The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 7 -10
From a distance, when you look at a grapevine, you see a whole bush. It’s one “thing”, Jesus, the comforter, the holy spirit. But when you look closer, you can see it’s actually made of several different parts; Revelation 22:2. The leaves and the fruit have very different purposes.
This shows us that the grapevine has its own fractions. Those are the heart and the spirit; where is the soul? Jesus plainly told us: John 15:5. The word “I”, used alone, always means the soul. Thus, Jesus’ soul is the vine itself, and we are branches –souls –on that same vine.
Psalms 1:3 And he shall be 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.
Notice the three things; the fruit of these trees of life –the blood/spirit. The leaves of these trees of life –the body/heart. And the vine itself –the soul, referred to simply as “he” in this verse. So in the Garden, when we see the tree of life and say “that’s Jesus”, it is indeed; but that one symbol has three parts, just as Jesus Himself does.
Representing the juice of grapes as blood is obvious (Deuteronomy 32:14). God’s symbols, when you really understand them, are always intuitive, as you will see. But why represent the leaves as the body? Again, it’s obvious when you just think about it. No, really… think about it!
When you look at a grape plant, you see a huge structure, full of leaves all over the place. But when you poke around the leaves, you see that most of the “tree” is empty space, hiding a relatively small trunk which is making the plant alive. In winter, when the leaves fall off, it looks dead; because its body is gone! When in reality, it merely sleepeth (Matthew 9:24).
Likewise, our flesh is mostly empty space. It’s just a veil which hides a few drops of the water of life and a breath or two of the spirit of life. That’s all we truly are. And like the grapevine which loses its leaves each fall, the death of this body simply puts us into hibernation, leaves us dormant¸ from the Latin root meaning “asleep”.
The people we think we are, are simply the leaves of a great plant, concealing deep within us the true Self. This is true in an even deeper sense, because we are made up of atoms, and those atoms are made up of electrons orbiting a nucleus; a tiny solar system of sorts, and like our solar system, made of up a vast amount of empty space.
Our solidness is an illusion, because if all of the actual substance that we are (as defined by individual electron and proton particles) were collapsed, and all the empty space removed, we would literally be the size of a speck of dust.
So we’re all just covering our soul with so many grape leaves, giving the illusion of bulk to something that is truly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
LEAFY BREAD
Thus, in that particular layer, Jesus’ soul is pictured as a vine, His spirit as wine, and His body as grape leaves. But you’ve already seen that the Bible is told in overlapping symbols, with each different version telling the same story from a different angle.
The grapevine itself is Jesus’ soul, as He plainly told us. Which means His body is the leaves of that tree. Now these leaves are for the healing of the nations, which mean they must also correspond with Jesus’ human body “which was broken for you” (1 Corinthians 11:24), which in turn is pictured by a loaf of bread.
As you know, both of these metaphors are true; just different sets of symbols. Each from a different perspective, each telling a different part of the story –just as you learned about prophecies.
And yet God does nothing arbitrarily; if He said that bread and grape leaves mean the same thing, it means that they must, in some intuitive way, be connected to one another. And, in fact, they are quite connected.
First, consider what the grape leaf does in food; unlike most ingredients, the grape leaf isn’t ground up as a powder, sauteed, or eaten by itself. It is almost exclusively used as a wrapper for food.
As usual, this is something you already knew, but never thought about. Grape leaves are consumed as a covering of other foods –specifically, of meats and grains; flesh, and the seeds of grasses (Isaiah 40:6). Thus, they hide any imperfections in the food inside!
They are, therefore, a type of atonement for the food. For atonement is the Hebrew word meaning “covering”! In the same way, Jesus’ body hung on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so we wouldn’t have to; He hung there, in our place. He, as the young people would say, “covered for us” (Leviticus 10:17).
Thus, the grape leaves take various ingredients and combine them into distinct loaves. Covering them all together with the same clothes, making them seem as if they are part of the same house, though they are from “all nations, and kindreds, and tongues”.
