Trees in Heaven Have Roots in Hell

What Does It Mean?

Carl Gustav Jung, a psychoanalyst penned these amazing words, of which the concept has gripped my soul this past week:

“No tree can grow to Heaven unless its roots reach down to Hell.”

What does it mean?

You and me are the tree and if we want to “grow to heaven”,

if we want to be truly enlightened,

if we want meaning in our life,

if we want to truly follow the Way,

if we want to walk the straight and narrow path

if we want these things that lead to heaven and peace within the soul, then our roots must be allowed to strike deep, even to hell itself.

What does that mean?

It means that any growth or venture upward has a corresponding move downward.

The soul that reaches heaven has also reached hell.

He confronts the darkest parts of His being.

To be enlightened is to first realise that you were wrong.

The character that procduces good in this world had to first realise the corrupt person you really are and how capable you are of producing evil and suffering in the world.

The soul that reaches heaven has confronted himself, his TRUE self in all its hideousness and repulsiveness.

The soul that reaches heaven has, so to speak, walked through hell itself.

And don’t think for a moment that it’s a light matter.

It takes immense humility and courage to walk through hell.

It takes humility and courage to be open enough to know your true self, the self that can so easily be full of pride, deceit, falsehood, resentment, vegeance,

the self that has the same potential for evil as that of the people who have committed the worst atrocities in our history, and you only have to look at the 20th century to horrified of what human beings can do to each other.

It takes the greatest humility and courage to be shown that you had a wrong ideology and to accept the Truth that can lead to change.

Look at what Ellen White wrote, one of the church’s pioneers

(And grasp the depth and significance of the statement):

Special Testimonies for Ministers and Workers, No. 9 All the Lord’s

None but God can subdue the pride of man’s heart. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot regenerate ourselves. In the heavenly courts there will be no song sung. To me that loved myself, and washed myself, redeemed myself, unto me be glory and honor, blessing and praise. But this is the key-note of the song that is sung by many here in this world. They do not know what it means to be meek and lowly in heart; and they do not mean to know this, if they can avoid it. The whole gospel is comprised in learning Christ, his meekness and lowliness.

Special Testimonies for Ministers and Workers, No. 9 Justification and Regeneration

What is justification by faith?—It is the work of God in laying the glory of man in the dust, and doing for man that which it is not in his power to do for himself. When men see their own nothingness, they are prepared to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. When they begin to praise and exalt God all the day long, then by beholding they are becoming changed into the same image. What is regeneration?—It is revealing to man what is his own real nature, that in himself he is worthless.

The True Man, Jesus

Jesus reveals this truth in so many ways, but three will suffice:

John 12:24–26 NIV

24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

Luke 14:7–11 NIV

7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Matthew 16:21–28 NIV

21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. 28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Jesus in His own lived experience reveals this truth at the beginning of His ministry:

Jesus is baptised and then straight away is led into the wilderness by the Spirit, voluntarily (that is key) and there is tempted by Satan.

The temptations deserve their own study but for the sake of time I will make my point:

In order for Jesus to become the perfect man He was and is, it could only be accomplished through suffering.

In order for Jesus to perfect humanity and re-create it in the image of God, He first had to confront the most cynical, greedy, pessimistic, degraded, shallow part of it.

He had to meet Satan himself, and dare to venture to the pits of hell itself and confront it with Truth in humility.

He confronted the part of man that we must all confront if we ever want to reach heaven and understand meaning, and have peace.

He confronted the evil that is self-preservation, rebellion, self-deceit, power and the desire to attain to power at the cost of hurting others in the process.

Jesus made an example of taking full responsibility for human depravity and confronting it with Truth thus transforming the carnal man that minds only the things of earth to the spiritual man that minds the things of God.

If you or me are ever to reach heaven as a regenerated person, the straight and narrow path will lead us there, but not without first going through “the self” which is hell itself.

Hebrews 5:7–9 NIV

7 During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him

Pride vs Humility

Christians have often failed of reaching characters that emulate their Master because they either focus completely on themselves and their own will and strength and thus fail of receiving strength from Christ who has already gone before them,

or because they place so much emphasis on Jesus and His atonement for the sins of the world that they shirk personal responsibility for themselves and allow themselves to live these weird lives where they profess godliness, but lack its power,

because they have never actually followed Jesus and “learned obedience through suffering.”

Read this damning critique from Friedrich Nietzcshe, a German philospher and cultural critic in the 20th century:

“The Christians have never practiced the actions Jesus prescribed them; and the impudent [contemptuous or cocky boldness] garrulous [pointlessly or annoyingly talkative] talk about the ‘justification by faith’ and its supreme and sole significance is only the consequence of the Church’s lack of courage and will to profess the works that Jesus demanded.”

