The great invitation - the crucial choice

The great invitation – the crucial choice

So, the scene is set in the garden, with the Tree of Life at its center, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil nearby. These are clearly significant trees. As the bread and wine at the Lord’s table represent the body and blood of Christ, so these trees, we may say, represent Life and Death.

The Tree of Life represents God in Christ, for He is the Living God, and Jesus said, “I am the Life” and “…he that eats me…shall live because of Me”. Adam – and in him, the human race – was being invited to receive eternal life, to enter into a special relationship with God, to become a child of God, to belong to the world above, the realm that embraces, yet transcends, time and space. He was created of the earth, to live here for a time, as at a school, to learn his true vocation, but his destiny lay beyond the earth, in union with Christ in the limitless world above, for it is written of true Christians, the born-again children of God, that they were “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.”

Adam, when created, was only raw material for eternity. He had to choose to eat from and to feed on the Tree of Life, to live in dependence upon God and in union with God. Only in this way could he receive eternal life, and the necessary spiritual constitution to live in the eternal world. He would then become a true and complete man, united to God. At his creation, he only possessed a constitution suitable for living on the earth. He needed to be “born from above”, because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”

It is not just on account of our sin that we must be “born of the Spirit”. To understand this, let us think about space travel. When a man leaves the earth to fly to the moon, he must take extraordinary measures to sustain his life, for he does not have the constitution to live in such a place. So, man, as he was created, could not and cannot live in the heavenly or spiritual world above and beyond this earth. It was essential for Adam to choose the Tree of Life to realize his destiny. Otherwise, he would remain earthbound.

We are not saying that if he had eaten of the Tree of Life, he would have immediately left the earth, but rather that he would have entered into a higher, fuller, developing relationship with God, which would have radically affected his life on earth. His true home and destination would have become heaven. His manhood would have been transfigured from within by the possession of eternal life. He would have gained the kind of manhood, the true and complete manhood, we see only in Jesus Christ.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was nearby – not, as Eve said, at the center of the garden – for the choice and the test had to be real one. Note the devil’s tactics. Eve took her eyes off the Tree of Life at the center and her attention was diverted to the other tree. This is always the devil’s method – first, to get our eyes off Christ.

Adam could choose the way of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, giving seeming power and independence to go his own way, and we know he did. The results are seen plainly throughout human history. Man has always chosen to go his own independent way, and modern thinking is obsessed with this fatal idea of man’s self-fulfillment, with religion perhaps, but without God’s Son. Fallen man remains a religious being. He will still have religion in some form, one of the religions of this world perhaps, or humanism, the worship of man himself, or even his own version of Christianity, but it will always be on his own terms. He will not surrender his heart or submit his will to Jesus Christ, which God requires.

It is worth noting also that all knowledge is potentially dangerous. Only in dependence upon God is it safe for man to have knowledge. Otherwise, it produces pride and pain. How many good discoveries and inventions have had disastrous side effects? The apparent wonders of scientific discovery often turn out to be potential disasters. Today, as never before, knowledge is increasing, and men are bowing down to worship the great god of science. Yet, this very god has now provided man with the means of destroying himself. Man, in his folly, is now even interfering with the very structure of creation, in, for example, genetic engineering. Truly for this rebel, fallen man, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is the Tree of Death.

So, God provided for Adam the Tree of Life – it was at the center of the garden – and told him not to eat of the other Tree. Would he surrender himself in love and dependence to God or choose the fatal path of self-realization?

These Trees were like gateways, leading up or down. Would Adam ascend into a higher relationship with God and realize his destiny? Or would he descend into a terrible union with God’s enemy and become his ally?

We know what happened, and its terrible consequences. But God had foreseen Adam’s free choice and had already laid His plans to bring glory out of shame and ruin.

Note: To avoid confusion, let it be clear that we are considering man’s intended high destiny, not his natural immortality, as it has been called. That is quite another matter and confirmed by the fact that we are told that “everlasting punishment…the second death” awaits the sinner.