The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest pieces of literature in the world. Produced in ancient Sumer, the story is about a king who is incredibly powerful yet fears his own death. He goes in search of immortality and is told about a plant that can grant eternal life. He finds the plant, but then a snake steals it from him while he is asleep. Gilgamesh goes back to his city empty-handed but reconciled to the fact that he is mortal and believing that the only way he can achieve some kind of immortality is by building up his city as a monument to himself.
In the opening chapters of the Bible we read about the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. Man originally had access to immortality and would have lived forever there in Eden. But after the Serpent successfully tempts the man and woman to sin by eating from the forbidden Tree, access to the Tree of Life is blocked. The man and his wife are expelled from Paradise and the Tree of Life is lost. That is, until we read the very last chapters of the Bible. In the book of Revelation, the Tree of Life returns.
The Tree of Life acts as bookends for the Biblical story. The mega-narrative of Scripture moves with remarkable unity from Creation to New Creation with the Tree of Life as the central image of man’s fall and redemption. This theme touches one of the major nerve-centers of Scripture. What was lost in Adam is regained in Christ and with an even greater glory. The Second Adam does the exact opposite of the First Adam, thereby undoing what the First Adam did and giving us access to Paradise once more.
The Tree of Life is the source of eternal life. The word “eternal” does not just mean a long, long time. It has nothing to do with time or with a quantity of something. Eternal is a quality not a quantity. And when we see this word used in Scripture we should always connect it to God Himself. God is really the only being who can claim eternality. God is the great “I Am” or the one who is self-existent. Everyone and everything else had a beginning and depends on another source outside of itself to exist. But God is dependent on no other source for His life. God just is. Everything else is because God is and because He has willed it to exist. Eternal life is Divine life. The Tree of Life is a picture of God sharing His own life with man. God’s original purpose was to give or share eternal life with mankind. That is why the Tree of Life was there in Eden. Eternal life does not come from a tree but from God. If we get eternal life from a tree it is only because God put life there. This teaches us that eternal life is not something that is in us already but must be taken in from outside ourselves. The same is true with sustaining the life of the body. What we need to live must be taken in, it is not within us. But God provides what we need to live.
The ultimate issue for a dying race is how we can get access to eternal life. Is there a way back to the Tree of Life? This is something that mankind has been seeking since the writing of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Even with all of our technological, scientific, and medical achievements there is still no cure for death. The Gospel holds out the hope that the way to the Tree of Life has been opened. But there are a few crucial conditions:
We must be given access to the Tree of Life.
Access to the Tree of Life is granted by Jesus.
Eternal life cannot be earned, it is given. It is Jesus Himself who gives access to the Tree of Life. Ephesus needed to know that detail, because their relationship to Jesus was shaky. They had lost their first love for Jesus Himself. If Jesus is the one who gives access to the Tree of Life, then the Church needs to make sure her relationship with Christ is strong. If Jesus can give access to this Tree of Life then He can also deny access. That is the implication. Not everyone will eat of the Tree of Life. Some will be excluded and cast out of Paradise forever.
After the account of man’s fall in Eden, when the way to the Tree of Life is blocked, very little is said in the rest of the Old Testament about eternal life. The way back to the Tree of Life was not opened under the Law of Moses. It was not until Jesus came that eternal life is opened up to us and made available. Christ came into the world to destroy death and to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel (2 Tim. 1.10). The only hope we have of overcoming death is through the member of the human race who Himself overcame death by His resurrection from the dead (1 Peter 1.3; Heb. 2.14-15). Just as death came through a man, eternal life came through a man (Rom. 5.12-21; 1 Cor. 15.21-22). And the only way we can have this eternal life is by being in spiritual union with Christ and being raised to life with Him (Rom. 6.1-4). Jesus Himself is the Tree of Life. He is the Bread that came down from heaven to give life to the world (John 6.33-35). Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11.25). If we have Jesus we have eternal life. If we don’t have Jesus, we do not have life (1 John 5.11-12). It is really that simple!
God made eternal life accessible to us in Jesus. For us to have access to this life the Son of God had to come into the world as a man. The incarnation was not done just for show. If humanity was to share in the life of God, then God had to share in our humanity. Jesus did not come to show us the way to the Tree of Life but to be the Tree of Life Himself.
When Jesus said things like “I am the Bread of Life” or “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” He is doing nothing less than claiming to be God. Only God has eternal life and can be the source of life for us. By claiming to be that source Jesus is claiming to be Divine Himself, not merely someone who is a guide to the Divine. This is what separates Jesus from all other religious leaders or moral teachers. No other religious figure in history has made the claim to actually be the source of eternal life.
Jesus is the exclusive source of eternal life.
Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me” (John 14.6). It is not difficult to understand what Jesus was saying about Himself. The difficulty for many people is in the exclusivity of that claim. Jesus claimed to be the only way to God and the source of eternal life. This is something we must either believe or reject. There is no other option.
