He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me.
John 12:44–50
In the previous chapter, I explained that our commission to fulfill the work of creation requires that we eat freely of the fruit of the Tree of Life. The consumption of God’s seeds makes it possible for us to become sons and daughters of God and thereby bring God’s fulness to all Creation. However, according to Genesis, we lost access to the Tree of Life.
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.1
If we are unable to approach the fruit of the Tree of Life, then how are we to become like God and accomplish the work for which we were created? The answer lies in Jesus. John beautifully described Jesus when he wrote:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.2
Jesus was not an earthly king, a religious revolutionary, or merely a moral teacher. Jesus was the fulness of God’s Word united with the flesh of a man. He was the Word incarnate.
Although I have the academic training to rationally comprehend the theological concept of God’s incarnation in Jesus, I—like the apostle Thomas—had to see it firsthand before the idea could become living knowledge within me. When I observed Jesus through the eyes of my soul, I saw one who changed what it means to be a man or woman on Earth.
The Annunciation
And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”3
There were three moments in Jesus’s lifetime when God’s spoken Word was clearly observed and historically documented: his conception, his baptism, and his transfiguration. First among these is his conception, traditionally called the “Annunciation.”
Standing within my heart, I saw before me a woman in a long red dress. Her head was uncovered, and her flowing hair rested upon her shoulders. Clasping her hands over her heart, she knelt on the ground and appeared to pray. As she did so, a luminous mist descended upon her until it completely enveloped her body. Then the mist entered into her abdomen, coalesced inside her womb, and shone outward as a soft white light.
Reflecting on that vision, I concluded that Jesus was conceived by the seeds of Life. That which had “moved over the face of the waters” in the beginning was now moving within the waters of a woman’s womb. That which had fashioned Earth on the third day was now fashioning the child who was born to set Earth free. That which had been breathed into dust to form the first man was now breathed into the dust of Mary to form the Savior of mankind. Untouched by the shadows of the fallen world, Jesus was the incarnation of Life.
The Baptism
And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”4
Although Jesus resembled the first man in that he was formed directly by Life, Jesus differed in that he did not have immediate and unlimited access to the fulness of God’s Word. The seeds of Light and Love remained outside of him, hidden within the religious rituals of the Mosaic Law and the ancient words of the Prophets. For three decades, Jesus faithfully labored alongside his fellow men and women, slowly laying up the seeds of Light and Love within his pure foundation of Life. However, that changed on the day Jesus was baptized.
With the eyes of my soul, I beheld Jesus as he emerged from the waters of the Jordan river, spreading out his arms and looking up toward the sky. In that instant, a flash of golden Light appeared from within the sparkling whiteness of God. It penetrated into the sphere of Heaven, struck Jesus on the chest, and continued onward into the depths of the Earth. Just as Light pierced the waters of the Deep on the first day, so too did Light pierce the darkness within the Earth. And just as the original wound within the Deep shone like gold, so too did Jesus shine with a golden radiance that filled the cosmos. On that day, the Light of God incarnated into the flesh of a man.
Immediately after becoming Light, Jesus encountered darkness:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came […]5
Just as Light wounded the Deep in the beginning, so too did Jesus push aside that which assailed him. Jesus, “the light of the world,” countered each of the shadowy temptations, and in the end “the devil left,” for the Deep had been overcome.
The Transfiguration
After six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. […] Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”6
During the years that followed his baptism, Jesus revealed Life and Light to all mankind. As Life, Jesus healed diseases and deformities, raised the dead, and displayed unprecedented power over the physical Earth. As Light, he taught a gospel of repentance with astounding authority, boldly exposed the corruption of the Jewish hierarchy, and illumined the central message of the Mosaic Law so all could comprehend it.
Then a time came when something changed with Jesus. At the end of his second year of ministry, Jesus told his disciples that he would be killed and would rise again.7 About a week later, he took three disciples with him to the top of a high mountain; and as they prayed together, he was suddenly “transfigured” before their eyes.
From the vantage point of my soul, I beheld Jesus, once again, with his arms outstretched and his face to the sky. From above him, a cloud of glistening white slowly descended. As the brilliant whiteness engulfed the summit and those upon it, I saw two men appear, one on each side of Jesus. With heads bowed, the two men reached out and touched Jesus upon the chest. Instantly, a blinding white light swept over me, and, when it passed, I beheld Jesus shining with the glistening white of Love. In an event that paralleled the second day of God’s creation, Jesus became Love made flesh.
According to the Gospels, Jesus came down from the mountain a changed man. Thereafter, he expressed exasperation about his life on Earth and inexplicably “set his face toward Jerusalem.”8 He knew that the Jewish leaders would kill him—and although he had previously sought to avoid such a fate, he now walked directly toward death with unshakable determination. As the incarnation of Love, Jesus was intent upon dying “for the life of the world.”9 Jesus was now the fulness of God’s Word, and “the love of God was made manifest”10 in all that he did.
The Fruit of the Tree of Life
There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.11
When the first man and woman were expelled from the Garden of Eden, God assigned cherubim to separate them from the Tree of Life. Likewise, when God gave Moses the Law, God required that the stone tablets be contained within an ark and gold cherubim be placed on the ark’s cover. Then the ark was set within the Holy of Holies, enclosed by a thick veil upon which an image of cherubim was embroidered. God had returned the fruit of the Tree of Life to Moses in the form of the Law, but it was to remain carefully guarded and separated from the people. Only through the Priests and Prophets could the fulness of God’s Word be given and received. Though the sacred fruit was now accessible to the Jewish people, it could not be eaten freely.
