And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
The Lord gave the newly created pair free leave to eat from every tree of Eden, an abundant provision for their enjoyment and need that left them without want or excuse. Only one tree was reserved, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil standing near the tree of life, which they were forbidden even to touch on pain of certain death. The broad grant with its single prohibition placed them on probation, to prove loyalty, faith, love and gratitude by willing obedience that would have cost them nothing good. By listening to the tempter's denial of God's word they ate in disobedience, and brought sin and death into the world with guilt, loss, toil, sorrow and banishment from Eden. The same perfect obedience is still required under grace and can be rendered through Christ the second Adam, who overcame where the first fell, whether in control of appetite, in returning the reserved tithe, or in keeping the reserved seventh-day Sabbath.
Generous Provision in Eden
The command gives Adam and Eve free leave to eat from every tree of the garden except one, a broad and generous grant that supplies every want and need for enjoyment and happiness and leaves them with no lack and no excuse for disobedience. All the permitted trees belong to them to enjoy, and keeping the single restriction would not have deprived them of anything good or necessary for life. The largeness of the permission joined to one prohibition makes it the first moral lesson of self-denial and self-government, placing the reins in man's hands for judgment, reason, and conscience to bear sway and for appetite to be kept subordinate to the moral and intellectual powers. Happiness, lasting favor, and life depend on obedience to it, for it tests obedience, loyalty, faith, love, trust, confidence, and gratitude, and teaches that God's word is sacred and to be obeyed implicitly under penalty of certain death in the day of eating.
The grant belongs to life in Eden before sin entered, where a holy pair bearing the Maker's image in perfect form and harmonious faculties were placed to dress and keep the garden as farm and vineyard in pleasant, healthful labor without weariness or toil. Everything around them is beautiful and pleasant for food and lovely and adapted to their wants, and they are taught daily and visited in the cool of the day in communion with God and Christ and with sinless angels. They live in holy innocence as free moral agents with full liberty to yield or withhold obedience, and while obedient they are safe and secure as the heavenly angels, whom God will not compel and whom every angel would help if needed. God remains owner of the Eden home which they hold under Him in holy dependence with the Lord as Educator, and if the test is endured the race would after trial be made equal to angels, molded after the divine similitude.
The free permission includes the tree of life, whose fruit possesses supernatural virtue as the antidote of death so that to eat is to live forever, and whose leaves are for sustaining life and immortality. After sin entered and transgression brought death and opened the floodgates of woe, man shut himself off from access to it and it was transplanted to the paradise above. Yet its branches hang over the wall to this lower world, so that through the redemption purchased by the blood of Christ men may still eat its life-giving fruit. The tree is a type of Christ the one great Source of immortality and fountain of life, so that obedience to Him gladdens the soul and life and immortality are now brought to light through Jesus Christ.
Single Tree Reserved
Of every tree free permission was given with only one tree excepted and reserved, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That reserved tree stood in the midst of the garden near the tree of life, placed as the pledge of obedience, faith and love and as the test to prove loyalty. God forbade eating from it and even touching it, with express warning that eating would bring certain death in the very day of eating. Disobeying that express command by doing the very thing forbidden opened the floodgates of woe upon the world.
The forbidden tree was as attractive and lovely as the rest, and its fruit looked beautiful to the sight and pleasant and desirable to the taste. The fruit was harmless in itself, and eating became sin only because God had forbidden it. The abundance provided made the single restriction no severe deprivation but a very light and small test calling for self-denial, with judgment, reason and conscience to govern choice in forming steadfast character. The very lightness and smallness of the prohibition made disobedience inexcusable and exceedingly great, showing that even slight disregard of God's requirements is grave, that violating even the least of His commandments is terrible, and that sin in any degree is offensive to God and ruinous if allowed to prevail.
It is called the tree of knowledge because eating from it would bring knowledge of sin, guilt and disobedience through transgression. Knowledge of good was already given, while knowledge of evil — sin and its results of toil, anxious care, disappointment, grief, pain and death — was lovingly withheld. God did not will the sinless pair to know evil and did not create evil, sin and death, which resulted only from disobedience. Satan introduced that unholy knowledge by enticing them to seek what God had not designed humanity to know, and that knowledge leads to loss of the Eden home and to eternal death.
