Redemption
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the March 26, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“And
he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of
the throne of God and of the Lamb. 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. And there shall be no more curse: but the
throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And
there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the
sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and
ever.” Revelation 22:1-5, NIV
In her “Conflict of the Ages” series, Ellen G White
takes us from the original Eden, presented as mankind’s home in the early
chapters of Genesis, to the final restoration of that edenic paradise in the
closing chapters of the Book of Revelation. From it’s beginning to the glorious
end, the tale told by the pages that lie between in both the writings of Ellen
White and those of the many Bible writers is one of conflict between the forces
of good and evil. John Milton also wrote of the same theme in his classics “Paradise
Lost” and “Paradise Regained,” predating Ellen White’s books by over two
hundred years. Perhaps his popular books provided some small amount of
inspiration to Mrs. White as she fleshed out the thoughts he had penned so much
earlier. The advantage of these extra-biblical works is that they not only tell
the story of that great conflict, but they bring additional clarity to some of
the symbolism that may obscure the deeper insights from some.
Some might challenge that idea, holding that the
interpretations given by others could tend to reflect their personal perspectives,
and that may inadvertently veil the sacred text from revealing as much as it
might. This line of reasoning would hold that inculcated interpretations given
by associations with others, educational influences or personal readings could
cause the writer to incorporate ideas not their own into the explanatory
narrative, perhaps not even realizing they were doing so. The creative arts can
be especially susceptible to this. For instance, while searching for an
illustration of the Tree of Life for this commentary, I discovered that some
artists interpreted the text “on either side of the river” as meaning a single
tree with a portion of the trunk springing forth from both banks of the River
of Life and joining in the middle, as in the illustration you see here. Others
interpreted it as more than one tree growing on both sides of the river, as in
an orchard. Whether one of these concepts is correct or if there is still
another way of picturing it, we will perhaps need to wait until we are there in
order to understand what John saw and wrote about. Nonetheless, at the risk of
inserting yet another biased viewpoint into the mix, I will attempt to share my
perspective.
Some may see both the Eden of Creation and the paradise
of the New Earth as simply metaphors to illustrate that things were once very
right on planet Earth and will be made right once again. But whether one takes
these accounts as metaphor or as literal recounting of actual physical places
and events, one thing is patently obvious. Somewhere in between something went
terribly wrong, and even worse, in chapter twelve of Revelation, John tells us
that things went terribly wrong in heaven also. Michael led the army of heaven
against a rebel army led by Satan and prevailed, cleaning up the neighborhood
by tossing Satan and his followers out. However, just like when the cops target
a crime ridden neighborhood to stop the crime that is flourishing there, the
criminals often just pack up and move a few blocks away to another
neighborhood. For Satan and his ilk, that new neighborhood was our planet.
Things went downhill quickly from there until out of the entire population,
only eight people were not going along with the violence and evil dominating
the lives of everyone else.
The Bible tells us that God swept the planet clean of
all that evil, destroying all life in a catastrophic flood. But in the end, it
only served to reveal that everyman carries the seeds of evil within his heart,
for not long after leaving the Ark that protected them from the flood, one of
Noah’s sons brought a curse upon himself. Finding his father drunk and naked,
he made him the butt of a joke instead of helping him. Thus the trust that
comes when we love one another was violated. Once trust is broken, it can be
very hard to repair. Like a bad seed, it sprouts and grows in the lives of
those affected until the peace that comes from trust in one another is replaced
by fear of betrayal or worse. Even those who are absolutely trustworthy may be
harmed by this as they are not trusted either out of a fear of being hurt by
others. We see this everywhere today, especially in regards to protecting our
children.
When I was a child long ago, we could generally go
wherever we wished and no one would harm us. We felt we could trust any adult,
and over and over again those adults demonstrated that trustworthiness as they
watched out for us and took an interest in what we were doing and how our lives
were going. But now children are kept under close parental supervision,
scarcely leaving their yard without a guardian to watch over them except to
attend school. Even then some children are not left alone to walk one block
from their bus stop, as a parent is waiting to meet them, whisk them into their
idling vehicle and drive them those last few steps. Every stranger can be suspect,
even if they are only politely greeting someone in passing. Fear seems to
overwhelm almost everyone.
Jesus said it would be like this. He told us that as the
time drew near for Him to come again, “Because of the increase of wickedness,
the love of most will grow cold.”[i] Fear will cause most
people to be unable to love others because fear can actually replace the love
for others that God intended we should have in our hearts.[ii] This is an important turn
of events, for those who allow love to be replaced with fear may not be saved
when Jesus returns, for in the very next verse of Matthew, chapter 24, He tells
us, “but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”[iii] In other words, it is
the one who does not allow fear to reign in his or her heart, the one that
keeps on loving that will be saved.
In a time when even church leaders are packing around
guns because of the fear that controls them, it may be hard to keep on loving.
With 24/7 newscasts, we can turn to the media at any time of day or night and
be immediately inundated with reminders of all the things we should be afraid
of. Natural disasters, terrorism, and violent crime are threats that we are
told will come and destroy us. Sadly all of this fear may even be
self-fulfilling as minds driven mad with the constant barrage of horrible news
cross over the line from simple paranoia to the point where it becomes mental
illness. Then they pick up a weapon and start killing people that they feel are
plotting against them, plotting to bring the very things the news tells them
will come.
All of this may hark back to Satan’s rebellion in
heaven. He apparently taught a third of the angels[iv] to stop trusting God.
They replaced that love with a fear that God was not looking out for them. He
does the same with us. “Don’t trust the Guy in the sky,” he says. “He isn’t
looking out for you. Look how evil the world has become. You need to protect
yourself. Nobody else is going to watch out for you. Get all the wealth you can
to provide for yourself and your family. Then get a gun to protect it. Don’t
trust anyone except your family and maybe not even them sometimes.”
The crux of the Great Controversy is this. Are we going
to succumb to fear or are we going to love? Only love has the power to restore
us to that edenic home our ancestors once knew. It would not be paradise if we
were all filled with fear. We may feel that we are headed there because we feel
we love God, but we may be deceiving ourselves, for we do not love God if we
are unable to replace our fear of others with love for them. The Bible says
that those who claim to love God, but do not love their brother are liars.[v] The same author further
tells us that liars will not be saved.[vi] How important it is then that we surrender our
lives to Jesus now. We can ask Him to take the fear from our lives and replace
it with love for others. There may be no other way to unlock the gate[vii] that bars our way home
to Jesus.
