On the one hand, in His divinity, Christ is the Shoot of Jehovah, the sprouting of God into man – a new development of the Triune God into humanity. On the other hand, in His humanity, Christ is the fruit of the earth: He was born of a human virgin, lived a human life on earth, and died an all-inclusive death as the one grain of wheat (John 4:24).
Jesus is the branching out of the Lord into us as the earth – divinity branches out into our humanity. And through our humanity, this branch bears fruit for man’s enjoyment and builds God’s temple. In Isaiah and in the Bible in general, the Fruit of the Earth refers to Christ’s humanity with His human nature (Isaiah 4:2b; Luke 1:42).
I really enjoyed these main points related to the Fruit of the Earth:
- As the Fruit of the earth, Christ was born a man of human blood and flesh from the earth; the earth was the source of Christ’s humanity, just as eternity was the source of His divinity (Heb. 2:14). Christ was born with human flesh and human blood.
- Christ as the Fruit of the earth is for the multiplication and reproduction of the divine life in humanity – John 12:24. In Himself, that is, in His divinity, God has not way to be multiplied, so He needs humanity for His multiplication and reproduction. Humanity is like the “soil”, the earth, for the Triune God as the seed to be multiplied and reproduced(the seed in John 12:24 dies in the earth and bears much fruit). Christ is sown in our human heart: we need to let Him grow in our humanity so that He may be brought forth as the fruit of the earth in us!
- As the Fruit of the earth, Christ, in His humanity which expresses His divine beauty and glory, will be the excellence and splendor of God’s chosen people in the day of restoration (Isaiah 4:2b). A proper Christian today is one who expresses Christ’s beauty and glory in a divine way and also expresses Christ’s excellence and splendor in a human way (1 Cor. 10:31; Phil. 1:11, 20). When we were regenerated, our vessel was filled with Christ, the divine content: our human virtues are now an expression of His divine attributes, and His attributes fill our virtues! This is the life we should live today: being both divine and human, we live the life of the divine beauty and glory of Jesus (in His divinity) and the human excellence and splendor of Jesus (in His humanity).
Amen, Lord, even today, we as God-men – Your reproduction and duplication – want to live such a life! Come in and fill our virtues with Your divine attributes, Lord! Be expressed in us in full! Even bear fruit in us – the fruit of the earth!
[this is some sharing from message 3 entitled The Age of Restoration and Christ as the Shoot of Jehovah and the Fruit of the Earth – from the crystallization-study of Isaiah(1)]
Amen.