Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life…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. No longer will there be any curse.

Revelation 22:1-3

In the beginning, in Eden, the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden (was) the tree of life (Genesis 2:9). At the end of time the fruit of the same tree of life will be ripe for the picking by God’s redeemed (Revelation 22:14), Edenic life theirs—the curse of sin over and done with, for all nations. 

The prophet Isaiah foreshadowed it: For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, So the Master, GOD, brings righteousness into full bloom and puts praise on display before the nations (Isaiah 61:11, MSG). The angel gave John a firsthand look at it. The redeemed will experience it forever. 

In the meantime we image-bearers are to be about the task assigned to us of bringing people to Jesus, who is not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Top the dry, brown, arid crest of hilly BC-3 in southern British Columbia and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to peer down into the lush Okanagan Valley with its row upon row of fruit-bearing vines and orchards. You and I are to be that fruitful oasis in the middle of this dry, arid culture we live in. 

We also are intended to spread everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of (Christ) (2 Corinthians 2:14). Come with me in May to the Royal Botanical Gardens, 50 miles from my hometown in southern Ontario, to experience the most heady fragrance you can imagine. How I love to meander along the Lilac Walk through the intoxicating purples and pinks and whites of the 750 plus showy lilac bushes. It may be what heaven smells like, and it should be what we smell like to the world. Would that everyone would catch that scent and repent. Some won’t—to the one we are the smell of death; some will—to the other, we are the fragrance of life (2 Corinthians 2:16).

What I do know is this: the redeemed will feed off the fruit of that tree of life and be surrounded by that fragrance of life in the heavenly garden for all eternity, as was intended for us in Eden. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be forevermore. 

Nancy P