The Third Tree
“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war… From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.” (Revelation 19:11-15)
The Bible is big on fruit. The first “Covenant Ethic” was a prohibition on fruit from a particular tree. The transgression of Adam resulted in curses upon the fruit of the Land and the fruit of the womb. The book which describes the end of the Old Covenant, the Revelation, shows the dragon attempting to eat the son of Adam, the fruit of the womb, and then to devour the fruit of the Land, the apostolic “firstfruits” Church. [1] But where is the forbidden tree?
Firstly, there were two trees in the Garden, Life and Wisdom, physical and ethical, priesthood and kingdom. One very old idea is that Jesus was the stolen fruit returned to the tree, but if this is the case, and Jesus’ cross is the “Kingdom” Tree, how is Jesus’ death also a Tree of Life?
The answer is that there was not one cross, but three. Adam was given the Tree of Life (like priestly bread) and if he had qualified he would have received the Tree of Wisdom as a gift (like kingly wine). We know this because the same pattern is found throughout the Bible. If Adam had humbled himself he would have been exalted.
If this had indeed happened, Adam would have eaten from both trees as a gift, and their fruit would have been combined, mixed, united, in his body, like bread and wine, and converted into flesh and blood. Adam himself, speaking for God against the serpent like a true prophet, would have brought forth the fruits of righteousness (which are the result of truly hearing and digesting the Law). Adam would have become the third tree, priesthood and kingdom combined as The Prophet.
We see the same architecture in the Tabernacle, which is humaniform. The Table of Showbread and the Lampstand represent priesthood (left hand) and kingdom (right hand/sword) respectively, with the fragrant “bridal” Incense Altar between them as the place of Eldership and mediation. In the Temple, these three “internal” furnitures were represented externally as the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, priest and king. Their names allude to the “forming and filling” process in Genesis 1, which ends with Day 7, “the future.” The complete man of God is the forming, the filling and the future, the prophet. He does not remain in the Garden like the other trees, but walks out of it (on two pillar-like legs) into the Land to take dominion. In the Temple visions in Zechariah and the Revelation, this was represented by spirit-horses rushing out into the world with the decrees of God.
So, Adam himself was to become the third tree, the man as a tree walking, the Prophet, the first Father, a tree of righteousness. If found to be a faithful priest, he would receive the promised kingdom and carry the fruits of the Spirit, as a flaming sword, into the Land. Then God would open the Land and the womb (firstfruits and righteous sons instead of a murderer and the murdered) and the nations (the harvest of righteousness, instead of the lawlessness of Genesis 6).
Jesus was the righteous firstfruits of the Land and the womb, combining priesthood (God’s face against Adam – the Facebread) and kingdom (God’s face shining upon Adam – the Lampstand) into prophethood (Adam as God’s face – the Incense Altar). So the cross is really the third tree, the complete Tabernacle, all three furnitures of the Holy Place united.
Jesus’ blood poured out on the Land began the end of all blood boundaries and all Land boundaries, and transformed Israel into a Prophetic Body, commissioned to leave the Land and walk with God throughout all the world, with the flaming sword of the testimony of Jesus. The sword coming from Jesus’ mouth in Revelation 19 is the Gospel. He has slain the corrupt High Priesthood (Adam – Herod), the now demonic worship centered in Jerusalem (Eve, the harlot – corporate Herodias who “beheads” the prophets), and broken the power of Rome over the Covenant (serpent, the beast – the fourth guardian turned bad), and is shown riding from the Land into the World, just as the four Gospels were shown riding from the Garden into the Land earlier in the book.
So, the crucifixion wasn’t just making restitution for the fruit stolen by Adam. Architecturally, it laid claim on the entire three-decker world. It also lifted up Cain and Abel (the two thieves as “blessing and cursing”, the priestly and kingly sons) and all the nations (unmixed blood and water, Land and Sea, Priesthood and Kingdom under legal Prophecy).
The third tree is a hybrid of the two trees in Eden, priesthood with kingdom grafted in, and like Enoch it walks with God, in the saints, and causes men to call upon God. When you receive the bread and the wine, flesh and blood united again in a new body, you leave the house of God with a great commission.
More on this (with diagrams) in Bible Matrix III: The House of God (forthcoming).
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[1] This is the subject of Revelation 14. The firstfruits saints who were earlier sealed at Pentecost and afterward are slain, “harvested as grain and grapes” under the sickles of Jesus. As He (Garden) was Firstfruits to their Pentecost (Land), so now they (Land) would be the Firstfruits of the entire World. See James B. Jordan’s The Grape Harvest of Revelation 14:17-20.