The reservation asserted the sovereignty and authority of the Creator and was a lesson, symbol and constant reminder of dependence on Him, so that whenever they looked at it they were reminded of His authority. Eden was given as farm and vineyard to tend and keep in holy dependence, with God remaining owner of the Eden home which they held under Him. The grant bade them acknowledge Him as possessor of all things and gave opportunity to show faith, trust, gratitude, loyalty and complete obedience. The same principle governs means, for God lends men His goods to trade upon but reserves His own, requiring return according to His directions rather than human ideas, wherein lies safety and security.
Probation Requiring Obedience
The broad permission to eat freely from every tree, joined to the single prohibition, put the man and the woman on probation to test obedience, loyalty, faith, love, trust, confidence, and gratitude. Happiness, continuance in favor, and life itself were made to depend on obedience, and keeping the command would have deprived them of nothing good, hurtful to nothing, and taken away no necessity of life. If the trial had been endured, after testing they would have come into eternal security, equality with angels, character molded after the divine similitude, and the fulfillment of the purpose to repeople heaven with a loyal race.
They were created pure and noble with no tendency to evil, as free moral agents with full liberty to yield obedience or to withhold it. God would not compel obedience, nor take away the power to go contrary to His will, nor hold them from disobedience by miracle, for forced service would have sustained the charge that His rule is arbitrary. While they remained obedient they were safe and secure as the heavenly angels, Satan could not harm or deceive them, and if need arose every angel would have been sent to their help. Their high estate, like that of the angels, was retained only on condition of obedience, under a law as sacred as God Himself requiring implicit obedience in heaven and on earth.
The first moral lesson in the command was self-denial, placing the reins of self-government in man's hands for judgment, reason, and conscience to bear sway. The test required keeping appetite subordinate to the moral and intellectual powers, exercising self-control amid abundance provided for enjoyment and every need. In this way probation was to develop perfect character and steadfastness through obedient choice.
God did not permit Satan to follow them with continual temptations, but allowed him access to them only at the forbidden tree. Safety therefore lay in closely following the instruction, heeding the warning, being content with what had been imparted, and not touching or investigating the tree where alone exposure to disguised influence would come. They were cautioned not to separate, lest one meet the foe alone, and not to pry into unsearchable plans or reason about the cause of the restriction.
Temptation Fall and Ruin
Satan worked alone to wrest the pair from God by cunning and deceit, misrepresenting God's character as selfish and untruthful and twisting the broad permission by asking whether God had forbidden every tree. He could exercise no power over them while they obeyed, for their happiness and safety depended on obedience and on remaining under God's favor, so he planned to make them doubt God's truthfulness, question the reason for the restriction, and forfeit that favor and come under his direct influence. Taking another form and showing false interest for man, he deliberately fixed their attention on the one forbidden tree, though danger lay only in disobeying concerning it and not in approaching the other trees, and he plied them with flattery, envy, distrust, questioning, and unbelief. He insinuated evil through the prohibition, excited curiosity to pry into God's unsearchable plans and to reason about the cause of the restriction, and worked by curiosity and ambition with the false promise of higher wisdom, exhilaration, a happier life, and existence as gods. Believing his wily insinuations and false assertions against God's character was the beginning of disobedience and transgression in the world, and that listening opened the floodgates of woe, brought sin into the world and death by sin, a work he has continued by leading men to accept his assertions as proof against God and by working against Christ in restoring God's image and similitude in man.
