Genesis 3:

22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become like 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 

23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken 

24 So he drove out the man and placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life 

The created man had become a deviant to the original mind of God, completely different from the eternal existence in the heart of the Father. In the preexistence in God, man was sprit-led. Now he’s soulical, led on in life by the soul. In the eternal, he was a moral agent like God. The universe is cohered by the moral integrity of God. The opposite is also true if the agency is not moral; everything scatters. Now, this is like the biblical leaven which, if introduced into a lump of dough, will soon become all of leaven, a departure from its original consistent texture. In this strange being lacking divine moral nature, man was trapped. He also became estranged from God as, He, being spirit, could only be accessed by the spirit. Only the spirit interacts with spirit; only the spirit knows spirit and only spirit communes with spirit. Man was by nature, by listening to and taking counsel from the his soul instead of trusting God, lost to communing with the Lord God – to all purpose and intent, dead to God. His death occured first in the spirit. The soul also started the steady journey to death but not as quick as the former.

If he came to partaking the tree of life in this condition, it’d be a perpetuation of a monstrous creation. He had to go, be taken out of the way or annihilated. It’s unsafe to leave him still roaming about in the garden in the face of his taking of the tree of life. Verse 22 above shows a dramatic scene. God is speaking and, because of the urgency of the matter on hand, fails to complete his statement but actually completed the statement with a divine action in the next verses,  23 and 24.

The first thing to spring up in man as soon as he partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was conscience, a sword, a judge. Even millennials after the fall from glory of God in the garden, conscience, though by then weakend – many times to the point of being seared, was still gasping. …their conscience also bearing witness, their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another…(Romans 2:15).

Christ is the tree of Life! He’s the reason for the existence of man and man is the the earth’s reason for the existence of the heavens and earth. Jesus Christ was telling the Jews to eat His flesh and drink His blood. This, He told them, was earning Life. He promised to give the tree of life, Himself, to the overcomers in His faith. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise (garden) of God (Revelations 2:7). In our text, man was urgently turned out of the vicinity of the tree of life; here, the tree has become a promise, a pursuit and strive. The tree of life comes into view in just few pages in chapter two) of the Book of the Beginning and, just few pages (chapter 22) before exiting the Book of Consummation of all things, the tree comes in view again. This speaks of saving of the soul which first got lost eternally in the garden of Eden. There have been raging battles all through the millennials for the soul. By the time of the Book of Revelations the tree of life has triumphed and man is being invited to come to it. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city .(Revelations 22:14). Jesus Christ is the subject of life. He’s the Lamb slain from eternity to save the soul; He is the tree of life which is the final end of the journey of the saved soul.

Modern man as well as the ancient hardly knows the reason for his existence. He hardly knows that he is estranged from his Creator. He hardly knows that he is in need of the tree of life which also means the saving of his soul. But a man discerned the great importance of the tree of life in man’s hope and pursuit. He sees the tree of life as the HOPE, nay, the DESIRE of man. Hope referred maketh the heart sick but when the hope desire cometh, it is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12). This is why I am!

Man is now free, through the redeeming blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, to go after the tree of life, to make it his right to stretch forth his hand and take. The cherubim are no more against him to oppose. The cherubim have learnt of the manifold Wisdom of God through man and is helping to spur man on to the tree of life, the savin of his soul

We bless You Lord, for your salvation, having carried out series of battles against the enemies of our soul, to bring us to the tree of life Who is the Lord Himself. You’ve started this work, You are continuing, perfecting and bringing it to a glorious conclusion.

Thank You, Lord