BibleProject - Back to the Tree of Life – Tree of Life E8

Episode Date: February 24, 2020

View full show notes from this episode → Watch our Tree of Life video.ResourcesR. T. France, The Gospel of MatthewLeon Morris, The Gospel according to MatthewMusicDefender Instrumental by TentsShow produced by Dan Gummel.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John at the Bible Project. We have been diving in the last few episodes of this podcast on the theme of trees in the Bible. And today, we're going gonna start in the New Testament. The New Testament begins with Jesus. He's a traveling prophet who taught people that the kingdom of God was coming with him. We have many of his teachings recorded in the Gospels, and perhaps it will be a surprise to you

that one of the things Jesus loved to talk about was trees. When he wants to actually talk about what the kingdom is like, we get the parables, and the parables are shot through with Garden of Eden imagery. It's all about trees and seeds and plants. So you have to ask yourself, why is that? We're also going to jump ahead during this conversation to the final tree in the Bible. A tree that Jesus is also connected to. It's found in the book of the Revelation.

In the book of Revelation, you have Jesus followers being addressed by John the visionary. And so he starts offering all of this encouragement or warning to the churches. Hey, follow Jesus. And if you do, Jesus will meet you. He starts making all these promises to the seven churches. One of the promises to the church of Ephesus

is he says, listen, if you guys are faithful to Jesus until the end, Jesus is saying this to the church, Jesus says, I will grant you to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. How is Jesus connected to the tree of life in God's paradise? That much more on today's episode. Thanks for joining us.

Here we go. All right, we're talking about a theme in the Bible about trees and high places, which is a theme about whether we live in God's presence and consume of Him and His wisdom and find eternal life. Which is a gift so that humans can rule as his beloved partners forever. Yeah, that's the vision. That's the tree of life. Yeah. Or eat of the tree knowing good and bad, which is saying,

no, we can find wisdom and power on our own terms apart from God and his presence. This tree looks perfectly fine to me. Yeah. Yeah. It seems looks perfectly fine to me. Yeah. It seems like more of a shortcut. Man, we've been following this theme for many hours. We're finally gonna get to Jesus. Yes. We made it to Jesus.

Maybe to Jesus. I'm really looking forward to this. I think that a lot of this will feel like really great payoff. It's already been really illuminating, going through. It's been very fruitful. Yeah. Going through this thing of trees. The thing that's connecting the most to me, the thing that anchors this all for me,

is that the tree of life is in the middle of the garden. The garden is connected to the temple. And in the middle of the temple is God's presence where he dwells. So the tree of life is about communion with God, communion with the divine creator. And to be in that relationship and to eat of that is to be transformed into the type of human who can rule with God. And have eternal life. That was lost, and that's where this has all been heading back. And so when Moses meets God in this burning bush on a mountain,

it's the same image of here is in God's presence. And what we learn is that being God's presence is actually intense. Yeah. And who knows if it was intense for Adam and Eve because they were innocent. I mean, they didn't know the difference. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they didn't know the difference potentially. But once you're out of Eden and then you experience a tree of life, it's scary. And Moses is scared. And then last episode, we talked about Isaiah having a vision of being in God's throne room and experiencing God's presence, the tree of life. And remembering the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem was an image of, and was actually, imagine to be the place where heaven and earth are one, it's Eden.

It's Eden. Eden is where God's throne is, and that's what the tree of life is. Yeah. God's throne. Yeah. It's eating of God's throne and power and authority. Power and holiness. Yeah. That's right. And. A god's own. Drone and power and holiness. Yeah, that's right.

And that is a dangerous proposition. Correct. Because it can consume and destroy you. So what you would expect, that's what Isaiah expected, but strangely, it didn't. A call of this presence touched his lips and actually purified him. Yep.

Transforms him so that he can now become God's partner in the mission to his people. Yeah. Isaiah becomes the seed of the new remnant in the book of Isaiah. Yeah, that's right. And so that's a tree of life. There's also the tree of knowing good and bad, and it represents a choice of whether you're going to be in God's presence and of his life or not. And after you've made that choice, the tree of knowing good and bad continues to be a choice in the test. And when you decide not to eat of it, it's actually turned into an altar, in which you can sacrifice and make a tonement for all of the people who have taken from the tree.

For yourself and for all the people. And then the question becomes, where does this idea of a tonement come from? Why do you think you can now get back to the tree by a sacrifice? And it's because God promised that that would be the case. Right after Adam and Eve leaves the garden or exiled, everything looks horrible. But God says, there's going to be a seat of the woman who's going to come. It's going to deal with this whole evil mess, which is the rebellion. And all the violence that's come out of it. You're going to overcome the problem at its source.

