3. Thus begins the long career of humanity. Man is forced to undertake the work and drudgery of living. The centuries,
GEN.-NUM. — 8
114 THE TREE OF LIFE
laden with wars and pains and hopes and fears and disappoint- ments and successes, start on their slow procession. But no more is heard of the tree of life. It is not mentioned again in the course of the Bible. It is left behind the closed gate and the flaming sword, until we are surprised, at the extreme other end of the Bible, the New Testament, to see it suddenly reappear. In the Book of Kevelation, where the promises of the world's final glory are gathered, this promise stands among the brightest : " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." The long-lost tree is not lost after all. God has only been keeping it out of sight; and at last He brings man to it, and invites him to eat. " In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." Into this glory the angels of God are to bring His people at the last.
IF It is interesting, I think, to turn to the New Testament and see how, when Jesus Christ came, the story which He had to tell of man's condition and prospects was just the same with this old story of the tree of Genesis. Take the parable of the Prodigal Son — how different it is ! how quiet and domestic and familiar ! how homely in its quaint details ! But if you look at it, you will see that the meaning is the same. There, too, there is a first native possibility, the place in the father's house to which the boy was bom. There, too, that possibility ceases to be actual because of the wilfulness of him to whom it was offered. "Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me"; it is exactly Adam and Eve over again. There, too, the possibility is not destroyed, but stands waiting, out of sight of the wanderer, but always expecting his return ; the father's house from which the son goes out, and which stands with its door open when long afterwards he comes struggling back. There, too, the instant that submission is complete — " I will arise and go to my father " — the lost possi- bility is found again, for, " When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." The story of the tree of life and the story of the prodigal son are the same story. Drawn with such different touch, coloured in such different hues, they set before us still the same picture of the life of man.^
» Phillips Brooks.
GENESIS III. 24 115
Therefore in sight of man bereft
The happy garden still was left, The fiery sword that guarded show'd it too,
Turning all ways, the world to teach,
That though as yet beyond our reach, Still in its place the tree of life and glory grew,*
Let us consider — I. The Loss of the Tree of Life. II. The Guardians of the Tree of Life. III. The Kecovery of the Tree of Life.
The Loss of the Teeb of Life.
1. The tree of life signifies the fulness of human existence — that complete exercise of every power, that roundness and perfectness of being which was in God's mind when He made man in His own image. It represents not mere endurance, not merely an existence which is going to last for ever. It represents quality more than quantity, or quantity only as it is the result of quality. To eat of the tree of life is to enter into and occupy the fulness of human existence, to enjoy and exercise a life absolute and perfect, to live in the full completeness of our powers. We can feel how this luxuriousness and fulness are naturally embodied under the figure of a tree. In many myths of many races, the tree has seemed the fittest symbol of the life of man ; and the tree perfect in God's garden is the truest picture of man's whole nature complete under His care.
2. Man was banished from the Garden of Eden, The tree of life which was in the midst of the Garden of Eden was the one thing that was now going to be safeguarded by the presence of the Cherubim and by the flaming sword. We must not suppose that there was anything undesirable now in the tree of life as such — that is to say, we must not imagine that there was a change in the character of its value. Sometimes we are inclined to read the story as though it meant that it was no longer desirable that man should take of the tree of life. What the narrative really
I John E«bl«, The Chrittian Tear, Sexagesima Sunday.
ii6 THE TREE OF LIFE
does mean is that it was no longer desirable that man should take of the tree of life on the old conditions. The old conditions were conditions of ease.