Tag Archives: Genesis

03/29/22

Two Trees in the Garden

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Genesis two describes how God planted a garden in Eden and placed the man he had created (Adam) in it. Out of the ground God caused trees to grow, trees that were good for food and pleasant to see. Then the author of Genesis drew his readers attention to two particular trees in the middle of the garden—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What was so special about these trees?

According to Ingrid Faro in the Lexham Bible Dictionary, the tree of life represents immortality, divine presence, wisdom and righteousness as a path of life; with an eschatological promise. It symbolizes the fullness of life and the immortality available in God. The opening and closing chapters of the Bible contain references to the tree of life. In chapter 22 of Revelations, trees of life grow on each side of the of the river of life and produce twelve kinds of fruit. The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations: “No longer will there be anything accursed” (Revelations 22:3). Note the plural of trees.

References to the tree of life and its symbolism appear throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis, the tree of life represents God’s life-giving presence in the garden of Eden and humanity’s ready access to Him.

The garden of Eden is God’s sanctuary and dwelling place. See “Nature, Red In Tooth & Claw, Part 2” for more on this point. Humans were placed in the garden to serve and protect it and to represent Him in the physical universe (Genesis 1:28).

In Proverbs, attaining wisdom is associated with the tree of life. Proverbs 3:18 says, “She [wisdom] is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.” Proverbs 11:30 says, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.” It is also a fulfilled desire (Proverbs 13:12).

The golden candlestick in the tabernacle was a stylized tree of life, as is the menorah. The walls and the doors of Solomon’s temple, representing sacred space and God’s presence with humanity, contained images of trees and cherubim reminiscent of the garden of Eden. Ezekiel says sacred trees will be present in the future temple (Ezekiel 41:17-18). Ezekiel 47:12 recalls the garden of Eden in its description of a river, flowing from the temple with trees bearing fruit for food and leaves for healing on both sides. Revelations 22 draws on the imagery here in Ezekiel 47.

The ancient readers of Genesis would have understood the tree of life to be associated with eternal life. In the ancient Near East, a tree of life was a common theme representing humanity’s quest for immortality. In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh discovers a plant that will restore whoever eats it to his youth. But a serpent stole the plant from him and swam away. The Lexham Bible Dictionary noted that in contrast to the Biblical account, the plant in the Epic of Gilgamesh rejuvenates, but does not offer immortality.

It thus differs from the tree in Genesis 3:22, whose fruit is said to enable the consumer to “live forever.” When Gilgamesh fails to attain the plant of life, he is encouraged to seek wisdom. In contrast, in the Bible, when Adam and Eve seek to gain illicit knowledge from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they lose access to the perpetual life offered by the tree of life. In the Gilgamesh epic, the source of life is intended only for the gods, but in the biblical account the tree of life seems freely given to the humans.

In The Babylonian Genesis, Alexander Heidel described the Adapa Legend, one of the Babylonian creation stories found within the Amarna letters. Adapa was created by Ea, the Babylonian god of wisdom, to be the provisioner of Ea’s temple in the city of Eridu. He was destined to be a leader among men and Ea endowed him with wisdom and intelligence but not immortality. When immortality is offered to him by the sky god Anu, Ea tricked Adapa into refusing the gift, telling him it was the food and water of death. “By refusing the food and the water of life, Adapa not only missed immortality but also brought illness and disease upon man.”

Like the biblical account of the fall of man, the Adapa story wrestles with the questions: “Why must man suffer and die? Why does he not live forever?” But, unlike the biblical account, the answer it gives is not: “Because man has fallen from a state of moral perfection,” but rather: “because Adapa had the chance of gaining immortality for himself and for mankind, but he did not take it. The gift of eternal life was held out to him, but he refused the offer and thus failed of immortality and brought woe and misery upon man.” The problem of original sin does not even enter into consideration.

In contrast to the tree of life, Gordon Wenham said in his commentary on Genesis 1-15 that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is only found in the Genesis story of the fall of man. He said establishing its significance is then significantly more difficult, but necessary because it is a key phrase in the narrative. Wenham rejected understanding “knowing good and evil” as either moral discernment or simply a description of the consequences of obeying or disobeying the commandments given by God.

