After the fall of Adam and Eve and the subsequent expulsion from the Garden of Eden God placed cherubim with a framing sword in a strategic location to “keep” or guard the way to the Tree of Life.
God states His concern in Genesis 3:22 that Adam and Eve might have been able to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and live forever. By so doing they would have sealed their fate as a fallen people who, though dead spiritually, would never die physically. It might have been the eternal “night of the living dead.”
But God said, “No.” He already had a plan of Salvation and spiritual restoration for Adam and Eve and their posterity.
The Tree of Life is a type of Christ who is the only source of true life in all of creation. If Adam and Eve had taken of the fruit of the tree they would have had life without redemption. Their sin would have become unforgivable, their wages unplayable.
God’s plan of redemption required the ultimate price: the death of the sinner. He was willing to accept a substitute but unless someone died and their shed blood made an atonement there could be no forgiveness or remission of sin and it’s results.
The fall of Adam left man estranged from God and without hope of redemption on his own. However, in His mercy and Grace God made a covering for the sins of Adam and Eve. It required the death of the innocent on their behalf. God gave them animal skins for clothing to cover their nakedness and shame. He could have created fine fashioned firs or denim jeans with a cotton shirt but most likely He took the life of an animal (or animals). This would have set a precedence of sacrifice that Able would later follow when he made an acceptable offering before the Lord.
The shedding of animal’s blood on behalf of man as an act of faith, obedience and atonement for sin was practiced by Able, Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and others up to the time of Moses when God made it a distinct part of His Law. In all this it was understood that the sacrifices were only symbolic or types of a greater, more perfect sacrifice that would once and for all pay the price of all sin.
When Jesus came and died on the cross He fulfilled all the types and symbols of the Law, the Tabernacle, the sacrifices and the atonement in Himself. With His death, burial and resurrection eternal life has now become accessible to mankind, not in a garden hanging from a tree, but on a hill hanging from a cross. Jesus “became sin for us”…”that we might be made the righteousness of God…” (II Cor. 5:21)
The wages of sin have been paid, the fruit of life is now man’s for the asking. With faith and repentance comes Salvation and Eternal Life.
Before the cross Eternal Life was a promise on credit. After the cross Eternal Life is a receivable asset. From Adam to the cross men and women who died in faith were still unrestored with God. They were still forbidden from the Tree of Life. It was a done deal, a Holy Covenant, a contract with God, yet the actions demanded had not yet been executed. The Old Testament saints had to wait for the cross.
Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus. He did not introduce the story as a parable but told it as an actual event. I believe there really was a poor Lazarus and a selfish rich man.
When they died they both went to the place of the dead or Scheol. Job spoke of it, David talked about it and there are various references to it in the Old Testament. Jesus described Scheol as having two parts with a great chasm between. There is the part called Torments where the dead in trespasses and in sins go and there is the part called Abraham’s Bosom or Paradise where the believing dead go.
In Ephesians 4 we read how Jesus descended into the depths at his death, preached to the saints and lead captivity captive. This appears to mystically describe Jesus going into Paradise and telling Adam, Abraham, Moses and all the other Old Testament saints that the atonement they looked for was accomplished once and for all, the bill or wages of sin had been paid. With this action and the presence of the life and light of the world they received their long awaited gift of Eternal Life. They no longer belonged in the place of the dead. Their atonement complete and eternal life received and communion with God fully restored (as in the Garden before the fall) Jesus took them to the very presence of God where all Old and New Testament Saint who have died in faith await the resurrection and subsequent events of the redemption of creation described in Revelation.
In the end we find the Tree of Life with full access. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. It bears several kinds of fruit. There is no guarding cherubim or sword.
One might wonder, “Why is there a Tree of Life in the midst of Heaven where there is no death or sickness?” If the Tree of Life was a type of Christ in the beginning it is still a type of Christ in Eternity. Maybe it is a memorial (as if we will need one) of God’s redemptive capacity, encompassing the antiquity of man’s original state of innocence in the Garden to God’s sacrificial atonement on the cross to the eternal glory with God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) in Heaven. Just because it is there does not mean it is needed any more than the gold that will pave the streets or the pearls that make up the Gates.
RLH
No comments:
Post a Comment