Maybe this is a stretch. And yes, I could be making all of this up. But what other leaf have you ever heard being used in this fashion? No one uses fig leaves this way. No one uses olive leaves this way. Or blackberry, cedar, palm, maple, and so on.
None are ever used by the common man as a covering for his food. (Cabbage leaves, yes, but that’s no more a tree leaf than a bell pepper; banana leaves yes, but they aren’t native to Palestine.) No, it is only the tree of life which has leaves “for the healing of the nations”.
Because it is only the tree of life that allows all these other fruits to pretend that THEY are grape vines, by wrapping their disparate fruits in its own leaves, embracing them into His own body!
ABIMELECH
The prophecy in Judges 9, where we learned about Jesus’ fractional selves in previous lessons, was given by Jotham, whose name means “Jehovah Is Perfect”. As I’ve said before, these symbols are perfect. God thought them through. So the person saying these things about the olive, grape, and fig was the person who most had a right to complain about their treatment –the Being whom they pictured! The Perfect Jehovah –Jesus!
Now Jotham was the youngest child of 70 elder brothers; just as Jesus is the youngest Spirit being, because His human birth, and spiritual rebirth, was long after all the other angels were created (Colossians 1:15-20).
Remember that the thorn bush, with its false wine, pictured Satan; well, in the context of this parable, the thorn bush pictured Abimelech (compare verse 15 to verse 20). Therefore, Abimelech pictures the devil; with that in mind, read Judges 8:30, 9:6.
Gideon and Jerubbaal are different names for the same person –here, picturing the Father. Now Abimelech was the son of Gideon by a maidservant, just as Ishmael was son of Abraham by a maidservant –an OC church and son, as opposed to an NC church and son. And Abimelech was a thorn in Jotham’s side, just as Ishmael made Isaac’s life difficult (Galatians 4:29).
Now Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, had seventy heirs (Exodus 1:5), just like Gideon had. And Isaac pictured Jesus, just as Jotham did. And in the temple of Solomon, there are seventy flames atop ten candlesticks (2 Chronicles 4:7). These flames each picture one great angel (Revelation 1:20).
Thus, Jesus is youngest of seventy “brothers”, who rule over the seventy nations of Genesis 10. All of whom, and all of whose people, were spiritually killed by Satan when he convinced them to sin! For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God! (Romans 3:23). Angels included!
Abimelech killed these angels upon a single stone (verse 18). Compare to 1 Peter 2:8. Satan got them to stumble over Jesus; and by stumbling, made sure that they would be killed by the words written on that rock (the ten commandments).
And so God will bring forth a fire out of Abimelech and consume the beast (Judges 9:20). Compare to Ezekiel 28:16-18. Now interestingly, Jotham was speaking these words from Mt. Gerizim… the mount of blessing! (Deuteronomy 11:26-32).
Because that’s what Jotham was… the blessing, who was telling them how to lead their fractions. And he was saying this from a mountain whose name means “a cutting off”… the mountain of circumcision!
But that means, by process of elimination, the men of Shechem were on Mt. Ebal, the mountain of cursing, whose name means “stony”, for their stony, uncircumcised hearts… Which is a curse to all who have one, because their fractions will not be led!
Which means Abimelech, by tempting them to follow their lustful hearts (Genesis 3:4-5, Exodus 7:22, Judges 9:2-3, etc.), led them to harden their hearts like stone and thus killed them all upon a single rock… the rock of their own stony hearts! And for that sin, Jotham pronounced them, and Abimelech, worthy of death.
But like with David and Saul who represented the same relationship, God didn’t kill Abimelech right away; on the contrary, He sowed division in the ranks and used Abimelech to punish the very people who helped him to power (Judges 9:22-49). Compare to Jeremiah 2:19, Proverbs 1:31, Proverbs 5:22, etc.
