Perfected Adam, Jesus and the Restoration of the Tree of Life

Human history is the history of the providence of restoration. Its goal is the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth when, at the end of history, the tree of life which was lost in the Garden of Eden will be regained (Rev. 22:14); (Gen. 3:24).

We can understand the relation between the perfect Adam and Jesus by comparing the tree of life in the Garden of Eden with the tree of life to be restored in the Last Days.

As was discussed earlier (cf. Fall 1.1.1), had Adam fully realized the ideal of creation, he would have become the tree of life and likewise all his descendants would have become trees of life.

However, Adam’s fall frustrated God’s Will, and ever since, fallen humankind has hoped to be restored as trees of life (Prov. 13:12); (Rev. 22:14). Since a fallen person can never fully restore himself as a tree of life by his own efforts, a man who has completed the ideal of creation must come as the tree of life and engraft all people with himself.

Jesus is this tree of life portrayed in the Bible. Adam, had he realized the ideal of perfection symbolized by the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, and Jesus, symbolized by the tree of life in the Book of Revelation, would be identical in the sense of having realized the goal of creation. As such, they would have equal value.

Let us compare the value of Jesus with that of a person of perfect individual character.

With respect to the purpose of creation, a fully mature person is perfect as God is perfect (Matt. 5:48). Having the same divine nature as God, he is infinitely precious. Since God is an eternal being, a person created to become His incarnate object partner in perfection must have an eternal life. A fully mature person is unique in all the cosmos. Furthermore, since he is the lord of the entire natural world, which cannot realize its full value without him, he possesses the value of the cosmos.

There is no greater value than that of a person who has realized the ideal of creation. This is the value of Jesus, who surely attained the highest imaginable value.

The conventional Christian belief in Jesus’ divinity is well founded because, as a perfect human being, Jesus is totally one with God. To assert that Jesus is none other than a man who has completed the purpose of creation does not degrade the value of Jesus in the least. In fact, the Principle of Creation elevates the true value of all people who fulfill the purpose of creation to a level comparable to Jesus.

Let us now examine some biblical evidence supporting the position that Jesus is a man who has fulfilled the purpose of creation. It is written:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (I Tim. 2:5). For as by one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s [Jesus’] obedience many will be made righteous (Rom. 5:19). For as by a man [Adam] came death, by a man [Jesus] has come also the resurrection of the dead (I Cor. 15:21). He has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed (Acts 17:31).

Thus, the Bible demonstrates plainly that Jesus is a man. Above all, he had to come as a human being that he might become the True Parent who can give rebirth to human beings.