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The River of Life - The Healing Waters and Tree:
Ezekiel uses this imagery to affirm that the new temple, like the old, will be a font of blessing for Israe. There was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple: Led back to the door of the temple, Ezekiel saw something that never existed in the temple before: a river flowing directly from the temple. A typical spiritualized explanation of this river: “The gospel of grace, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost thereby conveyed into the hearts of believers, and poured out upon the world by the death of Christ.” Though such a river has symbolic meaning, we should not miss the plain promises of such a river in the coming kingdom of the Messiah. “Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross; for the water was too deep, water in which one must swim, a river that could not be crossed. He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?” Then he brought me and returned me to the bank of the river” Ezkiel 47:5-6 (NKJV). The variance between Ezekiel’s account of this river and that of John in the Revelation centers on the river’s source. God is the source of both rivers; but Ezekiel saw the river issuing from the temple, whereas John saw the river coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb (a temple not existing according to Revelation 21:22).
Spurgeon saw a spiritual analogy between the life of faith and swimming. We start out “floating in faith,” somewhat passively, just keeping our head up out of the water. We then progress to swimming by faith. Many commentators and preachers through the centuries have seen the increasing depth of this river to be an illustration of the great depths of God’s word. “Scriptures have their shallows wherein the lamb may wade, like as they have their profundities wherein the elephant himself may swim. Augustine condemned the Holy Scriptures at first, as neither eloquent nor deep enough for the elevation of his wit. But afterwards, when he was both a better and a wiser man, he saw his own shallowness, and admired the never enough adored depth of God’s holy oracle.“Then he said to me: “This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes” Ezkiel 47:8-9 (NKJV).
God cares about the environment and promises to restore and heal it. Despite the many who worship the creation instead of the Creator, God Himself cares about His creation. His salvation and work of redemption extends to the environment. Although the nation had been divided politically for nearly four hundred years, as in the case of all his prophetic colleagues Ezekiel’s vision of Israel’s future is based on the tradition of a united nation consisting of twelve tribes of Israel descended from Jacob’s twelve sons. The land God promised to Israel in this kingdom period would not be for Israelites alone. There would be people from other lands and ethnic groups (strangers) living there also. By God’s command, these were to be treated as native-born among the children of Israel. They would even have inheritance rights.“Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance,” says the Lord God” Ezkiel 47:21-23 (NKJV).
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