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Of Trees and the
Tree Genesis 3:1-7; 22-24
1st Peter 2:21-25
Psalm 1
I: -- What's
wrong with you? What's wrong with
me? What's wrong with the world?
What's wrong with the world is something the world would never guess: it
slanders the goodness of God.
The old, old story of Genesis is a timeless story not about one episode
in history but about the history of every man and every woman, for
"Adam" is Hebrew for "everyman" and "Eve" for
"mother of all the living". According
to the old story God has placed us in a garden abounding in trees: "every
tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food".
God has placed us in a setting that delights us and nourishes us
abundantly. In addition to the
myriad trees in
In addition to the tree of life there stands the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. "Good and
evil" does not mean "good plus evil".
"Good-and-evil" (virtually one word) is a semitism, a Hebrew
expression meaning "everything, the sum total of human possibilities,
everything that we can imagine." To
know, in Hebrew is to have intimate acquaintance with, to experience.
In forbidding us to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil God
is warning us against intimate acquaintance with the sum total of everything
that we can imagine. He is warning
us against thinking we must experience or even may experience whatever we can
dream up. In other words, God has
set a limit to human self-extension; God has set a limit to our extending
ourselves into anything at all that the mind and heart can invent.
Why has God set such a limit? Why
does he urge us to become intimately acquainted with everything that is both
nourishing and delightful, both essential to life and culturally rich -- and
then in the same breath warn us against becoming intimately acquainted with
"good and evil"? He sets
such a limit just because he loves us; he sets this limit for our blessing.
This side of the limit is blessing; the other side is curse.
This side of the limit there is the blessing of curative medicines the
other side of the limit there is cocaine, curse.
This side of the limit there is the one-flesh union of marriage,
blessing; the other side there is the curse of promiscuity and perversion with
their degradation and disease. God,
who is good in himself, wants only what is good for us.
Good? We don't think that God
is good when he tells us, "Every tree except the one tree"; we think
he's arbitrary. After all, he didn't
consult us when he decided where the boundary line was to be; he simply told us;
arbitrary.
The root human problem is that we disparage the goodness of God.
We disparage the goodness of God when we scorn the tree of life,
dismissing the goodness of God and the truth of God, even as we tell ourselves
that he has proscribed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil not because he
longs to bless us but just because he's arbitrary; and not only arbitrary, but a
spoilsport as well since he won't allow us to extend ourselves into all those
possibilities that would surely enrich us -- wouldn't they?
The tree of life represents discipleship; the tree of life represents
what it is to be profoundly human: human beings are created to be glad and
grateful covenant-partners with God. The
tree of the knowledge of good and evil -- prohibited! -- is the alternative to
discipleship, the alternative to glad and grateful covenant-partnership with
God. The root human problem, then,
is that we don't want life from God's hand under the conditions God sets for our
blessing. We prefer an alternative;
we want to be the author and judge and master of our own life.
According to our ancient story the garden of profuse creaturely delights
continues to delight us as long as we hear and heed the creator who gave them to
us. As soon as we try to
"improve" upon him, however; as soon as we disobey him, proposing an
alternative to the covenant-partnership of discipleship, the creaturely delights
no longer delight us. They become
the occasion of endless frustration, emptiness, futility, curse. II: -- The
process by which we typically arrive at self-willed curse in place of God-willed
blessing is subtle. The serpent is
the personification of this subtlety. The
serpent asks with seeming innocence, "Did God say?
Did God really say you weren't to eat of that one tree?"
The serpent hasn't exactly lied: at no point does it say, "God never
said...". While the serpent
never exactly lies, neither does it ever exactly tell the truth.
The serpent (subtlety personified) smuggles in the assumption -- without
ever saying so explicitly -- that God's word, God's command is subject to our
assessment.
The subtlety takes the form of a question that appears innocent but in
fact is a doubt-producing question with a hidden agenda.
What's more, the doubt-producing question is an exaggeration: "Did
God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?'"
Any tree? There's the
exaggeration! God has forbidden us
to eat of one tree, one tree only!
Eve (mother of the living) decides to correct the serpent.
Surely there's no harm in correcting an exaggeration!