Understanding it as moral discernment, knowing the difference between right and wrong, cannot be taken seriously given the narrator’s assumptions. “It is absurd to suppose man was not always expected to exercise moral discretion or that he acquired such a capacity through eating the fruit.” Eve’s reply to the serpent in Genesis 3:2-3 indicates she already possessed a knowledge of right from wrong.

Wenham said understanding “knowing good and evil” to merely signify the consequences of obedience or disobedience was also inadequate. As noted in Genesis 3:5 and 3:22, eating of the tree “offered knowledge appropriate only to the divine.” Additionally, it does not fit with Deuteronomy 1:39 and 2 Samuel 19:36, “which observe that neither the very young nor the elderly know good and evil.”

The acquisition of wisdom is seen as one of the highest goals of the godly according to the Book of Proverbs. But the wisdom literature also makes it plain that there is a wisdom that is God’s sole preserve, which man should not aspire to attain (e.g., Job 15:7–9, 30; Proverbs 30:1–4), since a full understanding of God, the universe, and man’s place in it is ultimately beyond human comprehension. To pursue it without reference to revelation is to assert human autonomy, and to neglect the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of knowledge (Prov 1:7).

Wenham then referred to Malcom Clark’s observation that the phrase “good and evil” in legal contexts was used to describe legal responsibility. From this perspective, in Genesis 2-3 the phrase is used to signify moral autonomy, “deciding what is right without reference to God’s revealed will.” In the garden, God’s revealed will amounted to warning Adam and Eve to not seek knowledge of good and evil independent of His commandment on the pain of death. “In preferring human wisdom to divine law, Adam and Eve found death, not life” because they chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

With the two trees, Adam and Eve are presented with a choice between obeying the wisdom of God in the tree of life or seeking their own wisdom, autonomous from God in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a result of their choice, they realized they were now naked (ʿêrōm) before God (3:7, 10, 11); guilty of disobeying Him. See “Nakedness in Genesis” for more on this distinction.

02/9/21

“Unpunishable” is Unpalatable, Part 2

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In his book, Unpunishable, Danny Silk said the state of disconnection from God, others, and themselves experienced by Adam and Eve as a consequence of their sin was the worst punishment any human being could experience. He noted how they had put themselves in that state, and that getting out of it was complicated. Silk then asked an important question: Could Adam and Eve have repented for their sin in the Garden? “Could they have experienced reconciliation and restoration with God and prevented the human race’s long legacy of bondage to sin, shame, and death?” Silk pointed to Genesis 4, which is the story of Cain and Abel, as an answer to his questions, but again I find his interpretation of the text and explanation for what happened unpalatable.

The short answer to Silk’s questions is no, they could not have repented and as a result prevent the legacy of bondage to sin, shame and death. The immediate consequence of eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a change in their nature from that of able to sin or not sin before the Fall to not able not to sin. They now needed a Savior, which was God’s plan all along. Otherwise, they were headed towards the eternal judgment/torment of separation from God, others and themselves—which is ultimately the worst punishment any human being could experience. Intent on using the encounter of God with Adam and Eve in the Garden to illustrate what he calls the punishment paradigm, Silk either missed or ignored the redemptive-historical context of what is happening.

As was pointed out in Part 1, Silk missed a significant point of the text as he described the encounter of God with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. When Adam replied to God’s question, “Where are you?” in Genesis 3:9, he said that he was afraid because he was “naked,” so he hid. Here, both God and Adam use the Hebrew word, êrōm for naked, which means spiritual and physical nakedness (3:10, 11).  As a consequence of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve knew they were “êrōm” (verse 3:7). This nakedness is in contrast to Genesis 2:25, where Adam and Eve were naked (ʿārôm), meaning physically naked with the sense of also being vulnerable. Therefore Genesis 2:25 is highlighting that before the Fall, Adam and Eve were naked and vulnerable, but they weren’t ashamed of it.

