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Chapter  Ten

TREES

EXCURSIONS INTO ARBOREAL AESTHETICS

AND BOTANICAL METAPHYSICS

Ephesians 3:17, Isaiah 55:12-13, 56:3ff., 61:1-3,
Psalm 1:3, Daniel 4:19-27
Isaiah 6:13, Revelation 22:2,
Ezekiel 17:23ff.

II

The Biblical Passages

Clapping Their Hands

Isaiah 55:12-13

This is the evangelical chapter - that is, the Gospel now-proclaimed, maxi-application stress. What Christ was to do as foretold over millenia, and has now done these 2000 years or so ago, was the stress in Isaiah 52-53. The focus then moved. It became this.

How glorious was the eternal consequence for the believer! It is this which is shown in affectionate and enduring terms of faithfulness in Ch. 54, for the mountains will depart, but God's kindness to His redeemed, this will not; while in Isaiah 55, there is a further focus.

Now is to be seen

such an efflorescence of power, pointedness in the capacities of the Christ,

such an everlasting emphasis on the freedom, no-pay-privilege of the Gospel,
where the Lord personally having paid IN KIND,
there is required nothing but repentance into faith in Him
as now revealed so definitively, and providing all in munificent mercy:

that it is small wonder that we reach the arboretum of glory. Yet this comes in 55:12-13.

The very trees will clap their hands as 'nature', seeing the children of God, begins to feel the coming promise which, in the end, will deliver it from its current groans and travail (as in Romans 8:17ff.).

The arrival of the children of God is, in a way, like the case where an old family home with delightful retainers is kept waiting for the holidays when the young ones come. When they do, what a joy and delight is felt; and so what a glory when even 'nature', no more oppressed by man or in receipt of horrendous judgments because of sin, is relieved of a burden so great that even its magnificent composure it currently shudders, and its wonders of control are jarred.

Paul on the topic declares this:

It is as if in anticipation and expectant realisation the creation abounds for a little as those to inhabit eternity in the explicit name of the Redeemer now step into its folds.

Yes, all the trees of the field will clap their hands, as Isaiah here declares. Indeed, the mountains will break forth into singing. In an old National Geographic in the late nineties, one could see the endeavours so costly, to contain the erosion, the leaching, the poisoning, seeping, draining, atmospheric condensates and the like, as man makes his congregating way in the USA: so much was being spoiled, and so very much was being done in individual sacrifice and discipline (the other side of waste) to contain it. Groans indeed came from an afflicted 'nature'!

When peace is restored among the nations and in the hearts of men, peace with the Maker, then instead of due affliction, minimised in mercy, but mounting with incessant, aggressive rebellion, there will be help to restoration and joy in the wisdom of relief. Such is the time to be with His return, before this world is dispersed, its energy thrust out with heat and noise (as in II Peter 3). Isaiah speaks of its prelude in salvation among men, through a Gospel which is TOO SMALL for Israel alone (Isaiah 49); and Paul declares the next stage of release in comparative rest for the unceasing results of the incessant and often innovative sins of this race.

The Dry Trees

Isaiah 56:3ff.

Turning from the realm of 'nature', that is the created material and lower life formats, in the association with man which God planned, and over which He gave him dominion (that does NOT imply unrighteous force but due and responsible guardianship - Psalm 8), we come to man himself. In this, Chapter 56, a delightful thing for two categories of people, singled out as exemplars of His grace. We find that aliens, those not born in Israel, and eunuchs, those physically depleted in regenerative powers, afflicted by others for  the expression of their power, their rebuke,  or the achievement of domestic or palace safety, or for whatever other horrendous intrusion: both these categories of persons are far from unacceptable to God AS SUCH.

Indeed, should they put their faith in the Lord
 

	who has revealed Himself in the Bible,
	as He IS in contradistinction from what He is NOT
	(Isaiah 43:10ff., 44:6-8, 44:24ff., 45:11-19, 46:5-10, 48:7-11),
	as He has spoken and not as they did imagine, or do or will:

then they will have a place BETTER than that of sons and daughters!

Are circumstances to exclude from the heights of divine glory to which all are invited freely as heart is changed and faith is operative in HIM, and not another, in HIS word and not another ? A ludicrous imagination is that; for such things will exclude none, the least being brought to the heights and the most lowly included in the divine inventory. This its cover is NOT according to environment or culture, or any citizenship in this world with its wicked ways, but here is the spiritual citizenship which is a grant of heaven and a haven for any! Gone aristocracies of presumption: come the intimacies of love in the regality of truth which is blind to nothing, and sees His salvation which it comes to rest, in this heart and in that!

Thus many of those who are 'natural' citizens of the land of Israel to whom Isaiah is here speaking, as of any other body in this world, at the external level, will rank way below those who are supernaturally attuned to their Maker, before whom whole worlds come and go. You see something parallel to this with John the Baptist telling ecclesiastical pollutants, unbelieving priests and the like, that God is able to raise up children of Abraham - believers in truth and reality - from the stones! (Matthew 3:9).

