Since I left off with the River of Life I thought I would pick up there too, or at least the verse it is mentioned in. I have a list of things I wish to cover that I wrote for myself in no particular order and I'm going through them in no particular order.
"And he showed 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" (Revelations 22:1-2).
There is so much going on in this one verse. I could elaborate on the fact the throne of the Father and of the Son is further proof that Jesus is God. I could talk about the fact that Eden had one tree of life and this verse clearly indicates three for us in Heaven. There is numerous things that one can pull out of this verse but it is the nations I wish to look into.
The word used for nations in Greek is ethnos. It is used over 150 times in the New testament. In most cases it is rendered as Gentiles which is anyone other than the Jews, or, any other nation. When it is not rendered Gentiles it is always rendered as nation. Ethnos means, "a race (as of the same habit), that is, a tribe; specifically a foreign (non-Jewish) one (usually by implication pagan): - Gentile, heathen, nation, people" (Strongs).
Why is it that in most pictures of "heaven" everyone is white? I have been to the flea market and seen pictures where everyone in "heaven" is black. Why? I believe the Jehovah Witnesses to be a cult but have you ever seen their picture of paradise? They always show all races, all colors, all people, standing together in a perfect paradise and this, to me, seems to be what is indicated in Revelations 22:2.
God created each person exactly as He wanted them. This includes nationality and skin color. Revelations 22:2 says to me that different races of people will occupy Heaven. Imagine, no more racism. Everyone equal.
God is pretty big on names. Every name in the bible has specific meanings. We all will receive new names in Heaven. I wonder if nations will have names. Not names of division as we have now but names of reference. I think I would be happy to run to China to pick up some stirfry for Jesus to multiply, which leads me to the next thing I wish to discuss.
I don't have any verses in the Word of God for this topic. It's merely my speculation but I hope that when we reach Heaven we still can be creative. I don't want to magically have food poof into existence for me. I want to have all eternity to learn to cook and paint and play music and dance and sing and learn everything about everything and use my imagination to make beautiful things I can offer to Jesus and have Him tell me how much He enjoys everything and I can tell Him how much I love Him for dying to let me bring these things to Him.
Of course we will have all eternity to do these things since "there shall be no more curse" (Revelations 22:3) but that verse is next post.
1 comment:
good eddress of the use of nations. people from every tribe tongue and nation will be in heaven so it will cirtainly be interesting.
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