Search
In this chapter we will consider the vision in Genesis 2. Even though the Bible contains sixty-six books, it is consistent from the beginning to the end. Most people do not have this thought when they read the Bible, nor can they accurately identify the line of thought that runs throughout the Bible. Some theologians say that the Bible speaks of Christ; therefore, Christ is the subject that holds the Bible together. It is correct to say this, and we often say this.
However, the first two chapters and the last two chapters of the Bible are focused on life. In the beginning of the Bible, after God created man, He placed man before the tree of life for man to notice, contact, and receive the tree of life (Gen. 2:8-9). At the end of the Bible the tree of life is growing among the people gained by God throughout the generations (Rev. 22:2). No one can deny that the most crucial portion of the Bible concerns Christ’s appearing. This is the incarnation of God to live on the earth (John 1:14, 18). What is the purpose of the Lord Jesus’ coming to the earth? He said, “I have come that they may have life” (10:10). The Holy Spirit also testified on His behalf, saying, “In Him was life” (1:4). In a more personal way the Lord Jesus said, “I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever” (6:51). Then the Holy Spirit points out that “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” (20:31). Later, when the apostles went out to preach the gospel, an angel confirmed that they were speaking “the words of this life” (Acts 5:20). When writing the Epistles, Paul says, “Christ our life” (Col. 3:4); Peter says, “His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3); John says, “We...report to you the eternal life” (1 John 1:2), and “He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life” (5:12). These verses show that God’s desire to be man’s life is a consistent thought in the Bible. In other words, God desires to be mingled with man to become man’s content and to be expressed through man. This thought is consistent in the Bible.
Genesis 1:26 says that God created man in His image and according to His likeness. Suppose a brother wants a jacket made for him. The jacket must be made according to his measurements, because it is for him to wear. Likewise, God created man in His image and according to His likeness because man is a vessel that He wants to “put on.” God wants to put man on for His expression. Therefore, the Bible begins with God’s desire to be contained in man so that He would be expressed by man. At the end of Revelation the redeemed people have the tree of life as their content, and God’s glory and light are their expression (22:2; 21:23). God’s glory and light are God expressed. Chapter 4 says that the God who is sitting on the throne has the appearance of jasper (v. 3). Then chapter 21 says that the wall of the New Jerusalem is jasper (v. 18). This means that in the future all God’s redeemed people will express the image of God outwardly, and their content will be God as their life.
To a great extent, the Bible was written according to man’s ability to comprehend. In order to enter into man to be man’s life, God must be digested by man and mingled with man. God also wants to be man’s strength and supply. The best way to express this desire is to say that God wants to be man’s food. There is no other example that can appropriately convey God’s desire to enter into man and be digested by man in order to become man’s element, life supply, and strength by which man can live. Therefore, from its beginning to its end, the Bible consistently shows that God came as food so that He may enter into man to be man’s life. In other words, He wants to be assimilated by man in order to become man’s element, supply, and nutrition so that man may live because of Him.
Objectively, the Bible bears the testimony of Christ (John 5:39); subjectively, however, the Bible was written to show us how God in Christ becomes our life (1 John 5:12; Col. 3:4). God wants to be our life, so He came as food for us to eat and digest so that He can become our element and our nutrition. This is how He supplies us to live because of Him (John 6:51, 57). God also wants to live out from within us, that is, to be expressed through us (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:20-21). This divine thought runs from the beginning to the end of the Bible. If we want a thorough understanding in our reading of the Bible, we must grasp this point; otherwise, our reading of the Bible will not be thorough.
God has an enemy in this universe. This enemy, Satan, wants to counterfeit whatever God desires to do. God wants to enter into man, so His enemy wants to inject himself into man. God wants to be united with man, so His enemy wants to enter into a union with man. Furthermore, before God accomplished His desire, Satan acted first in order to beat God.
For example, the thought of building a city is of God. In Genesis 2 there was only a garden; there was no city. The garden of Eden did not have a wall or a border (vv. 8-14). At the end of the Bible, however, a city appears, and this city has a border (Rev. 21:10-17). Therefore, the desire to build a city began with God. However, who built the first city? In Genesis 4 Cain built the city of Enoch (v. 17). This was done by Satan to frustrate God. Satan was quick to build a city among men because he knew that God wanted to build a city among His people. This is proof that when God desires to do something, Satan will be quick with a counterfeit to frustrate God.
