The Trees of Eden

The Trees of Eden

Vance Royal Olson

THE TREES OF EDEN copyright © 2015 Vance Royal Olson

All rights reserved.

Published by: The Blacksmith Arms Publishing House, London, England

Print design and cover layout: Simona Meloni

email: [email protected]

Contents

Friendship with God

Students of the Universe

A True Story

A Likely Story

Introduction - Seeing God as He Really Is

Steep and Narrow

‘Un-gods’ of the Ungodly

Relentless Truth

The Cure for Blindness

The Limits of Knowledge

The Warfare of Extravagant Humility

Chapter 1 - The Tree of Death

So...What was that Forbidden Tree?

The Riddle in the Name

‘Knowledge’ vs. Love and Obedience

Human Love vs. Divine Love

The Origin of the Four Loveless Powers of the Earth

A Question of Honour

Wild Wood of the Nations

Beneath the Shadow of the Serpent’s Tree

Mountains and Valleys

Chapter 2 - The Tree of Life

Wisdom and the Mind of Christ

The Father’s Gentle Heart

The Desires of the Spirit

The Church

Chapter 3 - Finding Wisdom and the Mind of Christ: Common Sense

Common Sense from the Cosmos

The Liability to Life and Love

The Wisdom of the Word

Chapter 4 - Finding Wisdom and the Mind of Christ: The Theory of Everything

The Deductions of Discernment and the Headship of Christ

The God of the Gaps and the Interface of Knowledge

Creation’s Connection to the Mind of God

The Chaos of Decapitation

The Chaos of Re-Capitation

Chapter 5 - The Dialectics of Death and the Serpent’s Head

Free Will vs. Determinism

Symbolic vs. Literal

Left vs. Right

In Conclusion

Chapter 6 - The First Olive Tree: Moses

The First Witness

The Witness of Moses

The Face of God

Doorways and Purity

The Sins of the Fathers

God’s Back

The Father’s Humble Heart

Chapter 7 - The Second Olive Tree: Elijah

The Second Witness

The Witness of Elijah

Elijah and the Curse of Jericho

Mantle of Shinar vs. Mantle of Elijah

Covetousness and Idolatry

Father’s Love at the Cross

Elijah: Last Appearance

Elisha: First Miracle

John the Baptist

a) To the Religious Multitude:

b) To the Political Multitude:

c) To the Tax Collectors:

d) To the Soldiers:

Application and Origins

Curious Proviso and Cryptic Comment

Chapter 8 - The Tree at Golgotha

Jesus’ Ministry in Jericho

The Triumphal Entry

The Death and Resurrection of Jesus

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit and Fire

The Coming Fullness of the Holy Spirit

Prologue - God is Father before Creator

[of wisdom]

‘The Lord created [Hebrew: ‘qanah’ = ‘possessed’, ‘established’ or ‘set up’] me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.’ (Proverbs 8:22-23)

Friendship with God

According to the Genesis story, before man and woman listened to the serpent and ate fruit from the forbidden tree, they enjoyed friendship with God. In the ‘cool of the day’, God would come into the Garden of Eden to spend time with Adam and Eve—perhaps to discuss their day and the names they were choosing for the things around them.

In the garden there were two special trees. Poetically, the ‘tree of life’ speaks of friendship with God the creator, while the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ symbolises collusion with the serpent; a rebellious creature vying for takeover. I’m not suggesting there weren’t literal trees in the garden, only that the meaning, or effect, or significance of the trees is greater; just as the meaning and effect of the Cross—the ‘tree’ on which Jesus died—is far greater than its logs and nails. The two trees framed Adam and Eve’s choice: continue their friendship with God, or join the serpent’s rebellion. It has never been possible to go both ways at once—if you stab a friend in the back, the friendship is over.

Over, that is, unless both parties are willing to seek redemption and restoration. The Bible is the story of that redemption; beginning with Abraham who is called ‘the friend of God’ (2 Chronicles 20:7; James 2:23) and climaxing with the costly forgiveness of Jesus’ cross. God has proved his willingness, and with the ball now in our court, each of us has the same choice that Adam and Eve had.

This book is my attempt to clarify our situation, and to make the appeal on God’s behalf to accept his offer. We are given an opportunity to begin an adventure that is worthy of our wholehearted pursuit. There is no other religion, philosophy, belief system, or set of principles and practices in the same league. Do any even offer as much? Do any deliver?

Truly, friendship with God our creator is the greatest thing we can experience; and having been made for it, we will never be satisfied with less.

