Genesis 2:9, “And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Revelation 2:7, “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.”
In the middle of our backyard (which is more like a park), there is a giant cedar, a Western Red Cedar. In front of this huge tree, there is a crabapple tree. The cedar has a couple names like the Latin thuja plicata, and a more common name that also happens to be biblical: arborvitae, or “the tree of life.” The crabapple tree is just that. It’s fruit will ripen for eating by crows and children in several weeks.
In the Genesis 2:9, we are told there is not one, but two trees in the midst of the garden. There is the tree of life (arborvitae) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Although there are two trees in the midst of the garden, most of theology and preaching of the law and the teaching of sin and man’s relation to God is based solely on focusing on this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The teaching usually goes, though wrongly, that God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden so that Adam and Eve could exercise their “free will” to choose. The “choice,” as it goes, was either to obey or disobey God’s command, “You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.” And while they had every advantage, more than anyone in the history of the earth, to resist the devil’s temptation, we learn that they disobeyed God’s command.
Now, a command or law, as any parent or police officer will tell you, is not to spoken to give the hearer an opportunity to exercise their supposed free will to choose the good. I do not tell my children, “Don’t run out into the street,” or, “You must put on clothes before you go outside,” or “Stop hitting each other,” in order to give them a chance to make a “good choice.” The police officer does not sit on the side of the road with the radar gun to see whether you will use your free will correctly and choose to use the “lead-will” in your foot rightly. In both examples, and in all instances, the law is given to take freedom away, not give it. So it is in the Garden of Eden. The law is the limit; it sets the boundary. This tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not given by God for the opportunity of the will to choose, but to set the limit of freedom and, ultimately, to reveal our transgression of the limit.
What is exceedingly more intriguing is not only did Adam and Eve not pursue and eat from the tree of life, but that this oversight of theirs has become our oversight: we completely forget that there was a second tree in the middle of the garden, the arborvitae.
And yet, it is the arborvitae, the tree of life, that book-ends and fills the center of scripture.
The tree of life was among all the other trees of the garden that were given as “pleasant to the sight and good for food.” However, it does not take too long to see that the spiny, braided plait leaves and the tiny woody cones are hardly desirable for eating. Maybe this is why the serpent chose to tempt them with the succulent fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…maybe it was a crabapple tree that was infinitely more tempting.
But, as scripture goes, this is not finally about a thuja plicata, a red cedar tree. The “Cedars of Lebanon” are not mentioned so often in scripture because the authors wants you to pay attention to the giant evergreens. Rather, the Cedars of Lebanon are a sign. A sign (signum) is not the thing itself (res), but it is pointing to the thing (res). The cedar is not the thing of life itself, but is pointing to the actual tree of life: Jesus Christ crucified on a tree and risen from the dead for sinners.
So how are we to have access to this life from the true arborvitae, Christ and him crucified?
Right smack in the middle of scripture is the key:
Song of Solomon 5:13, “His lips are lilies, dripping with liquid myrrh.”
Myrrh is what flows from a tree once it is wounded; the blood of Christ is the true myrrh of the arborvitae, Christ. He was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5).
And this is his myrrh to you that now drips from his lips: “Your sin is forgiven. It is finished.”
And Psalm 45:2, “Grace is poured on your lips, therefore, God has blessed you forever.”
And this is the grace that is poured on your lips: “Take and eat, take and drink. This is the new testament in my blood, shed for you and for the forgiveness of sin.”
This is the book end, that you have been given the authority to eat from this tree of life, Christ himself; God has given you permission to eat from this tree, arborvitae, Who is the door to the paradise of God (Rev. 2:7). Therefore, you are blessed, forever.
frittslutheran 