A Tale of Two Trees

There were two trees in the Garden of Eden that are specifically mentioned in Genesis 2 - "The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  When God gives Adam instructions concerning trees He singles out one tree, "“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.”  

This brings up a great many questions? Why does God only draw Adam's attention to the prohibited tree and not the tree of life?  Do we assume that Adam knew about the tree of life?  What, in fact, would Adam have thought that life and death meant?  What if they had eaten of the tree of life before eating of the tree of knowledge?  Why hadn't they eaten of the tree of life?  Why did God create the tree if it was prohibited?  Why create the possibility for sin at all?

Let's consider the last question first.

We were created in God's image and given a certain kind of life.  When He created the animals they had the breath of life in them (Gen. 1.30)  Genesis 2 tells us that when man was created God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, animating a lump of earth He had formed to become a living creature.  The Jewish sages speak of two different kinds of souls.  In animals there is only the nephesh, that animating life of inclination, will and desire.  Humans have an additional component to the soul, the neshama, and this is the intellect and our ability to relate to God, to have an awareness of Him.  We alone of all creation have this ability. 

Creation in the image of God implies that we are like God doesn't it?  What is the temptation posed by the serpent?  "God knows that when you eat of (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  The temptation is to be like God.  We are already "like God."  Is knowing the difference between good and evil what makes us not like God?  It would seem that life was what makes us different, we were dependent on Him for life and He was before we were, so isn't the real difference related to life?  

We are like God because He chose to carefully create us in His image in the way Isaiah talks about a potter or woodworker creating an idol in chapters 40 and 44 of his prophecy.   We are like God because He breathed life into us directly.  Our lives, unlike His, are contingent.  He is life, I AM.  Adam was told that his life was contingent, contingent on obedience to the command to not eat of that one tree.  To eat that tree was to die but death is clearly something more than physical since they did not die physically at the moment they ingested the fruit.  

To be like God includes the possibility of choices.  Of all the possible worlds God could have created, out of all the forms He could have chosen to create in His image, He chose this world and this form.  There were other choices He could have made that were not good weren't there?  Good is itself a comparative word and implies that there are some things that are not good.  God chose to create good things.  Adam had the possibility of choosing either good, obedience to God, believing God that if he ate something bad, death, would happen, and evil, disobedience to God.  God took the great gamble and gave us a choice because He created us in His image. Part of that is we were given great dignity, the dignity to choose.

When Moses gave his final speech to the people, the book we know as Deuteronomy, he ultimately poses the same possibility to the people.  "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.."  

Once the choice was made, the other choice, to eat of the tree of life, was forbidden.  It wasn't enough to prohibit it, we had already chosen disobedience.  Now it must be guarded against us.   Death involves the dying of the will, separation from God who no longer walked with Adam in the garden.  We could do no other than choose disobedience once we had first chosen.

We have a new tree of life, the cross, and in order to choose life, we must choose the via dolorosa, the way of suffering, the way of Jesus. The denial of self that Jesus calls us to is exactly what Adam and Eve chose not to do in the garden.  If it were not for the Holy Spirit, being born again, born from above, we cannot choose to deny ourselves.  Jesus, however, has made it possible for us to choose life and He is our life.  As Paul wrote, to live is Christ, to die is gain.  Now we can again be true image bearers, the possibilities are again limitless.