But for her there is, for as soon as she attempts to correct the serpent
she's been drawn into the serpent's territory; now she's dialoguing with a
subtlety to which she's not equal. When
first she heard, "Did God say?", the only thing for her to do was to
ignore the proffered subtlety. Correcting
it looks harmless but is ultimately fatal, for now she's been drawn into the
tempter's world.
Isn't it the case that as soon as you and I begin to reason with sin we
are undone? As soon as we begin to
reason with temptation we're finished! Temptation
can only be repudiated, never reasoned with, for the longer we reason with it
the longer we entertain it; and the longer we entertain it the faster our
reasoning becomes rationalization -- and rationalization, everyone knows, is
perfectly sound reasoning in the service of an unacceptable end.
As soon as Eve attempts to correct the serpent's exaggeration she
exaggerates herself! "God has
told us not to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree; we aren't even to touch the
tree, lest we die." God had
never said they weren't to touch it.
They were certainly to be aware of the tree, always aware of it, and
never to eat of it, never to experience it.
In trying to correct the serpent's exaggeration Eve exaggerates herself.
In trying to undo the serpent's distortion of the truth she distorts the
truth herself. Of course.
To dialogue with a subtlety pertaining to temptation is invariably to be
seduced by it.
Eve doesn't know it yet, but she's undone.
She doesn't know it, but the serpent does.
For this reason the serpent leaves subtlety behind and accosts her
blatantly. "You won't
die", it tells her as plainly as it can, "You won't die; you'll be
like God, the equal of God." It's
the tempter's word against God's; it's temptation's contradiction of God's
truth.
But God has said that we shall die if we defy him; we are going to
be accursed if we extend ourselves into areas and orbits beyond blessing.
"You won't die." Please
note that the first doctrine to be denied is the judgement of God.
Doctrines are the truths of God, and the first truth of God to be
disdained is the judgement of God. We
should note in passing that Jesus everywhere upholds it.
Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
with the result that "their eyes were opened".
They had thought that by defying God they were going to be enlightened.
By defying him, however, they have moved to a new level of experience;
their eyes are opened -- but now they are anything but enlightened.
They now know "good and evil".
They have intimate acquaintance with, first-hand experience of, what God
had pronounced off-limits. Too late,
they now know too why it was pronounced "off-limits": it's accursed.
To sum it all up, the primal temptation to which every human being
succumbs is the temptation to be like God, to be God's rival (actually, his
superior). The primal temptation is
to regard God's truth as inferior to our "wisdom"; to slander God's
loving "No" as spoilsport arbitrariness; to regard obedient service to
God as demeaning servility; to pretend that a suicidal plunge is a leap into
life. Ultimately the primal
temptation is to look upon God's goodness as imaginary, his will as capricious,
his judgement as unsubstantial. III: -- The
result is that Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden.
Expelled means driven out. By
decree. Does forced expulsion strike
you as rather heavy-handed for a God whose nature is love?
Then be sure to understand that the forced expulsion is also the logical
outcome of disobedience. After all,
Jesus insists (John 17:3) that life, eternal life, is fellowship with
God. And fellowship with God is precisely what humankind repudiates.
Then a forced expulsion from the garden -- a forced expulsion that issues
in estrangement instead of intimacy, creaturely goods that frustrate instead of
delight, daily existence that is cursed instead of blessed, and a future
bringing the judge instead of the father -- all of this we have willed for
ourselves. We think the expulsion to
be heavy-handed? We wanted it!
In the ancient story the cherubim, spirit-beings who safeguard God's
holiness, together with a flaming sword that turns in every direction; these
guarantee that God means what he says: humankind is out of the garden, is
prevented from going back in, is now living under curse, and can't do anything
about it. IV: -- We
can't do anything about it. Only the
holy one whose holiness cannot abide our sinfulness can.
Only he can. But will he?
Has he? Peter cries, "He
himself bore our sins in his body on the tree!" (1 Peter 2:24)
He himself did? Who is
"he himself"? It is our
Lord Jesus Christ, he and none other.
We must never think, however, that after Peter had denied his Lord and
had run away he suddenly came to the happy conclusion that Jesus is the great
sin-bearer for the whole wide world. He
had concluded only that Jesus was accursed.
