Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #31 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are going to read Genesis 3:22-24:

And JEHOVAH God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore JEHVOAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

In our last study we looked at the first part of Genesis 3:22:

And JEHOVAH God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil…

We spent some time on this and I think it was time well spent, discussing the Bible’s teaching that God is one God and, yet, three Persons. This is why the statement was phrased as “one of us,” in referring to the Godhead. It was within the Godhead that one of three Persons had been laden with sins of the elect and experienced the wrath of God and suffered and died and paid for those sins from the foundation of the world. Later we are told that then the Son was sent of the Father into the world.

We also have to recognize that this does not fully explain things. Jesus said, “I and my Father are one.” It says in Isaiah 9, “Unto us a son is given,” and one of His names is given as “The everlasting Father,” so it is all very mysterious, but God does view the work of Christ as though Christ the Son performed the atonement. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, although I would not dare to try to separate the Father or the Holy Spirit from that atoning work and, yet, here God is making reference to “one of us.” It is similar in language to what we read in Daniel 10:13:

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.

The name “Michael” is another name for the Lord Jesus Christ. The name means “who is God” or “who is assuredly God.” One of the princes was “Michael,” but it says there were other “chief princes” and, of course, that would be pointing to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Our verse said, “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” We talked about knowing evil in our last study. It has to do with “experiencing” sin and man came to know evil through committing sin.

Then it says in the last part of Genesis 3:22:

… and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

This verse does not finish the thought, but the next couple of verses completes it, as JEHOVAH God sent him forth from the garden and drove out the man in order to keep the man from putting forth his hand and eating from the tree of life and living forever. God had given the name of one of the trees as the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and it was just an ordinary tree. But, it was indeed the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in that the knowing of evil had to do with disobeying God in regard to that tree. Likewise, God planted a tree He called the “tree of life” in the garden. During the time that Adam and Eve lived before the fall, they could have walked by that tree and the tree would have been available to them. The tree of life was available to them because they had eternal life if they did obey God and if they had not eaten of the forbidden tree. If they had not eaten of the forbidden tree, they would have lived another day, another year, or for a thousand years. As long as they did not eat of the forbidden tree, they would have lived. So the “tree of life” signified that they had life – it was available to them. It was in the place where they lived in the Garden of Eden. It was the “tree of life” and if you ate of that tree you would live forever, but as soon as Adam and Eve sinned one of the first things God did in response was to mark the “tree of life” off limits and to remove man from the vicinity of the tree of life. In other words, what God did was to keep man from eating of it. It made sense for God to do this because after Adam and Eve fell, they were sinners and they had spiritually dead souls. They had offended God and the Law of God required their death. They died in their souls in that very day and their bodies would have begun to experience corruption because the lives they would continue to live in their physical bodies would eventually come to an end. It would take some time because they had perfect bodies, but “death” had entered in and at some point they would physically die. If they were unsaved, that would be the end of them.

For a sin-cursed man or woman to put forth the hand and take of the fruit of the tree and life and eat of it and live forever would have been an awful and terrible thing. It would have been an offense to God’s Law and judgment and His righteousness and holiness. Here was an impure, unholy, unrighteous and evil man that would live forever if he took of the tree of life. God would have had to honor His Word, just as He was faithful and sure concerning the consequence (death) of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Likewise, if they had managed to eat of the tree of life, they would have lived according to what the name of the tree indicated, so it was extremely important for God to protect the tree from that possibility and that is what we will see in verse 24. It would be protected by a flaming sword turning every way.

But, God also drove out the man, making sure that this man does not eat of the tree of life. What does the tree of life represent? We understand that the tree of life points to Jesus, but can we show that from the Bible? It says in Proverbs 3:13-18:

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.

The pronoun “she” is referring back to wisdom. She is more precious than rubies. “She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.” Notice that language. That was God’s concern in our verse in Genesis 3:22:

… and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

So, God drove out the man and he set the Cherubims to guard the way of the tree of life in order that man could not eat of it, but the tree of life is “wisdom.” It is wisdom! Are we to understand that God has driven man out and away from wisdom and then God set up lethal guards with a flaming sword to protect wisdom in order that man cannot lay hold of wisdom? Is that what we are to understand? Does that make sense? Is God keeping man back from wisdom? Is God holding man off in order to prevent man from gaining wisdom? The answer is, “Yes, when it comes to the unsaved that are not His elect.” God is most definitely fighting against them and withholding wisdom from them.