But it is not without good reason that Christians believe in Jesus as the only source of eternal life. Who else has done what Jesus did? Who else can say “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:18)? Jesus has some impressive credentials that prove He is the source of eternal life. He is the only person to have ever risen from the dead under his own power. The man who can conquer death must indeed be the source of eternal life! It is a very wise thing to find the man who defeated death and just do what he says to do. The man who is offering us eternal life and access to the Tree of Life has risen from the dead Himself, ascended into heaven, and has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. This man with all authority will give us access to the Tree of Life.
When Joseph was made the ruler of Egypt he stored up all the grain of Egypt during the years of plenty. When the years of famine came and the people ran out of grain they went to the Pharaoh who simply said “go to Joseph. What he says to you, do” (Gen. 41.55). This is what God is saying to a dying race today: “if you want to live, go to my Son and do what He tells you.” Now is the time to be reconciled to the man who can give you access to the Tree of Life. Eventually everyone will either be invited in or shut out forever from the presence of the One who is life. Our lives in this world are hanging between these two alternatives. In fact, the only real purpose for this life is to introduce us to eternity, which can either be filled with life or with death.
We can find the Tree of Life only in the New Creation.
The way to the Tree of Life was forever blocked in this world.
Why was the way to the Tree of Life blocked? What if man had been able to eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in a fallen, alienated state? The results would have been horrible. It would have been hell on earth. So it was an act of Divine mercy to block access to the Tree of Life. God did not allow man to live forever in a fallen world. There are some states in which death is to be preferred to life. When someone is suffering intensely we actually long for death. There are some states a person can be in where they can enjoy no quality of life. They are biologically alive, but they cannot really live. They cannot enjoy life the way it was meant to be lived and their body becomes a kind of living death. This is true in some sense for the entire human race. When sin entered the world there was an alienation from God. We should always understand sin as a state and not just the individual transgressions that we commit.
Man was not made to live in alienation from God. Our lives will never really be right without God. How can we really live apart from the One who created us to be with Him? And so death follows sin just as naturally as night follows day.
From one perspective death was a Divine mercy. But from another perspective it was also a Divine judgment that amounted to a limitation being placed upon sinful mankind. We cannot even begin to imagine what sinners would do if they knew they could never die. The longer lifespans of the antediluvian world may have also contributed to the ever-increasing wickedness of the world leading up to the Flood. How wicked would men become if they had hundreds and hundreds of years to develop their wicked ways? Just as God has placed boundaries for the sea He has also placed boundaries on the lifespan of sinful man. Wicked men may seem to flourish for a time and they boast in their strength and accomplishments. Yet, their feet are placed in slippery places and death finds them at last. We should never envy the temporary prosperity of the wicked (See Psalm 73). All flesh is grass! God has made it so. The way to the Tree of Life is not open to sinful man. The entire order of creation has been subjected to futility by the Creator Himself, in view of making a New Creation. Until the New Creation is ready this old creation will remain in a state of frustration. And there is no amount of human ingenuity, science, or progress that will change God’s decree of death over the world. We must wait in hope for the world to come.
In the meantime pain, suffering, and death will be the norm for life under the sun. Pain is not the will of God for man but it is used by God to teach man about the consequences of alienation. God allows us to hurt, not because He wants us to hurt, but because He wants to see us seek out the reason for our hurt which will eventually lead us to seek God Himself. God intends to frustrate all of man’s efforts to save himself. If there is salvation we must come to God. Pain can drive us to the Lord and make us long for the salvation only He can provide. C.S. Lewis said that “we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Paul called our suffering in this present world birth-pains. The world is groaning as in childbirth. But that also gives us hope that a New Creation is about to be born (See Romans 8.18-25).
How foolish and futile it is to try to find satisfaction and happiness in a world like ours! Even if you were to get everything you ever wanted you would not be able to keep it because you would die. But we live in a world where there are thieves, stock-market crashes, tornadoes, disease, wars, traffic accidents, and political corruption. How does anyone really get everything they want in a world like that? It is a grave mistake to fall in love with the things of this world because these things are in a state of passing away. Love those things too much and your heart will be forever broken. The only people who will not be ultimately disappointed are those who love what is eternal (1 John 2.15-17).
The Tree of Life belongs to the New Creation.
The Tree of Life is not found here but is in the Paradise of God. That is the World to come (See Revelation 21-22). This means that the only people who will eat of the Tree of Life are those who make it into the New Creation. We know this is the case because the present heavens and earth are being reserved for the destruction of fire (2 Pet. 3.10). Everything must pass through the fires of God’s judgment. Some things will not make it through this ordeal. This includes people. A great separation is coming. The sheep will be separated from the goats. The wheat will be separated from the tares, which will be burned. Everything that is incompatible with the New Creation will be thrown onto that great, cosmic, trash-heap that is the Lake of Fire. That fire will never be quenched. There are some things and even people who belong to this present, evil world. A person who belongs to this world has developed a love, affection, and affinity with those things that are opposed to God and His will. These people will not only be excluded from the New Creation, because they would defile it, but even if they were allowed to enter it they would never be able to be happy there anyway! Why would you want to eat from the Tree of Life if the fruit of that tree is distasteful to you and you loathe every bite?
