What Is the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3?
1) Direct Answer
- The tree of life is Christ—God’s own Life and Word offered to man.
- The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is Satan’s perverted wisdom, offered through the serpent, mixing truth with error and bringing death. It was not an apple tree; it was a channel of union with unbelief that produced a corrupt seed.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Genesis 2:9 places both trees “in the midst” of the garden, making them central to man’s choice.
- Genesis 2:17 says, “in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” After partaking, death set in (Genesis 3:19; Romans 5:12).
- Genesis 3:1-6 shows the serpent ministering a message contrary to God’s Word, and Eve receiving it. 2 Corinthians 11:3 confirms, “the serpent beguiled Eve.”
- Genesis 3:7 says “they knew that they were naked” and covered their loins, showing moral shame, not a stomach issue from fruit.
- Genesis 3:15 declares enmity between two seeds: the woman’s Seed and the serpent’s seed. That speaks of a real lineage. 1 John 3:12 says, “Cain was of that wicked one,” revealing the serpent’s line through unbelief.
- Genesis 3:14 curses the serpent “upon thy belly,” showing a creature brought down—once upright, now degraded.
- The tree of life points to Christ: “In Him was life” (John 1:4). He said, “I am the life” (John 14:6), “I am the living bread” (John 6:51). Overcomers are promised to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7), and in the New Jerusalem it appears again (Revelation 22:2). God barred the way to it (Genesis 3:24), so fallen man wouldn’t live forever in sin. Access opens again by redemption.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Literal fruit cannot give a conscience of good and evil, nor does it make one ashamed of nakedness. But receiving a wrong word and entering a wrong union brings moral shame and death.
- God speaks of “seed” in Genesis 3:15. Fruit doesn’t beget a lineage; reproduction does. That’s why sorrow in conception and childbirth was multiplied (Genesis 3:16). The issue touched the womb and the life stream.
- If Adam and Eve had then taken the tree of life, they would have lived forever in a fallen state. Therefore the tree of life is eternal life in Christ; the other tree brought death by mixing good and evil—religion without revelation, truth mingled with a lie.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice: to “eat” is to receive and become one with what you take in. Receiving Christ, the Word and Spirit, is partaking of the tree of life today; receiving the serpent’s reasoning is partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Stay with the pure Word, and you live. Mix it, and you die.
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.
Lamb and Dove
60-0805 §74
In the garden of Eden there were two trees. How many knows that? One of them was the tree of life, and the other one was the tree of knowledge. And when man left the tree of life to eat the tree of knowledge, he always destroys himself, separates himself from God. So you'll never know God by knowledge; you've got to know Him by faith, just to believe it. It doesn't come by knowledge; it's faith, see. So every time we bite here... They bit off ... first bite separated his fellowship from his maker. Then he bit off g...
Fellowship
55-0813 §11
The Lord bless His Word. Now, there's many people can open the book like that, but it takes God to open it and reveal it. You'll never understand it by education. You'll never find it in a seminary. You'll never find it through science. You'll never find it in knowledge. In the Garden of Eden, there was a tree of knowledge, and a tree of life. As long as man eat from the tree of life, he had everlasting life. But the first bite he took off the tree of knowledge, he lost his soul. And every time that man takes a bit...
Church Ages, part 3: The Ephesian Church Age
60-1205 §112
Now Jesus said, "Your fathers eat manna in the wilderness and they're all dead. But I am that bread of life." What bread of life? From Eden, "that a man may eat of this bread and never die." Now, God put an angel around that tree of life to guard it, that no one could touch it, unless they would eat that tree and live forever. Is that right? Because they had to continue on this tree and die. Is that right? 'Cause as long as they had to eat to that they died. And just as sure as you die because you eat from that tre...
What it takes to overcome all unbelief: Our faith
60-0729 §8
That's where it started in the garden of Eden. There were two trees: one was the tree of life, the other a tree of knowledge. Man took his first bite from the tree of knowledge; he separated himself from the tree of life. And every time he bites off the tree of knowledge, he continually gets further away from the tree of life, because he begins to think he knows how to reason it out. You cannot reason God; you got to come back to the simple tree of life, and abide under there eating the fruit of life. That's what w...
That Day on Calvary
60-0925 §17
And sin did not start on the earth. Sin started in heaven. Lucifer, the devil, was a condemned creature for his disobedience before he ever struck the earth. Sin began in heaven, where God put the angels and so forth upon the same basis that He put human beings on. Knowledge. The tree of knowledge ... the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, where man could take his choice. And when Lucifer was given the preeminence to make his choice, he wanted something better than God had. That started the trouble.