Oh, Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree (Christmas Sunday, December 19, 2021)

Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.

It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred - and by that I mean, to be kept sacrosanct. The pilgrims’s second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event” after leading England into the Commonwealth, governing from 1653 to 1658. In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

An illustration from a December 1848 edition of the Illustrated London News shows Queen Victoria and her family surrounding a Christmas tree. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince (and first cousin) Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived.

By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.

The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts. Electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home became an American tradition.

We will come back to the Christmas Tree. Keep it tucked away in your thoughts while we examine some other Trees. These trees are relevant to our Wednesday study.

On our Wednesday study (we are currently in Rev 2:7

Revelation 2:7 NKJV

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” ’

And here, we have been doing a brief categorical study of the 4 categories of trees mentioned from the Garden of Eden.

Our text for this is Genesis 2:9

Genesis 2:9 NKJV

And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

I will read the context for us: Genesis 2:8-15

“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four river heads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”

To tend and keep it - this was not a little garden. This was not the Britt Garden. You may not know this, but Peter Britt from Jacksonville, was an amazing gardener and horticulturist. He had the first commercial vineyards and winery and commercial orchard, in the state of Oregon. His garden was so amazing with tropical plants and a vast inventory of plantings that it was the number one tourist destination in the state of Oregon for some 20 years, advertised on the railroads. This, of course, before Crater Lake became the number one Tourist Destination in the state. But Peter’s little garden did not compare to what was in the Garden of Eden!

Eden was God’s plan for GOOD. You see, God’s plan for man was a design for happiness and blessing and prosperity which was to be indefinitely perpetuated.

But even though everything was perfect, not all was according to the ultimate plan of GOD, yet.

Why??

Because Adam’s rib was still inside him. The plan would not yet be complete, until God had completed him. You see, Adam was able to survey the garden. He found happiness and blessing and prosperity - as we will find, when we review the 4 Categories of Trees. But God had a plan for man and his dominion of all that God had created for him. That plan included Eve, and would extend to all generations after them.

Back to our Trees: Here are the four categories of Trees in the Garden of Eden:

There are four categories of trees in the garden of Eden, Genesis 2:9. First category: every tree being desirable to the sight;

Category one is a category designed for the prosperity of the soul. All happiness in mankind must relate to man’s soul: to his self-consciousness, to his frontal lobes, the emotion (which by itself is a disaster) which was designed to be responsive to thought in the soul, the volition which is not an issue in eternity but is an issue in time. All happiness is related to what you think, and if doctrine is resident in your soul then you have happiness. If you have in the soul capacity for happiness from doctrine, then what you are doing, no matter what it is, is the expression of that happiness. Circumstances make no difference. The first tree in the garden relates to the principle of happiness of soul. Man was created in an environment of happiness for the soul. The woman was taken from man and created in an environment of happiness for the soul. Category one, then, was designed for man’s pleasure of soul, for his capacity for happiness. Man in his original state then derived great pleasure from the observation of category one trees, the trees being desirable to the sight. As created from God, then, man had perfect capacity for happiness. Therefore the state of innocence in the garden was the epitome of great happiness. Man reaped what God sowed, and even though man moved into a state of sin the principle of happiness never changed. The trees were gone but the principle remains: happiness is a state of soul; misery is a state of soul. In the original creation man was created to be a creature of happiness. When man left the garden of his own volition he also walked out on perfect happiness.

Second Category: “and those good for food”

Category two trees, mentioned in Genesis 2:9 — “and those good for food.” Fun and happiness has always been associated with eating, and the reason for that is that God designed the taste buds. Then taste buds are not the soul, they are related to the body. And the fact is that man in the garden had happiness of soul and happiness of body. Food was designed to express happiness, to satisfy, to stimulate, to perpetuate health in the human body. Again, the grace principle of blessing: Adam in innocence reaped what God sowed. Stimulation of the taste buds was a reminder of God’s grace before sin, just as eating the bread of the communion table is reminder of exactly the same thing. In our soul, if we have doctrine and when we eat the bread of the communion table it is a reminder of God’s grace after man sinned. The body is the home of the soul. Therefore the first two categories of trees in the garden provided blessing for both body and soul.

Third Category: “and the tree of life in the middle of the garden”

Category three tree is the tree of life. The tree of life provided both the capacity for happiness plus blessing — total appreciation of God’s grace. Hence the tree of life is the total happiness of man designed by God when He created Adam. By creation, man was created to be happy. He had a perfect soul in a perfect body. Therefore he had perfect origin of happiness, perfect expression of happiness. The tree of life combined immortality with perfect happiness and could only be lost through Adam’s disobedience.

