“There is a river whose streams make glad the City of God, the Holy Place where the Most High dwells.”1 The Holy Spirit emanates from the Father and the Son. It is through the Holy Spirit that God shares of Himself in streams of spiritual gifts, in the ‘water of life’. For this stream nourishes the ‘tree of life’, which maintains eternal, everlasting life. We hear about the ‘river of life’ three times. The first is that river, which branched into four streams and rose in Eden,2 where God had created Paradise for man, a garden towards the east of Eden. In that garden were all kinds of trees, but the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ was there too, and the ‘tree of life’, in the midst of the garden.3 That ‘tree of life’ should have ensured that man would live forever, but when man had eaten of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, death entered into the world; it was a very bitter fruit indeed. This is what the Lord God had said4 and this is what happened, even though the ‘devil’, the ‘nachash’ cast doubt upon it.5 You should not, and must never doubt God’s Word. You can always trust God. And thus ‘Cherubim’ were placed in front of the ‘tree of life’, so that man would be unable to eat of it.6 Although at first glance this looks like a punishment, it actually is not. It is an act of the Grace of God, for man would otherwise have become like the devil – fallen and alive forever. Man would have been ‘past saving’, ‘beyond hope’, ‘beyond redemption’. Yes, for eating of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, man had to die and a flaming sword blocked the way to the ‘tree of life’. Nevertheless, now that man has become a mortal being and he is no longer equal to the devil – who is fallen and immortal – now the possibility remained that one-day man could be redeemed, and saved, and set free from the power of death and sin and from the clutches of the devil. And then: Yes! Then man would have permission and access to the tree of life! Not any longer blocked by a flaming sword! And then man could and will be living forever and be raised from the dead—resurrected, immortal, alive for evermore! So immediately after the Fall of man, the loving God gives an incredible promise! He says that one-day the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. Yes, that would signify His death, for the serpent was to bruise and strike/bruise His heel.7 But He would crush the serpent’s head! The Lord Jesus proved to be the ‘seed of the woman’, the Son of God and the Son of man. Galatians 4:4-7 “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” Jesus had to be born from the ‘seed of a woman’, and He had to be Jewish in order to become the ‘Saviour of the world’. He had to be born ‘under the Law’, within the ‘Covenant of the Law’ that God made with Israel, in order to be able to fulfil the Law. He kept the Law perfectly. So he had no sins of His own. Therefore He could die as the pure spotless, blameless ‘Lamb of God’ without sin, carrying our sins upon Himself. He was burdened with the sin that held mankind and Creation in its grasp. After that He was raised from the dead. The empty grave was the proof of the redeeming work on the cross. This was not a martyr’s death, but a sacrifice for sin accepted by God forever. And then Jesus – who was of the same quality of the Father even before time and the Universe existed – now became immortal as the ‘Son of Man’, having assumed the flesh of a human being through His Jewish mother Mary. Son of God and Son of Man. ‘Man’ who was originally created ‘in the image of God, but fell out of that ‘image of God’ when he turned against his Creator. Now ‘Man’ can be restored to divinity, equality with God in Christ. Living forever. The root of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ has been cut off, and the way to the ‘tree of life’ opened. “I am the true vine,” Jesus says. If you, as a dead branch, cut off from your old root and are grafted into Me, then eternal life, My life, flows into you abundantly,8 and you will produce much beautiful sweet fruits. No more bitter fruit!
At the beginning of the Bible the way to the ‘tree of life’ becomes blocked by man’s sin. At the end of the Bible the ‘tree of life’ will stand there once again, on each side of the river, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. Indeed: even twelvefold! Twelve, again. Twelve months, the whole year around, forever. And the water of the ‘river of life’, coming from ‘God and Christ’—called the Lamb because of His completed work— nourishes the trees. This is the third time that the life-giving river is mentioned. The second time that such a stream is referred to in the Bible, is in the description of the Paradise-like conditions during the ‘Kingdom of Peace’. Then a river rises, that on the one hand makes the Dead Sea alive and, on the other hand, flows out into the Mediterranean Sea.9 So three times a ‘river of life’ is mentioned – in Eden’s Paradise, from the Temple as the throne of God and the Lamb in the Kingdom of Peace and Righteousness on earth that lasts for 1000 years, and from the New Jerusalem on the New Earth.
In the Book of Revelation chapter 4:5 – the throne, the throne of God began as a throne of judgment, with ‘peals of thunder and flashes of lightning’, and it ends with streams of Glory, eternal, everlasting life. God Himself is the fountain of living water, as God says through the mouth of Jeremiah.10 “No one will any longer say: I am sick,” Isaiah says, “and the sins of those who dwell there will be forgiven.”11 ‘Sin and sickness’ go together; they are part of the brokenness of Creation. When sin is atoned for and forgiven, sickness is finished for the nations. The leaves are for healing. After the final judgments, the condition of those nations could be like that of someone who has been very ill and is now convalescing. Back on his feet again! Is the ‘healing power of the leaves’ for retaining strength, physically and mentally and spiritually? Perfect ‘healing’ has been achieved by Jesus for all eternity.
• ‘Healing’ is the continuous process of ‘increasing glory’. The nations walk by the light of the ‘City of God’. The gates are wide open. The enemy has been wiped out forever.
• The ‘people of God’ do not receive eternal life as a self-evident personal possession that resides within them. The ‘new life’ is a one of continuous dependence.12 This is already true for our lives here on earth right now. And it will be the case in the future as well. It will be a coming again and again and be a taking and receiving every month the ‘leaves of the tree of life’, full of gratitude.
• The ‘leaves’ heal continuously, that is, they restore and maintain health, and they keep life restored forever.
Bible References:
1.Psalm 46:4 NIV 2.Genesis 2:10 3.Genesis 2:9 4.Genesis 2:16–17 5.Genesis 3:4–5 6.Genesis 3:23–24 7.Genesis 3:15 8.John 15:1–7 9.Revelation 22:1; Ezekiel 47:1–11; Zechariah 14:8 10.Jeremiah 2:13 11.Isaiah 33:24 NIV
