Choosing between life and death
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
It is clear that this was the only forbidden tree, or what is commonly called the forbidden fruit. Of every tree, by contrast, was free for the taking. It should be plain, therefore, that the evil was not in the fruit itself, but in the choice to eat it, against God’s clear command: “You shall not eat.”
God created man and placed him with perfect order in a garden to enjoy perfect peace, joy and happiness. Genesis chapter one is a very simple narrative of the creation of the world; Simple, yet majestic in its beauty and profound in its depth when we come to Chapter 2 we find a kind of recapitulation of the main event of Chapter 1, i.e., the creation of man. Here we are given much greater detail of the story of God's making of man.
The basic message of Genesis 2:16-17 is that God alone knows what is good for humanity and God alone knows what is not good for us. God had to give Adam and Eve a choice. Without free will to choose, Adam and Eve would have been mere robots, simply doing what they were programmed to do. God created Adam and Eve to be “free” beings, able to make decisions, able to choose between good and evil. In order for Adam and Eve to truly be free, they had to have a choice. True love always requires choice. God wanted Adam and Eve to choose to love and trust Him. Adam and Eve were free to do anything they wanted, except eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To enjoy the “good” we have to trust God and obey him. If we disobey, we will have to decide for ourselves what is good and what isn’t good. That’s what the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents: ethical awareness. It’s a reference to all moral knowledge: the ability to create a system of ethics and to make moral judgments.
The tree of the knowledge of good & evil mentioned in scripture only in this verse, largely because its effects have become widespread. But the tree of life reappears again in the book of Revelation. In Genesis 2, the Lord gave a command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Eve began to listen to another voice and did not hold firmly to her Creator's words. All that Satan had to do was plant a single doubt about God's integrity and offer Eve one appealing advantage of doing things her own way—and she fell for it. The world is filled with voices that vie for our attention and influence our thoughts and actions. Throughout the day, consider the messages that are sent your way through the media and people. Consciously begin to compare them to what Scripture says about God and His ways. Remembering what God says in the Bible is our safeguard against deception and temptation.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it…..” (Genesis 3:6)."
Eve added three more benefits to the temptation: the fruit is good for food and a delight to the eyes and attractive for wisdom. This moment in time is referred to as the "Fall of Man." Adam and Eve desired to gain "wisdom" and ate the forbidden fruit. In other words, they wanted to be like God apart from Him indwelling them. When they ate the fruit they died spiritually and sin entered the world. God removed His life from them. That life, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, was the life that gives wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2:6 says “For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.” Without it all they had left was their own understanding. The fruit of Adam and Eve's decision has echoed throughout history. Religions, universities, museums and libraries are full of mans attempts to discover wisdom, knowledge and understanding apart from God. In many ways, they are the futile attempts to explain God and His creation while leaving Him out of the process. It is the best that men without God can attain.
The choice of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is man acting apart from God, man pursuing goodness according to his self-will, man hastily and impatiently seeking after the knowledge that God has not granted, and man pursuing progress by his own means rather than by trusting in God. What all these mean is that man is simply acting alone and independently, outside of God. The purpose for God to create and save man was for man to depend on Him. God wants us to have no activity apart from Him. He wants us to administer His will on earth through us. God wants us to realize that we are helpless and that we should depend on Him wholeheartedly. This is why Jesus said “I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”(John 15:5)
The tree of life symbolizes our complete dependence on the creative power of God's Word for both (1) temporal (Physical) and (2) eternal (spiritual) development. The natural man is made from dust and has never been immortal. We are flesh and bone. We hunger and thirst. Our senses crave comfort, beauty and the security of fine gold and silver. Our physical vitality depends on God daily. God has given us life and He will sustain us with nourishment. Our inner soul, however, hungers for something infinitely richer than mere existence. We desperately thirst for meaning and purpose in life. Inherent to the tree of life is an ever expanding source of knowledge, wisdom, intellectual development and satisfaction. We read in Proverbs 30: 3-5 “I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son’s name? Surely you know! Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”
Men and women with a biblical worldview understand that unless we know everything, we only know things relatively; unless we know comprehensively, we can’t know anything absolutely. The only one who does know all, who transcends time and space, and who truly knows what is good and bad for life is God. The tree represents knowledge and power that is appropriate only to God. We, as limited human beings, are dependent on revelation from the only one who truly knows good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil represents wisdom and discernment to figure out what is good, that is what promotes life, and bad, what hinders life.
The Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, seems to have had the power to convey immortality to man, and as such is used in Scripture as a symbol of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he "abolished death and brought life & immortality to light through the gospel,” first Corinthians 15:22 and 26 says “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” But what is this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"? &why did God forbid Adam to partake of this fruit? In Genesis 3:5 Satan misuses the truth, in order to draw women on until she become the victims, of his lie. Serpent said to the woman “You will not certainly die,” “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”That suggests a clue as to what this fruit was and what it did.
