Chapter Nine: Through the Interface

NINE

Through the Interface

Now it is time to relinquish our ‘step back’, and it is time to step forward again. We have laid the foundation of simple associations; by that I mean associations that are easy to swallow, easy to digest. Meat is only beneficial if one is able to assimilate it. Without the strength to assimilate higher truths, these truths will be vomited back out. Not only will they not have been a benefit, not only will they have done no more than leave a bad taste upon the pallet, but by the rejection of them, they will be less recommendable to the next in line.

For example, a man that is not prepared for the concept of God creating evil will vomit it back up. But we are prepared. By prepared, I mean we have the constitution of a billy goat; or, we have progressed from the tit to the tin can.

Let me remind you. Man is the image and glory of God. By that I mean, that part of man which may be communicated with. Communication is key. Of course, I speak of an interface between the spiritual and the corporeal: something reflective yet permeable, allowing communication in two directions. I have alluded to this interface as a mirror, and also in mathematical terms: ‘both sides of the equation must be equal’. Face answers face, I have pointed out. Man looks in the mirror at God and sees man - but, both sides of the equation are equal. God looks into the mirror at man and sees God - both sides being equal.

Now, this ‘equality’ is meat indeed. It is not the warm, comforting milk of the word. We expect some things to be the same, to possess trans-interfacial equality. Other things, we must assume, need to be maintained. The corporeal temple was equal to the spiritual temple. Man, however, does not exactly present the picture of equality to God. The relationship, the communication, is in flux. They must be maintained.

What I wish to focus on here is anything that might be said to have an equality on the opposing side of an interface. Some may conclude that I am really reaching to make such comparisons. However, I will present each, not per se as a truth in and of itself, but rather, as a framework within which we may assemble earlier frameworks. We have been to the hilltop of higher perspective. We are now familiar with the vantage of our overview. But to reach across the void to the next higher peak requires a bridge that can only be built one stone at a time.

I lift stones to that task. They may at first seem fantastic, but as stones in our new bridge, they are not the destination, but that upon which we travel in our trek to ever higher heights. Our first stone, attached to the bedrock of earnest inquiry, seeks only a mental image of things equal on both sides. We may begin without application, as application will find a place on its own.

Genesis 2:9 presents the ‘ground’ as an interface on a par with the ‘mirror’; trees are presented, aptly enough, as symbolic of the images on either side of the mirror. Indeed, limbs and branches mirror the roots beneath the ground: “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”

In regard of the mirroring of the spiritual in the corporeal, application may take root. Our life is a reflection of the greater spiritual life, our knowledge but a dark emulation. Now, here is the part that will seem fantastic (and I’m just running this by you); what if the tree in the middle of the garden did not grow up out of the ground like common trees. The verse states that the trees of life and knowledge were in the midst of the garden but does not per se iterate that they grew from the ground. What if they billowed downward out of mid-air. They would have been spectacular trees among the ordinary.

Moreover, there were two trees in the midst of the garden, and two is the number we now associate with mirrors. Perhaps the two trees mirrored one another: were an equality while not tampered with: the serpent being a part of that stasis until Eve made that stasis more corporeal than spiritual. This all may smack of wild speculation, but here are some things to keep in mind.

God told Adam about the tree before the creation of Eve: Adam told Eve about the tree. The serpent was in the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not the tree of life. Genesis 3:6 indicates that this particular tree, while possibly seen many times, was not viewed the same way as the other trees were viewed. The fruit may not even have been recognized as fruit. There was already knowledge in the garden. Adam named the animals; Eve evinced the ability to reason. There was already a knowledge of good and evil in the garden. Both man and woman regularly communicated with God (did He enter the garden through the tree of life, as the serpent entered the garden through the tree of knowledge of good and evil?)

Both Adam and Eve were aware that eating the fruit had an evil consequence, in that they knew death wasn’t the same thing as life. See Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

Knowledge is an intimate thing. When a man knows his wife, that knowledge is intimate. A relationship with, and communication with, God is intimate. The relationship turned from God: so, might we not better call that tree the tree of choices?

