Gen 2 Week 2 (Trees, Freedom, and Marriage)
Notes
Transcript
7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river went out from Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and became the source of four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon, which flows through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 Gold from that land is pure; bdellium and onyx are also there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon, which flows through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris, which runs east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”
Tree of Life Planted
Tree of Life Planted
I would hazard a guess that we rarely think of our existence as between two trees.
These trees in Genesis are a relatively small part of the Bible.
But they can actually be a powerful lens for how we read the whole story of the Bible.
Today I want to ask the question,
What are these trees?
The Tree of Life
And the Tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This is very poetic.
What purpose did they serve?
Did they make actual fruit?
But most importantly I want to ask the question,
What is the tale of these two trees trying to do? - Kerygma
We have to keep that question at the forefront of our minds.
If we don’t, we can start to get twisted up into knots,
especially when we are dealing with something mysterious and poetic like the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The tree of life is found in the beginning of Genesis, is briefly alluded to in certain parts of scripture,
and then we see it pop back up in all it’s glory in Revelation chapter 22 all the way at the end of the story.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil we only see in the garden, and then never again.
Why?
Well we’ll answer that question this evening.
In one sense these trees can get lost in all of the stories of the Bible.
If you were reading the Bible from front to back, by the time you got to the end where you see the tree of life again, you may have forgotten that it was even there in the first place.
But with this prominent placement both at the beginning and end of redemptive historical history,
we should be noticing it as this major theme that it is.
So, remembering the context for the writing of Genesis,
expand
let’s focus our question down now.
“Why did the people of Israel need to know about these trees?”
And then after we answer that question,
we can ask the question that naturally follows which is,
Why do WE need to know about these trees?
So first off let’s paint the scene here.
God creates the earth, and in the middle of this earth He plants a beautiful garden which is for the enjoyment of the pinnacle of His creation, human beings.
This garden is like a temple.
And then God does something interesting.
Something artistic.
Something creative.
He plants two trees in the garden.
They are two of many trees.
God gave them all sorts of trees that they can eat from.
Notice two things quickly about these trees:
God doesn’t tell them that they have to eat only from the tree of life.
As we will see in a moment, it is going to serve a sort of sacramental purpose.
The second thing to notice is that sin has not entered the world yet.
The existence of this other tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is not the existence of sin in the world.
These trees are not like yin and yang in the garden,
evil and good pitted against each other.
In fact, both of these trees are good and serve a very good purpose.
Sacramental Purpose of the trees.
A Sacrament is something that communicates divine grace.
That’s why we talk about baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “Sacraments”.
Tree of Life:
The tree of life served this sacramental role because it communicated to Adam and Eve that their life came directly from God, and He was the one who was daily caring for them and imparting grace to them by their taking and eating of this tree.
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil:
The tree of knowledge of good and evil served a different purpose.
This tree served as a reminder to them that though they had dominion over the creation around them, they lived under God’s rule.
It’s not as if this tree was just a sin tree that had poison fruit that would make them sinful people if they ate it.
In reality, this tree was actually a sign of their freedom.
Adam and Eve had perfect freedom in the garden.
But there freedom was very different from how we think of freedom in our consciousness.
If I were to ask each one of you in this room, one by one,
“Do you want freedom?”
You would answer “Yes.”
Why?
Well, because we were made for freedom.
Freedom is the defining characteristic of what it means to be human.
Freedom?
Let’s examine the nature of freedom.
Our society, in fact even our government structure is built on the concept of extending and protecting freedom to individuals.
We see this concept bear out in the way our laws have evolved over the course of the last few hundred years.
Freedom, in our country, is viewed primarily through the lens of autonomy.
What makes ME happy is the right that should be protected.
Now this works for awhile in a society that is heavily influenced by the gospel.
But what happens when it isn’t?
Because autonomy to live and do what makes you happy is actually a reduction of freedom.
It’s starting with a grain of truth,
the reality that God has made individuals,
individuals who have rights,
but when self interest becomes the dominant value of a free people, freedom is actually lost.
Let me illustrate this for you.
Ever increasing “Freedom”
Industrial Revolution
Transgenderism
Where are you when freedom infringes upon freedom?
In a mess.
How do you get out of the mess?
“To be fully human is to give yourself away for the sake of others.” -Mike Goheen
Adam and Eve, before the fall, didn’t think about their existence in terms of individual rights that couldn’t be infringed.
They thought about their existence as existing FOR the sake of another person.
and that is precisely when they were most free.
it's true that since the fall
We've all been taught a false view of freedom
And a rebellious mind recoils and is inclined to deny him
And bind him with the ties of treason
Either rebellion or righteousness
Both lead to the inescapable mark of eternal life or death
Bound to sin or bound to obey
Either way we're both slaves, one kills, one saves
Adam and Eve were not free to do whatever they wanted to.
Our American mind is tempted to say that they were not free because their freedom was restricted.
But that’s not the case.
Their freedom was complete and perfect BECAUSE they were restricted in what they could do.
this is the origin of freewill, that Adam wished to be independent, and dared to try what he was able to do.
Independence is antithetical to God’s version of freedom.
We think that freedom is the unfettered exercise of our freewill.
But Free Will and freedom are not the same thing.
One of my favorite examples illustrating this reality is of my childhood dog.
//PIPER//
When Piper exercised unrestricted free will, he was not free.
It is when we live in obedience, feeding off the tree of life,
that we are actually free.
Why did Israel need to know this?
Ra - Tree of Life Image -INSERT
Egypt and it’s gods would have the people who were enslaved to it believe that it was through these gods that we could have life.
