“Yahweh Elohim planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the human whom He had formed. So Yahweh Elohim made sprout from the ground every tree desirable to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Genesis 2:8-9 concordant
God created Adam in relation to three kinds of trees, and Adam’s whole life was pictured as a matter of feasting upon one tree or the other. God instructed Adam to be very careful about partaking of one of these trees. If Adam partook of them according to God’s directions, he would have life. If not, he would die. It was a matter of life and death! Adam’s life and relationship with God depended entirely upon eating from these three kinds of trees. God told man plainly:
“Of every tree of the garden thou may 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 eat thereof thou shall surely die.” Genesis 3:16-17
That original command, the only command that was given Adam was to freely EAT! Eating is receiving substance into the body, the basic function of a human. It is most striking that in the record of Adam’s creation this was the only command given him…EAT freely! Receive food, eat without limit! Likewise, Christian disciples today are advised:
“…receive ye the Holy Ghost!” John 20:22
“Verily, verily, I am saying to you, If you should not be eating the flesh of the Son of Mankind and drinking His blood, you have not eonian life in yourselves. He who is masticating My flesh and drinking My blood has life eonian, and I shall be raising him in the last day, for My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who is masticating My flesh and drinking My blood is remaining in Me, and I in him.” John 6:53-57 concordant
“But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” John 1:12
Adam was prohibited from eating from the wrong tree. Since Adam was commanded not to eat of the tree of knowledge, it is clear that all the other trees of the garden were completely available to him, including the tree of life, until:
“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever....therefore God sent him forth from the garden.” Genesis 3:22-23
Up until the day Adam first ate of the tree of knowledge, Adam had derived his life entirely from the fruit of all the other trees of the garden. We understand the tree of life represents a realm of pure God life, while the other trees of the garden likewise represent other realms that supported life. And, the tree of knowledge also represents a third realm of food that fed the inner state of Adam but caused also death.
May the Spirit of God graciously open the eyes of our understanding to see clearly the SIGNIFICANCE OF EACH OF THE CLASSES OF TREES AND ITS FOOD. We still imbibe things that affect our inner condition. Man is created a tripartite being: spirit, soul, and body. Adam’s invisible inward spirit derived nourishment and was conscious of divine life, so Adam could talk and walk with God in the Garden of Eden. Adam’s soul was also conscious of his spiritual identity as a human with a divine connecting link between the visible world of creation and the invisible dimension of spirit.
God had breathed into Adam the breath of His spirit which made his soul alive to his spirit — a “living soul.” Adam’s spirit was connected to God. Adam’s soul, the conscious mind, will, and emotion within him, expressed what was alive in his spirit. Adam’s body, his most outward part, feasted on all the trees of the garden and was not dying. It was visible and tangible, along with the cattle, birds, and other visible beasts, all living creatures in the earth.
Thus Adam’s state of being was recorded as being a living soul. It was a much higher plane of life that far transcended the realm of corruption and death which came upon all Adam’s descendants. Through his partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man was lowered to an inferior realm. In this state, the tree of life and all the trees of the garden were unavailable.
Significant innocence lost, Adam had no food to impart unto him the DIVINE NATURE AND THE INCORRUPTIBLE LIFE of God. The divine nature and incorruptible life were contained in the tree of life. Adam came under the power of death, corruption, and darkness contained in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Thus, the tree of life and eating from all the other trees of the garden signify the lost source of divine life for our inner spiritual and soulish conditions.
What does the tree of life signify? The divine life offered to man in the tree of life was a higher kind of intelligence than the conscious thoughts Adam had. The tree of life signified GOD’S WISDOM that quickened and fed Adam’s inner spirit, the seat of knowing God’s divine life consciously. The tree of life imparted more than Adam could retain, though he had the right to eat of the tree of life simply by refusing to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Adam was granted to eat from the tree of life. Today overcoming Christians are granted to eat what lifts man up from the realms of death working in humanity. This transforms us from being a dead soul to one infused with the divine breath. We become again a living soul, alive in the spirit, alive in the soul, and alive in body through Jesus Christ:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning…in Him was Life; and the life was the light of men.” I John 1:1-4
And again,
“…that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the word of life for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father.” I John 1:1-2
John stated the divine life that was in the beginning witnessed in Jesus Christ. The tree of life in Eden was nothing else but the Word of Life and Light that is now found in Jesus Christ and made available to man's spirit again, simply for the taking of faith.
Thus it was written:
“For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” Romans 8:6-7,13
Again:
“He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the spirit [tree of life ] shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:8
Consider the substance and properties of what generates life and death — which properties come from “the knowledge of good and evil,” and which properties are coming from “the tree of life:”
"And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." Genesis 1:31
Immediately after Adam was created, he is declared by the Creator to be “very good.” Yes, good was inherent in man’s being from the beginning of his formation on earth. Divine life was an inherent connection to God’s life existing in the covered hidden spirit within man. Adam knew how to appropriate Divine Life by eating from the tree of life, for there was a fundamental difference between man’s goodness and God’s life.
