The Tree of Life as God's Life

Jesus speaking of His resurrection says:"In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." (John 14:20).If that isn't man mingled with God I don't know what is.He is in the Father and the believers are in Him and He is in the believers.This is recursive mutual indwelling of man in God and God in man.Since it represents man's salvation and God's purpose, we can ascertain then WHAT Adam failed in not going along with God.Its really rather simple when you think about it.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-12-2005 04:30 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-12-2005 04:31 PM

{yawn} According to whom? {/yawn}Where is mortality listed as the cost of the Fall? Why is mortality not listed in or around Gen. 3:16-19?

Another assumption which you have not established as true. The "most people" that you are talking about are the members of the choir, who - if you recall - have left the building. Nobody left here but us skeptics, so you'll have to do a much more thorough job of backing up your assumptions. Again, you are assuming that some kind of "fall" is part of the history. You have not established that Biblically.Show us where the Bible says that God's creation was not the same status quo that we see today. Nonsense. What have I ever said to give you that impression? Is your position so weak that you have to resort to false accusations? But you're making it all up. What you're saying isn't in the Bible. How does it follow from that that Adam was immortal? Unique, yes. Different, maybe. But immortal? Why? And what does that have to do with Adam? And why would Adam have to be excluded from eating of the Tree of Life? If he was already immortal, what possible interest could he have in that tree? We have a saying where I come from: when you're in a hole, stop digging.Your position is precarious enough without adding the picture of lions and tigers grazing the back forty. There is an existing thread about that if you want to back it up. Yes I did. So I wonder why you continue on the assumption that Adam was immortal. Do you think the rest of your position can stand if he was not? Well, we haven't even gotten into the whole "mingling" business yet, so don't be too cocky about what is possible and what is not. I never said that. Is your case so weak that you have to resort to false accusations?I may have implied that I know better than you.... I'm trying to be constructive here.You can't just say that "Hezakelopheles mentioned death, so Adam must have been immortal." I'm sure your scenario makes sense to you, but it isn't coming across as very sensible to somebody who doesn't share your assumptions.You need to take some time to examine your assumptions and their bases. When (if) you can Biblically substantiate Adam's immortality and his "fall", then we can move on.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

It was Message 76 and there is no direct reply from you. If you replied to it elsewhere, I don't recall. (I'm still dozing through much of your sermonizing, despite all the coffee.) It certainly is. Now, if you only had somebody to answer them for you.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Ringo, I'm one up on you. I'm ignoring your garbage altogether.Let's keep it that way.

That's where you and I differ, apparently. Instead of wallowing in garbage, I believe in disposing of it. If I can avoid the stampede of other posters replying to this thread, I will continue to take out the garbage. Please feel free to come up with as many witty rejoinders as you can. Maybe even come up with a substantive post, if you can.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Since mortality signifies a state or condition of liability to death; a condition in which death is a possibility and immortality signifies a state or condition not liable to death; a condition in which death is an impossibility, then Adam was created mortal.Since God said Adam would die when he ate from the tree, then it was possible for Adam to die. He was created mortal.If he was created immortal, then death would have been impossible and God's warning would have served no purpose.Sound good?This message has been edited by purpledawn, 12-12-2005 07:14 PM