Eve was beguiled and, though surrounded with beauty and plenty and unsatisfied with abundant provision, yielded when appetite, curiosity, and ambition triumphed over reason through the flattering idea of a higher and happier life. The fruit looked pleasant and desirable to taste, and appetite became Satan's means of tempting the sinless pair amid stately trees, vines, shrubs, flowers, and every good fruit-tree grown for variety and inexhaustible supply for pleasure of taste and support of life. Adam was not deceived as Eve was but knew exactly what God meant, so his transgression was rash, presumptuous, and inexcusable; when his wife had sinned he was sad, troubled, and tempted over what would become of her, listened to Eve repeating the serpent's words, let constancy and integrity waver, and doubted whether God meant just as He said. He fell with her from love for Eve and ate, and by listening to the tempter and obeying his voice instead of God's words they broke God's just command and became sinners by transgression of His law. That free gift had placed man on probation to develop a perfect character by self-control, keeping appetite subordinate to moral and intellectual powers under warning of death, and their failure lost innocence and plunged the race into six thousand years of guilt, transgression of moral and physical law, sickness, pain, sorrow, and death.
Their disobedience was transgression of the law of Jehovah that brought sin into the world with death as the result, and knowing that result yet still disobeying God's Thou shalt and thou shalt not leaves men no less sinners than Adam. The grant belonged to life in a garden where everything was beautiful and pleasant for food, given as farm and vineyard to tend and keep in holy dependence with the Lord as Educator, and to a test of obedience and of trust and confidence in God on which happiness depended, keeping which would not have hurt Adam or deprived him of any necessity of life. The one reserved tree was a test proving loyalty and showing the sovereignty and authority of the Creator, a lesson and symbol of dependence so that whenever they looked at it they were reminded of God's authority, and the very smallness of the test made eating inexcusable, for they had no need of that tree. Disobedience to a plain Thus saith the Lord brought sorrow and woe and death into the world, forfeited God's gifts and favor, and brought guilt, fear, loss of the covering light, misery, remorse, wrath, curse, anxiety, toil, sickness, pain, sorrow, and exclusion from the Eden home with expulsion and a flaming sword guarding the tree of life. Posterity became depraved sinners and the earth was corrupted, and Infinite Wisdom devised redemption, bringing Christ to this world as the second Adam to place man on a second probation with the great Redeemer to help form a perfect character and restore what was lost.
The greatness of the sin was not in the act of eating itself but in disobedience to God's specified requirement, a virtual denial of God, for it is disobedience itself and not its apparent size that is the crime. God in mercy gave no severe test but free permission to eat of every tree with only a very light prohibition, because man created after His likeness, free from sin, to people the earth with beings only a little lower than the angels, must have obedience tested lest the world be filled with those who would disregard His law. The very lightness of the prohibition made Adam's sin exceedingly great; if he could not bear the smallest of tests he could not have endured a greater trial or been entrusted with higher responsibilities. That removes the excuse that God is not particular about little things and proves that sin in any degree is offensive to God, ruinous to the transgressor, and fatal to the well-being of the universe if allowed to prevail, and that right and wrong are the same for human beings and angels. Adam and Eve knew God's express command with its definite penalty, so their disobedience was deliberate transgression and not lack of information, and their experience showed that God carries out the punishment He declares for transgression, that the wages of sin is death, that His retributive justice never fails, and that He exacts a strict regard for His commandments with a penalty as definite and sure as when the law was proclaimed at Sinai.
Law Doctrine and Parallels
The grant to eat freely is the divine law given in Eden, the holy law of God's kingdom and the law of love requiring love to God and to neighbor, spoken then and afterward proclaimed at Sinai as the Ten Commandments. It carries the authority of God and of His Son, demands perfect obedience, promises reward for obedience and death for disobedience, and was given with its penalty made known beforehand so that loyalty could be tested. Transgression of that Eden law introduced sin into the fair world, and men and women grew more bold in disobeying until death became the portion of the rebellious. Disobedience brings the wages of sin which is death, God's retributive justice never fails, He exacts strict regard for His commandments with a penalty as definite and sure as at Sinai, and the degree of light given measures responsibility. All in responsibility, especially rulers of nations and those united with them, must begin with this Eden law and realize amenability to it and obey all its requirements, with the fall and its results plainly kept in view.
