Skip to content

A theme

The Three Trees

A triptych: the biography of one tree across the whole plan of salvation — the tree in the garden where the family fell, the tree on the hill where the Redeemer was lifted, and the tree in the city whose leaves heal the nations. The adversary's whole story is told by where the serpent stands relative to the tree — coiled on it in the garden, displayed on it at the cross, bound away from it in the city — until the clasp at the last tree: “And there shall be no more curse.”

3 essays

  1. 1The Trees of the GardenFirst of The Three Trees — Eden's two trees read together: the wisdom a brave woman saw and reached for, the serpent who coiled on what was never his, the fruit held out at hand-height, the deliberate price of raising free children, and the flaming sword that was a mercy with two edges
  2. 2The Tree on the HillSecond of The Three Trees — the serpent lifted on a pole, the Son of Man lifted on a cross, and the strange healing that comes by looking: the coiler's own emblem confiscated and flown as the banner of rescue, the sequence of truth before grace that runs from the wilderness camp to the waters of baptism, and the warning of the king who broke the relic
  3. 3The Tree in the CityThird of The Three Trees — the tree of life returns, planted on both banks of the river in the city at the end of the book: twelve fruits on a monthly calendar, leaves for the healing of the nations, an accuser bound and gone from the branches, a guard relieved of its post, and four words that close the whole account: no more curse