The Tree of Life and the flesh and blood of Jesus

In my post "The white blood of Jesus" (June 18) on my other blog, I explored the idea that the flesh and blood of Jesus is, at least at a symbolic level, identical with the fruit of the Tree of Life. I posted it there and not here because much of the reasoning was drawn from synchronicity and from Wendy Berg's book Red Tree, White Tree rather than from the Book of Mormon itself. Here I want to take a more Book-centered look at the same idea.

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1. The fruit of the Tree of Life is Jesus

I think this identification is made several times in 1 Nephi 11. First, we have this little exchange:

And the Spirit said unto me: Behold, what desirest thou?

And I said: I desire to behold the things which my father saw.

And the Spirit said unto me: Believest thou that thy father saw the tree of which he hath spoken?

And I said: Yea, thou knowest that I believe all the words of my father.

And when I had spoken these words, the Spirit cried with a loud voice, saying: Hosanna to the Lord, the most high God; for he is God over all the earth, yea, even above all. And blessed art thou, Nephi, because thou believest in the Son of the most high God; wherefore, thou shalt behold the things which thou hast desired.

And behold this thing shall be given unto thee for a sign, that after thou hast beheld the tree which bore the fruit which thy father tasted, thou shalt also behold a man descending out of heaven, and him shall ye witness; and after ye have witnessed him ye shall bear record that it is the Son of God (1 Ne. 11:1-7).

Here the Spirit seems to equate belief in the Tree with belief in the Son of God. While it's true that Nephi makes a blanket statement that he believes "all the words" of Lehi, the only question the Spirit asks him -- the qualifying question, which will determine whether or not he is granted the vision he seeks -- is whether he believes Lehi's account of the Tree. The Spirit then states that Nephi will receive that vision because he believes in the Son of God.

Nephi is then told that he will see "the tree which bore the fruit" and then "a man descending out of heaven," who is the Son of God. This is somewhat puzzling, since the account we have of Nephi's vision doesn't actually include a man literally descending out of heaven. Instead he sees the Tree and then the Mother of God, the two images being linked by their superlative whiteness.

And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: Look! And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.

And it came to pass after I had seen the tree, I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast shown unto me the tree which is precious above all.

And he said unto me: What desirest thou?

And I said unto him: To know the interpretation thereof . . . .

And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look! . . .

And it came to pass that I looked . . . . And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white.

And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me: Nephi, what beholdest thou?

And I said unto him: A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins. . . .

And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of [the Son of] God, after the manner of the flesh (1 Ne. 11:8-15, 18).

Nephi sees an exceedingly white Tree and then, when he asks for the interpretation, he sees an exceedingly white Virgin, whom he is told is the Mother of God (or, in the second and subsequent editions of the Book, the Mother of the Son of God).

If the Tree is the Mother of God -- "You, Lady, are the Tree," as Rilke put it -- the identity of the Fruit follows logically. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying: Look!

And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.

And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even [the Son of] the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.

And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul (1 Ne. 11:19-23).

Note that the Virgin is seen "bearing a child in her arms," echoing the earlier reference to "the tree which bore the fruit."

The reference to the Virgin being "carried away in the Spirit" refers not to a trance state but rather to being actually carried away to a different place -- cf. the later reference to the Twelve being "carried away in the Spirit from before my face, and I saw them not" (1 Ne. 11:29). We might speculate that she was carried away to "Heaven," that Jesus was conceived and perhaps born there, and that this is the answer to the Jews' question, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?" (John 6:42).

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2. The Tree of Life is a source of both food and drink

Nephi's vision implicitly identifies the Fruit specifically with the flesh of Jesus, since the Tree that bears the Fruit is identified with "the Mother of God according to the flesh." The vision also says that the Tree is the source of living waters.

And it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen, was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God; and I also beheld that the tree of life was a representation of the love of God (1 Ne. 11:25).

Commentators often have difficulty reconciling this with what is said in the next chapter:

And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw; yea, even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are the depths of hell (1 Ne. 12:16).