All the things that happened to Abimelech can be connected by bridges to various other prophecies about Satan, about the burning of unwalled cities, of Gog and Magog and so on; but that’s for another day, or better yet, for you to figure out for yourself.
In the end, Abimelech met his fitting end in Judges 9:50-57; compare to Mark 9:42, Revelation 18:21-22. Notice carefully that it was a woman who delivered the death blow; the ekklesia, by proving once and for all that God’s way worked.
But notice that it was his own young armor bearer that delivered the death blow; the same way Saul, another type of Satan, died (1 Samuel 31:4-6). But remember: all of these layers must be added TOGETHER to get the full picture. Because remember who was also Saul’s armour bearer? 1 Samuel 16:21.
And that’s Who will ultimately kill Satan –after the church mortally wounds him. The One who was Satan’s armor-bearer… the One who shielded him, as he did all of us, from the judgment of the Father!
COMPOUND FRACTIONS
In Judges 9, we concluded that Jesus’ soul was pictured as an olive tree, His spirit as a grape vine, and His body as a fig tree. And that was true; sort of. These were, in a way, representative of Jesus’ fractions. But not of the fractions of His existence… the fruits of His existence as fractions!
Before the beginning, Jesus was with the Father; and They were both equal, both almighty, both perfect (John 1:1-3). Jesus was in every way as awesome as the Father (John 17:5). Jesus was an almighty Elohim, corresponding to the highest fraction, life as an immortal soul.
But Jesus gave up that life, to become something less; not El, God, but Yahweh Elohim –“the Lord of God” –God’s right arm (Isaiah 40:9-11, 51:4-16). Not El, God, but Melchizedek, “my king is the righteous one”; not the Father, but the spirit of the Living God (2 Corinthians 3:3).
He was, thus, an angel of the Lord (Exodus 3:2-4); angel, which simply means “messenger”. He was, thus, living as a spirit, like the angels –the life of a Being who exists to serve the soul and care for the beasts (Revelation 19:10).
But that life, too, had to end as He submitted Himself to the humiliation of becoming a mere mortal (Philippians 2:8). And as everyone knows, as a man He lived and died, dying as a beast –the lowest fraction.
Thus Jesus has existed, and then ceased to exist, as three different kinds of Beings; as three different species, if you will. Once as an Elohim, once as a spirit, and once as flesh. Each time having three distinct fractions, and each time creating a unique type of fruit!
And so we would expect to find these existences pictured by separate trees, each containing their own fractions! And these are, of course, the olive tree; the grape vine; and the fig tree. Each of these trees has three fractions like we all do –leaves, fruit, and trunk.
Jesus implied He was the olive tree in Psalms 52:6-8, Luke 23:31. And, although it’s not quite clear, it seems like He also compared Himself to a fig tree in Luke 21:27-32; although a better way to prove the idea is that the lion (Satan) killed Jesus as a fig tree and as a grape vine, in Joel 1:5-12.
It was this murder which cut off the new wine and caused the sacrifice to cease (compare to Daniel 9:27), causing the oil and the fig (Jesus’ soul body and human body) to languish in the grave (Acts 2:27-31), and the wine (His spirit) to “dry up” (Amos 8:11).
THE OLIVE JESUS
At the time the Garden was planted, Jesus had already submitted to His Father; thus, Jesus’ state of existence at the time of the Garden was as a spirit Being, as Melchizedek, as the grape vine.
But before the world was, in His John 1:1 state, Jesus was an olive tree, like the Father. Now when you think about that symbol, olive oil is gold in color. And clearly, golden oil is like gold, the noblest of immortal metals, which covers the inside of the temple (Exodus 37:2).
Thus, the “blood of the olive”, if you will, is golden oil; and this oil goes inside the body, and covers the stony heart and wooden spirit within our temples, with gold –making them holy by covering their sins! Which was the blessing of Mt. Gerizim!