The bodily constituents indeed, brought together through the genetic constraints, through the bodies of those who procreate indeed had then billions more to come, and of these, many would be true sons of Abraham, either literally, as Jews converted to the Christ, or metaphorically as those added on the same ultimate grounds (Isaiah 49:6); for Abraham was a father both to the circumcised and to the believing circumcised as Paul points out in Romans 4. He believed in the intimately revealed Lord of creation before he was circumcised, by faith, and afterwards in covenantal constraint, and so is a type for both the one and the other.

What then ? These aliens from Israel, though they seem so deprived, these eunuchs, so mistreated, they have no lowering before God if they are friends of HIS! It is rather the natural citizens who are nothing and worse, if only Jews outwardly, with all the testimony to truth rejected which this implies, and not so INWARDLY (Romans 2:29); for not unknown but rather too well known is the habit of many such, who go about to establish their own righteousness (Romans 10:3), and are ignorant of the massifs of God's righteousness which they need to receive as a gift (as in Romans 5:17), so that so dressed, they might enter that place where sin has no place, and those who bear it with them, the same. Christ dramatically applied this as seen in Matthew 21:1-14, the lack of 'wedding garment' being that of HIS righteousness, as seen in Isaiah 61:10!

There are no dry trees among the Lord's people, whatever deprivation the world may occasion for them, or impose! They shall flourish in heart and be watered in spirit (cf. Isaiah 44:3-5); and indeed be like trees planted by rivers of water (Psalm 1).

Trees of Righteousness

Isaiah 61:1-3

Thus we see the caution for formalism implicit in this gift to the least of what is the greatest!

Yet it is good to move in our arboreal landscaping, to the positive side, turning from the low-lying terrain to which this contrast pointed,  to the hills in their peace.

We come in this way to the passage from Isaiah 61 cited by Christ (Luke 4), who stopped at verse 2, at the words, to proclaim 'the day of vengeance of our God', because no doubt, this was not the phase of His ministry then in point. Rather He came for deliverance.

Prisoners of sin (as in John 8:30-31) are to be freed, the poor are to be in favourable focus, broken hearts are to be mended and there is One who not merely in word but in flesh COMES to do it. THIS DAY, said Christ to those in Nazareth, when reading this in the synagogue, is this fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, it is HE whom they see, the One who was to enshrine this salvation (Isaiah 42:6, 53:6-11). Indeed, it was He,  as Zechariah put it (9:9), having salvation and sitting on an ass's colt, a thing then to come, now long past.

HE CAME NOT TO JUDGE but that the world might be saved (John 3:17), a fact John Wesley got right far better than poor John Calvin, who for all his usually excellent and impressive theology, in system often far beyond Wesley's doctrine, yet fouled the pitch right there, in direct defiance of Colossians 1:19ff.. So do the mighty fall; but yet, it teaches us the wisdom of I Corinthians 3, that NO ONE has the liberty to say, 'I of Apollos' or even 'I of Paul', and of course far less, 'I of Calvin'!

The shocking and perverse obliteration of this command in the name of theology is one of the shames of many Protestants, and it has meant, just as can happen with Augustine, that substantial good which Calvin did is fouled for many, in direct disobedience to the directive of Paul,  by a servile following of Calvin's errror here (cf. The Christian Pilgrimage Ch.    3,  Great Execrations Chs.    7 , and   9, and The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.   4;   Celestial Harmony ... Ch.   2 ).

The facts are more glorious. NOT ONLY is it the good pleasure of the Father that all on earth might be reconciled to Himself by the blood of the Messiah (Colossians 1), but all in heaven likewise! The breadth of the wonder in this love is such that earth itself before God, earth seen as the recipient of the Cross, even the blood of the Cross in the generosities of divine favour towards it: even this is not wide enough in compass for His compassion! It does not dupe Him into paying for what is not redeemed (Romans 8:32), for those who receive His redemption have ALL THINGS we there read, and this does not exclude heaven (8:38-39, 5:1-11); but it does not eliminate the scope of His salvation, its schema from that God who IS love in heaven, applied to earth by Him whose wisdom knows His own, and secures for ever those who in faith with repentance come to Him.

It is not force; it is faith. Faith is not spurious; it is quintessential. Man is messed but God sees beyond mess, and knows His own, even when sin has obscured vision in these domineered by sin, deluded by folly and heavy in the cups of folly. Nothing obscures from the Lord. There are no virtual robots but realisations, these are in the kingdom of heaven, surveyed in heaven and accomplished on earth.

Love has more restraint than this, to force, and while because of sin, it operates beyond human power, it nevertheless operates inside human reality; for it is not ciphers who are foreknown, but those active and lively personalities whom He so foreknows. Although their works are irrelevant (Romans 9), their persons are not so; and although none has ANY merit even to CONTRIBUTE to the salvation which involves God's gift of His OWN righteousness (cf. II Corinthians 5:17-21), infinite in purity and fit for heaven, yet it is not like a smuggler using anaesthetic on a coast-guard, that He finds His own.

God knows the truth, fore-KNOWS His own, and where past sin there is one whom HE knows, then such a one He liberates in due time. Thus no CAN go to hell except in the face of the desire of the Lord and His abundantly ample provision, this being outfaced even in His own sight, for the imperviously lost. HE does not say He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, inciting the self-blighting to TURN; nor weep for the recalcitrant lost; nor declare He would have all come to the knowledge of the truth and be reconciled to Himself in that celestial-terrestrial magnitude of totality, categorically, in order to turn any out for reasons other than HIS assessment of a negative preference!

