Why did God plant a fruit tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden?
Think about this…what is fruit on a tree? It’s a container for the life of the tree. In the winter, trees have less life. Why? Because they’re receiving less life from the source of life (the sun).
In the summer, when they have more of that life, they can’t contain it. We could say they have an overflow of life in the tree.
So the tree needs to find some way to dispense that overflow of life. It needs some way to get rid of it. So it gets dispensed into what you could call “life pods.” In those life pods, you’ve got the life of the tree, but also the complete DNA of the tree.
The concept is that if mankind would eat the fruit of the tree, the exact same life of the tree that gets dispensed into that piece of fruit would then be reproduced inside of mankind.
The type of life inside the Tree of Life was a community life. It was the Community Life of God (divine life is communal).
Now we have a picture of why God said to eat from one tree and not the other. It was an image of the kind of life that mankind could live by. God’s original intention was that mankind would live by divine life, which would allow him to image God’s Life in another realm.
We cannot be the image of God individually
The Fall of mankind gives us insight into the nature and purpose of a church.
There was a prophecy given right after the Fall. It’s that a Seed would come and the Tree of Life would once again return to the earth. This “Holy Seed” is prophesied to come throughout the rest of the Old Testament (Isaiah 6:13).
The seed is a picture of eternal life. It falls into the ground, dies and produces a tree. That tree drops seeds into the ground that produce more trees. This goes on indefinitely.
If God’s original purpose was to have man live by His kind of Life, which is a community life, what was the goal of the serpent? It was to thwart God’s purpose of having His community life image be reproduced in His children.
The serpent wisely knew that the way to break up the community life of God being extended was to first break up the community. So He goes to Eve and tempts her to be like God as an individual. The deception is you can’t image God as an individual, because God is not an individual.
The serpent’s goal was to convince an individual human that they could be sufficient in themselves. This deception of individualism got mankind to live by the wrong kind of life.
The result is we cannot be the image of God that way.
What happened at the Fall of mankind
Ephesians 1:22-23 puts it really plainly when it comes to what it takes to be the image of God on the earth…
And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
You only have the fullness of Christ if His Body is being the Body. It’s just like you. If you don’t have your full body functioning at peak performance, you can’t express the life that’s inside of you in fullness. You can express something of your life, but it will be dimmer.
But something happened to our minds at the Fall. It became very difficult for humanity to think or act corporately. The mindset that the serpent transferred to mankind was to think about the individual first. It was to put “I” at the center. “I” is the center of everything for sin.
The purpose of the fruit of the Tree of Life was to receive God’s kind of life. But when a different choice was made, a different kind of life went into them. It was the serpent’s kind of life and nature.
Paul talks about in Romans 7:19-20…
For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.
He’s saying that something is inside of him that’s causing him to do something he doesn’t want to do. Mankind was designed as a receptacle for life. We were supposed to receive a certain kind of life (God’s), but we received another kind of life (fallen angelic life).
Because of this, it’s very difficult to think and act corporately.
What mankind was designed for
I was talking to a friend recently and we talked about four tiers of goals – God’s goals, a church’s goals, a family’s goals, and an individual’s goals.
We tend to work from our individual goals and then go up the ladder. We set individual goals and see how we can fit them into our household’s purpose and plan, then how we can fit the household goals into a church’s purpose and plan, then how we can fit a church’s goals into God’s purpose and plan.
But we were designed for the opposite. We were designed to start with God’s purpose and plan and the rest of the tiers would be nested into each other. A church’s goals would be serving God’s purpose and plan. Our household’s goals would be serving a church’s purpose and plan. Individual goals would be serving our household’s purpose and plan. They would be nested this way.
When Christians name their priorities, it’s typically God – family – church, etc. But “I” is really at the center of all of them. And this deeply affects how we navigate through those relationships.
More than we realize, individuals in relationship are making decisions on a daily basis that cause them to pull in different directions. It’s like a body being misaligned. This is exactly how the world works. It’s all about the individual, and individuals that put up with each other the best are those whose interests are aligned.
The most admired people in the world tend to be those that have made something of themselves. They are self-sufficient, independent people that have done something great or unique that most people haven’t done. It’s not those that align themselves to the purpose and plan of God, a church and a household.
Look at modern Christian ministry
In the book The Community Life of God, author Milt Rodriguez addresses how modern Christian ministry tends to work…
Take a look around at all of the different “Christian Ministries” and you will see what I mean. Virtually all of them are geared toward helping you, as an individual believer, become a better something. For example, there are ministries to help you become a better prayer warrior, a better Christian parent, a better spouse, a better witness, a better pastor, etc.
The bookstores are filled with materials to help you, the individual believer, with your walk with the Lord. There are seminars, conferences, and workshops to teach and train you, the individual believer, how to use your spiritual gifts and/or how to overcome your deepest fears and live the victorious individual Christian life.
Going to “church” is the same thing. You attend the service, sit in a pew, and then listen to a man tell you how to live the individual Christian life. “Seven steps to a better prayer life.” “How to study the Bible for yourself at home.” And on and on it goes.
Everything is geared toward the individual believer. Nothing is geared toward God’s eternal purpose which is to have a communal man, a communal image! It’s all about your relationship to God. It’s all about how you can become a better Christian.
Ironically, as an individual, you can’t become a better Christian. Everything about Christian growth is how we are relating to one another.
How we grow up in Christ
A sign of a healthy church is building people together into a community of love. A sign of a lack of health is a constant focus on getting people to become better individual Christians.
I’m not saying developing individually with the Lord is a bad thing. It’s needed. What I’m saying is the individual aspect and corporate aspect of church life are two sides of the same coin.
You can’t expect to grow by going through Christian program after program and study after study doing a bunch of individual things. You must have a deep connection to brothers and sisters that you’re being built together with in oneness by the Spirit.
The foundation is the kind of life that was in the Tree mankind was designed to eat from – communal divine life. It’s those where you’re pursuing treating one another like the Persons within God treat one another.
If you’re not pursuing that with others, you will be severely stunted in your Christian growth.
Michael Fleming
Mike Fleming is the creator of Finding Healthy Church. Over 20 years ago, he was sparked by the frustration of failing to experience what the biblical story claimed a healthy church was like. He caught a vision and passion for seeing local churches be what they were designed by God to be. He shares what he's learning along the way so the health of local churches around the world are improved. He’s currently working on an eye-opening book that will help better understand what it means for a church to be healthy.