The perfect obedience required of Adam in Eden is no less broad under the covenant of grace and the gospel today, demanding harmony with God's holy, just and good law and extending to all His commandments. Eternal life still requires perfect righteousness, harmony with God and complete conformity to His law, and every command carries the promise that God will enable obedience and make men like Himself unless resisted by a perverse will. That same obedience to all God's requirements is laid upon every human being as the condition of life and salvation, giving moral power to repent and obey so that men may be restored to Eden and become safe members of the royal family. Christ as the second Adam came to the same ground where the first Adam fell, beginning where Adam began in purity and holiness and connection with God though less favorably situated, and by perfect obedience overcame where Adam fell, honored the law by His sacrifice, and gives imputed righteousness. The first Adam was abundantly supplied with pure undefiled nature, fruits, flowers and lofty trees and fell under the smallest test that could prove obedience, opening the floodgates of woe and making many sinners with depraved posterity, and since then the family with few exceptions has served Satan under his galling yoke and heavy burdens until redeemed by Christ.
As God gave free use of every tree with one reserve forbidden to use, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so He lends men His goods to trade upon while reserving one tenth as His own. The reserved tree was a constant reminder that all belonged to Him and gave opportunity to show faith, trust and perfect obedience, and safety and security lie in obeying His directions rather than following human ideas and using what He reserved. The same principle governs means: the tenth of all increase is sacred, to be faithfully laid aside and returned to Him and placed in His treasury for sacred purposes. It is to support those carrying the message of salvation to all parts of the world so means may ever flow into the treasure house and the light of truth reach those nigh and afar off, and by faithful obedience men prove they realize all belongs to God.
As God gave use of every tree save one, so He has given men six days for common business and labor but has put His sanctity upon the seventh day, declaring it holy to be sacredly observed as a memorial of creation. Whether Adam obeyed about the trees made every difference, for eating the forbidden fruit instead of the permitted trees was disobedience and transgression that opened the floodgates of woe, and obeying which day is kept makes every difference in the same way. Doing the very thing God told him not to do decided loyalty against Satan's reasoning that it makes no difference, and searching the Scriptures that testify of Christ shows obedience in contrast with disobedience, for as by Adam's disobedience many were made sinners so by Christ's obedience many are made righteous. Disregard of the Eden command with its terrible consequences warns against rejecting God's commandments, the Sabbath is a present-day test of obedience, and men who have not learned that God means what He says now repeat Adam's sin by discarding God's Sabbath and losing what God gave.
The same probation of abundant provision joined to one prohibition exists on other unfallen worlds, where intelligent beings have two beautiful fruit trees with power to eat of both but are forbidden one, one tree resembling the tree of life. By strict obedience to God's commandments and never tasting the forbidden tree they remain noble, majestic, lovely, free and happy in holy joy bearing the express image of Jesus. If they should eat they would fall by disobedience like those on the earth.
The history of the two trees with the order of creation and the object of the garden is closely connected with man's destiny and remained undisputed fact while Eden stood in sight with its entrance barred by watching angels, giving that age unequaled advantages to gain knowledge of God through His works as an age of great light. The free grant of every tree belonged to man's holy and happy estate in Paradise under strict adherence to God's law, and breaking it brought the fall whose sufferings taught the necessity of obedience. Adam treasured what God revealed, was commanded to instruct posterity in the way of the Lord, and for nearly a thousand years lived among men to the ninth generation as a witness seeking to stem evil, describing Paradise, repeating the fall, telling obedience learned through suffering and explaining merciful provisions for salvation, though few heeded and he often met bitter reproach for the woe his sin brought. The gift of Eden held under conditions is the same kind of test as the giving of Canaan to Israel to cultivate for the Lord, where compliance with the conditions would have brought spiritual and temporal prosperity.