I think this is the reason for the difficulty in finding the balance between “faith” and “works”.

Hebrews 4:11–13 BE:NT

11 So, then, let’s make every effort to enter that ‘rest’, so that nobody should trip and fall through the same pattern of unbelief. 12 God’s word is alive, you see! It’s powerful, and it’s sharper than any double-edged sword. It can pierce right in between soul and spirit, or joints and marrow; it can go straight to the point of what the human heart is thinking, or intends to do. 13 No creature remains hidden before God. All are naked, laid bare before the eyes of the one to whom we must present an account.

We need to be broken down before we can be built up again.

The human temple is not a new building project, it’s a knock down and re-build project.

There’s already an existing temple in our human psyche that is corrupted and filled with idols and it needs to be destroyed before a temple is erected for the worship of Yahweh and for the offering of sacrifices that are indeed good and worthy of acceptance.

Jeremiah 1:10 BE:NT

10 see, I’m appointing you this day over the nations, over the kingdoms, To uproot and to pull down, to obliterate and to tear down, to build and to plant.

If we choose not to discover our true self and walk through the hell of exposing our sins, our wretchedness, our ability to create evil, then we will remain in a mode of existence that ensures our arrogance, pride, rebellion, vengeful spirit, supposed injustice to ourselves, etc.

We will indeed destroy ourselves.

Proverbs 16:18 Tanakh

18 Pride goes before ruin, Arrogance, before failure.

Proverbs 29:23 Tanakh

23 A man’s pride will humiliate him, But a humble man will obtain honor.

It takes humility to even begin to confront your truest degraded self, and then once you’re there and you see all the skeletons in your closet, you will be humbled even more.

But thank God it doesn’t end there!

Because once we have destroyed the old temple with all its ugly architecture, and new temple can begin.

The new temple will be beautiful, as a result of your honesty and humility you will be able to engage with yourself and with others in a way that produces good instead of misery, you will start a dance so intense and choreographed with such beauty that you will be able to move on from all the horrors of your past and become the person you, the world and God have been waiting for you to become.

A fascinating example of this truth is king Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonian Empire.

King Nebuchadnezzar was a proud and arrogant man, which wasn’t uncommon for a heathen king, but what was different about the man was humility to undergo transformation!

And guess what, Nebuchadnezzar has dream about himself as tree that is great and strong and reaches to heaven until a Messenger from heaven cuts down the tree until it’s only a stump with its roots in the ground.

And look at what says in appeal to the arrogant king:

Daniel 4:27 Tanakh

24 Therefore, O king, may my advice be acceptable to you: Redeem your sins by beneficence and your iniquities by generosity to the poor; then your serenity may be extended.”

A year later the king reaches the peak of his pride and arrogance. He has rebelled against his conscience and produced enough sorrow and misery in the world by self-conceited ways and is banished by God into the wilderness (same like Christ) for seven years until he can acknowledge that Yahweh is sovereign over all the kingdoms of the earth.

Nebuchadnezzar enters the wilderness of his soul, and sees the man he truly is a man goverened by impulses no better then an animal. He realises the hateful and unclean bird he his.

Until he finally accepts who he is and begins to look upward, to accept responsibility of himself and his stand before God.

It’s at that point that he becomes “sane” and then he can begin to experience serenity, indeed heaven itself.

Job 33:13–30 NIV

13 Why do you complain to him that he responds to no one’s words? 14 For God does speak—now one way, now another— though no one perceives it. 15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, 16 he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, 17 to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, 18 to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword. 19 “Or someone may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in their bones, 20 so that their body finds food repulsive and their soul loathes the choicest meal. 21 Their flesh wastes away to nothing, and their bones, once hidden, now stick out. 22 They draw near to the pit, and their life to the messengers of death. 23 Yet if there is an angel at their side, a messenger, one out of a thousand, sent to tell them how to be upright, 24 and he is gracious to that person and says to God, ‘Spare them from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for them— 25 let their flesh be renewed like a child’s; let them be restored as in the days of their youth’— 26 then that person can pray to God and find favor with him, they will see God’s face and shout for joy; he will restore them to full well-being. 27 And they will go to others and say, ‘I have sinned, I have perverted what is right, but I did not get what I deserved. 28 God has delivered me from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light of life.’ 29 “God does all these things to a person— twice, even three times— 30 to turn them back from the pit, that the light of life may shine on them.

John 8:32 NIV

32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

“No tree can grow to Heaven unless its roots reach down to Hell.”