The Tree of Life as God's Life

If I'm ever cast away on a desert island I only hope all 66 books will be washed up with me... Couldn't imagine life without it. It is interesting to see the contrast between Adam choosing not to keep his hands from that which is forbidden and us choosing not to eat of that which we are encouraged to.

Lets summarize your topic, jaywell. This topic is very similar to the one that I started, but is probably going to take us in a new direction. Allow me to reframe it for further discussion------ Do you believe that the Garden literally existed? Why? Perhaps. Tell us how you were persuaded. I want the details. OK...perhaps. But I want you to explain the Trinity to us. And I want you to explain it in your own words...using no scripture. If you can't do that then you do not really understand it. Where did you get this from? I don't understand you. Answer me a few questions, if you will.
1) Where is God right now?
2) What does He want from us?
3) What is He saying to you?
4) What does He expect you to do or say?Do we really know the dynamics of any given relationship? Do I know the dynamics of how God relates to you? Or to Purpledawn? Most people in the world had no Bible and few had access to scrolls before the year 1500 A.D. How did they learn of the tree of life? How was the message spread?This message has been edited by Phat, 12-16-2005 07:22 AM

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Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere.
Pensées (1670)We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also by the heart.
Pensées (1670)Heb 4:12-13-- For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Holy Spirit--speaking through the Apostle Paul

Yes I believed that Genesis 1 - 3 is human history. But when I first became a Christian I did not. Gradually and eventually I came to believe that the account must be history. When I first accepted Jesus Christ in a solid way I had no intention of reading the Bible. I first began to read some books on philodophy and theology which were about Christ. I couldn't understand them very well. But the things which did strike me, without me realizing it, were the quotations from the Bible.One day in prayer I must have been telling God that I didn't understand something. I felt the clear impression saying "Why don't you read the Bible itself?" I thought that I had humbled myself to call on Jesus to help me leading me to know Jesus. So I guess I could further humble myself to read the Bible (which previously I considered myself above such).In reading the Bible I came with a big filter in my mind. I was full of mistrust and suspicion. But I noticed that Jesus in the New Testament seemed to consider the rest of the Scripture seriosly. I think that because I trusted Christ, that opened me up to consider other parts of the Bible which previously I did not consider trustworthy. If it was good enough for Jesus Christ then it must be good enough for me too.That is how I gradually began to take seriously the whole Bibile. I also was reading some other books on Genesis. None of them were very helpful until I read a book called "Earth's Earliest Ages" by G.H. Pember. When I read the exposition on Genesis one through six of book, I thought that here was something that made a lot of sense. From that time I don't think I had any major suspicion about Genesis not being history.Certainly the flow of history as discribed from subsequent biblical books reveal that the author/s considered it one seemless unbroken historical line from Adam on. Luke traces Christ's geneology back to Adam.So I got persuaded that the Adam and Eve story must be history. My only concern after was to not assume to know what the Sctipture said in a traditional way but find out what is and is not actually written. Pember's book did that for me probably more than anything else. He was very careful to help me understand what Genesis actually says in the original language. No, I cannot explain the Trinity completely. But I can enjoy the Trinity.This is something like explaining what Time is. We all know what is Time. But to really explain what is Time is very difficult.Even if someone says that it is not difficult to explain Time, I still feel that human language is short on the ability to explain the three - one God.I can explain it all day. But the limitation of human language will not allow me to make it completely sensible to you. How could God be Three and One at the same time?I think that perhaps a good answer is that eternal life is life without limitation.I do know this - God is a Trinity in order to carry out His purpose of dispensing His life into man. The Trinity is what the Trinity does.Think of it this way. God the Father is the Source. God the Son is the course. And God the Holy Spirit is the flow or the transmission. This is like the power plant in the distance is the source of the electrical power. The cables over which the electricity is the channel or course which allows the electricity to be connected to your home. And the flow or the current of the electricity is like the Holy Spirit. He allows the transmission of the power from the source over the course into your home.The Three work as one to bring the riches of the Father embodied in the Son and dispensed by the Spirit into man's being. The Trinity is for God to impart the eternal life and nature into man to produce the mingling of divinity and humanity.But like all analogies this one of the power plant, the cables, and the flow or transmission too has its limitations.I'll reply to your other questions on another post.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-16-2005 11:58 AM

