Trees of Righteousness
Isaiah 61:3; Psalm 1:3

The Second Sunday after Christmas

Julia Butterfly Hill is an activist. In 1997 she decided to do something dramatic to bring attention to the logging of old-growth forests. A small tree fort was built for her in the branches of a 1,000-year-old redwood 180 feet in the air. Somehow she climbed up there with her luggage. For 738 days she lived without once allowing her foot to touch the ground. Unfortunately, Butterfly chose the infamous El Nino winter to start her crusade. Every day, winds blew from 45 to 65 miles per hour. Rain, sleet and hail pounded. Snow followed not far behind. Butterfly describes her existence like this:

“As the wet and cold began to set in, I piled on my few belongings and huddled… Endless days of this intensity turned my body into a shivering miserable mass. My skin began to blister, and my lymph nodes swelled to the size of walnuts. Then an incredible pain set into my fingers and toes. A searing, burning sensation was followed by my digits changing colors – turning from red to white, blue, purple and, finally, to black. My skin began to die and flake. The pain was so intense that even the weight of the sleeping bag was almost more than I could bear…” Butterfly scarcely survived that winter. [L.A. Times, Dec. 21, 2004 “Outdoor” section.]

I. A. The cold and suffering that Butterfly endured in that redwood tree is an amazing feat, but some of us wonder if she went too far. We suspect that the radical environmentalists love trees more than they love people, and to love trees more than people is a pagan notion that collides with the Christian worldview. What are the principles that apply? The image of God in man is a good starting point. Only man bears the image of God, which means that mankind is the crown of creation. A yawning chasm separates man from the rest of God's handiwork. Furthermore, Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves as the second of the two great commandments. To deify creation, or to ascribe more worth to trees and animals than we do to our neighbor is backwards. Moreover, Genesis chapter one spells out the dominion mandate (Genesis 1:28 ff.). In that mandate, all plants and animals are subject to man. Trees are actually plants. They are given to humankind for food and to exercise dominion. This cultural mandate invites us to prudently cut down trees and utilize the hardwood to build houses, ships, and violins.

B. Having said that, having elevated man over nature, and having affirmed the validity of the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28, we can't interpret the dominion mandate as an excuse for the reckless destruction and contamination of God's creation. Genesis 2:9 tells us that God “made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…” Certainly, the Lord made trees to be aesthetically pleasing. It is good and admirable to cooperate with God in adorning the earth with flowerage and frondescence. And plant life is beautiful when properly watered and weeded. God wants us to look at trees and enjoy them. The Lord has created us with an intrinsic capacity to delight in them. “They are pleasant to the sight,” Genesis 2:9 says.

Here's a recommendation for testing that proposition. Spend a few hours observing pleasant trees. Drive to the end of Silverado Canyon off of Santiago Canyon Rd. Park there before the gate. You'll need to purchase an Adventure Pass to park there. Walk on the paved road that runs along the river. It's usually closed to traffic. You will see maple trees, bay trees, white-barked sycamores, alders, majestic live oaks, and if you hike high enough up into the Santa Ana Mountains you will see big-cone Douglas firs, and Coulter pines. God's creation is fascinating and rewards us when we make efforts to enjoy it.

The Bible gives special attention to the trees that bear fruit. From trees we get honey, maple syrup, drugs, nuts, firewood, and much more. It is clear that the Lord treasures fruit trees. God's Word stipulates in the laws concerning warfare, “When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down… Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down…” (Deut. 20:19-20). According to biblical law fruit trees are so important to the land that they should not be cut down gratuitously.

II. Trees are mentioned today in our Psalm and Old Testament text. The prophet Isaiah foresees a day when God's children will be called “trees of righteousness” or “oaks of righteousness” (Is. 61:3). In similar fashion Psalm 1 speaks of the man of God who is “like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” We could marshal several other passages that compare people to trees (Jer. 17:7-8; Ez. 31:3 ff.). Why do the Scriptures put so much emphasis on trees? How do they resemble humans? What is their symbolism and theology? We've delved into these questions a little bit already. Let's continue to examine other possible answers.

A. The prophet Isaiah declares that Christians are called “trees of righteousness, the planting (or grove) of the Lord” (Isaiah 61:3). In what sense can Christians be designated trees of righteousness? A tree symbolizes our justification. Christ died on a tree to make us trees of righteousness. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” If you are righteous it is because Jesus, when He hanged on the cross, took upon Himself your curse, and bore the punishment you deserved. And in place of the curse of guilt and sin, God graciously clothed you in the robes of the perfect righteousness of Christ. What a wonderful exchange! The Savior took your guilt and bore it, propitiating the wrath of God. In return, He gave you His righteousness. What a trade! You were once a thorn and a thistle; by Christ's atonement you are now a tree of righteousness, if you believe.

B. How do we distinguish the grapes from the thorn-bushes, the figs from the thistles? Jesus teaches “you will know them by their fruits.” “By their fruits” you will be able to distinguish the trees of righteousness from the sticker bushes of unrighteousness. Let's read Matthew 7:16-20. [Read them.]

