A FRESH TAKE ON THE TWO TREES IN THE GARDEN The Two Trees in the Garden of Eden have many different interpretive angles and blessed applications. Exactly WHAT each Tree represents has been the subject of much fruitful speculation and many bountiful opinions. As with many divine metaphors, the Two Trees capture a richly divine dynamic that keeps on giving fresh manna. Here is a fresh take. What if the Two Trees in the Garden of Eden are simply alternate ways we choose to believe and perceive God. Each Tree represents a different mindset, a different spiritual posture so to speak, from which we select to view and regard the Lords nature. In other words, the Tree we live off of determines our hearts core image of Him. Our Tree selection determines what we discern and declare both Gods character and His essence to be. This really simplifies the matter. The Tree of Life views God as ONLY life, love and light. Its fruit is eternal and limitless life. Its the Jesus tree. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, on the other hand, views God as BOTH good and evil, BOTH light and dark, BOTH love and wrath. Its fruit is death: death to intimacy with God and each other, death to a life full of limitless blessing, and death to our physical bodies. It is the tree of the serpent Satan. Why is our image of God so important? Because we grow, by what A.W. Tozer called a secret law of the soul, to resemble our image of God. Theologian Andrew Jukes said it this way, Our views of God re-act upon ourselves. By an eternal law, we must more or less be changed into the likeness of the God we worship. If we think Him hard, we become hard. If we think Him careless of mens bodies and souls, we shall be careless also. If we think Him love, we shall reflect something of His loving-kindness. So, if we think God is BOTH good and evil, we too will BOTH become good and evil. But if we see God as ONLY life, a life giver, a life protector, a life enlarger, a life blesser, we too will become ONLY sons of the light like Jesus, over whom death had no reign. We will then overcome ALL evil with ALL good. The Tree of the Knowledge of Life could be nicknamed The ONLY Tree. God is ONLY life. On the other hand, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could be nicknamed The BOTH Tree. Gods image here is distorted to become a bipolar monster who is BOTH good and evil, who may love us one day but kill us the next. And WE have tragically followed in that same image, which is why all human love is hugely hypocritical and always conditional. This was the Tree from which the Old Testament saints partook. This Tree caused them to have an UNDIFFERENTIATED view of God. They saw Satan and Yahweh joined at the hip. They wrongly believed Satan was an obedient servant angel of God who served as Gods left hand of wrath and destruction. They saw God as the author and sender of BOTH good and evil, BOTH health and sickness, BOTH forgiveness and revenge, BOTH love and hate, and BOTH life and death. Do you see? The Old Testament wrath and violence attributed to God was, in fact, the wrath and violence of Satan. Do we really think Satan was twiddling his demonic thumbs in the Old Testament while God Himself was operating Satans ministry of wrath, accusation, temptation, oppression and condemnation? That the very things the New Testament NOW says Satan does, were nonetheless somehow in the Old Testament done directly by God? No way! Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He changeth not. The only thing thats changed is our BETTER understanding of Gods BETTER nature under our BETTER Covenant. But Jesus came to say NO! to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus came to reveal His Father as a God of ONLY light and love. John 10:10; 1 John 1:5. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, NOT to adopt them as His own. 1 John 3:8. Jesus came to reveal Satan as the enemy of God, NOT the servant of God. Luke 10:18. Jesus revealed that Satan is the author and sender of sin, death, sickness, lust, pride, destruction and oppression, NOT God. John 8:44; Acts 10:19; Hebrews 2:14. ALL that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is NOT OF THE FATHER, BUT IS OF THE WORLD. 1 John 2:16. Since Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world, a ruler in whose power the whole world lies, we know that ALL sinful lust and pride come NOT from the Father, but from Satan. John 12:31; 14:30, 16:11; 1 John 5:19. We, as mankind, certainly wrongfully cooperate with the evil concocted by Satan, BUT he is the author and sender of it, NOT Jesus, NOT the Holy Ghost, and NOT the Heavenly Father. Jesus came to DIFFERENTIATE our image of God, to purify it, to purge Satan totally out of the equation so that we could finally behold the goodness of God without blemish or flaw. All we have to do is aggressively ALLOW the Holy Spirit to renew our minds to that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:2. JESUS IS THE ONE AND ONLY TREE OF LIFE! Our communion act of drinking His blood and eating His flesh is US partaking continually from the Tree of Life. Jesus said whoever drinks His blood and eats His flesh has ETERNAL LIFE! He is our righteous Tree.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:16:10 +0000
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