As we pick up the Book of Genesis again in the new year, let's briefly refresh our memories of where it took us during the year so lately concluded. After a sneak peak behind the veil at the Creator at home in his eternal triune self, we watched creation explode into being out of nothing, loved into existence by the God who spoke his Word and poured out his Spirit. We saw chaos become order, saw darkness yield to light, and marveled at earth and starry sky and sea, at the blooming forth of the plants, at the swimming fishes and soaring birds and the countless marvels of the animal world. We watched as, from the dust of the earth and the breath of life, a new kind of creature was welcomed to the scene: the human being. We began to probe the mystery that this one kind of creature is stamped with the Creator's very own image: a priestly animal ministering in God's cosmic temple, a royal animal administering God's dominion over the others. We turned then to examine the incredible value of men and women, how they share these callings, the mystery called marriage, and how they're meant to fruitfully multiply God's image, spread Eden to all the earth, and ultimately ascend to a supernatural life.
In studying the human habitat called the Garden of Eden, we were suitably impressed at its pleasantness, as we enjoyed all the comforts God offered us in our originally innocent condition. We found a wide variety of plants there, though today there are two we have our eye on, because Genesis highlights them for their significance. It is of course a garden where the LORD has planted and grown “every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” But we're told about two particular examples that stand out among this bounty.
First, we're told that “the tree of life was in the midst of the garden” (Genesis 2:9). This tree grows at center-stage, even though it's going to in fact be veiled from our attention throughout most of the story. All other trees of the garden are there to sustain life by the supply of nourishment – that's what it means that they're 'good for food.' But it's been said that this tree is something deeper: not just nourishment, but a sacrament.1 It's a symbol that makes truly present the Creator's own life-giving presence within his creation, because “God, who gives life, is at the center” – not anything else, not even the human being, is central to the garden, but God's life is.2
If the Garden of Eden is in some ways the original model for the Tabernacle and later the Temple, then the Tree of Life is what grows in the Holy of Holies. But actually the items modeled on the Tree of Life were moved into the central sanctuary. It's often suggested that the golden lampstand – with its branches and flowers and buds – was designed as a depiction of the Tree of Life (Exodus 25:31-39), always lit to signify the Tree of Life being always fruitful (Exodus 27:21).3 And in the Tabernacle, the lampstand – the menorah – always shed its light on the golden table displaying the Bread of the Presence (Exodus 25:23-30; 26:35). In a similar way, the Tree of Life in the garden preaches that the Eternal Word of God “is life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4), so that “life and immortality” are “brought to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).
But the Tree of Life isn't the only special tree in this garden. We're told there's a second tree worth comment: “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is nearby (Genesis 2:9). What that means – this phrase 'knowledge of good and evil' – has been debated for over two thousand years with no end in sight. Early Jewish writers gloss it as “the Tree of Wisdom,” which doesn't clear up as much as we'd like.4 If the Tree of Life represents divine life in the garden, then this tree emphasizes the presence of divine wisdom in the garden.5 If the Garden is the model for the Tabernacle, then some have compared this tree to the tablets of God's wise Law which were stored away inside the Ark of the Covenant.6 Those stone tablets were the standard, and they could feel good in vindication or bad in punishment, could be felt as peace or penalty.7 The tree offers the royal wisdom to govern, a divine knowledge and capacity to hand out blessings and curses, rewards and punishments, like in the Law.8
In the world where Israel lived, divine life plus divine knowledge was basically the recipe for what it meant to be a god, a personal entity on a higher plain of existence than ours.9 Of course, Israel knew well that the God they worshipped was in a class entirely his own: “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). But the word for 'god' even in Hebrew is flexible enough to cover not only the God but also other heavenly beings, including those we think of as angels and those who were wrongly worshipped by the other nations. So the Psalmist envisions the LORD taking “his place in the divine council” so that “in the midst of the gods he holds judgment” (Psalm 82:1). Israel's neighbors would've heard in this story that the ingredients of godhood grow in the garden.