To say otherwise would be an enormity of distortion of the love of God. Spurgeon, considering such a short-circuit of grace apostrophises concerning it, with horror that is just! On this,  see A Time to  Praise God - Appendix I.

The imperially found, however, these known in eternity, are His (Ephesians 1:4), and HE plants them when the time comes, just as they were already seen to be in line for this; and indeed, EXCEPT He plant them, they will be uprooted which sprout and proclaim their own majesty or dominion or power or self-will, as Christ unrelentingly attested (Matthew 15:13).

These are the 'trees of righteousness' when their day comes, and this being so, rightly may they be called it, for it is HIS OWN SEED which is so planted, a seed which REMAINS in those thus regenerated by His word (I John 3:9, I Peter 1:23, through the power of His Spirit (John 3), in the soil prepared. Thus it is He who is glorified by the transformation and information, the illumination and the courage imparted to such trees which wave in grace, and respond to the wind of the Spirit, which blows as He lists! He would have all; He takes His own in a love which while embracive, does not molest, while transcendent in wonder, magnificent in triumph, yet does not degenerate into lust, cavil or reduction. The love of God is pure. Those who love Him, love Him for Himself as Job shows so dramatically (cf. Job 1!). There is nothing ulterior in the love of God for man; and in the love for God, engendered in man, it is the same.

River Trees

Psalm 1:3

On this positive side, we proceed with felicity.

The man, says Psalm 1,

who does not

	STAND in the way of sinners, or
	WALK in the culture, the counsel of the ungodly, who does not
	SIT in the seat of the scornful, that is imbibe the treacheries against truth so commonly taught in secondary and tertiary education in many lands, and amplified in the classes of the famous, rich in infamy, and often in the media, some as if intoxicated by the simplistic, and caught in the net of the urbane, the empty, the cultural enormities that can call themselves the 'norm' - as normal as leprosy in a colony of lepers, but in this case, without excuse but according to the will:

he is special. In what way is this so ?

Why, with such a one, it is like a positive syndrome, a complex, a combination of features the opposite of a case of some disease, where given some things, you have a classic sort of thing and more may be affirmed of it! Such a person as the above, neither captured nor captivated by culture, someone to whom meditating on the law of the Lord day and night is as likely as breathing, or nearly so, becomes a classic case.

He or she is like a TREE PLANTED BY THE RIVER, we read. This latter signifying as so often with flowing water, the Holy Spirit (cf. John 4:14, 7:37ff., Revelation 22, Ezekiel 47), anyone of this disposition is regaled and helped, so that even in drought, the leaf of such a tree does not wither. With  spirit undaunted, the heart unspoilt, those so planted may continue its tasks of gallantry and the performances of willing pledge, the plight of delight, the Lord God, Himself, the rock and the enduement (cf. Psalm 18, esp. v. 31, Isaiah 44:8, 26:4 -'rock of ages' , II Samuel 22:32). While those who Rock is the Lord, their ONLY rock, for there is no other,  may suffer, and WILL, yet His signature is on them (Ephesians 1: 11-13), and their place is secure. If like Tyndale, they be pursued by infamous hypocrites to the death, yet prosperity is to the point. In his case, it was found not least in his work, for as then, the Bible he helped translate so well into English,  hit England in their native tongue like a benevolent tempest, not destroying but building.

His peril, conspicuous and deadly as it was in this world, became the privilege of millions, directly or indirectly in due time, through his labours. Love is like that.

For such trees, planted by the Lord, the end is sure and the grounding is secure. The Lord,  that ardent human horticulturist knows their way (Psalm 1:6); and by contrast in the negative ? The way of the perverse is like chaff blown (1:4), a notorious thing, going in every way with various aerial dynamics, landing ... anywhere and ... in anything!
 

Chopped Trees

Daniel 4:19-27

Glamour but not glory, this may be the lower heights of some who have yet to find God. Daniel gives an amazing outline of one such, in conspicuous contrast with his own deliverances, extreme though his tests were (cf. Daniel 6). Indeed, as to this Daniel, even success with its triumphs, the work of the living God who uses miracle when He discerns its need, did not mar him. Even when he was offered great honour by Belshazzar, he did not take it, nor did he hide even in part, the dire message it was his duty to convey to that sovereign! (Daniel 5).

In this Chapter 4 of Daniel, we have the famous case of the imperial Nebuchadnezzar who dreamed of a desolation in terms of a tree. In his dream, this massive arboreal exhibit was summarily CHOPPED DOWN. It was majestic, its past soaring into the clouds. It had been a vast tree giving enormous shade, outstanding and mighty. Daniel describes it as presented in the King's dream, in wonderful detail, and ascribing such a thing as was to happen to what the king's enemies might desire, he told the fact faithfully.

How did he do this ? The tree, he cried, it is YOU O KING! Talking of chopping, the monarch could immediately have told Daniel that since he was so wise, he could have his own head chopped off. Monarchs in those days could be cavalier, eccentric and anaesthetised morally; as of course have many to this day.

