THE BOOK OF REVELATION

Revelation Revealed Chapter 22 v1-5

THE ETERNAL PARADISE OF GOD

THE NEW EARTH AND THE NEW JERUSALEM ARE GOD’S PLAN FROM THE PARADISE OF EDEN NOW FINALLY MANIFEST

New Jerusalem is represented to us from 4 different perspectives:

It is God’s Tabernacle. From this perspective it is His Temple, where He abides. It is the Bride of the Lamb, the consort to rule with Christ forever. It is the Paradise of God. It is like Eden, but superior to it, as it is His Glory-filled residence filled with His sons in closest harmonious and unbroken fellowship. It is a City with measurements and materials.

Revelation chapter 22:1-5 The Last Chapter gave us a view of the City from the exterior: Its light and beauty; and what its relationship to the Nations of the New Earth is as a place of pilgrimage, those who are looking from without upon the New Jerusalem. Now these few verses give us a view from the interior of the City of the Bride. In this chapter the Garden’s river and the tree are exposed to our view. And we are told of their relationship to the residents and to the nations without.

The Harlot’s cup was defiling, corrupting. The river of life flowing from the Bride carries refreshing life to all. Not a life that enables men to exist, but some other form of life. The word LIFE has several different meanings. Psuche is the individual soul life, the living being. Whereas Zoe is the force of life within that being. Jesus laid down His Psuche for us. Jesus came that we might have Zoe more abundantly. All beings living eternally have Zoe. Angels have Zoe and therefore will exist eternally. Human beings will exist on the New Earth because they have Zoe.

But the Bride has Zoe more abundantly. Abundant Zoe equates to Glory. It is the life that Christ attained to in His Resurrection. It is the Newness of life. [Romans 6] God gave Him this “glory”; this life as a reward for enduring the Cross. And Christ may give it to whom He chooses. [John 3:34; Hebrews 12:2; John 5] Born of Adam, we are all fallen living souls with greatly diminished Zoe. But the Last Adam is a quickening spirit. Giving more Zoe to our spirit as we are justified in receiving Him as our personal Redeemer. More Zoe enables/allows the enlivened spirit to draw upon the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit. Living in the newness of life in the spirit after becoming a Christian, capacitates for the more abundant glorifying Zoe at resurrection [1 Corinthians 15:35-49 with Matthew 25:4] Rank relates to Zoe. Justified Zoe falls way short of glorifying Zoe. Our glory relates to our cooperating work of the power of the Holy Spirit brought to bear upon our fallen nature.

Neither the water of the river nor the fruit of the tree of life can impart a further capacitating work upon that spiritual soul being. But nourishes and maintains to the level of rank or order. In type, physical water maintains, refreshes and is the chief necessity of living. They maintain relative strength and mobility, righteousness and wisdom in the partaker. [Proverbs 3:13,18 11:30]

There is no blood in the New Earth and New Heavens. The life is not found in the blood there, but in the Water and Tree. When a man loses his blood and dies, he does not lose his existence. He still lives, but he’s lost a form of life/gift of a certain way of living. When man is glorified in resurrection, he receives a new “body” with no blood. “For old things are passed away, behold all things are new.” But still a body-glorified. Now this body’s life is found in this water and fruit of the Tree of Life. As the blood supplied life, so now these supply life. It is not only sustaining power and mobility but character associations as it flows from God and the Lamb. As Christ relinquished His will and shed his blood and obtained unto this glorified life, so now those who follow Him in like suffering obtain unto this glorified life.

The River does not appear to leave the City. The Bride will administer and tend the Garden. [Genesis 2:15] There is no altar, no flesh of animal, no blood, no herb or vegetable, no wine. [Genesis 1:29; Leviticus 10:9; Numbers 6; Proverbs 31:4]

Turning water into blood has in view the refusal of the river of life.

The ban on blood to the Israelite has also in view the blood’s association of carrying death in its fallen state. Looking unto the abundant Zoe of the new heavens and new earth. “For the land thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills…”….“For the land whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as land of Egypt, form when ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills an valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:” [Deuteronomy 11:10,11] Typical of the Spirit. “….wells digged, which they digged not.” [Deuteronomy 6:11] Also typical of the Spirit.

Christ sits at the right hand of the Father on His Throne today. During the Millennium, the Thrones are separate. God’s Throne above and Jesus Christ’s Throne below, then the Great White Throne of Judgement. Its work finished.Then here in the City the Thrones are joined together, and life flows eternal.

Verse 2: “….in the midst of its square…” is the tree of life [Genesis 2:9] So God had in view, in the Garden of Eden, with its river and tree of life, this most perfect of states here in His eternal Garden. Was the tree of Eden figurative or literal? All those who consider Eden’s as literal will consider this garden literal. Not that Scripture does not use the Garden of Eden figuratively as well. As we have seen in Proverbs, “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom…..she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.” [Proverbs 3:13,18]

As we have noted before, many Scripture references are applicable to different dispensations. In the Millennium, we have a similar application… “ And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine:” [Ezekiel 47:12] But there the trees are outside the city on the banks that flow towards the Dead Sea with water from the Sanctuary. But from the eternal city, they flow and that from the Throne.

