This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 2, 1993.
Listen to the word of God. Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The loving kindness of God endures all day long. Your tongue devises destruction like a sharp razor, O worker of deceit. You love evil more than good, falsehood more than speaking what is right. You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. But God will break you down forever. He will snatch you up and tear you away from your tent and uproot you from the land of the living.
And the righteous will see and hear and will laugh at him, saying, Behold the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and was strong in his evil desire. And as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the lovingkindness of God forever and ever. I will give thee thanks forever, because thou hast done it, and I will wait on thy name, for it is good in the presence of thy godly ones.”
To the angel of the church in Ephesus writes, The one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lampstands, says this, I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men. and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false, and you have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake and have not grown weary, but I say this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first, For else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent. That this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.
Our Father, we pray that you will quiet us before you, that we might give our full attention to you and to your word. O Lord, we ask that we then would be free of those distractions that would call us away from the task at hand and our worship. Lord, there are those internal distractions. There are also those external distractions. But Lord, we ask that our minds may be focused and our souls as well. on those things which you have for us to hear.
We pray, O Lord, that hearing may mean for us obedience. So let us then, Lord, be found submissive to you, giving our attention to you with all of our energies. Forgive us, O Father, make us mindful of the body, us mindful of those around us. May we, in the fellowship of this Spirit, prove to be a help to them, they then profiting as well as we. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I wonder if you have noticed the parallel or the similarity that exists between the sixteenth verse of Genesis 4, Genesis 4.16, and what we read in Genesis 3, verses 23 and 24. The language in verse 16 is more compressed and compact, verse 16 of that fourth chapter, but what we find in these two texts are remarkable similarities in that both of them contain the language of exile.
Genesis 4.16 speaks about Cain’s exile.
Genesis 3.23 and 24 speak about Adam and Eve’s exile. And when we see that even the language of these texts are similar, we are pressed in the direction of matching up the parallels that we find in them so as to explain one text in terms of the other, the terms of one text in terms of the terms found in the other. With regard to these two texts, then we can say that what we find in Genesis 3, 23, and 24, and what it says about the tree of life, will be more fully explained by what we find in Genesis 4. You will notice that in Genesis 4, Cain is specifically exiled from the presence of the Lord. while in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are exiled from the Tree of Life.
The presence of the Lord, then, standing in parallel to the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Life to be expounded or explained in terms of the presence of the Lord. This means, then, that the Tree of Life, in some sense and in a particular sense, can be spoken of as equal to the presence of God. The tree of life can be spoken of in a very definite sense as equal to the presence of God. Now, you may be somewhat baffled by this assertion. Since you know that the tree of life in the garden was actually distinct from the literal presence of God, you are well aware of how God came and went in the garden. In fact, when the fall into sin took place, God was not visibly present at all, and later arrived on the scene to search out the sinners. So if the tree of life parallels the presence of God, we must say it has a unique definition and significance in light of this coming and going of God in his person.
That unique definition and significance relates to the tree’s figurative, and we might even say sacramental, significance. The tree, then, is a divinely appointed sign, and it shall prove to be a seal of the Lord’s presence. The tree’s permanence in the garden serves as a reminder of God’s perpetual presence. That tree is specifically mentioned later on in the book of Revelation. We have read one text in that regard. But this sign of God’s particular perpetual presence is more than a reminder of God’s omnipresence, the fact that God is always, everywhere present. The tree then speaks about promise, it speaks about reward, it speaks about futurity and the prospect of God’s permanent dwelling with man.
In this regard, we ought to remember that this is, after all, the tree of life. And as such, it speaks to the man and to his wife about the central concern as far as God’s presence is concerned, namely, life itself. But what kind of life? Nothing less than life that pertains to the permanence that is represented in the tree. More than any sign of their biological life, then, the tree of life is figurative of the permanence of life in the presence of God. But this tree is also a fruit tree.
God must put Adam and Eve out of the garden after the fall, lest they partake of its fruit unworthily. But for our first parents to have partaken in a worthy manner, that is, by way of obedience and triumph through testing, means that they would have gained that of which the tree speaks. to eat of the tree worthily, then, is a sacramental partaking by which Adam and Eve will have been confirmed in that permanent life with God, a life even higher than that known to them in their innocence within the garden. Such a life is a communion He is a communion set before them, set before us in our reading of the account, under the eating or partaking of the tree of life, is to take into oneself, sacramentally, the life of the world to come. This partaking, then, standing as a sign of entrance into the deepest communion with God possible, that which pertains to His eternal presence in the higher stage of the kingdom of heaven.
