The last chapter of the Bible is smaller than people expect, and that is what makes it usable.
Revelation 22:1-5 is where the whole thing lands, and I want you to notice what it spends its words on. Not thrones and trumpets. Not scale.
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.Revelation 22:1-2, King James Version
A river. A street. A tree. Fruit. Leaves.
Those are the five things the last chapter chooses. Every one of them is something a person has seen. There is nothing in that list you would have to have explained to you.
And I want to say plainly, as this site always does with this book, that there is no date here and nothing to identify with anything current. This is an unveiling, and what it unveils at the very end is a place with water and trees in it.
The last chapter chooses ordinary things
Now look at the fruit, because there is a rhythm in that sentence that most people read past.
Yielded her fruit every month.
Every month. That is a calendar, and it is a modest one. Not once, gloriously, forever. Monthly. Regular. The way an orchard behaves.
And twelve manner of fruits, which is variety, and which means that whoever is eating there gets something different in the autumn from what they got in the spring.
The last chapter of Scripture describes a place with seasons in it.
You are not short of imagination, you are short of a picture. Revelation 22:2 gives fruit every month and twelve kinds of it, and it is the Holy Spirit who takes that off the page and puts it where a person who cannot picture anything better can actually see it.
I want to sit with the difficulty here, because I do not think it is despair.
The person I am writing to is not hopeless in the dramatic sense. They can carry on. What they cannot do is picture anything different, and the reason is usually that the imagination has been worn smooth by repetition. Twelve years of the same week does that. The mind stops generating.
And then somebody tells you to hope, which requires a picture, which is the missing item.
So this passage does the useful thing. It supplies one, and it supplies one made of things you already know: water that is clean, a tree with leaves on it, fruit turning up regularly, a street.
You have been handed furniture rather than an abstraction, and the last chapter is made of things a person has already seen. The written word gives a river and a tree and a street, and the same Spirit who chose that vocabulary is the reason nobody needs a new faculty to imagine it.
Then the leaves, and this is the line I would put on a wall.
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
The fruit is for eating and the leaves are for something else. Nothing on that tree is decoration. Even the part you would rake up is assigned a purpose, and the purpose is healing, and the scope is nations.
You have leaves with a job, and nothing in that scene was left with nothing to do. Revelation 22:2 assigns a purpose to the part of a tree nobody would think to assign one to, and it is His Spirit who makes that a promise about the small things rather than a botanical detail.
And then two more clauses, and both of them are quiet and enormous.
And there shall be no more curseRevelation 22:3, King James Version
And then, in verse four, the thing the whole Bible has been withholding since Exodus 33, where Moses is told plainly that no man can see God's face and live.
And they shall see his faceRevelation 22:4, King James Version
The last chapter grants the one thing the earlier ones said could not be had.
You have a face at the end of the book that could not be looked at in the middle of it. Revelation 22:4 says they shall see his face, and the same Spirit who kept that promise for the last chapter is the reason the ending is a person and not a place.
So stop trying to hope in the abstract.
You have been asked for something that requires a picture, and the picture is the missing part, and no amount of effort will produce one out of nothing. What Scripture does at the very end is supply the furniture.
You are given water and a tree and a street rather than an idea, and every item is something already familiar. Revelation 22:1-2 names five ordinary things, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the reason that reaches a kitchen table rather than staying a vision.
You have a place with months in it, which means it has a rhythm and not just a brightness. The written word says every month, and the same Spirit who kept that word is the reason the ending is described as somewhere to live rather than somewhere to arrive.
And I will not lay one gram on you: not being able to picture it is not a failure of faith. Eleven years of the same week will quieten anybody's imagination, and Scripture responds by describing rather than by demanding. What God draws for you, nobody may ask you to draw yourself, and He has never once required a person to be hopeful before He would show them a tree.
Declare this over yourself
- Tuesday I cannot picture any differently, you are not the whole of what is coming. Revelation 22:2 gives fruit every month and twelve kinds of it, and His Spirit draws that where I can see it. I am not short of imagination, I am short of a picture.
- Verdict that I have run out of hope, get out, in the name of Jesus. You have called a quiet imagination a failure of faith, and the written word answers by describing a river and a tree rather than by demanding anything, which ends you, and the Holy Spirit is the authority behind it, not my mood. What God draws, I do not have to invent.
- Lord, You are the God who kept the face until the last chapter and then gave it, and You are doing that here. Scripture says they shall see his face after the whole book said it could not be looked at, and Your Spirit held that back for the ending. I am going to look at one tree, and I am going to say what the leaves are for.
Revelation 22:2
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