All of creation is spun into disarray as humanity opts for the second tree. Furthermore, God’s purposes of filling the Earth with His blessing has stalled, and as time carries on fewer and fewer people have any kind of relationship with God and more and more people don’t have an idea what the one true God is even like. What will God do? Will He become completely unknown? Will He abandon His original purpose for people and creation?
No, the Bible helps us to see that God does not want humanity to have to try to live without Him or to be stuck in the consequences of their independence.
In Genesis 12–18 we discover God at work in our world through a third tree. In astonishing grace, God promises to bless the entire world through the generations of an unlikely aging common pagan who had no children named Abraham.
God meets with Abraham at a third tree in a place called Mamre and forms a family of faith through which God intends to bring restoration and blessing to our world. God and Abraham’s family enter into a covenant relationship where they promise their allegiance to each other, backed up with their own lives.
However, as the Old Testament depicts over and over again, God’s people are ever prone to habits of independence. God’s people keep failing to live up to their part of the covenant, but as we see throughout scripture, God always remains faithful to His promises and His people. While God will respect the wishes of those who ultimately refuse and reject Him, His heart of loyalty reaches toward everyone in any circumstance.
God is faithful to His people when things are difficult, and in astonishing grace again, God is faithful to His people when they are difficult.
Just as God pledged His commitment to His people through His covenant with Abraham, the Tree of Faithfulness points us to Jesus who demonstrated the full extent of His covenant commitment by backing it up with His own life. However, instead of dying because of His own failure, Jesus gives His life for our failure.
It is good news that in spite of our many failures and the chaos in our world, God is faithful. God promises that He won’t leave or forsake you. God loves you.
The Tree of Faithfulness can be read about in Genesis 12-18, and God's faithfulness is the major theme of the whole first half of the Bible which is called the "Old Testament."