Afterwards, God gave them what they wanted: knowledge of good and evil apart from God. The first thing they realized was they were physically and spiritually naked and separated (disconnected) from God as a consequence of their sin and they couldn’t undo it. Missing this important point, Silk then imports his sense of the punishment paradigm onto the text, saying Adam and Eve went fully into an “every man for himself” mode, highlighted by blame-shifting and pointing the finger away from themselves in response to God asking them did they eat of the tree they were commanded by Him not to eat. This was an immediate consequence of their sin and not a result of them clinging to their shame, as Silk said. They were not able to do anything else; they were not able not to sin. See Part 1 for a fuller discussion of the states of human nature before the Fall, after the Fall and after the redemption we receive in Christ.

Silk then appeared to gloss over the details of three “pronouncements” made by God to the serpent, Eve and Adam, summing up the consequences each will face. First, look as the Hebrew word used to introduce these pronouncements. In Genesis 3:14, God said to the serpent “Because you have done this, cursed [ʾārûr] are you above all livestock.” Cursed (ʾārûr) is another wordplay on the earlier “crafty” (ʿārûm) in Genesis 3:1 and is the typical way of introducing a decree or judgment of doom (Genesis 4:11; 9:25; 27:29; Deuteronomy 27:15-26; 28:16-20). It connects how the ill-use of the serpent’s craftiness led to divine censure, curse and punishment: as a result of his craftiness ʿ(ārûm), the serpent was cursed (ʾārûr).

“Eating” dust reflects Eve’s temptation to “eat” of the tree and Adam and Eve’s fall by eating. In his commentary on Genesis, Kenneth Matthews said eating dust was a common figure for personal humiliation in Scripture. The serpent was responsible for the demise of man, who returns to dust, just as the serpent’s diet—all the days of its life—is a perpetual reminder of its crime. The curse upon the serpent includes its final destruction by the seed, the descendent of the woman (Genesis 3:15): “The serpent was instrumental in the undoing of the woman, and in turn the woman will ultimately bring down the serpent through her offspring.”

“Between you [serpent]” has the singular pronoun (as elsewhere in the verse), meaning that this hostility begins with the beast and the woman as individuals. Yet their experience is shared by their offspring too; the serpent and woman are distinct from their offspring yet also one and the same with them. Here we have the common case where an individual represents many. Eve and her adversary are the progenitors of a lifelong struggle that will persist until a climactic moment when the woman’s offspring will achieve the upper hand.

Christian tradition has referred to Genesis 3:15 as the protoevangelium or the first gospel. Kenneth Matthews said in his commentary the passage pointed to Christ as the vindicator of the woman, who would soon crush Satan under his feet (Romans 16:20). Jesus alluded to Genesis 3:15 when he said the Pharisees were children of the devil because of their spiritual apostasy (John 8:44), contrary to their claims they were Abraham’s children (8:39). This contrast was heightened in 1 John 3:11-15, where John said from the beginning, we were to love one another and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. Christ is the offspring (seed) of the woman.

Silk disregards this redemptive-historical allusion and said God was essentially saying, “I created you to function out of connection with Me and one another. Choosing self-protection over reconnection cuts you off from the only thing that causes you to flourish in every department of life and that means life is going to be really hard for you.” Instead of pointing to Christ as the coming Savior, Silk said getting out of the state Adam and Eve had put themselves in was . . . “complicated.” He then pointed to Genesis 4 and the story of Cain and Abel, which he said answered his question of whether or not Adam and Eve could have experienced reconciliation and restoration with God, and prevented the human race’s bondage to sin. Inexplicitly, he said in this story, we see the birth of religion—“humanity’s attempts to engage God in their fallen state.”

This was a reference to the offerings of Cain from the ground and Abel from the firstborn of his flock, but Silk did not elaborate on this aside. Instead, he focused on Genesis 4:13, which he said was the first mention of punishment in the Bible. This may have been the first time the word translated as punishment appeared in the Bible, however it seems Silk forgot what he had referred to as the pronouncement against the serpent. God’s curse (ʾārûr) of Cain in Genesis 4:11 connects this judgment of God to that of the serpent. According to Kenneth Matthews,

Like the serpent, Cain is placed under a curse; this is the first occasion in Scripture where a human is cursed. This curse indicates the gravity of his crime against God and creation. Cain’s culpability is emphasized by the direct accusation “from your [own] hand.” The language “you are under a curse” is the same as the oracle delivered against the serpent: “Cursed are you above [min] all the livestock” (3:14) is parallel to “cursed are you from [min] the ground” (4:11). This linkage shows that like father like “seed,” both the serpent and Cain are murderers who receive the same retribution.

