Part 4: The Vine and the River and the Tree of Life
The book of life isn’t the only metaphor used in regard to those who are saved by God into zoe eonian (life from God, God’s own life, the life of the age to come, only available from Him Who transcends all ages). It isn’t the only such metaphor used in scripture, and it isn’t the only such metaphor used in RevJohn. It isn’t even the only such imagery used in close proximity to the scene of the lake of fire judgment! (Which, to recap, is at Rev 20:11-15, with pickups going back at least to verse 4.)
The most pertinent imagery for our purposes, in direct relation to the lake of fire judgment, is the tree and the river of life.
(As a sidenote: in Greek the term is “the log of life”, which not only communicates the notion of it being very reliably strong, but also the notion that this is a tree which has been slain and through its death somehow gives life. It’s quite a good way to speak of Christ metaphorically!–but hereafter, for familiarity sake in English, I’ll call it the tree of life as most translations do.)
An exegetical analysis of the tree and the river in relation to the lake of fire judgment, shows some pretty unexpected things!–to those expecting the lake of fire judgment only to be hopeless.
Rev 22:17; the Spirit and the Bride (and the one who hears) are saying “Come”. To whom? “The one who hears” (i.e. the Evangelist) is saying come “to the one who is thirsty”; he is part of the Bride and acting in conjunction with the Spirit. So they must be saying come to the one who is thirsty as well. To satisfy that thirst how? By taking the water of life without cost.
Rev 22:14; those who wash their robes (i.e. in the water of life, the only place for washing in this and the preceding chapter), are blessed because they then obtain permission to enter by the gates into the New Jerusalem to eat of the tree of life. (Relatedly, on the last great day of the Festival of Tabernacles, the Feast of Water and of Light, Jesus stood up in the Temple and cried out, “If anyone should be thirsting, let him come toward Me and drink! The one trusting in Me, in accord as the scripture said, out of his belly shall gush rivers of living water!” He says this concerning the spirit, writes the Evangelist, which those trusting into him were about to be getting when Jesus is glorified. GosJohn 7:37-39)
So, who are the ones who would be thirsting and who need washing?
Rev 22:15; the ones outside: the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons, etc. (the typical list used in RevJohn and elsewhere). Everyone who still loves and practices their lying. These are the ones with filthy robes (v.11–at least many of whom are expected to keep doing wrong in the interim period once the tribulation starts.) Are they in the lake of fire at this point in the revelation?
Rev 21:8; yep, their portion is in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. (Which, poetically speaking, might be expected to make someone thirsty!) Will they ever come into the city?
Rev 21:27; nope, so long as they remain unclean and keep practicing their abomination and lying. Does that mean the gates are closed?
Rev 21:25; nope, not in the daytime–and there shall never be a night there! Why are those gates still open?
Rev 21:24,25; so that the nations (the pagans who do not yet know God) can walk by its light (which is the glory of God and the Lamb) and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and the glory and the honor of the nations into it. Who are the kings of the earth?
Rev 19:19; we last saw them ganging up with the beast to make war on Christ and getting their butts righteously kicked, leaving their bodies scattered for the birds of the air (which counts as shepherding them with a rod of iron, v.15–compare to the end of Psalm 23. Many English translations obscure the term in Rev there as “rule”, but in Greek it’s clearly “shepherd”.)
So, they have to go into the city first to get the water? No, the water has to be flowing out to them–just as the light (Christ Himself, compare to Rom 10) is going out to them. That the river of life coming out from under the throne of the Lamb is going out the never-closed gates, is directly implied by the exhortation for them to come drink and wash in the river freely given without cost.
(This is explicitly stated, in fact, in Old Testament scripture, of very much interest looking into. But more on this soon.)
So when they repent and wash in the river and slake their thirst and follow the light and go into the city, is that in order to be hopelessly punished, too?
Rev 22:2; nope, the leaves of the tree of life in the city are for the healing of the nations. Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, will give without cost from the spring of the water of life to those who thirst (21:6); and He shall wipe away every tear from the eyes of those who are citizens of the New Jerusalem, and there shall no longer be any death, nor mourning nor crying nor pain, for the first things shall have passed away: He is making all things new. (vv.4-5)
Notably, this scene is anticipated back in chapter 7:9-12; where John is looking forward to that which takes place “after these things”. A great multitude beyond counting from every nation and tribe and people and language clothed in white robes crying out with a loud voice, “SALVATION!” to our God Who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb–for which the angels and the elders and the four living creatures fall on their faces before the throne and worship God. One of the elders asks John, “Who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come?” John says the elder knows, so the elder answers: “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation,” which hasn’t happened yet in the main narrative sequence of the revelation, “and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His sanctuary, and He Who sits on the throne spreads His tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore, neither shall the sun fall on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne shall be their shepherd and guide them to the springs of the waters of life; and God shall wipe every tear from their eyes.”