After all, the Torah said it all clearly: "...a hanged man is
accursed by God. Therefore, if a man
has committed a crime punishable by death and you hang him on a tree, don't
leave his body on the tree overnight; remember, anyone hanged on a tree is
accursed by God." (Deut. 21:22-23) Since
Jesus had been hanged on a tree (of sorts), Jesus had to be accursed by God.
Such people weren't accursed because they were hanged; they were hanged
because they were accursed; and they were accursed because they were unspeakably
debased sinners.
It was only in the light of Easter morning that Peter understood what had
really happened. It was through his
Easter morning encounter with the risen one himself, it was in the light of the
Father's Easter vindication of the Son that Peter saw several things
simultaneously. [1]
Jesus was accursed; he had died under God's curse. [2]
Yet Jesus wasn't accursed on account of his sin; he was accursed on
account of humankind's sin. That is,
while he was not a transgressor himself, he was "numbered among the
transgressors". While not a
sinner himself, he identified himself so thoroughly with sinners as to receive
himself the Father's just judgement on them.
"He bore our sins in his body on the tree."
To "bear sin" is a Hebrew expression meaning to be answerable
for sin and to endure its penalty. The
penalty for sin is estrangement from God. In
enduring this penalty -- demonstrated in his forlorn cry of God-forsakenness --
Jesus answered on our behalf. [3]
Because Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God he possesses the same
nature as God. Father and Son are
one in nature, one in purpose, one in will.
It is never the case that the Son is willing to do something that the
Father is not, that the Son is kind while the Father is severe, that the Son is
eager to pardon while the Father is eager to condemn.
Incarnation means that Father and Son are of one nature and mind and
heart. To say, then, that Jesus bore
the judge's just judgement on our sin is to say that the judge himself took his
own judgement upon himself. But of
course he who is judge is also father. Which
is to say, when Jesus bore our sins in his body the Father bore them in his
heart. The just judge executed
the judgement that he must, then bore it himself and therein neutralized it, and
all in order that his characteristic face as Father might be the face that
shines upon you and me forever. Father
and Son are one in judgement, one in execution, one in anguish, and one in
pardon. What the Son bore the Father
bore, in order that justice uncompromised might issue in mercy unimpeded.
In the light of Christ's resurrection the truth of the cross and the
nature of its curse flooded Peter. V: -- When
Peter cried, "He bore our sins in his body on the tree", he went on to
say in the same breath, "in order that we might die to sin and live to
righteousness."
Then the only thing left for us to decide this morning is whether or not
we are going to die to sin and live to righteousness.
Here only do we have anything to say, to do, to become.
We can't do anything about Eden. We have been expelled, and rightly
expelled, having disparaged the goodness of God and disobeyed the wisdom of God
and disdained the blessing of God. Just
as we can't do anything about Eden we can't do anything about our consequent
condition: we can't overturn it, can't right it, can't alter it however
slightly. We can't do anything to
effect atonement, can't do anything to make ourselves "at one" with
God once more. We can't do anything
here for two reasons. In the first
place, offenders can't finally achieve reconciliation in any personal
relationship anywhere in life. Reconciliation
is always finally in the hands of the offended party anywhere in life.
Since we are offenders any possibility of reconciliation rests with the
God we have offended.
We can't do anything to effect atonement, in the second place, just
because it's already been done. God
wrought our reconciliation to him in the cross. To
think we can improve upon it is to disdain the blessing he has fashioned for us;
and this is to commit the primal sin all over again.
Then there is only one matter for us to settle.
Are we going to or are we not going to die to sin and live to
righteousness? If we intend to do
this today or to go on doing it today we must cling in faith to the crucified
one himself. He is the son
with whom the Father is ever pleased. Then
in clinging to him we too shall become that child of God who delights the
Father. He is the wisdom of
God. Then in clinging to him we
shall forswear our folly and know blessing instead of curse.
In clinging to him and following him throughout life we shall know that
his service, so far from servility, is in fact our glory.
His tree is now become the tree of life.
To become ever more intimately acquainted with it is to relish the
rigours of discipleship, recognizing all alternatives as the spiritual suicide
that they are. VI: -- As
we cling to our Lord in faith the psalmist will say of us what he said of others
so long ago:
They are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do they prosper.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
(Psalm 1:3,6) Victor
Shepherd
April 2003
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