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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).
The tree of life is a vine tree, not a pine tree. A pine grows by shooting upward into the heavens, but a vine grows by stretching forth to reach people. Since Christ is a vine, everyone can partake of His fruit. In the New Jerusalem the tree of life grows like a vine close to the earth on the two banks of the river. It is one tree, but it grows on two sides of the river. If the tree of life were tall like a pine tree and its fruit were at the top, its fruit would be too high for us to reach without difficulty. But the tree of life as a vine is lower than we are; thus, it is so easy to obtain its fruit. The tree of life is spreading and proceeding along the flow of the water of life for God’s people to receive and enjoy.
The tree of life as a great vine is the available food, the nourishment, for God’s redeemed in eternity; hence, it is the life pulse of the New Jerusalem. Christ is the vine tree, and we are the branches (John 15:5). He is the centrality and universality of God’s economy, and God’s economy consummates in the New Jerusalem. The centrality and universality of this holy city is the tree of life, the greatest vine in the universe. This vine comprises our God, our Lord, our Master, our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and us. We are a part of this vine because we are the branches.
In the New Jerusalem, the ultimate item is the tree of life. If there were no tree of life in the holy city, there would be no food by which God’s redeemed can live. The center of the New Jerusalem is the tree of life for the feeding and nourishing of the entire city. The Bible begins and ends with the tree of life as the center in order to carry out an organic union between God and us by our drinking of God as the water of life and our eating of Him as the tree of life. The water of life quenches our thirst from within by our drinking, and the tree of life nourishes us from within by our eating. In the New Jerusalem this is to maintain the organic union. For eternity we will be organically united with God every day and every minute by our eating and drinking of Him. This nourishing tree is the center of the entire New Jerusalem. The story of the Bible is that God made the tree of life the center.
Where there is the street, there is the river; and where the river is, the tree of life is growing. Once we enter the gate, we have three things before us: a unique street on which to walk, a unique river of which to drink, and a unique tree on which to feed.
In the midst of the street is the river; hence, the street spontaneously becomes the two banks of the river. The tree of life grows as a vine on the banks of the river. The street, the river, and the tree are all interrelated. After we enter through the pearl gate and get on the golden street, we immediately have the flowing river. Along the flow of the living water is the tree of life.
The street of the holy city is pure gold (Rev. 21:21). Gold symbolizes the divine nature. That the river of water of life proceeds “in the middle of its street” (22:1) signifies that the divine life flows in the divine nature as the unique way for the daily life of God’s redeemed people. Where the divine life flows, there the divine nature is as the holy way by which God’s people walk, and where the holy way of the divine nature is, there the divine life is flowing. The divine life and the divine nature as the holy way always go together. Thus, God’s river of water of life is available along this divine way, and we enjoy the river by walking in this way of life.
The street is the two banks of the river on which the tree of life grows, and the street signifies the divine nature as our holy way. When we take the way according to God’s nature, the life of God flows within us. When we act according to God’s nature, we immediately sense that the flow of life is watering us.
When we walk and move in the nature of God, we sense not only the flow of life within us but also the supply of life, the nourishment of life, the spiritual food. When we take the divine way, the street of God’s nature, we will have the life flowing in us and the life supply nourishing us. Day by day, as we are living such a life and walking according to God’s nature, we enjoy the water of life and the tree of life as our supply. We all need a day-by-day experience of the divine street of gold with the river of water of life and the tree of life in its middle, signifying that the life water and the life supply flow in the divine way. This vine, the tree of life, grows within and along the middle of the street. Thus, in the middle of the fellowship is the tree of life.
If we do not follow the inward regulation of the divine nature, the flow within us will stop. In contrast, if we follow the inner regulation, we will find ourselves walking on the golden street and sense that the inner flow is intensified and strengthened. We will also sense that the inner flow brings us the rich supply of life. This is what it means to walk on the golden street, to partake of the flowing river, and to enjoy all the riches of the tree of life.
Whenever we submit our entire being to the headship of the redeeming God, His throne is set up within us. Out of this throne flows the river of life. This river of life flows in the midst of the golden street, and along this flowing river there is the tree of life, which is a vine growing along the river as our rich life supply. The throne is here, waiting for us to submit to the headship and authority of the redeeming God. As soon as we submit to this headship, the life-giving Spirit immediately flows within us, and we find ourselves on the golden street. As we walk along the golden street, we find that the inward flowing of the life-giving Spirit is marvelous, refreshing, satisfying, and supplying. Along this flow of the living water there are the riches of the tree of life that grows by the flow of the river. This means that where the flow of the river is, there is the tree of life to supply us. In our experience we should have a throne, the flowing of the water of life, and Christ as the tree of life growing within us in a very practical way. This is not a doctrinal understanding; it is absolutely a matter of experience in life.