Earlier, we read how God had granted to humanity “every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit..., for food” (Genesis 1:29). Now here, we hear God's word again, the first thing he says in this chapter: “You shall absolutely eat of every tree of the garden” (Genesis 2:16). This isn't just permission; this is impassioned encouragement, virtually an order to eat up!10 It's like God is saying, “Look at all these trees I planted in my garden! Behold, I'm sharing everything with you. You're dining at my table, friend, and I don't want you to leave any dish of this banquet untouched.” Not only did God make these trees nutritious, but he made them flavorful, beautiful, diverse. And what else could we want from created goods than for them to be useful, enjoyable, interesting, and varied – all while reminding us of God their Good Giver?
By implication, this invitation covers every tree in the garden – including the tree of life itself.11 But there is one exception to this carte blanche free-for-all. “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat” (Genesis 2:17). This stands out in sharp relief. And this is important, because what we're reading here is “the first law in Scripture.”12 It's every bit as much a Thou-Shalt-Not as the later Big Ten, but it's the Big One.13
Pause here for a moment to notice that, of all the kinds of actions God could have given a commandment to prohibit, or all the ways God could have phrased this, he chose this. What is the sort of act that the original commandment bans? Eating. The first commandment given to humanity is depicted in Genesis as a dietary law.14 Remember, this book is given to Israel, who had their own collection of laws regulating food. Of some creatures, they were told: “These you may eat” (Leviticus 11:2); of others: “This you shall not eat” (Leviticus 11:4). An entire chapter of the Law is filled up with nothing but details of what “may be eaten” and what “may not be eaten” (Leviticus 11:47). That doesn't even count rules about certain foods allowed only to some people in some places under some conditions, but not to other people or in other places or under other conditions.
Whatever we think about it today, God had a lot of laws about what his people Israel could eat, and how, and when. Though foreign to us since in the New Testament we learn that every dietary law was “an ordinance of flesh imposed until the time of reformation” in Christ (Hebrews 9:10), yet they were so central for Israel that the most righteous were willing to withstand torture or even lay down their lives for these dietary laws.15 To Israel, what a world of difference it must have made to see those laws in light of Eden – to realize that the one thing Adam was commanded in the garden was to keep kosher, just like them!16
With that said, now we can ask why this is the tree that's off-limits. Doesn't God want to share knowledge with us? But, first, there are some ways of approaching knowledge that aren't good. In the Old Testament, seeking knowledge from God by asking prophets and priests is one thing, and seeking knowledge from spirits by consulting mediums and fortune-tellers is a very different thing (Leviticus 19:31; Isaiah 8:19). Just so, trying to become wise 'from below' would be to seek “not the wisdom that comes down from above,” James says, “but the wisdom that is earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (James 3:15). And the tree remains a source of earthly wisdom so long as it's treated as such. Grabbing at it with our own hands, taking it because we hunger for it, is theft. That makes it knowledge that does not begin, as all true knowledge does, with the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 1:7). And that is just the kind of unspiritual knowledge God doesn't want us to consume.17 So God is saying: “I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Romans 16:19).
Second, there are some times or conditions of knowledge that aren't good. Generally speaking, we're aware that some kinds of knowledge presuppose a certain level of maturity to handle, and without that maturity, they can be quite harmful. We as a society accept this principle: you'd be wary about entrusting nuclear missile launch codes to a high-school student, you wouldn't hand the keys to a bulldozer to a sixth-grader, you wouldn't teach a third-grader the essentials of bomb-making or a second-grader the art of knife-throwing, you wouldn't take a first-grader to an R-rated movie, and you realize that a toddler is hardly ready for the knowledge of vodka and cigars. The Bible says that one characteristic of children is that they “have no knowledge of good and evil” (Deuteronomy 1:39) – they aren't equipped to handle it without psychological harm.
