I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,
that I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
So choose life in order that you may live—
you and your seed—
by loving the Lord your God,
by obeying His voice,
and by holding fast to Him;
for this is your life and the length of your days,
that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers,
to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
In six days the LORD God created the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that is in them (Ex. 20:11).
On the sixth and final day he created the man Adam and his wife; and he placed them in a garden he had planted in the east, in Eden.
In that garden there were many trees, all of them pleasing to the eye and good for eating (Gen. 2:9).
But two of them—the two he placed in the midst of the garden—were special: rich with meaning and profound in consequences . . . for the whole world.
The first he called the Tree of Life. With the benefit of New Testament (NT) hindsight, we now can understand what he meant. This tree symbolized eternal life: the kind of life that, in the fullness of time, he would give to the world in the Person and Work of his uniquely-begotten Son. As Watchman Nee liked to say, the fruit on the Tree of Life represented Christ: the receivable part of God (John 3:16; Rev. 22:2, 14, 19).
Had Adam chosen to eat of this tree, he would have received—both for himself and his future family—this special kind of life. In particular, he would have received the Holy Spirit as his eternally indwelling Helper; through the Holy Spirit he would then have come to know God the Son, the One through whom and for whom God the Father had created all things; through the Son he would then have come to know the Father, the One from whom all things had come; and through knowing the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, both he and his family would then have come to know eternal life: the kind of life God lives, and that life lived forever (John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:1-4).1
The other tree was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It too was a good tree. However, for wise reasons it pleased God that this tree should serve as a point of testing for Adam and his wife. Accordingly, it became the focus of his one and only prohibition: They must not partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for in the day they ate of it they will surely die.
For many years I have pondered this tree, trying to understand the significance of its name, its purpose in the economy of Eden, and its implications for our Christian life in these last days.
What exactly is the knowledge of good and evil? Is it a good thing (as many biblical texts suggest), or a bad thing (as Genesis 2 might seem to suggest)? Why did God issue this prohibition? What exactly was he warning them against? What exactly was he steering them towards?
Yes, I have long sensed that this particular tree points us to important truths, truths that are vital for a deep, fruitful, and joyful Christian walk. And though I also sense that there is further mystery here, this near-octogenarian believes the time has come to share with his fellow pilgrims what he has seen so far.
Two Trees in the Garden
Once again: Like all the things that God created, this tree was good. Certainly it was good for supplying pleasure to the eyes and nourishment to the body. But it was also good for supplying something else, and something far more important: the knowledge of good and evil. As we shall see, however, in God’s wise plan, such good knowledge was not to come by eating from this tree, but instead through obeying his command not to (Gen. 1:31).
How do we know that this knowledge was/is good? In part we know it because after Adam fell, God said, “The man has now become like one of Us, knowing good and evil.”2 Here we see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—the divine US—all know good and evil. Therefore, such knowledge cannot be bad, but must be good.
And indeed, in order to instruct his saints on this vital subject, God has given us a veritable sea of biblical texts. Thus, in a measure like Christ himself, a mature Christian—saturated in the Scriptures and walking in obedience to them—is styled as one whose senses have been trained by constant practice to discern both good and evil . . . and to abhor the evil and cling to the good (Gen. 3:22; Prov. 1-9; 14:16; Is. 7:15-16; Rom. 12:9; Heb. 5:14).
This conclusion, however, raises a difficult question: If the knowledge of good and evil is a good thing, why did God forbid our original parents to partake of this tree?
In reply, here is my best thought so far:
God issued this prohibition both to teach and to train Adam and Eve in what is truly good and truly evil.
And what is truly good? It is to believe and obey his word. To believe his word is to grow in the knowledge of his truth; to obey his word is to walk in the way of his truth; and (as we shall see in a moment) to do both is to know and walk in the way that leads to eternal life . . . an inexpressibly good thing.
But if all that is true, then the opposite must be true as well: What is truly evil must be to disbelieve and disobey God’s word. To disbelieve his word is to reject, forsake, and miss out on his truth; to disobey his word is to walk in the way of untruth; and (as we shall see in a moment) to do both is to walk in a way that leads to death . . . a inexpressibly bad thing.
Now, in order to unpack this thesis further, let us revisit the probation in Eden.
In Eden, God was using the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil to test Adam and Eve, to see if they would love and honor their creator, sustainer, provider, and ruler by exercising their free will to believe and obey his word. And as we learn from the great prohibition, his stated will was for them to refrain from eating the fruit of that particular tree.
Since later biblical revelation shows that all God’s tests are temporary, we may therefore safely assume that in due season this particular test would have come to an end. Perhaps it would have ended with God guiding Adam to the Tree of Life and inviting him to eat of it. Or perhaps it would have ended with Adam doing so on his own initiative, since it is clear from the text that there was no prohibition against it (Jonah 3:4; Matt. 4:1-11).