So golden olive oil makes a terrific internal covering, an atonement to hide your own works behind Jesus’ works. And yet, when it comes to external covering, the leaves of the olive make poor shade; they are not a tree well suited to hiding us from the judgment of the sun, not unless they have an abundance of branches.
Because as a soul, Jesus had not yet been touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). He was not inclined to shade us from the Father’s judgment; He was like the sterner OC Jesus, with the attitude of “look, you just don’t sin, how hard is that??”
So the olive tree provides poor shade, and yet the trunk of the olive tree is among the most durable in the world, capable of living for thousands of years. As such, they are perfect symbols of the Elohim –as nearly immortal as any tree in the Middle East.
And it is these two original olive trees which provide the light of the world: Revelation 22:5. Historically, the primary source of light after dark was oil burning. A few different sources were sometimes used –animal fat, turpentines, etc. –but by far the most common in the Middle East was olive oil (Leviticus 24:2, Matthew 25:1-8).
So the lights of the world, in every sense of the word, as always, are the Father and Jesus; the two olive trees. But that’s just one layer of symbolism; compare to Genesis 1:16. They are the two great lights, the sun and moon. In symbol, of course.
Now you’d be tempted to think of the greater light (the sun) as the Father; but the Father created through Jesus (Hebrews 1:2). And it is through Jesus that we see the Father… and how is it that we see moon… if not through the light of the Son which reveals Him? Luke 10:22.
So the nearer, present, and brighter light would be the sun… the Son. Which is a connection the Bible makes explicitly in Malachi 4:2. Those who rant against sun symbols, as I do, find this embarrassing, as I used to… but it’s simply one of the thousands of things God created that were meant to reveal His Godhead (Romans 1:20).
We were meant to learn from the moon, and see God in it; but not to see, in it, God. So the world, who worships the sun and moon, have “groped after” God, and “haply found” Him; that is, they’ve found one tiny piece, of one tiny layer.
Then they stopped, set up idols, and worshipped them… and completely missed the point of the pieces they did understand! (Romans 1:25). But back to Malachi 4:2, notice the healing is in the sun’s wings… wings, made of feathers which, individually, look like olive leaves!
And if you’ll look at the grape leaf again, you’ll see that a grape leaf bears a striking resemblance to a silhouette of a bird in flight. Because all the olive-leaf/feathers add together to make the covering of the grape leaves! These symbols tie together because they’re all part of the same story!
Feathers perform the same function on a bird as on a tree; they are a covering, clothing to the body. And in the case of Jesus’ wings, the grape-leaf-silhouette, they perform the same function as the leaves of the tree of life… they bring healing to the nations!
THE TWO OLIVE TREES
Read Zechariah 4:1-14. There’s a lot of symbolism there, but most of it we can break down now. In His own cryptic way, God is answering Zechariah’s questions, although clearly not to his satisfaction since he keeps asking (verse 11), and the angel seems to think he already answered that question (verse 13).
The short answers, given in verses 6, 9, are “the word of the Lord” and “The Lord of Hosts”. These are different people; Jesus, and the Father. Thinking this was made clear –as it would be, to those who had ears to ear –the angel keeps right on going, adding to the story and speaking of Zerubbabel, and of the hands of Zerubbabel.
Again, these are not the same thing. Zerubbabel was the governor of Israel at the time, and Joshua was the high priest, his “right hand”, if you will, in government, analogous to the relationship between Moses and Aaron (Exodus 7:1). Joshua is the Hebrew form of Jesus. Thus, at the time this was written, Zerubbabel was a human type of the Father, and Joshua was an Earthly type of Jesus.
And their presence at this crucial time in Judah, during the reconstruction of the temple, was meant to “clearly reveal His eternal power and Godhead”, not only to those present but to us as well. Thus, these two men, effectively a king and a priest, a civil and a spiritual ruler, were the two olive trees.
