Revelation 22:3, commentary and pictures

The holy city on the renewed earth will be entirely free from the curse, with God and the Lamb dwelling and reigning there while their servants serve before them. No effect of the curse will remain there, for sin and sickness and sorrow and death and trial and temptation will be gone without a trace. The presence of the throne means everlasting life under their rule, by which the fallen world is brought back into connection with heaven through the Son's victory. Those servants are the loyal overcomers who kept God's commandments and held to Jesus on earth, and who enter through the gates to abide around the throne. Their service will not be idle rest but active loving worship and joyful work, wider and higher than service now, tending the renewed earth and praising God without end. This is Eden regained and the earth restored to its intended purity as the eternal home of the redeemed, to be entered only by full repentance, obedience and faith in Christ, learned and practiced in this present life.

City Without Curse

The verse pictures the holy city, the New Jerusalem on the new earth, as the place where there is no more curse and the throne of God and of the Lamb is present where His servants serve Him. In that restored world and home of the faithful the curse is gone, God and the Lamb reign there, and their servants serve God there. The end of the curse is placed within the city of God, where circumstances have changed so that God's people can see His face and bear His name. It describes the city of God where the curse is gone, God and the Lamb reign, their servants serve them and live in their presence, the heavenly city for which people are preparing and into which they hope to help others enter. The surrounding picture adds that the redeemed see God's face, bear His name on their foreheads, and live in unending light with no night and no need of lamp or sun.

The end of the curse means the curse and all its effects will be gone in the earth made new. That includes sin, sickness, sorrow, and death, with no more trials, no more griefs, and no more temptations, but entrance into everlasting life and everlasting happiness, living forever and ever. The world to come will be free from sin, death, and the curse, and nature will no longer bear its blight. After the wicked are destroyed and the earth is purified, the renewed and purified earth will have no trace or sign of the curse left upon it. There the redeemed will worship their Redeemer forever, and the purified new earth will be their eternal inheritance.

The earth promised to the meek is this new earth, where righteousness dwells, free from the curse, with God and the Lamb reigning there and their servants serving them, unlike the present world darkened by death and the curse. This present earth is beautiful in nature and full of good things and would satisfy if it were not blighted by the curse of sin, but the promise is a purified new earth where all things are made new and the curse of sin is removed and free from that blight.

The throne being there means everlasting life will be free from every curse, with God and the Lamb enthroned and dwelling and reigning there. The earth will be restored as the eternal home of the redeemed and as the eternal home God intended for holy, happy beings, with sin and sorrow gone, the curse removed, and the redeemed earth freed from sin's curse. This is the full restoration of what was lost through Adam's sin. Through the Son of God's victory the earth is freed from the curse of sin and the fallen world is brought back into connection with God's throne.

Servants and Their Service

Those who serve in the place where the curse is gone are God's denominated people, those who on this earth proved loyal by keeping the commandments of God and holding the faith and testimony of Jesus Christ. They are the ones who owned the crucified One as their Saviour while living here, and in the home of the faithful they serve where God and the Lamb reign.

They are overcomers who obey God's law and follow Christ in self-denial and cross-bearing, complying with the requirements for entering through the gates into the city, while those who fail to obey are classed with those outside. Their entrance and service there is the final reward of those who faithfully keep God's commandments, the promised home gained by sanctified obedience to the will and Word of God. That future life, a life that measures with the life of God in everlasting life and everlasting happiness with no more trials, griefs or temptations, is offered in exchange for a few brief years of earnest, determined service now in refusing sin and negligence, pleading for the sanctification of the Spirit, and reaching a higher standard. As faithful workers whose work abides and as trained children, they abide forever and gather around the divine throne in eternity, accepted with sins blotted out and transgressions borne away, sharing Christ's joy in seeing souls saved after having shared His sufferings and labored together with Him in redemption.

