What is the tree of life?
Proverbs 4:13 "Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life."
Compare these verses:
Proverbs 15:4 "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit."
1 Timothy 6:3 "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;"
A tongue is not the words, but the source of the words spoken. A wholesome tongue is where wholesome words proceed. Notice Proverbs 15:4 calls a wholesome tongue a "tree of life", and 1 Timothy 6:3 calls wholesome words "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ". The tree of life is the source of the "words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
What then is the tree of life? It cannot be more clear.
Isaiah 34:16 "¶ Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them."
Notice in this verse "... none shall want HER mate". This tells us something about the gender of the words of eternal life in the book of the LORD. Again, in:
Proverbs 4:13 "Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life."
“Instruction” is the words of the LORD in written form. Referring to "wisdom", Solomon by inspiration of the Holy Ghost tells us:
Proverbs 3:18 "She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her."
The Bible calls her a "tree of life", and earlier we have established that the tree of life is the source of wholesome words, the "words of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Timothy 6:3). Notice that the gender of wisdom is female. Just like the book of the LORD, the tree of life is also female, because they are one and the same. The written words of the LORD is the tree of life.
Of course, the tree of life is not just the book of the LORD, because every born again believer also has the words of the LORD written in their hearts. For example:
2 Corinthians 3:2-3 "Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: 3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart."
Therefore, the church, which is the pillar and the ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) is also the tree of life. The church is where the words of eternal life are dispensed, and every born again believer is a tree of life. The words of the LORD are found in both the book of the LORD as well as in the hearts of every born again believer, and they must tally.
Psalms 119:11 "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."
This is the treasure in the earthen vessels of every born again believer, and the congregation of every born again believer is the church, the body of Christ.
Ephesians 5:23 "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body."
Christ is the head of the church, and the church is the body of Christ. This is one the many places where the Bible tells us that the church is of a female gender. Like the 66 books of the Holy Bible, she is the manifestation of Christ on earth, and the interface between earth and the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever has the words of eternal life written in them shall enter the kingdom of heaven.