Latter part is very insightful!
Today I want to share with you a word and we will go to Ephesians Chapter one. And really we will talk about God’s big plan today. You know God has plan for you and me individually but He has also a big plan, something he has purposed. So, let’s turn to the first chapter of Ephesians. After the greeting in the beginning, Paul starts this letter by saying in verse 3;
“Blessed be the God and father of our lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Even as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him.”
You’ll see something very typical here and as when we read everything Paul has written that he focused very much on Jesus Christ and especially when it says, “In Christ”. It is something that comes back again and again and again and so he writes about “In Christ”, ”Through Christ”, “By Christ”, For Christ”. And so there is something very important about this. You know, He started by saying that, “God has blessed us with all the heavenly blessings in Christ Jesus.”
Now that really goes beyond what we can understand right now. I mean, think about the God who knows everything, who is really unlimited and everything that God calls to be a blessing, everything that God knows to be a blessing. That He has blessed us with in Christ Jesus. so where is the limit of that. We don’t know, we don’t know. But still this is what the Lord has done. But you also see here that He has done this In Christ, so if we are not “In Christ”, we will never be a part of this blessing. That is the key, to be “In Christ”.
Now if we look back to the beginning when God created man, we also see here that God chose us in Him before He ever created us. This tells us that this was God’s purpose when He created man, that we would be “In Him.” But we can also see that the first two people that the Bible speaks about, Adam and Eve, you know they were blessed with everything that is on this earth. They were given authority on this earth. But what we received in Christ is far more than that. We are blessed with all the blessing in the heavens because Christ was not in Adam and Eve from the beginning. It’s one thing that they were created in the image of God and that they were created perfect. The Bible says that the glory of God was upon them but it’s still a fact that they were not In Christ. But they could be because God has chosen them for that.
But what we see when we go back to the beginning is that it was not automatically solved. And what we find is that God was using the way He has creating them, also as a way to explain to them about His plan and purpose. I think you have noticed that when you read how God created man that there are some, maybe we could say, interesting things that God did. On the other hand, we know that God is capable to create just anything by His word. God can speak and it is there. So that means that when God did it in a little different way, He did that with purpose. It has significance.
So let’s go back in Genesis Chapter 2 and we will look at the creation of man in that chapter and what God did with them. As I said it has is a prophetic significance. In verse 7, we read first of all, it says here,
“Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breather into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living creature.”
So instead of just speaking the word, God actually took dust from the ground and He formed man. He formed his body, his shape so he must have been stranding there like a statue formed. And then it says that God was breathing His breath of life into man and this is what why man became a living being. So God gave man his life through His breath. And this was to signify, that man was not just created by God, but also born of God, born by His life. But prophetically, this also speaks about that God one day also would take the dust upon Himself, that not only his life but He Himself would enter a body of dust. It speaks about incarnation that God himself one day would come in the form of a man.
Then we continue to read, it says in verse 8,
“And the Lord God planted a Garden of Eden in the east and there He put the man whom he had formed, 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.”
Those two trees were of course special. They were not good for food, because they were not there for that reason. They were there for spiritual reasons. But you know it says here that the Lord God planted a garden. To plant means that He followed a certain structure and order. We usually can very easily see the difference between something that is planted and just a wild nature because you can see a structure.
For instance if you drive on the road, and you have an alley of trees on the said site. You know for sure that it is planted because it will never happen spontaneous in nature that trees would stand that exact. So it’s planted. Someone was thinking. Someone made a plan. Someone measured carefully, and said, “Here is where we going to plant.” And so they were digging and putting tree after tree there.
Now it says here that the Lord God planted a garden. This means still that it was not just a small garden. It was a huge area probably as big as a nation. But yet there was a difference between inside of Eden and outside. There was a border where Eden started and Eden means something like beauty or the light. So, God made something that was more beautiful than the others and there he placed man.
You know, man was given authority to spread out all over the world and to have dominion. But that dominion started in the Garden of Eden. So, this was a vision or a picture for them. What God wanted man to do in the world when he said, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it.” He wanted man to build on this earth. He wanted man to bring structure and order just as it was in Eden. But again, since Adam also was a prophetic time of Christ becoming a man. Even Jesus was called the last Adam, so Eden was also a prophetic picture of the kingdom of God that one day it will come on the earth were God’s order and where God’s structure will be bordered and Jesus will be the King and ruler in that kingdom.
Hallelujah!
So now He had created man and He has created, the Bible says, “all the other living things, the birds were there, the fish were there, animals were there and there was man”. And then God said something, “It’s not good for man to be alone” in verse 18. And so God said, “I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now, this means a helper that equals him, a helper that is on his level. Because you know, of course man was not alone in the sense that there was no one else there. There were a lot living beings there. And it also speaks about how He gave names to the different animals in the world. You know this was the time when everything still was friendly in the earth but then it says, for Adam he didn’t find any help.
Now, again, if we look to history, we can see how big help, man has had of animals. I mean for thousands of years, they have been plowing our fields. They have been pulling our cart. They have provided us with milk, with meat, with eggs, with clothes, a lot of things that we can receive. So the point God was making was that there he is alone in the sense that no one equals him. And this is at the same time a picture of the fact that God already have created all the angels. And the angels are powerful, they are intelligent, but they are not created in the image and likeness of God.
