I do a lot of writing about the body and blood of Jesus Christ. This is because it is His body and blood that themselves are the new covenant. The new covenant is the forming of Christ in us.

The forming of Christ in us is equivalent to writing the eternal moral law of God in our mind and heart.

We become the Wife of the Lamb by eating the Lamb.

I personally believe that much of the description of the Garden of Eden is allegorical. I hold that the Tree of Life in the middle of the garden is the Lord Jesus Christ. What other tree of life is there?

I think also that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the eternal moral law of God. If a person eats of the knowledge of good and evil before he eats of eternal life, that is, if a person eats of the moral law of God before eating of Christ, the result is death—separation from God, just as the Lord told Adam and Eve.

We first have to partake of Christ. Then we know how to deal with worldliness, lust, and self-will. Isn't it so? You can't do much about sin in your life until you receive Jesus Christ.

The body and blood of Jesus Christ gives us both eternal life and immortality. Eternal life is life lived in the Substance and Presence of God. Immortality is endless life in our flesh and bones body, the body that is unique to mankind—a very valuable kind of housing, not available to any other of the races created by the Lord God as far as we know.

Had Adam and Eve eaten of Christ they would have received Divine Life in their inward nature and immortality in their bodies. Then, in God's time, they could have been taught how to deal with sinful impulses. They learned of the law of God too soon!

God in His goodness provided a way of escape for Adam and Eve and all their descendants, who have inherited their sin. The way of escape was to separate their inward nature from their physical body, send the body back to the dust of the ground from which it was created, and then deposit their spiritual nature in the spirit realm (Heaven) until such time that they could be renewed in Christ. After they have been renewed in Christ, and not before, their physical bodies will be raised from the dead and reunited with their spiritual nature.

It may be true that the spirits of righteous people are made perfect in the new Jerusalem.

To the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, (Hebrews 12:23—NIV)

God does not desire that our body finally perish but that it gain immortality in the Lord Jesus Christ.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,  that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16—NIV)

The above verse describes the restoration to life of mankind and is addressed primarily to immortality in the body.

To be continued.