These two characteristic conditions are distinct within humans. Goodness and Life are NOT the same thing. Church members have performed “good works” for long millenniums without ever being made alive unto the full salvation found in Jesus. Pentecostal Christians have settled with the human soul in doing good, but have not found the tree of life.
Through the church age, some overcomers knew of His original intents and upright ways. They also came to be ashamed of nothing, just as Adam and Eve were when they were naked but were not ashamed. God made the original life of Adam without sin and also without the knowledge of sin and shame. It was innocent and good. but Adam’s partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil caused a great fall.
Just eating of a certain knowledge meant to partake of a mental mixture of “good” knowledge mixed with beastly ways that opposed the life spirit found in Adam. Knowledge of good and evil has devoured purity with the hypocrisy of evil beastly ways, making possible the reality of all people in the world today who are degraded by sin. Generations of sin have gradually changed even man’s features and character.
Multiplied generations of ignorance, licentiousness and general depravity have so blurred and marred humanity that it is hard to find moral uprightness and the higher intellectual qualities of the wisdom of God. Pure godliness is almost obliterated, dwarfed by unduly developed religious and animal instincts that are no longer balanced by the inner qualities of God's spirit.
Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years. Today Adam’s descendants have lost physical strength to such an extent that, with all the technical aids and advancement of medical science, the average length of life in America is only 78. World-wide, human life lasts only an average of about 40 years. But the man Adam survived NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS under primitive conditions.
Because mankind now lives in the consciousness of the mixed realms of good and evil without the controlling balance of the spirit, he has the innate desire on one hand to be good and upright, and on the other hand, the inclination toward rebellion and devouring evil. Throughout the ages, philosophers and psychologists engaged in the study of human behavior have projected two different points of view: one, that man is inherently good in nature, and the other, that the nature of man is to do evil.
Actually, man is both. Humans are able to manifest care and goodness according to their knowledge. With it, however, man also manifests his self centered darker nature a majority of the time. Modern man is truly sick, divided, and unsound. At times he can be very good, agreeable and helpful and can really do acts of compassion. But at other times, his evil temper flies into states of rage. Cursing, threatening, and murdering war becomes a manifestation of devilish deposition. When man indulges in drunkenness, lying, cheating, stealing, swindling, adultery, violence, and murder, he is controlled by an evil spirit to express these evil characteristics mixed in with his goodness.
The good that is in man is seen in this world’s philanthropic institutions, civic organizations, church programs, government aid agencies, hospitals, doctors, orphanages, welfare programs, social action, relief societies and a millions of actions of men by which they seek to be kind, compassionate, generous, moral, to improve the condition of their fellow men.
Men do not have to be Christian to have GOOD in them. Think of how many of your friends, neighbors, relatives, business associates etc. you see doing good things although many have no communion with God’s Spirit as a disciple of Christ. There is frequently in the natural mind of man the desire to do good, to honor our parents, to be helpful to those around us, to be an upright citizen of the community. These ideas of doing good spring from the inherent goodness in the soul of man, proving that we had these principles in us before we became disciples of Christ.
When Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of GOOD and EVIL, the elements of that tree were not only the elements of evil; they were the elements producing a knowledge about GOOD. The tree ministered to man a KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WHAT’S GOOD as truly as it ministered to him a KNOWLEDGE ABOUT EVIL.
Thus, the fallen man is assured in his perception about what is GOOD, and what is evil (bad). This is the mental condition dominating all mankind. For some the element of evil can PREDOMINATE, but we cannot say that the good in man has been corrupted to the point of non-existence. Many criminal people that have done dastardly evil deeds discover that within them there is still a principle motivation for goodness.
Adam came to know good and evil but he lost KNOWING GOD. Natural minded men now possesses a knowledge about good and evil but they do not possess KNOWLEDGE OF GOD which He declares to be eternal life. Adam became a judge of good and evil but he LOST AWARENESS OF HOW GOD KNEW AND JUDGED.
Adam added evil ways to his soulish good, producing a mixture of the two. In so doing, he forfeited THE DIVINE LIFE AND GLORY AVAILABLE TO HIM IN THE TREE OF LIFE, so that his spirit was numbed. His soul and body died because his spirit was severed from God’s Spirit. He chose good with evil, choosing to be with his wife but missing GOD. The knowing of good and evil always concerns itself with EXTERNAL behavior and judges deeds upon the basis of whether it is good or evil. Fallen man's conscious mind is subject to judgments within a good and evil framework.
It is presumption to think if a matter is a good thing, it must be promoted by GOD. Nothing could be farther from the truth, for if good works makes us acceptable with God then man could be justified by the works of the law. The good works of man come from the common good of the creature, NOT the divine Life of the Creator.
