As believers in Christ, we need to live according to the principle of the tree of life, which is the principle of life, not according to the principle of right or wrong; the way to do this is to follow the inner sense of life.
If we see a vision of the tree of life and realize that this tree is the center of the universe and should also be the center of our personal universe and of our church life, we will no longer live according to right or wrong but according to the sense of life within us.
The tree of life is not merely something that the Bible speaks in the first and the last couple of chapters, that is, in Gen. 1-2 and Rev. 21-22; rather, the tree of life should be the center of our Christian life and church life.
From the very first day of man on earth, God put man in front of two trees and He told him not to eat of one of them, but eat of the other and have life.
Today we are in the same situation: as believers in Christ we have the Triune God in Christ as life in the form of food – the reality of the tree of life, and we have knowledge, right, wrong, and death on the other side.
By default, we may choose to do good instead of evil, and we may want to gain more knowledge; however, the tree of knowledge of good and evil leads to death.
The tree of knowledge leads to being independent of God and thinking we know as much as God does; eating the tree of life causes us to depend on God as life.
What is the tree of life and how can we eat this tree? The Lord Jesus came as the embodiment of God, and He said that He is the vine tree and that He is life; in Him was life, and life was the light of men.
The Lord Jesus as the embodiment of God is the tree of life, and especially in the book of John He tells us again and again to eat Him.
He is life, He is resurrection, He is the bread of life, He is the living bread, and the is the bread of God that came down out of heaven to feed us.
He is our real food, our real nourishment. How can we eat Jesus Christ? Is it merely by reading the Bible and meditating on the things the Lord Jesus said? No, much more than that.
The Lord said in John 6:63 that the flesh profits nothing, but the words that He said are spirit and are life.
The way to eat Christ as the reality of the tree of life is for us to eat His words; to eat His words, we need to contact the written word of God with our spirit, so that the words in the Bible becomes spirit and life to us.
We need to find a way, even many ways, to eat the word of God through the exercise of our spirit, and this word will become living in us and to us; the word of God contains the life of God, and once we receive the word by means of all prayer, we will be inwardly supplied, nourished, and satisfied.
We all need to eat the tree of life and depend on God as life so that in our daily living we would live not according to right or wrong but according to the sense of life within us, that is, according to the standard of life.
Seeing the Two Principles of Living and Living according to the Principle of Life
The two trees in Genesis 2:9 represent two principles of living; there is the principle of the tree of life (which is the principle of life) and the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (the principle of right and wrong).
These two trees show us that we as believers in Christ can live according to two different principles: we can either live according to the principle of right and wrong or according to the principle of life (1 Cor. 8:1).
The two trees indicate two sources that issue in two principles of living. Job and his friends pursued something not of life but in the realm of ethics; they were led astray and even arrived at wrong conclusions with arguments because they were in the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
We, the believers in Christ, should not live according to right or wrong, but pursue something in the realm of God (1 Cor. 15:28; Eph. 3:16-21).
We are men on earth, but we should not live like the rest of the human beings on earth; rather, we should live as a person in the heavens.
The Lord Jesus was speaking as a man standing on the earth, but He said that He was the Son of Man in heaven; He didn’t just live on earth but in a different realm, the heavenly realm.
Being a Christian is not a matter of the principle of right and wrong, which is the principle of good and evil; being a Christian is a matter of life (1 John 5:11-13, 20).
When we received the Lord Jesus, we gained a new life and obtained another principle of living – the principle of life.
All genuine believers in Christ have the divine life within them, and this life has a different principle of living – it is the principle of life.
If we do not know this principle, we will set the principle of life aside and follow the principle of right and wrong.
When we received the Lord Jesus, we didn’t obtain a new philosophy; we didn’t obtain a new religion or some new laws, even spiritual laws.
We have obtained another life, the divine life, and this became another principle of living.
However, if we don’t know this principle, we will set the principle of life aside; this is what most believers have done, for most of them still follow the principle of right and wrong.
The tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil relate to our daily living, to the way we live our daily Christian life; do we live according to right or wrong, or do we live according to the principle of life?
We may or may not be in our actual living on the line of the tree of life, even though we are regenerated and may know that there’s a tree of life ready for us to take in. Oh, Lord!
We are on the line of life; we have been grafted into the tree of life. But what about our actual experience? When something goes wrong in our marriage life or in our family life when something goes wrong with our health, what principle do we take?