At its source. And the source of the problem we learned was this deceptive evil, the snake, or sin in Genesis 4, the next story. The next story, it's sin. And as the seed deals with it, in. And as the seed deals with it, the seed will also be destroyed by it. Suffer the consequences. Yeah, suffer. So you get the sense of, oh, it's an entonement. Yeah, it's a sacrifice on my behalf. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so now you're kind of, you're waiting for a seed to sacrifice on behalf of us. So we can get back to the tree of life. Yeah, to open the way back up. Remember the chair being our guarding the way

to the tree of life. I'm looking for somebody who can open up the way back. So Noah makes a sacrifice and it's not himself, but it is a sacrifice. And God says, yeah, great, I like this. Sacrifice. Abram is told the sacrifice is son and you think, oh, a seed who's going to be sacrificed. But then God says, no, don't kill him. Here's a ram in its place.

So we get an atonement there, Moses on a high place wants to sacrifice himself for the sake of all of his people who have been making these false for the sake of all of his people who have been making these false trees of life and worshiping false gods. And God says, no, you're not going to kill yourself, sacrifice yourself, but I will give a gift and forgive the people. And then in Isaiah, we get to a character who is going to sacrifice himself and suffer. He is from the line of David. Yeah, from the line of David. Yeah. Another part of this whole theme is David and Jerusalem. Yeah. And we talked about that as well, which is David, when he becomes king, he takes a high place, a strategic high place called Jerusalem. And he builds his house there, of trees,

of Lebanon. And then he brings the Ark of the Covenant up, God's, which is the hot spot of the Holy of Holies. So God is now dwelling on this mountain. He's recreating Eden and God says, yes, through your family line will be the seed. This is what I want. And so we're stoked.

It's not gonna be David, but it's coming from this line. But then as you just read the biblical narrative, that gets corrupted. Yeah, yeah. And people are building their false trees of life with these false idols on these false hills, which are false Edons, and God's like, this is ridiculous.

And so the prophet Isaiah is saying, God's going to exile everyone off the mountain out of the land, he's gonna start again, all these false idols, he can be chopped down, and even Jerusalem, which was the holy mountain, the new Eden has become a false idols, you can be chopped down. And even Jerusalem, which was the holy mountain, the new Eden has become a false idol, and it's gonna be chopped down. But a remnant will remain,

and a new seed will sprout. That remnant begins with a guy who wakes up in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Isaiah. Uh-huh, and he's burned clean. Burn clean. By the tree of life. And then he becomes the icon of the new seed to be planted in the new Eden. So Israel's kind of in disarray. And you think, man, they're supposed to be the seed. But Isaiah is saying there's still something there. There's a kernel of that there. Yeah. It's the remnant

They have been transformed and through that seed will come The one we've been waiting correct the suffering. That's right. Serve it. Yep And then the suffering servant poem of the book of Isaiah begins with God saying I Highly exalt and raise up my servant. How the poem goes on, he suffers and gives his life for the sins of his people, and it's precisely that death that is his exaltation to the highest place of the new Eden. And he declares the many who were sinners to be right with God. And then the rest of the book concludes with all these amazing poems about the new Garden of Eden trees that God will plant in the new Eden because of

the servant. And the trees are people. The trees are people, the new humanity. So all these mountains Eden, Errat, more Noah was Mount Mariah, Abraham Mount Sinai, then Jerusalem old Jerusalem David David and all of those are seen as mounting pointers to the new Jerusalem Eden. Yes, Sinai, Moriah They're all manifestations, tastes of it. And anticipation, without design patterns, it's driving you forward, forward in the story, creating a reader's expectation that the story will be resolved at the ultimate high Eden place with the ultimate servant of God.

Yes, he revival, man. I mean, and we've only covered, what is that, six? Six? Six mountains, six high places. Yeah, totally revival man. I mean, and we've only covered what is that six six six mountains. Yeah, totally Yeah, I could show you 15 more stories where this is working itself out Just a bit seems to become the most important How place it is yeah, cuz that's where the temple was but that temple became corrupted This is why Jesus cared so much about Jerusalem So Jesus is raised on this literature. He's been reading his Bible.

Yeah, Jesus is born into this story. And as I say probably too often, his brain wasn't melted on Twitter. And TV, these texts were the media that surrounded his family. He formed his view, surrounded his family. He formed his view in his heart. As a human. As a human. Which Jesus was a human. Yes.

And in another sense, Jesus was more and his imagination in reality wasn't formed. Yeah. The womb of Mary becomes like a little Eden where God's word, plants, you know, his own heavenly seed, so to speak. That's a way of imagining the conception of Jesus. It's the Holy Spirit will overshadow you, and the power of the most high will come upon you, and you will call the Holy One to be born the Son of God. Yeah, because Wums are God. What is Eden?