This promise is not only fulfilled for some chosen few (the excessively vast number rules that out) coming out of the great Tribulation; and the end of Revelation shows it also being fulfilled to those still outside the city at the end, even the kings of the earth (being shepherded toughly by Christ at the end of their rebellion, in language directly resembling and paralleling the promise and hope of Psalm 23, and coming into the city afterward). They must also have conquered, as was promised to the rebels of the congregation of Ephesus if they repented and returned to their first love (notwithstanding being highly praised by the Lord for their zealousness for His sake in many ways which might have supposed to be sure evidence that they were not under serious threat from Him!)–to the one conquering, will He be granting to be eating out of the log of life, which is in the center of the paradise of God. (Rev 27:7)
In Ezekiel 47:1-17, there is a highly interesting vision of the prophet, with language echoed in this portion of RevJohn, in that there will be a river in the day of the Lord with trees on its banks that will bear fruit every month, due to that river of life, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. What is most interesting for our purposes, however, is that this river is explicitly shown to be flowing (in the imagery of the vision) out from under the threshold of the house of the Lord and is surely not retained in the city but flows out of the city into the deserts of Arabia (east of Jerusalem) and so eventually into the ocean (of what we would call the Persian Gulf, but for Biblical typology the point is that this goes toward where the Garden of Eden was originally located). And it grows ever wider and deeper as it goes; and all those who drink of it live. And most importantly, when it reaches the sea, it transforms the sea from saltwater to fresh. (Swamps and marshes are left along the coastline, but for purposes of bearing salt for proper use.)
The sea, in other words, will be healed and restored by the freshwater river of life. In Jewish imagery, there was something seriously wrong with a salt sea that could not be drunk, even though things lived in it, and so the salt sea (and by extension any really large body of water that wasn’t a river) became an image for the swirling depths of the Abyss, where God imprisons rebel spirits. This imagery is also being referenced in RevJohn, when the chiefs of rebels spirits are envisioned as coming up out of the sea. But RevJohn also reveals that in the final day there shall be no more sea; not because it has simply disappeared, but because the sea has been tamed and restored. Before the throne of God, the sea is glassy like crystal (Rev 4:6). And before the author reveals what he saw concerning the seven angles having the last seven calamities, which in them bring to fulfillment the fury of God, he looks forward (as he occasionally does) beyond this to see that glassy sea again (Rev 15:1-4). It is indeed mixed fire, but those who are conquerors out from the wild beast, and out from its image, and out from the number of its name (which is how the text reads in Greek), are standing upon the sea praising God that all shall be afraid of Him and glorify His name. Why?–for God only is good, and all the nations (the pagans who do not worship God) shall arrive and worship before Him, due to His just rewards being made manifest.
In other words, before showing us the narrative of God consummating His fury, the Evangelist shows us the end result of God consummating His fury: which is that all shall worship Him loyally for His mighty and benign justice.
This is also implied by the Evangelist telling us that this song is the song of Moses, the slave of God. It is clearly a song to the Lambkin, and about the Lambkin, but unless the reader is familiar with the Song of Moses in the Old Testament there is no apparent reason why this is called the Song of Moses, too. Moses’ song, however, is a prophecy that those whom God loves (Israel) shall rebel against Him in the most treacherous and despicable ways, and be utterly destroyed by God to the final possible extent (so that they are neither slave nor free)–and then shall repent and return to God and be restored by God. Which was God’s purpose in punishing them all along. (Deut 32:1-43, but especially emphasizing verses 34 afterward. This is also the context of the famous warning of the Hebraist in Heb 10. Vengeance is God’s so that He will bring retribution to the people and so vindicate them once they stop rebelling.)
Going back to recap a bit: the Bride (those inside the NJ) are joining the Spirit in exhorting those who are suffering the lake of fire judgment (outside the NJ) to drink freely of the freely given water coming out of the never-closed gates of the NJ (from the throne of the Lamb), slaking their thirst, washing their robes clean, and so obtaining permission to enter the city to eat the leaves of the tree of life and be healed. Some of them are certainly doing so, too, since the “kings of the earth” (who have been the staunchest human rebels against God throughout RevJohn, even the ten horns of the Beast, and last seen scattered for the birds back in chp 19) are bringing their treasures into the city where no one who still loves and fondles their sinning can enter.
These kings are not described as believers were, earlier in the narrative of the revelation, kings-and-priests-of-God; they are described as of the earth, rather than being described as reigning on the earth. Considering that RevJohn has some kind of special authorial connection with the Johannine works (which is demonstrable on other internal grounds, not just tradition suggesting so, even though the actual grammar is significantly different from GosJohn on the balance across the texts), that distinction is probably thematically important: those who are of the earth in GosJohn are not (or not yet) born from above, and there’s a running contrast between them and people who are loyal to God.
If it wasn’t for the end of Rev 21, this wouldn’t be controversial at all. The problem (except to post-mortem salvationists who don’t think it’s a problem!) is that the kings going into the city there, are described one way instead of the other. Which way? As “kings of the earth”.
So either the author forgot his previously established distinction; or for some reason he has started using a term previously reserved for villains, for people who are clearly not acting as villains in that scene; or those are the previous villains (the “Quirky Miniboss Squad” as they might be called in modern story trope terminology), now penitent (having been shepherded by Christ back in Rev 19), and leading in fulfilling the evangelical call to those still outside the city (as exemplified later in chp 22).