But in either case, through partaking of the Tree of Life something exceedingly wonderful would have occurred. In that holy moment our original parents would have learned—for time and eternity—that the fruit of belief in God’s word, and the fruit of obedience to his will, was the knowledge of the triune God, a knowledge that for them had become the very gateway to eternal life . . . and not only for them, but also for their family soon to come (John 17:1-3).
The Eschatological Tree of Life
Now, having considered the likely fruits of Adam’s passing his test in Eden—and also bearing in mind the actual fruits of his having failed it—let us turn our thoughts to the fullness of time, and let us consider the great anti-type of the spiritual test that God set before our original parents in Eden (Col. 1:13).
Here in the fullness of time, here in these last days, here in the domain of darkness, here in the howling waste of a wilderness that is the fallen world-system, God has manifested the one and only Savior and Redeemer of the world: the divine Person and all-sufficient Work of his uniquely-begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is God’s eschatological Tree of Life, promised even before the founding of the world, predicted shortly after Adam’s fall, sung by the prophets of old, and now planted in the very midst of the earth (Gen. 3:15; Psalms 2, 23; Is. 53; Ezek. 47:1-12; Matt. 13:31-311; John 3:16; Gal. 4:4-5; Titus 1:2; Heb. 1:1-4; Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19).
And here in the wilderness of the fallen world-system—through the gospel proclamation of the Church—God is bringing all men and nations before this Tree, and putting them to the test by it.
Observe how completely our Lord’s own words accomplish this very thing.
At the prompting of his Father—and again through the gospel proclamation of the Church—he has said to all nations, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Do we believe these words? Will we obey his implicit command by coming to the Father through him?
If so, we will partake of the eschatological Tree of Life; we will pass the gospel test; we will receive from him the gift of the Holy Spirit; and we will also receive from him the gift of eternal life: the kind of life that God lives, and that life lived forever (John 3:16-21; 5:24; 14:6; 17:3; Acts 2:38).
We find, then, that NT revelation richly enables us to understand the Tree of Life.
But what light might it shed on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, on the nature of Adam’s sin in partaking of it, and on the consequences of his having done so? And what lessons can we learn from these things, the better to walk with Christ through the wilderness of the world bequeathed to us by our first father, Adam?
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
My thoughts here, which are informed by many NT texts, are twofold:
On the one hand, Adam’s sin consisted of ungratefully, rebelliously, and foolishly exercising his free will to turn away from the Person, word, will, and glory of his benevolent creator, sustainer, provider, and ruler: the One who had so graciously given him life, breath, and all things (Acts 17:22-31; Rom. 1:18-32).
On the other hand, his sin also consisted of arrogantly, rebelliously, and foolishly exercising his free will to make himself the final arbiter of what is true and false, good and evil; to assert that he knew better than God what was truly best for him. Indeed, by sinning in this manner Adam was effectively choosing to make himself his own god: an independent being, an autonomous being, a law to himself, with no need of a creator, sustainer, provider, or ruler; a being altogether free to create his own truth, make his own way, and fashion his own life in the world (Luke 12:18-19; 1 Cor. 12:21; Rev. 3:17; 18:7).
Such was the profoundly evil nature of Adam’s sin; such was the new and fallen nature that he took upon himself and put upon his wife; and such was the new and fallen nature he would hand down to his entire family, so that henceforth the beautiful garden-home given to man by God would became a spiritual wilderness, a howling waste, a deep and deadly domain of darkness, all the way down to the end of time (Deut. 32:10; John 1:1-5; Rom. 5:12-21; Col. 1:13; Rev. 12:1ff).
Two Trees in the World
The Garden of Eden is no more, swept away by a global Flood in the days of Noah (Gen. 6-9).
But strange to tell, solemnly to tell, and wonderfully to tell, the two trees of Eden are very much present in the earth. It will repay us richly to consider them still further.
On the one hand, there is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
No, it is no longer a physical tree as it was back in Eden. Rather, it is now a spiritual tree, a tree whose mighty tendrils have spread far and wide, now holding the entire whole world-system in its lethal grip.
It is a mind-set, a powerful spiritual bent, an operative theology and morality inherited from our first father, Adam.
This mindset revolves around an autonomous “I”— an “I” that Adam’s sin sundered from I AM, the One who is our true creator, sustainer, provider, and ruler. Whether explicitly or implicitly, all who remain in the grip of this mindset declare with Adam, “I depend on none but myself. I am in charge. I call the shots. I am free to choose or create my own worldview. I am free to choose or create my own morality. I decide what is good and what is evil, what is true and what is false, what is beautiful and what is ugly. I determine my own way, my own truth, and my own life. I am my own god” (Ex. 3:14; John 8:58).
Yet even there, in the deepest recesses of the domain of darkness, the voice of the one true living God can still be heard: “In the day you eat of this tree, you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 1:18-23; 6:23; 8:6).
