Let's be turning to Genesis chapter
2. Now in Genesis 2 we're told of
two trees in the garden. Two trees that our Lord brought
forth and it says in Genesis 2 verse 9 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. So these trees were brought forth
in the midst of the garden. And so you can imagine that every
day Adam likely passed by these trees. Every day Adam probably
went by the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. And every day that he passed
by these trees, especially the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, he had in his mind the law of commandment that God
gave him. It says down in verse 16 and
17, And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree
of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And so that would have been on
his mind as he was walking in the garden past that tree He
would remember the commandment of God. And that weighed in his
mind. Now, when the serpent came, he
tempted Eve. He deceived Eve into eating that
fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And if you
turn over to Genesis 3 now, Genesis 3, verse 6, After hearing from
the serpent and being deceived by the serpent, were told the
woman, when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and
that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make
one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat. and gave
also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Now when Eve
ate the fruit, nothing changed. Nothing changed. Nothing was
different. But when Adam ate the fruit,
that's when things changed because Adam is the federal head. He's
the representative of all his race. And we're told in verse
7, the eyes of them both were opened And they knew that they
were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together
and made themselves aprons. Well, what happened? What happened? Adam, the covenant head of his
people, the federal head, and the seminal head. We come forth
from his seed. Our seminal head, he broke that
covenant of works that he was under. He was under a covenant
of works. Thou shalt not eat of the fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That one commandment
there, just one, one commandment, And Adam fell and sinned. And Adam plunged himself and
all his posterity, all his seed yet in him, all died in trespasses
and sins. And you think about that and
the power of that, that Adam was a man made upright by the
Lord. He didn't have other sinful people
around. He was in a perfect environment.
There weren't all these outside influences of sin that we have
today. He was of sound mind. He didn't
have the trouble that we have and all the fuzz that is in our
brains. And his body was sound and strong
and perfect. He was a perfect man. He was
probably the most handsome, most fit man ever to walk the earth,
and Eve, the same. The most beautiful woman, fit
and perfect in every way. And he never even sinned before.
All he knew was good. He had no knowledge of evil.
He only knew good and yet when he was tempted he sinned against
God and he brought death into the world by his sin and rebellion
against God. The Apostle Paul sums it up this
way in Romans 5.12, by one man that's Adam, sin entered into
the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men
for that all have sinned. We all sinned in Adam, we all
died in Adam, and we come forth showing that we died and were
corrupted in Adam. We display that all the time,
that we are sinners. And so man, whom God created
upright, could not keep the law for righteousness. He couldn't
do it then when he was upright and in a perfect environment,
and we cannot do it now. We cannot keep the law for righteousness. Now before the man could solidify
himself in that wretched, wicked state by giving himself eternal
life, God turned him out of the garden. God sent him out of the
garden and sealed him off from being able to reach forth his
own hand of the tree of life and give himself eternal life.
God stopped that. It says in Genesis 3, 22, And
the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us to
know good and evil. God, He knows evil, but He isn't
evil. He knows everything. He knows
all things, and yet He is good and perfect and holy and righteous
and whatsoever He says and does is good. It's good and perfect. But man now is corrupt and ruined
and vile. He might have a sense of what
is good, but everything he does is evil. Even our motives under
the law are corrupt and vile because our motive now is one
of self-serving. When you try to please God under
the law, there's no love there. There's no love. It's the same
way if you put a law on your children with the threat of,
I'll love you and provide for you, except if you don't do this
right. I heard someone give an example
of, but if you don't get straight A's, as long as you get straight
A's, I'll love you and provide for you and take care of you.
But if you don't get straight A's, you're out. You're out. They gave a lot of good examples,
but there's no love there. Your children would be always
looking at you, always suspect that when they slip up, they're
out. They're out. They're expelled
from your presence forever, and they're gone. And so there's
no love under the law and the Lord said they've become as one
of us to know good and evil man has and and now lest he put forth
his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live
forever drop down to verse 24 so we drove out the man and he
placed at the east of the garden of eden cherubims and a flaming
sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of
life so that wherever that tree was We'll never find it. We'll never know because it's
gone. There's no way we're going to
find it by that literal tree of life there. Now, what we see
in this is that the law cannot give man life, and the law never
could give man life. God never intended for us to
be saved by the law, and by the law to work a righteousness for
ourselves. God never intended it that way.