God wants to enter into man, so Satan also wants to enter into man. God wants to be mingled with man, so Satan also wants to inject himself into man. God is aware of Satan’s desire, so He placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden to serve as a reminder and a warning. This tree signifies Satan, who wants to enter into man and become the evil element within man. The issue of man’s eating of this tree is that man received death (2:16-17).
In chapter 3 Satan, embodied in the serpent, came in (vv. 1-15). The serpent in chapter 3 and the tree of knowledge in chapter 2 are inseparable; the two are one. When man ate of the tree of knowledge, he received the serpent. It is no wonder that in the New Testament both John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, who were followers of Satan, saying that they were the “offspring of vipers” and a “brood of vipers” (Matt. 3:7; 12:34; 23:33). Man had received Satan into him.
The tree of life signifies God being mingled with man, and the tree of knowledge signifies Satan injecting himself into man. These two trees are two main lines that run through the entire Bible. They are also the controlling thought of the Bible. If we read the Bible without seeing these two lines, we are inexperienced Bible readers.
Before reading a book on military science, we must first grasp the concept of that subject. Then, whether the book touches economics, politics, history, or geography, we will not deviate from the central thought. We should apply this principle when we read the Bible. It is very difficult to understand the controlling thought of the Bible. Therefore, in order for the saints to understand this thought, I have done my best to present the line that connects the Bible. This line is in the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation. If we read these four chapters and compare the beginning and the end of the Bible, we will understand the controlling line in these chapters. Then it will be relatively easy for us to read the Bible.
The tree of life and the tree of knowledge are the controlling lines in the Bible. We may say that the Bible consists of the two lines, one of God being mingled with man and the other of Satan injecting himself into man. We will now consider the Old Testament based on these two lines. The Old Testament can be divided into three sections. The first section is the books of history, the second section is the books of poetry, and the third section is the books of the prophets.
In the books of history the Holy Spirit’s style of writing shows how people developed according to the evil aspect of the tree of knowledge. It also shows how God called a group of people out of this evil development to contact and enjoy the tree of life. However, the majority of mankind, including the Israelites, developed according to the evil aspect of the tree of knowledge.
The books of poetry present a group of saints who remained in the development of the good aspect of the tree of knowledge, even though God had separated them from worldly people. Because they remained in the tree of knowledge, they were smitten by God. God smote them so that they would be freed from the good aspect of the tree of knowledge and would live purely in God who is life. Therefore, in Song of Songs, the last of the books of poetry, man is God’s beloved, and God is man’s Beloved and Husband (1:9, 14; 2:2, 10). Apart from God, man cannot have joy. Everything related to man depends on God, and man needs to enter into complete union with God. In Song of Songs man is freed from both the evil and the good aspects of the tree of knowledge in order to fully enjoy the tree of life, God Himself. God is the tree of life to be man’s Beloved, and man is God’s beloved. In this realm there is neither evil nor good; there is only God as the Beloved. The Beloved is everything to His loved one. She does not know what it means to do good, nor does she care for doing evil. She simply loves and pursues the Beloved.
The last section of the Old Testament is the books of the prophets. The prophets were God’s spokesmen. In other words, the prophets were people who expressed God. The Spirit of Jehovah fell upon every prophet (Ezek. 11:5). This means that every prophet was joined to God. The prophets did not have the concept of good and evil. The prophets’ thought of God was related to Jehovah God coming upon them.
The books of history mainly speak of the evil aspect of the tree of knowledge. However, in the books of history God brought out a group of people who enjoyed Him as the tree of life. The books of poetry present the good aspect of the tree of knowledge, but in these books God compelled a group of people to enjoy Him as their life, signified by the tree of life. The books of the prophets are concerning neither the evil aspect nor the good aspect of the tree of knowledge. The books of the prophets present a few people who enjoyed the tree of life and thus became God’s spokesmen. The prophets were filled with God. They lived neither by the evil aspect nor by the good aspect of the tree of knowledge. They were delivered out of the tree of knowledge to live by the tree of life. They were mingled with God and filled with God. As a result, their speaking was God’s speaking.