On the other hand, there is also the Tree of Life.
No, it is no longer a physical tree as it was back in Eden. Rather, it is a spiritual tree. It is the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, the divine-human Person who contains within himself all the precious fruits of his redemptive Work: of his virgin birth, righteous life, atoning death, vindicating resurrection, heavenly reign, and future return in glory to raise the dead, judge the world in righteousness, purge the fallen cosmos with fire, and create a glorious new heaven and new earth, a cosmic Eden: the eternal home of the redeemed (2 Peter 3).
And again: The High King is not silent. Knowing that all men and nations now stand before these two spiritual trees, the exalted Christ—from his throne in heaven, and through his Spirit-filled Church—is speaking to us all, putting us all to the gospel test.
First, he commands us to repent of our ingratitude, rebellion, and foolishness; of our self-centeredness, self-indulgence, self-righteousness, and self-exaltation; of following the deadly example of the world-system, and of embracing the deadly mindset of its unseen ruler, the mutant spirit who so foolishly said, “I will make myself like the Most High” (Is. 14:14; Luke 4:5-7; 24:46-47; Acts 2:38; 17:30; Rom. 1:18-32).
But then—in overflowing love, mercy, and grace—he also calls us to himself: to the one and only Tree of Life.
In so doing, he calls us to simple faith in him, and through that faith to the forgiveness of our sins, right-standing in the courtroom of our heavenly Father, divine-human reconciliation, spiritual adoption, the gift of his indwelling Holy Spirit, growth in the gifts and fruits of the Spirit, heaven above on the day of our death, and a glorious new homeland on the day of his return.
And there is more!
For wonder of wonders, in all of this he is also calling us to the knowledge of good and evil.
For once again: In our time, what is truly good, if not to believe and obey the Word of God in the gospel, and therefore to come to Christ, depend on him, and live in him?
And what is truly evil, if not to disbelieve and disobey the Word of God in the gospel, and therefore to spurn Christ, depend on oneself, and live and die in the grip the great deceiver, tempter, and ruler of this present evil age, who comes only to steal, kill, and destroy . . . and then to perish in the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41; John 8:21; 10:10; 12:31; Gal. 1:4; 1 Pet. 5:8; Rev. 20:10, 15)?
Conclusion
As a near-octogenarian, I will soon be crossing the river Jordan. Therefore, I want to conclude this meditation by giving heart-felt thanks to my heavenly Father.
For over five decades he has lovingly, mercifully, graciously, faithfully, and repeatedly taught me that I must never again partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the way the first Adam did.
Rather, I may and must partake of it in the way the last Adam did.
For he is our leader, pioneer, and example: the One who, throughout his own time of testing in the wilderness of this world, consistently rejected the word of the tempter, but instead believed and obeyed every word that came from the mouth of his God; the One who therefore spoke only what he heard his Father saying, and did only what he saw him doing; the One who therefore grew in wisdom, stature, and power, and in favor with God and men; the One who thereby came to know good and evil, and also to cling to the good and detest the evil; and the One who, through all of this, won for himself and purchased for his believing people the supreme good, which is eternal life (Math. 26:26-46; Luke 2:52; 4:1-13; John 5:30; 8:33; Rom. 5:12ff; 12:9; 1 Cor. 15:45; Heb. 5:8).
In other words, my heavenly Father has taught me that as much as may be possible for a poor, sin-clogged way-faring stranger passing through this world of woe, I must always partake of the Tree of Life: of the Spirit, the Word, and the Will of his uniquely-begotten Son . . .
. . . that in manifold ways I must always live beneath the shadow of this holy Tree . . .
. . . that I must always come to him, rest in him, depend on him, wait on him, receive from him, listen to him, learn from him, walk with him, serve with him, suffer with him, delight in him, and (in all these ways) come to love him more and more . . .
. . . that then alone will I come safely to the knowledge of good and evil . . .
. . . that then alone will I come surely to the way, the truth, and the life . . .
. . . and that then alone will I come joyfully to eternal life: the kind of life lived by our Lord Jesus Christ, and that life lived forever.
Notes
1. Based on NT revelation, it seems reasonable to assume that for an appointed season—perhaps six or seven thousand years—Adam and his family, under the leadership of God’s Son, would have walked down the corridor of cosmic history, enjoying unimaginable blessings and accomplishments, until the happy day in which he (the Son) was pleased to glorify the universe and deliver it up as a love-gift to his heavenly Father (1 Cor. 15:20-28).
2. After saying this, God expelled the guilty pair from Eden and stationed holy cherubim, manned with flaming swords, at the east end of the Garden, lest they should take from the Tree of Life and live forever, not in eternal spiritual life in Christ, but simply in eternal biological life, in sin, and under punishment (Gen. 3:22-24). Thus, even in judgment God showed great mercy, and also wonderful tokens of the redemption he would soon provide through his beloved Son (Gen. 3:20-21).