Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #3 of Revelation, chapter 22.  We are continuing to look at 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.

In our last study we saw that the “tree of life” was in the beginning in the Garden of Eden and it really points to the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is spoken of, here and there, throughout the Bible.  For instance, God speaks of “wisdom” in Proverbs 3:18:

She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

In Proverbs, wisdom personifies Christ, especially in Proverbs, chapter 8.  Wisdom is spoken of as a person and Christ is said to be “made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,” in 1Corinthians 1, verse 30, so it is Jesus who is the “tree of life.”  It makes sense because the eternal life received by the people of God comes from the Lord Jesus Christ’s atoning work.  He really is the one in view with the “tree of life” in the very beginning in the Garden of Eden.  The tree is already established and then mankind falls into sin, but the “tree” of life appears throughout the Bible and now we see it, again, in the last Book of the Bible and that is because the entire Bible is about Jesus: “In the volume of the book it is written of me.”  It is about God working out His magnificent salvation program, so it is appropriate that the “tree of life” makes an appearance at the end of the Bible, with the concluding chapter of God’s Holy Book. 

The “tree of life” appears and she “bare twelve manner of fruits.”  As we saw in the previous chapter, the number “12” points to fullness.  It is the fullness of the fruits from the “tree of life.”  What would be the fullness of fruit that would come from the “tree of life?”  It would be eternal life and all of God’s people have access to that tree for evermore and when you have access to the “tree of life,” you have life.  It is only when there is sin and rebellion that death comes and the access is restricted or forbidden, unless you can go through the “flaming sword” and meet the Law’s demand for death.  In that case, if you had the power of Almighty God you can rise from that death and bring life for your people, but anyone else attempting this would be slain by the “flaming sword.”  That is how it has been in all of man’s efforts to attain righteousness and the kingdom of heaven through their own efforts.  They have all been slain by the “sword” or the Word of God itself.  They have brought themselves under the Law by attempting to keep the Law (perfectly) and not a single individual has made it through that difficult way – it is impossible for man.  But Christ was “God” and “man” and He had the ability to do this, so we see the tree bearing fruit and it goes on to say in Revelation 22:2:

…and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

The word “healing” is very significant.  Remember how often Jesus would perform healings?  We read in Luke 9:11:

And the people, when they knew it, followed him: and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.

Every time Christ healed the sick (whether it was blindness, deafness, lameness or disease), it was always a picture of salvation in every case. 

In Psalm 103 God joins these two ideas together in Psalm 103:3:

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

I have mentioned this before, but this is an example of Hebrew parallelism.  God will make a statement in the first part of a verse, and then He will say the same thing using different words in the second part of the verse.  Once you see how often God does this, it helps us understand some additional spiritual elements; God is able to define some words or some “pictures” in this way.  For instance, here we can see the relationship between forgiving iniquity and healing diseases and that is what Jesus was doing when He performed His healings.  Why was Christ going about healing the physical ailments of the people of His day?  Yes, it was one way to demonstrate the power of God, so it was a testimonial to who He was, but it also painted a spiritual picture of what He was all about – the atoning work of Christ had to do with the forgiveness of iniquities or the washing away of sins.  Therefore, the physical healings taught or pictured that spiritual reality.  They illustrated that Christ was able to forgive sin.

One time in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus performed this miracle in “reverse order.”  First, let me say that every time Christ healed someone, they did not necessarily become saved, but it was always a picture of salvation.  Yet, there was one time that Jesus reversed this order with an infirm person.  It says in Mark 2:3-5:

And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

When that statement was made, any “natural minded” people present would have rolled their eyes.  “You are forgiving his sins?  Do you not see his great need?  He is sick of the palsy and he has to be carried around!”  You see, to the “natural mind,” it is always the physical problems that are the main focus.  “The forgiveness of sins is fine, I guess, but we want physical healing.”

It is like when Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fish.  To most people, that was the mighty miracle and they swarmed after Him in droves.  Jesus responded that they were following Him because they had seen Him multiply the food.  Christ was indicating that this was not the main thing.  The real “food” or the real “bread from heaven” is in the spiritual realm.  As Christ said to the Samaritan woman at the well, she could drink of the water He could give her for evermore.  It was spiritual water.  But this does not make an impact on the “natural minded” person because they operate only in the physical realm with things they can see that are visible to them.  The “invisible things” are just concepts to them, but they are mainly focused on the visible things – physical food and physical healings.  Then He would be a great God to the people of the world, but the reality is that the far greater thing is always the spiritual reality.  It is far greater to be fed with spiritual food and drink or to be spiritually healed than it is to eat and drink or be physically healed.

This is what is going on when Jesus says, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” and then it goes on to say in Mark 2:6-7:

But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?