There was another opportunity in his discussion of Genesis 4 for Silk to bring the future redemptive work of Christ into his interpretation of Genesis, but again he missed his chance. He pointed out that the Hebrew word avon was translated as punishment. He cited and quoted from a video discussion from the Bible Project (Avon/Iniquity), where Tim Mackie said the meaning of avon included both the act of sin and its consequences. Silk ended an extended quote of Mackie without any reference to redemption or Christ in his quotation. His last sentences in the quote were: “This is the meaning of the common biblical phrase ‘to bear your iniquity,’ or in Hebrew, to ‘carry’ your avon. God gives people the dignity of carrying the consequences of their bad decisions.” Yet the video continued:

But that’s not the only way God responds to avon in the Bible. He also offers to carry the avon for us people as an act of sheer generosity. In fact, carrying avon is the most common Hebrew phrase for God’s forgiveness. Like in Psalm 32, where the poet says, “I didn’t hide my avon but confessed it. And you carried the avon of my sin.” This is actually shocking if you stop and think about it. God forgives people by taking responsibility for their avon. This idea reaches its high point in the book of Isaiah, where God appoints a figure called the Servant. He will embody God’s forgiving love by carrying the avon of many and allowing it to crush him.

The devotional Connect the Testaments for February 5th related a conversation between two homeless men that contained astute insight into why a good God found it necessary to punish His people. Without punishment, we would not recognize our need for salvation:

You wouldn’t want to live in a world where God didn’t punish injustices and just freely forgave sin—without any request for someone to choose the salvation He offers back. Imagine a place where injustice was never punished and people never recognized their sin and need for salvation. That would be terrible and painful.

It seems to me that the consequence of death for disobeying God’s command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was both a blessing and a curse. Without death from sin, humanity would have become devils—eternally existing as beings not able to not sin. But God’s plan was to send a Savior; someone who could save us from this body of sin and death: Jesus Christ (Romans 7:23-24). Through the finished work of Christ, we have the guarantee of the promised renewal of human nature when Christ comes again (Ephesians 1:13-14). This was missing from Silk’s exposition of Genesis 3 and 4.

Read other sections of this article, “Unpunishable is Unpalatable” here: Part 1, Part 3, Part 4.

06/16/20

How the Serpent Became Satan

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The third chapter of Genesis begins the story of the Fall by asserting that the serpent was craftier than any other beast that the Lord God had made (Genesis 3:1). The term used for crafty—arum—has a fairly wide lexical sense, that includes “shrewd” or “cunning” and “wise” or “prudent.” Positively, it is in Proverbs 14:15, where the prudent one (arum) gives thought to his steps. Negatively, it is in 1 Samul 23:22, when Saul urged the Ziphites to confirm David was still where they last saw him, for he is very cunning (arum). In his commentary on Genesis, Gordon Wenham said while early Jewish and Christian commentators identified the serpent with Satan, there was no other mention of a personal devil in the early parts of the Old Testament; and modern writers don’t think this was the view of the author of Genesis. So why did he say that a snake tempted the woman?

Some scholars look to the creation myths of the ancient Near East. In the ancient Oriental cultures, serpents were symbolic of life, wisdom as well as chaos and death—which are all themes that connect with the narrative of the Fall. The Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, describes serpents and dragons participating in a violent battle between Tiamat, a primordial goddess, and Marduk Babylon’s deity. Among the gods fighting alongside Tiamat were “monster-serpents, sharp of tooth, unspring of fang … roaring dragons she clothed with terror.” The Lexham Bible Dictionary said, “In the end, Marduk crushes Tiamat’s skull and splits her body in two, in order to form the cosmos.”

In Egyptian texts, serpents have both benevolent and evil powers. Apophis, the mythical serpent and enemy of the sun-god Re, attacked the ritual sailing ship that transported Re across the heavens each night, while Mehen, another serpent, protected Re. Apophis existed in the waters of primeval chaos before creation. He continued to resurface as chaos was repeatedly confronted. The cobra Wadjet was closely linked with the king, defending him from his enemies with its fiery breath.

