The second aspect of the triune enjoyment is the river of water of life (Rev. 22:1). This river refers to the Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God. John 7:38-39 indicates that the rivers of living water refer to the Spirit. In Revelation 22:1 is the throne of God (the Father) and of the Lamb (the Son) out of which flows the river of the water of life (the Spirit). God, the Lamb, and the water of life refer to the Trinity. The river is the flowing of the Triune God and the consummate coming out of God. When God flows out, He becomes the river of water of life. When the Triune God reaches you, He is the living water. (See notes 12—15 in Rev. 22—Recovery Version.)
This flowing river is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God reaching you. God on the throne in the Lamb reaches the entire city as the flowing river. Today God reaches us by being the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). God the Father made an eternal plan (Eph. 3:11), He sent the Son and the Son came with Him (John 8:29) to accomplish His plan on the cross. While He was accomplishing God’s plan on the cross, blood and water issued out of His side (John 19:34). This was typified in the Old Testament by the cleft rock flowing out the living water (Exo. 17:6). The water signifies the ultimate consummation of the Triune God reaching His redeemed people. In Revelation 22 God in the Lamb flows as the living water to reach His redeemed people.
Revelation 22:1 says, “And 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.” Many Christians have never paid adequate attention to this last phrase—“in the middle of its street.” The river flows out of the throne, but it flows in the middle of the street. Revelation 21:21 tells us that the street of the city is pure gold. Without the street, the river cannot flow. If there is no street, there is no river. The street in the New Jerusalem is the very riverbed of this flowing river. The street being gold indicates that the way in the New Jerusalem is God’s divine nature. The Christian way for the Christian life is God’s divine nature. We should dress according to God’s divine nature, behave ourselves according to God’s divine nature, talk to others according to God’s divine nature, and deal with our spouse according to God’s divine nature. The highway of our Christian life is God’s divine nature, which is the street of the entire city.
If the street is there, in the middle of the street flows the river. According to our experience, if we do not behave and live according to God’s divine nature, we feel dried up within and we do not sense the flow of life within us. We have the flow of the water of life within us when we are living, behaving, and having our life according to God’s divine nature. If you do not walk in the divine nature as the divine street, you are dried up because there is no riverbed for the flow of the street. There is the need of a riverbed so the river can flow in and through our inner being. This corresponds with our daily experience.
The light of the New Jerusalem is God the Father, and the river is God the Spirit. This Spirit can only flow in the middle of the divine nature. It cannot flow in the human nature. Obviously, God the Spirit cannot flow in anything sinful. Also, He cannot even flow in your natural, human nature. He can only flow in the divine nature. When you live the divine nature and have your daily life in the divine nature, that divine nature becomes an excellent riverbed for the Holy Spirit to flow through. This is a crucial matter. Sometimes you may wonder where the flow of life within you is. You may feel that every day you are a “dried up” Christian. The reason why you are dried up is because you do not know how to lead a life according to the divine nature. You must make a decision that from now on as a child of God with His divine nature, you will live, behave, and do everything according to this divine nature. If you do this, you will immediately have the sense that you are no longer dried up, but that a river is flowing within you.
For God the Father to be our light, we need the redeeming Christ, and for God the Spirit to be our river, we need the divine nature. The divine light is contained in the redeeming Christ, and the divine river is flowing in the divine nature. Without the redeeming Christ, you cannot take and enjoy God as the shining light. Without the divine nature, there is no way for the Holy Spirit to flow in you. You need both the redeeming Christ and the divine nature. Praise the Lord that we are the partakers of the divine nature and that we also have the redeeming Christ. We have the full right and privilege to enjoy the divine light and to claim the divine flow. Both the divine light, God the Father, and the divine flow, God the Spirit, are our portion even today. We must apply God the Father as the divine light in the redeeming Christ, and we must apply God the Spirit as the flowing river in the divine nature. This kind of revelation is much higher than any kind of ethical teaching. By the Lord’s mercy, we are here under this revelation. This river flows in the divine street, and the street spirals down the golden mountain until it reaches all twelve gates. This means that the river saturates the New Jerusalem, carrying the tree of life with its fruit to nourish the city (Rev. 22:2a, 14).
Where the divine river goes, the tree of life grows (Rev. 22:2). The tree of life signifies God Himself in Christ as the life supply to us (Gen. 2:9; John 1:4; 14:6). God the Father is the divine light, God the Spirit is the divine river, and God the Son is the divine tree, the very embodiment of the Triune God as life. After God created man, He prepared a garden and put the man whom He had formed into that garden. Many trees were there, and among these trees one particular tree stood out—the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). This tree is the very 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. Revelation 22:2 tells us that the tree of life yields its fruit each month. Every month there is a crop. The tree of life produces twelve fruits to be our life supply. This depicts that today our Triune God embodied in Christ is our enjoyment. The fruits of the tree of life, as our life supply, will be the food of God’s redeemed for eternity. They will be continually fresh, produced every month, twelve fruits yearly.
The tree of life was closed to the fallen man by God’s glory, righteousness, and holiness until Christ’s death fulfilled all the divine requirements. Through Christ’s death, the tree of life is open again and available to all the sinners who would believe in Him and take Him as their Savior and life. Then they, as the believers in Christ have the privilege to drink His Spirit as the water of life. In Revelation 22:14 is a promise of the tree of life, and in Revelation 22:17 is a calling to the water of life. We have answered the calling and we are now enjoying the promise.
We all need to be enjoying God the Father as the light, God the Spirit as the river, and God the Son as the tree in a daily way. When you enjoy the Triune God in this way, you become “the most beautiful scenery.” When a sister sees her husband enjoying God the Father as light, God the Spirit as the flowing river, and God the Son as the tree of life, she can see that her husband is “beautiful scenery.” Light is with him, the river is flowing in him, and the tree is growing in him. If there is no light, no river, and no tree, there is nothing but desolation. In some Christian homes that I visited, I saw this desolation. I could not see the light, the river, or the tree. Quite often, though, when I entered into a saint’s home, I had the full realization that the light was there, the river was flowing, and Christ was growing there.
Many times when I visit a certain church, I can see that it is full of light, full of the flowing river, and full of the tree of life. If this is the case, the church is full of beautiful scenery. It is beautiful, comfortable, and enjoyable. If the church in a certain locality is not enjoyable, this is because the light is dim, and the river and the tree are absent. A kind of desolation may exist in a particular church. Our hope, though, is that every church in the Lord’s recovery would be full of beautiful scenery with these three divine things—the divine light shining, the divine river flowing, and the divine tree growing. The divine light is shining to enlighten us, the river is flowing to saturate and supply us, and the tree is growing to be our life supply and meet our every need. Today we can enjoy such a Triune God, and this Triune God will be our triune enjoyment in full in the New Jerusalem.