The Tree in the Midst of the Garden Meaning?
1) Direct Answer
It means the two great choices God set in the very center: the Tree of Life (Christ, God’s own Life and Word) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Satan’s reasoning). In the “midst” of the garden stood life by the Word or death by unbelief.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible says there were two trees in the midst: “The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9). Eve later refers to the forbidden one as “the tree which is in the midst of the garden” (Genesis 3:3).
- God’s command: “Of every tree… thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it” (Genesis 2:16–17). The issue was obedience to God’s Word.
- When they chose the wrong tree, “their eyes were opened,” shame entered, and death followed (Genesis 3:5–7; Romans 5:12).
- God then guarded the Tree of Life with cherubim and a flaming sword (Genesis 3:22–24), showing that life is now only by God’s appointed way.
- The Tree of Life is Christ. “In him was life” (John 1:4). He said, “I am the life” (John 14:6). Wisdom is called “a tree of life” (Proverbs 3:18), and Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24).
- Access to the Tree of Life is promised again to the overcomer: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life” (Revelation 2:7), and it appears in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:2,14).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Now notice: it wasn’t an apple. Eating fruit doesn’t open spiritual eyes, bring moral shame, multiply sorrow in conception, or create two opposing seed lines. Yet Genesis 3:15 declares two seeds at enmity, and 1 John 3:12 says Cain “was of that wicked one.” That shows the forbidden “knowledge” was Satan’s corrupt approach to life and reproduction, not a harmless bite of produce.
- The serpent was cursed to go on his belly (Genesis 3:14), meaning he was different before the curse. Through that subtle beast Satan introduced a carnal, unbelieving union, and death followed. Adam and Eve were to live by every Word of God; instead, Eve received the serpent’s reasoning against the Word (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14).
- So the “midst” marks the center of decision: Will man live by God’s revealed Word (Tree of Life), or by a mixture—good and evil together—offered by the serpent (tree of knowledge)?
4) Reinforcing Statement
You see, the question of the garden is still the question today. Choose Christ the Word and live, or mix the Word with human reasoning and die. The way back to the Tree of Life is opened through Jesus Christ, and the overcomer will eat of it again.
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
The true vine and the false vine
55-0607 §19
Now, in the Garden of Eden there, we'll just let Adam and Eve pass by and begin with the two boys, Cain and Abel. We was talking of them a few days ago. Each one of those boys were spirits. And to my opinion, right there were Judas and Jesus in a prefigure. Just as Cain killed Abel at the altar, so Judas killed Jesus at the altar by betraying Him and denying Him. Some people only see three crosses on Golgotha; there was four. The cross represents a tree. And there was Christ, a thief on each side, and Judas hung hi...
I will restore
55-0626E §23
Notice, now, that's the same kind of revelation that Abel got, because it was revealed to him that it wasn't apples that brought us out of the garden, like people think here today, but it was blood, life, mortal life. And it was revealed by God, and God received this man Abel, and condemned Cain. And both of them was in church. They were both worshipping God. They were both belonging to church, and both of them sincere; but one was chosen and the other one condemned, because one had spiritual revelation of the will...
Investments
63-0803B §104
Heavenly Father, the evening time is on. We know in the Bible that You were the tree of life that come from the garden of Eden. And we know the seraphims took a sword of fire, flame, and guarded that tree, 'cause if a man ever touched that tree and ate from it, he'd live forever. You guarded the tree then. But the same fire from the sword, the Word of God, is herding people back to that tree, that tree of life that come on earth so beautifully---born in a manger over a stable, where the cattle and the sheep had bed...
God's Provided Way
61-0516M §33
When he invented gun powder, kills his brother. When he invented an automobile, science, what did he do? Kills more than the powder does. Now he's got hisself an atomic bomb, a hydrogen bomb. See, he drives hisself farther away from God. In the garden of Eden there were two trees. One of them was a tree of life, the other the tree of death ... the tree of knowledge. And when man left the tree of life to eat from the tree of knowledge, the first bite he took he separated himself from his maker. And every time he bit...
Paradox
64-0206B §99
Heavenly Father, we thank Thee this morning, for the blood that makes us brothers. We thank Thee for the Son of God who gave his life, that we might be one with Him in this great kingdom upon the earth, the kingdom of heaven that's to be established. We're looking for that glad millennium day, when our blessed Lord shall come and catch his waiting bride away, the little bride tree. He is that tree that was in the garden of Eden, the bread of life. So is his little wife a tree, the bride tree of the last days. Where...