For informal - see Phat's discussion on "Philosophical Ramblinsgs .... etc."This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-16-2005 06:50 PM

One thing left to be demonstrated is how the same book which says that fallen man is alienated from the life of God also shows that the redeemed man is a vessel for the life of God.Humans has a created life. That is a natural life which we was born with. But we are born into the world "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18).The Apostle Paul is addressing his letter to some people who have had faith in Christ and have come through the alienation through Christ's redemption to touch the life of God in Christ.They have been forgiven their offenses and the mystery of God dispensing His life into them has been revealed to them:"In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses, according to the riches of His grace ... making known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself ..." (Eph. 1:7-9)Man never experienced this imparting of the life of God into the human life. So it is a mystery until the new testament.When the life of God in Jesus Christ is imparted into these people they gain something new called "the inner man" (3:16). But because they have lived all of there life previously in the natural life they are not use to living by this inner man.The soul which they have by creation has become the vessel of another life. And the life of Jesus which is the life of God, has created within them "the inner man." Paul prays that they would learn to be strengthened into that realm. He prays that they would be energized to abide and remain in that sphere of God's life within them. Here is his great prayer:"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father ... that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man" (3:14,16)The Holy Spirit needs to empower them to live moment by moment in this new sphere of God dwelling within them. This proves that man's life is indeed a vessel meant to have as its content the divine life.Through the blood of Christ the alienation from the life of God can be terminated. And then man can be born of God to gain an inner man. Then the believer must be impowered and strengthened into that inner man. A new way of living must be learned. That is learning to abide in Christ in a mingled way.This Christ as God's life in vast and measureless. In fact Paul says that His dimensions are as large as the very dimensions of the universe. Here is where shows that Christ and His love are as vast as the universe:" ... to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fulness if God" (3:16b-19)How broad is the breadth? How long is the length? How high is the height? And how deep is the depth? These are infinite. These are the very dimensions of the universe.Collectively and corporately these vessels then are to be filled unto all the fullness of God by experiencing the unlimited and all-inclusive dimensions of Christ's riches.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-18-2005 09:09 PM

God put man before two trees. This shows that man had a free will.The two trees show that in the universe there are two wills, two sources, and two possibilities for man to choose. Adam was neutral between the two sources. He must have had an extremly strong free will.God warned Adam. The nuetral man between two trees was warned. This shows that God wanted man to choose God. Now he didn't create Adam bad and give him a choice. That makes no sense. But it does make sense that He would create Adam neutral, innocent, and even a "very good" (Gen. 1:31) creation, and give him a choice.Since the choice is so universal and important, that leads me to believe that Adam had an extremly strong free will.Since he was warned about the death of taking the wrong tree, that shows me that God did not force man to choose God, but warned man that nothing good could come out of him taking the other way.Since Adam was neutral and good that shows me that God wants not just a bad person to choose Him. Even if we are good and neutral He still wants man to choose Him.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-19-2005 12:45 PM

Iano,Could you please address Message 134?How do you expect anyone to learn anything if you don't make the connection clear?

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Yes I believed that Genesis 1 - 3 is human history.

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If you believe that the Adam and Eve story is actual human history, why do you present it as symbolic and yet when Paul speaks figuratively, you take it in a more literal sense?Since you don't seem to think that the "life of God" as used in Ephesians refers to living a Godly life, I really need you to explain clearly what you mean by "life of God." What is it in exactly?

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

Purpledawn, I think that is a very good question.I think that in the things which the Holy Spirit selected for the writer to write under divine inspiration, there are great spiritual lessons to learn.Look how the Apostle Paul writes about the Israelites crossing through the Red Sea in 1 Corinthians 10. Look how he speaks of them drinking water from the rock in the wilderness. Twice they did this. And Paul takes it as human history. But it is history under God's sovereighty, with deep symbolic lessons.Paul writes:"For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; And all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea,

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And all ate the same spiritual food, And all drank the same spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ ...