And yet, they were not the archetypal olive trees; “archetype”, from the Greek “chief type”. In other words, Zerubbabel was, in type, one of the olive trees; but himself was only a type of someone else, playing a role which pictured another Being.
The original olive trees, the source of all the oil in the universe, are the Father and Jesus; They were the True Olive Trees, who empty golden oil out of Themselves into the ekklesia, fueling the light of the world.
And that light is not the sun; it is us (Matthew 5:14), and the righteous angels (Hebrews 1:7). But like all light, including olive oil, it is powered by the sun, the father of LIGHTS (James 1:17). Think about that; the angels are a flaming fire, and exist because of this olive oil! Elohim is the fuel for their lives… and ours as well.
THE TWO WITNESSES
Now the branches of these olive trees are different symbols (Zechariah 4:12-14). Pay close attention; the angel had already answered the question he asked in Zechariah 4:4,11, albeit not to Zechariah’s satisfaction. So he didn’t answer it again! Instead he answered the new question in verse 12, and said that the branches are the two anointed ones “who stand before the Lord of all the Earth”.
Given Luke 1:19, this is clearly two holy angels, and the other is almost certainly Michael (Daniel 10:21 –Gabriel is the speaker, Daniel 9:21). Together, they are the angels atop the Ark (Exodus 25:18-22). Angels who were, in the temple, made of gold-clad OLIVE WOOD! (1 Kings 6:23-28).
Because these two angels are the two faithful messengers, the two true witnesses, by whom He kept the light of the true church burning! These righteous angels were branches of the olive tree, and everyone knows… branches are pipes for the tree to move nutrients around!
This is not to say that these are the same as the apparently human two witnesses of Revelation 11:3-13. Which is to say, those human men are, in a manner of speaking, “the” two witnesses (verse 4). But they are not the archetypes –just another layer of types, another set of actors playing on a stage to reveal the true truth to us.
Joshua and Zerubbabel, human leaders in the 5th century BC, were two witnesses themselves, but not the archetypes; nor were the gold-clad olive angels in the temple, nor the living angels they in turn pictured; in the true archetype, the two witnesses are the only two immortal olive trees… God and Jesus.
And God always has two different sources of light for His ekklesia, one of kings, and one of priests. One to judge, and one to teach; fathers, and mothers; deacons and apostles; because God must always have two witnesses, before judging a people (Deuteronomy 17:6).
They must agree, as the Gods themselves must agree, in order to execute a sinner forever (Matthew 18:19).
THE GRAPE JESUS
Remember, as we read the Bible we’re hearing a dynamic story covering at least a hundred thousand years, and a lot of stuff happened during that time. And so a parable that is true at one point in history, or will be true in the distant future, might seem to contradict the same kind of metaphor cast at a different time.
So in one version of the story, Jesus is one of the two olive trees; in another version, with a different purpose or about a different time, we will see the Gods as an almond and a grape. In yet another version, we’ll see a man and his father, or the sun and the moon. Each symbol was chosen for a specific reason, each one with an intuitive logic if you just think about the point God was making at the time.
So in the Garden, Jesus was a grapevine; and the river pictured the Father’s heart, the Garden picturing the Father’s body. Thus, Jesus, as the tree of life, dwelt in the Father; and Jesus, as the tree of life, drank of the river and thus had the Father in Him!
As you know, the only way to ever have the Father in us is to have Jesus in us first. Which is why the first miracle Jesus worked… as a tree of life or as a man… was to turn the water of that river into wine! (John 2:1-11). The job of grape trees everywhere!
Grape trees don’t create the water in their grapes; they require an abundant source of water, which they convert into wine. It is the job of a spirit to take the harsh, scary law of God and translate it into smaller bits; to digest it, and apply it to each situation.
To take the abstract, and make it concrete; to turn the idealistic law into the pragmatic statute. But most stiff-necked spirits are too busy with their own words to listen to their soul or their heart, much less other people; they twist and distort the words that are said to them.