That all changed with Jesus. When Moses and Elijah (the representatives of the Law and Prophets respectively) touched Jesus’s chest, unleashing the blinding white light, I saw something entirely unexpected. To my utter amazement, I beheld within Jesus’s chest a resplendent pearl. When the fulness of God’s Word entered man’s flesh for the first time, the historic mediators of the Word handed over that which had long been held back from mankind’s touch. In the heart of Jesus, the fruit of the Tree of Life was restored.
The Crucifixion
And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.12
What happened, I wondered, when the one who had the fulness of God’s Word woven within his flesh laid down his flesh, voluntarily, for the sake of all? Although I had been taught the traditional theological interpretations of Jesus’s death, my heart yearned to be there, to stand at the foot of the cross and see with my own eyes the one who died for me.
One morning, as I opened my heart to God, I found myself standing upon the ancient hill known as Golgotha. The sky was a mixture of red and black. Before me hung Jesus upon a cross. His body was ravaged, his chin lay upon his chest, and he seemed to be staring at the ground below him. Stillness permeated the air, as if the whole world were holding its breath. Then something happened that has defined my life ever since: Jesus lifted his head and stared directly into my eyes.
The urgency and intensity in his gaze unsettled me. His eyes seemed to penetrate my skull and reach down into my chest. He was searching me. Without moving his lips, he spoke these words within me: Are you able to carry this weight? Can you hold the world within your heart? My body began to tremble. I felt faint and nauseated. Unable to endure his gaze, I wanted to run away. And then, as if knowing my frailty, he breathed upon me.
I suddenly found myself standing on hard dry ground, with no living thing in sight. Somehow, I knew I was in the Garden of Eden. As I looked around, I felt stunned by the devastation of this formerly luminous and lush landscape.
I beheld a man wandering alone in that barren land. As he knelt to the ground, I saw in his hand a single fruit from the Tree of Life. He examined the precious pearl with a look of immense pain and suffering. Closing his eyes, he ripped open the fruit, and a river of glistening white light poured out upon the dust. While I stared at this wonder, everything changed around me, and I found myself once again before Jesus on the cross.
Jesus cried out in anguish and breathed his last. As he did so, a light shot forth from his chest, filling the entire expanse of Heaven with brilliant whiteness. The light moved down into the Earth, slowly penetrating the darkened depths. As it reached the center, the light spread outward again in all directions, setting the Earth aglow with sparkling splendor. All Creation shone like Love.
Just as Love created the sphere of Heaven on the second day, so too did Love create something new on the day that Jesus poured out his blood upon the ground. As I marveled at the brilliant whiteness that emanated from all things, I beheld Jesus’s resplendent pearl as it was multiplied and placed within the hearts of all mankind. Through his silent submission to an excruciating end, Jesus restored our ability to freely eat of the fruit of the the Tree of Life. Implanting the fruit within our hearts as a gateway of pearl, Jesus made it possible for the fulness of God’s Word to enter Creation without limit.
Never before had Jesus’s death meant so much to me. Never before had I felt so overwhelmed with gratitude.
With these visions fresh in my mind, I turned again to John’s Gospel and suddenly found Jesus’s own descriptions of his death to be full of new meaning. As he explained to his disciples that his purpose on Earth was to die, he said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”13 Jesus knew that his death would result in the multiplication of the “grain of wheat”—which, at that moment, resided only within him.
During his final meal, Jesus told his disciples that he was “going to prepare a place” for them where they would be united to him even after his death, saying further, “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”14 Jesus knew that his death would result in a union between God and us, and that this union would occur within us.
Lastly, as I read the following words, I felt a weight I never knew existed suddenly lift from my chest: “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”15 Jesus knew that by being crucified on the cross, the stronghold of darkness would be overcome, the barrier between us and our Creator would be “torn in two,” and God would be immediately accessible within the hearts of all mankind.
The Blood of Jesus
Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and has made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on earth.
For most of my adulthood, I disliked the emphasis on Jesus’s blood, which seemed to me unnecessarily gruesome. I reasoned with myself that it is enough to talk about Jesus’s death in general, without getting too involved with unpleasant details. That changed when I saw his blood firsthand—when, pouring from his body like a river of glistening white, Love watered the barren ground of the Garden of Earth.
According to the heavenly beings that stand forever around the throne of God, Jesus’s “blood didst ransom men for God.”16 The word “ransom” suggests a purchase, as if the payment of Jesus’s blood resulted in a transfer of ownership from one to another. And, indeed, we have been purchased. Through the payment of his blood, Light penetrated the depths of Earth and cast out the darkness that had long held dominion. Through the payment of his blood, Love was poured into the hearts of all mankind, creating the doorway to God that we were always meant to have. Through the payment of his blood, “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” have been given the ability to become “a kingdom and priests to our God,” breathing—from the pearl that lies within us—the fulness of God’s Word into all Creation.
John concluded his Gospel prologue with these words:
And from [Jesus’s] fulness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known.17
Jesus’s unprecedented gesture of perfect love changed what it meant to be a man and woman on Earth. From the fulness of the Word poured out in his blood, we have all received “grace upon grace” in the form of the sacred fruit residing within us. We are now like the first man and woman in the Garden, able to walk with God “in the cool of the day” and do God’s work without ceasing.
Though it is impossible for us to perceive the imperceptible Creator, the good news is that through Jesus, who was the Word spoken from the very heart of God, there is now a way for each of us to intimately know the unknowable God.
Genesis 3:22–24
John 1:14
Luke 1:35
Matthew 3:16–17
Matthew 4:1–3
Mark 9:2–4,7
Mark 8:31–33
Luke 9:53
John 6:51
1 John 4:9
Exodus 25:22
Matthew 27:50–52
John 12:24
John 14:23
John 12:31–32
Revelation 5:9–10
John 1:16–18