The Two Trees

     God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. There he put man whom He had formed. God made all kinds of trees spring from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good for food. The Tree-of-Life was in the midst of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.

     The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and care for it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."  ~ from Genesis 2

  Trees are a resource, a means of supplying something that is desired. Trees today are resources for construction material, furniture, fuel, food, paper products, all sorts of cellulose based plastics and more. The two named trees in primeval Eden were not so much "re"sources as they were primordial sources; one, a source of life, and the other, a source of knowledge of good and evil.

  When I was very young and first becoming familiar with the creation account, I thought that God wasn't very fair to give Eve a chance to choose between the two trees, but no one else ever got to.  Many years later, I came to realize that everyone will get to make this choice almost daily; but it took some "real life" to figure that out.

   For the inexperienced, it may be hard to differentiate between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil . Both are visually pleasant. But the Tree of Life is a source of God Himself.

For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.   John 5:26
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life.  John 11:25
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.   John 14:6

The the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the one which the serpent claimed could make men gods, bears a very different fruit. It did not make them true gods, but in resulted only in their determining right and wrong. When Adam ate of the fruit of that tree, he determined what was right/wrong for himself. In the sense that Adam set the standard, he became a god, but it also brought a curse of death, of separation from God who is love and light and life.

Our choices in life are very much like the choice Adam and Eve had in the Garden; sometimes we are more like Eve and are deceived into making a wrong choice, and other times we are more like Adam, who seems to have made the decision because he was influenced by Eve; at lest, that was the excuse that he gave.  

The Runaway Bride chose the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as her source. She determined what was the right thing to do for herself, and did not choose the the tree of the Lord, who came to bring life abundantly.

I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.   John 10:10 

The Lesson
We all get to choose which tree will be our source. We can choose God's way, which is life, if we are willing and obedient. Or we can choose to be our own god and decide what is right and wrong for ourselves.