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Now these things occured as examples to us, that we should not be ones who lust after evil things, even as they also lusted."Paul speaks of the crossing of the sea as symbolic of new testament baptism. Yet the Exodus is absolutely history to him.The rock from which the Israelites drank water Paul calls a spiritual rock. It is history but with a deep spiritual significance for latter generations. Paul says that the spiritual rock followed the Israelites. He says that the rock was Christ.Then he writes that these historical things happened to the Jews to also be examples to the latter believers in Jesus Christ.In the same way I point out the significant things meaningful to us today in the history of Adam and Eve in the garden. God is transcendent over time. His extensive foreknowledge and infinite wisdom speaks to latter generations through the things which He arranged. Wait, I absolutely believe that we are to live a godly life as taught in Ephesians.But what IS a Godly life? It is to live in God Himself. It is to live in the realm of the living God. It is to allow God in Christ to live out His life from within you.This is why we must let the Christ into our hearts by faith. This is why we must believe His resurrection and ask Him to come into our hearts.There is no possibility to live a Godly life apart from God's life being brought into us by the Holy Spirit. So the first step to live a Godly life is to be born of God by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.This is a reliable and trustworthy think that I am writing.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-20-2005 05:47 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-20-2005 05:48 AM

Well that was clear as mud.

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

Just to comment on one point, which may or may not make it a bit clearer than mud, but I hope, he's saying that the history itself, the real lived history reported on in the Bible, has symbolic meaning. He doesn't mean that Paul treats Adam and Eve as "merely" a symbolic story, which implies it is fiction, he means that it really occurred as it is told, and that the reality contains meanings God Himself intended in them.For instance, according to the idea of Types in the Old Testament, the Tabernacle isn't merely a structure demonstrating how God wanted the Israelites to worship Him, it represents Jesus Christ's own sacrifice for us, and it also represents God's "tabernacling" among His people, which means INDWELLING His people, which began with the sending of the Holy Spirit. The little tabernacles or booths or Sukkot that the Jews build on the Feast of Tabernacles symbolize the same thing -- God's ultimate tabernacling within the souls of His people. The requirements of the priesthood are also Types of Christ. Types aren't perfect correspondences in some cases, as in how David was a type of Christ although he was a sinner, and Solomon too. Likewise Adam was a Type of Christ in that he was the Federal Head of his descendants just as Christ is the Federal Head of all who believe in Him, who are in a sense HIS offspring. In Adam all die but in Christ all are made alive. IN Adam, IN Christ. Adam was the firstborn of the original creation, Christ is the firstborn of the New Creation. Etc.The idea is that God oversaw every aspect of his history in such a way that it is thick with symbolic correspondences that deepen its meaning.This message has been edited by Faith, 12-19-2005 09:19 PM

Purpledawn, " ... whenever thier heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Cor. 3:16)I understand your frustration. I have been veiled to the revelation of Christ as a living Person.There was once a veil like a cloth over my mind. It covered my heart so that I could not see and I could not understand. The covering veil is actually the heart turned away from Christ.When you accept that Christ is alive and is a living Person, and when you turn your heart to Him, the veil is taken away."But their thoughts were hardened; for until the present day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant, it not being unveiled to them that the veil is being done away with in Christ. Indeed unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.

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But whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom"These are not just words Purpledawn. When our heart turns to the Lord Jesus as a living Person, as Someone Who we desire to meet and accept, the veil over the understanding is taken away. And we realize that Christ the Lord is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can come into our innermost heart and spirit and cause us to know Jesus the living Person.Whenever the heart turns to the Lord the mud is cleared away.

I concur with Faith's explanation 100%. This person understands.Thankyou Faith.

Thanks Faith,Unfortunately, that's the part I did understand.I've been trying to get jaywill to clearly explain what his "life of God" is.In his OP he states: He seems to be using "life of God" as a thing or essence.Do you feel that Ephesians 4:17-18 is saying that humans ?? Paul goes on to talk about the former "way of life." IMO, Paul is saying that the pagans lack the knowledge of God and the way God expects his people to live their lives.I don't feel that this ties in with whatever jaywill is trying to say concerning the tree of life in Genesis.Do you feel he has clearly made his case for his question? I know he can with copious embellishments, but does the bare story actually support his statement?

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

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These are not just words Purpledawn. When our heart turns to the Lord Jesus as a living Person, as Someone Who we desire to meet and accept, the veil over the understanding is taken away. And we realize that Christ the Lord is the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit can come into our innermost heart and spirit and cause us to know Jesus the living Person.