Eden is where the heavenly gift of abundant life meets Earth and creates green plants. Remember the tree of life? You mentioned that to be barren. The Hebrew word for infertility is the word un-ruted. Un-ruted without root. So it's in the ground, but it's not connected to the divine gift of life. So it's already just this metaphor of the womb being a garden. Yeah, and sperm, male sperm is called seed. And so the whole image of people are trees,

the womb is a garden in the vocabulary and metaphorical imagination of the Bible. That's why fertility is always connected to either what comes out of the ground, what comes out of the flocks, and what comes out of your loins. Male and female. Yeah. Anyhow. So yes, we're talking about the conception of Jesus, but the image of Jesus as a seed begins even with the birth narratives in the gospels in Matthew and Luke. So here's what I want to focus on in the gospels.

We're just going to take it as a sum. Jesus comes onto the scene. He wakes up to his identity, to the baptism. But what I think we can focus on here is Jesus goes around announcing that the reign and the rule of God is arriving, and he is the one bringing it. That taps us all the way back into Genesis 1.

God wants to rule the world through a human partner. All these people have failed on the high places. They take from the wrong tree. So God himself becomes, comes among us as the human-divine partner that everybody's failed to be. Yeah. And he calls it the kingdom of God arriving. Jesus' most expansive and creative and in-depth teachings

about the nature of the kingdom are his parables. So think about it. When he announced the Kingdom of God is here, through his actions, it looked like healings, exorcisms, liberating people, inviting them into the family, into these feasts that he would hold for prostitutes and tax collectors and sick people. He's partying like Eden. Yeah. inviting them into the family, into these feasts that he would hold for prostitutes and

tax collectors and sick people. He's partying like Eden. Yeah. It was here. Yeah, totally. When you want to talk about the ethic or lifestyle that's consistent with the arrival of God's Kingdom, we get to sermon on them out. But when you want to actually talk about what the Kingdom is like, we get the parables.

And the parables are shot through with Garden of Eden imagery. It's all about trees and fishes and seeds and plants. He's asked yourself, like, why is that? What kind of upbringing produces a human heart in mind that when they talk about the arrival of gods, rain and rule and new creation, they mostly talk about plants and seeds and trees and bushes. Yeah, if you grew up as a farmer, yeah, okay, yeah. That makes sense. It totally, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, and the Bible did. That's right. But Jesus didn't actually grow up as a farmer. That's true, he grew up in a craftsman family. That's right, yeah. But he grew up in a beautiful, but I'm sure there was tons of agriculture. Yeah, okay, so that's one level. Yeah. That's right, yeah. But you grew up in a beautiful healing country, lots of agriculture.

Yeah, I grew up. Okay, so that's one level. Yeah. But in terms of the way the gospel authors, what they want us to see here, isn't just like, yeah, Jesus grew up in the country, so it talks this way. Right.

This is Eden imagery. Yeah, as we're gonna see. Cool. I'm going to do a little bit of the same. I'm going to do a little bit of the same. I'm going to do a little bit of the same. I'm going to do a little bit of the largest collections of Jesus' parables about the kingdom. So Jesus gets a big group of people around and he starts to teach them about the good news of the kingdom and he tells a famous parable

So there was a farmer and he went out to sow all this seed now While he was scattering seed I think this is called broad casting Well, yeah, I remember when we learned that. It's about about that. Yeah, broadcasting Casting a broadcasting broadly. It's right. Yep. So scattering the seed Some fell along the path, you know, like bounced out. Yeah, hard ground. Yep. And the birds came, eat it up. Birds like seed. Some fell into some rocky parts. No, soil and no, no, soil. So it's bring up quickly because there was a little soil, but then the sun came, plants are scorched, they wither, because they have no root. Other seed fell among thorns.

I know the thorns, they're a problem. And so the thorns choke out the plants. But other seed fell on good soil, and it produced a crop, 160, 30 times what was sound. Do you have ears? You should listen. Let's Jesus. So good man. Brilliant.

Why is it brilliant? You know, just what the parables are. I can't wait to make our video about how to read the parables. Jesus said things like the sermon on the mount and he equally and just as much spoke the short little riddle like parables. And this is one of the riddle parables that he explains. He does explain it. That's right. But let's just stop.

So we have a farmer planting a garden. Yeah. Am I supposed to be thinking about God? Farmer planting a garden. Some, only some of the garden produces, right? The good soil produces all of this reproducing. Think of the trees in Genesis 1, that have seed in them, and they just reproduce, reproduce.

But there's also thorns, thorns, as Genesis 3, when they're exiled from the garden, and you'll be out there working the non-garden land, and you're gonna get as much thorns and tisels that you're gonna get anything else. So this idea of God liberally scattering his gifts of divine life, but based on a whole lot of different factors, only some of it produces the real thing, and some of it grows up in the anti-thing,

namely the thorn. It's not like these are direct hyperlinks to Genesis 3, but this is a mind that's been shaped. This is a story that soaked in the Hebrew scriptures. Jesus goes on, he says, listen to what that parable means. He's talking to disciples now. He says, when anyone hears the logos, the word about the kingdom, so he equates the seed with this word that God is sending to the people about bringing his kingdom. So the message about the kingdom is a message that is supposed to grow plants.

