Can We Find The Tree of Life?

In our ongoing series in which we have been exploring the biblical teaching of the gospel of salvation, we’re considering a question which many non-Christians think about, even object to, yet rarely do Christians supply an answer in their presentation of the gospel.The question is this: Why did Jesus go to the cross?In other words, why did He who claimed to be God incarnate have to die?Dave before we get to the vital scripture verses on this, how important is such a question for Christians to be able to answer and for those seeking God to understand?

Dave:

Well I think it is absolutely essential that we have an answer for this because if there is no answer; if this is just a capricious thing, happenstance, just happened to be, that was the way is was, some kind of mythology or something, then what’s the point, you know?We began our program discussing that.Now there are absolutely basic biblical reasons for this beginning right in the very chapter—you know Tom I can’t remember from one week to the next, but I think—are we sort of in Genesis 3 still?

Tom:

Yes, we are going to pick up with Genesis:3:7And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
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Dave:

Yes, but to answer this question, do you mind if I jump a little ahead in that chapter?

Tom:

Go, yes!

Dave:

When God throws Adam and Eve out of the garden, I mean this is very serious.They only ate of the tree that God said not to eat of.But that was rebellion against God.They had forfeited their right to be in His universe in fact.He didn’t wipe them out totally because He’s going to give them an opportunity to receive His grace and to receive the pardon that He offers through Christ who is yet to come.The other tree that was named for us in the garden, besides the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the Tree of Life and when God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden because of their rebellion against Him, He kept the way to the Tree of Life with a flaming sword and cherubim it says.They were there with a flaming sword to prevent mankind from getting to the Tree of Life.Now you would say well that seems mean for God to do that.Doesn’t He want them to live?Yes, but He does not want to perpetuate them in their sinful state.That would not be a kindness to us—so that we continue to live on in these sinful bodies of suffering and sickness and so forth?God has something better.He has resurrected, glorified bodies for us, so He kept the way to the Tree of Life.You don’t get to heaven that way.But there was a flaming sword and I love the way a hymn writer put it.He said up to that sword, we all fled that sword—we were talking about the death penalty—we complained against that sword.God said death is the penalty and the human race complains, we fled that sword, our major instinct is self-preservation.One day the second man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ walked up to that sword and took it in His heart for us.And that’s how He became The Way to life for us.

Tom:

You are talking about the cross now.

Dave:

Right, and I like the way the hymn writer put it—if I can remember a few of the words at least, he said “His blood, that flaming blade must quench.His heart its sheath must be….”And this is what we talked about earlier when Christ took the punishment we deserved at the cross.Now if the flaming sword was there from the very beginning, and if God says you will never get life, eternal life, you will never be back in my favor unless you pass that sword that is laid out at the very beginning of the Bible: “the day you eat there of you shall surely die.”Now Tom, an objection—and I don’t remember whether we’ve talked about this before, but and objection that some people have, and I have talked with philosophers and scientists and atheists and skeptics and so forth and one thing that they sometimes bring up is wait a minute it is not just for Jesus to die in my place.If Mr. Brown murders someone, you don’t put Mr. Jones in the electric chair in his place and I think we have talked about Barabas.Jesus died in the place of Barabas, but it didn’t save him, it didn’t change his life.All he did was get out again so that he could live the way he wanted to live.But Paul said “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”So we go through death in Christ accepting His death as our death.We have died in Him.The cross is not some pretty thing you wear around your neck or you put on top of a steeple.But it’s a place where we face the truth about ourselves that we are sinners, that we have forfeited the right to live in God’s universe and we give up life as we would have lived it and we accept the death of Christ as our very own death.We open our hearts to Him become our life.It’s not now from a tree of life.The tree of life is the cross you could say but the life that we now receive is through Jesus Christ living within us as we have accepted Him as our Savior.

Tom:

But Dave take me back to where you were talking about the philosophers.Their objection was that Christ died in our place and how could that satisfy absolute justice, or justice in their minds?

Dave:

Well they were saying it wasn’t just for someone to die in the place of another and what I am saying is that isn’t exactly the way it happens because we die in Him.His death becomes our death.He is—

Tom:

But not for salvation, in other words you are not adding on something that we would do that would solve the problem of our reconciliation to God.

Dave:

I’m talking about what it means when—it’s nothing that I do, it’s something that I accept.I’m accepting Christ as my Savior.When I accept Him as my Savior having died in my place, I am accepting His death as my death.I’m acknowledging—if I believe that Jesus died for me then I am acknowledging that I deserved to die, otherwise He wouldn’t die.I’m acknowledging that when He took my place He stood between me and a righteous, holy God and the sword of God’s judgment—that He took it for me—that’s what I deserve.If I want a little deeper understanding—it’s not a penalty that I could pay.You see, you park illegally or you speed, you know, there is a penalty within reason that you could pay and then you are cleared in the eyes of the law.But this penalty is eternal death; it’s eternal separation from God.I could never pay that penalty, but God loves me so much that He doesn’t want me to be lost for eternity.So God himself could pay an infinite penalty, but it wouldn’t be just because He’s not one of us.So God became a man and he represented the human race—“…behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world.”He is the second man, you know Adam and the Bible lays it out in Romans:5:12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
See All... “Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men…”So by one man, Christ redemption comes, by His, not just by His fulfilling of the Law, well the Law requires the death penalty, His paying the penalty in our place.And God accepts that.

Tom:

Dave can we make a distinction here?Because sometimes I like to say that either Christ pays the penalty or we have to pay it.But the distinction here is that He is paying it to the reconciliation of man to God.Reconciling us with God, but if we pay the penalty in the sense that here’s the penalty you have to go to jail, you have to be separated (I am using that analogy) you have to be separated from God forever.So I don’t mean by us paying the penalty that’s all we have.Either Christ is going to pay it and we are going to be reconciled to God or we’re going to be separated from God forever.

Dave:

That’s right.Now you can try to analyze this any way you want.But the fact is Mohammed didn’t do this, Buddha didn’t do this, nobody did it.There is no way that I can appease God.It isn’t a matter of appeasing God.You remember I had a debate with a Catholic apologist and he kept insisting that the death of Christ appeased God.That’s a pagan term.It’s not appeasing God.God’s justice had to be settled and in Romans 3 for example, Paul argues this and he says the whole world is guilty.How can God—a just, a holy God forgive sinners?He can’t just make a bookkeeping entry—the penalty has to be paid!And so God himself who is infinite could pay an infinite penalty.He became one of us—the second man, the last Adam.The progenitor of a new race and He represented mankind before the bar of justice, God’s justice.He took that penalty for us.Now there’s no other way that man—if you object to this—if someone objects to this there’s no other way.Then it’s totally hopeless, man is separated from God forever in hell paying off an infinite penalty which he can never pay.But God loves us and this is the difference—we talked about it way back there between reincarnation and karma and so forth.The Law of Karma just—you’re finished!But God became a man.The God of the Bible—He took our place, came to where we were—He died in our place.That’s the best news that you can ever hear.Why everybody doesn’t believe it, I can’t imagine.

Tom:

So God is an absolutely just God and He came up with a solution that satisfies absolute perfect justice and He did it through love that’s unimaginable by sending His Son.“For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whoever believes upon Him will have eternal life.”

Dave:

Amen.