March 11, 2010 GGL: PART II
I’ve said that my title is ‘Grief in the Garden of life’. You may be able to guess what the garden of life is. It is of course the fellowship of the saints, the assembly of the righteous – what the New Testament writers call the Ecclesia. It is a garden of life because it is where the Spirit dwells. And where the Spirit dwells there is abundant fruit – this is His work – the Spirit brings forth fruit.
Eden was a place of abundant fruit. The LORD God planted a garden (Genesis 2.8). Out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food (Genesis 2.9). The garden was a garden of life – a garden full of fruit, full of the Spirit of life.
Turning to the New Testament we find that the Garden of Life is Jesus himself.
John 15:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
Verse 8:
“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”
Verse 16:
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain…”
Here we see that Jesus, the True Vine, is the one true Garden of Life. And His disciples are grafted into that Garden of Life. Those who follow Jesus bring forth fruit. The assembly is then, in so far as it abides in Jesus, part of the Garden of Life, the body of Christ - and so is a place of abundant fruit. It is the dwelling place of the life-giving Spirit.
So then, what are we to make of this combination? On the one hand the people of God will experience suffering and grief but on the other hand they are fruit bearing branches in the Garden of Life.
Part III coming soon.
[Delivered on Valentine's Day/Transfiguration Sunday 2010]
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