Eden’s two trees: Paths of life and death (Genesis 2–3)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:50 — 43.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

The two key trees in the Garden of Eden represent two paths, of life or of death. “In the beginning” (Genesis 1–3), there were the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad, but in the “new heavens and the new earth” (Revelation 21–22), those who are in the New Jerusalem will only have access to the Tree of Life.

The apostle Yokhanan (John) wrote that there are sins that lead to death (1John 5:16–17), but we are told that we can turn away from the path of death. But that’s not enough to get us towards the Kingdom of Heaven. We also have to turn towards life. If all we do is turn away from the path of death, we have no defense when death comes back to tempt us.

Tree of Life: Immortality isn’t automatic

The Tree of Life has a fruit that leads the one who eats from it to live forever. But it can only be accessed by God’s permission. Humans don’t have automatic access to it.

One fact that people often ignore is that the Creator made both of the trees. God was not setting Adam and Eve up for failure. He gave them a free choice, because He created them in His image (Gen. 1:26–27). He created humans like Him, not equal to Him.

Here are some of the traits that humans possess that animals don’t:

1. Creativity. Only God can create from nothing, we create with the things God has created.
2. Language. For language to mean anything, both the speaker and the receiver must understand the code. God used language to bring the world into existence and humans change the world by the words we speak.
3. Reason. The Holy One of Israel creates order not chaos. Reason helps us create both intellectual and physical order in our sphere of influence, where otherwise there would be disorganization and chaos.

Although animals have some rudimentary ability to create tools or change their environment, they do not have that ability to make tools or change their environment on the same scale that humans have. Animals also do communicate with each other in a form of language but they can’t communicate on the scale that humans can. They also can observe their world and function in it, but they can’t overcome their programmed instincts. Animals have no understanding of abstract ideas.

Humans, on the other hand, can make observations about their world, adapt to their world and even act in ways that contradict their instinct.

Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad: When wisdom isn’t so wise

There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

Proverbs 14:12 NASB; Prov. 16:25; 18:17

The Tree of Knowledge of Good (טוֹב tov, Strong’s lexicon No. H2896b) and Bad (רַע ra, H7451b) also had edible fruit. It look like it could nourish and give life but within was the seed of death. Its fruit lead to “in dying you will die.” The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge wasn’t a poison that killed one instantly. The Tree of Knowledge could also be accessed, but God warned against eating from it, because once one harvests from it and eats of it, the path to the Tree of Life is blocked.

When Satan told Eve that she would not die, this was a trick, because what Satan didn’t tell Eve was that if she ate from the Tree of Knowledge, she would be cut off from the Tree of Life and therefore, she would not live forever and be like God.

One thing you always have to ask when someone is offering you “secret” information is “why are you giving me this information?” You should test everything, including the spirits, the teachers, etc., according to the Word of God.

Yeshua said in the Sermon on the Mount:

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

Matthew 7:15–20 NASB

Tree of Life = Torah = Word of God

Commentators for centuries have seen a connection between the Tree of Life and the Torah.¹David Fohrman, AlephBeta, “Bereshit: God, The Universe, And The Biggest Question You Could Ask,” <https://www.alephbeta.org/playlist/why-did-god-create-me> Just as the cherubim were at the gate to the Tree of Life, you also see this in Ezekiel’s description of the Throne of God. The Tabernacle was also covered with cherubim, the Ark of the Covenant was also covered by two cherubim, sitting on the Ten Commandments, which are the distillation of the entire Word of God.

Here’s the key passage considered to tie the Torah to the Tree of Life:

“She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, And happy are all who hold her fast.”

Proverbs 3:18 NASB

Who is the “she” here? Proverbs 1–3 introduces her as “Wisdom.” Ancient Jewish writings connected the Wisdom of God or the Word of God to the Divine Presence (Shekhinah) and the Messiah. The apostle Yokhanan does likewise in John 1:1–17.

How close is the Word of God to us? And how do we access it?

• Deuteronomy 8:3: Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
• Deuteronomy 30:14: The Word is near you, in your mouth and heart.
• Psalm 19:1: Heavens declare God’s glory; every day they pour forth speech.
• Isaiah 66:22-23: Each New Moon and Shabbat, mankind will come to bow down before God.
• John 1:14: The Word became flesh and dwelled among us.
• Revelation 22: Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem with leaves (pages) each month for the healing of the nations.

