Revelation 22:5

Revelation 22:5. And there shall be night no more. We have already had a similar statement in chap. Revelation 21:25, but it is now repeated in a different connection and with a different purpose. Then it was to indicate that the gates of the city shall be continually open, so that the redeemed may continually enter with their gifts in order to magnify its King. Now it is to show that, having entered, they shall suffer no interruption in their joyful service, and shall need no nightly rest to recruit the weary frame for the service of the following day. They shall be always strong and vigorous for the service of their Lord.

And they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun, for the Lord God shall give them light. Did they need light of lamp or sun, it would show that they were still amidst the changes of this fleeting scene, for the lamp wastes as it burns, and the sun hastens daily to his setting. But He who is ‘without variableness or shadow cast by turning' is now their light, and that light never fades. As their frame never wearies for service, so the conditions necessary for the accomplishment of that service never fail.

And they shall reign for ever and ever. The transition is sudden, almost startling, for we have been reading only of ‘service.' Yet it is eminently characteristic of St. John, who constantly delights at the close of a passage to return to his earlier steps, and to close as he had begun. He has reached the consummation of the happiness of the saints of God, and of what can it remind him but of his very earliest words, words too the echo of which has run through the whole of the Apocalypse, ‘And he made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father' (chap. Revelation 1:6)? It is true that the redeemed are priests, but they are more than priests. He with whom they are one is a ‘priest after the order of Melchizedek,' both priest and king. In like manner they are both priests and kings; they ‘sit down with their Lord in His throne, even as He also overcame, and sat down with His Father in His throne' (chap. Revelation 3:21). They share the Divine authority over all things around them, and their authority is without interruption and without end. They reign ‘for ever and ever.'