But Jesus was a holy spirit. He didn’t come in His own name, with His own water; His own heart, His own laws (John 5:43, 12:49). He came to convert the Father’s water into the much more palatable wine, to do His Father’s will, not His own (John 6:38).
So when He read a verse like, say, Psalms 51:2, Jesus’s spirit would not have tried to squash two clearly different washings into a single event, as we all do. He would have heard, and listened… and therefore understood.
FIRST RIPE FIGS
We are, by nature, flesh; aptly symbolized by figs, whose flesh looks like, well, flesh. A very sweet flesh, as the fig in Judges 9 commented, and God loves sweet flesh (Exodus 29:18), which pictures us (2 Corinthians 2:15).
Of course, not all figs are good: Jeremiah 24:1-10. And all flesh is not good flesh. Some is clean, and some is unclean; some is holy, and some is unholy.
So the fig that was Jesus’ body, unlike the grape that was His blood, pictures a burnt offering, not a sin offering. The grape pays for sins, redeems you from breaking the negative law; the fig replaces the lacking obedience to grant you the blessings of the positive side of the law.
Fig plants are easily killed by cold and with branches that die easily, fragile and very susceptible to disease. And yet they are very hard to truly kill; if a freeze destroys the top, the tree will sprout back from the roots vigorously, and in a year or two, you’ll never know it died. Because only the body died, not the root.
Just like us (Matthew 10:28). In this context, “hell” is anything hidden underground; i.e., the roots. So fear not the freeze, the lawnmower, or the virus; for if these kill your body, the light of the sun can make you sprout back from the roots. Fear, rather, He who has RoundUp.
One thing that makes figs, as far as I can tell, unique in nature, is that they have two separate crops. But not two real crops. They have a first crop of “false figs”, and a later true crop. Literally, they bear a very small crop of huge, sweet firstfruits and a later, much larger, crop of smaller “regular” figs.
Early in spring, before there are leaves, figs put forth false figs; in fact, they are true figs in every way, but at the wrong time, so most fall off long before ripening. Because they live so early in the year, if they survive they have a chance to be the fattest and sweetest figs. And yet, for the same reason, they face the most risks of death (Nahum 3:12, Revelation 6:13).
Only in the best conditions do these “first ripe” figs ever come to fruition. But boy, when they do… they’re mind-blowing. And it was for these figs that Jesus came seeking fruit on that tree (Mark 11:12-14, 19-23). He knew it wasn’t time for the real figs… but it was past time for FIRST RIPE figs!
Now Israel was pictured by the fig tree (Hosea 9:10), because Israel was “after the flesh” (1 Corinthians 10:18). And if you want to know why He cursed that particular fig tree, read what He did in between, in Mark 11:15-18; then read the parable He gave them in Luke 13:6-10.
The OC had lasted for 4,000 years! After the first three days, a thousand years before He came, He had built them a temple, to “dung them”, and fertilize them! And yet they still weren’t bearing fruit; so He told them a few more parables, and concluded that “Behold, your house [the house of Israel] is left unto you desolate” (Luke 13:34-35).
So OC Israel, “Israel after the fig”, was cursed for not producing FIRSTRIPE figs in all of this time!
THE BLOOD OF THE FRACTIONS
Now figs don’t produce blood; no one eats “fig juice”. But they do have a liquid that they produce; a sticky, bright white sap… which looks just like milk.
In fact, ancient Greeks used fig sap to curdle milk to make cheese. Thus, the fig, the tree of the flesh, creates milk. The flesh of figs, on the other hand, is so sweet that it is used as a natural sweetener in a lot of ancient dishes, before they invented sugar. And with a flavor not unlike honey.
Think about it… one tree, of which Israel is a type, which produces milk and honey? Numbers 14:8. And the Promised Land was, of course, a land flowing with milk and honey. A place where the flesh and blood of the human Jesus, the fig-Jesus, was freely available for all.
