The Tree of Life

Genesis 2:9 “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Revelation 22:1-2 “My heavenly guide brought me to the river of pure living waters, shimmering as brilliantly as crystal. It flowed out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flowing down the middle and dividing the street of the holy city. On each bank of the river stood the tree of life, firmly planted, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and producing its sweet crop every month throughout the year. And the soothing leaves that grew on the tree of life provided precious healing for the nations.”

Have you ever wondered what the Tree of Life, mentioned briefly in Genesis 2, is?  We see it come back again in the very last chapter of the very last book in the Bible.  Outside of Proverbs, the Tree of Life is not mentioned in between Creation and the End.  Or is it?

Galatians 3:13 “the Anointed One, the Liberating King, has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. It was stated in the Scriptures, “Everyone who hangs on a tree is cursed by God (Deut 21:23).”

The Romans executed countless criminals on crosses.  What made the cross that Jesus was nailed to significant, powerful and effective was his blood.  In the Bible, blood is life.

It is strange that Jesus’ Tree should have no roots, branches or leaves, no sign of life that a tree should have.  It does not provide life by any of those means, but by the fruit that was hanging on it, nailed to it, fruit that we are invited to partake of in the New Covenant.  I believe the Cross is the Tree of Life in Genesis and Revelation.  Revelation 22 tells us the tree is on both sides of the river because rivers often separate one people from another, but here is no separation.  Jesus is the water of life flowing from the Tree, all may drink of him and never be thirsty again (John 4 and 7).  Throughout John’s gospel, he uses the metaphor of water and blood, culminating in Jesus’ death.  John 19:34 “one soldier took his spear and pierced His abdomen, which brought a flow of blood and water.”  By this, we know Jesus indeed died on that Tree.  Clear liquid accumulates in the sac around the heart when one dies by suffocation, so both “water” and blood poured out when his side was pierced.  And by his death on that Tree, we may have life.  

2 Corinthians 5:21 “He orchestrated this: the Anointed One, who had never experienced sin, became sin for us so that in Him we might embody the very righteousness of God.”

Maybe all this is obvious to you, but while I had seen Galatians 3 and understood the cross as the tree in Deuteronomy, the notion of Jesus’ cross as “the Tree of Life” was a new idea

to me.  I am in awe of God’s Plan for our salvation, foretold in the Beginning, fulfilled at the epicenter of the centuries on the Cross, and promised to fruition in the Last Day.