TAKING THE WAY OF ENJOYING CHRIST AS THE TREE OF LIFE
Message Four
Grafted into Christ to Become Part of the Tree of Life
Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:9; 1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 11:17, 24; John 15:1, 4-5
I. The Bible reveals that the relationship God desires to have with man is that He and man become one—1 Cor. 6:17:
A. Whenever we come to the Bible, we need to exercise one principle—the principle that God desires to be one with His chosen people—John 14:20.
B. God's main purpose is to make Himself one with man and to make man one with Him—Eph. 4:4-6.
C. God desires that the divine life and the human life be joined to become one life.
D. The central line of God's economy is to make God and man, man and God, one entity, with the two having one living by one life with one nature—Rev. 22:17.
E. In His incarnation Christ brought God into man, and in His resurrection He brought man into God; by this, He accomplished the mingling of God and man into one—Rom. 8:3; 1:3-4:
1. We are in Christ, and He is in us; He and we have become one person—1 Cor. 12:12.
2. Christ has become us, and we have become Him—Heb. 2:14, 11.
II. The relationship God desires to have with man is that He and man be grafted together and thus become one in an organic union—Rom. 6:3-5; John 15:4-5:
A. The grafted life is not an exchanged life—it is the mingling of the human life with the divine life—1 Cor. 6:17.
B. In grafting, two similar lives are joined and then grow together organically—Rom. 11:24:
1. Because our human life was made in the image of God and according to the likeness of God, it can be joined to the divine life—Gen. 1:26.
2. Our human life resembles the divine life; therefore, the divine life and the human life can be grafted together and live together.
C. In order for us to be grafted into Christ, He had to pass through the processes of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit—John 1:14; 1 Cor. 2:2; 15:45.
D. We have been grafted into Christ as the tree of life, and this grafting has made us one with Him—Rom. 11:24:
1. Christ and the believers are one tree; He is the vine, and we are the branches—John 15:1, 5a, 4a.
2. Christ becomes our life, nature, and person—Col. 3:4, 10-11; Eph. 3:17a.
E. As regenerated ones who have been grafted into Christ, we should live a grafted life, a life in which two parties are joined to grow organically:
1. Since we have been grafted into Christ, we should no longer live by ourselves; rather, we should allow the pneumatic Christ to live in us—Gal. 2:20.
2. We should no longer live by our flesh or by our natural being; rather, we should live a grafted life by the mingled spirit—the divine Spirit mingled with the regenerated human spirit—1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 8:4.
F. In the grafted life the human life is not eliminated but is strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine life—Gal. 2:20; 4:19; Eph. 3:16-17a:
1. In the grafted life the branch retains its same essential characteristics but is strengthened, uplifted, and transformed by being grafted into a higher life—John 15:4-5; Rom. 11:17.
2. In the grafted life the divine life works within us to discharge the negative elements:
a. The divine life works in a gradual way to eliminate whatever is natural.
b. The divine life swallows up our defects and infirmities.
c. The negative element of our disposition is killed, and then, instead of casting away our disposition, the Lord uplifts and uses it.
3. In the grafted life the divine life resurrects God's original creation and uplifts our faculties—John 11:25; Eph. 4:23:
a. As the divine life discharges the negative things, it works to resurrect God's original creation.
b. In this way our original functions—the functions given to us at creation—are restored, strengthened, and uplifted—Gal. 2:20.
4. In the grafted life the divine life supplies the riches of Christ to our inward parts and saturates our whole being—Rom. 12:2; 8:29-30.
III. Christ as the tree of life is the embodiment of God as life to us, and having been grafted into Christ, we are united to Him organically, and thus we are part of the tree of life—Col. 2:9; John 15:1, 4-5:
A. We not only eat Christ as the tree of life—we are united to Him and are part of Him—1 Cor. 6:17.
B. The tree of life is for the dispensing of the divine life into us; as we, the branches, abide in the vine, we receive the dispensing of life from the tree of life and live as part of the tree of life—John 15:5; Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11; cf. Phil. 4:13.
C. Christ as the tree of life is for the divine economy to dispense Himself into us; as the branches of the vine, we are abiding in Him, and He is abiding in us.
D. As we abide in the vine, there is a dispensing of God into us, a dispensing of life from the tree of life into the branches; this dispensing makes us God-men—Rom. 8:10, 6, 11.
E. To abide in Christ as the vine is to take Him as our dwelling place, which is the highest and fullest experience of God; to dwell in Christ is to have our living in Christ, taking Him as our everything—Psa. 90:1; 91:1, 9.
F. If we live as part of the tree of life, we will care not for good and evil but for life, and we will discern matters not according to right and wrong but according to life and death—Gen. 2:9, 16-17; 2 Cor. 11:3.