Of course, that is a true statement.  Who can forgive sins but God only?  It is only God and, therefore, when Jesus said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” He was making a declaration that He is God.  You hear some people, especially Muslims, say, “Show me in the Bible where Jesus said he was God.”  You can direct them to this verse because only God can forgive sins.  If Jesus was just a good prophet (like the Muslims say), He would know that and He would have left the forgiveness of sins to God only.  Man does not involve himself in that and prophets like Moses and Elijah and Isaiah did not forgive anyone’s sins, but Jesus was not just a good prophet, but He is that Prophet, like unto Moses, but He is THE Prophet and He is Emmanuel or “God with us,” and, therefore, He possessed the power to forgive sins.  These scribes did not know who He was and they were making a charge that would have been true for any other person, but it was not true of “God in the flesh.”

Then it says in Mark 2:8-9:

And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?

Jesus asked a valid question: “Which is easier?  Is it easier to say, ‘Rise up and walk,’ or is it easier to say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven.’?”  There is nowhere in the Bible that requires God to die in order to heal someone physically.  God can give legs to walk, eyes to see and ears to hear and it does not require that He take the person’s sins upon Him.  But, in order to heal the sin sick soul and give them eternal life, it required that the Lord Jesus Christ take those sins upon Him and suffer and die under the wrath of God until the penalty of sin was paid.  Then He could say, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”

Notice the order of things here.  He is saying this before He went to the cross.  According to some people Christ is forgiving someone’s sins before He paid for those sins at the cross.  At that point in time, who had paid for those sins?  Christ said the sins were forgiven, but who paid for them?  If it were the case that Christ would (in the future) pay for those sins, how could those sins be presently forgiven?  You see, there is a contradiction because the teaching that Christ paid for sins at the cross is false.  It is not true, according to the Word of God.  Again, there is a solution once we understand that Jesus died for His elects’ sins from the point of the world’s foundation and, therefore, He had already suffered and died for those sins and now Jesus can say to this man (or any elect person), “Thy sins be forgiven thee.”  This harmonizes with the entire Bible and the idea that He paid for sin at the cross is another doctrine that does not fit and then you have to make other statements like, “Well, if God guarantees something, it is as good as done.”  You can say that, but if you have an elaborate web of schemes in order to try to harmonize the Bible, then you can know you do not have truth and that is why you have to develop these contrived ideas in order to explain so many verses.  Yet, these verses are easily explained by the truth that Jesus had died before the world was created.  Then His “will” takes effect and the blood of Christ was already available for the remission of sins (from the foundation of the world) and everything falls into place.

It goes on to say in Mark 2:10-12:

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion. 

It would have been an amazing thing, but do you see what amazes them?  It is the “lesser” thing.  It is the easy thing.  It is the physical thing.  That is why today the charismatic and social gospels are more popular.  They play to the “natural mind.”  They profess to “show” the people the invisible things of God as they (apparently) show physical healings.  As Mr. Camping used to say, “There are a lot of shenanigans going on.”  There is a lot of deception, especially on TV with the cameras where they can give the appearance of something going on that is not really happening.  They try to give the appearance of “action” by God in the physical realm that people can perceive.  You get droves of people coming and they want to see the “emotion” and they want to be stirred to action and come down the aisle, but it is all in the wrong realm.  It is all taking place in the physical realm and it is geared toward man’s “natural mind.”  It is just like their music – they want to get the body moving, just like the world’s music.  They think if they are swaying to the gospel music, they are having some kind of spiritual experience, but it is not a spiritual experience.  It is a physical experience because it is carnal and worldly and it is that which appeals to the natural minded man.  But the music of the kingdom of the God soothes the soul.  It really does speak to the spirit.  The soul of the child of God soars when they hear the wonderful music of God’s kingdom, but that does not register with the unsaved.

Here, we see Jesus making the point: “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins” He then performed a physical healing to validate that He had the power to do so.

Now we find that it says in Revelation 22:2:   

…and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

This is referring to the “nations of them which are saved.”  Christ has healed them all.  He has healed them of all their iniquities and all their diseases, spiritually.  They have been cleansed and forgiven of all sins and now they enter into the kingdom of God in perfect health in both body and soul.  At this point God has also given them new spiritual bodies and there is no disease any longer.  The “tree of life” has healed the nations.

If we look at 3John, there is an interesting verse that fits this idea in 3John 1:2:

Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

People wish one another “good health,” as they say, “I hope you are feeling better.”  Spiritually, “good health” is salvation.  On the other hand you can have physical good health and some people are really working hard to keep their physical bodies in the best of shape and they may be able to do it for a length of time.  They work, work, work at it, but they spend no time at all on the health of their souls.  They do not realize they are full of “leprosy” and all manner of diseases affect the soul of a sinner.  If you have ever seen an illness go untreated for a period of time, it may fester and ooze and become the ugliest of things.  That is a good picture of the soul of the unregenerate sinner – it is full of diseases.  But God has healed the souls of His people.