It's seed. Seed is a divine message announcing the arrival of the kingdom. Okay. Seed has generally been just human offspring. So this is kind of a new way of thinking about this. A divine word. A divine word. Genesis 1. God said. God speaks 10 times.

One of those times on day three, he speaks and all these trees and plants sprout up out of the ground. And of course, he speaks and all sorts of things sprout. Yeah, that's right. Come into being. That's right. Yeah. And then matching that in Genesis 1, is there are the humans that come up out of the ground and he tells them to rule on his behalf to be kings and queens on his path. Yeah. So God's Word is a creative, plant, sprouting, king making kind of word, even on page one.

Nice. And we're in that same thought world here. Okay. So the word about the kingdom and outspied Jesus is like seed. And there's all these people who don't understand it. Why? Well, they're under the influence of the snake,

the evil one, snatching away of what was sown in the heart. So what Jesus is explaining is he's been announcing the kingdom and doing his ten chapters now. And Matthew placed in chapter 11 and 12 all of these mixed responses to Jesus. Some people love him, some people aren't sure, some people who would project him. What's going on with that? So this is Jesus giving a meta commentary What's going on with that? So this is Jesus giving a meta commentary on why it isn't cleared everybody who he is. It's because some people are like Cain,

they're under the influence of the snake. And that's the seed on the path. Yep, the seed on the path. Some people are like that seed on the rocky ground, and they hear it and they're excited about it. They receive it with joy, but they don't have any root. So now of a sudden, this is kind of like a pseudo-edin. This is a human who, one reason or another, what God is trying to invite people into, it can't penetrate through the crust. There's a hardness, and so the seed

can't get in there. The ground represents metaphorically people, but the sea, but the, but what grows up out of the ground also is the people. Oh, that's right. Yeah. So, but the ground is like the condition of the people. The ground is the condition, the different types of soil represent different people and different conditions. And the condition there in this. So one condition is I'm under the deceptive power of the evil one. Yeah, I believe in a different story about the world that's corrupted. I'm under the influence of the powers and authorities, Paul the Apostle would say. And so when I hear the story about a crucifixion, I can't become a psaya.

That's ridiculous. And I can't become a plant. Yeah, which means I can't find life. If I'm not connected to the message of the kingdom through Jesus, I'm going to be pursuing false edans. But a plant growing, I guess, maybe represents having an abundant life prosperous, eat in life. And here, with the one snatched by the evil one, it doesn't even have a chance. It doesn't even have a chance to germinate. Germinate. Correct.

Second one, can start to germinate, but it's the rocky ground with shallow. It's called a shallow soil. And so he said when the sun scorches it, which he translates into trouble or persecution because of the word. So when sun comes and withers, what a plant can do is sink deeper roots

to access moisture, nutrients underground. But if it doesn't have any depths of root, then it'll just wither. The sun will wither. The sun image here, shallow root. So people who don't allow the seed to take deep roots. Yeah. So I think here this would be, actually,

I think there's a wordplay happening here, because the word for Rocky is the word Petros. Peter. Peter. And what does he accept a shallow root? Yeah, trouble and persecution comes to him in the courtyard after Jesus is arrested, and three times he denies his allegiance to Jesus.

I think this is intentional. The Peter becomes a narrative illustration of the Petros ground here in this parable. But Peter transforms. Yeah, he has his own conversion after the resurrection. The seed falling among the thorns, this is about the grounds already occupied. Yeah.

That's soils, that spot's already taken by. Other, there it is. Another plant, but then it's a plant. Other messages. It's a sign of exile and Eden. Yeah. So it's the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth. False trees of life will compete with the real tree of life

that God wants to plant. Yeah, that's interesting. When we create real tree of life that God wants to plant. Yeah, that's interesting. When we create false trees of life, we create them to be these beautiful luxurious trees, or when I say we in the biblical narrative, and us ourselves, when we like pursue something that we think is gonna bring life, but doesn't. Yeah, we think it's a good, beautiful thing.

Yeah, it's right. And here, it's like, no, that's the one. It's the one totally. Yeah, that's right. And it's the one. Totally. Yeah, that's right. And it's the consequence of exile. Correct, that's right. Yeah, in the same way that Israelites in the time of the kings looked out and saw all their Canaanite neighbors on all the high places. And you know, things are going good for that guy. And he worships Ashram. And this is our third year of drought here in the hill country of Judea.

And the prophet Elijah said, Yalways the one causing it, my God brings drought. And that guy's having a fruitful year over in the next valley, so I'm gonna go with that. That's the idea, it makes sense. Right, that you would occupy the idea. It makes sense. Right. That you would occupy the ground with thorns. Correct.

