■[f The tree of life was as significant a symbol of life-giving Divine power to the Asian Greeks as to the Jews, though in a different way. Trees had been worshipped as the home of the Divine nature and power from time immemorial, and were still so worshipped in Asia Minor as in the ancient world generally. On some sacred tree the prosperity and safety of a family or tribe or city was often believed to depend. When the sacred olive-tree on the Acropolis of Athens put forth a new shoot after the city had been burned by the Persians, the people knew that the safety of the State was assured. The belief was widely entertained that the life of a man was connected with some tree, and returned into that tree when he died. The tree which grew on a grave was often thought to be penetrated with the spirit and life of the buried man. The tree of life in the Kevelation was in the mind of the Ephesians a Christianization of the sacred tree in the pagan religion and folk-lore; it was a symbolic expression which was full of meaning to the Asian Christians, because to them the tree had always been the seat of Divine life and the intermediary between Divine and human nature. The problem which was constantly present to the ancient mind in thinking of the relation of man to God appears here : how can the gulf that divides human nature from the Divine nature be bridged over ? how can God come into effective relation to man ? In the holy tree the Divine life is bringing itself closer to man. He who can eat of the tree of life is feeding on the Divine power and nature, is strengthening
REVELATION ii. 7 e^
himself with the body and the blood of Christ. The idea was full of power to the Asian readers.^
4 " To him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God " is the mystical expression of the great truth that Jesus can incorporate us in His own life, and make us sharers of His own joy. He is in paradise. If we are in Him, we are in paradise.
Why should a Divinely sustained and everlasting life be promised as the reward of victory, seeing it is the present posses- sion of all believers ? For thus runs the testimony of Scripture : " He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life " — tiaih this life already; it is already kindled and shrined in his breast. " This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life." Not only is all this true, but it is pre-supposed in the promise given in the text to the overcomer. For it is to be borne in mind that the earnest, enjoyed in this life, is of the same nature as the future felicity and glory. While the life eternal in its beginnings is a present possession of the believer in Jesus, yet in its glorious fulness, or what Jesus calls its " abundance," it shall be also the future reward of him that overcometh. Hence St. Paul writes to Timothy, " Lay hold on eternal life " ; and the Apostle John says, " This is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life^
It will not meet us where the shadows fall Beside the sea that bounds the Evening Land;
It will not greet us with its first clear call
When Death has borne us to the farther strand.
It is not something yet to be revealed — The everlasting life — 'tis here and now ;
Passing unseen because our eyes are sealed With blindness for the pride upon our brow.
It calls us 'mid the traffic of the street,
And calls in vain, because our ears are lent
To these poor babblements of praise that cheat The soul of heaven's truth, with earth's content.
» W. M. Ramsay, Tht Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 247.
68 THE TREE OF LIFE
It dwells not in innumerable years;
It is the breath of God in timeless things — The strong, divine persistence that inheres
In love's red pulses and in faith's white wings.
It is the power whereby low lives aspire
Unto the doing of a selfless deed, Unto the slaying of a soft desire,
In service of the high, unworldly creed.
It is the treasure that is ours to hold
Secure, while all things else are turned to dust;
That priceless and imperishable gold Beyond the scathe of robber and of rust.
It is a clarion when the sun is high,
The touch of greatness in the toil for bread,
The nameless comfort of the Western sky, The healing silence where we lay our dead.
And if we feel it not amid our strife, In all our toiling and in all our pain —
This rhythmic pulsing of immortal life — Then do we work and suffer here in vain.^
II.
Access through Christ.
"To him will I give to eat of the tree of life."
1. Every word of the text might stand our scrutiny, and none calls for more careful examination than the word " give," indicat- ing that Christ is the bestower of the reward. He who overcomes might seem to have earned something, and the reward be his by right. But in the Kingdom of God there is no thought of merit- ing. All faithfulness in duty has its reward, and many Scriptures declare that the reward is in some way proportioned to the work, so that a man may actually reap the thing which he has sown. And yet has any man who has known God ever dared to think of Him as in his debt ? At every stage of life such a man is apt to ^ P. C. Ains worth, Poems and Sonnets, 9.