The Tree Of Life

The fruit of the Tree of Life is life.

The fruit of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” is the knowledge of good and evil. Until consuming this ‘fruit’, man knew only good, as he communed with God, the Source of all goodness, and continued in fellowship with Him by submission.[i]

Disobedience brought the knowledge of evil. Eve was deceived and persuaded by a smooth argument that what God had forbidden was ‘good’ for her. Instead of trusting the God Who created her and would know what was good, Eve doubted, and trusted the lie. Adam was disobedient, unfaithful to the God Who spoke to him from the beginning, in Whom Adam ‘lived, and moved, and had his being”. When the commandment was rejected, sin was birthed and Adam died.[ii]

In the beginning, man had access to the Tree of Life “that he might live forever”[iii]

The Tree of life is a symbol of God and Christ

Rivers of water of life -> to drink freely for all who come to Him from Whom it flows[iv]

Water -> the Word of God[v]

Living water -> The Holy Spirit[vi]

When man sinned, he was barred from the Source and the resource. God being the source of life, and man’s access to God having been barred, man died.[vii]

In separating himself from the Source (God) and the resource (life), Adam necessarily separated all those with him. Adam was barred from the Tree of Life. He was prevented access to the Source and the resource, thereby preventing all who would come after him.[viii]

Adam’s influence on his offspring was worldly. Adam was guilty of ‘minding the flesh’ rather than ‘minding the spirit’.[ix] His fellowship with his wife was a higher priority than his fellowship with God. By preferring his human relationship above his relationship with God, he put himself at enmity with God.

When Adam sinned, he separated himself from the Spirit of God. The correspondence of meaning of ‘ruach’ and ‘pneuma’ is essential to understanding the effect of this rebellion. Deliberate defiance of a clearly stated decree by a legitimate authority is rebellion.

Ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek are equivalent words. Both signify the ‘breath of life’ in all living creatures, as well as being the word God used to refer to the Holy Spirit. [x] As the body will die in the absence of breath, the man is dead in the absence of the Spirit of God. All men separated from God are separated from the only Source of life; they are dead.[xi]

When Adam separated himself from God, he separated himself from Life. He died. In separating himself from life, he led his offspring on the same path. As the father of all men, Adam led humanity into death. All his children were born to him who was apart from God, therefore all his children were necessarily born apart from God. In Adam, all died. [xii]

Separated from the Source of Life, men perish. It is not God’s will that any perish, but that all come to repentance.[xiii]

Adam’s sin brought death to all men, as if in Adam all had sinned. By leading humanity into death, the effect of Adam’s sin was to lead all men into the consequence of his sin.

But it was not God’s purpose to enslave His creation to destruction. Apart from Him, we die. Yet all things were created for His pleasure. It was His purpose to enjoy His creation, not to destroy it. [xiv] Therefore as Adam brought creation into destruction, God had purposed to restore life to His creation.[xv]

Apart from God, we are dead, so God began to call men to Himself. Every man who would return to God would receive Life. To every man who would heed His call to return to Him, He would give His own Spirit, the Spirit of Life, which is our Source.[xvi]

As in the beginning, sin brought death by separating men from the Source and resource, sin continues to work death in all men. In order to be restored to God, we must reject that sin which separates us from Him. As sin has reigned in the lives of men from Adam till now, men have been barred from the Source of Life. [xvii]

To receive life, we must turn from sin and return to God Who is the S ource of all Life. While Adam’s sin brought death to men in leading all away from God, our own sins keep us separate from the LORD of all Creation. He calls us to repent – to turn from our sin that holds us in death, and to approach Him in faith and love.[xviii] By our sin, we rebel against God, yet in His love, He calls us to return, and He will propitiate the sins of the past and give us His Spirit that we may live.[xix]

No longer must men be barred from the source of Life because of sin. No longer must death reign from Adam. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the LORD shall be freed from death and enter life.[xx] Through Christ, men may turn from sin to the Living and True God, receive forgiveness of sins through Christ’s death on our behalf, and partake freely of the Tree of Life, the source of eternal life, the Holy and righteous God. [xxi]

We must partake once again of the Tree of life in order to live and not die. Jesus Christ is Him from Whom flows that Living Water – that river that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb.[xxii] Christ calls all to come to Him for cleansing from sin, that all traces of the sins of the past may be washed way through faith in His blood, and He may present us clean before the throne of God, giving life to all who drink.[xxiii]

[i] Gen 2:4-25
[ii] Gen 3:7; 1Tim 2:14; Acts 17:28; Rom 9:9
[iii] Gen 3:22
[iv] Is 55:- ; John 4:10-14; Rev 22:1-2
[v] Eph 5:26; John 4:10-14
[vi] John 7:37-38
[vii] Gen 3:24; Rom 6:23
[viii] Rom 5:12-14;
[ix] Rom 8:6-9
[x] Gen 2:7; Gen 7:22; John 6:63; 1Cor 15:45; 2 Cor 3:6; Rev 11:11
[xi] John 15:5-6; Rom 8:2
[xii] 1 Cor 15:22; Rom 5:17
[xiii] 2 Pet 3:9
[xiv] 2 Tim 2:4; Rev 4:11
[xv] Is 45:18; 1 Pet 1:20
[xvi] Luke 5:32; Rom 8:2
[xvii] Rom 5:12
[xviii] Acts 17:30; Rom 6:23; Luke 24:47;
[xix] Rom 5:8; Jn 3:16; Col 1:14, 20; Rom 3:25; 1 Cor 16; Rom 8:10
[xx] Rom 10:13
[xxi] Rev 22:17
[xxii] John 7:37-38; Rev 21:6; Ez 47; Is 55
[xxiii] Acts 26:18; Eph 1:7; Col 1:14