Their service is not idle repose, for its rest is loving service that is delight and rest rather than tiring or burdensome labor. It is active service through the ceaseless ages of eternity in ceaseless praise and worship, continually praising God, wider in scope and higher in joy than service in this world. In the renewed world after the thousand years following Christ's second advent, the saints live outside the holy city and tend the earth in a way unlike earthly labor now, since labor itself is a blessing and only sin and excess make it exhausting. There Christ leads the redeemed beside the river of life and teaches what those who died without fully understanding the plan of salvation could not understand on earth.

That service must be learned in this life, because earthly life begins the life of heaven and education trains in heaven's principles so that character and holy service now foreshadow and prepare for work in heaven. Preparation comes by knowing God and becoming faithful servants, by trusting Christ and walking toward heaven in cooperation with heaven's holy beings while one's own willing effort remains essential, and by devoting life to doing His will as those who belong to Him. Serving God rather than personal interest requires thorough conversion in habits and character, expressed in supreme love for God and love for neighbor as self in keeping with the principles of God's law. No one can serve God for another by controlling another person's mind; each must learn for himself what God-fearing service means.

In that future life those who receive Christ and believe on Him are given power to become His sons, brought into close relationship with God. They associate with the highest dignitaries in the kingdom of heaven and unite with Gabriel, with cherubim and seraphim, with angels and the archangel, living among the angels when the Lord comes and eating from the tree of life as the good and holy. In the home of the blessed, free from sin and its curse, they bear the perfect likeness of their Creator and continue through the ages to grow in wisdom, knowledge and holiness, discovering new wonders and increasing in capacity to know, enjoy and love.

Eden Restored at End

The verse promises the full restoration of what was lost through Adam's sin, with the redeemed earth freed from sin's curse and restored as the eternal home God intended for holy, happy beings through Christ's merits. Through those merits the earth and humanity are restored from what sin took away, the curse ending, God's throne present, and His servants serving Him as the lasting home of humanity. It is Eden restored and Paradise regained, for holy Eden was lost for Adam and Eve and their posterity by disobedience. That lost paradise will never be regained by those who continue to live in transgression of God's law, for Christ did not die to save the sinner in his sins, and the whole world stands condemned as guilty transgressors of His holy law who will perish unless they repent, turn from disobedience, and through faith claim the merits of His precious blood. Regaining the right to the Eden home is by grace, being justified freely by Christ's blood so that acceptable obedience may be rendered, through obedience to God's law and faith in the atoning blood of the Son as the only Redeemer. The right is kept by ceasing to please self, leaving the side of the great rebel, giving the whole soul to God, repenting for time and talents given to the enemy, choosing the good and refusing the evil, seeking the Lord while He may be found, and walking the path of obedience to God's will, whose Word and plans stand forever, while choosing the disobedience that caused the loss forfeits it. That Paradise restored to Eden's glory is not yet present but will soon be given to the pure.

The renewed earth is purified after the wicked are destroyed, with every mark of the curse removed and restored to Edenic purity and loveliness as the eternal inheritance of the redeemed. There will be no trace or sign of the curse left on the purified earth, where the redeemed worship their Redeemer forever. The fulfillment belongs to the time when the work is closed and finished. It belongs to the vision of the new earth after the thousand years following Christ's second advent, in which renewed world the saints live outside the holy city, tend the earth in a way unlike earthly labor now, and continually praise God where the curse is no more and God and the Lamb reign. It describes the time after Christ comes when the controversy is ended and the saints are given rest as immortal beings gathered with angels around God's throne to behold His glory and the Lamb's face to face and serve Him. Until then mankind remains separated from God's visible presence because of the fall and still needs the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially in the perils of the last days, but then the spirit of prophecy is no longer needed and belongs among heaven's past blessings. It describes the consummation that closes the great controversy between Christ and Satan, fulfilled at the coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the destruction of Satan and of sin, when the glorious kingdom of Christ and of God is established on the new earth where Christ reigns in glory.

It belongs to the closing revelation that Christ Himself made known to John on the Isle of Patmos. It shows the last events of this earth's history and is given from God as a solemn warning for the last days, to be read and understood so that minds are not kept confused.