‘Did God really say…?’: Deconstructive criticism

We can hide ourselves from God, but we can’t hide from God. We can deceive ourselves and think that there’s some part of us that God doesn’t know but God knows, even those parts of our heart that we don’t know well ourselves.

Some atheists are starting to realize that the teaching of evolution, that life made itself, is not only wrong but destructive to human society.

Satan’s question to Eve in the garden, “Did God really say…?” (Gen. 3:1), was not an honest question. Satan asked the question to tear down Eve’s connection with God.

We see this same line of dishonest questioning in our day with secular ideas such as Critical Theory or Critical Race Theory. They ask questions calling out all the problems in society, whether real or made up. All they want to do is tear down the current society, they don’t want to do the hard work of building a better society. They want to tear down without a real plan for what will come about at the other end. They think that if they burn down our current Western society, that a utopia will magically emerge from the ashes.

But in nature, intelligent order never arises out of chaos.

If you turn away from the evil, whether it’s in your society, or within yourself but you do not consciously turn towards the good, whether in your society or in yourself, you end up reenacting the parable Yeshua (Jesus) told of a man who had an evil spirit cast out of him (Matt. 12:43–45). His house looked clean but he did not fill himself with holiness, so the evil spirit gathered seven more evil spirits and reoccupied the man. As a result, he was worse off than before.

The same is true in a society. If a society consciously casts off what it considers evil but does not actively replace that evil with righteousness, then it really has no plan for bringing in righteousness. You have no way to improve your society.

We saw this in the French Revolution. The revolutionaires blew up the existing order, as bad as it was and the monarchy and the nobility were out of touch and corrupt. The revolutionaries claimed to believe in equality, fraternity and liberty, but they had no plan, no boundaries, no real vision of how those ideals would work in a world without a monarchy.

And because of their lack of forethought and planning, they unleashed a reign of terror on France. The revolutionaries, once they ran out of royals, clergy and nobles to behead, they inevitably turned on each other. At the end of terror, they accepted an even more harsh monarch, in the form of Napoleon Bonaparte, than the one they had beheaded (Louis XVI).

“For just as the new heavens and the new earth Which I make will endure before Me,” declares the LORD, “So your offspring and your name will endure.

“And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from sabbath to sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD.

Isaiah 66:22–23 NASB

Why will all mankind, both Jew and Gentile, come to bow down before the Creator? It’s because in that day, all of humanity will come to trust to trust in the One who created the heavens and the earth. God took our ancestors out of the house of bondage to the house of freedom and He is willing to do the same for us.

We have this great picture in Revelation where John speaks about the tree of life in the New Jerusalem. He tells us that he saw a tree that produced a different kind of fruit every month for 12 months and that all this produce, and even the leaves of this tree are made for the healing of the nations on the Day of the Lord.

In the Day of the Lord, people who don’t understand what is happening will seek out those who do know the Lord. Those who know the Lord will know Him because He has forgiven their treason and remembers it no more. And once that happens, as in Jeremiah 31, everyone will know who the Lord is, from the great to the lowly. That is the mission of the Messiah, as He prays in John 13-17, to take our past and make it no more and to make us different people and better people at the end of it. But we can only be better people when we are united with the Messiah and with His people.

God always wanted to live with His creation. Just as God walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve, He will walk on the New earth with His people.

There is a way that leads to life and a way that leads to death. We all have that choice. The path that leads to death may be more seductive and appealing, but the better route to go is on the path to life, which leads us to the Giver of Life. We can go “my way” or God’s way. We can travel the path of death, grasping about in the darkness and maybe stumbling on a small part of the truth, which God can use to pull us onto the path of life or we can just choose the path of life from the start and walk towards our Lifegiver from the beginning.

The Creator of Heaven and Earth wants to give you life, but He assures us that if we do start on the path of death, that He has given us the Messiah who will woo us away from that path and cast a lifeline to use to bring us back from death to life. The One who sees all will no longer remember our sin when we choose life.

At the time of the great harvest of God, we should all pray that there will be a lot more workers in the harvest that all of us will be prepared and ready to gather in that crop. We should pray to be prepared to participate in that harvest, whatever part that we have to play, by casting out of the Word of God into the world, that we can be a part of helping others be a good crop for His Kingdom.

Summary: Tammy