(Continued from page 101.)

We turn now to consider the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If the tree of life was intended for an educational purpose, so also was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. What, then, was God, by means of this tree, seeking to teach the man He had put in Eden ? Clearly, it meant that, as His creature, God had rights over him; that it was His .sovereign right to determine the conditions under which man could continue in the estate in which his Creator had placed him. Subjection to the will of God and obedience to His word, were the conditions God imposed upon him. As long as he continued in subjection and remained obedient, he would be entitled to the earthly life God had ordained for him. But by any insubjection to God's will or departure from strict obedience he would forfeit all right or title to his life upon earth. God was thus teaching Adam that he was capable of dissolution.

We have already seen that there must have been implanted in man, by the very manner of his creation, an aspiration for a higher life than what he then enjoyed, and that in connection with the tree of life a hint had been given him as to how this aspiration was to be realized. Now, by the other tree, with its prohibition and penalty attached to disobedience, he is reminded that there is also in him a basis for degradation. And if capacity for a higher life is shown to be not intrinsically in him, but attained through Another (as the tree of life shows), so also was it shown by the other tree that obedience was the only way to be preserved from a dissolution of which he was capable. Thus were the two issues set before him.

And, further, as the tree of life pointed to life for men through the incarnate Son, so the other tree pointed to knowledge of good and evil through the Son of Man; God caused both to grow out of the ground-a striking picture of the Man who knows both good and evil absolutely. With the Man, Christ Jesus, knowledge of good and evil is intuitive, is intrinsic, as in the Father. He is thus the Fountain or Source of knowledge for men. Let us mark that with Him it is not knowledge through experience, but intrinsic knowledge.

Thus, by means of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was suggesting to Adam that there are two ways of acquiring knowledge-a right way, and a wrong way. In the exercise of His sovereign rights over man, the wrong way was forbidden. The right way was to look and wait for the divine communication of the knowledge of which the tree was a promise. The wrong way was to learn by disobedience-by taking part practically in evil.

As we have seen, in eating of the tree of life Adam would have set to his seal that the testimony of God is true; it would have meant coming into community of life with God ; to receive divine, eternal life, which in its full result would be the exaltation and spiritualization of the body. Thus Adam would have come into community of knowledge with God-to know good and evil, not intrinsically, any more than to have life intrinsically, but in communion with God. It would have been both life and knowledge dependently realized-the blessedness of eternity-of new creation, energizing and filling the soul while waiting for the transformation of the body.

It seems inevitable that we should consider the import of these two trees as a part, a very important and essential part, of God's training of Adam. It is also manifest that the training was in view of new creation and the eternal state.

My readers will understand I am not saying that the full light of what .eternity will be was shining in the garden in Eden. All I mean is that some rays of light were already given, however dim or feeble, sufficient to turn man's mind to the eternal destiny which was in God's mind for him. The truth of eternity was there in germ, in bud:the germ needed to be developed, and the bud to mature and become a flower in full bloom. This development was the work of the succeeding ages-a gradual progress of the revelation of God through the various dispensations, until the perfecting of it through Christ and the apostles of this Christian age. The promise of life and immortality is now illuminated. To say there was no ray of light shining in the garden, no promise of life or state of immortality for both soul and body, is to flatly deny God's purpose in the plant-in;; of the two trees we have been considering.

Space does not permit me to dwell at any length on the river that "went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence parted, and became four heads." It will be sufficient to say that as part of a significant scene it must have had its significance. That we are to see in it a representation of the Man who even then was before the eye of God (though not yet introduced into the sphere of the material creation) must be admitted. It pictures Him, surely, who is the life-giver to the soul that receives Him-satisfying the cravings of the soul, through the constant revivifying and sanctifying power of the Spirit that dwells in Him who is the Source of life to men-the Man Christ Jesus. If drinking at this Fountain of life now fills the soul with peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, what must be the energy that shall be manifested when the body's present condition shall be swallowed up of the life that is in the incarnate Son of God! Surely this river of Eden was like a ray of light, to suggest a hope, a prospect of eternal life.

I cannot enlarge on the circumstances connected with the creation of the woman. That they had a typical significance, no one I think, will question, though there may be difference of judgment as to the extent of their significance. But there is one point we should not overlook. The woman was not created in the same way as the man. The man was formed of the dust of the ground; but verses 21, 22 tell us that, having caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, the Lord God took a rib out of him and builded it into a woman. She is thus of the man-bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh. Like him, then, she is of earthly origin, and shares also in his spirit nature. Adam could not find such an one among all the earthly creatures around him. She was fitted by her derivation and constitution to be his associate, and assistant companion. That this earthly fellowship was a shadow of a higher fellowship there is no reason to doubt. Sharing thus with the man in community of life, she possessed in common with him the capability of exaltation and spiritualization; thus to participate in all his hopes and destiny.

In thus providing Adam with a companion fitted to share in his earthly life and eternal destiny, God was providing an instrument for the incarnation of His Son. God had in mind a Second Man who was not to be a natural man-not to be naturally born into the world, but supernaturally. In some true sense He must spring up out of humanity, yet not an earthly man, not a man of the earth, but a heavenly Man-a Man belonging to or of heaven. The woman was God's appointed instrument for this. The incarnation was to be a divine Person not merely indwelling a human person, but a divine-human Person in one undivided personality. Only through the activity of supernatural power in the woman could a superhuman Man be born into the world.

Through woman, then, God's eternal purpose was to be carried out. If she was a necessity to human propagation in this present world, she also was to the fulfilment of God's purpose as to the world to come-the new creation. She was needed as the instrument of a power from a higher sphere, the spiritual in the material, to lay hold upon it and exult it-spiritualize it. How wonderful the wisdom of God !

Before closing this chapter it maybe well to note that, as derived from the man, the woman is a striking figure of those chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world, redeemed by the precious blood of the foreordained Lamb of God, who thus have life through His supernatural death. All believers of every age, in virtue of having life by means of the death of Christ, are in Scripture viewed as derived from the dead and risen Man- the Man who had power to lay down His life and take it up again. All believers are thus in kinship with Him. They are, so to speak, the rib taken out of Christ and builded into woman, having community of life with the Man who is the Head of the new race.

Of these, who are in kinship with Christ, some by the Holy Spirit are baptized into one Body, the Body of Christ, to become His Bride. In presenting the woman to Adam, God made her a figure of those of the race of Christ, united to Him by the Spirit, to be in a special, eternal association with Himself. This special association is not the result simply of community of life and nature with the Last Adam, but of union with Him.

It is not the place to enlarge on this here, though it seemed necessary to call attention to it. We may note, however, that in making the woman His instrumentality to carry out God's purpose as to incarnation and new creation, we can understand why in Adam there is male and female, but not in Christ. The male and female condition of humanity was to be but temporary, was to pass away.

We have thus far been looking at Adam as un-fallen, as he came from the creative hand of God. What we have gathered as to his nature and constitution and his destiny, the hopes God set before him, will be of value to us as we turn to consider his fall. C. Crain

(To be continued.)