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Been there, done that.I asked for clarification of your "life of God" phrase, not how to get saved.I understand God and Jesus quite well.

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

Here was the paragraph you quoted. Which part of it seems to be using “the life of God” as a thing or essence? He is a living essence of a living Person. Both these trees were also signs signifying persons - God and Satan - not things or matters. The tree of life signfies then and now God as life. That os God imparting Himself into man’s created life to bring the divinity of God and the humanity of man into a living union.Psalm 36:9 also says ”For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light”Of all lives in the universe the only life that counts as real life is the life of God. Only the life of God in the uncreated and indistructible life. And among all the creatures which God created man in unique in that he can receive the life of God and live in God, live in union with God, live out God, and have God live in and through him. This is the unique quality of man’s created life and of God Himself. God and man can mingled in living union. Yes. Not one single human being born on the earth with the exception of the man Jesus of Nazareth, was born not estranged and alientated from the life of God. This is why John says that those given authority to become children of God were not born of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man - but they were begotten of God. No natural birth and no power coming out of the natural man can make one one of the children of God. That life impartation can only come by receiving Christ the living Person and believing into His name:” But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name,

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Who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12,13)So after we are born naturally we must have a new birth of God’s imparting His Holy Spirit of divine life into out created human spirit. Then the two spirits - the divine Person and the human spirit - become united to be one mingled spirit within man:”He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17)In this event the deadened and comatose human spirit is said to be born of the Spirit -”Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?

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Jesus answered . That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, You must be born anew.” (See John 3:4-6)Man is born or begotten anew through the resurrection life of Christ. This new birth is called “regeneration”. The life of God is conveyed to us today in the resurrection life of Jesus:” . God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1Peter 1:3)So we are indeed born into this world naturally alienated and estranged from the life of God. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead we can be regenerated and begotten of God to be children of God with the life of God. The translation that you are quoting is not good. It is not the “new self” in the Greek. It is ”the new man.”. It is a corporate man. It is a collective man. It is aggregate humanity headed up by Christ. It is the opposite of the old man which is collective humanity headed up by Adam.The ”second man” is Jesus Christ. And He is also called ”the last Adam”. He concludes Adam on the cross. He finishes all the damage and corruption caused by Adam. Christ is the last Adam. And this last Adam transfigured Himself after His resurrection to be in a form in which He could be dispensed into man to be the divine life of man:”The last Adam became a life giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45)
When we Christians say that one should receive Jesus into their heart we really mean that one should allow the life giving Spirit to be imparted into them to regenerate them - causing them to be born anew with the life of God which is in the resurrected Christ.”And this is the testimomy, that God gave to us eternal life and this life is in His Son. 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)Nothing could be more clear. The Son of God is the life. Having the Son of God is having the life. And having the Son of God is also having life in His name. And this is the only reason why John wrote his gospel for us:”But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:31) Paul is saying more than that the pagans lack the knowledge of God. He is saying that fallen man does not live God. Fallen man is alienated not only from knowing God but from having God’s life within themselves.To the Apostle Paul as well as to the apostles Peter and John, to have the life of God is to have Christ living within you. This is why his prayer is that Christ the living Person would make His home in our hearts through faith:”For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father . that He would grant you, accoding to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith” (See Eph. 4:14-17)By the exercise of faith in His finished work on the cross for the redemption of our sins, we can let the living Person of Christ, the life giving Spirit of the resurrected Son of God, make His home in our hearts. He comes into us. He settles down within us. He indwells us. He who is the life giving Spirit gives the divine life to us. He gives Himself to us. And then we are in union with the life of God and possess God the Father as a indwelling Person.Once Christ has made His home in our hearts we truly realize the Psalmist’s utterance that with Him (God) is the fountai of life. The “copious embellishments” are just having a overall bird’s eye view of the revelation of the Bible. To truly understand the significance of Genesis we need the whole Bible.Don’t scoff at this. Doesn’t God tell us Himself that He will impart His truth to us line upon line and here a little and there a little in Isaiah 28:10,13 ?The life of God before man’s fall was presented with something which did not have blood. That is because redemption was not needed. But the tree of life today is this crucified and resurrected Savior Redeemer Jesus. In Him is life. That is the divine and uncreated life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-20-2005 03:25 PM