Look down at, well, let me read this in Romans 8, 3. It says,
what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh. There's nothing wrong with the law. It's us. It's the
weakness of this flesh. God sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemns sin in the
flesh. And what the Lord is showing
us is that Christ is the eternal purpose of God to save his people,
to bring them under that covenant of grace. and love and mercy
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the law is not the problem. My flesh is the problem. My corrupt,
vile nature is the problem. I cannot keep the law. And God
is showing us that he never purposed for us to be saved by the law
or to maintain our lives by the law. but rather he gave the law
to show us our need of grace and to show us the love and mercy
and compassion of the true and living God for his people. And our Lord gave us these scriptures
to reveal Christ to us. These scriptures speak of Christ
and to reveal the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
these scriptures make us to know that we are sinners, that the
scripture, Galatians 3.22, that the scripture hath concluded
all under sin, that the righteousness of faith by Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. So the scriptures make us to
know that we are sinners and to know that the Father sent
Christ to reconcile us who are sinners, who have fallen from
the fellowship with the Father and to redeem a people for himself
and to give us fellowship and life and in the presence of God
in Christ. in that love, in that grace,
not under law, but in grace. And now, where Adam the first,
we'll call him the first Adam, or Adam the first, that's the
one who was first created there in the garden, Adam the first,
where he fell and plunged himself and all his race into sin and
ruin and death, Christ, the last Adam, as he's called in scripture,
triumphed. He triumphed over all our foes. So where Adam fell, Christ, the
last Adam, triumphed gloriously and gave life and salvation to
his people. And so believers are not under
that covenant of works. And you that believe the Lord
Jesus Christ, you are not under a covenant of works. The covenant
of works is over those who are yet in the body of sin, in Adam. They are yet under that dominion
of sin. And their inheritance is eternal
death. forever. Christ's death, you
that believe Him, you died with Christ that the body of sin might
be destroyed. You're not in that body of sin.
It has no power, no authority, no reach over you. You are delivered
from that covenant of works. You are in the covenant of grace
by the grace of God and Christ. Christ has delivered you out
of that kingdom of darkness and translated you into the kingdom
of light, the kingdom of his dear son. You're in that under
that covenant of grace. And so in our Lord, we are reborn
of Christ's seed. That's why it speaks of a new
birth. We were born in Adam of that corruptible seed. You've
been born again by the incorruptible seed of Christ. You're new creatures
in Christ, you that believe him and hope in him. You're new creatures.
And so that body of sin, it's gone. It's gone. It cannot dictate
what you shall have in life hereafter. It has no more reach over you.
The second death hath no power over you that have been raised
in the first resurrection in Christ, born again, having his
spirit. New creatures in Christ. New
creatures. That's the good news. And so
we are righteous in Christ under a covenant of grace through his
precious blood. I want to look with you this
morning at two trees by way of comparison between the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, that tree from which Adam ate and
plunged himself and his race into sin and death, and that
cursed tree of the cross whereon our Lord and Savior hung. And
there redeemed his people. There triumphed over our ruin
and all our enemies. And there redeemed his people
and obtained the forgiveness of God for them. And obtained
life and every spiritual blessing in him through that trait. Now
listen to this, the Apostle Peter said in Acts 5.30, the God of
our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a
tree. He called it a tree. And then
again in 1 Peter 2.24, Christ, his own self, bear our sins in
his own body on the tree. that we being dead to sins should
live unto righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed. And so the calling of the cross
by Peter is a tree. He speaks of it as a tree. It's
meant to bring our minds back to that tree in the garden there. Christ was crucified on a tree. And it's meant to connect these
two trees so that we see the one tree where all hope was lost
in Adam and then the second tree wherein we are given a good hope. That's a confident hope, an expectation
that what God has promised us in Christ is ours. It is ours. One, hope was lost. The other,
hope is gained. Hope is given. And so we'll examine
these two by way of comparison, one by way of contrast, and the
other by way of likeness. And I pray the Lord would bless,
would glorify Christ in our hearts before us, who look to him and
love him this day. Now, let's see. So first, the contrast here.
The first tree, we're told in Genesis 3, 6, of its pleasantness
to the eyes, of its desirableness to Eve there. Look at Genesis
3, 6. And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes,
and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit
thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her,
and he did And so this tree, the tree of knowledge of good
and evil, was one that was very appealing to the flesh, very
desirable to the flesh. It was attractive to her. She
looked at that and said, that looks good. I'd like to eat of
that tree. But now the same cannot be said
concerning that tree of the crucifixion. Naturally, we're repulsed by
it. It's a bloody tree that speaks of death on that tree. And it
creates in my mind horrific views. And I don't like to look at it.