It says in the book of Hebrews chapter 1, “To which of the angels did He ever say you are my son, this day I have begotten you.” It says that they are serving spirits that are sent out. So this speaks about that the son of God was alone in the sense that there was no helper that equaled Him. So God decided to do something about it and it says here that he put a deep sleep upon man. Genesis 2 Verse 21;
The Lord God cause a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he is slept he took one of his ribs and closed up his place with flesh.
And the rib that the Lord had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Again, we of course know that God didn’t need to do it, this way but it was significant that she was taken out of man to show that they were of the same kind, that they would belong to one another. And just as man was created out of the breath of God, to be in the image and the likeness of God so there would be a similarity between the man and the woman. And so God put him to a deep sleep. This was not a natural sleep; this was the first surgery in history. I mean God put him to sleep and open him and he didn’t wake up and God took that rib bone. There are people who think that if there was the case. There should be one rib missing in therm. But then we need to think a second time. God took a rib bone but He didn’t change his DNA. So when Adam reproduced, there was a full DNA that gave his son who therefore had all the rib bones.
Now, anyhow, this deep sleep is a prophetic picture of the death of Christ. The one who comes incarnated and that He would die and through that death, God will give birth to the church. And the church would be taken out of His death and become alive because of His death. And so, when He had created her, God brought the two of them together. And you see here comes the really interesting thing, because it is very clear that it was God’s purpose that they(Christ and church) belong to one another. They needed one another in order to reproduce. That was very obvious that it was God’s plan but at the same time. They were not created with this unity. I mean in their case, there was nothing else to choose you know, one man, one woman. But yet God wanted them to choose and that is the reason why they were not one when they were created. But instead, God was introducing to them the idea of covenant. And God was teaching them in verse 24:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast of his wife and they shall become one flesh.”
They were not but they should become. So God was teaching them about this. And they have to respond to that because covenant is two things: Covenants 1, agreement and 2, commitment. And commitment goes very far. Commitment means that you give yourself or your own life to the other person and that was the choice they must make. That was the commitment they must be willing to do, otherwise, they could not be one. Because you see in the length of time you cannot command someone to love. You cannot require someone to love. Love must be given by a willful heart and so they have to choose one another and it seems like they gladly did because they were responding to what God said. Therefore we see in the next verse, it says:
“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Before this, they were simply called the man and the woman but know it is the man and his wife.” Hallelujah!
They have become united because they responded to what God said and they became one and I think this was a fantastic experience for them. Because remember, I mean we may think it’s fantastic to get married in our time, but remember for them, both of them had the glory of God upon them and both of them didn’t have any flesh. So I think their ability to experience this oneness was unique. And I think they enjoyed one another very much, to belong to one another so strong, to know one another so intimate, and to have the feeling that we are one and we will always be together.
But right there, somewhere in their honeymoon, God came to them and he said, “Sit down here now, I have something to tell you. What you have just experienced, that you became one and now you live. I want to invite you in the same way to be one with my Son. And that you will be in Him. If you look over there, you see the tree of life, if you choose that tree, you choose my son. And you receive that life which means unity with Him that you will be in Him and He will be in you.”
So God was inviting man into unity with Himself and God had chosen man for this before we were created. But now, we have to choose God.
So the invitation was there. But there was also another tree because as I said, man was given a choice. That was a part of God’s image in us and that the other tree represented that we could go our own way, that we could be our own lord that we could make ourselves independent from God. That was the choice.
And you see this is the tragedy with the sinful. Not only that man choose to go his own way but at the same time, we were choosing not to have Christ. Could you imagine that? God says, “I want to invite you into my fellowship. You will look deeper into my heart than any other created being. You will know me like no other created being. And I have prepared this for you.” And we said, no! And instead, choose the way of independence which will lead to death, which will lead to catastrophe to this cracked and destroyed world, with all the sorrow, with all the pain, with all the evil. That’s what we wanted instead of Christ.---
And you see, once man made this choice, it meant that the way to the tree of life was closed because you can’t have both of them at the same time. You cannot be in unity with Christ and go your own way. You cannot have Christ as Lord and still be your own lord. It must be one of the two. So when man made his choice, the way was closed to the tree of life. And after some generations, this was forgotten. Man didn’t know what we were really created for and what God had purposed.
And so Paul says in Ephesians, that this purpose of God became like a mystery that was hidden through the ages. And only when Jesus came was it revealed to us again. Because you know, we refused God and still he didn’t give up on us. That is so amazing. I mean, we insulted Him. And what were we? We were just created beings. You could think that God can just say, “OK. Have it your own way and I could create another world.” That He could easily have done that but why didn’t He, because of the character of God.
God is love, God is faithful, and God is merciful. And so instead of just abandoning us, God made a plan to save us and to restore us. And so it happened that He came into this world and became a man, Jesus Christ. And when the time came, Jesus stepped in and took all of our sins upon Him. He took the responsibility. He carried the cross and He paid the price for all our sins to deliver us from guilt to deliver us from curse but not just to deliver but also to restore that we could come back to our real purpose. And that is also the reason why Jesus died on the cross. The cross for Him was an instrument of torture and death. But it also speaks about something else. If you look at the cross, you see a tree, you have the stem and you have the crown like three big branches. It’s the symbol of a tree. And Jesus died on that cross of curse so that He would open the way for us again to the tree of life.
So for you, the cross is the tree of life. And God gave us a second chance. We can choose life through the gospel that speaks about what Jesus has done for us. By receiving that and believing in that, you received life from God. A life that means you have become the child of God but also a life “In Christ.”
Halleluiah! Praise God! The tree of life is available! Hallelujah
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