I don't think this can be the same fountain. Rather, the first reference is saying that the Tree of Life is the fountain of living waters, that it provides both fruit and "water." Jeremiah, a prophet we know Nephi knew and read, twice refers to the Lord as "the fountain of living waters" (Jer. 2:13, 17:13). In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus promises "living water" to the Samaritan woman:

If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. . . . whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:10, 14).

Two chapters later, he implies that those who drink his blood "shall never thirst," thus equating that blood with the promised living water:

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. . . .

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. . . .

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed (John 6:35, 51, 54-55).

The Tree of Life is a white tree that bears white fruit. If it is also the fountain of living waters, we would expect those waters (identified with the blood of Jesus) to be white as well. This is borne out by the many references to garments being washed white in the blood of the Lamb.

because of their faith in the Lamb of God their garments are made white in his blood. . . . and their garments were white even like unto the Lamb of God. And the angel said unto me: These are made white in the blood of the Lamb, because of their faith in him  (1 Ne. 12: 10-11).

there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins. . . . Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins? (Alma 5:21, 27)

Therefore they were called after this holy order, and were sanctified, and their garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb (Alma 13:11).

their garments should be made white through the blood of the Lamb (Alma 34:36).

perhaps ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb (Morm. 9:6)

 it is they whose garments are white through the blood of the Lamb (Ether 13:10)

This language makes no sense is the "blood of the Lamb" is a red substance. It must be either white or else a colorless "living water." In fact, the biblical parallel to the above passages, in the Revelation of John, closely associates the whitening "blood" with the living waters:

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. 

 

And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (Rev. 7:13-17)

Those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb neither hunger nor thirst -- just like those who eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his blood. They will not hunger because "the Lamb . . . shall feed them," presumably with his flesh, and they will not thirst because he "shall lead them unto the living fountains of waters," again implicitly identified with his blood.

We can see a fortuitous echo if this imagery in the modern LDS practice of using water rather than wine in the sacrament. I'm not sure how or when this got started. The Word of Wisdom, which generally forbids wine, specifically makes allowance for sacramental wine (D&C 89:5-6), and even if a non-alcoholic Communion were desired, grape juice (as used in many Protestant churches) would be a more logical wine-substitute than water. Anyway, however the practice arose, it turns out to be symbolically apt.

Since the robe or garment is symbolic of the physical body, washing one's robes in the blood of the Lamb could be the same thing as purifying one's physical body by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and drinking the living waters that flow therefrom. The sacrament of bread and wine (or water) is a symbolic pre-enactment of actually partaking of the Tree of Life, which confers immortality.

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3. Eating and drinking unworthily is damnation

Jesus, anticipating Paul (1 Cor. 11:29), teaches that taking his flesh and blood "unworthily" causes damnation:

And now behold, this is the commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it; for whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a man is unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood ye shall forbid him (3 Ne. 18:28-19).

It's not really clear why this should bring damnation -- or why, given the stakes, Jesus didn't elaborate on what constitutes "worthiness" to partake -- but given the connection we have established with the Tree of Life, we can cross-reference this with the teachings of Alma Jr.:

Now we see that Adam did fall by the partaking of the forbidden fruit, according to the word of God; and thus we see, that by his fall, all mankind became a lost and fallen people.

And now behold, I say unto you that if it had been possible for Adam to have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life at that time, there would have been no death, and the word would have been void, making God a liar, for he said: If thou eat thou shalt surely die.

And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead. . . .

And now behold, if it were possible that our first parents could have gone forth and partaken of the tree of life they would have been forever miserable, having no preparatory state; and thus the plan of redemption would have been frustrated, and the word of God would have been void, taking none effect (Alma 12:22-24, 26).

Here it appears that the Fall had rendered Adam and Eve unworthy to partake of the Tree of Life, and if they had done so they "would have been forever miserable," which sounds a lot like damnation. Why this should be so is not really made clear, but apparently certain "preparations" must be done while in a mortal state and are no longer possible after partaking of the Tree of Life.

