The River and the Tree That Heals the Whole World

The angel had carried John up a high mountain and shown him the new city coming down from God. John had seen walls of shining jewels, a street of gold so pure it looked like glass, and twelve gates, each one made from a single pearl. (Most pearls fit on a ring. These were big enough to drive a cart through.)

Then the angel showed John one more thing.

"He showed me the river of the water of life," John wrote, "bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb."

The river ran down the middle of the city's great street. On each bank stood the tree of life. It was one tree, and it grew on both sides of the river at once. (John did not say how. Visions are like that.)

That tree came from the oldest story of John's people. It grew in the garden God planted for Adam and Eve. When they disobeyed God, he sent them out of the garden, and he set cherubim, mighty angels, at the entrance, with a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree. Outside, the ground grew thorns. People grew old, and they died. From that day on, no one could reach it.

Now here it stood in the open, by the water, with no sword in sight. Its branches were loaded: twelve crops of fruit, a fresh one every month.

"The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations," John wrote. People from every nation on earth would be made well there, even nations that had fought each other for a thousand years.

"No longer will there be anything cursed." The thorns and the dying that began outside the garden were finished.

The throne of God and of the Lamb stood in the city, and God's servants worshiped him. "They will see his face," John wrote, "and his name will be on their foreheads." Anyone who looked at them would know whose they were.

"There will be no more night," he went on. "They will need no lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."

(Nobody there will ever be called inside because it got too dark to play.)

Back in the garden, the way to the tree had been shut. Long after, the prophet Ezekiel saw a river with healing leaves on the trees along its banks, but he never saw who would put the flaming sword away.

God's answer was another tree, one cut down and made into a cross, on a hill outside Jerusalem. The Lamb of God was nailed to it, and there he died. Paul wrote that on that tree he took the curse onto himself. Peter wrote that he carried our sins there, and "by his wounds you have been healed." Now the Lamb who died is alive, on the throne where the river begins.

Jesus is healing his people even now, one by one. One day, by the river in that city, the healing will be finished, and the way to the tree of life will never be shut again.