Just so, the humans in the garden aren't yet in a condition of full maturity. One of the earliest Christian readings of Genesis we have tells us that, since “Adam was as old as an infant, therefore he wasn't yet able to acquire knowledge properly... God wanted the man to remain simple and sincere for a longer time,” for “it is shameful for infant children to have thoughts beyond their years.”18 Adam and Eve already have the simpler wisdom of childlike faith available to them, and they need to grow in that before they can possibly cope with the mature wisdom this tree confers.19 Otherwise, they'd be traumatized. But maybe, after getting to know God over time as they carry out their mission more fully, they'd have grown to where they could have asked for this knowledge from above. After all, that's exactly what Solomon asks: “an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may know between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9). What this tells Adam and Eve is that they need to be humble and patient, need to wait, grow, learn from God before they can take the place at his side that's meant for them.20
And then, third, there are some uses of knowledge that aren't good. Even equipped with this knowledge in the right way and at the right time, it has to be used well, with a heart fixed on God, used in ways that conform scrupulously to God's directions.21 The knowledge of good and evil is a powerful and potentially dangerous thing when it tries to escape its foundation in God's Law. Cut loose on its own, this knowledge is deprived of its deep connection to truth, beauty, and goodness, and can become a weapon for accomplishing great evil. So it's no wonder the humans were warned against coveting their God's one reserved tree (cf. Romans 7:7).
Right before we hear the words of this first law, we're told that humanity was put in this garden “to serve it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Over prior months, we've peeled off layers of that purpose, and we've got one more to go. Part of our purpose in the garden is to serve, and elsewhere we're reminded “to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul” (Deuteronomy 10:12). We're to cultivate God's law, study God's word. This is the work of “a worker... rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). This is attentively digging into what God has said, in order to get a deeper and more fertile understanding of it.22 And what does God say all the time? “So you shall keep my commandments and do them – I am the LORD!” (Leviticus 22:31). “You shall absolutely keep the commandments of the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 6:17).
One of the earliest Jewish glosses on this line in Genesis is that Adam's job is “to toil in the Law and to observe its commandments.”23 And early Christians agreed that Adam was “set [in Paradise] as a laboring farmer to perform divine commands,”24 with “no other task than keeping the commandment of God.”25 The purpose, the point, of Adam and Eve being in the garden is to give them a space in which to exercise obedience, “to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach” (1 Timothy 6:14), to preserve their grace and virtue intact.26 That's a key part of the mission he's been given. Even in paradise, there's got to be self-denial for the sake of our souls, which means we need to have some sort of law at the foundation of our growth – even if it's described as just about the easiest commandment you could possibly invent.27 We are not meant to be without limit, are not meant to be totally self-determined. Paradoxically, if God refused to give us a law, we'd be less free.
For if there were no commandment, no constant reminder that humans aren't the garden's masters but only its tenants by grace, then nothing would stop us from being inwardly corrupted by pride.28 Because of how much we'd been given, “it was absolutely necessary for the man who had come into such glory and delight to understand clearly that God held a position over him as his King,” and so “God immediately issued a law.”29 Thus one tree was forbidden, “to commend the good of pure and simple obedience, which is the great virtue of a rational creature set under its Creator and Lord.”30 It thus became a sign, symbol, and sacrament of obedience.31
To Adam and Eve, the point of this command must've seemed mysterious, obscure, pointless, arbitrary. But that was because it was an opportunity to exercise life-giving faith, a trust that God's reasons for the command, though beyond our understanding, must be good because God is good. What they needed to be in a position to show was what Paul calls “the obedience of faith” (Romans 16:26). And so, to many readers through the ages, access to this tree served as a sort of test: to see whether humans would choose the obedience of faith or would take a lesser path. A test, by its nature, offers a chance for success or failure, for a good or a bad outcome; but a test also implies the offer of a reward, that the obedience of faith should not go uncrowned.32 It is, as Paul put it, “the very commandment that promised life” (Romans 7:10).
