Free to Be Fruitful: Biblical Foundations for Healing and Freedom

PART I

FRUITFULNESS

Chapter One

Land

When God wanted to communicate to us, He chose to do it through words. God uses words to tell us about the things He created. The words He uses to talk about physical realities are the same He uses to talk about spiritual realities. In Scripture, the first mentions of a word give shape to its meaning. Those early mentions are also foundational for understanding the spiritual realities behind it.

A very important term in Scripture is the word translated earth in Genesis 1. In Hebrew the word is eretz. This word is first mentioned in the opening verse of the Bible: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1).

This verse introduces God’s focus on the land. God’s intention was creating a fruitful land that would sustain life. The land would feed many people with its fruitfulness. God is all about life, and He established that physical life would be sustained primarily through food. There are two central reasons why the land is the focus of Genesis 1.

THE LAND IS ISRAEL

The people of Israel, the original readers of Genesis 1, fresh out of Egypt and on their way to Canaan, would have understood this chapter in a very specific way. Eretz, translated earth or land, is the primary designation for the land of Canaan. The Divine author here, God Himself, is hinting at the reader. Yes, there’s a sense in which eretz in Genesis 1 means the entire earth. However, the reader is also supposed to understand it as the land, the land of Israel. Genesis 1 talks about the creation of the land promised to Israel, the land toward which they were going in order to possess it. Just as the account of creation leaves out details of the vast universe, so the same account focuses on one piece of land out of the whole earth.

This revelation opens up dynamic potentials in our understanding and prophetic applications of this passage. These potentials have always been there in the text. The Holy Spirit holds them in His hand. He unveils our eyes enabling us to see.

One prophetic pattern that comes from understanding Genesis 1 as the land of Israel is the garden as a temple. Genesis 2:8 says: The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden. Notice that the garden is in Eden, on the east part of Eden. The garden had a river and in its midst it had the tree of life. That garden was a copy of the real garden in heaven.

Rev 22:1-2 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life.

When the new heavens and new earth are introduced, notice that what we get is Jerusalem.

Rev 21:1-3 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.

This is similar to what I am proposing here. The focus of Genesis 1 is on the land of Israel. The garden-temple was located in that land, in none other than what later came to be known as Jerusalem.

Rev 21:22 I saw no temple in it [in the city], for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

The river comes from the very throne of God, and the throne of God is in the holy of holies! The garden of Eden, in Eden, was a temple. God’s throne was there, dwelling with Adam and Eve. The river was there and the tree of life was there. Eden is the city of Jerusalem, and inside of it, to the east of it, was the temple, the garden.¹ The land which Genesis 1 and 2 talk about is eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel.

YOU ARE THE LAND

The second reason why the land is the focus of Genesis 1 is that you and I are the land. In Matthew 13, the Lord Jesus said,

"When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road.²

The soil, the land, is you and me. This fact gives God an amazing range of meanings to communicate truth to us and about us.

The ways in which Genesis 1 focuses on the land carry great significance for us. Let’s examine that significance in the following three areas.

1.   Creation

This focus emphasizes the fruitfulness for which God designed us. Just as the land was made fruitful in order to sustain life, to feed others, so we are viewed as fruitful land because The lips of the righteous feed many.³ It is God’s desire to make a Joseph out of us, each in his or her unique way, so He can feed the world through our fruitfulness.

2.   Israel

Once our eyes are unveiled to see the land of Israel in Genesis 1, the prophetic applications rush to the mind. As land, you and I aren’t just any land. The truths about the land of Israel are prophetic patterns about us.⁴

The Holy Land

As land, you are holy in Him and are being sanctified and cleansed from the defilement of the Canaanites, and anointed by the touch of His presence as His temple.

The Promised Land

You as land have your origin and your hope in a promise. You are the son of a promise as Isaac was, born through faith on a promise that defies impossibility. And because of that promise, you act as the heir of that land. You still wait to see that promise realized, the land of your soul totally under the possession of your new nature.

The Covenant Land

You as land are a covenant land. As such, you are made fruitful (covenant with Adam); you have received a promise not be flooded again (covenant with Noah); you are a city with better foundations (Abrahamic covenant); you are blessed for your obedience (Mosaic covenant); you will have an anointed king over you forever (Davidic covenant); and you will be made new (new covenant).

The Inherited Land

You as inherited land are God’s own inheritance and portion. You are the land where He chose to make His dwelling. You are His and He is jealous over Zion, over you.

The Conquered Land

You as conquered land are meant to live in prosperity and rest from your enemies. The spiritual war fought over you has been won. God will bring, progressively more of your territory (your soul) under your possession.

3.   Garden

We are the temple of God through the Holy Spirit, both corporately and individually. That metaphor has built-in a great amount of revelation about us. In the garden of Eden, we have a foretaste of all that God’s heavenly temple is: God dwelling with man as sole source of life and truth, and man worshiping God and keeping His word. That’s exactly what our reality is as God’s temple.

Two other revelatory metaphors that are present in the garden, and in us, are the river and the trees. The prophet Ezekiel says:

Then he brought me back to the door of the house [the temple]; and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house toward the east, for the house faced east.⁵

Verse 6-9,

He said to me, Son of man, have you seen this? Then he brought me back to the bank of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river there were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Then he said to me, These waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the Arabah; then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the sea become fresh. It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.

The waters going to the Arabah means they go east to the Jordan River from the temple, and then flow south. They flow to the Dead Sea. The Hebrew word for fresh is rapha which means healed. Everything will live where the river goes. The Dead Sea is dead no more! It is healed! It is now capable of sustaining life.

Verse 12,

By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.

These are Eden-like conditions during the Millennium. Both, Eden and the Millennium, are foretastes of the world to come, the eternal temple described in Revelation 22. And this is also true about us as garden. The river that flows from us when we’re filled with the Spirit brings healing to others. The fruit from us as trees feed many, and even the leaves from our lives are for the healing of nations! We were designed to be a fruitful land indeed!

Chapter Two

Agriculture

AGRICULTURE AND CREATION

The world of agriculture is the Bible’s premier metaphor. To focus on the land is to focus on its agriculture. Of the abundance of metaphors found in the Bible, agriculture is second to none. Therefore, to say that you are land is to make a declaration rich in a variety of meanings and applications.

The content of Genesis 1, the things created each day, show a focus on agriculture. The land benefits directly from the creation of light, the appearing of dry land and the creation of sun, moon and stars with all their cycles. These benefits come in the form of agriculture.

We have talked about the first mention in Scripture of the word eretz, land. Now let’s talk about the following six occurrences. I will highlight them for you.

In order to prepare the land for agriculture, God removed the water that was covering the earth, drowning fruitfulness, so to speak.

Gen 1:10 God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.⁶

Once the water was removed God gave a creative command:

Gen 1:11-12 Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants