Looking Past the Future

Looking at the present, the immediate future is uncertain. But of this I am sure: a much brighter future awaits us.

“For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will be the arrival of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:27).

And the culmination of this future may resemble our distant past. Our very beginning. Before we fell into darkness.

In the Apocalypse—the book of Revelation—John the revelator describes the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2, 10). A Throne is its centerpiece, its Sanctuary is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb (21:22). Light radiating from them obviates the sun, eliminates the night (21:23, 22:5). A Tree of Life is flanked by a life-giving river and a golden street (21:21), one as transparent as the other:¹

₁ Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, springing forth from the Throne of God and of the Lamb. ₂ In between the city’s great street and the river stands a Tree of Life² producing twelve fruits, corresponding to each month of the year, yielding one fruit per month. The leaves of the Tree provide healing for the people. ₃ No longer will any curse be. The Throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him. ₄ They will see His face, and His Name will be on their foreheads. ₅ Night will no longer exist: They will have no need of lamplight or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shed light upon them. And they will reign forevermore (Rev 22:1-5).

No curse! No night, no darkness! I have long championed the slogan “Water is life”, a maxim all the more true in the New Jerusalem.

May I endure to the end (Matthew 24:13), thereby finding my name included in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev 21:27). I sure could use some of those healing leaves.

“Behold! I am coming soon” (Rev 22:12).

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¹ What follows is my own translation.

² This first part of the verse proved very difficult to translate. The Greek is:  ἐν μέσῳ τῆς πλατείας αὐτῆς καὶ τοῦ ποταμοῦ ἐντεῦθεν καὶ ἐκεῖθεν ξύλον ζωῆς, en mesō̧ tēs plateias autēs kai tou potamou enteuthen kai ekeithen xylon zōēs. Translating as literally as possible: in middle/midst of-the great-street of-it and the river from-here and from-there tree of-life. There is no finite verb in this entire verse—something not uncommon in Scripture. The first clause up to “of-it” is a dative, but does it go with the main verb of 22:1 (“springing forth”) or are we to assume—and thus add in—a verb in 22:2? For me, it seemed nonsensical to envision a river flowing down the middle of a street (and with a tree or trees in the middle of it), so I looked for other options. I found the International Standard Version’s translation to make the most sense: the dative clause was to be applied to verse 2 rather than 1. The key for me was understanding “from here and from there” as helping to explain—as a rephrasing of—“in the midst”. In this way, the verse is understood in the middle of the city’s great street and the river, from here [the river—the focus from v. 1] and from there [the great street] (stands) a Tree of Life. From this understanding, I decided to omit “from here and from there”, thus rendering the first two words “in between” as a compromise.