There is an interesting verse in regard to choosing, and I would like to add it to this exploration of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is Isaiah 7:15, “Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” It is a verse that places two choices in absolute contrast. Butter and honey, being things already made, represent things that are provided by God, which stands in stark opposition to providing for oneself. Perhaps we may visualize the tree of life at an end of the garden opposite the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Every day, in the cool of the evening, the man and woman would go to that end of the garden to refresh themselves in communion with God: He would appear and walk in the garden, coming from the spiritual to the corporeal. Along the way, they were free to pick and eat anything that God had provided for them. But one day, the woman (and the man) chose to eat a fruit that God did not provide - we always assume that God made the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. What if He did not make that fruit?

We know that bad fruit is not the fault of the tree on this side of the ‘ground’, but is due to the roots being somewhere that is bad. God as much as told Adam that the fruit was evil: that there would be an evil outcome. Adam was placed in the garden (Genesis 2:15) as a gardener: he knew trees. He knew the date came from the date palm and the apple from the apple tree. He knew that the fruit of life was found not on the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

We must consider the possibility that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a wolf in sheep’s clothing; that the ‘good’ part was perhaps all window dressing. Consider this next verse in relation to the tree of knowledge (intimacy) of good (discounted as window dressing) and evil.

Matthew 7:15-20, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Consider also the difference between ‘being rooted’ in God, and in ‘being rooted’ in the devil, or the world. To be rooted in God would produce the fruit of life. What I see in the garden is a tree of life and a tree of death, both exclusive of the other. Both were spiritual trees that bore spiritual fruit. Before the incident, Adam and Eve walked before God naked and without shame. After the incident, shame was the immediate result. They went from a pure state to a tarnished mixture.

 You can’t mix death with life: tainted life is not life.

Check out Matthew 12:33, “Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”

It is easily seen what sort of ‘fruit’ a man brings forth, just as easy to determine, from that, just what he is rooted in - good or evil. Understand the fruit that Joseph was known by in Genesis 41:15-16, “And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream, and there is none that can interpret it: and I have heard say of thee, that thou canst understand a dream to interpret it. And Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”

So let me ask, If the things we do and say are the fruit that shows others whether we are rooted in good or evil, aren’t the evil things that God brings upon us our own doing?

Jeremiah 6:19 puts it this way, “Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts.”

I think I have thoroughly hinted at the concept of our ‘roots’ being spiritual. I have said that what we do and say indicates whether we are rooted in good or evil: God or Mammon. If all action proceeds from thought, then action may be viewed as ‘fruit’ while thought may be viewed as ‘roots’. If the fruit is in the corporeal, then the roots are in the spiritual. Therefore, “the fruit of their thoughts” may be considered the corporeal outcome of their spiritual behavior.

Such reasoning opens our eyes to verses like Proverbs 24:12, “If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not He that pondereth the heart (our roots) consider it? and He that keepeth thy soul (our spiritual otherself), doth not He know it? and shall not He render to every man according to his (the man's)works?”

Hopefully, I’ve raised more questions than eyebrows. But, it just keeps getting better. The question must be set forth -- if you are rooted in the spiritual side of a two-sided existence, and thoughts are spiritual, are your thoughts always your own? This will be a topic for later exploration, but allow this hint to peak your interest. Daniel 5:23, titillates thusly, “The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways.”

In closing this segment, I wish to point to the truly fantastic. It has been asserted that the interface between corporeal and spiritual is a medium of communication, and here we think of that ‘still small voice’. But, I have here an instance of the interface producing noise (if the corporeal tabernacle is what Job alludes to). Job 36:29, “Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of His tabernacle?”

I am reminded of God speaking to Moses in the tabernacle, but since Job is touted as the oldest book in the Bible, it may simply refer to the vault of heaven as God’s tabernacle. Even so . . .