SEEDS, PLANTS and SOULS

25 THE END - OR THE BEGINNING?

At the start of the Bible,
Genesis gives us a picture of what paradise was like,
resplendent with the tree of life
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

At the end of the Bible,
in the Book of Revelation,
we get another allegoric glimpse
of what paradise - heaven - will be like.
Instead of a garden,
it is compared to a Holy City, the New Jerusalem,
and in that city there is a river of life-giving water.

On each side of the river,
stood the tree of life,
bearing twelve crops of fruit,
yielding its fruit every month.
And the leaves of the tree
are for the healing of the nations.
No longer will there be any curse.
(Revelation 22:2-3)
 

Everything will be perfection,
and we will be able to walk with God again for ever.
Instead of leaves covering our shame,
the leaves will be restoring us.

Yes,
it does all sound wildly poetic and quite fantastic.
But how else could you describe something
obviously so wonderful
that our human minds are incapable of grasping?

The challenge of artists throughout the ages
has been to give us a glimpse of something
beyond reason.
The writer was fortunate
that God gave him a vision to get him going.

Some of Jesus' early followers in Corinth
also had a problem grappling
with what heaven would be like
- and it concerned the sort of bodies
they would have when resurrected.
Not surprisingly
the apostle Paul turned to seeds to give them an idea,
which rather nicely sums up
what we have been talking about:

"What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
When you sow,
you do not plant the body that will be,
but just a seed,
perhaps of wheat or something else.
But God gives it a body as he has determined,
and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

All flesh is not the same:
Men have one kind of flesh,
animals have another,
birds another,
and fish another.
There are also heavenly bodies
and there are earthly bodies;
but the splendour of the heavenly bodies is one kind,
and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another.
The sun has one kind of splendour,
the moon another and the stars another;
and star differs from star in splendour.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead.
The body that is sown is perishable,
it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour,
it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body,
it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body,
there is also a spiritual body.
So it is written:
"The first man Adam became a living being";
the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
The spiritual did not come first,
but the natural and after that the spiritual.
The first man was of dust of the earth,
the second man from heaven.

As was the earthly man,
so are those who are of the earth;
and as is the man from heaven,
so also are those who are of heaven.
And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man,
so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
(I Corinthians 15:36-49)

Jesus of course was the second Adam,
and he is the key
if we want to reach out and be part of that wonder
- to begin to understand all these parables and allegories.
If we do,
then we can and must do something.

The apostle James said as much
in his letter to some of the first people
who recognised that Christ
was the only way back to God,
and were trying to understand his words.
He said we must dig out all the weeds in our lives.....

...and humbly accept the word planted in you,
which can save you.
Do not merely listen to the word,
and so deceive yourselves.
Do what it says.
(James 1:21-22)

In conclusion,
this is what the Apostle Peter wrote
to those who were trying to do what that seed said.

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