The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

also, 2, The supernatural element of life: "My flesh, which I will give for
the life of the world." The natural bread, as the sacramental bearer of this
heavenly food, is the communion of the body of Christ, that is, the medium
by which the body is communicated or imparted. There is also in the
lord's Supper, 3, The supernatural element of judgment, and that of
judgment unto death: "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and
drinketh damnation (or, judgment) unto himself, not discerning the Lord's
body." The tree of life, as our theologians well observed, was not a
memorial, a symbol, a suggestive emblem or sign; but was a supernatural,
efficacious, and energetic means of life. "This tree," says Osiander (1589),
"by the divine ordination and will, bore fruit which could preserve the
bodily vigor of him who partook of it ('in perpetual youth') until man,
having completed the term of his earthly life, would, without dying, have
been translated to his life in heaven." So also the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil did not symbolize a result, but brought it. Life was in, with,
and under the fruit of the one tree; death, in, with, and under the fruit of the
other. This view is not a modern invention. It is found in Irenaeus, St.
Chrysostom, and Theodoret. Gregory Nazianzen enlarges upon the idea
of "being made immortal by coming to the tree of life." St. Augustine
says: "In the other trees there was nourishment; in this one, a sacrament"
("in isto autem Sacramentum"). Vatablus (1557), a very judicious Roman
Catholic expositor, fairly expresses the general sense of the Fathers in
stating his own: "The tree of life was a sacrament, by which God would
have sealed immortal life to Adam, if he had not departed from His
commandment." Delitzsch: "The tree of life had the power of ever
renewing and of gradually transfiguring the natural life of man. To have
used it after the Fall would have been to perpetuate forever the condition
into which he had fallen."
Nor is the true view without support from sources whence we might
least expect it. Rosenmüller (Rationalistic): "This writer means that the
weakened powers were to be revived by eating of that tree, and this life
was to be preserved forever."