Daniel told the whole story in outline, of what was to come to the King, whose dream he interpreted in this way. Thus, he outlined the mental dysfunction about to afflict the King, and exhorted him to turn from sin and be kind to the poor; but the sinful monarch did nothing of the sort in the end, rather glorying with that deadly thing, vanity, in his mighty works (Daniel 4:30ff.); and so from heaven came the decision, and his mind fled from him. On hands and knees he paraded his benumbed brain and dumbed mind in distress and humiliation, like a beast eating grass, for quite a season! He was restored and gave glory to the Lord of lords, in no uncertain terms; but the case was marked in the tree, a lesson for ever.

Chopped trees are all the more piteous, and their plaintive position is the more moving, as we consider their past.

It is better then, to be planted of the Lord, and to be justified by faith in Him (Romans 4-5), and for such it is He who was delivered up for our offences, and raised up for our justification; for these, by His stripes we are healed. As broad as the sin-bearing, so is the justification, and as broad as the justification, so is the glorification (Romans 8:29ff. with 8:17). As broad as the heart of God, so is the offer; as narrow as the conversion of man, so is its application. It is never too narrow to include all who call upon Him, repentant and in faith, through the Saviour, the Lord's Christ; it is never so lax as to listen to what is mere stereotyped verbal noise, not the cry of faith (cf. Hosea 7:14-16). Woeful is the case of the one who merely cries to God to better enable his or her self-centred, self-focussed desires, as if God were a nice dog to growl for one as needed!

Surrender into the love of God is not a word or feeling: it is a fact as in any treaty where the participants are not devious, and mean what they say. HE is reliable as is no other; and surrender on HIS terms is surrender to truth, to compassion without ration, to joy inexpressible and full of glory. It is so because it is not being harassed by an inventory that makes use of God, and does not effectually worship Him!

All must learn from Nebuchadnezzar, to void and avoid the self-will and glorification, whether of knowledge falsely so-called (I Timothy 6:20), or mankind, or 'nature' or any other created thing, including one's own works (Romans 10), or those of some nation or power, religious or other; and a major lesson from Daniel is this:  to be faithful fearlessly to God, without quivering or quaver.

Tree Stumps

Isaiah 6:13

In this Chapter, Isaiah is seen called by God. Therefore,  his lips, tainted by culture or other fallibles, must be clean before he can speak. Hence, he is cleansed as by a burning coal from the altar and his message given to him.

What did he learn ? It included this.

Alas, it would be as if they were deaf to whom he would speak, for this is the state of their spiritual ears; and blind, for that is the state of their spiritual eyes. Such was the spiritual transmission to him from the Lord.

For how long would he so preach ? he enquired. Until desolation afflicted the recalcitrant! it would be. Alas it is as in this land, in our 21st century locale, where so few will cease from the works of religious travail, compromising with alien cultures, relativising with alien gods which are not gods but merely empty vanities for whom the name of 'god' is sickeningly claimed! Will Australia, will Britain, will the USA repent and turn from these sickly substitutes for spirituality in the gods the masses now worship, be they gods of State or synthetic religions founded on fancy, or of pleasure, culture or other imaginative but polluted sources ?

The results of regarding the true God as some sort of buffoon whose mercy is less than our own, who does not bother to despatch a remedy for everyone, for any one who calls in faith upon Him, while still maintaining the race, or some odious manufacturer of man for pain as the basic plan, or someone who did not despatch Jesus Christ as sin-bearer and enabler to find salvation and life for ever: these like other slanders can be deadly.

God has spoken and man has resisted; the evidence is there (cf. SMR, TMR, Deity and Design, LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST, WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS), and the case is sure.

In the case of Israel, ancient land, affronting God as so many Western nations are now doing, so adding more and more, to their once rather more differentiated selves, of the common category of religious fraud or fable or both: they did not listen. To be sure, such a position was predicted, foretold with fervour (cf. Matthew 24, II Timothy 3, 4, I Timothy 4, II Thessalonians 2, Revelation 19:19); but adds to the gravity of the international disgrace, and the cost of it to come.

Ancient Israel provides for many a prototype to the present situation. Sad indeed is the remonstrance of Jeremiah (1-17 especially), who was not heeded though he pled strenuously and at great cost; and the review of the disasters to be found in II Chronicles 36 leads on to the Lamentations of Jeremiah, amongst the most heart-rending of them all.

They KNEW before it came, and for long were they warned; but you could not TELL them. Their eyes could not see, or their ears hear (cf. Isaiah 6, 29:14); for they were conditioned into spiritual tics that distorted their spiritual faces, and cavorted with the unruly, the unreasonable and the unrighteous, redefining morals and God as they chose (as you see in Malachi 2:11-13, 2:17, and Isaiah 5), and find again in such reviews as found in The gods of naturalism have no go!

Thus the nation was reduced, as seen predicted in Isaiah 6:13.

Yet some were to be found.

From that fallen tree, a mere stump after the divinely ordered discipline after centuries of disgrace, there would nevertheless come the sprig, the Christ whom God would send as He foretold in such detail, to Israel, via a virgin (Isaiah 7, Matthew 1 cf. SMR pp. 770ff.). Even when all seems lost, a dead looking stump the residue of a beautiful tree, yet from it can come the shoot and from that the new leafy green thrust resulting in a new tree with a new topmost part where the continuance can come where it counts. The people revived after massive discipline for centuries of often unrelieved folly; but there was to come something better than revival. It was nothing less than arrival of the answer in PERSON, the Messiah.