The street begins from the mountaintop, which represents God Himself, to reach all the twelve gates of the city. As we have seen, in the midst of this street is the river of water of life to flow out the riches of God to be our supply. The street with the river is a two-way traffic, proceeding down and spiraling up. This coming and going is the fellowship. All who enter into the city through the pearl gates participate in the same fellowship. This fellowship begins from God as the source to reach all twelve gates. That means it reaches all the ones who have entered into the city to bring them back to God.
Human beings need food as the supply to nourish them, and without water they cannot survive. We need water as our beverage to match the food that we eat. The tree of life is for our nourishment, and the river of water of life is for our drinking. For our growth in the divine life, Christ nourishes us and the Spirit quenches our thirst, and the growth of the divine life is for the building up of the city as the organic constitution of the processed Triune God mingled with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite elect.
The river of life flows out of the throne and spirals down the mountain, eventually reaching all twelve gates on each of the four sides. This indicates that the flow of the Triune God waters the whole city. Every part of the city receives the life supply, because the tree of life grows in the river, and the river reaches every part of the city. The tree of life is a vine growing on both sides of the river. Only as a vine could its growth follow the flow of the river. The river moves in spiral fashion, and the tree grows in the same way. It is like a grapevine, making many turns as it grows along the flow of the river of life. Wherever the river flows, the tree of life grows. Thus, the supply of life is in the flow of life. In the church life today we have the flow of the river of life, that is, the flow of the life-giving Spirit. With this life-giving Spirit we have Christ as the tree of life to be our life supply.
In the entire Bible the books that speak most clearly concerning God’s flowing out as life are Ezekiel and Revelation. Ezekiel and Revelation both show us the flow of the living water. Ezekiel 47:1 speaks of the river that flows out of the house of God. Verse 9 says, “Everything shall live wherever the river comes,” and verse 12 says, “On the banks on both sides of the river will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail; but they will bring forth new fruit every month, because the water for them flows out of the sanctuary. And their fruit shall be for food, and their leaves for healing.” Revelation 22:1-2 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. And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” In both Ezekiel and Revelation, therefore, we have a river flowing out of God with the life supply.
By the water of life and by the tree of life, the New Jerusalem will be richly supplied for eternity. Through this abundant supply of life, the oneness of the New Jerusalem will be forever maintained. Division will not be possible in the holy city. The light will shine throughout the city, and the life will water and supply the city. This life and light will eliminate the possibility of division. Even the nations that surround the new city will be one. At that time, all things in heaven and on earth will be headed up in Christ (Eph. 1:10). This will be the ultimate, universal, and eternal oneness. This oneness will be kept and preserved in life and with light.
Revelation 22:2 says that the tree of life produces twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month. The fruits of the tree of life will be the food of God’s redeemed for eternity. They will be continually fresh, produced every month, twelve fruits yearly. Every month there will be a crop, and the tree of life will produce twelve fruits to be our life supply. This depicts that today our Triune God embodied in Christ is our enjoyment.
Our experience should not be like the children of Israel who ate the same food, the manna, every day for forty years. We should have new fruit, that is, new experiences of Christ. Some dear saints enjoy the same fruit for twenty years. They testify of their experience of Christ one year, and many years later they testify of the same experience. Eventually, they lose their taste to repeat their testimony. Their experiences are good but too old. We need new experiences of Christ.
The fact that there are twelve fruits means that the fruit of the tree of life is rich and sufficient for the completion in God’s eternal administration. The significance of the number twelve is eternal completion in God’s administration for His economy. God redeemed us to enjoy the tree of life, and this enjoyment is for God’s administration in His eternal economy.
The mention of “each month” indicates that in the new heaven and new earth the moon will still be there to divide the twelve months. The sun will also be there to separate day and night into periods of twelve hours each. The number seven represents the church and signifies that God is added to His creature, man, in His present dispensation, whereas twelve is the number of the New Jerusalem, signifying that God is mingled with man in His eternal administration. In the New Jerusalem there are the twelve foundations with the names of the twelve apostles, twelve gates which are the twelve pearls with the names of the twelve tribes, and twelve fruits of the tree of life. As far as space is concerned, the city proper is twelve thousand stadia, one thousand times twelve, in three dimensions, and its wall is one hundred forty-four cubits, which is twelve times twelve. As for time, in the new heaven and new earth, there are twelve months yearly, twelve hours daily, and twelve hours nightly.