Coming back to the question of who is "worthy," Alma elsewhere implies that no one is. After commending his son Shiblon for his "steadiness and . . . faithfulness unto God" in "keeping his commandments" (Alma 38:2), he exhorts him to "acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times" (Alma 38:14).

A hint as to how this "unworthiness," resulting from the Fall, can be overcome is perhaps provided by the Brother of Jared. When he prays to the Lord, he acknowledges that he is unworthy because of the Fall:

Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires (Ether 3:2).

Later in the same chapter, the Lord pronounced the Brother "redeemed from the fall," and thus presumably no longer "unworthy." The reason given for this redemption is somewhat surprising:

And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak?

And he answered: Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie.

And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you (Ether 3:11-13).

The Brother is redeemed not because of repentance or anything else that we would expect, but because of his knowledge that God cannot lie. It is particularly paradoxical that this would appear to be an instance of the knowledge of good and evil, which is supposedly what brought about the Fall in the first place. It's interesting to note, though, that Alma, in the passage quoted earlier, emphasizes how by partaking of the Tree of Life prematurely, Adam and Eve would be "making God a liar" (Alma 12:23).

There's obviously a lot here that I still don't understand, but I think some things are starting to come into focus.

Seeing the bodies of spirits

"Touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger" (Ether 3:4), said the Brother of Jared, apparently taking it for granted that the Lord had in some sense such appendages. When he unexpectedly saw that finger, his reaction is somewhat surprising.

And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear.

And the Lord saw that the brother of Jared had fallen to the earth; and the Lord said unto him: Arise, why hast thou fallen?

And he saith unto the Lord: I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood (Ether 3:6-8).

The Brother later confirms, when asked by the Lord, that he has at this point seen only a finger -- just a finger, seemingly floating in the air and unattached to a body, touching the stones one by one. It seems to me that almost anyone seeing such an apparition would assume it to be a spiritual manifestation, not an actual flesh-and-blood finger. For example, when the disciples saw the flesh-and-blood Jesus walking on water -- something physical bodies don't normally do -- they assumed it was a ghost. Belshazzar even saw disembodied "fingers of a man's hand" (Daniel 5:5) but was only interested in decoding the words those fingers had written. The Brother, though, reacted differently: He already knew the Lord had "fingers" but was now shocked to discover that he had fingers that were entirely physical -- indeed, biological -- in nature. For him to have concluded this, I think the finger must have looked exactly like a physical finger, with nothing spiritual or ghostly about it (except for the fact that it was hovering in the air, I mean).

But of course this all happened several millennia BC, and the Being that the Brother saw, the future Jesus Christ, did not at that time have a body of flesh and blood. The usual Mormon understanding is that the premortal Jesus had a "spirit body" -- a quasi-physical structure, somewhat like the subtle or "astral" body of other traditions, corresponding in form to his future mortal body -- and that this is what the Brother saw. That's not what the Lord says to him, though.

And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger (Ether 3:9).

He doesn't say, "You have seen my spirit body, which looks exactly the same as the physical body I will later take on." He says, "Thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood" -- implying that the Brother has in some sense seen the future. He saw a physical finger because the Lord would in the future have an actual physical finger.

It wasn't a vision of the future in the ordinary sense, though. He didn't at this point see a vision of what Jesus would do in the future (as Nephi did, for instance). He saw what Jesus was at that time doing -- touching the stones with his finger -- but the Jesus that he saw doing this was not Jesus as he existed at that time (an invisible spirit) but as he would exist in the future, an incarnate Man.

The Lord proceeds to show the rest of himself to the Brother, calling that which he is showing "the body of my spirit":

Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.

And now, as I, Moroni, said I could not make a full account of these things which are written, therefore it sufficeth me to say that Jesus showed himself unto this man in the spirit, even after the manner and in the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites (Ether 3:16-17).