The Lord makes you a tree of righteousness on the condition that you become a new creature; that true righteousness reign in you; that the fruit of the Holy Spirit ripen in you. You cannot remain a prickly thorn bush or a barren thistle and call yourself a Christian. There must be a change! There must be fruit! There must be growth! A tree never stops growing as long as it lives. Jesus says that people will know you by your fruits. When the Psalmist states that the man of God is “like a tree, planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither” this refers to the saints being fed by the spiritual waters of the sanctuary. In order to grow, the roots of every fruit-bearing tree must be soaking up the sacraments, the preaching of God's Word, and the fellowship of God's people. It is the might of the Holy Spirit working through the Church that enables her members to be trees of righteousness.

C. Furthermore, a tree in Scripture is sometimes an emblem for the Kingdom of God. Jesus teaches in Mark 4:31, “[The kingdom of God] is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” In other words, Christ Himself is the Seed. His kingdom and His Church start small, but eventually her branches extend out over the earth. The birds symbolize the nations. The nations of the earth are like birds that nest under the refreshing shade of the Church and perch up in the branches.

D. Moreover, trees in the Bible are inextricably tied up with the garden theme. The direction of history is from desert to garden. How is that so? God created the Garden of Eden on earth and placed Adam and Eve in it, so that they and their progeny would extend that paradise around the globe. The Fall, Adam's rebellious eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, made the garden project a hundred times harder. As the curse of the Fall spread, the water dried up. The curse choked the earth with thorns, thistles, drought, and desert. A desert wilderness is what prevails to the present time. But the curse is not a permanent condition. Let's not resign ourselves to earthly ugliness. Revelation 22 paints a beautiful picture of what we can expect. It shows the tree of life in the New Heavens and New Earth. This is where God is leading His creation. The tree of life bears twelve fruits for the healing of the nations and there shall be no more curse. As we read the Bible and meet the imagery of trees, planting and fruit on almost every page, God wants us to get the picture in our minds of His people living in the midst of abundance, surrounded by the blessings of the Garden as they are restored in salvation. When Israel is blessed, we find every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree (1 Kings 4:25). The same holds for every person who lives under the blessings of Christ.

David Chilton used Sodom and Gomorrah to illustrate how God restores the earth to its original beauty and goodness. It can be a helpful, clarifying illustration. [Paradise Restored. p. 52.] The history of Sodom and Gomorrah is a sort of capsulized history of the world. Remember when Abraham and his nephew Lot went their separate ways? Abraham allowed Lot to pick which territory he would claim for his own. When Lot looked on the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Bible says that “[He] lifted up his eyes and saw that [it] was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD…” (Gen. 13:10). It was a replica of Eden. That is where Lot chose to settle down with his family. Sadly, the people became so depraved God had to destroy the city. Lot and his family barely escaped. Disobeying God's command, Lot's wife turned around and looked at the destruction, becoming a pillar of salt.

Lot's wife wasn't the only thing that became salt. Deuteronomy 29:23 explains that the entire land of Sodom and Gomorrah did too. It says, “The whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout… which the Lord overthrew in His wrath.” Where was Sodom located? It was in the area now known as the Dead Sea – and it is called Dead for a very good reason; nothing can live in it. Chemical deposits (salt, potash, magnesium, and others) make up 25 percent of the water as a result of God's judgment upon the land. Except for where water flows into it (and a few isolated springs in the area), the land is completely arid. It is now the furthest thing imaginable from Eden, and it serves as a picture of the world after the Curse: Eden has become a Wilderness.

But that is not all we are told about this area. The prophet Ezekiel takes it up as a model for redemption. He sees hope for Sodom and Gomorrah in that amazing chapter 47 of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel's vision of the restored Temple, he sees the Water of Life flowing eastward from the threshold toward the Dead Sea and healing its waters, resulting in “a great multitude of fish” and luxuriant growth (Ezekiel 47:8-12). This is not merely the destiny of the Dead Sea, what used to be Sodom and Gomorrah, this is the destiny of earth. We must not look upon the world with eyes that see only the Curse; we must look with the eyes of faith, enlightened by God's Word to see the world as the arena of Christ's triumph. History does not end with the Wilderness. World history will be, on a massive scale, that of Sodom: first a Garden, lovely and fruitful; then corrupted into a Wilderness of Death through sin; finally, restored by God's grace to its former Edenic abundance. “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose” (Isaiah 35:1).

The Bible's teaching on trees suggests that the Garden of Eden will be restored in history, before the Second Coming, by the power of the Gospel. It is God Almighty who makes us trees of righteousness, our roots drinking in the Word and Sacrament, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As that fruit ripens within us and our righteousness increases, the Church spreads out to beautify the world, healing the nations, rolling back the curse, and converting the earth into a garden. That indeed is a vision “pleasant to the sight.”

Let us pray.

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