The fruit borne by the tree of life is good for food (Gen. 2:9), good to nourish us. The water of life quenches our thirst, and the tree of life nourishes us, feeds us, and satisfies us organically (Rev. 22:14; 2:7). As the tree of life, Christ is a fruit tree for eating. He is a vine full of life for eating. For eternity, we are destined to eat Christ as the tree of life, which is the fullest expression of Jesus Christ. The riches of Christ are for us to eat and enjoy.
A vine tree does not produce material for the construction of a building but only fruit for eating. The fruit of the vine is for two purposes. First, the fruit is for the propagation and multiplication of the vine; second, it is for food to provide nourishment to the eaters. Christ today is such a vine, bearing fruit for His propagation and multiplication and for our nourishment.
When a local church is full of the fruits of life, producing new fruit every month, the abundance of life will be fully manifested. Every local church should be a place where people are fed, nourished, watered, and satisfied. However, this is not the situation in many local churches because of the absence of God’s throne in those churches. The abundance of life flows out from the throne. When God’s throne is established in a church, life flows. As soon as life flows, there is watering, refreshing, and thirst quenching. When people touch such a church, they touch living water and life, and they are spontaneously satisfied.
Our destiny and our portion for eternity will be the enjoyment of the tree of life and the water of life. The Bible concludes with a promise and a call. The promise is found in Revelation 22:14, which says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life.” The call is found in Revelation 22:17, which says, “Let him who wills take the water of life freely.” Thus, the whole Bible ends with eating and drinking, with enjoying God as the tree of life and drinking Him as the water of life.
Verse 2 says, “The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” In the Bible, leaves are a symbol of man’s deeds (Gen. 3:7). According to the record of the Bible, the first time man used leaves was to make a covering for himself. The leaves of the tree of life symbolize the deeds of Christ. The regenerated believers eat the fruit of the tree of life, receiving Christ as their life and life supply inwardly, that they may enjoy the divine life for eternity; the restored nations are healed by the leaves of the tree of life, taking the deeds of Christ as their guide and regulation outwardly, that they may live the human life forever. When the nations look at the way the Lord Jesus acts and behaves, His deeds will become a source of healing to them, and this healing will maintain their human life forever.
In the Bible leaves denote man’s good Christian behavior. Good behavior can heal man’s corruption. When we enjoy Christ as the tree of life, the unbelievers are regulated by our conduct, which we live out of Christ. For example, if there are some households of saints living in an apartment building, and they come and go in a proper and modest manner, this will affect everyone in the apartment building. Such a testimony would be very helpful for the preaching of the gospel.
According to Matthew 14:34-35, after Jesus and the disciples came to Gennesaret, the people of that place brought to the Lord all who were ill. Verse 36 says, “They begged Him that they might only touch the fringe of His garment. And as many as touched were completely healed.” The healing power went out, not from the inner being of Christ but from the fringe of His garment. The Lord’s garment signifies Christ’s righteous deeds, and the fringe signifies the heavenly ruling (Num. 15:38-39). Out of Christ’s heaven-ruled deeds is the virtue that becomes the healing power. According to Numbers 15, the fringe of the garment signifies the virtue of God’s people who walk according to His regulations. The fringe was made with a blue ribbon. This revealed that their daily walk was regulated by God’s heavenly rule as indicated by the color blue, a heavenly color. When Jesus was on earth as a man, He walked in this way; His daily walk was regulated by God’s heavenly commandments. Therefore, there was with Him a virtue that could flow out to heal others.
The healing that takes place in the church life does not mainly issue from the inner being of the Lord Jesus. Rather, it primarily issues from the virtue of the Lord’s human life. In the church life we experience the Lord’s presence with us on the “sea” in the midst of the “contrary winds” (Matt. 14:24). His presence prepares the way for His virtue to flow out to reach the sick people and to heal them. This type of healing is different from the miraculous healing by divine power. The garment of Jesus does not signify His divinity. Rather, it signifies the righteous deeds of His humanity. His humanity bore the mark of the blue ribbon, of being regulated by the heavenly ruling. This produced a virtue that was capable of healing the sick. This kind of virtue can be expressed only through the proper church life where Jesus is present.
