One Day, Fruit Will Not Be Fruit. Well, Not The Kind We Eat Today, Anyway.

A while back, I wrote an article entitled, “Good-bye, Sun. Good-bye, Moon.” In it, I wrote about how the Lord God Almighty will one day make all things new and that the moon, sun, and stars will no longer exist.

If the reader is interested, the link is at the end of this post. ¹

The absence of the sun and moon is an interesting reality to consider. I apologize for my adolescent wonderings here. I have little doubt most of the readers are saying to themselves, “You’ve only just now begun to think about these things”?

Be merciful. Some of us are a little slower than others.

The absence of the sun means no warmth as we understand warmth. I must assume that “warmth” will no longer have meaning for a people who have been given new bodies.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:20–21). ²

No sun also means no photosynthesis. Yet we are told this:

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1–2).

At least one tree will be in God’s heavenly kingdom, which means, I assume, bark and roots. We’re told there will be fruit. There will be only one kind of fruit per month in this heavenly tree, but the leaves of this tree must be extraordinary. This is clearly not the leaves that exist today because these leaves possesses healing for nations. I do not know what this means. Does it mean nations will be healed or the people who inhabit them? Or both?

However, how can this tree exist? Photosynthesis is no longer operative, at least as we understand it.

I must assume that the Lord creates a new kind of tree as well as a new kind of fruit.

All the readers may now say together, “Duh.”

The absence of the sun means no more light from that nuclear furnace. God will be our light. What is that light like? I do not know. The Apostle Paul may have seen it, perhaps on the road to Damascus. That light will be shining all the time because there will be no night.

“And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).

I assume none of the saints will be sleeping.

Water will also be available in the heavenly kingdom, as the above verses from Revelation 22:1-2 indicate.

But how can there be water? There is no weather. No rain. No oceans.

But all things have been made new. So, this is a new kind of water, although it flows like the water we are familiar with. It may even supply water to the tree that, somehow, is on both sides of the river and in the river at the same time.

 To me, all of this sounds wonderfully incomprehensible and extraordinary, carrying with it a glorious anticipation.

Reader, I hope to meet you there.

The alternative to this heavenly place is torment and flame (Luke 16:22-24). Please, if you are not a believer in Jesus, delay your decision no longer. No one knows the day when they will breathe their last breath and, in a moment, stand before God to be judged. Forgiveness is available because the God who will do all the wondrous things outlined here loves you.

¹ https://jlthomson.wordpress.com/2021/03/22/good-bye-sun-good-bye-moon/

²All Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Gif courtesy Bing images.