These expressions with of can be slippery and ambiguous. For instance, when we read of "the god of Elkenah" (Abr. 1:6), are we to understand that Elkenah is the name of the god himself, or -- by analogy with such phrases as "the god of Abraham" and "the gods of Egypt" -- the name of some person or place with which the god is associated? It is similarly unclear here whether Jesus means "the 'body' which is my spirit" (i.e., the "spirit body" of popular Mormon understanding) or "the body that pertains to my spirit" (because my spirit will later be incarnated in it). In my judgment, "my body of spirit" would be more natural for the first sense than "the body of my spirit." Of course Jesus' body in the latter sense didn't exist yet, but precognitive visions of the future are definitely a feature of the Book of Mormon, and as I have said, the Lord does seem to be implying that the Brother saw his future body.

Later in the same chapter, the Brother has another vision that seems as if it might be the same sort of thing:

And when the Lord had said these words, he showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth (Ether 3:25).

This has traditionally been interpreted as a vision of the entire past and future history of the earth (it is repeatedly referred to in Joseph Smith's Seer Stones as "the all-seeing vision"), but that's not what it says. It says that he saw all those who had been or would be "inhabitants of the earth." Only the people themselves are mentioned, nothing about past or future scenes or events. He could have had a panoramic view of all history, of course, but the context of his vision of Jesus strongly suggests another possibility: that he saw these past and future inhabitants in the same way that he saw the future Jesus.

Again, he didn't see scenes from Jesus' future life. Instead, he saw the pre-incarnate Jesus, doing what he was at that time doing (touching the stones), but doing it in the body into which he had not yet been born. If the popular Mormon understanding that the "spirit world" is all around us is correct, the Brother was at all times surrounded by the invisible spirits of those who had already died or had yet to be born. In this experience, these spirits became visible as Jesus had become visible, appearing in the bodies in which they had lived or would live. He didn't see those past and future lives; he saw the spirits doing whatever the spirits were doing at the time, but he saw those spirits as bodies.

Enoch perhaps had a similar experience:

And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see. And he did so.

And he beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye; and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people (Moses 6:35-36).

When you see a spirit -- something inherently invisible -- what exactly do you see? The same thing people typically see when they see "ghosts," presumably: The ghost manifests as the physical likeness of the person when he or she was alive, but you don't see their life. You see what the ghost is doing now -- wandering around "haunting" the place or whatever -- but you see the spirit as the body it once inhabited.

Another possible example of this sort of thing is the Transfiguration described in the New Testament:

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. . . .

And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean (Mark 9:2-4, 8-10).

This is slightly different, since Jesus was not a disembodied spirit at the time, but one interpretation of what happened is that Peter, James, and John saw Jesus as he would later be, after the resurrection. The description of the transfigured Jesus -- whiter-than-white clothing and, Matthew adds, a face that "did shine as the sun" (Matt. 17:2) -- is consistent with descriptions of resurrected beings. Here is Joseph Smith's description of the resurrected Moroni:

He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. . . . Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning (JS-H vv. 31-32).

As in the Gospels, it is the preternaturally white clothing that first attracts comment, being apparently even more distinctive than the shining face. Likewise, when the resurrected Jesus appears to the Nephites, the only description given is that "he was clothed in a white robe" (3 Ne. 11:8).

At the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus hadn't yet been resurrected and didn't look like that -- but somehow he did look like that for a brief period of time. Perhaps, like the Brother of Jared, the apostles were granted the temporary ability to see present-Jesus as future-Jesus. They saw Jesus doing what he was doing at the time -- staying with them on the mountain, talking with Moses and Elias -- but they saw him doing it in a sort of body that he did not yet have.

Moroni says that the Brother of Jared saw Jesus in "the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites" (Ether 3:17), suggesting that he, too, saw the Lord's resurrection body before the resurrection had occurred. There is biblical precedent for referring to the resurrection body in language similar to "the body of my spirit":

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

I haven't yet thought through the details of how this sort of phenomenon might work, and what it might imply about bodies and spirits and resurrection and time, but I wanted to get the basic idea out there first.