The Tree of Knowledge & The Tree of Life

TWO TREES

     God planted a garden eastward in Eden. In this garden were various kinds of trees, but two specific trees were singled out from all the others: “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Gen. 2:9).

     God told Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge and warned him that eating from this tree would cause him to die. Adam and Eve ate from this tree and died. Had they eaten from the tree of life instead of the tree of knowledge, they would have lived forever and would still be alive today.

AN ALLEGORY

     The story of these two trees is a true story. It records events as they really happened. However, the story of these two trees is meant to teach us more than just a history lesson that explains where humans came from and how sin and death came upon the human race. Without denying the literal, historical truth of the story, we can view the story of these two trees as an allegory, just as Paul viewed the story of Hagar and Sarah as an allegory of two covenants, two mountains, and two Jerusalems, without denying the literal, historical truth of the story of Hagar and Sarah. (See Galatians 4:22-26.)

     Fruit trees produce fruit “after their kind.” If you plant an apple tree, that tree will produce apples, not apricots. If you plant a peach tree, that tree will produce peaches, not pears. If you plant a walnut tree, that tree will produce walnuts, not watermelons. If you plant a Christmas tree, that tree will produce pinecones, not presents. (Sorry, Christmas celebrators!)

     Because every tree produces and provides after its own kind, we can say that the tree of life provides life, and the tree of knowledge provides knowledge. Adam and Eve had a choice: to eat from the tree of life, or from the tree of knowledge. Every day we each have that same choice. Which tree are you feeding on, spiritually speaking? The tree of life or the tree of knowledge?

WHAT’S WRONG WITH KNOWLEDGE?

     What’s wrong with knowledge? Knowledge is good, isn’t it? The Book of Proverbs praises knowledge. It says “fools hate knowledge” and urges us to “cry after knowledge” and says that “knowledge is pleasant to the soul.” It sounds like knowledge is a good thing, not a bad thing.

     Knowledge of things that are true and right is good, but only when that knowledge is accompanied by wisdom, love, and humility. Without wisdom, love, and humility, “knowledge puffeth up” (1 Cor. 8:1). It inflates your ego and turns you into a proud, arrogant “Mr. (or Ms.) Know-it-all.” If you want to see some disgusting demonstrations of this, just look at some of the theological debates on Facebook. You will see Messianic Mr. Know-it-alls and Ms. Know-it-alls all over the internet. (Thanks, Al Gore!)

QUESTIONS

     The subject of Adam and Eve and good and evil raises several questions. Before the Temptation and Fall, were Adam and Eve good, or evil, or neither? Some people say neither. But Genesis 1:31 says that at the end of the six days of creation, “God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”

     Every thing that God had made included Adam and Eve. Therefore in some sense Adam and Eve were very good. They were very good as creatures created by God, but were they good in a moral sense? If they were good in a moral sense, it seems unlikely that they would have sinned. On the other hand, if we say that sinning is proof that a person is evil, then we end up saying that God created two evil people, which would contradict Genesis 1:31, which says that every thing God created was “very good.”

     Another question is whether or not Adam and Eve understood the concepts of good and evil before they sinned. We know that they had some sort of idea about the concept of “good,” because before she sinned, “the woman saw that the tree [of knowledge] was good for food” (Gen. 3:6). Therefore before the Fall, Adam and Eve had some kind of understanding of “good.” But did they understand the concept of evil? Did they realize that obeying God is good and right, and that disobeying God is evil and wrong?

     If we think of the knowledge of good and evil as nothing more than knowing about the concept of right versus wrong, i.e., knowing that obedience is good and right, while disobedience is evil and wrong, this raises another question: Why wouldn’t God want them to know this? If God wanted obedience, why wouldn’t He want them to understand the knowledge of good and evil? Why wouldn’t He want them to understand that obedience is good and disobedience is evil?

     I believe the answer to that question lies in the realization that the Tempter was offering them something far more sinister than merely an understanding of the concept of good and evil.