I said above that grapes turn water into wine; which is wonderful, but wine belongs to adults. Children need milk, not wine. Beasts need milk, not wine; honey, not flesh. And the fig turns water into milk and honey.
Jesus’ life as a human broke down the meat and wine, which belongs to souls and spirits, and explained things in an easier, clearer way –“Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb” (John 16:29). For those with ears to hear, of course (Luke 8:10).
All mothers make milk out of the bloodstream. Thus, they literally turn blood into milk. So the NC ekklesia, in her role as mother, turned blood into milk to raise up children to God (1 Peter 2:2). But this was meant to be a temporary thing.
Milk –the words of the human Jesus –is a great place to start. But someday, you need to learn to eat bloody meat, the words of the spiritual Jesus, the OC Jesus, like a man (1 Corinthians 3:2, Isaiah 28:9). It’s harder to digest… but gives you much greater strength.
COLLATING FRACTIONS
As I said, Jesus existed as three different kinds of being, each with their own set of fractions. Thus, there are nine total fractions of Jesus; each of which is a little like each of the others. This is why, in case you’re wondering, there are nine fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) –one fruit for each of His super-fractions.
But as I’ve also said, God’s metaphors are intuitive, and well thought through. Which means that the fig, grape, and olive, while distinct trees, have some definitive connection to one another –just as Jesus’ human self, while very different from His Elohim self, was still the same person, and thus in some ways connected to all of His selves.
So I was thinking; Jesus was a “good fig”. And a fig is preserved by dehydration –by removing the water in it, by exposing it to sunshine. So all of its own spirit is burned away, leaving only the sweet flesh. And once they’re dried, a fig is practically immortal. And yet, not alive. And yet, containing the seed of life within it.
So what do figs have in common with grapes? Well, grapes picture spirit beings, in this metaphor. And we, today, have been given the earnest of the spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22). Thus, we, today, are a small part of a grape. And what is the smallest part of a grape? The seed. And what do seeds look like? At left, fresh grape seeds. At right, dried grape seeds. Remind you of anything?
Most seeds in the world tend towards the same kind of pattern; whatever the fruit may look like, inside you’ll find a spherical, oval, or lens-shaped seed. Think coriander, pumpkins, lentils. When compared with other seeds in the world, grapes seeds are weird. Lumpy, ugly, warty little things.
They don’t look like other seeds at all; now this is not entirely unique in the plant kingdom… but it is very rare and strange. Is it possible that, given the grape is the carefully-designed tree of life, this is an accident? Like Freud said: there are no accidents.
So above, you see our present fig bodies; left, while we’re young and vibrant; at right, when we’re old and shriveled or dead. And when you looked at the grape seeds above… you saw the exact same thing. These symbols are just magnified to show more detail!
We are now a fig; and that which we are is not the body which we shall have! (1 Corinthians 15:35-38). What we are today will form the heart of the grape. The earnest, or the down payment, or the foundation of that spirit body!
When we are resurrected, we will not be adult Elohim; this life is a gestation period, not a childhood. We will still be newborn children of the Elohim, babes of God. We will have our proper body, but not our proper selves; which is why we will be reigning with Christ, for a thousand years (Revelation 20:6).
That’s not the end of our life, of course; but it’s the end of that period of our lives. At whatever point the Gods consider adulthood, whether after 1,000 years or 50,000 years or whenever, we will then graduate to Elohim adulthood. We will move beyond grape hood and become olives.
Now grapes grow in a cluster; and in Palestine, very large clusters (Numbers 13:23). A native Palestinian grape cluster is shown at right. See how they’re all bunched up together? Figs grow alone. But when we are resurrected, we’ll be part of the church of the firstborn, clustered together with Jesus! And at the center of each of these grapes is a dried up fig, clustered with its brethren as a spirit!
