Two Trees

The two special trees which God planted in the Garden of Eden symbolised a choice for Adam and Eve.

The Tree of Life - represented the Life of God Himself. In it was God's nature. It offered the highest expression of life - God's love, wisdom and power. It imparted the fullness of all that God is. It symbolised Life.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - represented independence from God. It imparted a lower expression of life - the ability to judge between right and wrong but without love to govern it. It symbolised Death.

Tree of Knowledge

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil the Spirit of God left them, they sold themselves to Satan's authority and sin became their nature. It imparted a lower life-source. What they "ate" became part of them and was passed on, through them, to the generations which followed. They experienced:

Death - Genesis 2:17

Broken relationship with God - Gen. 3:8

Broken relationship with one another - Genesis 3:12

Self-justification - Genesis 3:12-13

Cursed life - Genesis 3:16-19

Cut off from eternal life - Gen. 3:22-24

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life represented a higher life-source. It is the expression of God's life flowing through us. God has the ability to judge between what is right and wrong. In the Tree of Life was also the "knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 3:22).

But with it were other vital ingredients - the love, wisdom and the power to do something with the knowledge.

Proverbs 3:13-26

Scriptural Examples

Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil - Jonah (Jonah 3:10; 4:1-2)

Tree of Life - Jesus with woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11)

Tree of Life Available

If God had expressed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to us, we would have all been judged guilty because of our sin and rebellion against Him. He had every right to condemn us. But He didn't. Instead, He sent His Son to take the punishment we deserved so that we could go free. Even though we were in the wrong, because of His love He offers us forgiveness and a whole new life in Him. He has made the Tree of Life available to us in reality in Jesus Christ. In Christ we have "eaten" of the Tree of Life. We are to express to others the same heart that God has expressed to us.

The results of the Tree of Life

Life (Genesis 3:22)

Relationship, forgiveness (Rev. 22:14)

Restoration (Revelation 2:7)

Healing (Proverbs 15:4; Revelation 22:2)

Fulfilled desire (Proverbs 13:12)

Righteousness (Proverbs 11:30)