Chapter 1

Take a Bite of Eternal Life

 

The entire story of the creation and the first couple, Adam and Eve, surrounds the focal point of the Tree of Life.  God intended us to grasp a truth surrounding this Tree.  The concept never departs from Scripture.  Genesis Chapter 2 recounts God’s placement of man into a Garden to dress and keep it.  This lets us realize that it was intended to expand and increase in the earth!  Imagine a world overridden by a veritable Garden of Eden!  That’s exactly what God intended Adam to accomplish.  God’s goal was to see the Garden spread across the world by way of Adam’s dressing of it.  Something that comes to us in the form of a foreboding warning, though, is that God also told Adam to protect, or keep, that Garden in the overall process.  Protect it from what?

At the outset of the man’s life in this Garden, God told him he could eat the fruit from any of the trees in the Garden, including the Tree of Life, except for the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  If you notice carefully, this is the first word mentioned in relation to Adam’s life in the Garden, and is also the last detail referenced from that period.  God spoke at the end of Adam’s life in the Garden saying He had to remove man lest he take of the fruit of life, eat and live forever.  It is clearly an important aspect of the unfolding story of mankind.  God wants us to keep this detail in mind.  

This familiar scenario ended with the woman, whom God created for the man, being temptation from satan to take fruit from the very tree which the Lord told Adam not to take.  She fell to the temptation and influenced her husband, and he also ate it.  We recognize this as the first sin, disobedience, in the recorded history of mankind.  

As a result, God cursed the ground for man’s sake, and the woman as well as the serpent, the one who tempted the woman.  He then drove the people from the Garden for the distinct purpose of disallowing them to eat from the Tree of Life.  Notice this:  It was originally God’s will for them to eat of the Tree of Life – but after man sinned, it wasn’t.  Why?  

 Adam sinned.  When God thrust him out of the Garden, He indicated man must be separated from the tree of life lest he eat of it and live forever.

 God specifically referred to the Tree of Life.  The Garden was a holy place in which sinful elements were not to dwell.  In casting man from the Garden, God averted the possibility of an infection plaguing mankind permanently.  Man had to be able to die in order for a recovery from sin to take place.  Otherwise, man would be abandoned as another satan, as it were, without the possibility for redemption.  

There are details about the coming of Jesus Christ that reveal how the overall pattern of God’s original purpose for Adam remained in God’s plan.  Jesus was called the “last man Adam”.  The Church can be considered his “Eve,” who was made from his flesh and bone as the original Eve was made from Adam’s flesh and bones (Eph. 5:30-32).

Adam’s predicament of sin would only be resolved by way of the remedy of sacrifice, and Jesus would come to be that very sacrifice.  Since Adam would die due to his sin, sacrificial death would be the key for his salvation, for it paid the price for sin and settled to problem.  Had man become immortal by eating of the fruit of Life, he could not have been rescued later by a sacrificial death that saves from sin through the principle of Atonement.  Atonement involves the idea that the death of another sinless one could stand in place of the sinful offerer’s death, and thereby pay the price for his sin, and yet allow one to live!  

Leviticus 1:4 informs us that an Atonement sacrifice would be accepted for, or as, the offerer to make atonement for him.  Atonement is literally the coming together of two separated people.  God and man were separated due to man’s sin.  They would be once again “at one”, or atoned, through this payment of the death penalty for sin.  The sacrifice would be “accepted for him,” or, “as him.”  


Two Forbidden Fruit Now,
Not Just One

The fruit of Life had the power to cause man to live forever!  So, the story of Adam’s time in the Garden ends with two fruit, instead of one, labeled as forbidden by God.  

Keep in mind that the only reason Adam was initially allowed to eat of the fruit of Life, and then forbidden from eating it, was obviously due to the difference of initially not possessing sin, and then later winding up with sin in his flesh.  Therefore, even today, sin is the only thing in man’s way keeping him from walking to the Tree of Life and eating its fruit!  

Yes, the Tree of Life is still God’s plan for mankind even today!  It is not a physical tree and fruit that God desires for our sake now, but the same concept and the same pattern has never changed since Adam’s day.  God’s plan was not trashed due to some oversight God experienced in not expecting satan to attempt to thwart His will for humanity.  Before creation began, the Lord foreknew the tragedy that would occur after creation, and the Lamb was already slain from the foundation of the world in the sense of God’s preplanned works.


Cherubimic Barrier

But Adam did sin, and was driven outside the Garden away from that tree due to his sin.  Ever since that dreadful day, mankind has been born and has lived outside that Garden.  

 A very notable point is mentioned in conjunction with Adam’s expulsion from the Garden.  Blocking Adam’s way to the tree of Life was a bladed and creatured barrier.  God placed a flaming sword that turned every way, along with creatures He called Cherubims, to keep Adam from the Tree of Life (Gen.  3:24).  
 
Imagine Adam standing outside the Garden and gazing at its entrance.  If he could only pass those Cherubims and that flaming sword, he could walk to the tree of life, pluck the fruit of life from its branch and give to his wife!  Both of them could eat that fruit and live forever!  But, no.  What happened, instead, saw the woman walk up to the forbidden tree, pluck it’s fruit, and then give to her husband.  They both ate and spiritually died, just as God forewarned.  These strange barriers then became the keepers of the way to the Tree of Life, barring out the former Keepers of the beautiful Garden.  