Vision Around Verse

The holy city holds the throne of God and of the Lamb where the curse is ended and His servants serve Him, and the surrounding vision adds that they see His face and bear His name on their foreheads and live in His presence in unending light with no night and no need of lamp or sun because the Lord gives them light, and they reign forever. Beside that throne flows the pure crystal river of life, with the tree of life standing for the healing of the nations as part of the eternal blessings prepared for every soul brought to share in that life. No one in the present condition can see God's face and live, but the redeemed will behold it when circumstances have changed in the city of God and in the restored world.

Those who love God and desire heaven will delight to live in His presence. God's image will shine from His servants, and they will be openly acknowledged as His sons and daughters whose lives on earth showed that they belonged to Him. The city whose builder and maker is God is far more glorious than any earthly place and more glorious than the brightest human imagination can portray. Its broad streets are of pure gold like transparent glass, and while the beauty of nature now gives only a faint glimpse of His glory, that home of the saved will be free from sin and death and the blight of the curse.

It is the heavenly city for which people are preparing and into which they hope to enter, a place to win well worth striving for in preparation for eternity, and those who seek it are to help others seek it with them. The higher life to come in the presence of God and the Lamb is where God's people will shine forever.

Preparing to Share Promise

Sharing in the promise requires preparation now by keeping the eyes fixed on God, becoming Christlike, and knowing Christ as a present personal Saviour. Earthly things that come between the soul and God must be severed, and the soul must draw nigh to God.

God's will is that His commandments be kept just as written, including the Sabbath, with right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city promised to those who do His commandments. This is to be searched in Scripture with prayer for opened understanding and a mind willing to grasp every ray of light even when opposed to past belief. The last chapter makes its impression upon heart and life and character by calling for earnest prayer and untiring work, for most thorough repentance without dallying, and for purification of the soul by heartfelt repentance. It calls for asking God to forgive unfaithful discharge of duty, for tarrying no longer in an unprepared state, and for opening the door of the heart that Christ may enter, because time is urgent and every church, school, and sanitarium should long since have stood upon a much higher platform. Holy Eden was lost for Adam and Eve and their posterity by disobedience, and those who continue to live in transgression of God's law will never regain the lost paradise, for Christ did not die to save the sinner in his sins. The whole world stands condemned as guilty before God as transgressors of His holy law and will perish unless they repent, turn from disobedience, and through faith in Christ claim the merits of His precious blood, for it is by grace, being justified freely by the blood of Christ, that the sinner is saved, and through that grace man may render acceptable obedience and gain a home in Eden restored.

The end of the curse means no more trials, no more griefs, and no more temptations, with entrance into everlasting life and everlasting happiness, living forever and ever. That future life, a life that measures with the life of God, is offered in exchange for a few brief years of sanctified obedience to the will and Word of God here. Now is therefore the time to begin earnestly and determinedly serving Him, refusing sin and negligence, pleading for the sanctification of the Spirit, and reaching a higher standard as overcomers.

The promise belongs to the redeemed in the future immortal life in the New Jerusalem, where the curse will be gone and God and the Lamb will dwell and reign on the throne with their servants serving them, and it gives comfort amid present distress. Heaven is a place to win that is well worth striving for, and preparation for it is preparation for eternity. Those who seek it are to help others seek it with them. The service of the holy city is applied to sanitariums as places where patients and helpers may serve God now. Children are to be formed in character so they may be fitted for that higher life of living in the presence of God and the Lamb forever and shine there.

These are faithful and true sayings about things which must shortly be done, with Christ coming quickly and blessing on him that keeps the sayings of the prophecy, where there is no more curse, the throne of God and of the Lamb is present, His servants serve Him and see His face with His name in their foreheads, with no night and no need of candle or sun because the Lord God gives them light and they reign forever and ever. They give warning to all living on the earth to lean helpless souls upon the Lord alone and not upon any man, to refuse exalting and worshiping men who are led astray and lead others astray to eternal ruin, to worship God only, and to stop all contention, faultfinding, and lifting up the soul unto vanity. Ministers are warned not to preach their own suppositions but to search the Scriptures earnestly, because teaching for doctrine what is not contained in God's Word places them among those portrayed in Revelation's last chapter.