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.
Divine Love and Sovereign Grace
56-0814 §70
A peach tree bears peaches, because it's a peach tree. It's got peach tree life in it. Is that right? Yes, sir, see. It's the attributes of sin. It's the attributes of unbelief. If you believe, those things become dead to you. But if you're not a believer, then those fruits and signs follow you. Now, I want you to be real reverent. Now, what did Jesus do in this case? What would He do if He was here, if He acted like He did in the days when He was here in His flesh? Now, He's here tonight in the form of what? Spiri...
What does thou here?
59-0301E §37
Listen, brother, we need that still small voice---a still small voice that spoke. Jesus said you couldn't hear His voice in the street. You didn't hear Him crying. He was our pattern. Look at Him. He was compared, His Spirit like a dove: gentle. It's great things, or quiet things. Did you know that, friends? Listen. The sun which gives life on the earth to every living thing, in botany life, plant life, tree life, whatevermore, it brings forth life (the sun does). And it can draw a million gallons of water from the...
The True Easter Seal
61-0402 §56
And when you bring it right down into the church that we're living in today, into our Pentecostal groups, they have went right straight back, and doing the same thing that they were freed from doing. Goes to show there's something wrong somewhere. A sin cure! It's come in very easy. It slipped in just, well, just like under disguisement of true Pentecostal religion. But if it doesn't produce that kind of an article, if it doesn't produce that kind of goods, there's something wrong with it somewhere. How can a pumpk...
Accepting God's Provided Way at the end time
63-0115 §42
Now, aside for a minute. It's God's provided way. It only operates the way God provides for it. A little voice says, "Get down to the roots," and down it goes. Now, it does that without any intelligence. What ought we to do, by the same God speaking to us? But we've got a right to refuse, or to accept. And mostly we refuse. The tree can't refuse. It only knows one routine: that's obey its master. "Well," he said, "I never had thought of that before." And I said, "I tell you what. You think on it a long time, while...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-104
Now that we have come this far, let me try to crystallize your thinking on this subject so you can see the necessity of our going into the 'serpent seed doctrine' as I have. We start with the fact that there were TWO trees in the midst of the garden. The Tree of Life was Jesus. The other tree is definitely Satan because of what came forth of the fruit of that tree. Now then, we know that both of those trees had a relationship to man or they would never have been placed there. They must have had a part in the sovere...