Topmost part ? a sprig from there ? we come in this to the Messiah once more.

The Ultimate Tree

Ezekiel 17:23ff.

In Ch. 17 of Isaiah, you see first a figurative presentation of the fact that a King would have to be humiliated and taken captive, like a tender sprig, situated at the top of the tree, but brought down. In fact, Jehoiakin was taken captive to Babylon, where he lived for decades, before being released and given honour at the last! He was fortunate ever to find relief, for he had given continuity to the follies of his father, in whose reign preliminary raids from other nations had come, a sure rebuke for reliance not on the Lord, but on Egypt, and failure to follow on in the magnificent reformation accomplished by that zealous king and sensitive spiritual soul, Josiah. Indeed, this reminds us that the failure of many a nation, church and body to continue with the insistence on return to the Bible without ornament or addition, which was a first-fruit of the Reformation which came to Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries especially, though with many a prior warning, this too is a return to vomit as Peter has it, in II Peter 2:21-22, in a similar vein, where the prediction is made of just such things to come.

They HAVE come! A recent report even has the current pope declaring that there is one God being worshipped in Christian, Moslem and Judaism, and this, it is so far from the Bible, where the revealed God alone is He, in Jesus Christ paramountly revealed and definitively expressed, without addition or prophet to come (Ephesians 1:10, Hebrews 1, John 1), that it assuredly constitutes another religion. In this as in Revelation 17, the papacy will have no eventual place (cf. SMR pp. 946ff., 1032-1088H). The condition of coalescence, removal from reformation, this is as foretold (cf. Revelation 13:11ff., 16:13ff., II Peter 2). On the other hand, there are many who contrarily, insist on keeping to all the Reformation found as if this were some new criterion. It is the glory of the Reformation that it insisted on the Bible, the whole Bible and nothing but the Bible in its fundamental emphasis, but to glorify its great or to make its imprimatur the criterion, this is to err in the personalism which is not to be desired (as we are instructed in I Corinthians 3).

The Biblical emphasis must continue, since it is that of Christ (Matthew 5:17ff., John 14:26, Mark 7:7ff.), both directly and that of His apostles and those called to provide the testimony of truth. Truth has NIL opportunity for addition now (cf. I John 2:26, Revelation 22:18-20, Galatians 1), and those who ignore this are putting themselves on a par with God, to nobody's help!

We have considered, then, the sprig lifted from the tree, and the fact that a Jewish King, namely Jehoiakin, though young, being evil and following falsity which had for some generations been exposed and already sharply rebuked, even by minor invasions, had been taken away. In fact, it was to Babylon where for decades he was prisoner. We come now to the end of the passage of our concern, namely Ezekiel 17, to find a happier case and a glorious outcome by another means.

The means of this world ALWAYS fail, and only in Christ is there that knowledge with wisdom, understanding with might, grace with gumption, goodness and love which out of this world, comes into it as a stranger. It must be, and will be, embraced as a friend when the time comes, but before then, evil has to flower and be categorised, as were botanical items by Joseph Banks! Then the fruit of folly will be most visible, and the lessons will not cease!

Accordingly, when we turn to Ezekiel 17:23ff., we find this imagery of the sprig taken from the tree,  used in total contrast. The former one, the Jewish King was not to thrive (17:9ff.). This one does little else, though it be small and taken to a high mountain.

This time, then, once more a sprig is taken from the topmost part of the tree, but it is now planted and grows till it provides shelter and rest for many (Ezekiel 17:22-24). It is this time God who HIMSELF will plant it in a high place, and it will even have boughs when that work is accomplished. We are reminded of Isaiah 53 where the Messiah is like a root in a dry ground, not favoured with commercial grandeur, diplomatic honour, national pride; but yet, for all that, by divine counsel, mission and condition, it is He whose kingdom will increase and not cease, in this unlike any other (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Majesty will be His, Ezekiel 17 indicates. The contrast all are to see is that this lowly seeming tree, coming from a mere sprig, a basis in flesh drawn from David's line as predicted (Genesis 17, II Samuel 7, Psalm 72, Isaiah 11) is one that grows to greatness, and then stands while the mighty fall, and the green is dried up.

It is put differently  in other imagery and indeed forecasts. Here is the God who remains of Zechariah 9:7, the One having salvation and riding on an ass's colt (9:6), the man like a hiding place from the wind (Isaiah 32:2), the summit for Israel and indeed for all the world (as in Jeremiah 16:19ff., Isaiah 42:6, 49:6ff.).

The ultimate tree is He, and it is He who being lowly is exalted, being as a sprig becomes the towering glory, being condemned becomes mighty and being rejected shows His regality with grace and truth unequalled (Isaiah 11, 53:12, Micah 4-5, Psalm 2, 72, 110).

From the ultimate tree there comes a grove of dependent and derivative ones; and while He is deity, they are part of His orchard. Let's now turn to their fruit.

Trees with Fruit

Matthew 7:15ff.

