In this message we will continue to consider Christ as the Husband of the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 22:1 says, “He showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street.” Out of the throne of God and of the Lamb flows the river of water of life, and in this river the tree of life grows as a spreading vine. The river of water of life in the New Jerusalem signifies the consummated Spirit. Eventually, God’s Spirit will be a river. This river of water of life is in the city’s unique spiral street. In the whole city there is only one street. The street with the river spirals down the mountain to reach every part of the city and all its twelve gates. The street is the communication that ministers something to us. This is the ministering communication to water the whole city for the city’s drink. The tree of life, the life-supplying Christ, is a great vine growing on the two sides of the river to nourish the entire city for its food. God’s throne is for His government, the river is for our watering, and the tree of life is for our nourishment. The Triune God governs, serves, waters, and feeds the entire city.
The tree of life signifies God Himself in Christ as the life supply to us (Gen. 2:9; John 1:4; 14:6). This tree is the embodiment of life. According to the divine revelation, only God Himself is life in the entire universe. This God who is life is absolutely embodied in Christ (Col. 2:9). Christ is the tree of life, and in this tree of life is the full enjoyment of all the riches of life.
In brief, the tree of life in the Bible is a figure of the Triune God embodied in Christ to be the substance of the divine life. This tree is good for man to take and eat (Gen. 2:16; John 6:57b) that man may be constituted with God as the constituent of life. Thus, man and God become organically united and live together as one person (15:5; Phil. 1:20-21a). Colossians 3:4 says that Christ is our life. Therefore, we need to take Him as our supply, as the substance of the divine life, in which we can be victorious and overcoming, even reigning in His eternal life (Rom. 5:17). Eventually, we will be co-kings with Christ in the thousand-year kingdom (Rev. 3:21; 20:4).
We all have two lives. We have the natural life, the human life, and we have the spiritual life, the divine life. The natural life is just our self and the divine life is also a person, Christ. Each one of us is also two persons, one person being our self and the other being Christ in us. We have the life from Adam, and we have the life that is Christ Himself in us. We all need to live by Christ, the divine life, not by our self, the natural life.
Today we should enjoy God as our life and as our life supply. Out of the enjoyment of the Lord as our life supply, we will have our daily life, our walk, our work, and the building up of the churches. Then everything we have will be according to God’s divine element, not according to our own concepts.
The tree of life is one of the outstanding features of New Jerusalem. In the first two chapters of the Bible we see the old heaven, the old earth, the old garden, Adam, and the tree of life (Gen. 1:1; 2:7-9). In the last two chapters of the Bible we see the new heaven, the new earth, and the city with the tree of life (Rev. 21:1-2; 22:2). In this city we do not see Adam but Israel and the apostles, who represent the new man. In the garden in Genesis there was the old man; in the city in Revelation there is the corporate new man. In the garden there was the tree of life, and in the city there is also the tree of life. The heaven and earth have changed, the garden has been changed into the city, and the first man has been changed into the corporate new man. But the tree of life remains unchanged. Everything has been changed or improved except the tree of life. From the beginning to the end, the tree of life remains the same; the tree of life never changes.
In the Bible the tree of life is mentioned first in Genesis 2, and it proceeds to the end of the Bible in Revelation 22. At the beginning of God’s relationship with man in Genesis 2, God placed man in front of the tree of life (vv. 8-9). Immediately, God brought this man out of His creating hand to the tree of life. This indicates that what God wanted man to do was to eat the tree of life. The tree of life is a sign, signifying that the creating God is the life supply to His created man.
Psalm 36:9 says, “With You is the fountain of life.” According to this verse, with God there is the fountain of life. The tree of life must be related to life, which is in God. Thus, God is the fountain, the source, of life. John 1:4 says, “In Him was life.” The word Him in this verse refers to the Word in verse 1, who is God Himself. In the Word, who is God, is life. In John 14:6 Christ came and told us, “I am...the life”; in 10:10, He declared, “I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly”; and in John 15:1 He said, “I am the true vine.” Besides Christ, every vine is a false one; only He is the true vine. A vine is a tree, and if we put together these two matters of life and the tree, we have the tree of life. The tree of life is the Triune God who embodied Himself in Christ. Christ, as the embodiment of the Triune God, is the life in the vine tree. Therefore, Christ is the tree of life.
Then in Revelation 2:7 the Lord Jesus said that to him who overcomes He will give to eat of the tree of life. At the end of the Bible there is the holy city with the river flowing with the living water (22:1). In the flow of the living water grows the tree of life (v. 2). The tree of life fulfills, for eternity, what God intended from the beginning (Gen. 2:9). The tree of life was closed to man due to his fall (3:22-24), but it has been opened to believers by the redemption of Christ (Heb. 10:19-20). Today the enjoyment of Christ as the tree of life is the believers’ common portion (John 6:35, 57). In the millennial kingdom the overcoming believers will enjoy Christ, the tree of life, as their reward (Rev. 2:7). Eventually, in the new heaven and new earth for eternity, all of God’s redeemed will enjoy Christ, the tree of life, as their eternal portion (22:14, 19).