A Tale of Two Trees
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Genesis 2:7-9, 15-17, 3:1-7
(February 13, 2005 Sermon Transcript)

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        Grace mercy and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

        From our first lesson this morning we read in part, And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-- trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

        This is the first Sunday in Lent. And since this season is about recognizing the gravity of our sin, and the tremendous sacrifice our Lord Jesus Christ made to bring us the forgiveness of sin, I think there is no better place to begin the season than to begin our journey to Good Friday at the very beginning.

        Indeed, to begin that sermon to you about the Garden of Eden and our first parents, Adam and Eve. It was in the garden that we find a fateful decision being made. There before Adam and Eve is the perfection of what God has created, resplendent in every possible respect. In the midst of the garden, God had planted - please notice God had planted both trees - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life. They must have been magnificent to see!

        For indeed, we are told, they were pleasing to the eye, and the fruit looked utterly delicious.

        As they stand there, being tempted by the Satan, the Evil One, eternal life and death literally hang in the balance, not only for them, but for all who will come from them. For in them is contained all that humanity would ever be. And if they fall, everything that proceeds from them is fallen as well.

        The only command given to them is to refrain from eating from the one tree. But of the Tree of Life permission is granted! They are welcome to come and imbibe, to eat, to enjoy!

        That means, that there is a tale here, not of one tree, but of two.

        First there is the Tree of Life. Here is, in my estimation, the obvious choice. For to eat of the Tree of Life was to be confirmed in eternal holiness and fellowship with God forever. It was to enter into eternal rest with Him, and to know and understand the eternal perfection of God, and to be conformed to the image to God in a way that you and I cannot even imagine. For to eat of the Tree of Life would have brought them into fellowship with God. Right then. Right there. No waiting.

        And all who would have proceeded from them would have likewise been confirmed, not only in their sinlessness, but also in the image of God in which we had been created. Everything we would have ever longed for in Heaven was right there! Available. An invitation issued.

        It was certainly in the heart and intention of God for His creatures to obey His command not to eat of the other tree, and to eat of the Tree of Life. Now there’s no point, and no spiritual or scriptural reason, to view either the Tree of Life or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as anything other than being real trees with real fruit. Now, the fruit of those trees, by special act of God, was imbued with blessings intended for those creatures whom God not only made, but also dearly loved.

        If only Adam and Eve would have chosen to be obedient to God, eating of the Tree of Life, all would have been well for them. And all would have been well for us.

        No doubt about it.

        Eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life would have completed within humanity all that God intended for His creatures to be.

        Sin would no longer have been an option. This would not have been a coercion to conform to God’s will, but rather, it would have been a conforming of His will with ours in such fashion that sin and evil would not at all, under any circumstances, would be desired. That our heart’s delight would have been to conform our will to that of the father.

        Evil, then, would have been seen and known for what it was, and avoided completely.

        Having eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life, ironically, would have provided the knowledge of good and evil, which could have been obtained by refraining from eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

        And then there’s the other tree. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The power to distinguish between good and evil, by the way, is commended as a gift from God. Indeed, when we listen to Solomon, after having been given a great offer to choose anything he wanted before he became king, he chose this. From 1 Kings.

        And I would suggest that this power to distinguish between good and evil is also a quality of the holy angels. For we read God saw all that he had made and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. And the holy angels then knew the difference between good and evil. And I think in the higher sense, we learn from scripture this quality of knowledge and understanding are finally exemplified to the utmost in God Himself.

        And so we read that this is not something that is bad, to know good and evil, but a God-like quality. The question is, how can it be obtained? After all, we are parents, most of us, or will be, or have been. And I want you to think for a moment, didn’t you not want your children to know the different between good and evil? Did you not expend a great deal of time and effort to make sure they understood the distinction? And would choose the good over the evil, however imperfectly they, or we, may have done it? Of course.

        Let us not also forget that the one who created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, who declared it to be very good at the completion of His creation, is none other than God Himself. There is essentially nothing wrong with knowing the difference between good and evil.

        But then, how is this knowledge to be acquired by Adam and Eve? It’s very simply, actually. They would have acquired what Satan falsely tempted them to acquire by NOT eating of the fruit of the tree. But rather in their refraining from it, they would have gained exactly that which they sought. And they would have gained also through the fruit of the Tree of Life.

