CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GOD’S INTENTION
FULFILLED IN TRANSFORMATION
Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:8-12; 1 Cor. 3:9, 12; John 1:42; Heb. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 22:1-2; 21:18-21
As we have seen, the tree of life is the central subject, the central thought, of the entire Scriptures. In the beginning God created the universe, and He created man as a vessel to contain Him. Man was made as a container in order to have God as his contents. Thus, after God created man, He put man in front of the tree of life, which signifies the Triune God to be our life, our enjoyment, and our everything. God presented Himself to man as man’s enjoyment that man may take Him in. By man’s eating of the tree of life, the very Triune God could come into man and mingle Himself with man to make Himself one with man. First Corinthians 6:17 tells us that we human beings can be joined to the Lord as one spirit. We can be one spirit with the Creator, with God Himself!
God presented Himself as enjoyment to man, but man fell. Thus, God changed His form from the tree of life to a redeeming Lamb. In the redeeming Lamb, God presented Himself to fallen man as life and everything. Through the redeeming Lamb, fallen man could be brought back to enjoy God as his life. Our second birth, the birth in our spirit (John 3:6), brought God Himself into us as our very life. After our birth we continue to enjoy Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, as our food, our drink, our air, and even as our abode, our dwelling place, day by day. Thus, Christ becomes everything to us.
ENJOYING THE LORD AS
THE TREE OF LIFE AND THE FLOW OF LIFE
TO BE TRANSFORMED INTO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST
The tree of life signifies God in the Son as the Spirit to be our life and everything. Genesis 2 records that God placed man in front of [196] the tree of life and that this man was a vessel of clay (vv. 8-9). A river went out of Eden to water the garden, and this river was divided into four heads (v. 10). The issue of the flow of this river was gold, bdellium (a kind of pearl), and onyx stone (v. 12). We need to look to the Lord that He would give us a heavenly, spiritual view of this picture presented to us in Genesis 2. We all need to be transformed from men of clay, vessels of clay, into precious materials for God’s building—gold, bdellium, and precious stones. If we are going to be transformed from clay into precious material for God’s building, we have to eat the fruit of the tree of life. If we eat the fruit of the tree of life, this life becomes the pure, heavenly, living, and spiritual water flowing within us. This flow of life will transform the clay into gold, pearl, and precious stones. All these precious materials are for God’s building. The conclusion of the divine revelation shows us a city built of gold, pearls, and precious stones (Rev. 21:19-21). When we enjoy the Lord as the tree of life, this life flows within us and transforms us into the image of Christ.
GROWING IN LIFE FOR GOD’S BUILDING
The apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 that we are God’s cultivated land, God’s building (v. 9). The building of God’s temple, God’s dwelling place, is only possible by the growth in life. This is why the cultivated land is mentioned first and then the building. The growth of life makes the building possible. Paul tells us that the apostles are God’s fellow workers, God’s co-workers, who labor on God’s cultivated land to plant and to water. On the one hand, the apostles are the farmers, the husbandmen, and on the other hand, they are the builders. The planting and the watering are so that we may grow in the divine life. Out of this growth we become the proper materials for the building up of the church, which are gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12). In Genesis the second material is bdellium, pearl, and in 1 Corinthians it is silver. The apostle Paul mentions silver instead of pearl because in Genesis 2 sin had not entered yet, and there was no need of redemption. Silver signifies the redeeming Christ with all the virtues and attributes of His person and work. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 3 there was the real need of silver, the redeeming Christ. [197]
HOW WE CAN BE TRANSFORMED
INTO PRECIOUS MATERIALS FOR GOD’S BUILDING
Now we need to go on to see how human beings of clay can be transformed into gold, silver, and precious stones for God’s building. Peter was originally a man of clay named Simon. When he was brought to the Lord for the first time, the Lord changed his name to Peter, which means “a stone” (John 1:42). Genesis 2 indicates that man was made from the dust of the ground, but the Lord called Simon a stone. The Lord changed Simon’s name to Peter because when Peter began to know the Lord as the Son of God, as the living Christ, Peter had received the Lord into him. At that time a metabolic change took place within Peter. When Christ as the divine life is added into us, some spiritual chemistry takes place, and there is a metabolic change in our being. The clay is changed into a stone. Eventually, this stone will be transformed into precious stone, transparent and shining.
In the church we can have the heavenly and spiritual gold, silver, and precious stones by Christ as life transforming us. The more that we enjoy Christ, the more that we take Him in by eating Him, drinking Him, and breathing Him in, the more His life will transform us. The Christian life is not a matter of outward correction or adjustment but a matter of transformation, of a metabolic change in our inward being.
When I was a young Christian, I received a number of teachings concerning holiness and sanctification. The Brethren teaching tells us that sanctification is something positional. They point out the Lord Jesus’ word in Matthew 23 to the Pharisees that it is the temple which sanctifies the gold (v. 17) and the altar which sanctifies the gift (v. 19). This makes the gold holy positionally by changing its position from a common place to a holy place. They also point out that the common food that we buy becomes sanctified through the word of God and our prayer (1 Tim. 4:5). This sanctification is positional. Another school stresses holiness as an eradication of the sinful nature. We must realize that the real holiness, the real sanctification, is not something merely positional, nor is it an eradication of our sinful nature. Sanctification is not only a matter of position but also a matter of disposition, that is, a matter of being transformed from the natural disposition into a spiritual one. Sanctification is to work God’s holiness into us by having God’s divine nature imparted [198] into our being. In this sanctification Christ, as the life-giving Spirit, is saturating all the inward parts of our being with God’s divine nature for our transformation in life.
There may be a certain sister in the Lord who loves the Lord very much, yet in her character, her disposition, there is the problem of a bad temper. She may be helped to realize that she has been positionally sanctified, that her position has changed in Christ. Formerly she was in Adam, and now she is in Christ. She exercises to take this standing with the realization that she has been transferred out of Adam and into Christ. Because she is in Christ, she must be holy. But eventually this dear sister will discover that it does not work just to have the realization that she is positionally sanctified. Even though she realizes that she is in Christ, this does not stop her from losing her temper.