The atonement is the reversal of the fall!Stisa's quote from a previous post has always stuck with me. As he explains in that post, the atonement teaches us how to eat fruit instead of dust. In this post, he points out the Hebrew connections between "man" and "ground," as compared to "God" and "tree." In this post, I wrote about "giving place" in our hearts for the word of God and the fact that God "made space" within His creation in order to allow the faithfulness of each of His children to be tested.
I love the feeling in my brain when a whole set of related symbols snap together into a beautiful whole.
- God the Father created an earth.
- "His seed" (His spiritual children) end up scattered across the world as a result of the Fall.
- Over time, they are visited by divinely authorized messengers and are invited to hear the word (which is also likened to a seed) and give place for that word in their heart.
- If they hearken to the word, it begins to grow inside of them and they desire to enter into covenants. The old, carnal creature symbolically dies as a result of this covenant-making, and they become the sons of God, His seed, the heirs of the kingdom of God.
- They are then led along the path laid out by the divine messengers (by means of the iron rod, another symbol of the word of God) and ascend to Mount Zion, the enclosed garden, therein to partake of the fruit of the tree of life and receive all that God has.
- The instrument of the gathering in the latter days is the Book of Mormon, which was long prophesied to be the gathering of the word for the purpose of the final gathering of Israel.
In other words, one "seed" (God's word) is being used to gather the other "seed" (His children)!