Why would you let there be thorns in the ground? Yeah. You think they are gonna bring life. Yeah. And so maybe the thorns, the thorns here are negative, but ideas and the perception of somebody growing a thorn is it looks to you like, wow, this looks great to me. Yeah.

It's wonderful. Yeah. What a beautiful plant. Yeah. Right. That's the idea. me. Yeah. It's wonderful. Yeah. What a beautiful plant. Yeah. Right. That's the idea. Yeah. Yeah. Deceived. And so the final seed is seed that falls on good soil, that's someone who hears the

word and fully grasps it. And then a crop is produced, yielding, and then these amazing amounts, 160, 30 times, what was sound. So different amounts, the word will produce different kinds and different amounts of fruit and different people. But always abundantly. But always, yeah, always in surprising abundance. Be fruitful and multiply.

I'm just not a farmer. I threw out seed and good soil. Right. What does that mean to yield 100 times? Yeah, totally. I'm not a farmer either. So I'm looking up my favorite commentator on Matthew, RT France, a blessed memory.

The fact that the singular seed, sewn in good soil, is subdivided into three different levels of yield, suggests that we're intended to notice the variety. He says, he translates it immediately. Disciples are not all the same. Equally genuine disciples, good soil, will produce different levels of crop, depending on different gifts and circumstances. Oh, he's linking it up to the parable of the talents later on in the story. A similar point, oh, it's made in the parable of the talents,

but the 30, 60, and 100, he doesn't mention it. He doesn't talk about it. I'm genuinely curious now. You know, who might talk about it? Ulrich Luce. How much do you want to know about the numbers? Maybe someone can look this up for us, find something out. If you're a farmer and you plant a seed and you get a crop of a hundredfold, is that

a great crop or is that like what the heck happened? Supernatural kind of crop. I think that's what I'm wondering. Yeah. Does the 160, 30. You have a hunch that a hundredfold would just be like, that's a really, that's a top quality tomato plant. Planted one seed, it got a hundred tomatoes.

Oh, okay. Here's Leon Morris, his commentary on Matthew, says these three groups, 160 and 30, commentators throughout history have disagreed as to what these figures are, whether they're in exaggeration to bring, talk about the bountiful nature of the crop, or whether they are to be taken more literally assuming some kind of knowledge or agriculture. Without knowing the seed, it's impossible to be dogmatic.

Okay, that's a good point. Sure. He says, Maze, for example, my well produced 100 or more seeds. Maze is like a corn. Mm-hmm. Though it was wheat, that's not good point. He says, maze, for example, might well produce a hundred or more seeds. Maze is like a corn. Mm-hmm. Though it was wheat, that's not so likely. So in any case, Jesus is making the point that good ground produces an abundant harvest.

Yeah. That much is clear. We don't have to go through other ones in depth, but the parable about the good seed that so's both wheat and false wheat, as often called the parable of wheat in the weeds. So this one is zeroing in on the theme of that Jesus' community of Cyples will be a mixed bunch. Weeds and wheat. And he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, but then surprisingly Wheat and plants that look just like wheat grow up another example the mustard seed That's another garden the kingdom of heaven is like this tiny seed

That produces a huge tree and then all the birds come and perch in its branches Your farmer you plant a tiny seed. God provides this huge thing. And now you as a farmer get to hang out with all these animals that take place in this big tree in your garden. It's an Eden image for sure. And the surprise is about the contrast of scale. It's amazing that a divine word could generate a universe.

Yeah. It's amazing that a titanant Jewish apocalyptic sage announcing the judgment on Jerusalem and the birth of a new creation would change the course of human history. Yeah, that's remarkable. It is remarkable. What's striking me here, though, reading these parables is that Jesus isn't doing anything novel, really.

It's like he's read, he was scripture the way we just kind of walked through it and he's talking to people. Yeah. And he's just saying guys Eden yeah Eden life like yeah, it's about being fruitful Yeah, and multiplying correct and yeah, it's about God creating life out of something very small and it's about It's about a garden being grown And you match this with the sermon on the mount,

that's first two large blocks of teaching in Matthew, is the sermon on the mount, and then this block of parables. And they illuminate each other. What is the good soil that produces fruit? What does that kind of life look like? It looks like a sermon on the mount person. And so they,

Or is the sermon on the mount the fruit? The sermon on the mount is, yeah, the kind of life that characterizes the new Eden people of which Jesus is the prototype. This is the way he is living and he's calling people to join him. Let me just process this. Jesus is announcing that God's kingdom is arriving in a new way. And so everyone's then wondering, what is it? How's it arriving? What do you mean? And he uses all this garden imagery to talk about it arriving.

