Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #8 of Revelation 2, and we will read Revelation 2:7:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

We are looking at the second part of this verse: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life…”  Before we look at the word “overcometh,” we are first going to look at “the tree of life.”  The tree of life is something that appears at the very beginning of the Bible, and shortly after creation.  It says 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.

We are much more familiar with “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” the infamous tree that Eve ate of, and then gave to her husband Adam.  In doing so, they rebelled against God and broke the commandment, the only commandment we read of that the Lord had given them.  They were not to eat of that particular tree.

But “the tree of life” was also in the midst of the garden, and the Lord had also given that tree a very glamorous name.  He named “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and it was mysterious, and it provoked Eve to wonder about it. 

So too “the tree of life” had an interesting name, but it was not necessary for them to eat of it before their fall because they had “life.”  They were created good, and all the creation was created good.  Everything was perfect, and it was a beautiful and sinless creation.  There was no corruption in anything that God had created, and if Adam and Eve had maintained obedience to God and had not ventured into a discussion with the serpent and fallen into sin, they would have continued to live.  So there was no need for “the tree of life.”

God, knowing all things, placed the tree of life in the garden because He knew that Adam and Eve would sin, and the tree of life would then take on special significance.  It is interesting that after Adam and Eve sinned and the curse came upon them, we read in Genesis 3:22-24:

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

Now Adam and Eve had a tremendous need to eat of the tree of life, so God orchestrated the circumstances so they could not partake of the tree by driving them out of the garden, and by placing the Cherubims and a flaming sword that turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.

Why Did God do that?  The Lord named that tree “the tree of life,” and placed it in the midst of the garden, and He knew that man would fall into sin, and the tree would be necessary as a source of life to Adam and Eve.  When they fell, they died spiritually, and then they would die physically.  Death resulted from their sin, and now they were in great need of “life.”  But God also knew that Adam and Eve could not obtain spiritual life based on their own efforts, after they had fallen into sin.  If they had gone to the tree of life and eaten of the fruit, it would have been through their own effort and doing, and God could not allow that because the Bible indicates that no man can be justified in the sight of God based on his own works.  Even though the tree of life was a necessary provision made by God as He knew that sin would enter into the world, so the only way that men could live would be through “the tree of life.”  So God safe-guarded the tree and protected it, making it impossible for any man to approach and partake of it.  It would take someone far more powerful and greater than the average man.

Of course that tree was probably just an ordinary tree that God is just using as an illustration or picture because “the tree of life” actually points to Christ.  Let us look at a verse in Proverbs where God does show us that.  It says in Proverbs 3:13:

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.

In this chapter where “wisdom” is being discussed, it says 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.

“Wisdom” is in view, and the Bible tells us elsewhere that “wisdom” is Christ Himself, as it says in 1Corinthians 1:30:

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom…

The Lord Jesus is the essence of “wisdom,” and wisdom is a “tree of life,” and that would mean that Christ is “the tree of life.”  That tree is a figure of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us go back to Genesis 3 and again read Genesis 3:24:

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.

And in Exodus 25 God speaks of two cherubims in a very important place in relationship to the ark of the covenant inside the “holy of holies.”  It says in Exodus 25:16-22:

And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.

Here, God is drawing us an illustration of the mercy seat covering the ark of the covenant, and inside the ark is the testimony, or the Law of God.  And the Law of God, the Ten commandments, represents the entire Word of God, the Bible.  And it is God’s Word, or Law, that condemns mankind.  It condemned Adam and Eve in the garden, and it condemned all mankind that came forth from Adam and Eve.  We are all sinners.  We have all transgressed the Law of God, and we will die.  We were all born spiritually dead and with corruptible bodies which will also eventually die.  And our only hope is “the tree of life,” or Christ Himself.

But just as the historical example God gave in the garden when He set the Cherubims and the flaming sword turning every way to guard “the tree of life,” so too we find that inside the “holy of holies” were the Cherubims, and they were looking down upon the ark which contained the Law of God.  And there was the mercy seat, another example of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The mercy seat was placed over the lid of the ark, and therefore it was “over the law,” and it was upon the mercy seat that the high priest of Israel sprinkled the blood of the sacrificial animal once a year during the Day of Atonement.  And as he sprinkled that blood on the mercy seat, the Cherubims were looking down upon it, allowing it to take place.  It is a wonderful illustration of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of His elect, all those individual the Lord had determined to save.

This also reveals to us that the way to the tree of life is not through man’s effort, based upon his own works to attempt to go through that flaming sword, which pictures the wrath of God, and to pass by the Cherubims, and to forcefully take hold upon the tree to attain life.  No.  The way is through Christ.  The “way of life” is through the Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice and His work, and not our own work.

