Jesus used many parables and symbols to explain divergent roles as the Messiah. One of the parables that he used was plants.

Jesus compared himself to a true Vine and his disciples to its branches. (John 15:1-8) At another point he compared himself to an olive tree and the disciples to wild olives. The tree of life written in Genesis Chapter 2 and 3 is not a plant literally, but it is a symbolic expression.

According to John 1:1, Adam was made by means of the Word -- Logos, God's ideal of creation was that Adam should become perfect according to the principles of creation. Then Adam, the man of perfection, would become the Incarnation of the Divine Word. The tree of life is a symbol of a perfected man and the Incarnation of the Divine Word. In other words, the tree of life is an ideal pattern of a perfected man and a standard example of a completely matured man in spirit and body. According to Genesis 3:23-24, after the fall of Adam, the way to the tree of life was denied to him, and it was guarded by the Cherubim and a flaming sword. In other words, the tree of life, the perfect man, has never been realized because of the f all.

Therefore the ultimate hope for the fallen man is to go back to the Garden of Eden and fulfill the ideal of the tree of life. Hence the tree of life was mentioned in the beginning of Genesis, and at the end of the Revelation. The fall of man was the loss of the tree of life and the restoration of man is the restoration of the tree of life.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they enter the city by the gates. (Rev. 22:13)

Hope deterred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life (Prov. 13:12)

For the first time in history, however, the Logos which had been with God in the beginning (John 1:2) became flesh, and Jesus Christ was the Incarnation of the Divine Word. Hence the Apostle Paul called Jesus the last Adam. (I Con 15:45, Romans 5:14) Jesus was the pattern of a perfect man who had not been depraved. By being united with Jesus, therefore, one could be perfect. The mission of Jesus was to fulfill the tree of life, and this would have been accomplished had he fulfilled his mission without having been crucified.

There were various kinds of trees in the Garden of Eden, which actually were plants. (Genesis 2:16) But the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a symbolic expression as the tree of life was. The two trees, which bore peculiar names unlike real plants, represented the first man and woman who would become perfect. The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil signifies love, and to eat of it signifies to have unlawful sexual relations.

If Eve had become perfect and united with Adam by God's blessing, she would have borne the fruit of goodness. By uniting with the Archangel, however, she bore the fruit of evil. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolized the love of Eve. Therefore to eat the fruit signifies to have unlawful sexual relations.

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. " (John 1:1-3) The Word, the "Logos", was the Divine idea and thought as to creation. Since Jesus was the incarnation of the Logos and the fulfillment of the Divine Word, he was to be the tree of life. The relationship between God and man may be compared to that between spirit and body. If Adam had not fallen, he would have become the temple of God (I Cor. 3:16), and he could be in God and God be in him, even as the spirit is within the body. "In that day you know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you, " If the first man and woman had become the temples of God, we, their children, could have been as divine as Jesus was.

Jesus had come to this world in Adam's place and manifested himself as the perfect visible object of the invisible God. Jesus was a man even as we are. The only difference is that he was a perfect man, whereas we are fallen men, and therefore we need him in order that we may be as perfect as he is. "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." (I Tim. 2:5) "By one man's obedience many will be made righteous. "(Romans 5:19) "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. " (I Cor. 15:22, 23) In these verses, Paul definitely said that Jesus was a man, Jesus called himself the Son of Man. He is the true vine and we are the branches of it. The tree and the branches are the same in nature. We are the temple and he is the head of it. He is the olive tree and we are wild olives united to him by grafting. Hence he called us his friends. (John 15:14) Jesus was a perfect man and bore the intrinsic beauty of the original nature of creation without original sin.

If Adam and Eve had not fallen, they could have become the ideal parents of mankind. Because of their fall, however, mankind had become illegitimate children and had no true parents in God's sight. They had the devil as their father, as Jesus said in John 8:44. Therefore, before the restoration of all mankind, one true father must be restored. As God created one man Adam, and from whom He made a woman Eve, He restores one man first, and He extends the work gradually until the entire restoration is accomplished. The Divine Word became flesh for the second time in order that Adam might be restored, and Jesus w a s thus a true father of mankind.(Isaiah 9:6)

The fall was brought about by the first Adam and Eve, therefore the restoration must be made by the Second Adam and Eve by blotting out the sins of men. Thus Jesus came in the capacity of a perfect Adam. Who, then, came in the capacity of a perfect Eve? If Jesus was the true father, who was the true mother? It was the Holy Spirit. It is now being revealed to many people that the Holy Spirit is a Mother spirit. The Holy Spirit works in Eve's place as she cleanses sins, which originated from first Eve. Since the Holy Spirit is a Mother Spirit, the Spirit moves man's heart and regenerates sinners.

No one can stand before Jesus as a bride until he receives the Holy Spirit. No one can believe in Jesus as the true father, until the Holy Spirit fills him. Thus he is born again by receiving new life through the love of the true parents, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. As it has been explained before, the energy and action of life is brought forth when a reciprocal relation is formed between a subject and an object, and the action of give-and-take comes into being. Accordingly, neither Jesus nor the Holy Spirit can work alone.

Jesus should have taken a bride in Eve's place. But because of his early death on the cross, he was unable to fulfill the mission, the blessed marriage, which God first intended to be done through Adam and Eve. Therefore he needed to work with the Holy Spirit in order t o regenerate spiritually those who believe in Jesus. To be born again by the love of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is regeneration.

If Adam and Eve had grown up to perfection and had been united into one by the blessing of God, they could have faced God as a perfect object and united with Him, and thus they could have been in a trinity with God. A single man or woman cannot face God as a perfect object, for, he or she alone does not qualify to have a complete relation of give-and-take with God who has the dual nature of male and female in Himself. Accordingly a single person cannot fulfill the ideal of Trinity. Because of the fall, however, this Divine Trinity had not been fulfilled, and by uniting with the Holy Spirit, Jesus has restored the Holy Trinity for the first time but spiritually. The Divine ideal of Trinity, however, is to make it by a perfected man and a woman who are united with God in a perfect relation of give-and-take with Him. When the Garden of Eden is restored, every perfected man and woman will be in trinity with God on earth.

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