For example, Hebrews 2 quotes Isaiah and says, “Behold, I and the children whom God has given to Me” (v. 13). This word was spoken by the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 8:18), but in Hebrews it is presented as a word spoken by Christ Himself. This indicates that Isaiah’s speaking was Christ’s speaking. Another example is the word spoken by the prophet David in his suffering, which was also spoken by Christ in His suffering: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psa. 22:1; Matt. 27:46). When David spoke this, he was not a king but a prophet. All the prophets were filled with God. We can also touch God in the book of Daniel. When we read this book, we can sense that he was a man in God who was filled with God. Daniel was a man who breathed in God. Therefore, the prophets were people who left the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to be in the enjoyment of the tree of life.
The most important thought of God that was expressed through the prophets is that God is the Husband of His people and that His people are His wife (Isa. 54:5-6). God cried out to His people repeatedly, “Return unto Me” (44:22; cf. 55:7; Jer. 3:1; Joel 2:12). When we read these verses, we think that God wants His people to depart from evil things and to return to Him in order to do good things. Such a concept is of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, this is not God’s thought. God’s desire is for His people to leave everything that is not God and return to God. The prophet Isaiah says, “Your Maker is your Husband; / Jehovah of hosts is His name... / For Jehovah has called you, / Like a wife who has been forsaken and is grieved in spirit, / Even like a wife of one’s youth when she has been rejected, / Says your God” (Isa. 54:5-6). Jehovah said through Jeremiah, “My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband” (Jer. 31:32). Jehovah also declared, “It is said, / If a man divorces his wife / And she goes from him / And becomes another man’s wife, / Will he return to her again? / Will not that land be / Utterly polluted? / But you have committed fornication with many lovers. / Yet return to Me” (3:1). In the book of Ezekiel the most heartbreaking thing to God was that the people of Israel had other lovers besides Him (ch. 16). This means that man does not enjoy God. Similar words are found in the book of Hosea: “In that day, declares Jehovah, / You will call Me My Husband / And will no longer call Me Baali” (2:16). This thought is in all the books of the prophets: God is standing in the position of a husband and calling His wife, who has forsaken Him, to return. The prophets are not saying that the husband-forsaking wife must do good in order to be right. It is not a matter of good or evil but of the wife enjoying and being joined to her husband. The prophets were a group of people who were filled with God, enjoyed God, and lived in God. Their ministry and their commission were to call those who did not enjoy God and had forsaken God to return in order to be joined to God and enjoy God again.
When the prophets called God’s people to return to Him, they spoke considerably concerning God coming to be man’s Savior (Isa. 19:20; 43:3; Jer. 14:8; Hosea 13:4). The calls to the God-forsaking people to return to their God in order to be joined to Him and enjoy Him were prophecies that expressed the need of God’s people to enjoy Him as their Husband. These prophecies were also concerning His coming one day to become man’s Savior, that is, to be born of a virgin and be given the name Immanuel, which means “God with us” (Isa. 7:14). The prophets spoke of Christ’s birth, which was God’s coming. God came to be the Bridegroom and to be joined to man. This was also spoken by John the Baptist, the last prophet. He said, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom” (John 3:29). This indicates that God became flesh to be the Bridegroom. John introduced Christ as the Lamb and as the Bridegroom (1:29; 3:29). Christ came not only to be the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world but also to be the Bridegroom who marries the bride. Hence, John testified that Christ is the Bridegroom, the Husband, spoken of in the Old Testament. He came to marry His redeemed people so that they would be joined to Him.
When the Lord Jesus began His ministry, He too said that He was the Bridegroom. He said to the Pharisees, “The sons of the bridechamber cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? For as long a time as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But days will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast in that day” (Mark 2:19-20). The consistent thought in these verses shows that God is the tree of life in order to be joined to us so that we would be completely freed from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The thought of God freeing man from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is clearer in the Epistles. Romans 7 speaks clearly and thoroughly concerning the good and the evil of the tree of knowledge; both the good and the evil are apart from God. Chapter 8 says, “The law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death” (v. 2). The law of sin and of death is the law of the tree of knowledge. When the tree of life comes, it delivers man from the tree of knowledge. A believer is someone who has been delivered from the tree of knowledge in order to live by the tree of life.