Do we seek to sort things out by the principle of right and wrong, or do we live according to the principle of life? When something is wrong with our finances, what principle do we take? We need to open our being to the Lord and be honest with Him regarding this,
Lord Jesus, we want to live in the principle of life and not according to right and wrong. Thank You for regenerating us with Your divine life; thank You for coming into us to be our life and live in us. We want to live not according to the principle of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but according to the principle of the tree of life. Hallelujah, we have the divine life in our spirit, and we can turn to our spirit to enjoy the Lord and pray over His word so that the divine life in us may grow, spread, and be manifested in us! Amen, Lord, we choose to turn to You again and again, both in good times and in difficult situations. Strengthen us into our inner man so that we may choose to live according to the principle of life even when something goes wrong in our family life, our marriage life, our finances, or with our health. Amen, Lord, may our daily living be in the line of life, in the principle of the tree of life!
We live according to the Principle of Life by Following the Inner Sense of Life
Some think that Christianity is asking whether something is right or wrong, and choosing the right way, doing the right thing, and making sure we are on the right path. However, being a Christian has nothing to do with that.
Being a Christian is a matter of checking with the life inside of us whenever we do something.
The truth is, however, that in our practical living we may not be in the line of the tree of life but in the line of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Prov. 16:25; 21:2).
We may take a way that seems right to us, but the end of it is the ways of death.
We may take a certain way and we may think it is right in our own eyes, but it is Jehovah who weighs the hearts.
In our daily living, we should not be in the realm of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but in the realm of the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; Rom. 8:2).
What matters to us is not doing the right thing as opposed to doing the wrong thing; what matters to us is enjoying Christ as the life-giving Spirit and living according to the spirit.
He is the tree of life, and He is the tree of life as the Spirit to give us life. In a very practical way, for us to live according to the principle of the tree of life, we need to follow the inner sense of life (Rom. 8:6; Eph. 4:18-19; Isa. 40:31).
Whenever we are about to do something, go somewhere, or speak something, we should check with the divine life within us; there’s an inner sense of life in us, and our Christian life is a life according to the inner sense in our spirit.
Our Christian living is based on an inner life, not on an outward standard of right and wrong.
Many worldly people, who are not saved, live according to the best standard of living they can attain: the principle of right and wrong.
They think that the best thing a human being can do is choose to do the good thing and reject doing the wrong thing.
If we live according to the principle of right and wrong, we are the same as worldly people. Oh, Lord!
Our focus shouldn’t be to improve our character and uplift our moral standard and ethical achievements; rather, our focus should be living according to the inner sense of life.
What does the inner life say? Is the level of life within us rising or retreating when we’re about to do something or say something?
If the divine life within us is strong and active, we can do a certain thing; if it is cold and retreating in us if we have a sense of death, we shouldn’t.
There may be the possibility for us to be involved in doing something quite good, and there’s nothing wrong with that thing but rather, it is noble and proper; however, the inner sense of life may not feel good about it, so we should not go ahead with it.
The sense of life, on the negative side, is the feeling of death (Rom. 8:6); the mind set on the flesh is death, for the spirit feels something of death whenever our mind is set on the flesh.
But when we set our mind on the spirit, we have a sense of life; the sense of life, on the positive side, is the feeling of life and peace, with a consciousness of strength, satisfaction, rest, brightness, and comfort.
When we live according to the principle of the tree of life, we will care not for good and evil but for life; when we follow the inner sense of life, 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).
This doesn’t mean that we don’t acknowledge what is good and what is evil; we just don’t care about that, but we care about life, and we discern things according to life and death. This is in a different realm than right and wrong.
Lord Jesus, we want to live according to the principle of life by following the inner sense of life. We don’t want to merely choose the good thing and reject the wrong thing; we want to live according to the inner sense of life and allow the inner sense to direct us. May we learn to follow the inner sense of life and peace, and may we stay away from things or situations where the sense within us is of death. Amen, Lord, strengthen us into our inner man and cause the divine life to grow in us so that the sense of life may be keen and strong in our daily living. May we follow the inner sense of life day by day so that we may live according to the principle of the tree of life. We choose life. We choose to remain in life and be filled with life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 56, pp. 421-430, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 4, Man and the Two Trees.
- Hymns on this topic:
– The tree of life the center is / Of God’s eternal, perfect plan, / Denoting God in Christ as life / To be received as all by man. / The tree of knowledge standing there, / Bespeaks a sure and warning voice: / Outside of God there is a source / Of death to all who make this choice. (Hymns #733)
– This inner knowledge obviates the need / Of outward knowledge, human eloquence, / But in the spirit we must ever live / And walk according to the inner sense. / The more we live in Christ, the life divine, / And by the inner consciousness behave, / The more we’ll have the inward knowledge true, / And on our heart God will His Son engrave. (Hymns #739)
– ’Tis by this sense that God we know, / The sense of inner life; / ’Tis pow’rful and spontaneous, / And not of any strife. / The greater is our growth in life, / The keener is this sense; / The more we walk and act in life, / The more it is intense. (Hymns #738)
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