The Canaanite combat myth of Baal and Anat suggested that Anat and Baal were victorious over the crooked serpent (Lotan, Litan or Leviathan). The defeat of Litan allowed Baal to continue his dominance in the heavens. This in turn resulted in the on-going welfare of Shapash (the sun) and the daily continuation of the sunrise. “Cosmic order was maintained with both the sun (Shapash) and Baal, god of storm and rain, in balance. On the other hand, Litan and Mot were determined to disrupt the cosmic order.” However, this isn’t a sufficient explanation of the serpent’s presence.

In the New Bible Dictionary, Biblical scholar K.A. Kitchen noted after reviewing specific Biblical references to serpents, none of the passages referred to a creation-struggle of deity and monster. “All the serpent-slaying in them is done within an already created world.” Citing Alexander Heidel in The Babylonian Genesis, Kitchen said Tiamat, who Marduk cut in two, has been wrongly said to be a serpent or dragon and therefore gives no support for assuming a struggle of deity and serpent/dragon at creation.

No conclusive proof has yet been found for the idea that Tiamat was a dragon, or a similar being, while against it can be cited the testimony of Berossus and of Enuma Elish to the effect that Tiamat was a woman, the wife of Apsu, and the mother of the gods. Jensen is therefore unquestionably right in his declaration that the supposed dragon-form of Tiamat is “a pure figment of the imagination.” (The Babylonian Genesis, p. 88)

Heidel went on to say Apsu and Tiamat represented not only ancestors of the gods, they represented living, uncreated world-matter. “Apsu was the primeval sweet-water ocean, and Tiamat the primeval salt-water ocean. They were matter and divine spirit united and coexistent, like body and soul.” They contained all the elements from which the universe was made; and from them all the gods and goddesses of the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon were descended. “In sharp contrast to this, the Book of Genesis speaks of only one divine principle, existing apart from and independently of all cosmic matter.”

Nevertheless, Wenham suggested The Gilgamesh Epic may have played a role. Towards the end of the epic, Gilgamesh is told of a thorny plant at the bottom of the sea that has wonderous powers. He was told by Utnapishtim that if he ate this plant when he reached old age, he would be rejuvenated and become immortal. Gilgamesh descended to the bottom of the sea and obtained the plant. On his return journey, he stopped at a pool of fresh, cold water to bathe. While he was bathing, a serpent came up out of the water, snatched the plant from him and ate it. Thus the serpent gained the power to shed its old skin, and thereby renew its life.

But the serpent of the Hebrew Bible is not the chaos monster of other Near Eastern myths. Further, the biblical serpent lacks a definitive identification as the adversary and devil that appears in the extrabiblical literature of the first centuries BC and AD. According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, “When readers confront those terms specifically articulated in the context of the apocalyptic, seven-headed ‘dragon’ of Revelation 12, it is evident that further development has occurred.” In the Apocalypse of Moses (1st century, AD), Eve tells her children how the enemy, the devil, spoke to the serpent and deceived her and Adam. In the Wisdom of Solomon (1st century, BC) it says while God created us for incorruption, “Through the devil’s envy death entered the world.”

“Through the matrix of Old Testament texts and extrabiblical contexts, the serpent gradually came to function as a metaphor or symbol for Satan.” Wenham noted how within the worldview of the Old Testament, a snake was an obvious candidate as an anti-God symbol. “For any Israelite familiar with the symbolic values of different animals, a creature more likely than a serpent to lead man away from his creator could not be imagined.”

Given the above discussion on the serpent, it should not be a surprise that the Old Testament says very little about Satan. The Hebrew noun sāṭān is often used to describe the character of an action or the role of the person performing it, rather than as a proper name for the character performing the act. “Where it is used to refer to a celestial being, the actions of that being are usually ambiguous and open to interpretation.” In Job, the satanic figure is referred to as “the satan,” with the definite article, indicating the term is understood as a title or office held by the individual, rather than a proper name. According to the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, the satanic figure “clearly works within the parameters established by God.”

