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Scripture Reading: Exo. 17:6; Psa. 46:4; 65:9a; 36:8; Ezek. 47:5, 9; John 4:14; 7:37-39; Rev. 21:6; 22:1-2, 17
We have seen that after God created man, He put him into a garden. In that garden there are two striking items: the tree of life and a flowing river. The tree and the river are for God’s dispensing. God created man in His own image with a human spirit, yet at that time man did not have the life of God. Man was only created by God and was an empty vessel ready to contain God. Thus, man was put in front of the tree of life for God to dispense Himself into man. Man was to receive God as his contents. God as life desired to come into man to be man’s contents. Therefore, the New Testament tells us that if we do not have God (the Son), we do not have life (1 John 5:12). Our human life is not a long life. It is not a life that lasts forever but a temporary life. The everlasting life, the eternal life, is God Himself. We human beings need to have God’s everlasting, eternal life as our contents. This God who is life wants to dispense Himself as the divine life into man.
God and life are abstract, so this abstract God who is life needed an embodiment. This embodiment of the divine life is the tree of life, which is a picture of Jesus as the embodiment of God to be life to us. One day God came in the flesh, and this God-man’s name was Jesus. The man Jesus was the embodiment of God as life, so John says that in Him, in Jesus, in the embodiment of God, was life (John 1:4). Jesus also told us that He is life (14:6), and He came that we may have life and have it abundantly (10:10). Furthermore, He told us that He is the bread of life to supply us and that we can receive Him by eating Him (6:35, 57). Eventually, Jesus is revealed in the Gospel of John as the vine tree, which is the tree of life (15:1). By receiving Him, by eating Him, we become a part of Him; we become a branch of this great vine.
In 1958 I was invited to England and stayed there for about one month. One day a friend took me to see the so-called great vine of the queen. The queen of England has a great vine tree in a greenhouse. Someone asked me if I had ever seen such a great vine. I replied that this vine did not surprise me, because I had seen a bigger one. The Queen’s vine may be about a hundred feet long, but the vine that I had seen is so long that it encircles the globe. The vine that I had seen was Jesus with all His branches. All the millions upon millions of believers are the branches of this great and long vine around the globe. What a great vine tree! The brothers and sisters in the churches are all the green branches of the great vine tree. We have become the branches of Christ because we have received Him, we have eaten Him, and we are still eating Him. We are eating Jesus every day, and we are growing by Him. When we enter into the state of being the New Jerusalem, the tree of life should not be something new to us, because we will have eaten and enjoyed this tree already. We have seen that the tree of life is the focal point of the entire Bible. This tree of life, the very embodiment of God as life to us, is for God’s economy to dispense Himself into His created, chosen, and redeemed people. I hope that we all have a clear vision of the tree of life as the embodiment of the divine life for God to dispense Himself into us.
In this chapter we want to see the second crucial item in the garden — the flowing river. The tree is the embodiment, and the river is the flow. God is abstract and mysterious. Anything that is mysterious and abstract needs an embodiment. Even our human life needs a body to be its embodiment. The human life is embodied in our body, but this body needs a flow. We need to ask what the flow of our human life is. First, the current of the blood within us is the flow of our human life. When the current of blood stops, this means death. Second, our breathing is also the flow of our human life. If we stop breathing, we die. Our life flows inwardly by the blood and outwardly by our breath. We breathe all day long, and our blood flows all day long. We have to breathe, and our blood has to circulate freely for us to be healthy. The tree of life is the embodiment of life, but in order for this life to enter into us, there is the need for it to flow. If this life does not flow, it cannot enter into us.
The cow life is embodied in the cow, so a cow is the embodiment of the cow life. But how can this cow life enter into us? The cow life needs a flow, and that flow is the milk. We can receive the cow life by drinking the milk. When a farmer milks a cow, the cow flows, and this flow is “a river of milk.” The milk of the cow is the river, the flow. Many children enjoy drinking the milk of the cow. The river of the cow is the milk.
When the children of Israel were traveling through the wilderness, there was no water. Then God told Moses to strike the rock, and this cleft rock flowed out living water for the people to drink (Exo. 17:6). In 1 Corinthians 10 Paul tells us that the rock that followed the children of Israel in the wilderness was Christ (v. 4). That rock was the embodiment of God, just like the tree of life. God was embodied in that rock, but how could that rock get into the people? The rock had to flow, so the living water flowed out of the rock for all the people to drink. When they drank of that rock, they drank of God. The water flowing out of the rock was the flowing of the divine life, just like the milk is the flowing of the cow life.