I remember, I don't know how many years it was now, a man
named Mel Gibson had made a movie I don't know if it was called
The Passion or The Passion of Christ but it was described as
a whole movie for a couple hours at least of the crucifixion the
beatings and the crucifixion of Christ and was meant to put
your whole mind on that and I've never watched it and have no
desire to watch it it would be a a hard thing to, you know,
excusing just the fact that I don't, you know, I have many problems
with the whole idea of it, but just, I don't even want to see
that just constant beating and whipping it. There's something
averse to wanting to see that cruelty and that horror that
man executed on our Lord. And that tree is one of suffering,
one of suffering. And it doesn't have that, in
that sense, it doesn't have that desire to me in the flesh. But you think about that, and
you think of the willingness of Christ to go to that tree
upon which He would suffer and give His life and shed His blood. They say crucifixion is a horrible
death. I mean, you basically suffocate
to death. It's a horrible way to die. And I would not want
to die that way, but our Lord went to the cross willingly for
the joy that was set before Him. He despised the shame of the
cross. He looked past that for the joy of you, his brethren,
to give you life and fellowship with himself, to obtain your
forgiveness with the Father, to obtain your redemption, to
give you life and fellowship with the true and living God
that was lost by Adam when he was sucked in by the way he was the way he fell in sin for that
desirable trait. And we're told that when the
time was come Christ steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. When the time was come he He
wanted to go to Jerusalem because that's where he would redeem
his people. He told his disciples, he said, with desire, I have
desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. He looked forward to the redemption. He didn't look forward to the
pain and the suffering, but he looked forward to the redemption
of his people. And so it's now by the grace
and power of God that we now are drawn to the cross, not in
a fleshly sense, but we draw near the cross to behold our
Savior, to hear what he has accomplished and done for us so that he's
now beautiful. and attractive to the soul that
lives, to that needy sinner who needs what he has given, what
he's accomplished for us by the death of himself. And so we're
drawn to Christ. We're drawn to our Savior. He's
now precious to you that believe. He's precious to you. You know,
coming to the grounds, coming to God on the grounds of the
law is no longer appealing to my flesh. Paul, right, he said,
to you that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the
law? Now knowing what I know, there was a time when I thought
I could come to the Lord in the law and wanted to come to the
Lord in the law. But if that's where you want
to meet God is in the law, he'll meet you there. But you're going
to die in your sins and suffer the wrath of God. But if you
desire to come to God in grace, in Christ, he'll meet you there.
And it'll be a blessed, happy day, that day. And so now, the
coming to God in the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, that isn't appealing to me anymore. And to you that
live by His grace, it's not beautiful. It's not desirable to come to
God in the law. We want to come to God in that
bloody tree through Christ, through Christ. That's how we want to
come. So what the flesh is repulsed
by, nope, that's where we want to go is right through Christ,
in Christ, forever in Christ, in him. Now this leads to more
contrasts between the two trees. God forbade man to eat of that
tree, of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
But on this tree, he's placed no prohibition. He doesn't forbid you from coming
to him through Christ. on the tree. He doesn't forbid
us from coming to him in that way. In fact, the sinner is encouraged
by the spirit and the bride who says, come, come to the fountain
of blood open for you, filled with the blood of Christ. Come,
all you that are sinners, come to Christ. He receives all who
need mercy. Come to the Lord through the
blood of Christ. Come to him through that taste
and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in him. Come to the fountain of blood. opened for sinners by the blood
of Christ through that tree. And so through grace we're encouraged
to partake of the bounty of this tree. God doesn't forbid us from
coming to the tree. He forbids no sinner from coming
to the tree. All who are sinners come and
partake. And that reveals another contrast.
With the first tree, forbidden by God, the serpent was working
hard to deceive Eve. He worked very hard to deceive
Eve. He believed that that's how he could get to Adam, by
deceiving Eve. And that's what happened. But
now, he labors to keep people away from this tree of Christ.
He doesn't want you to look to what Christ accomplished on the
cross. He doesn't want you to look there at all. He wants to
hide it from your view. Paul said it this way, but if
our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, and whom
the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe
not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image
of God should shine unto them. So now, that tree, we're told,
look, look to Christ, look to my son. And that's exactly where
the serpent doesn't want us to look. And then the eating of
the first tree brought sin and death upon man. In that day,
the Lord said, in that day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt
surely die. But the eating, of Christ, the
eating of our Lord Jesus Christ, He gives life and salvation. John 6, 53 and 54 says, Then
Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except
ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, he
hath no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last
day." And so we are encouraged. We are drawn by the Spirit to
Christ, who hung on that tree. And there triumphed over all
our enemies and gives us life. We want to be made partakers
of that blessed tree, of Christ, And finally, Adam, as a thief,
sought to steal the glory of God by eating the fruit of that
forbidden tree. And for that he was turned out
of paradise. He was sent out of paradise forevermore. Think of that thief who hung
on the tree next to our Lord. And he was led of the Spirit
to look to Christ and ask, Lord, remember me when thou comest
into thy kingdom. And you think of the power and
glory of God that gave that man such faith to trust Christ, remember
me. I'm dying on the cross next to
you, but remember me when you come into your kingdom." And
what did Christ say? This day thou shalt be with me
in paradise. That's the only time he used
that word. This day you shall be with me in paradise. All who look to Christ find a
gracious, competent, successful, holy Savior. He has obtained
eternal redemption for His people and He's calling His people and
drawing His people by His grace and power and His Spirit to hear
Him, to look to Him, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ because
He reveals faith and life in those for whom He's died. That's
what He gives to you. That's the life He gives to you.