Good trees bear good fruit; bad ones bad fruit. The fruit does neither plant the tree nor determine the type. It evinces what it is that bears it, in the environment in which that tree is placed. What does determine the tree, in its turn,  and in its kind, is not the fruit, but the root, the genetic basis, the sufficiency for development. Fruit is the result of function; function is the cause of fruit, and the type of tree is the basis of function.

The trees of the orchard,  hand-planted by the Father, have the regenerative genetic structure, the soil being chosen and the water supplied. They HAVE to bear good fruit. There may be trends back to wild stock, but there is an overmastering reality when God does the planting with all that this implies. The seed for the begetting is His in supply (I Peter 1:18-23), the word of His mouth applied through the blood of His Cross, the seed bed. It is these which have been what is fitted out from before the world was, and for eternity (Ephesians 1:11, II Timothy 1:9ff.); and they are well supplied with test on the way, as Job, a paragon of testing, could attest (cf. Job 1!). It is not for us to complain about the severity of testing, but to ensure that we pass, not by our power, but by the power of God who keeps us to an inheritance reserved in heaven, from which there is neither alienation nor estrangement of heart (John 5:24), however many not planted by God, cry out as they bear the fruit which illustrates the wrong root! (cf. Hebrews 10, on both sides! with 6:19).

It may be that much spoils and foils a good deal of the fruit-bearing, but it CANNOT be stopped, nor can it overall be bad;  for the basis being OTHER than this, so is the fruit! (cf. I John 3:9, where the point in view is PRACTISING sin, not falling here or there, literally 'doing sin').

You can TELL bad trees by their fruit, in this relevant field of false prophets on which the Lord is here talking (Matthew 7:15), telling us to beware of them. They have hearts of ravening wolves, wild and untamed, we are told. Yet they cannot do more at most,  than mouth the truth; and rightfully tested, they break down even there. Don't live under their ministry! Ridiculous, you say: how could anyone do such a crazed thing ?

Alas, history tells you and this includes current history, perhaps for millions! Departure from the deity of Christ is just one of the sect manias, as it appears, and from the substitutionary atonement (Isaiah 53) is not uncommon. New creations about the creation are a dime a piece, and new christs, fashioned very often on the actual one, are mere delusive weeds which people nevertheless give to, and to all appearance, make recipients of their very selves.

To be sure, this is an indirect compliment to the original and actual Saviour, Jesus the Christ, as defining God and delivering His salvation; but it is a deadly one (as seen in Acts 20:26ff.), where Paul warns of things to come: and once again, let it be emphasised - they HAVE come! If the joy that the word of God is so strictly reliable is great, so is the sorrow that so many do not heed it, to their own devastation (cf. Jude!).

Good trees, however,  evince their status by their state, in particular their fruit. This is not quite the same as being JUDGABLE by their ASSUMED fruit; for in this very Chapter 7 of Matthew's Gospel, Christ warns both about judging loosely, as if one had the gen and KNEW so very well, all about things, and fussily, as if by a Sergeant Major obsessed with mere occasions for the exercise of authority.

You get this sort of thing, specious judgment,  even in Adelaide, where one has found this kind of presumptuous knowledgeability, without evidence, mere gossip sanctified by ecclesiastical arrogance can split the very work of God. THAT sort of thing, so far from being a criterion for assessment, is FORBIDDEN. Indeed, in II Corinthians 12:20-21, Paul is given a divine blast of censure at name-calling gossip and erratic mouthings. Flesh loves to rant; wisdom examines facts and does nothing on the basis of hear-say without confirmation, opinion without conviction. The Church is not made in order that min-judges, whether ordained or not, should mouth their vices and destroy the beauty of holiness, like radioactive sources. And what of these ? is spiritual radioactivity to be confused with balm and blessing, truth and wisdom ?

What then is available for assessment must be fact, not imagination, shown fact not the data of the blind; and it should be relevant to the totality in view, if there is to be an assessment of what is sound or false, as in the case in point, ravening wolves.

To revert to the tree image: The source of the seed, it is the word of God which saves as in I Peter. The APPLICATION and IMPLANTATION of that seed  is based ultimately on the foreknowledge and predestination of God (Romans 8:29ff.), which of course involves all the principles which the Messiah showed to be applicable, He the definitive exhibition of Deity, Himself (John 1`4:9ff.). This includes the divine desire that all be saved, as well as the non-intrusive character of love, which weeps before it yields, to a deserved judgment, the object of its solicitude (Matthew 23:37ff., Luke 19:42ff.). You see that in the case of the rich young ruler who, though Christ loved him, was not pursued as he left, sorrowing, that he could not follow Christ because riches had rein to his heart (Mark 10:17-22).

Again, in all God's works, there is the principle of the sovereign security of what God, knowing all, has brought into reality in the seed at last assigned.

To ensure that none becomes offended wrongly by any appearance of mere direction, where love is not distinct, it is now necessary to examine this area a little further, and this for convenience, is inset below.

It is this which is operative as the soul is in fact saved and brought to the light, NOT in entire irrelevance to the one concerned, nor even in utter disregard of the ultimate configuration of desire, even if sin has clouded the issue for the soul concerned. God knows His own and  regenerates them (John 6:65, II Timothy 2:19, Matthew 11:27ff.); but the Lord would have all and categorically moves in the light of His love, to make explicit condemnation of the differential in those lost: it was their preference (John 3:19) as assessed in the sight of Him whose own desire is for all (Col. 1:19ff., I Tim. 2:1ff.), which was the divinely assessed determinant, the stipulated criterion.

