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. Revelation 2:7
Fresh from its maker’s hand, the entire face of the newly created earth would be considered a garden by our standards. Even her remotest gully would have been beyond comparison with the most exquisite garden planted today. Across earth’s gorgeous mountains, valleys, and lakesides, the lower creatures happily roamed in abundance and safety. But God had something greater in store for man. In order to demonstrate His love for the creature privileged to be made in His image, ‘the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed’ (Genesis 2:8). The sublime beauty of a divinely planted garden in a pristine world of perfection is beyond the reach of human imagination.
After man’s fall, much of the privilege he enjoyed was removed. Not only were Adam and Eve denied access to the life-perpetuating tree in the midst of the garden, but they were expelled from the garden altogether:
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. Genesis 3:24
What was once an open garden had become an enclosed garden. No sinner was permitted to defile the planting of the Lord or eat of the tree of life. The garden and its shining sentinels remained as a testimony to the existence of God and His wrath against sin. But besides this, the garden demonstrated that God had not abandoned mankind, nor renounced the inheritance He had planted for Adam and his unborn children. God could have simply removed the tree of life, and let the garden languish with the rest of the world. But this He did not do. Far from being cruel adversaries, the flaming sword and the threatening Cherubim were the guardians of Adam’s inheritance.
According to etymologists, the Greek word ‘paradeisos’, from which we get paradise, is of eastern origin. The old Persian word ‘pairidaeza’, from which the Greeks are said to obtain the word paradeisos, is defined as a walled enclosure or garden. Doubtlessly, this etymology hails back to the garden that was closed off to man by angels and a flaming sword.
‘To him that overcometh’, Jesus promises that He ‘will give to eat of the tree of life’. Regardless of what gnostics deceivers have argued, the tree of life is a literal tree; it is the very tree that was planted in the garden of Eden. As the tree of life was ‘in the midst of the garden’ on Earth, so now is it ‘in the midst of the paradise of God’. Not only is the tree of life in heaven, but the garden itself is there, having been evacuated before the deluge. As the privilege of Eden’s paradise and its life-giving tree was lost to Adam through sin, it will be restored to those who overcome sin.
Christopher Sparks