Present Warnings and Duties
The free permission to eat from every tree except one was a moral test of appetite, requiring self-control that keeps appetite subordinate to moral and intellectual powers. God in beneficence welcomed man to eat freely, having caused every good fruit-tree to grow to provide inexhaustible variety of what was good for food for pleasure of taste and support of life amid delightful surroundings of stately trees, vines, shrubs and flowers. Man was first created upright with perfectly balanced mind and every organ full in size and strength and harmoniously developed, placed on probation to develop perfect character, and warned not to eat of the one tree on pain of death. Though the forbidden tree was beautiful to sight and pleasant to taste and transgression seemed a small matter, Adam and Eve basely yielded when appetite, curiosity and ambition triumphed over reason through the flattering idea of a higher and happier life, losing innocence and breaking allegiance to God. That fall opened the gates to a flood of guilt and woe that has deluged the world in six thousand years of transgression of moral and physical law, sickness, pain, sorrow and death, with the laws of nature working out their full penalty, and stands as the example of the effects of yielding to appetite. Coveting forbidden food meant placing appetite above God's command, just as He later commanded Aaron and his sons to abstain from wine and strong drink when serving in the tabernacle, teaching that strict temperance is necessary to preserve powers for clear judgment and faithful obedience. Satan succeeded in Eden by tempting through appetite, and intemperance weakens physical, mental and moral powers until people fail to distinguish right from wrong and treat eternal things as common. Infinite Wisdom devised redemption placing man on a second probation with the great Redeemer to help form perfect character, in which men are tested just where the first parents were tested, with the Hebrews in the wilderness and with professed Christians now, for when appetite rules reason and conscience they are not walking in God's favor. Indulgence of appetites and passions is the greatest moral evil, and perverted appetite must be brought under strict control to prepare for Paradise restored.
The permission belongs to the first grand hygienic rule prescribing man's diet, given for well-being in this life and as a rule by which immortal life may be attained. God gave the first pair free access to every tree except one, furnishing abundant wholesome food from fruits, vegetables and grains of the earth for enjoyment and gratification of unperverted appetite in bountiful variety palatable to taste and nutritious to system. That food was what their wants required and what He designed the race should eat, for there was to be no death in Eden and it was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken, with no permission to eat animal food until after the flood. Prepared simply and naturally free from spice and grease of all kinds, with milk or cream, it makes the most healthful diet, nourishing the body and preserving its vigor, imparting power of endurance and vigor of intellect not produced by a stimulating diet, and mothers should study to set such simple yet nutritious diet before the family. Their simple habits in harmony with nature's laws represent life with God's natural provisions, while selfishness and unnatural appetite bring excess, want, sin and misery. Disregarding God's prohibitions like Eve beguiled by Satan and violating the laws of health brings disease, degeneracy and removal of God's prospering hand, for Christ planted no seeds of death while Satan's sowing brought poisonous herbs and drugs that destroy rather than cleanse.
Taking the forbidden tree now means seeking speculative knowledge that requires disobedience, for Satan tested the command by tempting Adam and Eve with a way to improve their condition, and their disobedience in touching the tree estranged humanity from God and separated earth from heaven. They sought withheld knowledge by disobeying, but gained only acquaintance with sin and its results of evil, toil and loss of Eden, whereas had they left the tree untouched and never tasted what alone could endanger their safety, God would have imparted true knowledge resting under no curse of sin and bringing everlasting joy. That true knowledge from His Word would not be left behind with this world but carried into the paradise of God, while forbidden knowledge leads away from God into forbidden paths and wearies minds to death in trying to obtain it. The same forbidden course is followed when youth spend years acquiring human wisdom from infidel authors with no vital connection to God, and when students study works that turn them from Scripture toward errors, superstitions, heresies and hellish science that counterwork truth. Such inquisitive and presumptuous sons and daughters of Adam who venture contrary to God's will share Eve's result, handling, setting, printing and publishing such matter with eyes, hands, mind and intellect lent for God's glory, opening the heart to criticism and darkness, forsaking Scripture study and ending in death, for that education is but wood and stubble to be consumed in the last great conflagration, dying with its possessor, valued nothing by God, lessening the brightness of the Word and eclipsing faith.