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

Yep. I think you and jar are saying about the same thing, no?It takes me a lot more posts to get the same message across.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Now, in Matthew 25 we see some nations who are called sheep nations. God spares these nations from the eternal perdition which the goats and the Devil and his angels must suffer.The interesting thing is that their salvation seems to have nothing to do with our typical concept of "Justification by Faith" in Christ's redemptive work.They are saved based upon their kind and considerate treatment of "these the least of My brothers" .. ie. the elect of Jesus Christ the Elder Brother.What is more interesting is that they enter into everlasting life. So here we have a group of nations who are granted an everlasting life.No notice that Christ refers to this everlasting life as the kingdom "prepared for" [them] "from the foundation of the world" (Matt. 25:34)"Then the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"These people are not said to have been born again. Yet they enter into an everlasting kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.We have to see the difference between them and those who possess the new birth to be sons of God with His indwelling life as a Father. These partake of blessings not "from the foundation of the world" but rather "BEFORE the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4:"Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before HIm in love, predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself ...." (Eph. 1:4,5a)God's sons with His life and nature was ordained for the believers before the foundation of the world. That means that God ordained it before creation. But the sheep nations who are saved apart from God's regeneration enjoy the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.This means that in creation God ordained that some human beings would have an everlasting life. This gives me the ground to say that Adam, from the foundation of the world, had a life which God would have maintained forever. This blessed earth was to be enjoyed by a man created to be maintained by God for everlasting time.Remember that these sheep nations are not born again, are not said to be sons of God, are not said to have received the Holy Spirit of God. They simply are spared in God's great mercy because of their treatment to His brothers down to the very least of them.Adam, as created, was like one of these sheep nations. He was created to enjoy a life maintained by God forever. His taking in of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil brought him into death.In eternity future we see that there are those nations who will be healed by the leaves of the tree of life (Rev.22:2). The healing of the leaves signifies the outward touch of God to heal and preserve man to live forever. But the taking in of the fruit of the tree of life is for the producing of sons of God who are "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet.1:4).Sons have God's life and nature. Sheep are maintained outwardly to live on.Sons of God are not only spectators of God's divine nature or worshippers of God's divine nature. They are participants in God's divine nature. They partake of God's divine nature.Sheep are instructed with outward correction. The sons are lead by the indwelling nature and life of the Father.The kingdom of the sheep, those to be maintained by God's mercy to live on, was from Adam's world. It was ordained from the foundation of the world.The kingdom of the sons of God, who will rule over these sheep nations, is the kingdom of those predestinated for sonship BEFORE the foundation of the world. His eternal purpose is to have sons in life. His auxilary purpose is to have sheep nations cared for and maintained to live in immortality.Divine sonship was to be obtained from man eating of the tree of life and taking into him the life of God from which, since the fall, he has been "alienated" (Eph. 4:18) These are the brothers of the Elder Brother Christ, the Son of God.The sheep over which the sons of God will "reign forever and ever (Rev. 22:5) are those maintained as Adam was supposed to have been maintained from the foundation of the world in the garden of Eden.

Even though you plan to ignore me, I'm going to respond because this is a discussion forum, not a podium.

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This means that in creation God ordained that some human beings would have an everlasting life. This gives me the ground to say that Adam, from the foundation of the world, had a life which God would have maintained forever. This blessed earth was to be enjoyed by a man created to be maintained by God for everlasting time.

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A being whose existance is dependent in any way upon another, or upon conditions such as food, light, air, etc. is not immortal. Immortal means cannot die! Quite clearly Adam and Eve required food.Had they remained obedient and not eaten from the tree of knowledge, they would have continued living until now--and forever--and yet all the while they would have been mortal, liable to death if disobedient. (Genesis 2:17)Everlasting life and immortality are not synonyms.Everlasting life describes an existence which, while having the potential of ending, will never cease under favorable conditions.If we look at the word everlasting we can see that it has various meanings.Also when looking at scriptures, we can see that everlasting does change under certain conditions. Since the Hebrews were overthrown and sent into exile, they no longer possessed the land. Therefore the gift was not so everlasting. God can and has put an end to things deemed to last forever.Therefore, even though A&E were created mortal, they could still have had everlasting life if they had not eaten the wrong fruit.