Man was created, with free will in order to resolve Satan’s appeal of his sentence to go to the lake of fire, Matthew 25:41. Therefore the tree of life was the expression of man’s positive volition toward God’s provision: perfect happiness, perfect environment. The tree of life was provided under the principle of grace. Man didn’t earn it; man didn’t deserve it. However, in order to express positive volition, man must have the ability to express negative volition - which will lead us to the fourth tree category.

Before we go to the fourth tree, notice then that the tree of life was provided for man as the ruler of this world. A ruler ought to be happy. If a ruler is happy it filters down. The tree of life would be useless to man in the status of spiritual death. Why? It is impossible to be a sinner and to be happy. Sin destroys happiness. That is why you cannot sin inside what we call the divine dynasphere - that is the filling and empowering provision of God, wherein we function in the plan of God for us, and you have to make a negative volition decision to get out. This tree of life was man’s use, then, of positive volition toward the plan of God which made man the ruler of planet earth. And the tree of life is God’s grace provision for man as the ruler of this world.

Category Four: “and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”

By creation man was designed for happiness, blessing, prosperity, which was perpetuated indefinitely unless he used his own free will to reject it all. The only way man could be unhappy was to use his own free will to disobey God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, only negative volition toward the plan of God. Man was perpetuated in happiness in the garden indefinitely, there was no termination on the contract unless man terminated it. Only disobedience could destroy the perfect happiness and the perfect capacity for happiness which existed in the garden.

The first sin and the greatest sin involved no morality at all. What it involved was rejecting perfect happiness provided by God; it was rejecting perfect prosperity provided by God; it was rejecting perfect environment provided by God. In other words, the tree of life would be useless to man in a state of spiritual death from sin, which is his state after choosing the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and which is his state today.

When man sinned and went into negative volition toward the divine prohibition toward the fourth tree he was driven out of the garden of Eden and cut off from the tree of life — Genesis 3:24

Genesis 3:24 NKJV

So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

In other words, the tree of life represents two things: perfect happiness and perfect happiness perpetuated. But you can’t have both trees. It is one or the other. Access to the tree of life was cut off, because the tree of good and evil was chosen. Return to the tree of life, would perpetuate misery, and the state of sin - without any possible consolation. Access was cut off and therefore perfect happiness cannot exist in the human race through the tree of life. That door is now closed. As close as you can come to perfect happiness in your life now, without the tree of life, is through the status quo - the state of being, or literally, “the state of which” - of maturity at gate 8 of the dynasphere. And just as eating at the tree of life meant happiness, so (eating — taking in the Word of God) doctrine in the soul is as close as man (including you of course) can come to the perfect happiness of the garden. There is no other way. And you can destroy that perfect happiness the same way that Adam did: by the use of your own volition. We are the products of our own volition. We can see, therefore, that if man in the status of spiritual death had eaten from the tree of life his human volition or free will would no longer be the means of solving the angelic conflict. Immortality in that status of spiritual death would condemn the human race to the lake of fire with Satan.

So in Genesis 3:22-24

Genesis 3:22–24 NKJV

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

You can’t have an old sin nature and eat of the tree of life. That is a contradiction of destruction. You can’t have perfect happiness and sin. You cannot choose simultaneously both the plan of God and the cosmic system of Satan because they are mutually exclusive. Man would have no free will after the fall if he had been permitted to eat of the tree of life, and therefore the tree of life was put out of his reach so that his own free will would determine where he spends eternity.

This leads us to a Tree that is not in paradise. There were four trees in the Garden of Eden. None of them are available to us now - their place in history is gone. They were part of the plan of God for man in a state of innocence.

Outside the garden, man still has a free will choice that he can make - and that option involves whether or not he will express faith in Christ at the cross — and his own free will would determine whether he would be happy or miserable in life. By expelling man from the garden the eating the tree of life was no longer the issue, but the eating of another tree, the cross, is an issue. Eating is an illustration of faith; it is a non-meritorious function. Man can express his volition via a non-meritorious option, and once again return to the tree of life.

Remember, that the plan of God is GOOD.

His first plan in the place of perfection, with innocent and unfallen man was for GOOD.

… and God has a plan, now that man is fallen from the place of perfection, and now that man is no longer in a state of innocence.

And this plan involves something that we call imputation. In this case - it is judicial imputation.

So, what is imputation? Imputation is to place something on something, or to assign something to something. It can be the act of reckoning a legal debit or credit to an account. You know about this - every time the bank takes away or puts money in your bank account, it is the result of imputing that debit or credit to you.

A Judicial imputation is the judgement of imputation. The Judge, in other words, can impute something of legal consequence before the court. He can validate or invalidate charges of money, or legal standings like guilty or not-guilty.