THE REAL TEMPTATION: TO BE LIKE ELOHIM

     The Tempter told Eve “ye shall be as gods [elohim], knowing good and evil.” Just understanding the concept of good and evil does not make us like God. The only way the knowledge of good and evil can make us like God is if we decide for ourselves which things are good and which things are evil.

     This is what the Tempter urged the woman to do, and this is what he still urges people to do. He urges people to decide for themselves, based on their own personal preferences and desires and wishful thinking, which ideas and actions are “good” and which ideas and actions are “evil.” People who decide for themselves what is good and what is evil, instead of letting God declare which things are good and which things are evil, are usurping God’s authority and being a god unto themselves. They are following in the footsteps of Lucifer, who initiated his rebellion when he said, “I will be like the most High” (Isa. 14:14).

EATING FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

     Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is deciding for yourself which ideas and actions are good and which ideas and actions are evil, and ignoring or defying what God has said in His Word about those ideas and actions.

     Unfortunately, it is not just unbelievers who do this. Many Bible believers also do it. How many times have you heard Bible believing Christians respond to Bible commandments with statements like the following:

• “I don’t feel convicted by the Spirit to do that.”

• “That doesn’t seem important to me. I don’t think the Lord cares about that.”

• “Most Christians don’t do that now, so God must not expect us to do it anymore.”

• “I don’t understand why God would say to not do those things. I see no logical reason why God would give those commands. I’ll obey the commandments that make sense to me, but I’m not going to obey commandments that don’t seem logical to me.”

COMMANDMENTS OF THE LAW: MORAL, CIVIL, & CEREMONIAL?

     When Christians talk about the commandments of God in the Torah, they often say something like the following:

     “The commandments of the law are in three categories: moral, civil, and ceremonial. God still expects us to obey the moral laws of the Old Testament, but not the civil and ceremonial laws.”

     To the natural, carnal mind, that might make sense. But if it were true, who gets to decide which God-given commandments are moral and binding, and which commandments are civil or ceremonial and not binding? Who has the authority to make that decision, and on what basis do they make their decision? What exactly makes a law “ceremonial”?     Some Christians think the dietary laws were ceremonial, but abstaining from pork and shellfish does not involve any sort of ceremony. All you do is quit eating that stuff, without performing a ceremony. Many other commandments that Christians call “ceremonial” do not involve any sort of ceremony. The word “ceremonial” is not even anywhere in the entire Bible, at least not in the KJV.

     This oft-repeated claim that God’s commandments are categorized as moral, civil, and ceremonial is a claim that is made without any Biblical proof. The Bible nowhere categorizes the commandments of the Torah this way. However, the Bible does categorize the commandments into three distinct groups, but they are not moral, civil, and ceremonial. I wrote about this in the very first issue of GOE, way back in 1995. I do not want to reprint the entire article here, but I will briefly summarize it and add a bit more information. You can read the entire article at gatesofeden.online in the teachings archives in GOE 1-1, May-June 1995. If you do not have internet, send me a SASE if you want a photocopy.

TORAH: MISHPATIM, EDOT, & CHUKIM

     The Torah itself lists three separate categories of commandments. The threefold categorization is in Deuteronomy 4:44f:

     “And this is the law [torah] which Moses set before the children of Israel. These are the testimonies [edot], and the statutes [chukim], and the judgments [mishpatim], which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt.”

     We see in this passage three types of commandments: mishpatim, the plural of mishpat (“judgment”); edot, the plural of ed (“testimony”); chukim, the plural of chok (“statute”). The differences between these three types of commandments are not based on morality, civics, or ceremonies. The differences are based on the reasons each of these three kinds of commandments were given.

MISHPATIM

     The mishpatim are commandments such as the prohibition of things like murder, rape, robbery, etc. The mishpatim are called “judgments” in English, because anyone with good judgment can see that the reason for these commandments is obvious. People with good judgment do not scratch their heads and wonder why God forbids things like murder, rape, robbery, etc. God does not need to explain the reason for these commandments, because the reason is obvious.