And I guess as someone who reads the Hebrew scriptures, you would go, oh yeah, that makes sense. Like God's planning a garden. So I guess, yeah, my point is to that degree, I'm going, great, awesome. If I'm falling with the Hebrew narrative, I'm like, this makes all of them make sense. Yeah, in pointing this out,

this maybe isn't a very exciting observation. But I think it's just, it fits into the larger pattern of Jesus talks about the kingdom as a garden. It's growing new, surprisingly large amounts of plants and life and trees and... And he's inviting people to be planted in this garden. Correct. So let's take the next step. Another famous saying of Jesus, the Gospel of John, which doesn't have large collections of parables or anything like the sermon on the Mount.

Jesus' longest block of teaching is in the upper room discourse, and at the center of it is a famous line in John 15. Jesus calls himself the vine and calls his disciples the branches of the vine. So Jesus characterizes himself as a plant that the root plant the stock yeah and then he says that my father is the one who's growing hmm this vine and you all are the buds and the branches yeah going out the carry the fruit of the vine I am the new humanity yeah and you can be too, so we're back to people or trees. Yeah. Jesus is the new tree of life growing in the new garden God's growing a new garden of Eden. I'm the tree of life and Instead of saying so come to me and eat What she does say that's right, but in this case what he says is

If you all are following me and trust in me and are connected to me, then you actually will become an offspring of me. You think he's talking about being a tree of life or just being in a garden? Well, I'm the vine you were the branches. The base metaphor is I'm the central stock of the plant and you are growing off of me. Therefore, the fruit that you produce is sustained by me. Right. It will look like me.

It comes from me. Got it. Apart from me, you can do nothing. So when I'm connecting it back to Eden, I'm making an interpretive move. Yeah. But I'm just saying, when you connect it back to Eden, there's all sorts of fruit trees in Eden. Yeah. The tree of life is a very special tree.

Oh, I understand. That's right. Yeah, that's right. But I could see why you would say, because Jesus is, he says, I am the Father, I won. What does that mean other than I am the Tree of Life? Correct, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Then the video will figure out how to do the design patterns leading up to a Jesus moment. Mm-hmm.

But for the video, I love the idea of Jesus coming onto the scene and he's announcing that God's growing a new garden. And the plants are the new people. And then he talks about himself as a central plant. It's interesting in the parable of the sower, the people have their chance to sprout out of the soil. Correct. Yeah. But here in John 15, it's like, actually, you know what? Yeah. Another way to think about this, is you're not gonna sprout out of the soil.

You're gonna sprout out of me. Out of me. That's right. I'm in the soil. Jesus becomes the tree. Yeah. Out of which every part of the new creation sprouts. The good soil is me.

Yeah. Yeah, Jesus becomes a good soil. Yeah. Correct. That's right. Yeah, so I think good soil. Yeah, correct. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So I think they'll be fun to play with. You have Jesus talking about his message as growing new plants, and then that scene could morph into himself as the plant. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

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1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc Okay, so let's do the New Testament out of order. Jesus is on the scene, announcing the arrival of God's Kingdom. Which is a new garden. Which is a new Eden garden. The good soil is people, and the message Jesus is bringing is like the word of God and Genesis 1 growing a new Eden. But then all of a sudden, he said, I'm actually the tree of which the whole thing grows. So that's what he was announcing.

The last pages of the Bible in the book of Revelation depict the ultimate fulfillment of the whole biblical story with all of that same imagery. So we get from Jesus announcing that it's arrived to it actually fully being arrived revelation. So we can talk about that full arrival and fulfillment right now. And then that'll leave us with the question of, well, how do you get from Jesus announcing it and that takes us to the cross in the resurrection? Cool. We're again following the imagery here. In the book of Revelation, you have Jesus' followers being addressed by John the visionary

to seven church communities who some of them are wealthy and lazy and apathetic, some of them are undergoing persecution overriding. And he writes the famous seven letters. He sees a vision of Jesus who's enthroned as King, as a slaughtered lamb, King over heaven and earth. Awesome.

He has an Isaiah 6 moment, he wakes up and he's there, except it's Jesus on the throne. And so he starts offering all of this encouragement or warning to the churches. Hey, follow Jesus. And if you do, Jesus will meet you. He starts making all these promises to the the churches. Hey follow Jesus. And if you do, Jesus will meet you. You start making all these promises to the seven churches. One of the promises to the church's Ephesus is he says, listen, if you guys are faithful to Jesus until the end, Jesus is saying

this to the church, Jesus says, I will grant you to eat from the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. The Eden of God. Yeah. Yeah, actually, the word garden in Hebrew was gone, but in the Septuagint translation, so it was the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the word garden is translated with the Greek word, paradeusos, which is where we get our word paradise. And in Greek, does paradeusos mean garden? It's a Persian lone word.

Oh yeah, it's a Persian word. It's a Persian word. It's a Persian word par des. Par des. It's a Persian word that means garden. Okay. And then the Greek translators used a spelled par des with Greek letters.

