The Two Trees (part I)

[rjones]

"...In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die'" (Gen. 2:8-9, 15-17).

The two special trees in the garden planted by God 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.

A Lower Life-Source

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they sold themselves to satan's authority, the Spirit of God left them, and sin became their nature (Eph. 2:1-4; 1 Jn. 5:19).
What they "ate" became part of them and was passed on, through them, to the generations which followed. It imparted a lower life-source. All they could now express was the knowledge of good and evil - the ability to judge between what is right and wrong.
When they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve opened the door to:

Death "...but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die" (Gen. 2:17).

Broken relationship with God "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden" (Gen. 3:8).

Broken relationship with one another "The man said, 'The woman...gave me some fruit from the tree...''' (Gen. 3:12).

Self-justification "The man said, 'The woman you put here with me - she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it'...The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate'" (Gen. 3:12-13).

Cursed life "To the woman he said, 'I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.' To Adam he said...' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return'" (Gen. 3:16-19).

Separation from the life of God "And the Lord God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.' So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gen. 3:22-24).

 

[rjones]

The Two Trees (part II)

The Tree of Life

The Tree of Life represents a higher life-source. It is the expression of God's life flowing through us. It was much more than just the ability to judge between right and wrong. God, too, knows good and evil (Gen. 3:22) and in the Tree of Life was also this knowledge, but with it were the other vital ingredients of the character of God.

"Wisdom...is a tree of life..." Proverbs 3:18 (see also13-26).
So the Tree of Life didn't just contain the knowledge of good and evil. It also imparted wisdom. The Tree of Life was knowledge plus love, wisdom and the ability (or power) to do something with that knowledge.

The Results of the Tree of Life

Life "...take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever" (Gen. 3:22).

Purity "Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city" (Rev. 22:14).

Restoration "The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life..." (Prov. 15:4).
"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God" (Rev. 2:7).

Healing "...On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:2).

Fulfilled hope "... a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" (Prov. 13:12).

Righteousness "The fruit of righteousness is a tree of life..." (Prov. 11:30).

Two Examples

The Bible gives many examples of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life in operation. We will have a look at two:
Jonah
''When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, 'O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity...'"' (Jonah 3:10; 4:1-2).

When Jonah fled to Tarshish, it was not simply because he was afraid of the Ninevites. He hated them. Because of the evil and cruel acts the Assyrians had committed against his people, Jonah wanted them to be punished. He was living from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But when God saw their repentant hearts He forgave them. The Lord was expressing the Tree of Life.

Jesus

''The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, 'Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?'...he straightened up and said to them, 'If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her'" (Jn. 8:3-7) (read also verses 8-11).

The only one with the right to throw a stone at the woman was Jesus, for He was the only one without sin. Yet He did not judge her, but instead forgave her and offered her a new way of life. The Pharisees operated from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were definitely right - what the woman had done was wrong, and punishable by death under their law. But Jesus expressed the Tree of Life. Notice that Jesus did not condone the sin. He recognised it, but offered a way of escape.

The Tree of Life Available to Us Again

God Himself expresses this higher way of life toward us. If He 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. He would have been right and we would have been wrong. 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. The Cross of Christ was the greatest expression of the Tree of Life.

God has made the Tree of Life available to us in Jesus Christ (Jn. 10:10). We are judged by whichever tree we choose to live by. If we do not respond to God's offer of redemption, we are left to be judged by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

To operate today from the life-source of judging between right and wrong results in an outworking of "death," just as Adam experienced - not just physical death, but destroyed relationships and hurting lives. We can be very right in a situation but still have the wrong attitude, and the result will always be a broken relationship, both with God and with others. 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. As Christians, our spiritual roots should not be in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but in the Tree of Life.