The clear command and warning in Eden is the measure for every other voice, for the holy pair came from God's hand without sin or taint of evil or predisposition to sin and could have kept innocence by living by every word from God's mouth and refusing the strange voice telling a different story from what God had told them. Satan came disguised in the serpent so they did not discern a fallen angel, and they fell by listening to his presentations instead of turning from the tempter when his words differed from God's words, abusing high and holy privileges to choose evil and believe his lie, perverting and defiling what was pure and godlike. Their experience is a constant warning never to turn aside from the Word of God under any circumstances, to turn from tempters, to choose associates from the pure and righteous, and to build on the rock by hearing and doing. God compels obedience from no one but leaves each free to choose between good and evil, giving all help required to become an overcomer while leaving him free to place inherited and cultivated tendencies under control of the Holy Spirit or follow his own imaginations. Those who truly receive Christ eat God's Word as the bread of life and eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son, which is the tree of life, escaping control of hereditary and cultivated tendencies, pride, vanity, self-esteem, worldliness and every sin, working out salvation with fear and trembling as God works in them to will and do, cooperating with God and showing respect by obedience rather than eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge. Breaking God's law by indulging foolish lust and appetite injures the breaker and defiles body, soul and spirit, and those blinded by passion cling to injurious indulgence and refuse effort to overcome, in fellowship with the world with no right to the Christian name, for a Christian is Christlike. To practice self-abuse and communicate vile practices and vile imaginations to youth is to give them that forbidden fruit and cause them to partake what God forbade, polluting the soul, which God charges as adultery, and to range idle imagination among permitted fruits and flowers as forbidden links this setting to temptation and unchastity. Evil speaking against brethren and defiling lusts likewise give the forbidden fruit, and when judgment sits all judged according to deeds done in the body will learn they misrepresented Christ and were a savor of death unto death, with no numerous company in the same practices to excuse iniquity or lessen condemnation for destroying brain nerve power and physical health, for all stand personally before God to hear sentence.
The Lord gave the newly created pair free leave to eat from every tree of Eden, an abundant provision for their enjoyment and need that left them without want or excuse. Only one tree was reserved, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil standing near the tree of life, which they were forbidden even to touch on pain of certain death. The broad grant with its single prohibition placed them on probation, to prove loyalty, faith, love and gratitude by willing obedience that would have cost them nothing good. By listening to the tempter's denial of God's word they ate in disobedience, and brought sin and death into the world with guilt, loss, toil, sorrow and banishment from Eden. The same perfect obedience is still required under grace and can be rendered through Christ the second Adam, who overcame where the first fell, whether in control of appetite, in returning the reserved tithe, or in keeping the reserved seventh-day Sabbath.
Generous Provision in Eden
The command gives Adam and Eve free leave to eat from every tree of the garden except one, a broad and generous grant that supplies every want and need for enjoyment and happiness and leaves them with no lack and no excuse for disobedience. All the permitted trees belong to them to enjoy, and keeping the single restriction would not have deprived them of anything good or necessary for life. The largeness of the permission joined to one prohibition makes it the first moral lesson of self-denial and self-government, placing the reins in man's hands for judgment, reason, and conscience to bear sway and for appetite to be kept subordinate to the moral and intellectual powers. Happiness, lasting favor, and life depend on obedience to it, for it tests obedience, loyalty, faith, love, trust, confidence, and gratitude, and teaches that God's word is sacred and to be obeyed implicitly under penalty of certain death in the day of eating.
The grant belongs to life in Eden before sin entered, where a holy pair bearing the Maker's image in perfect form and harmonious faculties were placed to dress and keep the garden as farm and vineyard in pleasant, healthful labor without weariness or toil. Everything around them is beautiful and pleasant for food and lovely and adapted to their wants, and they are taught daily and visited in the cool of the day in communion with God and Christ and with sinless angels. They live in holy innocence as free moral agents with full liberty to yield or withhold obedience, and while obedient they are safe and secure as the heavenly angels, whom God will not compel and whom every angel would help if needed. God remains owner of the Eden home which they hold under Him in holy dependence with the Lord as Educator, and if the test is endured the race would after trial be made equal to angels, molded after the divine similitude.
The free permission includes the tree of life, whose fruit possesses supernatural virtue as the antidote of death so that to eat is to live forever, and whose leaves are for sustaining life and immortality. After sin entered and transgression brought death and opened the floodgates of woe, man shut himself off from access to it and it was transplanted to the paradise above. Yet its branches hang over the wall to this lower world, so that through the redemption purchased by the blood of Christ men may still eat its life-giving fruit. The tree is a type of Christ the one great Source of immortality and fountain of life, so that obedience to Him gladdens the soul and life and immortality are now brought to light through Jesus Christ.
