1. Revelation 22:3 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What do the words “no longer” imply?

Revelation 22:3 (ESV)

3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

In the present world there is place for cursedness (Genesis 3:14, Genesis 3:17 regarding Satan and soil; Galatians 1:8–9 regarding people or angels; 1 Corinthians 16:22 regarding people even in the church). Though this is God’s world, the blessed and the cursed, the wheat and the weeds (Matthew 13:24–30) live side by side. That, however, will change in the New Jerusalem; since God himself lives there, there will “no longer…be anything accursed” there. After all, in the New Jerusalem there will be no sin and no rebellion against God, and so there is nothing that can be subject to God’s ban (Revelation 21:8, Revelation 21:27). That includes Satan and his demons (Revelation 20:10).