A Contrast.
Two creations form the theme of the Spirit of God mainly in the Word: over these in both cases man is set as Head. Two gardens come also prominently before us in connection with them. The Old Testament history, beginning with man in the garden of Eden, records for us the history of the first creation, closing in Malachi, by looking out for the coming of the Lord as the resource of the faithful. New Testament history, that more especially which records for us the beginning of a new creation, begins with a grave in a garden, and closes likewise in the Revelation, by looking out for the second coming of the Lord. God moved in that garden, in that scene of death where the Lord lay, as He had before, when the earth was without form and void. Thence sprang the new creation in eternal beauty and fruitfulness. The first man, Adam, is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. What fruit has God from each and from that creation over which each is head. “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.”
If we look at the first creation we see that everything there was prepared for the enjoyment of Adam and his wife. Every animal was in subjection to them, every fruit, save God’s reserve, was given to them for their enjoyment. What God reserved He kept to test man’s obedience and dependence on Himself; fruits which surely God had a right to expect. God gave to man the fruits of the garden; man himself was to bring forth the fruits of obedience and dependence FOR GOD. On this ground only was heat liberty to enjoy all that surrounded him. Failing in this, he lost all right to the other. Rights he had in Eden, dependent on his own obedience and dependence; rights to the enjoyment of all, based on the sure word of God. And now, where man is, outside of Eden, his rights are based on the same sure word. They are these: “In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face-shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wart thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3) Sorrow is now his portion instead of enjoyment, and death is man’s right now. Solemn truth is here before us, for man is helpless and hopeless except the Lord provide; for the New Testament adds, that “after death” comes “the judgment.” But if the head of creation is thus unfruitful, the result is―around us today: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain-together until now.” All is a ruin―all is lost―and man is dead to God. God had thus entered the first garden, as read of in Scripture, to seek fruit. He cast forth from it-the unfruitful tree, the masterpiece of His first creation, him whom He had Made in “His own image,” and, by so doing, He declared to us that all expectation of fruit from him was at an end.
But what was God’s resource when the first than had thus failed? God turned away to an animal that He had provided for this moment, and in its skin He clothed Adam and Eve. In that animal God looked on to Christ, who, Head of a new creation, would glorify Him and establish all in permanent blessing.
Does man admit his ruin and turn to God’s resource? Man refused then, and man refuses now, to bow to the truth of God. Consequently we find Adam’s first child Cain, bringing of the fruit of the ground “an offering unto the Lord.” All will not do, and God will have-none but Christ. “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect, and Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.” Many go in the way of Cain today, of whom Jude speaks; they do not see that man is rejected, and that Christ only is accepted. He is God’s fruitful One He who was looked upon as “a root out of a dry ground.” When there was no fruit in the garden God spoke of “the seed of the woman.” He is God’s “Plant of Renown.”
After God has given to us His history of the first man without law and under law in the Old Testament, He shows us what He was under grace in the New Testament. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Did man produce fruit under grace? In all he was proved unfruitful. Israel was His choicest vine, and it brought forth wild grapes. They rejected and slew His servants, and fairly sought to gain possession of the inheritance, and to be independent, by slaying God’s beloved Son. They killed Him and cast Him out, and crowned their iniquity by rejecting the Holy Ghost. Yet He whom they thus rejected was ever among men the fruitful One, delighting the heart of God in all His ways. Never had God found His full delight in man until He was born. At His birth the angels proclaimed, “Good pleasure (or delight) in man.” Heaven opened as He walked among men again and again to testify of Him. Since the fall, God’s eye had, in types and shadows, in sacrifices and offerings, delighted in Him; now in person He was before Him. Who can fully enter into the preciousness of these shadows wherein, in the past, God saw Christ; who can measure what Christ’s preciousness was to Him? Surely none then saw that in them that God saw, as no stint now can fathom God’s value of Him. Yet in Him we are accepted. And as He was God’s fruit then so is He today.
And as God in the morning of creation thus entered the garden of Eden to seek fruit, so, in its evening, He entered Gethsemane. And so fruitful, so delighting to His heart was the blessed One kneeling there, that (His final work accomplished) God took Him to sit with Him on His own throne. In the garden of Eden Adam followed his own will. In Gethsemane the Lord said, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” In the one case He drove out the man and barred the way to the Tree of Life; in the other He showed the fruitful One the “path of Life” (Psa. 16), saying, “Sit Thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool” Night closed in on this world―a solemn night of judgment―ere the dawn of the morning without clouds―the day of the new creation. We look on to that brighter day.
But if we have had the Second Man―head of the new creation―thus tested and proved in the greatest extremity to be wholly fruitful for God, what is the result? What can it be, but unreserved eternal blessing to the creation pertaining to Him? As Head of the first creation, Adam brought in death, and, of necessity, unfruitfulness as a result. As Head of the new creation, the Lord abolishes death, and establishes life and fruitfulness. And the life, the blessing, is eternal. In that garden wherein the Lord accepted the cup from the hands of His Father, there was a sepulcher; there they laid Him: His creation gave Him a grave, but He was truly “the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden,” and a dying thief could and did partake of it, and eat, and live forever. The Lord that day entered Paradise in the company of one who had partaken of the Tree of Life. Thus have we as saints all partaken also of Him, for he is the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever” (John 6) Blessed be His name, who, except He had died, had ever abode alone; but, having died, has brought forth “much fruit.”
Man well knows that he ought to bring forth fruit to God. The savage owns it as he brings to his gods of wood and stone his gifts and offerings; civilized man owns it, as he builds and endows “churches” and “charities”―both seeking thereby to quiet the increasing demands of a conscience not at rest. But, believer in Christ, have you learned what kind of fruit God will accept? Have you ended with the unfruitful Adam, and have you begun with the last Adam, God’s fruitful one? Have you started from Eden or from Calvary to bring forth fruit The old man starts from the first. He brings to God of the fruit of the ground for His acceptance, and having done so, begins to make the world a happy place for himself in the family of Cain. A happy place, outside Eden, without God! Music, and science, and invention―all have their origin in the man who brings the fruit of the earth. On the other hand, the new man has started from Golgotha, and the grave of the old man. He has learned that he was there judged and condemned in the cross and person of Christ. And now, to us who have thus started, the story God has taught all through the ages He teaches us; it is, that there is nothing God will accept but Christ. But we, the new creation, have life from and in Him. And if our ears are opened, as we stand in life on the resurrection side of His grave in that garden, we hear His voice to us, “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples (John 15). Does God see Christ in you and in me as we walk along on earth day by day, each one of us in the path which God has marked out for us to tread?