Students of the Universe

Friendship with God, as with any friendship, begins by getting to know him: who he is and what he is really like. One way this happens is by studying his work; just as we begin to know an artist through his paintings, or an author through her books. This was Adam and Eve’s first occupation; they ‘gave names’ to the things around them. They were the first ‘scientists’ or ‘students of the universe’.

Students of the universe—physicists, for example, like Einstein and Stephen Hawking and many others—seek to derive a ‘Theory of Everything’ using deduction. By analysis of facts, they hypothesise and theorise a ‘big picture’ or ‘system’ that integrates and collates all the individual truths into one big explanation. Like Adam and Eve in the early days, these scientists are ‘naming’ things; building the link between reality and language; or the link between words, things, meaning and mind.

Einstein believed that everything would make sense and fit into a unifying theory because he had respect for the mind of God. ‘God is subtle, but he’s not mean!’ he once famously said. Ultimately, as Einstein perhaps realised, this pursuit of unified knowledge is the search for the ‘mind’ or ‘head’ behind the universe; it is the beginning of seeking God the creator.

But beyond knowledge and design as perceived by the mind—which we will take up in greater detail later—there may be another factor to consider: the heart of God. Now, of course we didn’t know what God’s heart was like at the beginning of Genesis because he is presented to us as the creator with no explanation of his characteristics. He is called simply ‘Elohim’ (in English literally: ‘powers’) at the beginning of the Bible. To get the ‘back story’ we had to wait until much later, just as we do in most of life’s stories. Things happen, and people we don’t know do things we don’t understand, and then as the events unfold we fill in the details. So it is with the Bible. The full back story of God is only hinted at in the Old Testament, but when Jesus came, light began to dawn upon the human race. Part of that light is that, behind and before it all, God was a Father; first to Jesus, but ultimately to all of us.

And with that light we can begin to understand some of the details of the story that made no sense before. If the creator has the heart of a father, and is more than just ‘powers’ of creation, we would necessarily come to different conclusions and understandings about the things He made. Perhaps we would even have to look out for some ‘scientific anomalies’—things that are beyond what science and study would have otherwise expected. I’m going to start with some simple, fun things just to illustrate the idea, but ultimately the principle, if true, applies to the deepest questions of life.

For a start, then, let’s suppose that the Father’s heart accounts for some of the happy, quirky things in the universe: exceptions to ‘perfect’ structure and design; ‘scientific anomalies’; things like elephants and kangaroos and duckbilled platypuses, for example—the kind of thing that God and Adam and Eve may have chatted about on their evening walks.

I have no dogma to defend about these anomalies, and because the kind of thing I’m trying to say is, by definition, outside of pure scientific logic (so called), we’ll use ‘story’ to explore its truthfulness; starting with an anecdote from my own experience as a father. Of course the principle holds true for mothers as well, and let me say from the outset that when we speak of God as Father, we are really talking about the fullness of fatherhood and motherhood; he created man and woman in his image. (Ref: Genesis 1:27)

A True Story

For many years I have worked as a machinist (‘precision engineer’ in the UK). I always had my own toolbox at work, full of all the sorts of tools and precision instruments used by a machinist. Suppose that one night as I slept, far away at home safe in my bed, a volcano erupted beside my place of work and, like a modern-day Vesuvius, buried my tools in ash, preserving them for future archaeologists to study. From this study they could discover a lot about machine shop practice in our time and develop a ‘unified field of knowledge’ about it, so to speak. However, in one of the drawers they would find a little green pencil crayon, about an inch long and sharpened at both ends. The ‘Einstein’ or ‘Hawking’ of future archaeologists would strive to fit this little green pencil in with the whole grand scheme—‘theory of everything’ or ‘field of knowledge’—they had already developed.

But they would never really get it right unless they could ask me. Like the steward of the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus did his first miracle of turning water into wine, they would need some ‘revelation’ from outside the system to fully explain exactly what had happened. Without that outside information (say, from the servants), the steward, based on his own deductions, assumed the wine had come from the bridegroom’s secret cellar. (Ref: John 2:9)

The truth—the ‘outside revelation’ in my personal anecdote—is that the little green pencil has nothing at all to do with machine shops. My son Joseph found the little green pencil one day when he was about three years old. He carried it around all afternoon until I came home from work, and then presented it to me in his sweet little way, insisting that I should take it to work and put it in my toolbox. Of course I did that, and though I never used it, I took care of it like my best micrometer.

