Taking the Way of Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life -4

Message Title: Grafted into Christ to Become Part of the Tree of Life

we not only can eat of, partake of the tree life, even, by this participating, we can become part of the tree of life. This tree, which we are eating of, has to become our constitution. the issue of our enjoying the tree of life should be that we become part of the tree of life. 

I. the Bible reveals that the relationshp God desires to have with man is that He and man become one.

concerning the relationship that God has man, there are many different levels. One very basic relationship is that God is the Creator and man is His creature. but there are also some other very subjective relationship, such as that man is a vessel to contain and express God; Christ is the Head and we are His Body; or Christ is the true vine and we are His branches. God desires to become one with man. this must be a controling vision to us, even when we are learning how to enjoy Christ as the tree of life, we need to be controlled by this vision that God wants to be one with us. God loves the world; God loves man so much that He wants to be one with man. 

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. 

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. 

baptism is not just an event, but describes a process of an organic union which happenes beween us and the Lord, in which, we are grafted into and we grow together with Christ. we enter into this organic union with Christ's death and resurrection, and now we are growing into the likeness of His death and His resurrection. 

regarding the matter of grafting, it has to be two kinds of similiar life. because we are created in the image of and after the likeness of God, our human life resembles the divine life; therefor the divine life and the human life can be grafted together and live together. 

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. 

as rregenerated ones who have been grafted into Christ, we should live a grafted life, a life in which two parties are joined to grow organically. 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. 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. this is the reality of the Christian life. on one hand, we have been crucified with Christ; on the other hand, the new I, we still live in faith, the faith of the Son of God. 

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.

the life of God is not abstract, but the life of God has a form, which is the universal true vine, with us, grafted into the vine as many branches. 

the Bible begins and ends with the tree of life as the center to nourish God's people. the centrality and the universality of the New Jerusalem is the tree of life, which is Christ as the vine tree and us as the many branches. as we abide in the vine, there is a dispensing of God into us, a dispensing of life, a grafted life from the tree of life into us the branches; this dispensing makes us God-men. 

how do we discern life in this confusing and chaotic environment? we can only discern by who we are. we have to become the tree of life to live by the principle of life. we need to have a nose for life so that we can know the way for us to go on in the Lord's recovery.

five points of warning: 

1. we should not take the excuse for not caring for right and wrong, to indulge in the freedome of flesh, under the name of life. 

2. as we enjoy eating Christ as the tree of life for nourishment, we need to exercise to experience the death and resurrection of Christ in order to enter into the organic union with Him, to be one with Him. 

3. the more we eat the tree of life and be grafted into the tree of life, the more we will express the uplifted huaminty of Jesus. 

4. in order to stay grafted to the tree of life, we need to abide in Him by abiding in His love, and let Him abide in us by His word abiding in us. 

5. as a part of the tree of life, which is the universal vine tree, we are joined to Christ and to all the saints as the fellow branches, the corporate Christ, to spread and dispense Christ everywhere, to make the tree of life prevailing all over the earth, to consummate this age, to bring in the kingdom, consummately the New Jerusalem.