In Genesis we see a paradise for man; in Revelation 2:77He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7) we have a paradise for God. In man’s paradise were certain things — plants, trees, fruits — things in which the heart of man could find refreshment and a particular tree in the midst of the garden, the tree of life. In the midst of God’s garden of delights will be a tree of life too, and that the Tree of Life. We cannot doubt who that is, the blessed Lord Jesus. God will be able to say of that garden, Here I have all I desire; here I can move about freely. Eden was no place to satisfy Me, but here I have everything to delight in. I have filled the earth, and there is not a single thing that does not speak to Me of what is My own delight. All around is a perfect answer to My heart — poor sinners, saved by grace, filling heaven! It is God’s paradise; no hand save His has interfered there.
Now one well understands that when one comes home to the garden of God’s delight, while it will be very blessed to look around on the saints reflecting glory, yet there will be One who will stand out conspicuously among all — the blessed Lord Jesus, the Tree of Life in the midst.
It is something beyond being a partaker of eternal life. Israel ate of the manna, but not of “the hidden manna.” God loved to feed His people, pilgrims in the wilderness, but that display of His love was a passing one — one not needed in the land. But there was a portion not to pass away, a portion treasured up, not for Israel nor for the priests; it was a record to God! If Israel rejoiced in the manna, God delights in Him who was the manna. Did His delight in Christ cease when Israel needed the manna no longer? No; He loved to have the memorial of it laid up for Himself. Here the manna is needed day by day; I take and feed on it. But how little does my heart enter into the preciousness of it, to what it will do there! To those who overcome there will be the power of tasting God’s delight in Christ as the Tree of Life in the midst of the paradise of God. Christ, the One who can give back life to poor sinners, is the ornament in the midst of that garden of delights of God; He adorns it.
G. V. Wigram
in The Seven Churches