In the Bible, we know that God likens the whole human race to the wise or the foolish and it is only those whom He saves that He calls “wise.” The rest of the billions in the world are fools in God’s sight – they lack wisdom. They have their own understanding. They have earthly intelligence and a natural ability to reason, but from God’s perspective they are fools and God keeps them in their foolishness. Maybe this will help explain why it is we read what we do in 1Corinthians 1:18-21:

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.

Notice verse 21, again: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God.” That is, it was by God’s determinate counsel and wisdom to allow the world to think there is no God and to develop theories like evolution to explain where we all came from, and so forth. It is the wisdom of the world that God actively allows them to develop and foster. They believe it and trust it and by their own wisdom, they do not know God. God held them back from obtaining true wisdom and understanding, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. Actually, in this same chapter, it says in 1Corinthians 1:30:

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom…

And wisdom is the “tree of life,” so the tree of life is in essence a picture of Christ. He is “wisdom.” Remember what Jesus said when He was speaking parables to the multitude in Matthew, chapter 13. When we read these things in the Bible, sometimes we are surprised or shocked because of the way the apostate corporate church presents the Gospel: “God has a wonderful plan for your life. God loves everyone. He is so desirous for every human being to know Him and understand Him.” They think the Bible is easy to understand. It completely contradicts many things in the Bible, but it especially contradicts this statement in Matthew 13:10:

And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?

Jesus spoke in parables and we know the verse that says, “But without a parable spake he not unto them,” so He constantly spoke in parables and His disciples wanted to know why. We can see why they would ask. Jesus would speak a parable and His own disciples would have no clue what He had just said, so they would often come to Him later and ask, “What was the meaning of the parable?” A parable does not make something clear and understandable, but a parable serves to hide truth. You have to decipher it. It is a mystery that has to be solved.

Jesus goes on to answer His disciples question, in Matthew 13:11:

He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

It is given to His disciples, which represent all those God saved, to know the mysteries. We may not know it immediately, but God opens the understanding of His people to perceive. This is what Jesus meant when He told them that they would be given the ability to understand Scriptures, but He went on to say that it was “not given” to the unsaved people of the world. It was not for them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. It is not for them to know “wisdom.” It is not for them to understand the Bible. They can understand it on an historical level. They can understand it on a grammatical level. They may even understand the moral lesson, like, “Thou shalt not steal,” or “Thou shalt not kill,” but they cannot understand the mystery of the Bible, the deeper spiritual truths and the “wisdom” concealed in the Scriptures. It is not given to them. Then it goes on to say in Matthew 13:12-15:

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

Notice what Jesus just said. It is not given to them to understand because if it were given to them, then they would “see” with their eyes and they would “hear” with their ears and they would have understanding with their heart and they would be converted and healed. To be “converted and healed” means to be saved and to be saved means they would have eternal life. Jesus is saying the exact thing that is being taught in Genesis, chapter 3 when God places the “tree of life” off limits and protects it with the Cherubims and the flaming sword and He drives out the man. It appears that God was doing everything He could to make sure that man does not “live” and to make sure that man does not take of the tree of life and experience eternal life, just as God has placed the same sort of “flaming sword” and “Cherubims” around the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God and Jesus is the Word made flesh. Jesus is “wisdom.” The Word of God is “wisdom.” The tree of life is “wisdom” and, therefore, the Bible is in a very real sense the “tree of life.” If you can eat of the Bible and take the fruit that the Bible contains from Genesis through Revelation, then you would be “converted and healed.” You would live forever and you would take of “wisdom” and, yet, God has protected His Word. He set these “flaming swords” round about it so that the natural unsaved man that is of the world and dull of hearing cannot comprehend it and He cannot grasp the truths of the Word of God. It is off limits to him due to his inability. He just cannot obtain “wisdom” and he cannot penetrate the barrier of protection God has placed around the Scriptures. Only when Christ makes the way to the “tree of life” for those people He redeemed is the “tree of life” accessible to the child of God. So, the children of God come to the Bible and it becomes our daily bread. We feed upon it and we receive spiritual nourishment that feeds our eternal souls and we will continue to feed upon it into eternity future: “But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.”

This is the teaching that God has given us in this account concerning the “tree of life” and why it was placed off limits. The natural man that is not one of God’s elect cannot have access. His sins were not paid for and the natural man has not been justified in Christ and, therefore, it is absolutely necessary that the “tree of life” be off limits to him. It is impossible for the unsaved to obtain it and eat from it. Therefore, salvation is impossible for man. In order for it to be possible, God would have had to make the “way.” It is impossible for (unsaved) man, but it is possible with God for His elect.