In the new heaven and the new earth, the leaves of the tree of life will be for the healing of the nations; that is, the virtue of Christ’s humanity will heal the people. In Matthew, after the boat reached its destination, the virtue of the Lord’s human deeds became so prevailing that every manner of sickness was healed (vv. 34-36). Likewise, when we have the proper church life with the Lord’s presence today, there is among us the uplifted humanity of Jesus. This uplifted humanity has the virtue signified by the fringe of Christ’s garment. If we, the church people, have the proper church life and live by Christ, we will live out His uplifted humanity. In this kind of living there will be a virtue with the power to heal those around us. We must live out the uplifted humanity of Jesus to have the virtue that can heal those surrounding us. For others to be healed means that their corrupted character is changed. Those around the church life are all in darkness and corruption. But if the church people live out the uplifted humanity of Christ, this will cause healing power to flow into them.
The sons of God are regenerated to be the new creation. The peoples of God are not regenerated but restored to their created condition that was lost due to the fall of Adam. Through Christ’s redemption, the heaven, the earth, and all created things were reconciled, redeemed back to God (Col. 1:20). Redemption is not a matter of the divine life. To be redeemed is not to be regenerated. For the heavens and the earth to be redeemed does not mean that they are regenerated. Christ’s redemption is not only for us, the regenerated people, but also for all the things in the heavens and the earth (v. 20; Heb. 2:9). The sheep in the millennial kingdom and the peoples of God outside the New Jerusalem will be the restored ones and the redeemed ones, but they have never been and will never be regenerated. The New Jerusalem will be the composition of all the regenerated, saved, and transformed persons. But the nations will be there simply as natural, restored people. From the New Jerusalem a group of kings and priests will rule over the restored nations.
After Christ destroys all the evil ones, He will set up His throne in today’s Jerusalem to gather all the nations who are left and to judge them (Matt. 25:32-46). He will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. They will be judged based upon how they have treated the Lord’s brothers during the three and a half years of the great tribulation. The sheep are those who have helped the Lord’s brothers — the Jews and the Christians — during the great tribulation. These sheep will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world. Those of the nations who treated Christ’s brothers poorly will be considered as the goats. They will go directly to the lake of fire, just like Antichrist and the false prophet. The nations who are the sheep will be in the new earth as the people of God for eternity. They will be the restored and purified nations outside the city, the people who are not regenerated to have the uncreated life of God but who are restored in their created life to its original state, preserved forever by the leaves of the tree of life (Rev. 22:2b). All God’s redeemed people, including the Old Testament saints, the New Testament saints, and the saved Jews in the millennium, will be kings reigning in the realm of the eternal life over the nations (v. 5b; 21:24) who will continue to remain in the new heaven and new earth for eternity. The fruit of the tree of life will be our food on which we live. The tree of life will be the processed and consummated Triune God as our life forever. But the leaves of the tree of life will be the healing element to sustain the restored nations forever.
The nations are restored miraculously, but we believers are sustained by life. We are not the nations; we are the sons produced by regeneration and sustained by the enjoyment of the fruit of the tree of life, that is, by the essence of the tree of life. We are now enjoying the New Jerusalem as the finalization of God’s New Testament economy. For eternity we will enjoy life and life alone. We will enjoy nothing else but life.
In short, in the new heaven and the new earth the tree of life has two functions. One function is to produce the fruit to feed the believers, and the other function is to produce leaves for the healing of the nations. Healing is something miraculous. The miraculous healing through the leaves of the tree of life is related to the physical body of the nations. The fruit of the tree of life which feeds the believers is related to the divine life within them.
Revelation 11:15 says, “He will reign forever and ever.” In Revelation 22:5 we are told that the believers “will reign forever and ever.” To reign forever will be the final blessing to God’s redeemed in eternity. This reigning is an issue, a glorious, eternal, corporate consummation of our present reigning in life through the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness unto eternal life. This is a blessing we will enjoy for eternity in the new heaven and the new earth. We will be kings over the nations, reigning forever.
We need to remember that we are members of the royal family, kings of the kingly family. Even when we are at a restaurant, we should remember that we are kings eating there. We are heaven-born kings; hence, we should never sell our royal status. If we consider that we are kings, we would not act lightly, talk loosely, or behave meanly. We can even preach the gospel with this in view. We may tell others that we are kings. Then we may start our preaching of the gospel by saying, “The Bible tells me that, as a child of God, I am a king.” There are many ways to preach the gospel. We need this kind of vital preaching of the gospel.
In eternity the believers as sons of God and as the constituents of the New Jerusalem will all be kings. The angels will be serving ones (Heb. 1:13-14), serving us. They are the servants of the royal family, and we are kings over the nations. This is the kingdom of God in eternity.
