Who Are the Nations That Are Saved in Revelation 21:24?

“And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it.”

This is the last saving expression a reader meets in the King James New Testament, and it comes with a complication worth handling honestly at the start.

The phrase “of them which are saved” is almost certainly not part of the most widely attested Greek text of Revelation 21:24. It stands in the Textus Receptus, and therefore in the KJV, and is missing from nearly everything else.

That is a real textual question, and this project does not intend to talk around it. But it is worth saying immediately what the variant does and does not affect—because the answer turns out to be unusually clear.

Where the Phrase Stands

The Greek behind the KJV reads ta ethnē tōn sōzomenōn—the nations of those being saved.

It appears in the Textus Receptus, in a small group of Greek manuscripts, and in part of the Syriac tradition. Its presence in the printed TR is commonly connected with the transmission of Revelation alongside the commentary of Andreas, where commentary and biblical text could be confused.

It is absent from Hodges–Farstad, Robinson–Pierpont, the Tyndale House edition, SBL, Nestle-Aland, Westcott–Hort, and Tregelles. Hodges–Farstad’s omission has been verified for this project through a published multi-edition apparatus; confirmation from the physical desk copy is still wanted for the permanent record, but the reading is not in doubt.

Those editions read, in effect: and the nations shall walk by its light.

So this page identifies Revelation 21:24 honestly as a KJV/TR occurrence rather than one of the generally attested uses of sōzō.

Why the Variant Changes Very Little

Verse 27 is not disputed, and it settles who is present in this city:

And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Revelation 21:27

Whether or not John wrote the word saved in verse 24, the people walking in that light are the people written in the Lamb’s book. The textual question decides whether the label appears. It does not decide whether the reality is there.

This makes the passage a useful teaching case: a textually limited word can still name a meaning the undisputed context fully supplies.

What Has Just Happened

The chapter before ends at the great white throne. Death and hell are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death, and whoever is not found written in the book of life is cast in with them.

Then a new heaven and a new earth, and a city coming down out of heaven from God, and a voice: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.” Every tear wiped away. Death, sorrow, crying, and pain gone. “Behold, I make all things new.”

Verses 22–27 describe life inside that finished reality. And notice the direction of travel: the city comes down. This is not humanity escaping creation for a distant spiritual realm. Creation is renewed, and God’s dwelling fills human life.

Babel went up from human ambition. The New Jerusalem comes down as a gift.

Saved from the Whole Order of Death

The surrounding chapters name what has been left behind: the lake of fire and the second death; exclusion from the book of life; sorrow, crying, and pain; a creation subjected to corruption; uncleanness, abomination, and falsehood; separation from God’s dwelling; and the darkness that hostile kingdoms once ruled.

That is not survival at a safe distance from judgment. The nations are brought into the light, the holiness, the fellowship, and the vocation humanity was made for.

The result is comprehensive because the ruin it answers is comprehensive.

Walking in the Light

Light in Scripture is rarely only illumination. It signifies God’s presence, truth, holiness, life, and revealed glory.

Here there is no temple, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it,” and no sun or moon, “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

To walk in that light means a people’s whole life proceeds openly within God’s presence. Nothing is left hidden in rebellious darkness. Human life is finally aligned with its Creator.

And notice what does not happen: the nations still walk. Kings still bring glory. Peoples retain recognisable corporate identity. Salvation does not flatten redeemed humanity into an undifferentiated spiritual mass. It reconciles human difference under the Lamb.

Are There Unsaved Nations Outside?

The imagery of nations and kings approaching the city has sometimes been read as though an unredeemed world continues just beyond the walls.

It should not be. John is drawing on Isaiah 60, where Jerusalem becomes the illuminated centre toward which the nations and their kings come. The picture is inclusion, not a perimeter.

The gates never shut “for there shall be no night there”—not because security has been relaxed but because threat is gone. Verse 27 is not describing defilement loitering outside waiting for an opening. It is stating the permanent holiness of God’s dwelling.

The Glory the Nations Bring

“The kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.”

This is not tribute propping up a needy empire. God lacks nothing, and the Lamb’s reign requires no extracted wealth.

The image is of every true human good brought willingly under God’s rule—the beauty, work, creativity, relationship, stewardship, and corporate distinctiveness of the nations, purified of rebellion and offered.

Diversity is not erased but redeemed. Glory is brought in, not extracted.

Which means salvation restores human vocation rather than retiring it. The redeemed are not exhibits displayed after a rescue. They live, walk, serve, reign, worship, and carry the glory of a renewed creation into the city of God.

Why There Is No Temple

The absence of a temple tells you where salvation was always going.

A temple marks sacred presence in a world where access is limited and distance remains. In the New Jerusalem no structure is needed to house or mediate a localised divine presence, because God and the Lamb fill the city.

This does not make Christ dispensable once He has delivered His people. God’s presence is permanently in the Lamb’s light. Communion with God is not a benefit obtained from Christ and then enjoyed apart from Him. The Son remains the living relationship through whom redeemed humanity dwells with God.

Why Nothing Defiling Can Enter

The city’s holiness is not anxious exclusion, and it is not fragile.

God does not save people by relocating unchanged rebellion behind golden walls. Forgiveness removed guilt. Justification placed the believer in Christ’s standing. Regeneration gave Christ’s life. Sanctification fitted the believer increasingly to that union. Glorification completes it in the body.

By the time this vision opens, there is no conflict left between the people’s identity and their dwelling place. Everything belonging to falsehood, corruption, and autonomous rebellion has already reached judgment. Those written in the Lamb’s book enter as the holy humanity His life has made.

Holiness does not purchase entry. It is the finished congruence between the redeemed and the Lamb they belong to.

Not Simply Eden Restored

It is tempting to describe the New Jerusalem as Eden regained. It is more than that.

Eden was good and vulnerable. Access to life could be lost, and humanity could be exiled from it—and was. The New Jerusalem is Eden expanded and secured. The gates never close. The curse is gone. The Tree of Life is permanently accessible. The throne of God and of the Lamb remains. Death cannot regain any dominion.

And the redeemed do not become self-existent. Their immortality is still received life: the next chapter shows a river flowing from the throne and a tree bearing fruit continually for the healing of the nations. Dependence does not end; it simply stops being precarious.

What becomes permanent is not creaturely independence but uninterrupted communion and irrevocable access. Resurrection life is derived and certain, because it is forever received in union with a Christ who cannot die.

The words in verse 24 are textually limited. The salvation they describe fills the entire vision.

This study is part of What Does It Mean to Be Saved?, an examination of every New Testament use of saving language in context, within Resource Cluster 3: Life in Christ. 24 of 92 passage studies are complete — see every occurrence.