And Yahweh is saying,
NO
I planted the tree of life.
Why do we need to know this?
We try to find life in everything but God.
Our spiritual condition without Christ is completely dead.
But you wanna know what the really sinister thing about being enslaved to sin and it’s gods?
These false gods will always pump just a little bit of life in you.
When we elevate the creation to the level of the creator, it feels good for a moment.
It might even feel good for years.
But in the end, these false gods will always dominate and enslave you.
This is why I do not like the cultural suggestion to
“Follow your heart.”
9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?
Where does your heart lead you?
The truth that scripture teaches us is that until God gets ahold of our hearts,
they lead us to death.
We talked a few weeks ago about how our cultural god is humanism.
The belief that mankind can solve mans problems through human solutions.
Now that’s not entirely bad,
we are supposed to use our minds to solve problems.
However,
the fault of humanism is that it leaves God out of the equation.
This is the crux of what the tree of life is doing.
It is reminding people,
people that God has made incredible,
with incredible ability to create and rule and care for the creation around them,
it is reminding them that it is GOD who enables them and allows them to do all these things.
That God is always in the equation
Humanism draws on the original flaw we see in the garden,
the desire to take more authority than God has allowed,
and to transfer our trust from God… to ourselves.
Just a few verses before this verse in Jeremiah we read this.
5 This is what the Lord says: The man who trusts in mankind, who makes human flesh his strength and turns his heart from the Lord is cursed. 6 He will be like a juniper in the Arabah; he cannot see when good comes but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land where no one lives. 7 The man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed. 8 He will be like a tree planted by water: it sends its roots out toward a stream, it doesn’t fear when heat comes, and its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit.
This is garden imagery!
God is saying that when we place our trust in ourselves, or anything other than Him, that we might as well be like a dried up Juniper tree in the middle of the desert.
Yet the person who puts their faith in Christ,
THAT person is restored to all the benefits of the garden.
Water.
Green.
Life.
So where do we go once there is no access to this tree of life?
Tree of Life Remembered
Tree of Life Remembered
Moses encounters a living tree on a mountain
People enslaved to false gods, worship not Yahweh on mountains, but every other god they can find.
Proverbs - meanwhile God is reminding them that there is a true and better tree.
18 She is a tree of life to those who embrace her, and those who hold on to her are happy.
Wisdom,
hopes fulfilled,
a tongue that heals.
Snake on a Pole.
Christ raised on the tree on a mountain.
Our father Adam had two trees set before him.
The reason why you don’t have access to a tree of knowledge of good and evil is because you don’t have a choice in the matter.
Because of how sin works, you may as well have been there with Adam and Eve rebelling against God.
There is no need for this tree because we have all tasted of sin already.
You have a tree set before you as well.
It is the same tree of life.
If we feed on Christ then we will live.
If we look to the tree where he hung in the place of sinners,
then we can have eternal life.
Just as Adam and Eve had a sacramental symbol reminding them of the fact that they were sustained by God,
so do we!
This is why we take the bread and the wine.
54 Anyone who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, 55 because My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. 56 The one who eats My flesh and drinks My blood lives in Me, and I in him.
This is also why Jesus tells us
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him—this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you are not able to do anything.
Jesus is literally telling us that HE is the tree of life.
This is why when you come forward to receive we say
“Christ’s body “GIVEN” for you.
It is a free gift of grace to you.
When you participate in the Lord’s supper you are feeding on the tree of life.
Choosing this is hard.
This is a reality that we see David acknowledging openly in Psalm 37.
People who are exercising their free will to do whatever they want often look pretty good.
But we won’t always be living in this in-between age.
Remember that the tree of life is at the end of the story as well.
Tree of Life Restored
Tree of Life Restored
Rev 22 Imagery
2 I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look! God’s dwelling is with humanity, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away. 5 Then the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water as a gift to the thirsty from the spring of life.
Why does death no longer exist?
Listen to this truth:
In the garden mankind was able to not sin.
God gave them freedom, and before they ate of that tree, they were not slaves to sin.
This is why the tree of knowledge of good and evil was required,
to remind them of this reality.
After the fall, humankind were not not able to sin.
Meaning they were enslaved to sin.
This is why WE don’t have this tree, it’s not required to remind us of our ability to obey God because we CAN’T obey God.
That is unless we are given access to the tree of life.
That is Christ.
This is why we only see one of those trees in the new creation.
Because where before, you were unable to obey,
In the restored creation, you will be unable to sin,
Because you are Christ’s.
And he has given you water from the spring of life.
And where does that spring come from?
Let’s read on,
1 Then he showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the broad street of the city. The tree of life was on both sides of the river, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, 3 and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His slaves will serve Him.
Revelation says that the leaves of the tree will be for the healing of the nations.
When we partake of the tree of life now,
we are dying to death.
We are enjoying union with Christ.
And if we are unified to Christ,
then our sin is no more.
How does war end?
By doing away with sin.
How does plague end?
By doing away with sin.
How does injustice end?
By doing away with sin.
This passage also says God’s slaves will serve him
We recoil from the word slave,
and in truth a fairer translation in our day might be better communicated as servant,
but why is it important that the Bible uses this imagery of slave to describe people who are in the kingdom of heaven?
Because a servant does not have two masters.
If Christ is our master,
than Satan isn’t.
When Satan is our master, we are promised freedom, but given chains and death.
We are going to see this sad reality unfold in the coming weeks as we see what happens when we are in bondage to sin.
When Christ is our master, we are promised freedom,
and we are GIVEN freedom.
Let us eat from the tree of life and drink from it’s stream, forever.
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