No wonder “the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12)! But, God warned Adam, there is also a chance of a bad outcome. “In the day that you eat of it, you shall absolutely die” (Genesis 2:17). That phrase – literally, 'dyingly die' – is a common Old Testament expression for the death penalty.33 Approached in a wrong way, this second tree is so far opposite the tree of life as to become practically a tree of death. Though actually, as one early Christian wrote, “it is not the tree of knowledge that kills; rather, it is disobedience,”34 “the transgression of public law and the experience of misery.”35
Obedience to God, trusting that his word is the right way to live, is a life-or-death situation – that's what trees like these aim to show us. In disobeying, we would experience not just life but also death, not just good but also evil.36 “Whoever keeps the commandment,” says the Bible, “keeps his life, but he who despises his ways will die” (Proverbs 19:16). So, says Moses, “see, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil” – but the choice is ours (Deuteronomy 30:15). That's what the trees are about, to let us choose life or death. God makes his preference clear: “Choose life!” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
Through obedience to a commandment, we were to train and build up our souls to realize not only our natural potential but the supernatural goals God always had in store for us.37 Martin Luther went so far, then, as to label these trees as “Adam's church, altar, and pulpit: here he was to yield to God the obedience he owed, give recognition to the word and will of God, give thanks to God, and call upon God for aid against temptation.”38 It was by worshipping the Lawgiver through the obedience of faith that life, true life, divine life, could be ours.
Ultimately, the point of the Law comes down to one question: what do we love most? Jesus himself says to his disciples: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21). If the people in the garden endure in loving God more than all the trees, more than life itself, then this commandment can't be too hard for them, and it certainly isn't a far-away thing (Deuteronomy 30:12). Rather, it's quite literally in their mouth, in their hand, in their heart, for them to render this loving obedience of faith at all times (Deuteronomy 30:14). “And his commandments are not burdensome” when approached with a heart of love (1 John 5:3).
That's as much for us in the world as it was for them in the garden. Over and over again, Jesus tells us – not Adam, not Eve, but you and me – that the measure of our love is keeping his commandments (John 14:15), and that keeping his commandments is the way we remain in his love, continue to know his love experientially (John 15:10). Then Jesus sent his apostles to the nations to “teach them to keep all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). The Apostle John says that anybody who professes to know God and yet doesn't keep his commandments is lying about knowing God (1 John 2:4). And even Paul, for all he says about the Law, also says that “keeping the commandments of God” is all that really matters in life (1 Corinthians 7:19), and that “obedience... leads to righteousness” (Romans 6:16). For Jesus is “the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” (Hebrews 5:9), God gives his Holy Spirit “to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32), and “whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life” (John 3:36). The truth of these two trees follows us all our days.
Standing between the trees, with life and death set before us, good and evil right at hand, may we prefer always whatever God's word and will will give us over what his wisdom won't, because we love him, we trust him, we know him, and therefore we obey him – obey him with a faith that works by love – and so shall we live. Amen.
1 Augustine of Hippo, Literal Meaning of Genesis 8.4 §8, in Works of Saint Augustine I/13:351; see also C. John Collins, Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary (P&R Publishing, 2005), 115.
2 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall (1933), in Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works 3:83.
3 Gregory K. Beale, The Temple and the Church's Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (InterVarsity, 2004), 71; G. Geoffrey Harper, “I Will Walk Among You”: The Rhetorical Function of Allusion to Genesis 1-3 in the Book of Leviticus (Eisenbrauns, 2018), 207.
4 For example, 1 Enoch 32:1, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 1:28; Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1.40, in Loeb Classical Library 242:21.
5 Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Crossway, 2023), 21.
6 Gregory K. Beale, The Temple and the Church's Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God (InterVarsity, 2004), 71; Steven C. Smith, The House of the Lord: A Catholic Biblical Theology of God's Temple Presence in the Old and New Testaments (Franciscan University Press, 2017), 63.
7 Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Crossway, 2023), 150.
8 Nathan S. French, A Theocentric Interpretation of הדעת טוב ורע: The Knowledge of Good and Evil as the Knowledge for Administering Reward and Punishment (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021), 151.
9 Peter T. Lanfer, “Solomon in the Garden of Eden: Autonomous Wisdom and the Danger of Discernment,” in Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigchelaar, eds., Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy (Brill, 2016), 714; Nathan S. French, A Theocentric Interpretation of הדעת טוב ורע: The Knowledge of Good and Evil as the Knowledge for Administering Reward and Punishment (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021), 106.
10 Joseph E. Coleson, Genesis 1-11: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition (Beacon Hill Press, 2012), 97.