Psalm 32:2 NKJV

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit.

IS 53:6

Isaiah 53:6 NKJV

All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Let me read that whole passage: Isaiah 53:6-12

“All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Ther…”

Romans 4:22-25

Romans 4:22–25 NKJV

And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.

Romans 5:13, from the passage of Romans 5:12-19

Romans 5:13 NKJV

(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

2 cor 5:19

2 Corinthians 5:19 NKJV

that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

We noted that The Judge, in other words, can impute something of legal consequence before the court. He can validate or invalidate charges of money, or legal standings like guilty or not-guilty.

In the case of God, we are talking about the character of God that we call Perfect Justice, and in this plan for GOOD, we will see that God leverages His Perfect Justice.

To the great surprise of most believers today, who have not been well taught - it is the Justice of God that provides the Grace of God’s provision to us. Grace does not come through the love of God. Grace comes through the Justice of God.

Perfect Justice is one point of the essence of God. We speak of the essence box - which is a way to describe the characteristics of God which He Himself has revealed to mankind through His word, the Bible. The box contains each of these characteristics that describe God. So God’s essence includes all of the characteristics of God.

The first of the major characteristics of god is that God is Eternal. God exists eternally. We call it Eternal Life. He has no beginning, He has no end. There is no limitation that can be placed on any of His self described attributes. They are Absolute, and they extend Eternally. God is outside of time; He has no beginning, He has no end; As the creator of all that is created, God cannot be constrained by anything that is created; at the beginning, God created time and the universe. All of creation is constrained by time. God is not so constrained. This concept can be abstract even for adults. However, when studying Physics, I found that I had incredible insight over my peers and my instructors. Because I knew this principle, of the nature of time I also knew that God created time. Time is one. There is one time (or one timeline, we might call it). It is tied to creation. There is one creation - and one timeline. Don’t be distracted by the various theories of time loops, or time travel. It is great fodder for unending story lines - but it is not true. String theory of the sub atomic particle realm, meaning smaller than the particles that make atoms - protons, neutrons, and electrons, so the things that make up all of creation, can only be true to a point - when it is used to modify time, predict multiple universes, etc., it is patently false. As in any field, many brilliant Physicists have been pulled into the examination for years, decades, entire lifetimes of the patently absurd. The wrong assumption (that time can be changed or traveled, or that multiple creations can exist) ends up as the proverbial mistress expressed in Proverbs 7: who’s seductions will rob every aspect of health and quality of life. As an aside, science is not science when it is not true. A science that must be believed is scientism. Real science is true whether you believe it or not. So, we are asserting that science is correctly observing and correctly documenting what is true.

To simplify our understanding about God - we typically refer to God as having Eternal Life. so the item we pull from the essence box when teaching our children, is called Eternal life. A simplification of the same concept.

There are other items that we have in the essence box - that is the list of major divine attributes.

We also have the attributes of Omniscience - or all knowing. God in His eternal state, must know all things. If there were a limitation - that could not be definition describe God. So God knows all things.

God is Omnipotent - he is all powerful. There is no limit to His power.

God is Omnipresent - there is no limit to where He can be. Don’t be confused here, God is not constrained to creation. But wherever there can be place - God is. Also, do not think that creation is a manifestation of God - it is not. Creation is antonymous from God - which means it is separate from God. Creation is limited to itself whereas God is limitless. God can be, and is, everywhere at once. Pantheism, in one of its views, that the idea that all matter and energy is God, and that God is manifest in all matter and energy, is an example of limitation.

Pantheism is the belief that reality is identical with divinity, or that all things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god. Pantheist belief does not recognize a distinct personal god.

God is sovereign. He works all things after the counsel of His will. Eph 1:11

Ephesians 1:11 NKJV

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,

God is perfect and without flaw, therefore He is perfect in all things He chooses to do. As He is Eternal and Omnipotent and Omniscient - God can and does do whatever He alone chooses. God is in charge. He is not chaotic, but is structured, organized in the perfect fashion. Man does not have sovereignty. He has been given a volition - a free will. This free will only operates within the limitations of space, time, and situation. Man ultimately has sovereignty only over his volition, his choices. He can try to apply sovereignty over his children or spouse, and vice versa, they can try to exert sovereignty over him. A king is sovereign within the limitation of the surrounding kingdoms or countries, and his advisors, and population, and the quality of his governance.

God is Immutable - that is He is unchanging. Perfection cannot change, or be changed. God is the ultimate in Eternal Stability. This should be a great relief to everyone - we always know what to expect, if we have properly understood the word of God!

This will lead us to the concept of Perfect Faithfulness, and Veracity which stem from God’s Immutability. Because God is Immutable, unchangeable, He must be Faithful.