God and man, then, are designed or by design to meet at the tree, or shall we say, in the tree. And such is the nature of the communion communicated in the figure of that tree, that God himself will not shy away from identifying himself with the tree or even as the tree.
In Hosea chapter 14 verse 8, God calls himself a luxuriant cypress and declares to his people, from me comes your fruit. A cypress because this tree is reflective of the ever-living character of God. Fruitful because this underscores the sovereign sufficiency of God and his grace. That text in Hosea is actually echoed in the words of our Savior in John 15, verse 5, where Christ speaks of himself as the true vine and his disciples as the branches. And he says of them in the fifth verse of that fifteenth chapter, without me you can do nothing. So then, such is the nature of this communion, communicated under the figure of this tree, that God will not shy away from identifying himself with the tree or even as the tree. I am a luxuriant cypress. He declares through Hosea. But this is a communion that we speak of.
As with God, then so also with man. In this communion with the God who describes himself as the tree that gives to his people life, man also in his righteousness is portrayed as a tree. Psalm 1, verse 3. The righteous man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. And notice, he bears now, the man in his righteousness, the impress of permanence.
Like God, the evergreen cypress of Hosea 14.8, the righteous man partakes of that permanence of life found with and in God. The psalm also says, “…his leaf also shall not wither, whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” He is characterized by a continual fruitfulness after the similitude of his God, thus in communion bound under the figure, the image of the tree.
Psalm 52, verse 8. We read that psalm this evening for a purpose. It pictures again the righteous man. He is described there as a green olive tree in the house of God. And here, the permanence of which now man partakes in communion with God is made clear in that the greenness of the tree is underscored to the end that that permanence might be set before us. And the presence of the Lord is set before us in the figure of the house of God, God’s very sanctuary, so that the permanence and the presence of God are expressly joined together as man himself partakes of both. is the righteous man of Psalm 1 and Psalm 52.
Though we are vile, all of us, served under sin, unrighteous children of our fallen parents, this one, Jesus Christ, is the righteous man. He is a true man. He has taken to himself true flesh, coursing in his body true blood. He, by his obedience, is set forth then as that tree planted by the waters in his humanity, partaking of that permanent life in God’s presence. A life into possession of which he has come by virtue of his obedience and death and resurrection. concerning which he is not miserly in any respect, in that he shares that life with us, that we who are unrighteous may then be as righteous. But even more marvelous still, this one who is very man, this one who has our flesh, who has blood like ours coursing his body, this one is also true and very God. He describes himself in John 6 as one who comes down from heaven so that in him we might be assured of and actually experience that communion with God himself, which was intended from the God. God and man then meet in a tree, and perceived now in this the tree of life, is the wood of the cross.
What we have now, we have by faith, though no less really. Our faith lays hold of all to which that tree, with our eyes any more than Adam and Eve saw the tree after they were driven out of its presence. We are privileged in our faith now to lay hold of even that to which the tree pointed, that of which the tree spoke. That life, which is reward of obedience and testing, is made whole of by us, by faith. And with our faith we behold that One in whom God and man meet. All we need resides in Him. In Him we claim a righteousness that is apart from us, a life that is His, which He willingly and freely gives to us. We are most certainly the beneficiaries of all the grace residing in Him.
Will you not praise Him? Praise Him here tonight to the end, that overcoming you may be granted to eat directly of the tree of life in the paradise of God, in that day in which your faith will be made sight. Praise Him, then. The beginning in the garden has been answered by the ending of glory, and you are privileged of God to see what Adam and Eve lost and even more, to taste through Jesus Christ of that tree whose way had been marked. Let us pray. O God, we will not boast in ourselves but in you. You will teach us about a life from a different order.
And Lord, the desire of our heart is to partake of the full of that life, of the higher world. Even now, Lord, our mind would latch hold of those things Our faith would cling to these things that are revealed to us by your Word and Spirit. And Lord, we would ask for faithfulness that kept in view would in fact be that promise that opens up completely in the day of Christ’s revelation, when in fact we who have overcome we partake directly of the tree of life in the paradise of God. O Father, may all of our actions and words be disciplined by our commitment to this truth. May the very life of which we have been made partakers express itself presently. That, Lord, to the glory of your name, for our good, but also for the good of others. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.