The Tree of Life and the River of God

I grew up near the mighty Mississippi. It begins in my birth-state, Minnesota, and runs the length of the United States. It is a very important part of the geography and life of this country, as indeed are the many rivers in various parts of the entire world. John begins his final chapter with a description of the river of the water of life and the tree of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. - Rev 22:1-2 ESV

Let's examine them.

David writes about this river in his powerful song:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. - Psa 46:4 ESV

The image is that of Jerusalem, the fortress city, surrounded by enemies who intend to force the inhabitants to give up because they no longer have water. But "there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God." We think at once of various famous Biblical rivers like the Nile and the Euphrates. The countries through which these rivers flow are very dependent upon them. Likewise, the city of Jerusalem could not exist very long without a steady supply of water. David reminds us that the city of God has such a river. That river is God Himself! He is in the midst of her. John now picks up this familiar image to describe the eternal city of God. Through her flows the pure as crystal river of life, the life that was lost when Adam and Eve were driven from their garden home:

Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever--" therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. - Gen 3:22-24 ESV

Now the tree of life is given back to all inhabitants of this wondrous city of God. Like the river, the tree grows in the midst of the city. It grows as a forest on either side of the river. It bears twelve different kinds of fruit, a new kind of fruit each month, and its leaves bring healing to the nations.

Tree of Life - wallpaper

As we know so well, there are 12 tribes of the people of God in the O.T. and Jesus chose 12 apostles to be His special messengers. Now the symbol 12 is used again to describe the life-giving properties of this wondrous tree of life, ever-bearing, month after month, always with new and plentiful fruit for everyone and medicinal properties in its leaves. What a beautiful image. Now eternal life is restored by the endless grace and mercy of God.

John continues:

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. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. - Rev 22:3-5 ESV

To see God is the precious promise of our Lord Jesus in His sermon:

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. - Mat 5:8 ESV

Only those purified and cleansed by the blood of the Lamb of God will be permitted to see Him face to face. They will see Him looking upon them with eternal love and mercy. In his epistle John writes about this:

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. - 1Jo 3:2-3 ESV

So we wait patiently for the promise to be fulfilled, for our hope is in the Son of God who has given Himself for us that we may be cleansed from all sin, drink from the pure river of God, eat from the great tree of life and gaze upon the face of God forever. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

Repentance And The Material Principle

Modern day Turkey occupies most of what was once the Roman province of Asia. It is also known as Anatolia.This is the area between the Mediterranean and the Black seas. It was the meeting point between the continents of Asia and Europe and the crossroads for migrating people and armies. The western part of Asia Minor holds the site of the seven churches to which John addresses seven letters. By the end of the first century there were more than seven churches in that area. From Paul's letters we know of other cities in that area hosting congregations of Christians. John's seven include Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Beside these Paul writes to Colossae and Hieropolis. Within these cities there would be many smaller congregations of believers.

John starts with the church in Ephesus:

'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. "'I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.' - Rev 2:1-7 ESV

The Lord Jesus commends the christians in Ephesus. They did good. They refused to bear with those who are evil. They tested the false apostles. It took a lot of work and an equal amount of perseverance to sort out the truth from the lies. This is the kind of work that still must go on today as we are bombarded from all directions by the media, TV, books, Tweets, letters and so forth. John gives some guidelines on how to do just this. In his epistle he writes,

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. - 1Jo 4:1-3 ESV

This is often called the material principle or the central teaching of the Christian faith.  It points to the faith that says that Jesus is both God and man, the promised Messiah, the Christ. He came among mankind to offer His holy life as the sacrificial payment for the sins of all men. And we are now justified in God's eyes through faith in Christ alone.

The Ephesian christians did the work of sorting through the teachings of false apostles. But they had abandoned the love they once had. Apparently they went beyond this first work and began to be suspicious of one another, dividing into camps. Paul writes about such an approach in Corinth:

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul," or "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Cephas," or "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? - 1Co 1:11-13 ESV

 And later, he writes,

. . . for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. - 1Co 3:3-9 ESV 

Divisions and quarrels like this still go on among us Christians. We continually need the Lord's admonition to repent, to rethink and to change the direction in which our lives are moving. This work of repentance is difficult. It requires humility. In John's words again,

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. - 1Jo 1:5-10 ESV

The first of Luther's famous 95 theses posted on the door of the Wittenberg church reads,

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said "repent," he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance. 

