyone whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life have been brought into the new creation and they are of “one mind,” the mind of Christ.  God has made a people for Himself and He has given them a mind after His own mind, as He said of David that he was “a man after mine own heart.”  In the Bible, heart, mind and soul are synonymous.  God could have said, “David is a man after mine own mind.”  This is also true of every child of God.

Let us go on to Revelation 22:5:

And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

God is hammering home these points, to use a figure of speech.  It is like hitting a nail with a hammer in the same point, over and over again.  In these last chapters, especially, God wants us to know that the condition and situation in this evil world will not be the condition and situation in the new heaven and new earth.  It will be completely different.  There will be no need of a candle or the sun because there is no night there.  You need a candle in the night to light your way.  You need the sun to rise to bring the light and chase the dark away and that is how it has always been in this world.  Those things pointed to the Gospel because the Bible says, “the world lieth in wickedness.”  The darkness in man’s heart and the darkness of sin were here and the kingdom of darkness ruled in the world and Satan, the ruthless and evil king, ruled over mankind and men did service to sin and Satan.  There were many terrible and awful things that were done in the “night,” but there is no more night in that new earth.  There is no more sin, no more death, no more sorrow, no more evil deeds and all the grievous things that accompany them.  There is no more Satan or evil kings stirring up trouble.  There are no more enemies of God.  All of these things had been constant in this world.  They are everywhere and we are immersed in the “night” while we live in this world and all around us we see the evidence of darkness, but it will not be there.  The heaven and earth that are now have passed away and God has brought judgment upon Satan and destroyed that evil, fallen angel for evermore at this point.  The angels that fell with him have also been destroyed and exist no more and the billions of people that sinned against God have at this point been destroyed and exist no more.  The world that had been given over to destruction and exists no more. So there is no “night” there.  It is a new creation.  It is a new heaven and new earth and the ones dwelling in it are all new creatures, created anew in the image of God in both body and soul.  It is an entirely beautiful place. 

There is life and there is light – and only light.  As it said, “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” This reminds us of what we read in the last chapter in Revelation 21:22-23:

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

The word “light” is Strong’s #3088 and it is the same word translated as “candle” in Revelation 20:5: “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle,” and that is because the Lamb is the “candle” thereof and there is no need to light a candle of a Gospel to bring light to dark spiritual places because God is the Light and Christ is the candle that is always lit. 

Remember the candlestick in the Bible typified the Lord Jesus Christ and His blessing in the midst of the congregations.  We read about this in the early chapters in Revelation, chapters 2 and 3.  God was using the churches and the “candlestick” was in their midst.  When God ended His relationship with the New Testament churches, He put out the light of the candle or the light of the Gospel and the church went into a “natural” condition apart from God, just as all men in their natural conditions are in darkness.  Then Christ was dwelling in the midst of a corporate body and there is a “figure” there indicating the blessing of God as long as the candlestick remained.  There was blessing in the world during the day of salvation as long as the light of the candle shined, but we know that on May 21, 2011 God put out the light of the candle to “Babylon,” the nations of the world.  Once God put out the light of the candle, the world went dark and there was no more salvation.

But, here, God is indicating that the Lord God gives them light and that Christ is the “candle.”  All the language of the Bible in regard to the new heaven and new earth is unanimous – the light will shine forever and ever and ever.  It will shine “all day long,” to use a figure of speech, and there is no night there, so that means the light of God and the blessing of God is always shining upon the people of God.  There is wonderful light and wonderful blessing for God’s elect people for evermore.  There is no threat, no danger and no possibility of the light ever being removed, coming out of the midst or of being put out.  This is what God is emphasizing in our verse and He repeats Himself because we need to hear it again. 

The condition we have lived in on this world for our entire lives is one of darkness and the only light at shined came forth from the Bible, the Word of God.  The condition of the new world is completely opposite.  It is a world of bright, glorious, brilliant light that shines and shines.  In this present world, we know about the darkness and we know there are even greater depths to that darkness.  We hear of some depraved acts in this world that are super ugly and we do not have to look far, do we?  We hear of governments that kill unborn children and sell “baby parts.”  That is about as ugly as anything can get and it is just so awful that these things take place in this world.  We think, “That is so terrible.  It is super dark.”  And, yet, that is not the final bottom of the “depths of depravity.”  Things can always get worse.  There is darkness to the left and darkness to the right and there is even darkness in our own lives when we fall into sin.  It is in our own homes and it is everywhere in the world. 

Yet, in that new world, wherever you look – to the right, to the left, within and without – it will be “light” and more “light.”  Instead of saying that something is “darker than anything I have ever heard of,” we will say, “This is more enlightening than anything I have seen,” and there will be degrees of light in this beautiful new heaven and new earth, shining in its light and brilliance.  It is finally what all those children’s story books promised, but could not deliver: “And they lived happily ever after.”  That was never true in this world, but it is true for the glorious future of the saints of God.