It was not HE! It is statedly in those who reject Him, though He did not even COME to judge but that the world might be saved! (John 3:17).

To sidetrack from the stated will of God is unwise. To be sure, it is sovereign, and equally to be sure, it is of an  unlimited heart of love in God that we speak, so that He is even said to BE love (I John 4:7ff.), meaning that there is NOTHING differential in kind from it, within Him! a point in strict conformity both with Timothy and Colossians, Ezekiel 33 and Isaiah 55.

To be certain, there is a limited attainment; just as, because of His knowing who are to be redeemed, there is a limited atonement. Confusing the components, extrapolating or reducing the principles stated by God is not only an occupation of some, but seems to become a pre-occupation of such folly that they separate on such a basis, even from the word of God, and so make whole denominations needlessly at odds with each other. This is a part, a segment of that tide of Reformation thought which becomes its own assessor, and fails to yield to the whole counsel of God, to HIS assessment, to all of His word.

The wonders of the Reformation, however,  are not least in this, that the word of God is to be put above that of man. Let THAT be so! We are thankful for great theologians, as for great Confessions; but unwise is he who puts his criterion in such places. It is in the word of God, and what is subordinate should be made so, both in spirit and in truth. The PC of Australia in its Declaratory Statement made an excellent attempt at putting this, though alas, first Liberal radicals and then illicit Calvinists have aborted it wrongly, first one way and then in the opposite one.

What then ?  past the pollution of man, and seen in the light of the knowledge of God, there is predestination and it is based on FOREKNOWLEDGE, not of works but of people. HE can see past sin and past pathology's rampant obscurations, and determine in hypostasis or otherwise as He pleases, all that is hidden from man in conformity with His own stated principles : ALL OF THEM!^*1

How do we know ? It is because HE says so. He did NOT come to judge or condemn but that the world might be saved. He DID judge in the light of His stated approach, WHY some are lost. Though only the Father can bring them to light, the accomplishment of being eternally lost is divinely assessed in John 3:19: their preference and NOT His! (Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42ff., seen in the light of Matthew 11:27, for it is He, Christ Himself, who WILLS to reveal the Father to the ones so receiving this^*2)

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Fruit of the tree then ? If it is a false prophet, whose fruit is being examined, then tests to show what that fruit is, abound; and it is not hard to find the result, for NONE of these fruits are spiritual in the last analysis. Much error has been made by either assuming a given meaning for one aspect and ignoring the rest, or some of them, or by not even bothering to use the word of God ALONE in making an assessment to discover wolves for the sake of the security of the flock. If you have to beware of these savage creatures, as Paul exhorts the elders to do (Acts 20), then surely it is necessary to be able to identify them, and possible as well; for otherwise the exhortation would be in vain!

Thus many basic errors have been found, categorised and applied, and sects are one of the areas in view, but now, so many formerly sound churches have changed to egregious and meretricious doctrines, because of desire, as forecast (II Peter 2, II Thess. 2, II Timothy 3-4), that the need is greater than ever before. The term 'fundamentalist' is one of the ploys of those who confuse the issues. To be sure, that term is not well-advised as a generic, for all the Bible being the word of God, all of it is to be used. However, it does CONTAIN the point that the inerrant word of God is the sole criterion in doctrine - as Christ made so very clear in Mark 7:7ff.. Thus one first has to clarify this, and then apply the word of God, despite the cat-calling and other abuse with which the devil loves to test the patience of the saints.

However, is this all ? Alas no. There is more care to use, even than this. But it is as in a hospital, if your heart is in hygiene, then its occasions do not bore or make one bleat, but are mere toil for truth.

What then of a case where it is  not so categorically found, it is not demonstrably obvious that a wolf type addition to, subtraction of or fusion of the word of God is before us. Why, then the necessity is NOT TO JUDGE, as Christ equally commands (Matthew 7:1,5). Indeed Christ even creates a scathing cartoon style witticism to disparage the pompous from their own assured judgments and enlightened assessments, where they but indulge in hypocritical self-aggrandising folly. A splinter in someone's eye ... you would like to help the poor, afflicted one who has it ? Good, but be sure that while you are doing so, you do not clout him over the head with the PLANK of timber obtruding from your OWN eye! (Matthew 7:4ff.)

Thus where there is no DEMONSTRABLE departure from the word of God, on the part of the one in view, or no INSISTENCE upon it, and where there is no ADEQUATELY ATTESTED fault from adequate witnesses properly examined, then so far from this being a case of a bad tree known by its fruits, it becomes a bad tree, except there be repentance that is doing the judging. It is then the judge rather than the victim who is astray, and should repent. It is the ASSESSOR, then, who unless there be repentance, is found in such a schismatic folly. It is he or she then, if such be the case, who is  known by falsely judgmental fruits.

Then the bad fruit is that to be found on the part of the critic, in his tree, in the adversary who like Satan, cannot wait but to bring down the brethren with false charges and presumptuous misuse of the grounds which Christ, in the context of Matthew 7, has provided.

