MEN AS TREES – Part 2 of 3

KEY VERSES: Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.  For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. (Jer 17:7-8)

  In part one of “Men as Trees” I contended that as Bartimaeus saw, “men as trees walking,” I see in the Garden, men as trees, perhaps as trees standing inanimate since they had yet to be animated by God breathing life unto them as he had Adam. Where were they standing? On the River of God in the Garden. I believe that one of the four rivers was the Naral Ha Yarden, “the river of the Garden” (the Jordan River). Which one, I don’t know, but perhaps it was the head river from which the four rivers flowed:

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. (Gen 2:9-10)

  Hardly noticed is that there were not four rivers, but only four named. The River of God went unnamed, but it was God’s River of the Garden. The psalmist wrote of that great river: “Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. (Psalm 65:9), and the apostle John reinforced that hypothesis when he wrote:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. (Rev 2:7) In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev 2:2) Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. (Rev 22:14)

  The Garden of God - later the City of God because there are more than two citizens therein - are for those who “have a right to the tree of life.” Who have the right? “To him that overcometh… they that  do his commandments.” What are God’s commandments? To love God with all the heart, mind, soul, and strength and others as well (Mark 12:29-31)! “Love,” therefore, is the right to the Tree of Life and the key to eternal prosperity… so forget socialism – the doctrine of men!
  The point, however, is that the Tree of Life which stood in the midst of the Garden Paradise still stands in the heavenly Paradise. “The river” in Revelation 22:2 above is certainly the Naral Ha Yarden – The River of the Garden! Trees mean things in the Bible. Usually they are symbolic of people. Adam was to “dress and keep” the Garden (Gen 2:5). At that time, there were no other figurative trees, but only vacant souls of those citizens who were soon to be filled with the breath of life. Adam was the “serve and preserve” those souls, obviously by speaking the Doctrine of the Tree of Life.
  Be clear; Jesus is the “tree” representative of the Tree of Life, and the Holy Cross is a wooden representation of that Tree. Luke wrote that Jesus “hanged on a tree” (Acts 10:39). Trees mean things for those with special insight!
  Note that in the first key verse that it reads, “blessed is the man” and in Revelation 22:14, “Blessed are they.” In the first case, the condition for blessedness is trusting in the Lord. In the latter verse, “blessed” are “they that do His commandments.” It seems that “blessedness” is trusting the Lord by DOING His commandments. My regular readers should know that “commandments” can be interpreted “prescriptions” as well, and prescriptions are more doctrinal that commands. The Ten Commandments are more of an itemization of God’s Will for us as prescriptions for eternal healing!
  “Blessed” is blissed. “Bliss” is joy, perfection, and well-being in heaven.
  Jews don’t call them commandments, but “the Ten Words.” It is known from John 1 that Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Hence, the Ten Commandments are the Ten Words of Jesus. He is the One who said them! “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Mat 5:17). Jesus wrote the Ten Words, and he came to fulfill them. How did he do that? “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Gal 5:14).
  The Greatest Commandment is to love God. The Jews thought they were doing that, but failed to love others as themselves. (They were hateful to others and full of pride in themselves.)
  The Law was fulfilled when loving others became part of loving God. Jesus’s part in that task was demonstrating the love for us (John 3:16) that we are to love others by the same metric. We fear eternally perishing for ourselves; we must find as reprehensible the eternal death for others. The “key” to the right to enter the gate to Paradise which is still guarded by cherubim (Gen 3:29; not Saint Christopher), is love, and that said in the Name of the Lord – Jesus! “Green Olive Trees” can get back into the Garden through that one gate. The olive tree represents peace, and more significantly peace with God. Sin is warring with God as sinners make themselves out to be “as God” (Gen 3:5). They want TO BE God but the Lord IS God!
  People look for “peace in earth, goodwill toward men, “but that Peace exists only in Heaven. In the earth, Jesus brought dissension (Mat 10:34). Peace will come, not in the paradise of Israel, but Paradise in heaven. I specifically used small letters for earth and heaven because they seem to be one and the same place. Jesus said to pray for God’s Will in earth as in heaven (Mat 6:10). That seems to indicate that the Lord meant in the seen as in the unseen or in the present as well as the hereafter when Paradise comes to the world (Rev 21).  I contend that the trees in the Garden are representative of Green Olive Trees in Heaven; they stand in the same Garden, but are characterized with different features.
  They were Green Olive Trees in Paradise, and alive peaceful souls that will live in Heaven! Moses wrote of Paradise in Heaven. The Jews thought he was speaking of the Paradise of the Kingdom of David:

And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full. (Deut 6:10-11)

  Just as in the Garden wherein God supplied all “good” things for each process in the creation (Gen 1), God promised the same good things to the “goodly cities” specifically in New Jerusalem after it is purged clean and the City of God returns to its foundation… Jerusalem, “the foundation of Peace.”
  The Garden of Eden was a Garden full of olive trees and vines with their fruit. It was likely a lush vineyard intertwined with olive trees. Perhaps there was only one fig tree in the Garden, but that kind of tree is not mentioned in heavenly Paradise because it has evil fruit as well as good fruit. Heaven is very good!
  Tomorrow, I will continue with the meanings of vines and olive trees, and even through in the bramble bush.