The Tree of Life in Paradise
As we read the Genesis account of creation and fall in the first three chapters of Genesis, a unique and enigmatic feature of the Garden of Delight/Paradise presents itself—“the tree of life.” This tree and man’s access to it provide support for the Genesis creation in the eternal realm of God, rather than in our fallen ancient cosmos. Genesis 1 & 2 account for the creation of the first human beings and their initial relationship with their Creator in Paradise (the Garden of Eden/Garden of Delight). In the entire Bible this phrase—“the tree of life”—appears only here in Genesis and in the book of Revelation, and in each context it describes a uniquely significant living tree among all the trees that God created in Paradise/Garden of Eden.
(Genesis 2:9) Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
In Genesis 2 “the tree of life” is given to the humans in the Garden of Eden to continually sustain their lives forever. But in Genesis 3, access to the tree is taken away from the first people for an obvious reason.
(Genesis 3:22) Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.”
(Genesis 3:24) So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
Access to “the tree of life” was taken from people so that they could not propagate their sin—the disorder of disobedience—forever in Paradise (God’s very good creation). Note how access to the tree of life was taken from the first couple. God did not cut down the tree or burn it. Nor did he destroy Paradise/Garden of Eden.
From all that we know in the Bible, I conclude that Eden/Paradise and the tree of life continue to exist. What God did was remove access to the tree by expelling the man and woman from his Garden Paradise. Paradise did not cease to exist! Far from it! Paradise continues even now, but the man and woman, and hence all of us, who are their descendants, are exiled from God’s holy presence, and Paradise is lost to them and us.
The way in which God chose to guard the tree of life—to protect it from illicit access—implies that He is preserving the tree and His Garden for appropriate access, so that Paradise lost might become Paradise regained.
We may picture this guardianship of “the tree of life” in the same way that a military installation posts a gate guard in order to exclude those without the right of entry but to admit others with proper credentials. This notion of guardianship is exactly what Jesus is referring to when he speaks to his church in Revelation.
(Revelation 2:7) ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’
When speaking to the church, Jesus says “the tree of life” is in the “Paradise of God.” Genesis 3 makes it clear that God denied access to the tree of life to the first man and woman by driving them out of Paradise/Garden of Eden, not by destroying the tree.
God casts humans out of Paradise/Garden of Eden so that they may not “eat of the tree and live forever” in their sinful state (Gen 3:22-23). God also places a guard at the entry to Paradise/Garden to prevent unauthorized access, which is the cherubim and the flaming sword (Genesis 3:24).
Jesus grants access and enables our return to the tree of life, which is (not was, but is) in the Paradise of God (Revelation 2:7). He enables our return to Paradise/Garden through the redemption He purchased by His blood on the Cross in the great transaction that exchanged His righteousness for our sin. By His sacrifice the Lamb of God restores human rebels to peace and fellowship with God in His eternal Paradise, just as He promised the dying thief on the cross next to Him.
Thus I think it not unreasonable to assume that the proper and only place where the tree of life continually grows is in Paradise (the Garden of Eden) where God abides from eternity past to eternity present and forever. The presence of the tree of life strongly links God’s Garden of Eden and His eternal Paradise. Paradise is God’s creation of the very good world in His eternal realm where His people live forever in glorious fellowship with their Creator and Redeemer, and Paradise is where God’s people enter into His rest (Hebrews 4:1-11).
It follows then that before their fall into sin, the first man and woman were also in the Paradise (the Garden of Eden/Delight) of God, because they once had access to the tree. They were separated from the tree of life by being cast out of the Garden of Eden/Paradise.
The amazing and incomprehensible grace and gift of God to these rebels is the New Testament gospel. In the gospel God grants access to the “the tree of life” to all people by Jesus, God’s Son, through the New Covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20). Jesus takes God’s punishment for the sins of all men, and those who trust Jesus’ sacrifice for their redemption return to the original tree of life preserved in the Paradise of God where it has its origin and has always grown. The Bible begins in Genesis with the tree of life in God’s Garden/Paradise and ends in Revelation with the tree of life in God’s Paradise/Garden, as seen in the following verses.
(Revelation 22:2) On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
(Revelation 22:14) Blessed are those who wash their robes [in the blood of Christ], so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.
(Revelation 22:19) and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.
These later passages from Revelation indicate that “the tree of life” is an integral part of the Holy City in the new heaven and new earth (new to fallen humanity, but original from eternity) which are the Paradise of God. Those who overcome in our present fallen temporal real estate by trusting Christ are granted the right to eat of the tree of life and abide forever in the presence of God in his Holy City, which is His Paradise Garden. Access to the tree of life in Paradise is accomplished by the great transaction of Jesus Christ in which He exchanged His righteousness for our sin, and took our sin on Himself and paid the penalty for our sin by dying on the Cross. Our faith in Christ’s sacrifice is “credited” to us (“put on our account ledger”) as righteousness, and our sin is “credited” to Jesus (“put on His account ledger”) (Romans 4:3-5). Therefore Jesus bore our debt of sin, and paid the price for it, so that we might be accepted as the righteousness of God in the Paradise/Garden of God where humanity had its origin in the first couple created by God to rule over His good creation (Genesis 1:26-28).
The unique appearances of the tree of life in the opening and closing chapters of the Bible form a bridge between the promised heavenly real estate of Paradise—which is the destination of those redeemed in Christ—and the initial “very good” real estate in the Garden Paradise of Genesis 1-3. True Christian believers are only passing through this time-cursed world as pilgrims whose eyes and hearts are focused on their real home in Paradise, the first home of their original ancestors, who are identified as Adam and Eve in the Bible.
There is no question that the last two chapters of Revelation, where the tree of life is present, are clearly in the eternal realm of God, the new heaven and new earth, in which our present ancient time and death ridden world has passed away (Revelation 21:1). Therefore, it seems reasonable to interpret the first two chapters of Genesis in the same context, since their revelation from God, which no human could have witnessed at its inception, but which God would have to communicate to Adam in order for Adam to record it in his “book of generations” (Genesis 5:1). The Scriptures explain that those who trust God will return to what their home was originally intended to be—a very good place in intimate and eternal fellowship with their Creator, as first described in Genesis 1-3.
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