Far is this to depart from just and demonstrable grounds concerning departure from the living God, as when someone denies Christ as the only way to God, or holiness as the norm for Christians, or the Biblical morals as critical for conduct, or creation as taught in the Bible, instead making it some blend or synthesis of cultural follies and magics and biblical truth. While any case needs to be judged on its merits, and restraint must be shown, there can be no truck with what rouses man's little conceptual apparatus, and makes it dismiss the clear, self-defining requirements of the Bible, or add to them as official teaching. THAT, Christ explicitly condemns.

If false charges be brought against the Bible in the interests of making it mouldable to alien ideas, as in the midst of the creationist declivity such as has hit the PC in America and so many other bodies, and what is undemonstrable from the Bible is authorised,  then this enters a novelty into the Christian religion. It becomes assault on the word of God, and that becomes an  intolerable development  for continuation in such bodies (cf. Let God be God Ch. 12, Romans 16:17, Separation 1997). Is one then to condemn such ? no, of course not. It is God who condemns. It DOES however mean that one must separate from such abuse, and condemn the POINTS in view, hoping for repentance and seeking it in love.

How lovely is the life of God! We turn now to the tree of life, as seen in Revelation 22, and its fruits.

The Tree of Life

Revelation 22:2

What is at first sight most surprising in this symbolic depiction of heaven, in which the river of life is flowing and the tree of life has its fruits, is simply this. WHY are the leaves of this tree, its fruit now no longer something hidden for test purposes, as at Eden, instead on clear display and available. Further,  why are the very leaves of this tree for healing, when it is already heaven!

First, in answer, one notes that it is the NATIONS which are to receive this recreational bounty.
Secondly, this is the city of symbolism. The principles enunciated are just and sound and sure, but in this book, symbolism is considerable, consistent and impelling. Does this limit the truth ? (cf; Hosea 12:10). On the contrary, it confirms it, bringing imaginative exposition into place, as the eternal principles are given shape and form. The Holy Spirit is a SPIRIT, not water: it is obvious that such terms - applied by Christ to rivers of water proceeding from the midst of someone who is His, for the refreshing of others and testimony of truth - are so to be taken.

What then of the leaves of the tree of life found in heaven ? and of their HEALING power for the nations ? It is no longer a test, explained in detail for the Fall (Romans 5:1-12), but a testimony, expressed in terms based on history and applied to destiny.

What healing is needed in heaven ? This is where the symbolism fits into the picture.

Thus in the past, on this earth, nations would become embittered or restless or ambitious, and attack or deceive, and then there would be self-respect or envy or emulousness or revenge, and this complicated in many mutual missions and so forth: so that it was difficult to stop them from exercising their domains and dominions, killing their citizens in internal or external wars for opinions, for goods, for deceit or whatever other polluted option appealed.

This weft of woe would thus have a perpetual tendency to assert itself, and then to have its counterpoise thrown back, tending to make interminable struggles. Instead of this animus, however, in this depiction of heaven, there is now a divine animation. Just as olive leaves, for example, are noted if not notorious for healing properties on this earth, so here in heaven,  the leaves of the tree of life have this perpetual curative property, as everlasting as the former evils, as functional as purity requires, so that this step-ahead pro-active assault on disease is in view.

Disease ? always stalled, it never happens.

Indeed, here is the tree of life, what is available on due grounds, once in history a step in failure, and now in symbolic form in a symbolic book of true testimony, called Revelation, a certainty in triumph. It is in this context that we read there is thus no more curse. What caused curse is paid for, annulled and overcome. All such things are cured before even  able to arise or arrive. His servants serve Him, their Creator-Redeemer, not in obscurity of uncertainty, but in manifestation of reality: for they "shall see His face" (Revelation 22:4). Reciprocally "His name shall be on their foreheads", this in manifest contrast to the mark of the beast on right hand and forehead in the feverish follies that preceded the judgment, back on earth.

The life of God Himself, thus, finds expression in ... a tree, symbol of beauty and depth, of grace and staunchness, of stability and beauty, well grounded, well maintained by the waters of life. The symbol has beauty; what it symbolises is ravishing beyond conception, the glory of the infinitely personal, infinitely powerful, infinitely wise and infinitely loving God.

NOTES

*1

This set of six volumes is entitled:

FOREKNOWLEDGE,
LIBERTY and NECESSITY,
RESPONSIBILITY, DUTY and CREATIVITY

*2

This is the correct translation of the Greek, as found in the NASV. The AV does not correctly translate this, in terms of modern language. Undoubtedly here, it is not those to whom the Son will reveal the Father, who are in point at this site, but those whom the Son WILLS to reveal Him, to these He does so. This point is simply another illustration of the divine principle that Christ did in fact DEFINITIVELY reveal the Father and any concept of some division or diversification in the truth relative to one or the other, from the Son, is a major offence to Christian doctrine, Christology and the identification of the Son. Calvin in fact makes that here (Christ's Ineffable Peace ... Ch.    2), and it is one of his chief flaws in a work so notable for excellence, that he does so.

It is best to LET GOD SAY WHAT HE MEANS, and then to rejoice in the amazing coherence and resolution of all problems of thought which this brings, as you see in the work of *1 above.