So right from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, God made the way to the tree of life impossible for man, and He is demonstrating to us and showing us that salvation is impossible with man, but possible with God.  And the tree of life was there for sinful man, but it was also out of reach of sinful man.  It could only be reached through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us look at one more thing before we move on.  We want to learn as much as we can when we are studying the Bible.  Our verse in Revelation has taken us into a discussion of the tree of life, and that has led us to look at the “cherubims.”  So let us look at a couple of passages in Ezekiel about cherubims.  In Ezekiel 10, Ezekiel was given a vision from God.  It says in Ezekiel 10:13-15:

As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel. And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. And the cherubims were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar.

Here, God describes the cherubims, and He tells us about four different faces.  It is interesting that it says that the first face was “the face of a cherub,” singular, and then it describes the other faces.  We wonder, “What is the face of a cherub?”  Perhaps we can gain some insight on this if we go back to Ezekiel 1.  Why would we do that?  It is because it says in Ezekiel 10:15: “This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar.”  So it is the same “creature” that God showed to Ezekiel earlier in Ezekiel 1.  In Ezekiel 1, God also describes these four faces, so let us read Ezekiel 1:10:

As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.

But there is a difference between this description and the description we read in Ezekiel 10.  They four alike had the face of a man; they four alike had the face of an lion; and they four alike had the face of an eagle.  But in Ezekiel 10:13, it said that the first had “the face of a cherub,” but it says in Ezekiel 1:10, one face was “the face of an ox.”  Since it was stated in Ezekiel 10 that it was the same vision as the earlier vision at the river of Chebar, then we can understand that the cherub would have had “the face of an ox.”  I do not know if that means anything, but it is helpful, and we can use that language when we think of the cherub.  It would seem to indicate that the cherub and the ox are synonymous.

Let us return to our verse in Revelation 2:7:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

The tree of life is in the midst of the paradise of God.  The word “paradise” is a from a Greek word that is used three times in the New Testament.  It is used once here, and it is used once when Jesus was on the cross alongside the two thieves.  The one thief was reviling Him, and even though the other thief had also done so at first, God worked in that individual because he happened to be one whose name God had written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  God waited until this man who had lived a very sinful life had come to this point at the end of his life, and then God drew him.  He heard the Word of Christ, and God saved him.  After rebuking his fellow thief, it says in Luke 23:42-43:

And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

Christ died, and His Spirit went into heaven.  Then that thief died after his legs were broken, and in his spirit essence he too went into heaven to be with the Lord, as the Bible tells us of every child of God that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  And that teaches us that paradise is heaven.

But there is one other reference to “paradise” in the New Testament in 2Corinthians when the Apostle Paul was recounting a vision and revelation he received of the Lord, in 2Corinthians 12:2-4:

I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

Here, we find Paul explaining that there was a vision of a man, who in all likelihood was Paul himself, and he was caught up into paradise.  But notice that it refers to being caught up to “the third heaven,” in verse 2, and “caught up into paradise” in verse 4.  They are synonymous statements, and therefore the “third heaven” is “paradise.”  What is the “third heaven?”  The Bible speaks of three heavens, in a sense.  There is the heaven above us where the birds fly, and above that there is space where the astronauts fly in rockets, and beyond that in the spiritual realm likes “the third heaven,” the kingdom of God, and that is where the tree of life is located because that is where the Lord Jesus Christ dwells.  He is in heaven.  He is in the midst of the paradise of God, and that, therefore, is where the tree of life is because He and the tree of life are one and the same.

Now let us look at this word “overcometh.”  It says in Revelation 2:7:

…To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

You can see how some (people) could wrongly understand this to mean that we must force our way past the Cherubims and the flaming sword to finally grab hold of the tree of life.  When we hear the tales that men weave as they speak of journeys and adventures in seeking “the holy grail,” or “the fountain of youth,” it is full of the idea of man overcoming obstacles in order to reach the life-giving water, or some other silly thing like that.  But that is not what God means by “overcoming.”  He does not mean that someone by force of his will must overcome his sinful nature and keep His commandments and do His will.  He does not mean that someone must overcome their natural tendency to sin and then to do good.  That is not what He has in mind at all.  The Lord Jesus said in John 16:33:

… I have overcome the world.

In the first instance, it is the Lord Jesus Christ that overcomes on behalf of His people, and that is why the Lord says in 1John 5:4-5:

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

Here, we see that we do not overcome the world, and then become saved.  That is not the order of things.  It can never work that way.  Notice it says first, “For whatsoever (or whosoever) is born of God overcometh the world.”  That is, we first must be born again, which is an act of God.  We must be granted the grace of God bestowed upon us in salvation.  It is a gift of God.  It is not of works lest any man should boast.  God must do the work.  Christ purchased our salvation.  He redeemed us by atoning for our mountain of sins.  He is the one who overcame the demand of the Law for our sins.  He is the one that is victorious over all.  And He is the one who finally causes us to hear the Gospel and applies His Word to our hearts, and He creates within us a new spirit.  Therefore He had to first overcome in order that we can overcome this world in Him.  That is what God means when he says in our verse in Revelation 2:7:

…To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

All we can say is that we are very thankful to God for His unspeakable gift and His wonderful grace toward us in granting us the ability to eat of “the tree of life.”  We had such a desperate need due to our sins to eat of that tree.