God knows evil, not by experience because he cannot experience evil, but he knows it by relating it to himself. That which is consistent & in line with his character and his nature is good; that which is inconsistent and out of line with himself is evil. That is how God knows good and evil. He relates it to himself. God is the only one who can properly do that. God is the only being in the entire universe that has the right to relate all things to Himself. When a creature (man) tries it, he gets into trouble. The creatures of God's universe are made to discover the difference between good &evil by relating all to God, not to themselves. When man ate of the fruit he began to relate everything to himself. Yet, as a creature, he has no real ability to sustain this kind of relationship and thus he is constantly Interrupt an unbalanced element into life.
When man began to think of himself as the center of the universe, he tried became like God. But it was all a deception and lie. Man is not the center of the universe, and he cannot be. But as we trace the course of human history we can see that this is the seductive deception and lie that the Satan has whispered into the ears of men ever since: "You are the center of life. This is your world, everything relates to you. What you like is right; what you don't like is wrong. You are the center of things." You can find this idea predominant and alive throughout the philosophies of men. That is the curse that fell upon man when he ate of the fruit in the Garden of Eden. They disobeyed God, as a consequence they were at once stricken with guilt and they hid themselves with shame. Guilt and fear replaced the peace and happiness they knew. Here was the beginning of a troubled world- and a troubled mind.
A brief review of the Scriptures shows that “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4, that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) and that “there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12). When God commanded Adam not to take of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He was showing him what choice he should make. God wanted him to choose life, not death. Much later, when God brought Israel out of Egypt, He gave them a similar choice: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
Like Adam and Eve, when you are out of tune with God, fears and anxieties crowd into your life. When you focus your attention on the uncertainties of life, on a changing, decaying world, your security and confidence are shaken. Your peace is disturbed. Sin has separated man from God. “All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6).” “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). Guilt, fear, irritation, resentment, selfishness, and other hostile impulses plague man wherever he goes. They bring weariness and mental exhaustion. The love of self was at the root of the first disobedience of man. It continues to be the one of the first basic evil inclinations that takes you down the path of despair and heartache. The longer you travel the path of self-centeredness, the more troubled you become.
The result of sin in our lives is death -- spiritual separation from God. Although we may try to get close to God through our own effort, we inevitably fail. We deserve to pay for our own sin. The problem is, the payment is death. So that we would not have to die separated from God, out of his love for us, Jesus Christ died in our place. The Bible states that Jesus is "the image of the invisible God...by him all things were created.... Jesus took all of our sin on himself and completely, fully paid for it. "For Christ also died for sins...the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God." From the opening chapters of Genesis to the closing verses of Revelation, the Bible portrays the tree of life. Before Adam and Eve were driven from Eden's garden and the four-way sword was stationed at the eastern entrance, a plan had been drafted to restore mankind to this tree. The plan is openly revealed to us on every leaf of the sacred oracles. As an obedient substitute, another Adam must accept the penalty for sin and be hanged on a tree.
In a sense Adam mind was twisted, and related all things to himself. But when man does this he introduces a tainted element into life, into creation. That is why everything is always going off in wrong directions. But the glory of the gospel is that when men are redeemed, through faith in Jesus Christ, they resume once again a balanced life, and everything relates once again to God. God now becomes the center of things. The purpose of Jesus is here, to put God back into the center of his world and relate everything in our life and in the lives of others to him and not to us. "...he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy." Because of Jesus' death on the cross, our sin doesn't have to separate us from God any longer. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." Jesus Christ is God's only provision for our sin. Through him we can know and experience God's love and plan for our life.
Jesus said in John 15:4-5 “Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. [Live in Me, and I will live in you.] Just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me.I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.”(AMP)
Just like Adam and Eve, each of us has rejected the tree of life. God created us and consecrated us to his service, but we have rejected it. Through Christ we have hope. Through the grace the Father gives us through the Son’s sacrifice we have a renewed hope of once again living in God’s temple, worshipping and obeying him as he intended for us and through his Spirit we are able to prepare for that hope here in this life. As we prepare for God’s heavenly banquet, we need to wrap ourselves in his grace. We find it at his Table, we find it in his Word, and we find it in fellowship with his body, the Church. Again, let us wrap ourselves in his grace and prepare for heaven by devoting ourselves to the tree of life.
The book of Revelation contains prophecies of the end of this age. It points to the presence of a tree of life among the righteous who yield themselves to God’s authority. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).
Revelation chapter 22 contains God's Last Message to Humankind - Here at the close of the Bible we are reintroduced to the tree of life, which has not been mentioned in the Bible since Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. Paradise is restored in the eternal state. All that was lost in the fall is redeemed by the lamb. The leaves of this tree will be used to heal the relationships of the nations toward each other so that we might live equitably and fairly in eternity. And in the final chapter of the Bible it says, “Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14).
God Bless