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton

Perhaps thats an argument. But I didn't introduce the word "immortal" into the discussion. Someone else was the first to use it. If that is true then I definitely would not use the term immortal.All life is dependent. Only the uncreated God is self existing and the great "I AM that I AM."By Adam being created with an everlasting life I do not mean that he was independent. I mean he was everlastingly dependent upon God who would have maintiained him.If God ceased to do so then Adam certainly would die. Before he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil what reason was there for God NOT to continue to sustain him?I see no other cause. They were dependent. All created lives are dependent in some way. Even those sons of God in eternity are still dependent.Only God Himself is self existing and everexisting - the very ground of being. The scenario you discribe means that repeated eating of the tree of life would keep them living forever. And once they disobeyed to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it was the termination of any further access to the tree of life which caused the death that God had warned of.I think this is a possible understanding. But I don't think it is as good as what seems to be written.One Bite of the tree of knowledge of good and evil - Adam dies.One Bite of the tree of life - Adam lives forever in whatever state he is in. I am saying something like that. I think that they would have been maintained to live on everlastingly by God.The tree of life must represent something more than man living everlastingly.Most of evangelical Christianity says that a man needs to be born again because he is sinful. Based upon John chapter 3 - "you must be born again"What I think that Bible really shows is that man even if he was very good still needs to be born of God to fulfill God's purpose to have sons who are "partakers of the divine nature".Everything in the New Testament indicates that the sons of God are those within whom God has dispensed Himself as divine life have God as eternal life."And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20)Him who is true and His Son are the eternal life. The Person of the Triune God as a realm and a sphere we are invited into, is the true God and eternal life. Eternal life here is a Person.We see the same matter in the first chapter:"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled , concerning the Word of life (And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and report to you the eternal lifem, which was with the Father amd was manifested to us.)"The Person of Christ Whom the apostles heard, saw, and even handled with their hands is the eternal life which was with the Father.He declares repeatedly that He is the life in John's gospel.Concerning His resurrection He says "because I live, you shall live also"We might think that "Jesus, we will live regardless of whether or not you live. We will just live even if you remain in the grave."Obviously what Christ means by living is not what we may mean. He means living the eternal life. Because He lives the believing disciples who receive Him in His resurrection state, will also live.We don't see God simply promising the saved immortality. We see God dispensing Himself into the saved to be their life."For me to live is Christ ..." (Phil. 1:21)"When Christ our life is manifested ..." (Col. 3:4)"He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life" (1 John 5:12)Now if we have a natural life and then Christ enters into our spirit to be the life then we are VESSELS made to contain God as life. His life in dispensed into our life. His life is imparted into us who have a life already. His life is compounded with our life. And His life is therefore MINGLED with our life.The eternal life in the New Testament is this Person who seeks to come into us. And then He seeks that we would learn to abide in Him as a sphere and realm in which we live a compounded and united life."Abide in Me and I in you ..." (John 15:4)So Christ's salvation is not simply that He grants one to live everlastingly. It is that He dispenses Himself into that one who receives Him in His resurrection state."The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:34)The Christ has been transfigured into a form in which He can dispense Himself into man to give man the uncreated and divine life of God.

Sheep nations?Are you suggesting that the judgement is nation by nation instead of individual by individual? A plain reading of the text would seem to indicate that "all nations" refers to all of the people in the world, and that some of the people are sheep and some are goats. There is no indication that whole nations are "sheep nations" or that whole nations are "goat nations".Common sense would seem to indicate the same. Each "nation" (tribe, etc.) would contain some individuals who behaved well and some who did not - some sheep and some goats. It seems highly unlikely that entire nations would contain only the good or only the bad.It also seems highly unfair for God to judge at the nation level rather than the individual level. An evil man would be a sheep - get off scot free, inherit the kingdom - if he happened to belong to an overall righteous nation. And a righteous man would be cursed into everlasting fire if he happened to be born into a "goat nation".If the sheep-nation/goat-nation dichotomy had any validity, then our salvation would depend only on our moving to an appropriate "sheep nation". As we have discussed in another thread, there is no "elect" secret-society elite brotherhood. When Jesus spoke of "these my brothers", he was speaking of everybody.

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Mat 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

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And since we can not judge who is doing God's will and who is not, we have to act on the basis that everybody is Jesus' brother.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Actually, yes you did. In the OP, Message 1, you said: It is true that a few posts later you did make a distinction between "everlasting life" and "eternal life".However, the point of contention here seems to be: would Adam have died if he didn't eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? As I have indicated and as purpledawn has indicated, there is no reason to believe that Adam would not have died anyway. Having death enter into the world suddenly at that point simply misses the point of the story.

purpledawn, Not if He means that there will be an interruption and a resumption latter which will last everlastingly.I think there He is speaking to them as a national entity. In 1948 the Hebrews came back and we just may see them continue in the land through the second coming of Christ, into the millennial age, and on into the eternal age.

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Not if He means that there will be an interruption and a resumption latter which will last everlastingly.

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But what in the Bible supports that concept?ABE: the meaning of everlasting does not seem to support interruption.This message has been edited by purpledawn, 12-13-2005 08:05 PM

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There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -Edith Wharton