        Had Adam and Eve rejected the temptation of Satan to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they would have, in fact, had it! What an irony! To have gotten the very thing they had sought!

        And so holiness, and eternal life, and all that would be brought to our first parents can only be found, and acquired, - listen carefully - through obedience. Obedience and conformity to the will of God. That’s the way it was then, and quite frankly, it’s still true now. The only question is, is it our obedience or the obedience of Christ?

        Oh! First there was the Tree of Life. And then there was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And then there is the Tree of Life. Let me explain. If obedience to God brings eternal life, then Adam and Eve, and all of us, are in eternally very deep trouble. For indeed, the curse that was given to them applies also to us.

        To Adam He said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

        Doesn’t sound very hopeful, does it? Our best efforts to behave are but futile attempts to overcome our own nature. Romans, chapter 3 writes it very clearly in these words. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

        Holiness and eternal life are found in a righteousness that is not found in keeping the law. And yet, obedience to the law is fully demanded.

        There is no access to the Tree of Life now, except through the obedience of the one who kept the law. There is no access to the Tree of Life now, except through the one who comes as a living sacrifice and gives His life for us, and who expends His own blood, so that we might, indeed, have fellowship with the Father once again. There is no access to the Tree of Life now, except through the one who hangs on another tree of life.   

        Your see, our access to the Tree of Life and it’s life-giving fruit is made possible only through Jesus Christ, the very Son of God. To regain that which was lost in the fall, Christ restores our righteousness. To each and every one of us under the curse of Adam and Eve comes the new Adam who does not fail to be obedience. We saw that clearly in our gospel reading today. As we see a sort of video replay of the first temptation. Satan comes again to the new Adam, and tosses out his doubt on God’s word by asking Him, "If you are the Son of God....", when he knew full well He was!

        By making contradictions to God’s word, that "all of this you can have if you just fall down and worship me!", and by giving false promises to do the same.

        To each and every one of us under the curse of Adam comes a new Adam who does not fail. He does not miss one jot or tittle of the law, for He fulfills it to the nth degree.

        We are reminded in second Corinthians also that a sacrifice is being made for us. Our Lord, St. Paul writes, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

        Did you hear that last phrase? You have become the righteousness of, not Dick Bolland, not anybody else, you have become the righteousness of God. Now, I would ask, how righteous is God? And I would ask that you would obviously think of the proper response to that, which is, God is utterly righteous. Nothing that is unrighteous in Him. And ascribed to you is that very righteousness, that very law-keeping, not because we have done it, but because Christ has done it as our substitute.

        Let me say to you that it was Jesus who brings us to the Tree of Life by means of a tree. The tree of the cross brings us to the Tree of Life. Listen to the words of St. Luke as he writes in Acts these words. "We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen-- by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

        Children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles. It is for us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem did not recognize Jesus ye. In condemning Him they were fulfilling the words of the prophet that are read every shabbat. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have Him executed. And when they had carried out all the was written about Him, they carried Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.

        But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days He was seen by those who traveled with Him from HaGalil to Yrushalayim. They are now witnesses to our people.

        The Tree of Life on Golgatha’s tree is ours. The Tree of Life through the empty tomb is ours. We shall know God and live with God because of that tree because we will also know Him face to face. We shall see God face to face. And all of this is God’s gift to you.

        In Revelation our Lord says, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

        And then in the 22nd chapter of that same book, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb own the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place." "Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book."

        Have you ever wondered, as have I, what that tree looks like? That Tree of Life? Have you ever wondered, as have I, what it would taste like to bite into that fruit, to let its juices run down your face, to know the life-giving that it brings?

        I would suggest to you the wait will not be long. And you will see that tree. And you will taste that fruit. And you will be able to stand before God and sing His praises for ever and ever. And all of it has happened so that God’s original intent for us will be fulfilled. We will know the resplendent beauty of Eden revisited. We will know God, and He will know us. All of this was done by Christ. All of it a gift. All of it is His grace. You can’t earn it. You can’t deserve it. Because Christ has done it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.