11 Adam E. Miglio, The Gilgamesh Epic in Genesis 1-11: Peering into the Deep (Routledge, 2023), 56-57.
12 Tremper Longman III, Genesis, Story of God Bible Commentary (Zondervan, 2016), 49.
13 Chris W. Lee, Death Warning in the Garden of Eden: The Early Reception History of Genesis 2:17 (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 38,
14 Nahum M. Sarna, Genesis, JPS Torah Commentary (Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 21; Seth D. Postell, Adam as Israel: Genesis 1-3 as the Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh (Wipf and Stock, 2011), 117; Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis as Torah: Reading Narrative as Legal Instruction (Wipf and Stock, 2018), 48; Chris W. Lee, Death Warning in the Garden of Eden: The Early Reception History of Genesis 2:17 (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 39.
15 2 Maccabees 6:18-20; Josephus, Jewish War 2.152, in Loeb Classical Library 203:381.
16 G. Geoffrey Harper, “I Will Walk Among You”: The Rhetorical Function of Allusion to Genesis 1-3 in the Book of Leviticus (Eisenbrauns, 2018), 134.
17 Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Crossway, 2023), 149.
18 Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2.25, in Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycus (Oxford University Press, 1971), 67.
19 J. Richard Middleton, “Reading Genesis 3 Attentive to Human Evolution: Beyond Concordism and Non-Overlapping Magisteria,” in William T. Cavanaugh and James K.A. Smith, eds., Evolution and the Fall (Eerdmans, 2017), 79 n. 39.
20 Iain W. Provan, Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Baylor University Press, 2014), 113-114; John H. Walton, The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate (IVP Academic, 2015); cf. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 2.23.1, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:114.
21 Peter T. Lanfer, “Solomon in the Garden of Eden: Autonomous Wisdom and the Danger of Discernment,” in Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigchelaar, eds., Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy (Brill, 2016), 718.
22 Brian Neil Peterson, Genesis: A Pentecostal Commentary (Brill, 2022), 43.
23 Targum Neofiti Genesis 2:15, in Aramaic Bible 1A:58.
24 Gregory of Nazianzus, Poemata Arcana 7.106, in C. Moreschini, ed., and D. A. Sykes, tr., St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Poemata Arcana (Clarendon Press, 1997), 39.
25 Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2.24, in Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycus (Oxford University Press, 1971), 67.
26 Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation 3, in Popular Patristics Series 44A:57; Ambrose of Milan, On Paradise 4 §25, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 42:302.
27 Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis 2.8.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 91:102; Augustine of Hippo, City of God 14.12, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:118.
28 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 16.18, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 74:220.
29 Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch 1.2.2, in Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 137:56-57.
30 Augustine of Hippo, City of God 13.20, in Works of Saint Augustine I/7:87.
31 Robert Grosseteste, Hexaemeron 11.9.4, in C. F. J. Martin, tr., Robert Grosseteste: On the Six Days of Creation (Oxford University Press, 1996), 324.
32 Theodoret of Cyrus, Questions on Genesis 26, in Library of Early Christianity 1:63; John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 25, in Popular Patristics Series 62:125.
33 Arie van der Kooij, “The Story of Paradise in the Light of Mesopotamian Culture and Literature,” in Katharine J. Dell, Graham Davies, and Yee Von Koh, eds., Genesis, Isaiah, and Psalms: A Festschrift to Honour Professor John Emerton for His Eightieth Birthday (Brill, 2010), 6-7; Christoph Levin, “Genesis 2-3: A Case of Inner-Biblical Interpretation,” in Nathan MacDonald, Mark W. Elliott, and Grant Macaskill, eds., Genesis and Christian Theology (Eerdmans, 2012), 98; Chris W. Lee, Death Warning in the Garden of Eden: The Early Reception History of Genesis 2:17 (Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 23; Mitchell L. Chase, Short of Glory: A Biblical and Theological Exploration of the Fall (Crossway, 2023), 156.
34 Epistle to Diognetus 12.2, in Loeb Classical Library 25:157.
35 Peter Damian, Letter 49.17, in Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 2:281.
36 Augustine of Hippo, The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins 2.21 §35, in Works of Saint Augustine I/23:103.
37 R. R. Reno, Genesis, Brazos Theological Commentary (Brazos Press, 2010), 71.
38 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 2:9, in Luther's Works 1:95.
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