Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #2 of Revelation, chapter 22.  I will be reading Revelation 22:2:

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Once again, we are seeing that the “tree of life” is making another appearance in the Bible.  It was that tree that was spoken of at the beginning of the world when God created all things.  In the early narrative in the Book of Genesis, we read of the “tree of life.”  Let us turn back there in Genesis 2:8-9:

And JEHOVAH God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made JEHOVAH God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

God tells us that He created all these trees, including the “tree of life” in the midst of the garden and the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  As far as we can tell from the Bible, God just chose one tree and called it the “tree of life” and another tree He chose to call the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  There was nothing really different, for instance, about the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and other trees, except that God put this particular tree “off limits” and He commanded mankind not to eat of this tree.  But there was another tree in the midst of the garden called the “tree of life.”  It says in Genesis 2:15-17:

And JEHOVAH God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And JEHOVAH God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

We are aware of these things because we have heard and read about these things before, but, perhaps, we had not thought about this: God said, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat,” except for the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  Now the “tree of life” was in the garden and, therefore, it would have come under the category of those trees from which they could “freely eat.” The “tree of life” was available to Adam and Eve to eat of and they could have eaten all they wanted from the “tree of life,” but Satan entered into the picture.  It says in Genesis 3:1-3:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which JEHOVAH God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

So Satan began his assault and this was the method of his subtlety and deceitfulness.  It was to raise doubt about what God has said: “Hath God said?”  This was a tactic of Satan, the father of lies, from the very beginning as he set out to deceive mankind.  He comes at them with the intention of causing confusion and doubt regarding what God has actually said.  We see this identical tactic used repeatedly in the world today.  When you look at the world’s religions, you wonder why there are so many religions.  Why are there Muslims, Hindi, Buddhists, and so many different religions that present different gods?  It is because Satan wants man to question what God has said: “Hath God said?”  He wants to show them that this “god” says things differently than that “god” and it leads people to question which is the true God and what is the true Word of God?  For those that happened to find the correct religion of Christianity and the Bible, then Satan entered into the churches and sowed tares among the wheat.  What did the tares do?  They rise up in the congregations and they basically mouth Satan’s tactic, saying, “Hath God said on this doctrine and that doctrine?”  Thereby, they are able to put forth lies for truth, darkness for light and evil for good and there are high places built into the churches.  There are false teachings, erroneous doctrines and other kinds of gospels and they all follow the basic methodology that Satan originated in the Garden of Eden: “Hath God said?” 

Of course, God is fully aware of Satan’s tactics.  How does God combat this?  God gives His people “ears to hear” the voice of their Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.  As a matter of fact, they only hear His voice and the voice of a stranger they do not follow.  God gives discernment and the people of God are able to understand truth and to be able to weed through the “religions” to the right religion.  Then during the church age, they were able to weed through the false churches and find the most faithful churches.  Then when the church age was over and God was through with the churches, they went to the Bible only to hear the Word of Christ.  God keeps them in Christ and it is a straight and narrow way that the people of the world cannot find or follow.  The people of the world go after this religion and that religion or that denomination or that erroneous doctrine and they are not kept and preserved by God.  What it finally comes down to is they do not hear the voice of the Shepherd, so they will go astray.  They cannot maintain the narrow path without Christ’s guidance.

Going back to Genesis, it says in Genesis 3:2-7:

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

Here we have the failure of the test.  In the midst of the garden was the “tree of life” and the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and they were both said to be in the midst of the garden, but of the one tree they could have eaten and lived forever in a joyous and perfect condition.  They would have continued a beautiful life with God and, yet, Satan came and began to get their eyes off the “tree of life” and onto the other curious tree, a “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  He made it sound so good.

When we look at it, it is similar to the world today.  There is this world and its sin and what does it call us to do?  It says, “Come and know evil.”  It allures us, “Come and see.  Come and do.  Come and experience evil.”  We are so interested and we are so curious about the “evil,” but God says to be babes in evil and abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good. 

By contrast, there is the Word of God.  It is just a plain, old Bible, just sitting there.  In some way, do we not still have these same two “trees” before us?  Man has had these same two trees before them as time has unfolded: there is the Word of God, the Bible which brings life; and there is the wretched fruit of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and once you partake of it, it brings sin and death and misery and suffering.  Yet, people keep flocking to the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” 

Some people think they would do differently than Adam and Eve if they had been back there in the Garden of Eden.  But, the fact is it simply demonstrates that when we go away from the Bible to the things of the world, we would have done exactly what they did.

