God’s eternal plan, God’s economy, is revealed to us throughout the sixty-six books of the Scriptures. At the very beginning of the Scriptures, God is seen creating man as the center of the creation for the purpose of expressing Himself (Gen. 1:26-27). In His economy God intended that man should express Him as the center of the universe.
At the beginning of the Word of God we are shown two trees—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:8-9). In order to understand God’s plan in the Scriptures, we must be thoroughly clear concerning these two trees and what they represent. After God created man, He placed him before these two trees, and man’s whole life and walk were portrayed as being a matter of feasting on one tree or the other. God instructed man to be very careful concerning his partaking of these two trees. If man dealt with these trees in a proper way, he would have life; otherwise, he would have death. It was a matter of life or death. How man would live and walk after he was created depended entirely upon how he dealt with these two trees. God instructed man clearly: if he partook of the second tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would have death, but if he partook of the first tree, the tree of life, he would have life (vv. 16-17).
What do these two trees signify? According to the revelation of the whole Scripture, the tree of life signifies God Himself in Christ as our life. The tree of life stands as a symbol of the life of God in Christ. The Old Testament and the New Testament present the Lord Jesus a number of times as either a tree or a branch of a tree (S. S. 2:3; 5:15; Isa. 11:1; John 15:1; Rev. 22:2). The Lord has the special title of the Shoot in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. Many kinds of trees are used in the Scriptures to signify that Christ is our portion and our enjoyment. For instance, in Song of Songs 2 the Lord Jesus is likened to an apple tree: “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, / So is my beloved among the sons: / In his shade I delighted and sat down” (v. 3). We can sit in the shade of Christ as the apple tree—under His covering and in His shadow—and enjoy all His riches—the fruit of the tree. Another example of Christ as a tree is the vine tree in John 15 (vv. 1, 4).
What is the significance of the second tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? This tree represents nothing other than Satan, the source of death. The second tree brings death, because it is the very source of death. The first tree is the source of life, and the second tree is the source of death. In the whole universe only God Himself is the source of life, and only Satan is the source of death. A verse showing that God Himself is the very source of life is Psalm 36:9, which says, “With You is the fountain of life,” and a verse showing that Satan is the source of death is Hebrews 2:14, which refers to Satan as “him who has the might of death.” The might of death is in the hand of Satan. Thus, from the very beginning of time these two trees represent two sources—one, the source of life, and the other, the source of death.
In the beginning there were three parties—God, man, and Satan. Man in the stage of his innocence, as he was created by God, was neutral in relation to life and death. Since it was possible for man to have either life or death, he was standing on neutral ground. God was standing on the ground of life, and Satan, on the ground of death. Man was created neutral in relation to God and Satan. It was God’s intention for this neutral, innocent man to take God into him, that God and man, man and God, might be mingled together as one. As a result, man would contain God as his life and express God as his everything. Created man, as the center of the universe, would then fulfill the purpose of fully expressing God. Another possibility, however, was that man would be induced to take the second tree, which is the source of death. As a consequence, man would be mingled with the second tree. Oh, that our eyes might be opened to see that in the whole universe it is not a matter of ethics and of doing good, but a matter of receiving either God as life or Satan as death. We must be delivered from the ethical and moral understanding. It is not a matter of doing good or evil, but of receiving God as life or Satan as death. It is important that we clearly see the three parties. God, standing on one side, is the source of life, as represented by the tree of life; Satan, standing on the other side, is the source of death, as represented by the tree of knowledge; and Adam, standing in the middle, is neutral with two receiving hands. He can take either God at his right hand or Satan at his left.
As we know, Adam was induced to take the second source, the tree of knowledge, into himself. This was not a matter of merely doing something wrong. It was much more serious than transgressing God’s law and regulation. The significance of Adam’s taking the fruit of the tree of knowledge was that he received Satan into him. Adam did not take a branch of that tree; he took the fruit of the tree. The fruit contains the reproducing power of life. For example, when the fruit of a peach tree is planted in the earth, soon another little peach tree will sprout up. Adam was the “earth.” When he took the fruit of the tree of knowledge into himself as the earth, he received Satan, who then grew in him. This is not a small matter. Not many Christians have realized the fall of Adam in such a way. The fruit of Satan was sown in Adam as a seed is sown in the soil; thus, Satan grew in Adam and became a part of him.
