Genesis 2

16  And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of all the trees in the garden, thou mayest freely eat (eating thou shalt eat)

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou shalt eatest thereof thou shalt surely die 

In our previous meditations, we learnt that the command given above wasn’t a threat but a warning for the wayfarers to LIFE. But it was a guidance to coming into the absolute perfection of reflection of God and entering into His immortality. We learnt that the Genesis story of formation of of the Adams in the garden was a a new beginning from a previous creation. We traced the origin of one of the trees to God’s enemy and the other as sourced from God. This may be hard to take, but we are sure that it’ll not demean our meditation.

The last note of the sound of the instructions of God was hardly completely silent when the Serpent barged into the garden, corralling the female Adam, asking leading questions and supplying the answers himself.

Genesis 3

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die

5 For God doth know that in the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil

It was a most clever ploy ever for the travellers on the path of Life. The speaker painted a different picture and presented another vision that looked much like the pursuit of Life, very much like the original, “….Let us make man in our own image after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). The Serpent’s self-answer was potent and loaded. Briefly, it detonated an explosion of “this your God is too mean and too self-centred to share His divine nature with you; He is afraid that you, on eating of this tree, will be like gods with their added advantage of being able to know good and evil.” The female Adam also saw that the fruit of the tree was pleasant and could make one wise

First, we know from here that there were beings already in existence called gods and that their intelligence was way beyond that of the johnny just comes. Then again, these gods were known to the Adams and perhaps, they admired them. Perhaps, too, they knew their superhuman capabilities and that they were beings in their own class; many elements – at least, in Satan, the serpent – were combined in their formations. Let’s take the case of Satan, who here was Serpent, as an example. Ezekiel says of him, “Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sadius, topaz, and diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald and the carbuncle, and gold; the workmanship of thy tabrell and of thy pipes in the day thou was created” (Ezekiel 28:13). But of man the Bible says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils.” Here is the difference: man is to carry God, the breath of Life is in him; by this, he’s come to a special place with God, with the Godhead. Man is the inexpressible glory of God’s riches. Man is way beyond the gods. But then, the female Adam bought into the cleverly covered ploy of the Serpent, and was followed by the male counterpart.

Who were the Trees in the Garden?

Plants in the garden were for food, no doubt, but not these two spotlighted ones. They were certainly more than trees for consumption. They were spiritual beings of great status who were teachers (to man) with their instructions mutually opposed to each other.  Nebuchadnezzar, before he lost his senses, was typified as a tree in the book of Daniel. So, the tree of Life is Christ who, later in the history of mankind, incarnated and was a teacher to Eternal Life. For our meditation here, we shall call these trees tree-teachers.

The tree-teacher of knowledge of good and evil instructs to the path of death, the tree-teacher of Life instructs man to Life. Both trees are of great spiritual statuses. The fruit of each is their nature. Each of them plies a type of wisdom. One is absolutely corrupt. Jesus Christ says that a tree can be identified by his fruit.

What does it mean to eat?

It means to accept as a substance of faith. Jesus said, “Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life…”(John 6:54). A little while before this statement, he says, “….. verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth in me hath everlasting life. The meaning of to eat is obvious here: to believe the speaker or the teacher. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a teacher, a speaker, a giver of some wisdom. Believing him was eating his offered fruit of revelations

The process is still ongoing. The tree of Life is still inviting all throughout these two millennia; the tree of knowledge of good and evil is also relentless too. The wisdom of the latter is palpable to the touch, appealing to the intellect and the soul. It’s out there through its wares of modern technologies, trying to prove the Bible false, trying to prove the former weak.

Well, I refuse to be dazzed by the wisdom of the present (friend, the truth be told, it’s awesome, this civilization), but I’m clinging constantly tenaciously to the tree of Life. Have you noticed that many eating the tree of Life, overwhelmed, are also plying the wisdom of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, preaching and teaching that this is the reason for being, the raison’detre of life?

Thank You, Lord for this