And yet, as I said, that’s childhood. At some point, the grapes must separate because olives fruit alone, not as a bunch. And look how much like olives look like their younger selves, the grapes:
And yet, that’s not quite the whole story. Because when grapes are picked, they are not converted into olives; on the contrary, they are picked off of the cluster and dried alone. Tested, after their training on the vine, in the light of God’s face (Hebrews 12:26-27, Revelation 20:7-10).
And the grapes which survive this become raisins. And whaddayaknow… raisins look a lot the heart of their olive selves! Because a raisin that is planted “is not that fruit which shall be”… but rather, merely the pit of an olive!
Because the children of the Elohim will grow up to be the Elohim one day… once they’ve added enough of their own oil, wisdom, to build up flesh around that dried grape of their spirit selves!
And as one final connection (just one more for now, that is), if you clean up an olive pit really well… it looks like something else again…
That’s right. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was an almond. But within the fruit of the almond, you can see that it was also like an olive tree. Because that was the role, the role of judge, that the Olive Tree that was the Father became for us.
And the tree of life was a grape; but dry up the fruit of the tree, and you can see that it, too, is an olive tree. Because that was the role that the Olive Tree that was Jesus became for us; before shedding even that to become a fig, in every way like us.
You are a fig. Dry up the fig, and plant it in the Earth, and God will raise it up something better. The seed is a very small part of the grape; because the fig that you are is very much less than what you will be.
Yet the seed of the olive is not really any larger than the raisin; because the grape is already an Elohim… just not a grown up one.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
You know I like to surprise you with one verse which said this all along, but I can’t do that this time, because all of this literally did come from one verse; Judges 9:8-13. All of this lesson came from just reading that passage and thinking it through.
As I said at the first, the fruits of these trees are the fruits of these lives of Jesus. The fruit of His life as a man; the fruit of His life as a spirit; the fruit of His life as an Elohim. Although each of these trees had three fractions, each one of these lives had one particular fruit for us.
In the beginning, Jesus was one of two primordial olive trees. Incredibly ancient, and with a fruit which bled gold, oil which literally created light, but with leaves that provided poor shade for mankind. Poor defense against their sins in the eyes of Gods.
So Jesus became a grape, a spirit of God; a tree which provides excellent shade; so much so, that to this day the Middle East is full of patios and courtyards with grapevines trained to grow atop trellis specifically for shade.
This shade hides them from the glare of God’s face, protecting them from His judgment just enough to allow them to bear the heat of the day and live a thousand years –in principle. But not forever. The sacrifice of His Godhood wasn’t enough to bring us that.
The olive oil brought light to the world; the light of truth, the judgment of evil. The grape wine brought forgiveness to the world. But what neither brought us was a burnt offering. It gave God a way to judge us. It gave God a way to forgive us.
But the one thing it didn’t give Him was a reason to make us alive again. The fig did that.
The olive, like the almond, killed us because we were not perfect enough to eat it. After bathing us in the river, the grape finished the job by killing our insides as well. But neither made us alive again. Because neither of the two trees COULD do that… a third tree, one not represented in the midst of the Garden, was necessary.
The fig. The fig which wasn’t in the midst of the Garden because Jesus was still a grape.
The fig, which, like the little fig trees that they were, Adam and Eve sewed onto themselves. Making themselves, in a sense, fig trees. It had to be as one of their branches which Jesus came to Earth, and the fruit of that life was, in every sense of the word, sweet smelling flesh.
Flesh which, to this day, is preserved by drying it before God’s face, in the sun; set before His stern gaze, to have all the perishable and stiff necked “spirit of man” dried out of it. Making it, in effect, practically immortal.
And this fig is so sweet, that when it is stuffed inside of our bodies, even though we might taste a bit funky, the oil covers up the taste buds; the wine makes God forget about it. And the sweetness of the fig makes Him actually enjoy eating it.