The Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24)

The Tree of Life was God’s sustaining life that kept them alive. They no longer have access to that privilege, having declared themselves gods in their own right, deciding good and evil for themselves:

Genesis 3:22-24 (NIV)
²² And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ²³ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ²⁴ After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

The humans have betrayed the trust God placed in them when he invited them to share life with him in the garden of his royal house in Eden. Exiled from God’s garden, they must fend for themselves in the world that fights against their claims to be gods.

In 2:15, God trusted them with two jobs: to till the garden, and to keep it—gardeners and guards of God’s presence. But they haven’t kept God’s commands at all. They can no longer be trusted as guards of his presence. God now gives that job to angelic beings instead. Cherubim (the plural of “cherub”) were symbolic heavenly guards who “served as the traditional guardians of sacred spaces in ancient Near Eastern iconography” [“Cherubim,” in Lexham Bible Dictionary (Lexham, 2016)]. The cherubim now guard God’s house … from the humans!

In summary, Genesis 3 describes how the creatures commissioned by the heavenly throne to implement God’s dominion over the creatures of the earth had instead joined the creatures of the earth in a rebellion against God and the authority entrusted to them. The betrayal introduced pain and conflict into every dimension of life on earth: relationships with the creatures, relationships between people, relationships with the earth and its productivity. Disconnected from God, they die. Adam falls back into adamah. They’re exiled from God’s garden, eking out a painful existence as “gods” of a world that rebels against them as they rebelled against God. Having betrayed God’s trust, they’re not trusted anywhere near God’s house.

God has explained the tragic consequences of their rebellion, but God has not merely handed them over to death. They’re banished and dying, but God has not executed the traitors as we might expect. Queen Eve will have offspring to fight the serpent (verse 15). She and Adam will die, but she will be remembered as the mother of all living. In a world where there’s death and shame, God provides for them:

Genesis 3:20–21 (NIV)
²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. ²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

God is still deeply connected with Eve’s family (4:1-2, 25). Just as Adam was formed in God’s likeness, he has a son in his own likeness (5:1-3). They have descendants who walk with God (5:24) and yearn for the day the Lord will give them relief from the labour and painful toil of our hands (5:29).

From Jacob’s family, God will form a nation that lives around God’s house, the temple decorated with garden imagery where cherubim guard God’s throne (the ark). They will receive a land as the garden where God lives among them. Heaven’s reign will come to them in David, the one God anoints to restore his reign on earth.

Then, tragically, because of their rebellion against God’s authority, God’s nation will also be exiled from his presence, no longer under his kingship, exiled from the land. They will wait for centuries for God’s anointed to come and restore the kingdom of God to the earth.

The snake was wrong. Rejecting God’s authority did not make us gods in our own right. Disconnecting from God’s life turned us into mortals. When we disconnected from God, we didn’t become free; we found ourselves under the power of death. This contrast—between God and mortal rulers—is a theme in the Old Testament (e.g. Psalms 9:19-20; 10:18; 56:4; 82:7; 90:3; 103:15; 118:6; 133:3).

Death is the ultimate enemy of our humanity. Death is the final enemy that must be removed to fully restore the Lord God’s reign to the earth. We need another human (another āḏām) to undo the treachery of the first king and queen appointed over creation, the ruler to be raised up from the ground, defeating death, restoring God’s reign, the gift of life.

That’s the promise of the Old Testament, as Paul summarizes it:

Romans 1:2-4 (NIV)
… the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures ³ regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, ⁴ and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.

But did you notice that the word “sin” is not found in Genesis 3? We’ll talk about that next time.

Related posts

• Original good (Gen 1–4)
• Life in God’s garden (Gen 2:5-17)
• The question of justice (Gen 3:8-21)