Perhaps we will find in creation things that are there because those who loved the creator gave them to him, and he found a place for them—a few ‘little green pencils’ tucked away here and there. Can you see how a father-son relationship could have bearing upon the correct interpretation of facts?

With God we get a glimpse of this in Proverbs 8 where wisdom is personified and usually understood as Jesus in pre-creation (‘before the beginning’ v23). Verse 30: ‘then I was beside him as a master workman’ has the alternate reading, ‘then I was beside him as a little child’ (margin note in RSV and others). Other verses such as John 1:1 and Colossians 1:15-16 affirm that Jesus was not only the Son of God, but totally involved in creation; indeed we are told that everything was made through him. So, then, it isn’t just things from the Father’s heart that may be beyond knowledge, but specifically things that arise from the love between the Father and the Son.

I’ve made up a little story to illustrate and expand this idea of nice anomalies—childlike things or ‘little green pencils’—in creation . . . and a bit beyond, with a speculative glimpse at the origins of serpentine thought.

A Likely Story

Cast your mind back a few billion years, to the days when the universe was relatively young and the arch angels were little more than toddlers, and none of them had rebelled. One day Gabriel comes running into the throne room: ‘Papa! Papa! I made you something for your universe project!’

‘I did too! I made you something too!’ adds Michael, just a few steps behind.

‘Okay, boys, let’s have a look.’

‘Mine is this grey animal with a long pipe for a nose,’ says Gabriel with confident satisfaction. ‘And it can grab things with its nose . . . it can smell around corners and grab things with its nose just like you can . . . Jesus told us how you can do that.’

‘Oh, he did, did he?’ said Father looking over at Jesus quizzically.

‘The Spirit never forgets!’ laughed Jesus.

‘And mine can jump really high—and it has a cosy little bed for its baby right here in front!’ interjects Michael. ‘Just like you used to have us inside your heart and now we have our heads sticking out but we’re still cosy inside you . . . and you jumped really high the day you first saw us . . .’

‘Yes, that’s right, I did . . . Thank you, thank you!’

‘Do you like them? Where will you put them?’

‘Yes . . . they’re . . . they’re very nice . . . they’re beautiful . . . ah . . . everything’s a bit too hot down there for them right now . . . so we’ll have to take care of them here for a while.’

And so the two run off leaving their gifts behind, and Father turns to Jesus. ‘What do you think? Great, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, excellent! Their interpretations are always so surprising and fun. I tell them stories about our adventures and then let them illustrate however they see fit.’

‘Ha ha—that nose thing is going back a long ways though, isn’t it? I haven’t thought about that day for . . . oh . . . ages and ages.’

‘Yes, but it seemed like it was just yesterday . . . when the Spirit brought it back to me I mean,’ mused Jesus. And then, after a long pause during which each fell into thought and memory, Jesus added: ‘These creatures, on the other hand, will have to stay here for a few billion years . . . before we’ll be ready for them down there that is.’

‘There’s plenty of space-time in the storerooms I suppose . . . ?’

‘Oh, yes . . . but . . . less than you might expect,’ added Jesus thoughtfully. ‘It seems Lucifer (the one who later became the serpent) has taken up quite a bit with his reptile project . . . I’m a little concerned with fitting some of those in later as well actually . . .’

‘Yes, I know what you mean . . . it isn’t the technical side so much . . . and the gentler creatures will prevail in the long run . . . I just wonder where he gets these ideas from? He hasn’t seen me breathe fire or grow a spiky, scaly back has he?’ asked Father rhetorically.

‘Oh no, of course not . . . but he does sometimes imagine circumstances and make up stories where you might need to show such a severe response, and then he makes the creatures act it out . . . all very speculative and extreme. He’s not as interested in the real stories as the others are . . . and he had a bit of a tantrum when I tried to explain to him how the gentler creatures would outlast his fierce ones.’

‘Oh dear. I hope he grows out of that . . . still . . . there is some beauty in many of his ideas,’ said Father with a distant gaze. ‘Try to encourage him in that direction a bit more.’

‘Yes, Father, I’ll do that—he’s young and doesn’t see clearly yet. And he has time to learn.’

‘Well . . . there are circumstances where I would need to respond as he imagines . . . ’ said Father with a deep sigh.

‘I know,’ said Jesus tensely . . . and again softly: ‘I know. But that is not today—and maybe never.’

Then they fell silent. And looking knowingly into each other’s faces, there passed between them