THE MANNA AND THE TREE OF LIFE

J.D.Gray

Genesis 2: 8, 9, 15-17; 3: 20-24; Revelation 2: 1, 7, 12, 17, 22: 1, 2

I would like to share with you some fragmentary thoughts about these scriptures, about the tree of life in the Genesis setting, the hidden manna in Revelation, the tree of life in the paradise of God and the tree of life in the holy city.

God made man. He was not made like the animals. Chapter 1 of Genesis tells us, “God said, Let the earth bring forth living souls after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth” (v 24), but man was not made like that. Man was made of the “dust of the ground” (2: 7), he has the distinction of God breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, “and Man became a living soul” (v 7). There is no other creature who went before like Adam. Young people may hear things at school about men that lived before, a long time ago, fifty thousand years ago, whatever they were, they were not Adam. The Adamic creation is the present one we live in and it is very recent, a few thousand years ago: God is very considerate for His creature Adam, He calls him, Man. What a joy to the Creator to see a being standing on his two feet with his face looking upward. There is no other creature that looks up as far as I can recall, they all look down to food that is on the ground. Man looks up and looks up to God.

God planted a garden in Eden, which means pleasure, or as has been referred to in ministry, paradise. Just note what it says here, “out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food”; there is a semi-colon there. I think it was to sustain man in his natural body. Then it says, “and the tree of life, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. There was no prohibition on the tree of life. Man was put under responsibility to obey God and he was not to take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When he took of it he received a conscience, he became conscious of good and evil, he did not know that before. He never had a conscience before, there was no need for it.

God offered man the tree of life. What is the tree of life? I suppose here in the garden it was a tree, but it speaks of God’s Christ, it speaks of a life that God had in mind for man in purpose, that was going to come out in His Christ. He offered it to man in innocence. God held nothing back, He offered man the very best. Man in innocence was free to eat of the tree of life. Do you understand that? The man was more interested in the other tree, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. For younger people here I will say what has often been said – Mr Darby goes along with it – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is thought to be the apple tree. There is nothing wrong with the apple tree, but God said, Do not eat of it. To eat of the apple tree they disobeyed God, that was lawlessness, sin came in. I would like to say to you, do you not think that, if man had taken the opportunity to eat of the tree of life he would never have sinned? He did not take the opportunity.

Man sinned and he is driven out of the garden, out of paradise. Some have referred to it as the paradise of God, others to the paradise of man, in the sense that man was given responsibility in it to till it and to guard it.

There is a way back. It says, “he drove out Man; and he set the Cherubim, and the flame of the flashing sword, toward the east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life”. God protected it. There was a possibility that sinful man might stretch out his hand to eat of it, but God intervened.

I read the two verses as to Adam calling his wife’s name Eve, “because she is the mother of all living. And Jehovah Elohim made Adam and his wife coats of skin, and clothed them”. Adam, as I understand it, grasped something of the way that God is going to work things out. It says in verse 15 in regard to Satan, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall crush thy head”. Adam grasped something of that, “because she is the mother of all living”. It is a prophetic statement because at the time she was not the mother of any person. Christ was going to come, “come of woman, come under law, that he might redeem those under law”, Gal 4: 5. What an outlook! Adam grasped something of that. God recognised that there was faith in Adam and he clothed them with skins. Redemption had to come in on our side. What a long arduous road before you come to Revelation, for man, maybe, but for God. It says in the scriptures, “thou hast made me to toil with thy sins”, Isa 43: 24. He was prepared to toil with our sins to make the way back for us to the tree of life. There is no change in the tree of life.

In Revelation I wanted to say a word as to the manna. In Revelation the tree of life is in the paradise of God. What a place

Sin-soiled have never trod (Hymn 206)

It has been said that the cherubim guarded the tree of life until Christ was ascended and glorified, then that tree of life was in the paradise of God. Wonderful matters! God came into our circumstances in the arduous way that things are worked out in the scriptures in the manna. Have you ever thought of that? The manna sets out God incarnate, come down as the bread out of heaven to sustain the life of the believer in the wilderness. The manna is in the wilderness. Persons who get the gain of the manna have had a certain history with God, they have been converted, they have eaten of the Passover lamb in Egypt. They have done more than that, they have put the blood on the lintel and the doorpost, they are sheltered by the blood of Christ from judgment. They are helped through the Red Sea, a way of escape for them from the life of Egypt with all its pleasures for human kind, You come into the wilderness, others may live in the same block, in the same street and go to the same place where you work, but you are different. Have you ever found out that you are different? Have you ever had a sense, dear younger brethren, of the time when you came to it – maybe just a flash – that you do not belong to this world? There is another world in view. You have to go through this world and He provides food for you in the manna, Christ in lowly circumstances. Pick up the scriptures in the morning and read a little bit, wherever it is He will minister to your soul, put you in touch with eternal things, put you in touch with the God who is going to sustain you through the day. God was there in Jesus of Nazareth, the Nazarean, a heavenly stranger who dwelt amongst men, touching everything you and I have to touch, (sin apart). That is the manna. Suffering Jesus! Are you a companion of the suffering Jesus? I trust you are. He says, “Reproach hath broken my heart”, Ps 69: 20. Have you ever tasted that? Been alongside Christ in reproach?

He is not here any more but He can still sympathise with us in all our sorrows, Christ understands them because He was once here in the circumstances in which we are, that is the stranger of Galilee. In Acts 8 it says, “who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth” (v 33). That is His generation in flesh and blood condition. As a young man I was taught that the One who did that was the Father, the Father took His life from the earth, “who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth”, (it is a quote from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the scriptures). The Father has translated that precious humble Jesus into His own presence and glory and that is the hidden manna. The memory exists of a once humble Jesus – the overcomer in Pergamos is promised to be given of the hidden manna, the Father’s treasured memories of a once humbled Christ.