Why? Well, we have these in English, lone words. Okay. Because in tight. Yeah. Yeah. Bactism. So it's we borrow a word from another language, spell it with our letters, and then that becomes in English word, so to speak. And then English made a loan word, their own loan word, to mean paradise. So our English word paradise is a loan word from the Greek word paradise, which is a lone word from the Hebrew,

the Persian word, partase. Who knows where that Persian word came from? Anyway, the whole point is the paradise of God, is the phrase garden of God. Got it. Eatin'. So I will grant you to eat of the tree of life. Yeah, so John's got it in his head

that there is a yet future, right? Cause he's saying to the church, listen, be faithful to Jesus. And if you do, I will grant you to eat from the tree of life. Oh, there's a yet future realization of a future. I thought following Jesus was eating of the tree of life. It was being part of the tree of life. Correct. And that is true. And that is true. Jesus said the King of God has touched down.

But it's like a mustard seed. It's small, bearing fruit, and slowly, and surprisingly, it will bear fruit in the ultimate new Eden. Because the tree of life gives eternal life. Correct. That's right. And we're still going to die. My body's fading every day.

Yeah. So while I am participating in the tree of life in one sense, in another sense, I haven't yet fully communicated. Correct. So we're to the Kingdom of God and eternal life. This is what Jesus says in John 17. This is eternal life that my disciples know you, the Father, and Jesus the Messiah, whom you sent.

So eternal life begins now. Because it's about a relationship with God. It's about connecting ourselves to the source of eternal life. You're consuming it so it can consume us. Correct. Correct. And that will bear fruit and be fulfilled in the new creation. Similar to what Paul says in Corinthians where he talks about the light of God's creative life

is like a candle inside a cracked clay pot. So his outside cracked clay pot is crumbling and cracking. But inside of it is the the new Eden life. So similar here, there is yet for this persecuted or apathetic church in Ephesus, there is the full realization of their hopes in the paradise of God. And then that's a frame that creates a drama. How are persecuted or apathetic and lazy followers of Jesus? What does their journey into the new Eden look like? That's the book of Revelation. And so the narrative arc of the Revelation

culminates in the last two chapters. And I just put together the Eden images here. Revelation 21, here I'll let you we'll kind of trade back and forth here. Okay, 21 and 1. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away. And there's no longer any sea.

And I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride, adorned for husband. There's so much imagery happening in here. Totally. But you want to focus in on, there's a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, coming down to a new heaven and a new earth. And it's the reunion of the husband and the bride.

Think of the garden of Eden. Eden imagery here, the man and the woman in the garden. A new heaven on earth, no longer any sea, meaning all threats of the can. But here, Jerusalem is a bride. Yeah, totally. I'm sure that's a whole, another rabbit hole. So cool.

Oh man. Okay, and I heard a loud voice from Throne saying, the hold, the tabernacle of God, which is the hot spot where the tree life is, is among men. It's here on the New Earth. Here it is, New Temple. And he will dwell among them. And they shall be his people, and God himself will be among them.

It's eating of the tree life. Yeah, there you go. So New Jerusalem, Temple, Eden, it's all one package deal. And it's coming down out of heaven. Because when these Eden moments happen in the biblical story, they're surprises. They take people as surprise like Jacob in his dream. But this is imagining a moment when that surprise overtakes all of creation and permeates it. So it's not going to heaven. It's heaven and earth reuniting. Then in verse 10, he calls this new

Jerusalem. He says, I got carried away in the spirit to a great high mountain. To the Holy City, Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God. That's what you call the glory cloud on top of Mount Sinai. Yeah, it's on fire.

And it's over the temple. The brilliance of the Holy City High Mountain Glorious place was brilliant, like costly stone made of crystal clear Jasper. Then I was shown the river of the water of life. Wait, crystal clear Jasper, so it's red, but you could see through it. Ah, translucent Jasper.

Yeah. And the river of the water life, of water of life, is also clear as crystal. Coming from the throne of God and from the Lamb. Which is, you know, Eden, right? All the water of life coming from the center. River Garden. Is that river coming out of the middle of Eden?

Yeah. In the middle of it, St. Knows the city, garden, mountain, it's all being merged together. Right. So you got a street running down the middle. Yeah. It's highway.

I guess also there's a river. Right. Maybe it's like a street that has a... River next to it. Next to it, road next to a river. On either side of the river was the tree of life. On either side of the river was the tree of life. Yeah.

That's interesting. Isn't that? Just try and picture that in your mind. Yeah, well you've talked about the, what is it, the, where are those trees that are really all one organism? Oh, the aspen. Aspen trees.

Yeah. They're all rooted together and really just one one thing. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I'm gonna get a picture of something like that. Yeah, just what's fascinating is it's very clearly on one side and on the other side, which you think, yeah, has to be two separate trees, but then uses the singular tree of life.