Now, let us come to the likeness of the trees. Again, we read
in Genesis 2, 9, 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. What struck me when I was
looking at this and preparing here is this shows the purpose
of God. I touched on it in the beginning.
This is the purpose of God to save his people by grace in the
Lord Jesus Christ. God put this tree in the garden. God brought it forth. Adam didn't
plant it. The enemy didn't plant it. God
brought this tree forth in the garden. He put it there and he
gave Adam commandment Don't eat of it. Don't you eat of that
tree. And the day you eat of it, you
shall surely die. And God didn't say if you eat
it. He said, in effect, when you eat of it, in that day, you
shall surely die. And what do we read of? God's
purpose to save his people by the Lord Jesus Christ, who said
in Acts 2.23, Christ being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, he said, ye have taken and by wicked hands
have crucified and slain. That was God's determinate will
and purpose, Acts 2.23. And so God's purpose was always
to save his people by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. And for this purpose our Lord
has called in Revelation 13.8 the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. Paul boasts of what our God has
done for us in Ephesians 1 4 God hath chosen us in Christ before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love And so if we were chosen in Christ
before the foundation of the world, before this tree was ever
created, God is showing his children his purpose, to be gracious to
them. And it was always his purpose,
to be gracious to us in Christ, to glorify the Son in our hearts. And so the tree of knowledge
of good and evil, and the tree upon which our Lord was crucified
and slain, show us the purpose of God. to save us graciously
in Christ. Now, a few other similarities
here. Both trees were planted in a
garden. Both were in a garden. The first
was in the Garden of Eden. And the second, we're told, in
John 19.41, now in the place where he was crucified, there
was a garden. And so both Adams, the first
Adam and the last, died in a garden. And then to further show the
union of these two trees, both trees have the words, in the
midst, tied to them. Both were told of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God hath said,
ye shall not eat of it. And then we read, they crucified
him. and two other with him, on either
side, one, and Jesus in the midst." The Lord's connecting. He's showing
us these trees. He's showing us the tree in which
Adam fell, and He's showing us the tree in which Christ gloriously
triumphed. over that fall, over that sin,
over our death, over the grave, over the devil, over every enemy,
Christ has gloriously triumphed over all our foes. But there's
another tree also in the midst of the garden. It's called the
tree of life. It says, out of the ground made
the Lord God, this is Genesis 2.9 again, 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 so Christ was made a curse
for us, and he was hung on that cursed tree. That's how he was
made a curse for us. Galatians 3.13 tells us Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse
for us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. And so when Adam partook of that
first tree, the fruit of that first tree, and ate that tree
there, everything was lost. Everything, that fellowship and
life with God, that innocence, was all lost and taken away. But it's now been restored more
wonderfully by Christ, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam. It's now more wonderful under
grace. What we have today in grace through
Christ is much more blessed and precious than what Adam had under
the covenant of the law. It is more precious. Christ is
precious to you like he never would have been to us had we
not been brought under this covenant of grace in this manner. by his
grace and power. And so Adam was driven from that
tree of life. But Christ has made all things
new. You that believe him are new
creatures. And that's what counts, as Paul
said. Circumcision availeth nothing. Uncircumcision availeth nothing.
Forget that. Christ has made you new creatures. That is the blessing. We are
born again by the Spirit of God, of the incorruptible seed of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Him, a new and living
way is opened up to us. that we have life. That way is
no longer prevented from us. From our hands of this flesh,
yes, we'll never find it. We'll never have life. But in
Christ, He is that tree of life. He is the life of God for His
people, the very salvation of God. And I'm going to just close
with Revelation 22 verses 1 through 3. Revelation 22, verses 1 through
3. And he showed me a pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God and of the Lamb. And in the midst of the street
of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree
of life, which bear 12 manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit
every month, and the leaves It makes me think of not those leaves
which Adam and Eve covered their nakedness with, but these leaves
of this tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall
be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall
be in him, and his servants shall serve him. And so we see how
The tree of life is open for us by Christ, who himself is
the way, the truth, and the life of his people. He's everything,
brethren. He's precious. And I'm just amazed
at how everything speaks to and glorifies Christ in the hearts
of his people. And I pray he does that in every
one of us here this morning by his grace and spirit. Amen.