This is even more obvious when the Greek of the transition of the second half of that final verse for Rev 21 is checked. Because even the Textus Receptus (following fewer and generally later copies) agrees that the transitional phrase there is {ei me hoi}.
Which doesn’t mean “but only the ones”, although that’s how it’s often translated. It’s a conditional phrase; literally “if not the ones”, or as we would put it in English, “not unless they”.
So! The final two verses of chapter 21 actually translate out:
Rev: 21:26: And [or a strong conjunctive ‘now’, perhaps] they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it *;
v.27: yet [or a strong conjunctive ‘now’, perhaps] all those who are profaning may not enter into it at all, and [or ‘nor’] those making an abomination and a lie–not unless those have been written in the Lamb’s Scroll of Life!
And what is chapter 22 largely about, which immediately follows? It’s largely dedicated to explaining how it is, by God’s grace (which the redeemed are expected to continue participating in the evangel of), those who continue to fondle their sinning, outside the city, may in fact obtain permission to enter and be healed!!
There is admittedly a difference in the TR, compared to the standard text used by biblical scholars (the UBS or the Nestle/Aland) for verse 21:24. Unfortunately the UBS text and its notes list no textual variations there at all; and my copy of the TR didn’t come with a textual apparatus. (It mentions one, but didn’t supply it in my copy.) So I have no idea what the rationales are either way (though on the balance I’m inclined to think the problem is that the variants are so late and few as to be utterly irrelevant for reconstruction purposes). But the word order is rather different, along with the extra word in the TR, resulting in the meaning being a little bit different.
Here are the two variant clauses for verse 24:
UBS: and will-walk the nations by/through the light of it
UBS: kai peripatesousin ta ethne dia tou photos autes
TR: kai ta ethne ton sozomenon en t(i)o photi autes peripatesousi
TR: and the nations of the saved in the light of it will-walk
The TR treats the light of the city more literally as a mere (though important) environmental condition (even if that’s to be understood metaphorically so).
But the standard text compilation grammatically suggests that the light may have some causal effect on the nations–which totally fits with the end of the immediately preceding verse (including in the TR) where the illumination is expressly identified to be the Lamb and the Glory of God: i.e, the light is Christ, continuing to go out of the New Jerusalem forever to save those still outside.
The metaphor thus means that the nations are walking thanks to the agency of Christ. Which hugely fits what happens in chapter 22 (with the river of life, also a symbol for Christ, going out through the never-closed gates; which those still outside the city are exhorted to wash themselves in and drink freely without cost, so that they may obtain permission to enter the city and eat of the leaves of the tree of life–another image for Christ–and be healed.)
It isn’t that the TR’s version doesn’t fit the surrounding context; it’s okay. But the standard text version fits the context very much better while also being grammatically simpler. (Yet perhaps more challenging, conceptually, to natural expectations–especially to natural expectations of hopeless punishment as the most legitimate vengeance.)
At any rate: RevJohn itself testifies that the fate of those put into the lake of fire as punishment is not hopelessly sealed; but rather that hopeful and successful evangelism continues afterward, with some forward-looking revelations that such evangelism will one day completely succeed in bringing all rebels back into loyalty to God.
Nor should it be surprising if those not yet written into the book of life (speaking analogically to the image) are written in, while those included in the book of life are erased–or even if names are erased, due to their unbelief, leading to names not yet in being written in! God doesn’t spare those written in from the foundation of the world from being erased, especially if in their erasing those not yet written in may be written in. And certainly those written in, especially as a a result of others being erased, should not be haughty over those who have been erased–for if God does not spare those written in from the foundation of the world, neither will he spare those written in afterward! If those written in do not persist in love, they too shall be struck out again. And if those struck out do not persist in their unbelief, they shall be written back in, for God is able to write them in again. (Indeed, if God can write in those who, in one regard, were not written in from the foundation of the world, how much easier shall it be for Him to write back in the others!)
Does it say all this, in so many words, in RevJohn? No. But St. Paul does say all this, in so many words, in his Epistle to the Romans 11:16-24; the only difference being that he uses an agricultural metaphor (of vine-cleaning), rather than John’s metaphors of accountant book-keeping and the Tree and River of Life. If anything, Paul’s imagery would have to be stronger, since this metaphor is about a relation to Christ the Vine!–and I am not aware of anywhere (Old or New Testament) where Christ is analogized as being “the book of life”.
But as it happens, John in his Revelation scripturally demonstrates just the same hope and teaching as St. Paul in his Romans Epistle; with Paul putting it rather more concisely.
(Edited to add: Aaron37 attempts to answer one point, regarding the kings of the earth, in this thread viewtopic.php?f=11&t=931. My reply is in that thread as well.)*
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Partly because I want to collect together a number of other things I’ve already written on the forum into one place; and partly because in themselves they add substantially positive weight in favor of something other than the attempted conclusion of A37’s argument.