From the Garden of Eden and man’s fall, he must now toil by the sweat of his brow for his sustenance. Barred from the tree of life, he must toil in the cursed soil to maintain the herb and vegetable in quantities to obtain his food. Before he, without sweat of labor, ate of the fruit of the trees. The curse now removed, as the disturbance is now forever removed. The tree of life is now restored to him. It is no longer from tilling and sweating over the meager substance of a stalk, but once again from simply the tending, he shall eat of the abundance of the tree.

Whereas the Menorah types the power of the Holy Spirit, the Table of Shew-Bread types the Tree of Life. The table was covered with incorruptible gold and crowned and upon it was placed the bread of His Presence. The 12 loaves have in view the 12 different fruits the tree of life bears eternally. They are arranged in two different rows as the tree bears fruit on both sides of the river. The loaves were for the priests, the sons of Aaron only. The fruits are intended for those who dwell in His presence only. To at least some extent, as the dwellers of Eden were shut out from the tree of life, so are those who dwell on the new earth. They live outside of Paradise. And the tree of life only grows there. It is the Bride’s inheritance, those resurrected in His Glory that are the dwellers, who may always partake of the fruit of the tree of life.

There are now the two different groups that are differentiated by glory and life. The resurrected sons of glory that dwell in the garden city of God and then those resurrected in a newness of quickened life without the others’ glory. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.” [Revelation 2:7] And so, as it was depicted in the tabernacle of Moses wherein only the priests should eat of the bread of His presence. But there was another bread for life, albeit inferior, supplied to rest of Israel. So it is with a tree, that there are its superior parts and its inferior parts. Each having its own use, so it is that the fruit is for the glorified dwellers of the garden, and the leaves are for the nations of the new earth. But unlike Adam and Eve who were always shut out, these of the new earth may go up from time to time. Past the porters of the gates, who no longer wield the flaming sword. It is a tree planted by the river of living waters (Psalm 1), like an aspen or banyan tree, prolific, and capable of producing 12 different fruits. A different one each month….12 crops for 12 months.

Adam’s wife was named Chava/Heeva or Life. And so the Bride of the Last Adam is “life” most perfectly. From her comes the greater life. The shutting out from the garden of Eden, and the eating of only the manna of this wilderness is past. The promised land of the overcomer is reached, with its river, tree and fruit, that he may now freely eat of continually. As there is no danger now associated with its consumption, having received newness of life. (Showing it perpetuates the “life” of the consumer, not elevating it.) What is also understood from the application of these leaves at this time, it could not be the Millennial age, as that age was not for healing but ruling and chastising, and dashing into pieces, with a rod of iron. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil them still being partakers of. But now the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has done its work. All residents of the new earth and new heavens and the Bride have eternal zoe, every one of their consciences are enlivened. Those who know the sinfulness of sin, and those more enlightened that know the exceedingly sinfulness of sin. [Romans 7 & 8]

Revelation 22, verse 3 & 4 “And The Throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it.”The city is the center of the government of the new earth and new heavens. There is no more law or penalty written outside of man’s heart. The Holy Spirit has done His work. All is written on the tablets of their hearts. There is no sin nor any danger of it. “And His servants will serve Him.” His immediate attendants will serve Him. These are the Bride. “Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee;” [1Kings 10:5,8]

The distinctions are many in Scripture. The types can be seen. In Solomon’s day, he made distinctions between the remnant of the nations dwelling in his land, and the Israelites. [1 Kings 9:22] Israel in general, were the servants, sons of God, but Moses and Aaron and the priests were types of those most intimate with Him. When Moses sought so persistently to see His Glory, he was finally allowed to see more of His Glory. [Exodus 33:20] It is not for His to see His face until then, when they are fully capacitated. They then will be like as unto the Angels, “beholding the face of God”, (Matthew 18:10) living in His Presence. His name written in their foreheads. That being typed by the high priest who once a year entered into the holiest with the golden mitre. [Exodus 28:36] But now in brilliance seen in the foreheads of these glorified clothed in resurrection, His appointed attendants.

Verse 5 At the beginning of chapter 21, the privileges of the residents of the new earth are given us. Here the residents of the city are given us. There is sun and moon as luminaries on the new earth, with day and night, as there is east and west and north and south, but not so for the residents of the city. “There shall be no night THERE.” The residents of the city need no sleep, now having that glorified body. Whereas those of an inferior state of spiritual being yet have need for sleep. The distinguishing can be found again in 1Corinthians 15:40-49.

The city’s residents need no light as they are lit themselves in His glory. No need of a candle, no need for the sun. They may serve Him wherever by day or night. Herein they are then superior to the priests of the past who required the lamp for light. The nations shall walk by the city’s light, the citizens by the light of God’s presence. There is no distinction between male and female. No clothing is mentioned. God said, “…take no thought for these…food and clothing…and lay not up in store….” [Matthew 6:19-34] So as He has provided food and drink and clothing in the inferior age for His sons on the earth, so how much more He will His sons on high, in the perfect age?

“And they shall reign for ever and ever.” If there are these that reign there, by extension, there must be those whom they rule. Some are kings some are subjects. The nations transferred over from the old earth and from the place of the dead resurrected are the subjects, of which some of them are kings of the earth. [Revelation 21:24] But those residents of the city rule over all. The citizens of the city reign over all others, because now in the power of the resurrection as the Bride of Christ, they are now made, in the truest sense, partakers of God’s image and likeness.

[CLICK LINK TO DOWNLOAD NOTES]