The River Of Life

 Then the angel showed me the riverof the water of life, as clear as crystal,flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.~ Revelation 22:1-2

I don't know whose job it is to give paragraph headings but the one used here in the NIV is Eden Restored.

I suppose that is derived from the Tree of Life being on both sides of the river.

And I suppose that the symbolism us showing that it is accessible,  which ever direction you approach from.

The key to the River is that it flows from the throne.

GOD is it's source.

The vision of the river has it's origins in Ezekiel's own vision (Ez 47) except that in Ezekiel's version the river flows from the temple.

But as we saw in chapter 21 God himself is the temple.

And whereas in Eden there were two different trees, (one of life,  and one of the knowledge of good and evil) here both trees bring life.

Where as the fruit of one of those tree's was responsible (as if the tree itself could bear the responsibility) for the fall of Mankind, and the coming under the curse of the whole world, instead, here the whole world is to be healed by it's leaves.
"No longer will there be any curse." v3

This us truly, truly exciting.

Not a day of your life,  not one single second of your,  or any other human's life in all of history has been lived in a world free from the curse. Not since Eden.

Sure as Christians, in Christ,  we are no longer subject to the curse,  because he became a curse to redeem those living under the curse. 

But we have never lived in a world free from it.

How staggering is it to think that this will end.

Think what the curse bought with it.

Shame.

Sin.

Decay.

Death.

Sorrow.

Pain.

Those aches and pains that are like white noise in my body.  Just background pain that I have become accustomed to.  That tinnitus that I can hear at anytime if I focus on it.  That hunger for food which never goes and is never fully satisfied,  because without it I would die.
That hunger and craving for honour and significance and love which dominates so much of my motives,  conscious and subconscious.

Gone.

I cannot even imagine.

Can you?

And all this healing coming from the tree of life,  and the tree of life,  fed and sustained by the river of life,  and this river flowing from the Throne,  the rule of Jesus Christ over all that was made by him,  through him and for him,  and sitting on the throne,  The lamb of God,  who took away the sin of the world and laid down his life.

He became a curse to redeem those living under the curse.

My son used the name Jesus Christ last week,  in a way he has heard people do in movies and at school.

He was shocked at my reaction, so common place as that kind of use of his name is.

Yes.

Jesus became a curse.

As it was written.  Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

And he hung there. Cursed and being cursed.

Becoming a curse.

To this day he is known as 'the cursed one' amongst Jewish people.

But the day is coming when his name will be honoured.

Blessed Jesus.

And the day is coming when there will no longer be any curse.

Lord,  give us this hope,

This day,
And all days.

Amen.