vv 3-4 No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship Him And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads.
In the very first chapter of the bible we find God’s appreciation of a perfect creation ‘Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!’ (Genesis 1:31) Then by chapter 3 the verdict is different:
‘The ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.’
Human sin and disobedience destroyed the beauty and perfection of God’s creation – and we see the consequences of that all around us. Turn on the TV news, or read today’s paper, and the story shouts loud and clear – God’s world has become a messy place. But the story doesn’t end there!
In the final chapter of the bible, Revelation 22, we find the whole situation reversed. Instead of ‘The ground is cursed because of you. ’ we now find ‘No longer will there be a curse upon anything. ’ The earth and its fruitfulness is restored. That is the big story of God and the world he has created, and it is the story in which you have a part. The story in Genesis is of humanity driven from the presence of God because of sin, but then beautiful friendship with God is restored to those drawn into his Kingdom.