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"For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace . . . . . all the trees of the
field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of
the brier shall come up the myrtle tree" (Isa. 55: 12, 13).
"The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree and the box
together . . . . . and I will make the place of My feet glorious" (Isa. 60: 13).
"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall
rejoice, and blossom as the rose" (Isa. 35: 1).
"Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field,
and the fruitful field be counted for a forest" (Isa. 32: 15).
"He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud,
and fill the face of the world with fruit" (Isa. 27: 6).
Here then is another pleroma, a story of grace and glory caused by the trees of
Scripture. Like the Apostle in another context, we are obliged to write `time would fail
me' to speak of the symbolism of "The Fig, the Vine and the Olive", of the
`uncorruptible' or aseptic (LXX) trees from which the Ark was made (Exod. 25: 10), or
what is implied by the promise "as the days of a tree are the days of My people"
(Isa. 65: 22), or the `two olive trees' of Zech. 4:, or the parable of Jotham of Judg. 9:
Neither can we ponder the question of resurrection with Job (14: 7), the pictures of
antichristian pride assembled by Ezekiel (31:), nor the vision of the great tree granted to
Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:), but if the reader will but explore these sylvan stretches of
inspired imagery, a wealth of refreshing truths will be gathered as from a veritable "tree
of life".
No.11. Two attitudes to the curse---Civilization or Redemption.
pp. 126 - 130
While it is the responsibility of the teacher to deal with positive truth rather than
pursue all the possible and impossible side lines of controversy, we must not forget that
occasionally the purpose of grace is served by pausing in the pursuit of truth, in order that
a necessary warning may be given. So the Apostle, in Col. 1: 28, combines `warning
with `teaching' and in II Tim. 3: 16 `instruction' is associated with `correction'. It is
sometimes as important, when giving directions, to warn not to turn to the left, as it is to
instruct to turn to the right.
If the pleroma is God's consequent reaction to the failure brought about by the enemy,
and if the attack of the enemy is characterized by deceit and counterfeit more than by
open warfare, it should not surprise us to discover early in the record of truth, that an
attempt was made to substitute a false pleroma for the true.
When Jude wrote in his epistle of the prophecy uttered by Enoch, he is careful to
designate him as `the seventh from Adam', the reason being that there was another of the
same name in the line of Cain. This was a part of the deceiver's attempt to foist a
substitute for truth upon the earth.