At the end of this chapter, it says in Genesis 3:22:

And JEHOVAH God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…

By the way, let me just stop here for a second because this is an early reference to the fact that Christ has already experienced “evil.”  That is what God means when He says, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.”  Man was created and God said, “Let us make man in our image,” so the pronoun “us” is referring to the Triune God.  God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us,” because it was the “man” Christ that took upon Himself the sins of the elect at the point of the world’s foundation.  In taking their sins and bearing those sins and giving His own life for them, He experienced “evil.”  He came to know in a very intimate way the evil deeds, thoughts and words of His elect.  God poured out His wrath upon Him and struck Him dead for the sake of those sins, so, yes, Jesus knew “evil” in the sense that He was our sin bearer.  So, here, God said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.”  Adam had known good.  He had known God.  He had known righteousness and He had walked uprightly before He fell into sin, but now he had disobeyed God and he experienced evil.  It was not a matter of “intellectual knowledge.”  God had commanded not to eat of that tree, so Adam could have known intellectually that it was evil, but it is one thing to know a concept in your mind and it is another thing to experience it and that is what he did when he committed the rebellious act of disobeying God.  So it says, “the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil,” and then it goes on to say in Genesis 3:22-24:

…and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore JEHOVAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Up until that time Adam and Eve sinned and partook of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” they had access to the “tree of life.”  They could have eaten from it, but once they sinned, their sinful action brought “death” to them.  They experienced spiritual death immediately and later they experienced physical death.  It also cut them off from the free access to the “tree of life.”

The “tree of life” continued to exist, according to what God is saying in Revelation 22, but access to that “tree of life” by Adam and Eve and, subsequently, by all mankind was restricted.  God does not say that no one can ever get to the “tree of life,” but He says that He placed “Cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”  The cherubims are a figure to represent God.  It is interesting that when Solomon’s temple was built figures of cherubims were carved and placed inside the “Holy of holies.” We read in 2Chronicles 5:7-8:

And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of JEHOVAH unto his place, to the oracle of the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims: For the cherubims spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubims covered the ark and the staves thereof above.

We know exactly what would happen once a year on the Day of Atonement.  The high priest of Israel would enter into this “Holy of holies.”  It was the only day he was allowed to go in and he had to enter with much incense, which would make the room very smoky or cloudy, making it difficult to see anything.  He went in with the blood of the sacrificial offering and he approached the Ark of the Covenant and there were cherubims “above” and looking down. 

It is very similar to what God said in Genesis 3, verses 23 and 24.  The “tree of life” is protected and guarded by the cherubim and a flaming sword.  The high priest had blood and he sprinkled it upon the mercy seat that covered over the Ark and inside the Ark were the Ten Commandments, representing the Law of God which condemns mankind of our sins.  Because of what Adam did as our figurehead when he disobeyed God and broke God’s Law, the Law condemned him and the Law demanded death: “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” For Adam and for all of us that were in Adam, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.  We are all responsible for our sins and we are subject to the wrath of God, which is death.  So the picture is of the “blood of Christ,” who is typified by the animal blood that was sacrificed and He was also typified by the high priest that brought the blood into the holy place.  As the Law is condemning mankind for sin, the blood is sprinkled on the mercy seat, covering the “Law” and the picture is that the Law of God is now appeased.  God’s wrath is satisfied and the demand of the Law has been met and now there can be forgiveness.  Now there can be grace bestowed and mercy given to the elect sinners for whom Christ died.  That is what the cherubims with the flaming sword represented as they are guarding the way of the “tree of life.” 

In order to get to the “tree of life,” one must die.  You cannot pass the “flaming sword” and you cannot approach unto the Ark of the Covenant which the cherubims are watching over because, as the Bible says, “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”  Adam and Eve realized they were naked immediately after they sinned.  Our sins are exposed to a Holy God and in order to reach the “tree of life” and live forever, there has to be death.  There must be the giving up of one’s life to attain to that tree and, of course, the Lord Jesus Christ is the one that died and was able to go through the “flaming sword” in order to grant His people access, once again, to life.  Salvation grants eternal life to the sinner and it provides access to the “tree of life” that Adam and Eve could have enjoyed, but they cast it aside.  But now God has restored “Eden,” so to speak, as God has restored the beautiful relationship between Him and His people.  There is peace with God and the elect and the elect have “life.”