Modern medicine has made great strides in recent years. Not many years ago those suffering from heart disease were sent home with some medication and little else to wait for a major heart attack. Now doctors are able to open up a person’s chest, remove clogged arteries and replace them. After a few weeks they can resume regular activities. People who once suffered constant pain from worn out joints such as knees simply suffered. Now modern medicine and technology makes it possible to remove worn out knees and replace them with stainless steal ones. The same is true for hip joints. And science has made major advances in the treatment of many diseases. What once was an almost certain death sentence, is now often treatable. And many childhood diseases such as polio are now rarely heard of due to the development of vaccines administered in the early years which allow the body to build up natural immunity to developing them.
But the doctors and scientists have one obstacle they have yet to overcome, and I add never will: death. There are machines which can breath, filter the blood in place of kidneys, and even make the heart pump, but they can only delay death not prevent it. Why? Because sin brought death into the world. In Romans 5:12 Paul wrote "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Death came into the world because of sin. Why? The sin committed by Adam and Eve in the beginning resulted in lost access to the tree of life. "now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life" (Genesis 3:22-24). With no access to the tree of life mankind dies.
But this is not the end of the story. Jesus came and died that we might have life. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That everlasting life is in heaven where the tree of life now is. In Revelation 2:7 Jesus said "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." The tree of life is available to the faithful of God in Paradise, heaven. Revelation 22 gives a description of heaven and says the tree of life is there beside the stream of pure water flowing from the throne of God. In verse 14 John wrote "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city"(Revelation 22:14). In order to have access to the tree of life which was lost through sin, we must overcome through submission to the will of God. Jesus is "the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him" (Hebrews 5:9).
Denton Landon