Just as evil is something other than God Life, so also is good something other than God Life. Evil and good, though different in manifestation, are really fruit of the same tree (realm). That way of knowing things does not contain divine wisdom nor is it the mind of Christ. Good food was in all the trees of the garden but both good and evil co-existed in the tree of good and evil. Life was yet in another tree altogether, something beyond the other trees, of a dimension that is SPIRITUAL:
"So Yahweh made sprout from the ground every tree desirable to the sight and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Genesis 2:9 concordant
We should say that the tree of good and evil on one hand and the tree of divine life on the other hand definitely belong to two different categories. Thus a man, by his own determination and effort, can improve considerably in good character and actions and yet still be entirely VOID OF THE LIFE OF GOD. This is because his improvement is completed apart from God's Spirit operating. It is of his own good soulish efforts producing good works.
Now we, who have been born of the Spirit of God, rejoice that the mixed realities of good and evil working in the mind are now being renewed by instruction from THE SPIRIT’S LAW OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS. His spirit quickens our spirit to be free from carnal minded death — both the evil and the good. Now we can see what is God’s life, Who is quickening our spirit to knowledge of peace and rest:
“He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” I Corinthians 6:17
THE SPIRIT’S LAW OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS is indwelling our spirit, making our tabernacle alive once again. The mind of Christ rules over our soulish knowing of good and evil, so we JUDGE NOT [in good and evil] THAT WE NOT BE JUDGED. Only HIS judgment is true. His truth sinks deeply into our spirit, etched within as written by God.
It is not enough to simply have head knowledge about church doctrine. We must receive His Spirit, eat of it until we are drawn to connect with the knowledge of GOD HIMSELF. God has promised to live in us today. We then manifest His love, peace, and joy in the face of opposition, persecution, and hate because the SPIRIT’S LAW OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS is dwelling within our spirit.
We should be learning from the spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus that has LIFE to offer. His Spirit teaches us how to no longer judge from a soulish basis whether a thing is good or evil. Rather, being raised to a new sonship life within our spirit gives us righteous judgment upon the basis of knowing it as GOD HIMSELF knows it! He judges the heart:
“…for not as a human sees, does the One, Elohim, see the visible appearance, yet Yahweh sees into the heart.” 1 Samuel 16: 7 Concordant
“Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.” Proverts 21:2
The whole objective of man’s creation in today’s Christian redemption is not for us to continue being mentally dominated by good or evil. We are now to be made living souls, alive to our calling as the sons and daughters of God. Therefore the path we walk today is not the way of self improvement but THE PATH OF SPIRITUAL DISCOVERY.
Our inner elements are changing and transforming to develop THE SPIRIT’S LAW of LIFE in Christ Jesus. Those who mature understand what the fundamental difference is between life and good works. Simply speaking, spiritual growth leads to life, while good works are simply religious acts of humans.
Consider an automobile and a apple tree. The automobile is the product of human actions while the apple tree is an expression of a life. The wheels, body and engine of the automobile are put there by human actions but the branches, leaves and fruit of a tree arrive there by the growth process of its inward life. The automobile when assembled demonstrates a kind of WORK accomplished, while the grown tree demonstrates a kind of LIFE accomplished.
The difference between self-improvement by good works and the spirit’s law of life is also unmistakable. What is produced by human zeal for doing good works — the good part of fallen man — should not dominate us. Only what is produced from development of the spirit’s law of life within us is DIVINE LIFE pertaining to being a son or daughter of God.
It is so easy under Pentecost church heavens to point out the good of human virtues and mistakenly present them as the LIFE OF GOD. It is easy to preach of virtues and delude others into believing what we have is good enough. Yet only what is swallowed up of the spirit’s law of life is true deliverance out of death from the vanity of passing heavens that lead to the darkness of evil pits.
"Let anyone who can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches: those who prove victorious I will feed from the tree of life set in God's paradise." Revelation 2:7 NJB
He who is sowing to the spirit, from the spirit shall be reaping life eonian. He who is in union with the tree of life has the food of freedom which, when eaten is quickened to spiritual life. To those who surround us, we are becoming as trees of life from which others can taste and be spiritually refreshed. The sons and daughters of God have a center of blessing flowing out without the mixture of sorrow because we are where He abides. In and through us, Christ sends the effective Word and Spirit of God.
Learning this will make us effectively a Royal Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, living after the power of an endless life. We are learning to eat from and be affected by the disposition of the peaceful mind of the spirit. We Christians are destined to rule and reign over nations. If we are to bless all the families of the earth in the glorious age to come, we are learning to ABIDE IN CHRIST, to know HIM AS OUR LIFE, and are being made priests assigned to fruitful service.
As surely as the branch abiding in a fruitful vine bears fruit, so surely, yea, much more surely we are being made alive spirit, soul, and body! Christians in church heavens are finding to their amazement that they can no longer operate in the man-dominated systems using religious methods and traditions handed down from former generations of believers. These, though held in high honor by the multitude, are:
"…making the word of God of none effect through your tradition…” Mark 7:13
Many still do make the Word of no effect, but in the day we become alive to the spirit’s law of life, the mystery of God shall be finished, revealed, and known. As he hath declared to his servants and prophets:
“…for the spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus frees you from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2 concordant