Buried Deep

Two Trees

Now just for the fun of it, let’s take another look at that second chapter of Genesis. In Gen 2:9, God planted two special trees in the midst of the garden. These were the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death or as God names them the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

It was Adam and Eve’s encounter with this second tree that got us all into so much sin, trouble, evil, and physical death. You might ask, “What happened to these two trees?”

The book of Revelation indicates that the “Tree of Life” will be located just east of the millennium temple, so it is highly plausible that this is that same Tree of Life mentioned three times in Genesis (Gen 2:9; 3:22; 3:24) and three times in Revelation (Rev 2:7; 22:2; 22:14 and four times in Proverbs).

The Tree of Death

Now, the Tree of Death (the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”) contained four-components: Death, Sin, Evil, and Choice. OK; so where was that tree? The Tree of Death was also in the midst of the garden (Gen 2:9)

(We will talk about original location of that tree after a brief discussion about its contents.)

Death

We all know about the “Fall of Adam”

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17)

Well now, here’s a dilemma:

Did Adam die in the day that he ate forbidden fruit, the “apple”?

There were two questions in that one question mark. And the answers are yes and yes.

Yes, Adam died a spiritual death that day, and then he was evicted from the garden.

And yes, Adam did live physically for a total of 930-years, and had many sons and daughters. Then he died. I guess that was a good thing that he lived that long, ‘cause otherwise, you and I wouldn’t be here. Now, how do we justify that he didn’t die physically that day. Well, Second Peter (2Pt 3:8) tells us“…that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” so I guess those 930-years satisfied the required “day” in which he died physically.

Adam walked with God for the better part of those first 100 years. We don’t know when Eve was made, but it might have been when Adam was about 80 or 90. Why? Well, according to Gen 5:8, her third son – Seth was born when Adam was 130-years old and that was outside of the garden. Adam and Eve were kicked out of garden because he ate the forbidden fruit. He ate it when, after many conversations with God, he realized that it really was necessary - to satisfy God’s plan for our voluntary love.

So they crossed the river Jordan in a great haste. Then in their little camp across the Jordan from the Tree of Life, Adam taught Cain and Able how and when to worship God. Life for Adam and his wife must have been very hard after having known the plenty that the garden provided. Yes, life was hard and Cain was not a happy camper. That led to the worst sin of all – murder.

Sin

Upon teaching Genesis 3, many pastors happily wax eloquent about “SIN”. They just seem to love to talk about it. But there really wasn’t any legal “sin” for 2500-years - until Moses defined sin at Mt Sinai. That didn’t stop people from being sinful, we are all sinners because Adam sinned.

Evil

When Adam ate the forbidden fruit, evil energy burst out of the Tree of Death, and God again gave Satan a chance to do his worst, and he did – Satan created Nephilem. They were the creatures that were born when about 200 demons were “sporting” with the daughters of men. (Gen 6:1-7). To correct that particular evil, God caused the great flood. We will talk about that flood later in this book. It is thought that the Nephilem were huge giants some of which stood fifteen feet tall and that one of them could lift several tons. They were a corruption of the human DNA and were intended to corrupt the Royal blood line, thus preventing the birth of Messiah.

After the flood, God challenged Satan to try Job (Job 1:8), but Satan could not measure up to just one person who loved God. You see, God really controls the evil that Satan can do.

Choice

People complain that if God is love; why is there so much evil in the world? This is where “choice” comes in.

God called the Tree of Death – “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”

God designed Earth for genuine LOVE and choice was the most important feature of that tree. When God designed the Earth, it was for a purpose: to get you to voluntarily love Him. God wanted to have loving friends. He did not want anybody to be around Him who did not freely choose to love Him. For that “choice” was needed. (You can’t get out of bed in the morning without making a choice.)