Also God is Perfect Veracity - which means that He cannot lie. God can only tell the truth. Because God’s knowledge is vast, and because He is Eternal, when He communicates with us, He uses ideas and terminology and concepts that we can grasp with our finite minds. He throws in the assistive ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and gives us the ability to grasp what He communicates to us.

God is Perfect Righteousness (+R). He is absolutely righteous! You may be familiar with the term Holy or Holiness. Holiness means absolute virtue or absolute integrity. When we talk about the integrity of God - that is what we mean.

God is love.

The Father proved His love for His own holiness by sending His Son (John 3:16; 9:4); only through His plan of grace can divine love ever be extended to believers who possess divine righteousness as of faith in Christ (1 John 2:15; 3:1; 4:19).

The Son’s love is manifested in the same way through the cross (Eph. 5:25; 1 John 3:16);

and the Holy Spirit’s love is demonstrated in revealing salvation (John 16:7-11) and Bible doctrine (1 Cor. 2:10).

Judicial imputation number one took place at birth: Adam’s original sin was imputed to us. Adam was destroyed by sin, and so are we.

Our personal sins were imputed to Christ on the cross. This is true for every man, woman and child - every sinner’s sins were imputed to Christ. Believer, Unbeliever - it does not matter. Christ died for all. This means that He, Jesus Christ, paid the needed sacrifice for the sins of every person. 1 John 2:1-2

1 John 2:1–2 NKJV

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

Every person has a free will potential to respond to the perfect sacrifice of Christ on their behalf. Keep in mind - that this imputation of all sin to the person of Christ is NOT salvation, but rather it is God demanded the only possible grace provision for salvation.

The first Tree of Life was granted by God through grace, without any merit or means by which man might earn it. It was his on a grace basis. This Second Tree of Life will be granted solely based on grace provision as well.

We can clarify this by looking at the picture given to us in the Passover. As we have studied - the Passover is a picture of salvation. It expands on the doctrine of the sacrifice of Isaac. The picture of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is the picture of Justice. Justice must be satisfied. But a grace substitute provided by God DOES satisfy His Justice. Abraham (and Isaac’s) faith was tested - and proven. Even in the face of an impossible requirement - they knew that God would be faithful. So too, all, who are faced with a greater impossibility, can be certain that God is faithful. God supplied a lamb for Abraham and Isaac. It was a grace provision - provided before their act of faith had been committed. The grace was there already. Through Abrahams act of faith - his faith was shown … and through his faith, grace was revealed.

In the Passover picture, we have the same thing. The promise of God was given freely to all of Egypt. Whoever wanted to escape the judgement of God on their household, must slay the lamb and place the shed blood on the doorway of their dwelling. Everyone had opportunity to escape judgement. But it turned out it was only the Sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob aka Israel who would chose to escape the judgement of God.

So this is the picture that we have before us -

A tree. Picture this Christmas Tree, if you will.

But what does this Tree represent to you?

It might represent the pleasures of life - the beauty, the solemnity, the happiness, the contentment of creation. All that was in the Category one Tree. That could be what we are after as we decorate for Christmas, put up a tree, put out lights, etc..

It might represent the sustainment of life - the food, the satisfaction, the enablement, the provision for living this physical life. All that was in the Category two Tree. Yumm!!

It might represent the dependence upon self - self provision, self reliance, self enablement, self governance. All that was in the Category four Tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

It cannot represent the source of eternity, the source of provision of capacity for happiness and blessing from the age of innocence - because access to that tree was for that place and time.

It might, however, represent the source of salvation after Eden, after the fall, after the consequences of our actions. You may be under the judgement of Adam, but the penalty of your sin has been placed upon Christ and Judged. Your sin was imputed to Christ - and He was judged for it. You have a choice. If you believe that for yourself - if you believe it is true for you, that your sin was taken by Christ in your stead; if you believe that you deserved the penalty for sin, but that Christ has taken in your place, and you rely upon this fact to restore your relationship with God ...

Then there is another imputation available - the imputation of GRACE whereby God gives you the perfect righteousness of His essence box in your standing before Him. He paid the price for your sin, in order that you might utilize the GRACE formula. It did not shirk Justice. It was the exact meting out of Justice. Through the law of perfect provision, a substitute can take our place, and this is acceptable and just and meets the terms of perfect Integrity. God’s Integrity demanded a sacrifice. God’s Integrity accepted a perfect sacrifice. The sacrifice has been presented, accepted, judgment demanded and paid, therefore the debt has been paid. God’s Integrity is satisfied.

Therefore any man that believes will be saved.

John 3:16 NKJV

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

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