The Ephesian christians, like all of us, needed to learn this basic truth. But there was one thing for which the Lord did commend them: they hated the works of the Nicolaitans. Who were they? We do not know for certain. It may refer to a certain sect that followed the teachings of Nicolaus ("he who conquers people"). Was Nicolaus one of the seven chosen to care for the widows in Jerusalem (Acts 6:5)? We do not know. What we do know is that this sect taught contrary to the inspired teachings of the Apostles. What we also know is that each congregation must be constantly repenting, rethinking and re-evaluating her teachings and the teachings of those leading them—yet humbly and with patient endurance. Luke joins John as he writes about the Berean believers:

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. - Acts 17:11 ESV

We all do well to heed these words, as John says in concluding his short letter to Ephesus:

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.' - Rev 2:7 ESV (see also Gen. 2:9; 3:22-24; Rev. 22:14,19)

Christ's Secret Marriage Plan

These days we're exploring the mystery of marriage. Earlier I pointed you to the Genesis text (Gen. 2:24):

Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh

Today I begin to unravel what the Apostle means when he says that this is a profound mystery and he is saying that it refers to Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32). Paul frequently refers to mysteries. Earlier in Ephesians he writes:

• how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. ⁴When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, ⁵ which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit (Ephesians 3:3-5).
   
• To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, ⁹ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in^[a] God who created all things, ¹⁰ so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:8-10).

The gospel of Jesus Christ is a mystery revealed and made known to Paul and through him to us all.  

• Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages (Romans 16:25). 

Above all, the Apostle emphasizes that this mystery was not something he discovered by his research or science. It is a mystery unknown to mankind in all other generations. It was kept secret for long ages. All of Adam's descendants, like Adam in the garden at the beginning, were alone. However, this was not the same kind of loneliness as Adam experienced at the beginning when he was still secure within the Garden and spoke with God each evening. No indeed. This was a loneliness brought on by Adam's disobedience. From that time forward he and his kind were separated from God and excluded from the Garden. Moses writes, 

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
   and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
   ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
   in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
   and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your face
   you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
   for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:17-19)

And then the loneliness and separation began. 

"Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” ²³ therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life" (Genesis 3:22-24).

What did the LORD God mean when He said, "the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil?" Surely He did not mean that Adam and his kind were not to develop moral judgments, the ability to distinguish good from evil. What then? We know that God knows good and evil. And we see that Adam did not have this knowledge until after his act of rebellion. As a result of gaining this knowledge the entire planet has been infected with suffering, pain and death. Adam and Eve now realize they are dust, earth and their bodies will now decay and return to the earth from whence they have come. 


Why this judgment? Because in claiming the right to decide what is good or evil, Adam has declared his autonomy. He has claimed to be God. Adam now makes the rules. Adam now decides what is good and what is evil. In so doing he has grievously erred. He is not God. He is Adam, created by God and made from the dust of the earth. He must learn this—and he will, at the cost of his life! 

"Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—"

The phrase, knowing good and evil, is used one more time in the Bible. 

"And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it" (Deuteronomy 1:39).  

The children of Israel had disobeyed the LORD God in the wilderness by refusing to go in when He commanded them. They allowed their fear to hold them back. They said that the Nephilim, giants, ruled there. Before them they were but grasshoppers. It was not possible. Consequently these disobedient people were excluded from entering the land (Numbers 13:25-14:45). Their children, who had not been part of the rebellion, were innocent. They had "no knowledge of good or evil"; consequently they were allowed to possess the land after 40 years when their parents had all died off.


Perhaps you can see where this is leading. The mystery revealed in Christ is that we, the children of Adam, are now reunited to our rightful husband, master and LORD in Christ. Through His innocent suffering, death and resurrection, we have been declared innocent and forgiven. We are no longer the disobedient sons of the first Adam. In baptism we are now united by faith to the second Adam (Romans 6:3-11; 1 Cor.15:21-22) We have become bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh, so that we say with Paul, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). This is the long-hidden, secret marriage plan. 


More on this next time.