Life-Giving Fruit

[Thompson, Darryl]

----------------------------------------------------------
Ellen G. White Estate, Devotional for November 13
Visit us at http://www.whiteestate.org
-----------------------------------------------------------

Life-Giving Fruit

In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was
there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded
her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing
of the nations. Rev. 22:2. 


The fruit of the tree of life in the Garden of Eden possessed
supernatural virtue. To eat of it was to live forever. Its fruit was the
antidote of death. . . . 

After the entrance of sin the heavenly Husbandman transplanted the tree
of life to the Paradise above. 

The redeemed saints, who have loved God and kept His commandments here,
will enter in through the gates of the city, and have right to the tree
of life. They will eat freely of it as our first parents did before
their fall. The leaves of that immortal widespread tree will be for the
healing of the nations. All their woes will then be gone. Sickness,
sorrow, and death they will never again feel, for the leaves of the tree
of life have healed them. Jesus will then see of the travail of His soul
and be satisfied, when the redeemed, who have been subject to sorrow,
toil, and afflictions, who have groaned beneath the curse, are gathered
up around that tree of life to eat of its immortal fruit, that our first
parents forfeited all right to, by breaking God's commands. There will
be no danger of their ever losing right to the tree of life again, for
he that tempted our first parents to sin will be destroyed by the second
death. 

Obedience to all the commandments of God was the condition of eating of
the tree of life. Adam fell by disobedience. . . . 

Obedience through Jesus Christ gives to man perfection of character and
a right to that tree of life. The conditions of again partaking of the
fruit of the tree are plainly stated in the testimony of Jesus Christ to
John: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have
right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the
city." 

Restored to the tree of life in the long-lost Eden, the redeemed will
"grow up" to the full stature of the race in its primeval glory. The
last lingering traces of the curse of sin will be removed, and Christ's
faithful ones will appear in "the beauty of the Lord our God," in mind
and soul and body reflecting the perfect image of their Lord. Oh,
wonderful redemption! long talked of, long hoped for, contemplated with
eager anticipation, but never fully understood. 

>From Maranatha - Page 325