In 2 Corinthians the apostle Paul says, “I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (11:2). Here again is the thought of Christ being our Husband. In Ephesians he says that Christ wants to be joined to man, that the people who are joined to Christ are His counterpart, and that Christ is their Husband (5:25, 31-32). Finally, at the end of Revelation the holy city, New Jerusalem, comes down out of heaven. This city is a wife, a bride, whom Christ will marry (19:7; 21:2). Furthermore, the tree of life will be enjoyed in this city (22:2).
The line of the tree of life is in the Bible. The Old Testament is divided into three major sections. One section is on the evil aspect of the tree of knowledge, another section is on the good aspect of the tree of knowledge, and the last section is concerning a group of prophets who were delivered from good as well as from evil to live exclusively by the tree of life. They were joined to God, lived in God, and were filled with God. Hence, they became God’s spokesmen, expressing God’s thoughts, and their ministry was to call the people who had turned away from God to return and to enjoy God and thus be delivered from everything outside of God.
A prophet breathes God, lives in God, and is joined to God. A prophet serves as God’s spokesman and God’s expression; hence, his words are God’s words. A prophet’s ministry and his words are to call people to enjoy God. A prophet tells people that God was incarnated to be a man, Immanuel, in order to bring man into the experience of enjoying God in Christ as man’s food and man’s life. In other words, a person who ministers as a prophet enjoys the tree of life so that he can call others and lead others to also enjoy the tree of life. May we be enlightened to see and grasp this principle. Then we will see that all the Epistles in the New Testament were written according to this principle. The writers of the New Testament Epistles were prophets; they were joined to God, filled with God, and lived in God. They breathed God, so they became His expression and His spokesmen; their words were God’s words. The message, the ministry, of every Epistle is to lead people into enjoying God in Christ as their life.
If a brother who functions as God’s mouthpiece is enlightened to see that a prophet enjoys the tree of life so that he may call others to enjoy the tree of life, he will lose his taste for other types of messages. His desire will be to speak only of Immanuel, that is, God coming in the form of food to be man’s life. God wants to be mingled with man to become man’s element and to be everything to man. This does not mean that we do not understand other topics but that they have become tasteless. The tree of life has become our yardstick for measuring every message. Any message that is apart from God coming to be man’s life, Immanuel, is a wind of teaching, spoken of in Ephesians 4:14. Messages that are not winds of teaching are spoken by persons who enjoy God as life, who are His expression, and who lead others to live in Christ and to enjoy Him as their life. Only such messages are called messages of life. They are spoken by persons who minister as prophets. Only such messages can give people the supply of life.
We must ask ourselves whether our messages are winds of teaching or messages of life. This is a serious question. Our messages may be according to the Bible, but if they cannot lead others to enjoy life, they are winds of teaching. Persons who genuinely minister as prophets, that is, who enjoy the tree of life, live in God, and allow God to fill them, will become an expression of God and will speak for God. They will bring others to enjoy God as their life because they give messages of life. All other messages are winds of teaching and are accursed.
Ninety-nine percent of the messages given in Christianity are concerning doing things. They are winds of teaching that lead people to contact the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The things that God tore down in the Old Testament saints are being built up in Christianity, because there is a lack of light concerning the principle of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A person who desires to genuinely minister as a prophet must be delivered from the tree of knowledge and live in the tree of life. The book of Isaiah is not concerning fearing God, because Isaiah was a person who breathed God (12:4). The book of Hosea is not concerning morality, because Hosea was a man living in God (chs. 1—3). The book of Ezekiel is not concerning the law, because Ezekiel was a person living in God. He saw that men were like a pile of dry bones and that only by God breathing His breath into them can they be made alive (37:2, 5-10). The books of the prophets reveal that the prophets were delivered from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and lived in God, in the tree of life.
What the prophets enjoyed was a foretaste. When they were enjoying the tree of life, they prophesied concerning the coming of Christ as the reality of the tree of life. For example, Isaiah says, “Behold, the virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel” (7:14), and “A child is born to us, / A Son is given to us; / And the government / Is upon His shoulder; / And His name will be called / Wonderful Counselor, / Mighty God, / Eternal Father, / Prince of Peace” (9:6). On the one hand, the Old Testament prophets enjoyed the anticipated tree of life, and on the other hand, they prophesied that Christ would come as the reality of the tree of life. In principle, we are doing the same today; however, we are not in the prophecy but in the reality. The line of the tree of life is seen in the Old Testament prophets, and it is the principle of the ministry of the New Testament prophets.
