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.
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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.
Questions and Answers
54-0515 §106
QUESTION: Now, let's see: "Does this church teach that you have to speak in tongues to receive the Holy Ghost?" No, sir. No, we don't. Speaking in tongues is a gift of the Holy Ghost, see, not the Holy Ghost. It's a gift. This tree bears nine manners of fruit. Is that right? If you look on an apple tree, got apples, you say it's a apple tree. Look on a tree, it's got pears, you say it's a pear tree. No matter if it's got sycamore bark on it, and got pears on it, the life of it is what? The life of it is pear tree l...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-93
Now in the Garden of Eden there were two trees standing in the midst of it. One was the Tree Of Life, the other was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man was to live by the Tree Of Life; but he was not to touch the other tree or he would die. But man did partake of the other tree, and when he did, death entered into him by his sin, and he became separated from God.
We would see Jesus
62-0627 §73
If I went down to Santa Maria tonight, and got some person that was dressed like He was, with sandals on, and perhaps a robe on and scars all over his face like this, and nail prints in his hands, that could be the biggest hypocrite there was in the country. Anybody could impersonate that. Certainly. But how do you know a tree? What did Jesus say you would know them? By their fruit. Now you people are citrus growers around here. Now, what if you took a... If you could take all the life out of an orange tree, and pu...
The Lamb and the Dove
57-0325 §8
Last evening, I believe ... or, one day last week, I made this statement: that we are not supposed to produce fruit but to bare fruit. If we have tried to produce fruit, and we... We bear education and we bear theology, we... Sometimes we bear things in trying to bear fruit ... or, produce fruit, rather, we produce the wrong thing. Now, to produce anything, to be an outward performed; but to bear anything, has to come from the inside of you. Now, the tree is known by its fruit. The life in the tree proves what it i...
Church Ages, part 2: The Patmos Vision
60-1204E §83
Didn't Jesus say in St. John 15, "I am the vine, ye are the branches."? Now. He is the main vine; we are the branches. Now, the vine does not bear fruit ... [Gap in the audio] ... that you can take a citrus tree, like an orange. And you can take a limb off of a ... well, I'd say, a grapefruit tree, and split a little place in the orange tree and put that grapefruit in it, it'll grow. You go over here, and take a lemon limb, and put it in a orange tree, it'll grow. Or take a pomegranate, and take it or any citrus fr...