Whenever we drink milk, we have to realize that this milk is the cow life flowing. The cow milk is the flow of the cow life. My mother worked for an American pastor. Whenever we children went to our pastor’s home, I smelled a cow. One day I asked my mother why I smelled a cow when I went to the pastor’s home. My mother replied, “Don’t you realize that the Americans drink cow milk? The more they drink cow milk, the more they smell like a cow.” If we drink the “milk of Jesus” every day, eventually we will smell like Jesus. The milk of Jesus is the river of the divine life. The milk and the cow are one. The milk and the cow are not two things but one thing in two stages. When the cow flows out, it becomes the milk. The milk in a glass is the flowing out of the cow. Thus, when we drink milk, we are drinking of the cow. In the garden there was the tree of life as the embodiment of the divine life, but this life has to flow out and into us for God’s dispensing. Along with the tree there is a river flowing, indicating that the divine life is flowing out for us to drink. When we drink of this river, the divine life is dispensed into our being.
The tree of life and the river of life are for God’s dispensing. God as the very divine life desires to dispense Himself into us. We have to understand the Bible not merely according to the letter but according to the divine light so that we can see this marvelous picture of the tree of life with the river of life, which depicts that God is embodied and that God flows out and into us for the dispensing of Himself into our being.
In John 6 the Lord Jesus told people that He is the bread of life for people to eat (vv. 48, 57). Many of the Jews could not understand this. They said that this word was hard (v. 60). Then the Lord Jesus went on to tell the disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life” (v. 63). It is not the flesh that gives life but the Spirit who gives life. This is like saying that it is not the big cow that gives us the cow life but the milk of the cow that does. For a little child to eat a big cow is impossible. For a little baby to enjoy a big cow, he needs to drink the milk of the cow. The cow flows milk, and this milk nourishes the baby. The flesh profits nothing; it is the Spirit who gives life. Jesus is the embodiment of God, and the Spirit is the flow of God. Along with the tree is the river, and along with Jesus is the Spirit.
In John 7 the Lord Jesus said that those who were thirsty should come to Him and drink. If we drink of Him, rivers of living water will flow out from within us. Verse 39 tells us that He said this “concerning the Spirit.” The Spirit will flow out of Jesus for His believers to drink of. When we drink of this Spirit, we enjoy the river, and rivers of living water will flow out of our innermost being. In Exodus we see the cleft rock out of which came the living water (17:6). Then Psalm 46:4 tells us that there is a river whose streams gladden the city of God. The city of God in the Psalms signifies the church. There is a river whose streams gladden the church. What makes us happy in the church is the river. The river is Jesus flowing, just like the milk is the cow flowing. We all are like the newborn babes drinking of the river of milk (1 Pet. 2:2). This river makes us all glad. Praise the Lord that there is a river that makes the city of God happy. Psalm 65:9a indicates that this river is the river of God. The river in Genesis 2 is the river of God.
In a positive sense, God is like a great cow. He is the source of life, and the heavenly milk comes out of this great cow to become a river of milk. This is the river of the cow. In the same way, the river of our God is full of the water of life to satisfy us, quench our thirst, and make us glad. When we drink of this river, sometimes we get beside ourselves with enjoyment. Psalm 36:8 says that we drink of the river of God’s pleasures. In Ezekiel 47 waters issued out of the temple of God (v. 1), which eventually became a deep river (v. 5). Wherever the river came, everything lived (v. 9). The flow of this river made everything living. When this river comes to a certain country, it makes that country living; it makes city after city in that country living. Praise the Lord for this river that brings life wherever it goes!
In the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman that “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life” (4:14). Then the Lord Jesus told us that whoever drinks of Him will have rivers of living water flowing out of his innermost being (7:38). The rivers of living water are the many flows of the different aspects of life (cf. Rom. 15:30; 1 Thes. 1:6; 2 Thes. 2:13; Gal. 5:22-23), originating from the one unique river of water of life (Rev. 22:1), which is God’s Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2).
At the end of the New Testament it is revealed that in the New Jerusalem there is a river of water of life (Rev. 22:1). That river is the consummation of all the rivers in the Bible. The river began in Genesis 2 and consummates in Revelation 22. This river is the river of God that flows the divine life. This river is the Spirit. The fountain of life is God the Father, the spring is the Son who is the embodiment of life, the embodiment of the fountain, and the Spirit is the flow of life as the river that reaches us. This is God dispensing Himself into us. When we drink of the divine river, we receive the flow, the spring, and the fountain — the very Triune God. In this way the Triune God dispenses Himself as life into our being.
We are drinking of the river that flows out of the spring, and this spring is the very embodiment of the fountain. God the Father is embodied in the Son, the Son is flowing by the Spirit, and the Spirit reaches us as the living water for our enjoyment. This is God dispensing Himself into our being to make us the same as He is. The divine Father has many divine children in one divine family. This is the church life, which is the issue of the Triune God’s dispensing of Himself as life into our being in His divine economy. Praise the Lord for such a divine economy! Praise the Lord for the tree of life! And praise the Lord for the river flowing!
