To use this passage as an argument for verbal inspiration is an error. We can easily understand that the overthrow of the ecclesiastical power is necessary to leave a full field unimpeded for the imperial power to develop itself in its final form of violence and rebellion and apostacy against the Lord. Bear this in mind: to leave the last part out is fatal to any accurate understanding of the Revelation. Thus the attempt to apply it during the pagan period is altogether futile on the face of the matter. Hence. But it really is. In Greek the two phrases would be very like each other. "Having a wall great and high, having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names inscribed, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel." Here I am obliged to say that our authorized version, and not merely it, but our common Greek Testaments, are altogether wrong. Its leaves produce healing for the nations. Only in the Spirit of God can the wounds and the breaches of the nations be healed. For two thousand years Israel was like dead, but now they have revived. It was the destruction of the imperial unity of Rome that gave occasion for the well-known ten kingdoms which the barbarians set up afterwards. The woman was allowed to ride the beast to influence and govern the empire first, but at last to be the object of hatred to the ten horns and the beast, who expose, rob, and destroy her. 2. We have here a note of time of signal value. The leaves of the tree were dfor the healing of the nations. (i) The dog was the symbol for everything that was savage and unclean. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), p. 545. Was there the tree of life - Not a single tree, but it abounded everywhere - on the banks of the river, and in all the streets. Thus the language of symbol is as definite as any other. For without are dogs, drug abusers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and whosoever loves and makes a lie. A tree surrounded by water is the epitome of a fruitful tree (cf. This tree is never empty, never barren; there is always fruit upon it. Most fruit trees in the old creation bear fruit only a few months each year at most. "So don't seal the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.". Revelation 2:7; Genesis 2; Luke 23:43; 2 Corinthians 12:2). The simple fact of conquering far and wide, and of exercising vast political power in the earth, does not constitute any title to such a name. Revelation 22:1-2 Meaning and Commentary - Bible Study Tools Revelation 22:1-2 In-Context. By its fountain-head--the throne of God and the Lamb. See on Luke 23:31, and see on Revelation 2:7. But the attempt, again, to apply what is said here to a future city of Babylon in Chaldea seems to me no less vain. From Rome saints had suffered; and it was easy to see that the revealed persecutress is called Babylon, and identified with the governing city of Rome. It is the truth, and not the wording of the truth, which must not be changed. By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from Bible Gateway, a division of The Zondervan Corporation, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 USA, including commercial communications and messages from partners of Bible Gateway. "That day" does not mean a time when everybody will be converted, but when the Lord Jesus will govern righteously when overt evil will be judged, and good be sustained perfectly for a thousand years. A third of a mile from its source the river was ankle deep. And who would defraud either the soul of salvation, or the Lord of showing it? You like to reap where you didn't sow and so forth. The gospel had been preached there, as she of Chaldea was not without law and prophet. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years." The Greeks said that Zeus was the beginning, the middle, and the end. As far as the display of government goes, it is according to God morally, and for His glory, though I deny not for a moment that there are elements of evil which are never allowed, but kept under if not expelled. The one therefore throws much light upon the other. It is certain that we ought to read (not "upon" but) "and* the beast." For who knows not the horrors of Mariolatry? As Ezekiel had it: "He that will hear, let him hear; and he that will refuse to hear, let him refuse" ( Ezekiel 3:27). All rights reserved. 2 through the middle of the street of the city. He gets his power and they get theirs for one and the same time. The Sinai MS. has both. It is of the seven in that point of view, because it is imperialism; but it is an eighth, because it has a diabolical source when raised up again. Babylon was the spurious church as long as it was a question of the church, and the final corrupter when it could be no question of this longer, and there went forth the closing testimony of God. The tree of life is mentioned three times in Genesis 2, in Eden, and again four times in Revelation, three of those in the final chapter. 4. *It is the aorist in Greek, which in such a case as this it is difficult correctly to represent in English; for neither "reigned" nor "hath reigned" could convey that God had entered on His kingdom, but rather that it was past. Unhallowed love will end in hatred. * Idolatry is the awful stamp that she bears, and this too both in what she gives to man, and in what is written on her forehead before God. 24:23; 60:19, 20; Rev. cum cdd. And as for the twelve tribes of Israel, they are merely written there, nothing more. healing of the nations . What I judge, then, is that the guests, or those that were called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb, refer clearly to the Old Testament saints. The visions of this prophetic book open, not with the rapture of saints to heaven, but the sight of saints already raptured, often before the seer in the visions, but seen always in a complete condition without addition to their number. The writer undoubtedly conceives of a single river running through the city - probably as meandering along - and that river lined on both sides with the tree of life. The perfect freedom of this paradise from every thing that is evil (Revelation 22:3; Revelation 22:3): There shall be no more curse; no accursed one--katanathema, no serpent there, as there was in the earthly paradise. Genesis 2:9; The tree of life reappears now in new Jerusalem fulfilling Gods promise to make new Jerusalem like Eden (cf. H. B. Swete says: "No one who has watched the dogs that prowl in the quarters of an eastern city will wonder at the contempt and disgust which the word suggests to the oriental mind." In the midst of the broadway of it, and of the river, on this side and on that, [the] tree of life," bearing not merely as the original one did, but now according to the fulness of the provision of God's grace for man, for man in glory first, but for man on the earth also, but for man in glory "producing twelve fruits, in each month yielding its fruit: and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations." (c) There is the idea of authority. As this tree of life is stated to be in the streets of the city, and on each side of the river, tree must here be an enallage of the singular for the plural number, trees of life, or trees which yielded fruit by which life was preserved. Summary: Many churches have forsaken the Word of God and embraced worldly views of right and wrong. But a grave consideration soon disposes of both views by the relation to the beast, and more particularly by what will be shown a little farther on. Just the bequest of God's grace or the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ upon you. [Note: McGee, 5:1075.]. "You know, God stepped out." THE GREAT INVITATION ( Revelation 22:17 ). If total energies differ across different software, how do I decide which software to use? She followed and had inherited the spirit of all, from the days of Cain, who had lifted up their hands against their righteous brethren. Bible Gateway Revelation 22 :: NIV - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Therefore we find in connection with the book a most solemn warning. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations" ( Revelation 22:2 ). You should be making fresh discoveries about Jesus Christ which you had never known before--Is your experience ankle deep--or, "a river to swim in? I am the, Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. In the older Apocalypses, written between the Testaments, the instruction is always to seal them and lay them up for a distant future. THE GUARANTEE OF TRUTH ( Revelation 22:16 ). "And if any one was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire." NIV down the middle of the great street of the city. Thus everything implies their simultaneous presence for the same time and common action with the beast, in plundering and then destroying Babylon. Justly does she gather her title from the old fountain of idols and of combined power without God: confusion being here the characteristic element, the designation is taken from the renowned city of the Chaldeans, the first spot notorious in both respects. As Revelation 17:1-18 was a descriptive digression, so is the portion from Revelation 21:9. Jesus is saying that in him is the fulfilment of this prophecy, that he is at one and the same time the eternal source of being from which David came and his promised descendant. For suddenly shall ye be consumed and wither away. But now heaven is opened for yet graver facts, and of incalculable moment for man and the universe and the enemy.
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