Part 4 of 14 - The Essential Spirit -

Why Man Need’s Christ’s Resurrected “Spirit of life”

We can see God’s eternal intention by typology or figurative study of Genesis. Adam and Eve were placed in the garden with fruit bearing trees to eat from, including a tree called “the tree of life” (Gen 2:9). The “tree of life” is figurative of Christ as the eternal spirit-life for man to “receive.” God intended that Adam and Eve take the fruit and life of that tree into their being by eating of it; figurative of receiving Christ’s innately righteous, eternal, essential life. Yet, Adam and Eve never did eat of “the tree of life.”

By deception of the Serpent, Eve and Adam chose to eat of the forbidden tree of “knowledge” rather than eat of and receive life from “the tree of life.” They believed what the Serpent had said to Eve, “you shall become as gods, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). They ate of “the tree of knowledge” an effort to become independently “wise” (Gen 3:6); expecting to become “as gods,” and thereby independent from God. Today, every man born into the world has the fallen mindset of Adam, thinking he can live his life independent from God, making himself to be as the god of his own life. After they ate of the forbidden tree, they were prevented from eating of “the tree of life.” God blocked the way to the tree of life after their disobedience (Gen 3:24). Redemption was now required.

The “tree of life” was a figure of Christ’s as real life (Zoë, spirit life). Jesus said He’s the “tree of life,” calling Himself the “vine tree” (John 15:5); a tree whose life is to flow to and within every attached branch. All believers are to be branch-believers, “abiding in the vine” (John 15:5). In the end we see the same “vine tree” on both side of “the river of life” in Revelation, on the New Earth. Thus, we see that from both the beginning and end of the Bible, man was intended to receive the added element of the “life” of God that is "in Christ." 

Many Christians site Malachi 3:6 For I am the Lord, I change not…They say, “See, God does not change.” Yet, the Scripture is clear that God has changed His form two (2) times, seen as follows. 1.      God’s first change in form came when Jesus, who is the fullness of the Godhead bodily ( Col 2:9), was incarnated into the human body that He received from His physical mother, Mary. John 1:14 And the Word (Jesus Christ) was made flesh, and dwelt among us… (Here the word “made” here is better translated “became.”  We will see this “made (became)” once again here in Point #2.) 2.      The second change in the form of God occurred when Jesus of Nazareth rose bodily from the dead and “became the life-giving spirit” (1Cor 15:45). This “life-giving spirit” is “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a).

Actually, the resurrection of Jesus brought into the Godhead a change that forever marks God as a changed Spirit. This change in God’s Spirit occurred when Jesus of Nazareth , “the son of man” according to His flesh (humanity), was elevated, being “declared the Son of God” by God the Father (Heb 5:5). Romans 1:3-4 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh (His humanity); ⁴And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:  By this declaration, the Godhead now includes all that is of Jesus’ His human experience His birth, suffering, death and resurrection. All that Jesus of Nazareth experienced in being processed to become “the life-giving Spirit, is now included in the Godhead, marking the Spirit of God forever.

Paul writes referring to this second change in God’s Jesus-form. 2Cor. 3:17a Now the Lord is that Spirit. Jesus became “the Spirit,” such that He now, as the Spirit-Seed of the Father, could bring created men to a new birth, as the literal “many son’s” (Heb 2:10) who are born of God. John 1:13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Each reborn child of God has received Christ seeded spirit-life (1Pet 1:23,Col 3:4a) and may become an expression of Christ’s own life and nature.

This change in God’s Jesus-form, to become “the Spirit,” is the key to “the eternal purpose that He purposed in Christ Jesus” (Eph 3:11). God’s own Spirit is the spirit on-loan that initially enlivens the created mankind… but now, Jesus has become “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” Thereby, Christ is now available to indwell “as many as receive Him” (John 1:12); bringing into them His righteous, eternal, life; making each one a literal birthed child of God the Father.