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.
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-96
All right. If the Tree Of Life is a person, then the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a person ALSO. It can't be otherwise. Thus the Righteous One and the Wicked One stood side by side there in the midst of the Garden of Eden. Ezekiel 28:13a "Thou (Satan) hast been in Eden, the garden of God."
Convinced and then concerned
62-0521 §33
Now the Bible promises in this last days that these things that you see today would be happening. Then we see the appearing of the Messiah, in the form of the Holy Spirit, in the church. And if the life of a pear tree was in a sycamore tree, it would bring the same ... it'd bring pears, because the life in the tree would be ... pear tree life. No matter how big, how little, what form it's in, it would be the same, because the life in it produces the fruit of it; and the fruit of the Spirit follows the Spirit, or th...
Will I find faith when I return?
51-0508 §12
A tree might have sycamore bark on it, but if it's a bearing apples, it's a apple tree. That's right. It's a apple tree because the sap, the life on the inside of the apple--of that sycamore tree is changed to apple trees life and bearing apples, in a kind of a... No matter what outward demonstration you give, as long as the inward, here, is the Holy Spirit, it'll be the fruits of the Spirit, long-suffering, goodness, meekness, patience, gentleness, faith, temperance. Satan can copy any kind of a gift, any kind of...
Behold a Greater than all of them is here
62-0715 §104
Now, take the life that's in a grape vine, or in a peach tree, and put it in a apple tree, what kind of fruit would it have? If it was a peach tree life in a apple tree, it'd have peaches. Sure. By the fruit. Now, you put his life here, then it will produce what He was. How did we find this week that they knowed He was the Messiah? Because that He was the prophet that Moses spoke of. He showed them with his signs ... and how we went through it. Now, He's still the same Christ today. You believe that?
The true vine and the false vine
55-0607 §15
And if I tell you the Holy Spirit is in me, you expect me to do the work that the Holy Spirit did when it was here on earth, manifested in the Lord Jesus Christ, live that type of life, preach that kind of Gospel, do the same thing. 'Cause the vine will always produce what the life of the vine is. Jesus said, "By their fruit you shall know them." Right. "By their fruit you shall know them." Now, you might take a tree that looks like it's got sycamore bark on it, and it's bearing apples; I don't care what kind of ba...