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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
of death. Its leaves were for the sustaining of life and immortality. But
through man’s disobedience death entered the world. Adam ate of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit of which he had been
forbidden to touch. His transgression opened the floodgates of woe
upon our race.
After the entrance of sin the heavenly Husbandman transplanted
the tree of life to the Paradise above; but its branches hang over the
wall to the lower world. Through the redemption purchased by the
blood of Christ, we may still eat of its life-giving fruit.
Of Christ it is written: “In Him was life; and the life was the light
of men.”
John 1:4
. He is the Fountain of life. Obedience to Him is the
life-giving power that gladdens the soul.
Christ declares: “I am the Bread of Life: he that cometh to Me
shall never hunger; and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” “As
the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father: so he that
eateth Me, even he shall live by Me.... It is the Spirit that quickeneth;
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the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit, and they are life.” “To him that overcometh will I give to eat
of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”
John
6:35, 57-63
;
Revelation 2:7
.
“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called the sons of God!”
1 John 3:1
.
The Knowledge that Works Transformation
The knowledge of God as revealed in Christ is the knowledge
that all who are saved must have. It is the knowledge that works
transformation of character. This knowledge, received, will re-create
the soul in the image of God. It will impart to the whole being a
spiritual power that is divine.
“We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of
the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory.”
2
Corinthians 3:18
, A. R. V.
Of His own life the Saviour said: “I have kept My Father’s com-
mandments.” “The Father hath not left Me alone; for I do always those
things that please Him.”
John 15:10
;
8:29
. As Jesus was in human
nature, so God means His followers to be. In His strength we are to
live the life of purity and nobility which the Saviour lived.