Yeah. It's just such a great example of metaphor. And what's it producing? Twelve kinds of fruit, new Israel, new humanity, yielding its fruit every month, just like the Psalm 1 tree of life person, yielding its fruit every month, just like the Psalm 1 tree of life person, yielding its fruit in season. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. That's a unique idea here. Is that something that he's referring to? Well, his point is it's 12 kinds of fruit from this tree. The whole story came through

the family of Abraham. Yeah. But it's always been for all of the nations. The fruit is like, it's Israel reconstituted, but it's also for the whole world. Just like the blessing given to Abraham was always for all nations, giving people a blessing. It's the same idea here. And then the scene ends with God saying,

I'm the Alpha and Omega. So it's the tree of life. Producing the new humanity. It's like connected to with God saying, I'm the Alpha and Omega. So it's a tree of life. Oh, it's producing the new humanity. This is like connected to you saying, like I am the vine here, the branches. That's right. Like I am the tree of life. You grow out of me.

Correct. Now this new humanity is bearing fruit. Correct, yep. And it's the new Israel, but it's the new Israel for the whole... Yeah, so filled in Messiah Jesus, which means the whole point is through the birth of the new Israel in the mission of Jesus gave birth to the new humanity. It's the Gospel Luke and Acts in a nutshell.

Yeah, cool. Yeah, that is cool. And then the scene ends, verse 14, blessed are those who wash their robes. That's a temple purity image so that you may have the right to the tree of life and enter the gates into the city. So in Revelation, you wash your robes in the blood of the Lamb. The Atonement. Yeah. If you allow the Messiah's death to be for you,

you enter into the Garden, have access to the tree of life, which means you can freely go in and out of the holy city. This is the Genesis 3, 15, the servant. Yeah, that's right. Who blood for you, suffered for you, makes an atonement for you so that you'd be pure. Yeah, God sent one who went into exile and death on just as we all do because we've eaten from the wrong tree. He did not, but he went

to that fate anyway so that you may have the right so that he could break through the other side to the tree overcome the serpent and open the way back back to the tree life. It ends. Yeah. There you go. So coherent as a narrative. I mean the Bible's really complicated. Yeah. But I did this exercise. I think it was one of my first or second semesters that in college, it was exercise of regents as one through three, read Revelation 21 and 22, right down every parallel image you can. Oh, cool.

And I was blown away the first time I did that. Then it's just a question of, well, okay, connect the dots from one end to the other. Shrace all those ideas. Yeah. And in a way, this video's kind of the fruition of that project so many years ago. So our last stop in our conversation is,

how do you get from Jesus in Galilee, saying new creations arriving to the full arrival of new creation, it took Jesus to Jerusalem. It took him to Jerusalem to a high place. To a high place in the city of Jerusalem where he has his own moment of testing in a garden and a moment that is fulfilled in the tree of Galgotha. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. We're coming into the last part of this conversation on trees. So if you want to submit a question for a question response episode, please do by recording yourself,

asking the question and email it to infoatbiboproject.com. Again, that's infoatbiboproject.com. If you're able to keep your question to about 30 seconds, that'd be great, give us your name, and where you're from. Next week, we're gonna have our last conversation in this series, and we'll discuss the climactic story of Jesus' trial, crucifixion, and how this tree is all over. In Matthew and Mark, they go to a place called Guest Semana in Greek,

takes them to a little garden of olive trees. In John's Gospel, he straight up just calls it a garden. In this garden, Jesus faces his last test. Do you remember his first test was in the wilderness. Then here he uses the word. He says that he's entering into the test. In this macro theme of the tree, he's looking around to all of these people who fail their own individual tests and the collective tests,

creating death in the world. And so he will walk into death on purpose. Our video on the Tree of Life has been released. It's on our YouTube channel. We've tried to summarize this entire conversation into a five minute animated video. And I think we did a pretty good job. Check it out at youtube.com slash the Bible Project or on our website the BibleProject.com. Today's show is

produced by Dan Gummel our theme music is from the band Tents. Bible project is a crowdfunded nonprofit in Portland, Oregon and that means that all of our resources are free because of the generous support of people like you all over the world so thank you for being a part of this with us. I want to be able to sit too soon, huh? Oh, here. Okay. Okay.

You want to start? You start. Okay. Hi, my name is Lakshmi and I'm from Esticator. Hi, my name is Wood and I'm from Esticator. I first heard about the Bible project, actually from my son. My son told me about it. And I first heard about the Bible's project from my camp.

I used the Bible project a lot for just private use of helping me understand it. And I also used it for my women's Bible study group. If we were about to study something, we will always put the Bible project on first and then start to study whatever book we're in. And I use the Bible project to get deeper into my faith and learn about God. And one of the favorite things I love most about the Bible project is how simply breaks it down. Sometimes when we go to study a book it seems so overwhelming, but the Bible product just breaks it down and makes it so understandable for any age.

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