Revelation 22:3Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Anathema, that is, exclusion, may be understood in two senses. Either it is something reserved for God alone and inaccessible to many, or it is something that does not touch creation and the holy powers, but is spoken to the devil and applied to him because of his final estrangement from the good. We think that here "anathema" is used in an intensified sense. For this is not imposed, but cut off, since it is subject to the devil and condemned to be trampled down. There will be no such curse in the city.

There will be nothing accursed in the city. That is, no opposing temptation will draw near to it, and no worldly vice will be found there through the action of the mad envious one. But the dominion of divine authority and of the Lamb will be in its midst. Amid the city’s joyful exultation, all will serve Him. They will rejoice at the sight of His face and in the sweetness of His presence. They will receive on their foreheads His name, which was inscribed on the tablet above His cross; see Jn 19:21.

Even if curses have now been put to flight to a great extent, we are still entangled in them. Under thousands of pretexts, as often happens, they arise in knowledge or in ignorance. But at that time the saints will surely be pure and unmixed, free from every defilement of soul and body. It is said that the Kingdom of God will be in that city, for it is the throne. The saints will serve Him, not with burdensome service, but with service joined to delight and spiritual joy. This will come from seeing His face.

He did not say that there were no thrones. For where there is natural and indivisible unity, there the glory of the Godhead is described in the most fitting way. The one throne for the undivided sitting of the Trinity can neither be divided by the deceit of Arian perversity nor merged by the doubt of Sabellian pride. It can only be contemplated as the possession of catholic truth and possessed after testing by the right confession of faith in it. The Arians asserted that the Son is not consubstantial with the Father, and therefore is not true God by nature, possessing lordship only by adoption. The Sabellians did not acknowledge the real distinction of Persons in the Godhead, which they considered a monad devoid of inner relations. Therefore they considered the Persons of the Trinity merely modes by which people perceived the Godhead in different ages, not real Hypostases.

Its inhabitants will be all the heavenly powers and the saints, who have become the throne of God because the Master rests upon them. They will see God face to face, according to the Apostle (1 Cor 13:12). To see God means to have in the heart not passions, but love. The seal of this love will be on their foreheads. They will need neither the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, for they themselves, according to the word of Christ, will be illumined by the King of Glory.

All this points to the uninterrupted and most complete communion of the members of the heavenly Church with their Master, joined even to the vision of His face. This bond of the heavenly inhabitants with their Master, weakened by nothing and never ceasing, will be the source, or cause, of their eternal delight and blessedness. With such majestic and beautiful features the holy seer depicted the new Jerusalem, or the triumphant Church of the Lord in heaven, after the fulfillment of the ages.