This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon. 

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In the midst of John’s blissful vision of the new heavens and earth, he records these simple but profound words: “and there will no longer be any curse” (Rev. 22:3). What’s the curse to which John refers? And who or what causes the curse to end?

John’s reference to the curse takes us back to Genesis 3 and the Fall. There, Adam’s sin plunges all creation into a morass of death and decay. John also whisks us through the pages of the Old Testament, where we see the parallel tracks of sin’s destruction and God’s promise of a virgin-born redeemer.

And he reminds us of the New Testament truth that Jesus of Nazareth burst onto the scene two thousand years ago, divinely conceived, perfect in humanity, and sent into a world sagging beneath the weight of sin. The Messiah’s sinless life and finished work on the cross conquer Satan, sin, and death, and his promise to return enables us to rest in the certainty that the curse cannot last forever. 

Now, John’s vision of the new heavens and earth shows us in stunning detail that Christ has ended the curse and reversed the effects of the Fall. Satan, evil spirits, and rebellious humans are banished to the lake of fire. The created order, which for centuries has groaned beneath the weight of sin (Rom. 8:22), is finally liberated. Sin and its stain are purged from the earth, sky, and space. And, true to his promise, Jesus makes everything new (Rev. 21:5).

Very good indeed

To better understand the curse, we should go back to the beginning. After declaring all creation “very good indeed” (Gen. 1:31), the Lord lays everything before Adam and invites him to enjoy it. But the creator places one restriction on the new administrator of the earth: “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:16-17). Put another way, the Lord warns Adam of severe consequences for disobeying the creator – a curse, if you will.

Adam rejects God’s counsel; he takes matters into his own hands. And the curse materializes – though subtly at first. Adam isn’t struck dead, but he comes to understand he’s a condemned man who died spiritually on the day he disobeyed God. He’s in the process of dying in his conscious being (his soul). And, in the future, he will die physically, although hundreds of years later. Adam and Eve realize they’re naked, which they’ve always known. But now they’re ashamed, and they cover themselves. Next, they hide from God among the trees and talk to him from what they perceive to be a safe distance.

When the Lord questions them about their actions, Adam blames his wife and implicates the Lord himself: “The woman you gave to be with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12, emphasis added). In a similar manner, Eve points to the one who conned her: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Gen. 3:13). 

The Lord turns first to the serpent and curses him. No longer free to move between the unseen realm and the Garden of Eden, the anointed guardian cherub (Ezek. 28:14) is sent to the underworld, where he’s associated with death. We later learn that a special future home is prepared for him: hell (Matt. 25:41). Further, the Lord declares there is to be hostility between the evil one’s children and Eve’s children, and that a special “offspring” of Eve will strike the head of Satan, although at great personal cost (Gen. 3:15). 

The protoevangelium

For Adam and Eve, this must be good news. A future redeemer is coming to rescue them. This is the protoevangelium – the first gospel, the beginning of roughly four hundred prophecies and foreshadows of the coming Messiah. But until Eve’s special descendent comes and sets things right, the curse remains on human beings and the created order. There is pain in childbearing for women, rancor in the marriage bond, a cursed ground that grudgingly yields food, exhausting labor required to eke out a living, and, ultimately, a return to the dust from which God made Adam. 

Further, Adam may no longer eat freely from the tree of life. This appears to be an act of mercy on God’s part, for partaking of the tree now presumably would have made Adam live forever in his sinful state (Gen. 3:22).

From Eden, the curse spreads outward. The first couple is exiled from the garden. The first son, perhaps thought to be the promised redeemer, turns out to be a murderous rebel, and one of his descendants becomes the first polygamist. The first case of sexual misconduct involving fallen angels results in a violent race of giants that persists until the days of King David. 

Human wickedness is so widespread, and the Lord is so grieved, God sends a global flood in judgment. The survivors descend quickly into mischief, building a tower to span the gap between earth and God’s throne, and engaging in perverse behavior that calls down fire and brimstone on their communities. 

The Lord calls out a special people for his own and miraculously delivers them from bondage in Egypt, but they bring divine wrath on themselves and discredit him before the pagan nations around them. The Shekinah glory leaves the temple, never to return – until a virgin-born son, the fulfillment of the protoevangelium, is born in a village outside Jerusalem. 

In the Incarnation, Christ comes as the last Adam, to set us free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2). He unravels the damage the first Adam wrought (Rom. 5:15-19; 1 Cor. 15:22, 45). Through his sinless life, Jesus succeeds where Adam fails. Then, by way of the cross and the resurrection, Christ makes a way to restore fallen people to a right relationship with God, and to restore the Eden in which God and the first humans walked side-by-side in the cool of the evening. 

Christ redeemed us

But this great reversal comes at a price. As Paul writes, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree” (Gal. 3:13; cf. Deut. 21:23). It is precisely because Jesus bears our sins on a tree – the cross – that access to the tree of life is restored to mankind. God the Father lays our curse on the shoulders of his Son. Jesus becomes a curse in our place. And because of this, innocence and immortality, which the tree of life provides, are restored as the curse of sin is lifted forever. 

And so, Revelation 22:3 tells us “there will no longer be any curse.” When Christ returns to set things right, he not only casts Satan into hell (Rev. 20:10; cf. Gen. 3:15); he reverses the curse that resulted from the sinister partnership between the serpent and earth’s first human beings. 

Adam and Eve are the only humans to experience the earth as God created it – pristine, perfect, very good indeed. They watch the earth – and themselves – shrivel beneath the curse, and every human being who has followed them has dragged the ball and chain of the curse behind them. 

But God does not leave us helpless or hopeless. Even fallen people are created in the image of God. Even the cursed heavens and earth we inhabit bear testimony of a divine designer. And the promise of restored humanity and a renewed heaven and earth have their seeds in the Garden of Eden after the Fall: God is sending an offspring of Eve to crush the head of Satan, banish the curse, and restore the universe to sinless perfection. 

Next: The Restoration of Eden