The Tree Of Life

The creation story in Genesis is full of imagery that describes the beauty of God's creation. It started with God bringing order to a dark and chaotic vacuum. He spoke light into darkness, gathered the waters to expose dry ground - earth, the place we now call home. The sun for daylight, the moon for night time, stars, galaxies and planets came into being, all because He said..."Let there be..." With one single sentence, He commanded the earth to produce vegetation of all kinds: Plants, trees, shrubs with seeds in them to reproduce their kind. Our waters teem with living creatures, many of which we've not even discovered. Our sky is full of birds of many kinds and the land of animals, some too microscopic for our naked eye to see. Others too big, we are moved in wonder when we see them. Yet there are over two trillion galaxies, billions of stars, over 400,000 vascular plants that we know and we are still discovering about 2,000 plants every single year. Amazing!

It is impossible not to be moved by the vast array of wonder in our world. But what should move us more, is the God (Yahweh - The I AM WHO I AM) who imagined, designed and ordered all of creation. More still, that He is sustaining it all, by His infinite power and wisdom. Hallowed be His name!

Mankind, the pinnacle of God's creation was made differently. It was not just with a sentence. God "formed" him from the dust of the ground, and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. (Gen. 2:2) That life, which is from God, is the breath of life we all have in our lungs today. It has passed from Adam through many generations for thousands or millions of years (depending on how old you think the world is), and will be in the lungs of the newborns, thousands of which are being born as I write this piece. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in Genesis 3, mankind were driven out of the garden of Eden and we lost our place and connection with God. Previously, Gods' space (Heaven) and our space (Earth) overlapped. Now, they are worlds apart. 

We lost something else when mankind sinned. We lost access to the tree of life, which was in the middle of the garden (Genesis 2:9). The gravity of what was lost only became clear to Adam and Eve when God said... "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."  (Genesis 3:22). This verse has a few implications that we must consider. First, we must not think that God is unkind to banish mankind from the garden. We can all imagine the impact of a sinful wicked man living in our community, but can you imagine them living forever, with no possibility of death? That would be catastrophic. That's what God saved us from, by driving mankind (in his fallen state) out of the garden. 

The second implication is that mankind had access to the tree of life all along, which means it was God's intention for mankind to live forever. He never asked Adam not to eat of the tree of life. The devil made sure that Adam and Eve got to the forbidden tree before they could lay hands on the tree of life. That's why we must always ask "what's at stake" when the devil dangles the carrot of sin before us. It is always his intention to rob us of something more precious. The devil robbed us of eternal life in Genesis 3, but the good news is that God will not let him have the final say. 

When you read Philippians 2, you'll discover something amazing. Jesus left his heavenly nature, his immortal life, and took on the human nature, a mortal life. Born as a man, he exchanged his glory for the  lesser glory of a man. He lived a sinless life and died on the cross, taking away the penalty of Adam's sin, including yours, mine and that of the whole world. He took our place, gave his life, and then he rose again. Now, He has a new life, eternal life. The nature of His earthly life was temporal. The nature of the life He has now is permanent - ETERNAL. In a sense, he has once again, opened for all mankind, access to - You guessed right, the tree of life! He took our place, now He invites us to take his place, to come to Him, so we may be where He is. That's essentially the Gospel message. That Jesus died, so that we may have everlasting life.

Although it may not always feel like it, once again, we all are in (a type of) the garden of Eden here on earth, with a second and final chance to lay hold of the tree of life, which is Jesus. Will you come to Him? The life you have now is worth fighting for, of course it is, but compared to the life Jesus has to give? It's a no-brainer. The tree of life shows up again in Revelation. Hear what God is saying, "To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." (Revelation 2:7). This is an encouragement for those of us who are Christians to persevere and not give in to the allurements of the devil. Again, in Revelation 22:2, 14 and 19, we see references to the tree of life. If the Bible starts with the tree of life in Genesis and ends with the tree of life in the final chapter of Revelation, it seems to me we should take it seriously. Isn't this what the battle of life is all about?  To lay hold of eternal life? This is certainly God's plan for us, as shown in perhaps the most popular verse in scriptures. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." To eat from the tree of life, all you have to do is believe in Jesus today.