If we are going to eat from the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise of God we must become adapted to that environment. The Tree of Life is an acquired taste. There are certain things in nature that are made to live in a particular environment and cannot live in any other place. Some animals must live underwater. Some plants can grow in a dry and arid desert where other plants would only die. If we are going to make it into the New Creation we must become adapted to that environment. The adaptations take place in this world. This is why God’s people are aliens in this world. We have been made for another world. So be careful what kinds of affections, desires, and attachments you make in this world. Some of those attachments cannot carry over into the world to come. If you are not compatible with the New Creation you will not enter it. We must be born again to enter the Kingdom of God.
We must be overcomers to eat of the Tree of Life.
What must we overcome?
Most people who read Revelation come away scared. That is probably not a mature, informed reaction to the overall message of Revelation, but it is not a bad place to start. There are some scary images in Revelation that should make us stop and take notice.
The first really scary image is that of the Dragon. This is obviously Satan. Here is the great enemy of God and mankind unmasked and revealed as the powerful and dangerous adversary that he is. Satan is ultimately a frustrated and defeated enemy. But he is also a relentless enemy who does not give up easily. To help him wage his cosmic war against God and His people in the earth, Satan hires three employees: the Beast, another beast also known as the False Prophet, and the Prostitute, also called Babylon the Great. (The meaning of these images would require another message. It is enough to know they are the Devil’s employees!)
These are the forces of darkness arrayed against God’s people in the world. These are the enemies that we must overcome IF we are to eat of the Tree of Life. It sounds like an impossible task. But we already know we are in a spiritual battle against the forces of darkness, for which we need spiritual armor and weaponry (See Eph. 6.10-18; 2 Cor. 10.4-5). Revelation is not telling us anything exactly new. But the enemies of God and His people are being unmasked in all of their hideous glory.
We need to know the true nature of our enemies because they will never reveal the truth about themselves willingly. Satan and his workers work by deception and stealth. Things are not as they seem in this world. Satan is the god (ruler) of this worldly system and he blinds the eyes of people (2 Cor. 4.4). Most people don’t even know Satan is there until he has slithered into their lives. He doesn’t have to use brute force and obvious wickedness to do his work. Satan can tempt and ensnare with small pleasures that seem harmless and that take us down a broad and easy path to Hell. Satan is a master counterfeiter who offers cheap substitutes for real, spiritual life. He even has his own religions and false gods! Some of these wear the name “Christian.” Most of Satan’s lies make us think only of what we can have here and now.
Instead of waiting on God and His good gifts, Satan wants us to take what we can for ourselves. His lies and temptations never really change but are just repackaged for each new generation. To get to the Tree of Life we must get past all of Satan’s deceptions.
How do we overcome?
But how can we take on the Dragon and win? Satan has already demonstrated that he can successfully dupe even the very best members of the human race. But there is one man Satan was not able to defeat. Satan tried to tempt Him, but he just said “no.” So Satan tried to kill Him, but He rose from the dead. Jesus has already overcome. “The Lion of the Tribe of Judah has conquered” (Rev. 5.5)! And Christ’s victory is our victory. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Rev. 12.11). The central message of the book of Revelation is that Christ has won the victory and is now reigning in heaven. And if we are with Jesus we also will overcome.
Now if that is true, why is there still so much evil and opposition to God in the world? The existence of evil is a major stumbling block for many people. But the Scripture prophesied that the Christ would reign in the midst of His enemies (Psalm 110.1-2) until His enemies are made into His footstool. The book of Revelation promises that this will happen and then those who are with Christ will eat of the Tree of Life in the Paradise of God. The Kingdom of God has come but it is still coming. When it comes in its fullness we will eat of the Tree of Life. It does not look like the Church is overcoming right now. Sometimes it looks like the world is overcoming the saints. Sometimes the world even kills the people of God. But the saints are going to reign with Christ. This thing is not over yet and Jesus will have the last word.
This hope is what motivates us to stay in the race and keep fighting the good fight of faith. You do have to run and you do have to fight in order to overcome and be granted access to the Tree of Life. But if we run, we will win. And if we fight, we win! So run the race and fight the good fight! There is a prize and it is access to the Tree of Life. Do whatever it takes to make it into the New Creation where the Tree of Life is growing.
“This is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith” (1 John 5.4-5). We overcome by faith in the One who has already overcome the world (John 16.33). Someday our victory will be complete. There is more to salvation than what we have experienced in this world. In the World to come there is the Tree of Life waiting for us! If eternal life is knowing God (John 17.3), then eating from the Tree of Life will be finally seeing His face, enjoying His presence and fellowship without restriction or interruption for eternity.
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