The role of the satan is that of an investigator, tester or prosecuting attorney who seeks to probe the character of human beings. In Job the satan describes his activity as “going to and fro on the earth.” When God raises the specter of Job’s blameless character and unblemished devotion to God, the satan responds with doubt about Job’s integrity and the motive for his piety. Then he proposes that Job’s character be tested. An affirmative response from God sets Job’s trial in motion as he is afflicted with a multitude of disasters. When Job maintains his piety after the first onslaught, the satan proposes for him yet another trial, more grievous than the first. After this second trial, which leads into the series of speeches that occupy the center of Job, the satan recedes into the background for the rest of the book.

In Zechariah 3:1-2 the satan is the accuser of the high priest Joshua. Yahweh does rebuke the satan, but it is not clear whether the rebuke is a rejection of the satan himself or of the satan’s accusation of Joshua. As with Job, the character of the satan is ambiguous. But in 1 Chronicles 21:1, Satan (without the definite article) appears as an individual who incites David to conduct a census of Israel. Of the three considered texts, this was the only one where the term satan was used without the definite article to refer to a celestial being. While this may indicate we should understand the term as a proper name, there is not a clear indication the satanic figure is an archrival of God.

To summarize, in the OT there is little indication that early Israel thought in terms of a personalized evil individual, Satan, who stood diametrically opposed to God as an archenemy. What we do find in the OT is an ambiguous figure, a member of the divine council, whose role appears to be that of testing and probing the character of human beings. However, it must be emphasized that this satanic figure works within the parameters established by God.

Within the New Testament there is a distinctly different symbolic world, one where a personal Satan could function. Building on the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings of the intertestamental period, early Christianity adopted a dualism that saw the world as a battlefield between God and Satan. Satan became the epitome of evil, working at cross-purposes with God and humanity at every opportunity. “The range of names given to Satan in the NT—the devil, the tempter, the evil one, the prince of demons, the dragon, the ancient serpent, Beelzebul, the accuser, the enemy—is testimony to the richness of the early Christian experience and portrayal of evil.” The ambiguity of the satanic figure in the Old Testament is gone and Satan is let loose to prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).

09/25/15

Tree of Life

photo credit: The British Museum

photo credit: The British Museum

Besides its presence in the books of Genesis and Revelation in the Bible, the idea of a tree of life is present in various religions and mythologies. It existed in Persian mythology, as the Gaokerena world tree, which had healing properties when eaten and gave immortality to the resurrected bodies of the dead. To ancient Egyptians, the Tree of Life represented the chain of events that brought creation into existence. In Chinese mythology, a carved Tree of Life depicts a phoenix or a dragon—which represented immortality. In the Book of Mormon, the tree of life symbolizes the love of God. In the Norse religion the tree of life is Yggdrasil, the world tree.

There is a sacred tree motif in ancient Near East art, but no literature of the time that clearly links it with the tree of life. The Assyrian relief in the above photo was originally in the throne room of the Palace of Ashurnasirpal II, who reigned from 883-859 BC. His reign over Assyria would have been concurrent to that of Ahab in Israel (873-853 BC) and Jehoshaphat in Judah (873-853 BC). Ashurnasirpal is pictured twice, on each side of a Sacred Tree. The figure of the king on the left is gesturing to the Sacred Tree, a symbol of fertility and abundance given by the gods. The figure of the king on the right gestures to a god within a winged disk above the Tree, possibly Shamash, the god of sun and justice or Ashur, the national god. For more information on this stone relief, try the link here to the British Museum.

So what makes the Bible’s use of the sacred tree, the tree of life unique? In Genesis, it was in the midst of Eden, the garden where humanity had fellowship with God (Genesis 3:8). Adam and Eve sinned by disregarding God’s command to not eat from another tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They wanted to be like God, knowing good and evil independent of His counsel and command. This rebellion ruptured their fellowship with God and He banished them from Eden. Banishment also prevented them from eating from the tree of life and becoming immortal (Genesis 3:22). So death and separation from God became consequences of their sin.

According to E. B. Smick in The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, the tree of life can symbolize Adam and Eve’s continued relationship with God. Access to it is contingent upon their maintaining obedience to God’s commands. “The most significant thing about the tree of life theologically is that when our first parents broke their relationship with God through disobedience they were driven from the Garden ‘lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’” (Genesis 3:22).