Dear younger brethren, if you have not shared in the reproaches of the Christ here below, how can you share in the hidden manna? The hidden manna is given, it is a gift, “to him that overcomes, to him will I give of the hidden manna”. God treasures the memory of Christ’s life. These all have future bearings, the addresses to the overcomers, but the Spirit of God would make them real to us at the present time, in some measure. We share with God the memories of Christ. Then he is given a “white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he that receives it”. That is a stone which is an expression of divine favour to the believer who receives it. It has been pointed out for us that there are personal joys as well as collective joys. There are personal joys now in my links with my Saviour, with my God, which I have for myself, which you have for yourself. The white stone is peculiar to the individual, it is given to the overcomer. Oh to be among the overcomers in the times of the breakdown of the church publicly in Christendom, to be a recipient of the white stone, “on the stone a new name written”. We will have that as individuals eternally if we are overcomers. You will have a joy with divine Persons individually which no other person will enter into. I will have joy and you will have a joy as an individual that not another soul will enter into. Nobody will be able to meddle with your joy. How blessed to be a Christian! How blessed to be an overcomer!.

The manna is not Christ as the tree of life. I have spoken about Him in that way to show how precious He was as the manna, but it is not the tree of life. You do not find the tree of life in the gospels, you do not find it in the wilderness, you may taste of it by the Spirit’s power in the wilderness, but it is not there in the wilderness, it is in paradise, in the paradise of God. The Lord Jesus as presented in this scripture, “like the Son of man, clothed with a garment reaching to the feet” (Rev 1: 13), He is overseeing everything. That is the One who will give the overcomer, “to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God”.

Sin-soiled feet have never trod;

Free, our peaceful feet may venture

In the paradise of God. (Hymn 206)

It is personal. What a hope in reality of feeding on Christ in the paradise of God. There is food for the believer in every circumstance. This is the food of an area of privilege. How it has been kept! God has worked out good and evil, He has worked that out in men and women, He has worked it to the divine triumph by the work of God in your soul and mine. We await bodies of glory conformed to His own body of glory (see 3 Phil. 20,21). We may taste by the Spirit’s power something of the tree of life in the paradise of God, but it does not come to us, we have to go there. It is not attainment, it is gift. What a thing to come in for a gift from Christ, to be given to eat “of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God”. It came into that hymn we sung: ‘Giver’,

Object of eternal pleasure.

He is the Giver – how blessed to receive from Christ fruits of that tree. Mr Darby says, holiness, love and joy are the fruits of that land and that tree, to feed on Christ in heavenly circumstances.

I just say something in passing – the old corn of the land is also indigenous to heaven but it is eaten in an area where you have to stand for the truth, but this is not, it is past conflict:

Safety – where no foe approaches;

Rest – where toil shall be no more;

Joy – whereon no grief encroaches;

Peace – where strife shall all be o’er:

What an atmosphere to taste of it, to taste of the heavenly atmosphere but to be actually in it. God holds the treasure there, eternal food, food for eternity in a sphere which is vibrant with life. The paradise of God will be vibrant with life and that is to be our portion, but I say, you can taste it as an overcomer in some measure at the present time. I think it is experienced in the sphere of privilege. I do not say that exclusively, but I think you are sustained there by that tree. Christ is more than the tree of life, you have to understand that, but I am speaking about Him as presented as the tree of life. The creature has not immortality, God alone has immortality, the creature is sustained eternally by the food of the tree of life.

In Revelation 22 you get the setting of it in the millennium, it is in the holy city. Never seen where sin is, always in its own environment. The tree of life was never lost, man was lost, the tree of life is for persons who are holy and blameless before him in love – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ; according as he has chosen us in him before the world’s foundation, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out before hand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”, Eph 1: 3-6. Sin is not mentioned. That is the atmosphere, the fruits of the paradise of God, the tree of life is there for persons “holy and blameless before him in love”. (It has been pointed out that the tree of life is not the fruit of redemption). The tree of life has never altered, never needed to be altered. God presented it in the garden in Genesis 2, presented it in the paradise of God in Revelation 2, unchanged and unchangeable. In the passage in Ephesians, persons “holy and blameless before him in love”; there was no thought of that in the garden, there was no person admitted into that position in the life of Christ here below, not until Christ was in glory and established there, way was made for the tree of life.

Revelation 22 is millennial – there is a very interesting thing here which has puzzled me for a long time, is grace operative in the millennium? You get asked many a time; righteousness reigns, yes it does, but is grace operative? “The leaves of the tree for healing of the nations”, that is grace functioning through the saints of the city. Only the saints of the holy city, as far as I can see and as far as I understand the teaching, eat of the tree of life. That is food for the holy city. The twelve fruits it has been suggested are in view of administration that we will come into, we will need to be sustained in regard to it by the fruits of the tree of life. And then, “each month yielding its fruit”, but there will be no twelve fruits in eternity. Time will have ceased then, we will eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God according to Revelation 2 verse 7. But here it is a millennial scene, but there is no thought of sin in the area where the tree of life is, it cannot come. “And no curse shall be any more; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face; and his name is on their foreheads. And night shall not be any more, and no need of a lamp, and light of the sun; for the Lord God shall shine upon them, and they shall reign to the ages of ages” (vv 3-5).

I have shared some fragmentary thoughts with you, and I trust it has been of help and interest.

For His Name’s sake.

 

Kirkcaldy

12 March 2005