Study #20: VAV

POSTSCRIPT

The bookends of the Bible are two Gardens: the Garden of Eden and the Garden City of the New Jerusalem.

In Genesis 2:8-15, God created a material home for man within a garden. But that garden witnessed two terrible events – satan’s rebellion and man’s transgressions ( Genesis 3:1-7 ). When sin entered the Garden of Eden, the earth was cursed for man’s sake.

Now we have a garden surpassing the first in every conceivable way:
1.Nothing will wither or die within it.
2. The curse pronounced by God in earth’s first garden is forever removed.
3. With sin forever banished, there will be no more curse.

The last word of the Old Testament in Malachi 4:6 is “curse”.

The New Testament opens with Jesus Christ, the One who came to bear the curse ( Galatians 3:13 ).

With the grande finale of the Bible, instead of a curse, we have a benediction.

Thus in Genesis man is banished from the tree of life. In Revelation, the tree of life appears. And we shall be ceaselessly active as God’s servants or stewards and “reign for ever and ever” ( Revelation 22:5 ). With perfect, glorified minds and bodies, it will be our joy to serve the Lord as we cannot do now because of the hindering influence of sin. And we shall behold the face of the Lamb of God ( Revelation 22:3-4 ) in perfect worship and adoration.

Father God, help us to live in anticipation of that day when, for the first time ever, our eyes will behold our King of kings in all His beauty, splendour and glory. And by that face-to-face encounter realise the perfect definition of true worship in spirit and in truth – when we truly seek Your face desiring Your Presence only and not the works of Your hands to bless us with Your gifts.