These cherubim were stationed at the entrance to keep, or protect, the way of the tree of life.  But do not be mistaken!  The Tree itself did not require protection.  Adam required it!  Should Adam be freely given access to the Tree of Life, with sin still residing in him, he would surely doom himself forever.  Once again, we must stress this point:  Without ability to die, humanity would not have the potential to identify with the Lord in His future death for us, in order to thereby save us all from sin.  One has to be able to die in order for Christ to die for one, and save us from sin.  There must be that “communion”, or mutual participation, involved in the concept of the death of the Cross for man’s salvation.  Today we are crucified with Christ, when we are saved from sin.  

Imagine a man unable to die, and thereby unable to be saved through the death of the cross!
 

A Strange Reaction To Sin

The man and woman experienced a most strange reaction after they ate the forbidden fruit.  This reaction tells us that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not anything like the common fruit we might think about.  When they ate this fruit...  
 

...the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.  
Genesis 3:7.

 Formerly it was said of them...  
 

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.  
Genesis 2:25

 Obviously, the eating of the fruit incited shame for their nakedness, and moved them to physically cover themselves after eating it.  Eating the fruit accomplished something very spiritual within the man and woman.  Ordinary fruit does not do that!  Rest assured, the forbidden fruit was definitely not an apple!

 If the forbidden fruit caused them to experience that kind of reaction, what might they have experienced had they eaten the fruit of Life?  We already know it would have caused them to live forever due to God’s words about His need to cast them from the Garden, but it seems there would have been more to it than just that.  The forbidden fruit did something to their understanding.  Even satan told the woman that the forbidden fruit would make her as “wise as gods”.  There was some truth to his words, although he obviously twisted its true understanding.  Could the eating of the fruit of Life have caused them to experience something in their faculty of knowledge, also?  Both the forbidden fruit and the eternal fruit of life were no ordinary fruit’s, indeed!  

 Well, Adam and Eve never did get a chance to eat of the fruit of Life, so we cannot look to their story for information as to all that could have happened.  However, the rest of the pages of the Bible do reveal what would have happened, indirectly, if we read them with the pattern of the will of God for Adam in the Garden in mind.  God still desires us to possess eternal Life!  We know that from the Gospel.  We will find God’s Word reveals that Cherubims and a flaming sword still keep the way to the Tree of Life.  Spiritually speaking, God still wants us to pass the Cherubimic barrier, walk to the tree of life, pluck its fruit and eat and give to others that wonderful fruit.  

Keep in mind the scenario of the woman plucking the fruit and giving to someone else, her husband.  It is written in that manner for a good reason.  The pattern of taking fruit and giving it to another is a very major thought in God’s Word.

Look at mankind’s opportunity for salvation from the standpoint of the picture of Adam’s gaze at the Garden’s entrance from the outside, and try to think of a resolution outside the thoughts of salvation through the work of the cross.  If one could pass the Cherubims, walk to the tree of life and pluck its fruit, could not one give eternal life to the rest of humanity?  No, for we were all born as sinners.  It’s not as easy as someone being able to simply walk into the Garden and obtain the fruit of Life.  Adam’s single act caused us all to become sinners before we were even born (Rom.  5:19), and such unholy people cannot enter this most holy place.  

We did not have to commit one single act of sin to have been called “sinners”, since Adam’s act was the cause.  Due to that sin, none of us can, in effect, pass those Cherubims and that sword to be able to approach the tree, pluck its fruit and give to the rest of us!  Abel and Cain were born, and did not commit the sin of eating the forbidden fruit that their parents committed.  But still, they could not enter the Garden either!  So would it be for every human being born since.  What a plight mankind was put in!  


A Glimmer Of Hope To Come

With man cast out of the Garden and away from fellowship with God, things looked pretty grim.  However, a glimmer of hope came forward much later in time.  Moses arrived on the scene to lead Israel out of their bondage in Egypt, and was told about something that was directly connected to the predicament of man’s expulsion from the Garden.  He was instructed by God to construct a Tabernacle – a holy and portable sanctuary to be transported across the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.  Wherever they stopped and set up camp in the wilderness, the Tabernacle was erected.  This would be their place of worship.

Amongst all the Tabernacle trappings and furniture as described in the book of Exodus, curtains and a veil were to be constructed and hung within the Tabernacle.  These curtains and veil were to be embroidered with Cherubims (Exodus 26:1, 31).  

Ah...  Where did we read about them before?

 The curtains and veil were embroidered with the likeness of the very same creatures that barred Adam from the Tree of Life!  Cherubims!  God told Moses to hang them up in the Tabernacle, with the veil specifically placed over the entrance to a room that was called the most Holy Place.  It would bar people from that Holiest chamber.  
 

And thou shalt hang up the veil under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony:  and the veil shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.  

Exodus 26:33

 Here we see the precise same picture as with the Cherubims of the Garden.  This cherubim-embroidered veil barred man from a very holy place just as they blocked Adam from the Tree of Life!  Truly, God was still thinking about the Garden of Eden when He instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle!  This same basic layout was also used later in the Temple built by Solomon.  

 Back in Genesis chapter 3, God placed the Cherubims at the east of the Garden.  And, remarkably, the veiled entrance to the Holiest place of the Tabernacle was an entrance that also stood on the east side of the room.  One would enter the outer court that stood at the east of the whole complex, and walk westward towards the veil.  The most holy place stood beyond that veil.  It was in this chamber that the most important and significant item was situated – the Ark of the Covenant (Ex. 26:33).  
 
Like the Tree of Life situated past the cherubims and flaming sword, something about proceeding towards that Ark portrayed the then-future work of Jesus Christ.  He would come and obtain eternal life for us, like picking fruit from the  tree of Life.  He would proceed to give it to mankind, and give us all a bite of Eternal Life.

 
 
 
 

Read the Table of Contents
Read the Introduction
Return to Take a Bite of Eternal Life