In continuing on with our look at Jesus as the Tree of Life, I want to start off this time with the comment thousands of years ago by Soloman that there is "nothing new under the sun."
Taking that insight and applying it to Christ as the Tree of Life, I want to show some of the simplicity of this as it relates to the church.
Our walk with the Lord within, while it may be new to us, as far as experience goes, is not new at all, from the point of view of the Godhead. They have been walking this eternally.
What this means is we are partaking within of His existing experience and living it out among one another.
One easy to understand concept we can embrace and practice as the church, is to comprehend that much of we do when we practice our Christianity, or Christ-centeredness (which is what Christian means), is repeating how the Godhead has lived together before time.
So when we share with one another what it is Jesus is doing through our current circumstances or revealing to us, is more than anything else, reminding one another of what has happened throughout the existence of God.
The practical outworking, is that when we share, much of it is to remind one another of who He is, and help one another to learn more of who He has always been.
In other words, we do more reminding when we talk and share life together, than anything else. As a matter of fact, as we grow in Him, it simply becomes His life emerging out of us toward and into one another.
The reason this has become complicated isn't the only the unbibical way people meet and the whole pagan structure and practice, but many times even when people start to see the organic, they tend to share the things they've learned in schools or colleges, especially related to philosophy and related courses that are diametrically opposite of who Christ really is.
It's nothing other than the old alternative tree of the knowledge of good and evil being consumed.
So we again get the mixture that always weakens and ultimately destroys the testimony of Christ in His people.
Remember, Christ is writing His story within us, so ultimately people will be able to read us as a letter from God. That's why Paul one time said "you are my letter," referring to the church.
In the end, that's the overall purpose of Christ as the Tree of Life, to be eaten and internalized, so what is within will be shown without and read by all men.
Jesus Christ: The Tree of Life Series
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
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When Adam and Eve sinned their relationship with God was compromised. If we take Romans 8:7 as providing a retrospective clue of the fallen pair's spiritual condition, the relationship they had enjoyed with God was replaced with an innate hostility toward God (born out of love of sin and misapprehension of Him?) and they were no longer subject to God and neither indeed could be.
ReplyDeletePresumably, this is why they were driven from the Garden for though they would have benefited by continuing to live without dying, they would have benefited by living forever since they were still in a state of enmity toward God.
For Adam and Eve the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which had appeared more attractive to their innocent eyes and desire to be wise than the Tree of Life, was now their preferred diet.
Jesus, in prayer to His Father, gives us a hint of how never-ending life (spiritually speaking) is perpetuated: --
"This is life eternal to know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." John 17:3
For Adam and Eve, knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ presumably no longer held any attraction but clearly, although they were denied access to the literal "Tree of Life" they were not as you said, denied access to the spiritual "Tree of Life".