EDOT 

     For some commandments, the reason is not obvious, but the reason is stated. These commandments are called edot, “testimonies,” because they testify of something. For example:

     The reason to keep the Sabbath on the seventh day, and not on some other day, is not obvious, but it is explained. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy... the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God...”

     Why the seventh day?

     “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it” (Ex. 20:8-11).

     The Sabbath command is one of the edot/”testimonies.” The reason to honor the seventh day, and not some other day, is not obvious, but it is explained. The Sabbath gives a weekly testimony that man and the universe did not come into existence by evolution. God is the One who created man and the universe.

     The annual feasts of Leviticus 23 likewise testify of God’s acts in history, both past and future. The spring feasts testify that Messiah came, and the fall feasts testify that He will come again. 

     The commandment to wear fringes with a strand of blue is also one of the edot. The reason is not obvious, but it is stated: “that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the LORD, and do them; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye used to go a-whoring” (Num. 15:39).

CHUKIM

     The chukim, the “statutes,” are commandments for which the reason is neither obvious nor stated. These are commandments that God gives for reasons known only to Him. He gives these commandments with no explanation of why. The natural man sees no obvious reason for these commands, so they seem illogical or even foolish to him.

     Do not eat pork, or shellfish, or a kid cooked in its mother’s milk. “Why not?” the natural man asks. “What’s wrong with that? Why would God care if we eat those things?”

     Do not worship God by using methods borrowed from heathen idol worship. “Why not?” the natural man asks. “The heathens have some pretty cool traditions that we can Christianize and use to glorify God.”

     Do not wear a garment made of wool and linen woven together. A woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

     “Why not?” the natural man says. “So what if I get a thrill from wearing women’s underwear? I’m not hurting anyone. Nobody even sees it.”

     “Yes, why not?” asks the natural woman. “If I want to wear pants like a man, what’s wrong with that?”

     Because people see no obvious reason for the chukim, and because God does not reveal the reason, these are the commandments that get the most resistance from people who think with their carnal mind. They do not see why it matters to God, because they are thinking with their carnal mind, and the carnal mind “is not subject to the law of God” (Rom. 8:7), and “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14).

“LEGALISM!”

     Some Christians confuse obedience with legalism. Obedience is not legalism. Obedience is how we show our love for God, as it is written, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous” (1 John. 5:3).

     When I hear accusations of legalism, I point out that the words legalism, legalist, and legalistic are not even in the Bible, at least not in the KJV. According to my Webster’s Dictionary, the oldest known use of these three words was around 1864. In the long history of the English language, these words are fairly new additions to our language.

     If I am accused by someone of being a legalist, I want to say, “If I am a legalist, what does that make you? An illegalist?”

     When Paul wrote about good soldiers of Jesus Christ being rewarded (“crowned”) for their service, he said a man “is not crowned, except he strive lawfully” (2 Tim. 2:5). If you want to be rewarded for serving the Lord, you must serve Him within the boundaries of His laws.

ALM: “ALL LAWS MATTER” 

     The chukim are often not the weightier matters of the law, but all God-given laws matter. Furthermore, our obedience to the chukim reveals how much we really trust God. When we obey commandments that seem illogical or even foolish to the natural man, we are showing that we trust God’s wisdom. We believe our Father knows what He is doing. He knows what is best for us, even if we do not know the reasons for certain commandments. He has a good reason for every commandment He gives, and He is not required to reveal that reason to us.

     If you are resisting the chukim or any other commandments, you are eating from the tree of knowledge. You are deciding for yourself what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and unacceptable. Stop eating from the tree of knowledge and start eating from the tree of life. Accept God’s authority in your life, even when you do not understand the reason for some of His commandments. Stop thinking with your natural mind, and start thinking with your spiritual mind, because “to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).

| DB