In the previous chapter we spoke of eating Christ as the tree of life in the form of food. This is revealed in full from the very beginning of the Bible, through the whole content of the Bible, to the end of the Bible. The Bible begins with the tree of life, it continues with the tree of life, and it closes with the tree of life. The tree of life is nothing less than God in Christ presenting Himself to us as life in the form of food. We must not forget the phrase good for food...the tree of life in Genesis 2:9. In the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus presented Himself to people as the bread of life. John 6:35 says, “Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger, and he who believes into Me shall by no means ever thirst,” and in 6:57 He said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” At the end of the Bible there is also the tree of life (Rev. 22:2). The tree of life is our portion for eternity. For eternity we will be feeding on Jesus Christ as the tree of life. It is clear that the Bible is a book of eating. It is not a cookbook or a manual but a table, a feast. Whenever we come to the Bible, we come to the table, the feast, for eating. Hallelujah, Jesus is the table, and Jesus is the feast! We come to Jesus, and we feed on Jesus.
If we pay our attention to the Bible, we will see that the two ends of the Bible correspond one with the other; they reflect each other. At the beginning of the Bible there is a garden (Gen. 2:8), and at the end of the Bible there is a city (Rev. 21:10). At the beginning of the Bible there are the tree of life and a river (Gen. 2:9-10), and at the end of the Bible there are also the tree of life and a river (Rev. 22:1-2). At the beginning of the Bible there are gold, bdellium (a kind of pearl), and precious stones (Gen. 2:11-12), and at the end of the Bible there are also gold, pearls, and precious stones (Rev. 21:18-21). Lastly, at the beginning of the Bible there is a bride (Gen. 2:22). God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (v. 18). At the end of the Bible there is also a bride (Rev. 21:2, 9). By this we can see that the two ends of the Bible reflect each other. The Bible has been in our hands for many years, but we may never have seen this. There are many wonderful, marvelous things in the Bible, but regardless of how many times we have read Genesis 2 and Revelation 21 and 22, we may not have seen these matters.
The beginning of the Bible shows us God’s plan, God’s “blueprint.” In a book on construction, there is a blueprint at the beginning of the book and a photograph of a completed building at the end. Likewise, in this divine book of God’s construction, there is a “blueprint” at the beginning, and at the end there is a “photograph” of God’s building. In between the two ends there is a process. The process of any kind of construction is not simple. After Genesis 2, in the very first verse of chapter 3, the subtle one, the serpent, came in. This serpent continues throughout the whole Bible up until Revelation 20. In the process of the divine construction, there has always been the trouble caused by this subtle one. In between Genesis 1 and 2 and Revelation 21 and 22 is the process of construction with all the distractions, all the frustrations, from the serpent. This process is a story of the subtlety of the serpent. Just before the last two chapters of the Bible, however, this serpent is cast out (20:10). He crept in from the first verse of Genesis 3, and he is cast out in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. This view covers the whole Bible. Today we are in the process of construction. The little serpent is here all the time, but the seed of the woman, Christ, has bruised the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). Praise the Lord! Regardless of how subtle the serpent is, his head has been bruised. Now he is a defeated foe who has already been cast down (Rev. 12:9).
At the two ends of the Bible there is no difference in the tree of life or the river of living water. However, the garden at the beginning of the Bible becomes a city at the end. A garden is something natural without any building. A city, however, is not natural; it is something built. In the garden the gold, pearl, and precious stones were individual pieces, but in the city the gold, pearl, and precious stones are all built into one entity. In the city there are no longer only the pieces but the building. With the bride in Genesis 2 and Revelation 21 there is also a difference. The bride in Genesis 2 is a type of the church, whereas the city, the New Jerusalem, is the fulfillment of the bride.
(Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, Chapter 6)
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