Paradise and the Tree of Life.
“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Rev. ii, 7. WHERE is this paradise? In the third Heaven; for so Paul writes to his Corinthian brethren. He says he once knew a man, referring to himself, caught up to the third Heaven. 2 Cor. xii, 2. In verse 4 he calls the same place paradise, thus locating it in the third Heaven. In this paradise is the tree of life. There is but one tree of life brought to view in the Bible. It is mentioned six times, three times in Genesis, and three times in the Revelation; but it is used every time with the definite article the. It is the tree of life in the first book of the Bible, the tree of life in the last; the tree of life in the “paradise” (Septuagint) in Eden at the beginning, and the tree of life in the paradise of which John now speaks, in Heaven above. But if there is but one tree, and that was at first upon the earth, it may be asked how it has now come to be in Heaven? To which the answer would be that it must have been by a translation. There is no possible way that the same identical body which is situated in one place, can be located in another but by being transported bodily thither. And that the tree of life and paradise have been removed from earth to Heaven, besides the necessary inference of this argument, there is good reason to believe. In 2 Esdras vii, 26, occurs this language: “Behold, the time shall come, that these tokens which I have told thee shall come to pass, and the bride shall appear, and she coming forth shall be seen that now is withdrawn from the earth.” There is evident allusion here to “the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” Rev. xxi, 9, which is the “holy city, New Jerusalem,” verse 10, Gal. iv, 26, in which is the tree of life, Rev. xxii, 2, which is now “withdrawn from the earth,” but which will, in due time, appear and be located among men, Rev. xxi, 2, 3. The following paragraph on this point we quote from Kurtz’ Sacred History, p. 50: “The act of God in appointing the cherubim ‘to keep the way of the tree of life,’ Gen. iii, 24. In the garden of Eden, likewise appears not only in an aspect indicating judicial severity, but also in one which conveys a promise full of consolation. The blessed abode from which man is expelled, is neither annihilated nor even abandoned to desolation and ruin, but withdrawn from the earth and from man, and consigned to the care of the most perfect creatures of God, in order that it may be ultimately restored to man when he is redeemed. Rev. xxii, 2. The garden, as it existed before God ‘planted’ or adorned it, came under the curse, like the remainder of the earth, but the celestial paradistical addition was exempted, and entrusted to the cherubim. The true Paradise is now translated to the invisible world. At least a symbolical copy of it, established in the holy of holies in the tabernacle, was granted to the people of Israel, after the pattern which Moses saw in the mount, Ex. xxv, 9, 40, and the original itself, as the renewed habitation of redeemed man, will hereafter descend to the earth. Rev. xxi, 10.”