Adam and Eve were on probation in the Garden. They were not yet permanent (regenerated) spiritual children of God. The tree of life from this perspective is a type of Christ, through whom eternal life is possible. The uniqueness of how the tree of life is portrayed in Scripture signifies how the person and work of Christ restores access to it.

Partaking of the tree of life implies not only continued probation (negative obedience) but also a positive commitment analogous to what believers do in the Lord’s Supper and what the OT saints did at the sacrifices.

In his commentary on Genesis, Gordon Wenham noted how trees as a symbol of life corresponded to items in or near the center of Israelite worship throughout the Old Testament. Genesis 3:22 of course noted that this tree conferred life on those who ate it. Proverbs described wisdom (3:18), the fruit of the righteous (11:30), a desire fulfilled (13:12), and a gentle tongue as a tree of life. In other words, they gave fullness of life to their owners.

Trees, because they remain green throughout the summer drought, are seen as symbolic of the life of God (e.g., Psalm 1:3; Jeremiah 17:8). In Genesis 21:33 Abraham prayed by a tamarisk tree he planted. It seems likely that the golden candlestick in the tabernacle was a stylized tree of life (Exodus 25:31-40). The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery also affirmed this symbolism: “It is very likely that this lamp symbolized the tree of life in the garden of Eden.”  Lamps in general also had a symbolic connection to the tree of life. The lamp in the shrine at Shiloh is called “the lamp of God” in 1 Samuel 3:3. In Psalm 119 the Word of God is exalted as “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

This imagery continues into the New Testament, where Jesus said in John 8:12 that he was the light of the world; that whoever followed him would not walk in darkness, but would have “the light of life”—eternal life. When the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven in Revelation 21, lamps are no longer needed, because “its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23).

The gift of life offered by the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden is now offered in the person of the Word incarnate. By believing in Jesus, humans partake of the eternal life he offers (John 3:16). Or, more vividly, by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, they gain eternal life and will be raised on the last day (John 6:54).

In Revelation, humanity is granted access once again to the tree of life and may freely eat of it (Revelation 2:7; 22:2). So Revelation depicts a reversal of the damage done at the beginning by the sin of Adam and Eve. Fellowship and relationship with God is restored. Revelation 22:2 also suggests the leaves of the tree of life have a sacramental role or purpose in that they are for “the healing of the nations.” The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery commented how “The Bible’s story of salvation history begins and ends with references to symbolic trees.”

The tree of life in Genesis then represents the relationship humanity initially had with God, but lost through their rebellion. This loss was not to be a permanent one, as it was also a type of Christ—a representation of the planned restoration of relationship with God through the finished work of Christ. It is not until this side of the completed of the work of Christ that we could see how he restored relationship with God, in effect becoming the lamp and light of life.

220px-YggdrasilThe biblical tree of life is then much more than a world tree that supports the heavens, upholds the world, and connects both with the underworld, as in the Yggdrasil of Germanic and Norse mythology. It is greater than just being a symbol of fertility and abundance given by the gods in Assyrian mythology; or a plant easily stolen from the King of Uruk by a snake at the end of his quest in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh learned that: “Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands.” The Christian quest for the tree of life is one that has the promise of fulfillment one day in Christ. As an anonymous female Puritan wrote:

Faith is the grace, and the only grace, whereby we are justified before God, by it we eate of the Tree of Life, (Jesus Christ) and live forever: It is therefore the fittest grace of all, to satisfie Conscience in this weighty matter, and to make up conclusions from, about our eternall estate. This Satan knows full well, and therefore when he would flatter a man to Hell, he perswades him, that his faith is right good, when indeed there is no such matter; and when he would overthrow all hope of Heaven in a man, and drag him into despaire, he perswades him, that his faith, though never so good, is but a feigned and counterfeit thing, and the poore soul, is ready to say, Amen.

This is the fourth reflection I’ve done on excerpts from Evidence for Heaven, written by an anonymous Puritan female author. Edward Calamy was credited as the author, but he himself acknowledged it was actually written by a female member of his church.