Now we need to discover into what part of Adam Satan was received. Satan not only came into Adam when he fell in the garden, but he still remains in the human race today. Where is he located in the human race? As we have seen in these chapters, we are a tripartite being composed of spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23). When Adam took the fruit of the tree of knowledge, into what part of his being did it come? Of course, it came into his body, because he received the fruit by eating it. Although this is logical and reasonable, we need scriptural ground to confirm that something of Satan is in our body. Romans 7:23 says, “I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members.” The words different law refer to a law of a different category, a law of a contrasting category. The word members denotes the parts of the body. This verse says that the “different law” in our members makes us a captive to the law of sin which is in our members, that is, in the parts of our body.
What is the law of sin? In Romans 7:20 Paul said, “It is no longer I...but sin that dwells in me,” and in Galatians 2:20 he said, “It is no longer I...but...Christ who lives in me.” Here we have a contrast between “no longer I but sin” and “no longer I but Christ.” Christ is the embodiment of God, and sin is the embodiment of Satan. Sin in Romans 7 is personified. It is like a person, for sin can dwell in us and force us to do things against our will (vv. 17, 20). It is stronger than we are. Romans 6:14 says, “Sin will not lord it over you.” Sin can lord it over us; hence, sin must be the evil one, Satan. Through the fall Satan came into man as sin, and he is ruling, damaging, corrupting, and mastering man. According to Romans 7, Satan as sin is in the members of man’s body.
Man’s body as originally created by God was very good, but it has now become the flesh. The body was pure, since it was created good, but when the body was corrupted by Satan, it became the flesh. Paul said, “In me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells” (v. 18). Through the fall Satan came to dwell in our body, causing our body to become the flesh—a damaged, ruined body.
The book of Romans uses two terms: the body of sin (6:6) and the body of this death (7:24). The body is called “the body of sin” because sin is in the body. The body became the residence of sin, which is the embodiment of Satan. What, then, is the body of death? The source and might of death is Satan. Sin is the embodiment of Satan, and death is the issue, or effect, of Satan. The corrupted, transmuted body is called “the body of sin” and “the body of this death” because this body became the very residence of Satan. Both sin and death are related to Satan. The body of sin means that the body is sinful, corrupted, and enslaved by sin; the body of this death means that the body is weakened and full of death. The body is satanic and devilish because Satan dwells in the body. All the lusts are in this corrupted body, which is called the flesh. The Word reveals that these lusts are “the lust of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). The flesh is the corrupted body that is indwelt by Satan and is full of lusts. Now we can see that the fall of man was not merely a matter of man transgressing against God, but a matter of man receiving Satan into his body. Satan, from the time of the fall, dwells in man. This is what happened when man partook of the second tree.
Since Satan and man became one through the second tree, Satan is no longer outside of man but is in man. The ruler of the authority of the air, Satan himself, is operating in the disobedient people (Eph. 2:2). After the fall of man, Satan was joyful, boasting that he had succeeded in taking over man. But God, who was still outside of man, seemed to say, “I too will become incarnated. Since Satan wrought himself into man, let Me enter man and put man upon Myself.” Do you see the complicated situation? God put on this man—Satan being in him—through incarnation. When God became incarnated as a man, the kind of man He put on was a man corrupted by Satan. At the time of God’s incarnation, man was no longer a pure man but a man ruined and corrupted by Satan. Romans 8:3 says, “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin...” When the Lord Jesus was incarnated in the flesh, He was “in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” There was no sin within Him (2 Cor. 5:21), but there was “the likeness of the flesh of sin.” Sin was within corrupted man, but there was no sin within the Lord Jesus; there was only the likeness of the flesh of sin. The Old Testament illustrates this in the type of the bronze serpent lifted up on the pole (Num. 21:9). That serpent, made of bronze, was a type of Christ (John 3:14). When Christ was on the cross, He was a man in the likeness of the serpent. The serpent is Satan, the devil, the enemy of God, but when Christ was incarnated as a man, He had the likeness of the sinful flesh, which is the likeness of Satan. It is rather difficult for anyone to understand this easily. It is quite complicated. To repeat, man was created pure, but one day Satan came into man to possess him. Satan was joyful, thinking he had succeeded in taking over man. Then God put upon Himself the man who had Satan within him.