Single Tree Reserved
Of every tree free permission was given with only one tree excepted and reserved, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That reserved tree stood in the midst of the garden near the tree of life, placed as the pledge of obedience, faith and love and as the test to prove loyalty. God forbade eating from it and even touching it, with express warning that eating would bring certain death in the very day of eating. Disobeying that express command by doing the very thing forbidden opened the floodgates of woe upon the world.
The forbidden tree was as attractive and lovely as the rest, and its fruit looked beautiful to the sight and pleasant and desirable to the taste. The fruit was harmless in itself, and eating became sin only because God had forbidden it. The abundance provided made the single restriction no severe deprivation but a very light and small test calling for self-denial, with judgment, reason and conscience to govern choice in forming steadfast character. The very lightness and smallness of the prohibition made disobedience inexcusable and exceedingly great, showing that even slight disregard of God's requirements is grave, that violating even the least of His commandments is terrible, and that sin in any degree is offensive to God and ruinous if allowed to prevail.
It is called the tree of knowledge because eating from it would bring knowledge of sin, guilt and disobedience through transgression. Knowledge of good was already given, while knowledge of evil — sin and its results of toil, anxious care, disappointment, grief, pain and death — was lovingly withheld. God did not will the sinless pair to know evil and did not create evil, sin and death, which resulted only from disobedience. Satan introduced that unholy knowledge by enticing them to seek what God had not designed humanity to know, and that knowledge leads to loss of the Eden home and to eternal death.
The reservation asserted the sovereignty and authority of the Creator and was a lesson, symbol and constant reminder of dependence on Him, so that whenever they looked at it they were reminded of His authority. Eden was given as farm and vineyard to tend and keep in holy dependence, with God remaining owner of the Eden home which they held under Him. The grant bade them acknowledge Him as possessor of all things and gave opportunity to show faith, trust, gratitude, loyalty and complete obedience. The same principle governs means, for God lends men His goods to trade upon but reserves His own, requiring return according to His directions rather than human ideas, wherein lies safety and security.
Probation Requiring Obedience
The broad permission to eat freely from every tree, joined to the single prohibition, put the man and the woman on probation to test obedience, loyalty, faith, love, trust, confidence, and gratitude. Happiness, continuance in favor, and life itself were made to depend on obedience, and keeping the command would have deprived them of nothing good, hurtful to nothing, and taken away no necessity of life. If the trial had been endured, after testing they would have come into eternal security, equality with angels, character molded after the divine similitude, and the fulfillment of the purpose to repeople heaven with a loyal race.
They were created pure and noble with no tendency to evil, as free moral agents with full liberty to yield obedience or to withhold it. God would not compel obedience, nor take away the power to go contrary to His will, nor hold them from disobedience by miracle, for forced service would have sustained the charge that His rule is arbitrary. While they remained obedient they were safe and secure as the heavenly angels, Satan could not harm or deceive them, and if need arose every angel would have been sent to their help. Their high estate, like that of the angels, was retained only on condition of obedience, under a law as sacred as God Himself requiring implicit obedience in heaven and on earth.
The first moral lesson in the command was self-denial, placing the reins of self-government in man's hands for judgment, reason, and conscience to bear sway. The test required keeping appetite subordinate to the moral and intellectual powers, exercising self-control amid abundance provided for enjoyment and every need. In this way probation was to develop perfect character and steadfastness through obedient choice.
God did not permit Satan to follow them with continual temptations, but allowed him access to them only at the forbidden tree. Safety therefore lay in closely following the instruction, heeding the warning, being content with what had been imparted, and not touching or investigating the tree where alone exposure to disguised influence would come. They were cautioned not to separate, lest one meet the foe alone, and not to pry into unsearchable plans or reason about the cause of the restriction.
Temptation Fall and Ruin
Satan worked alone to wrest the pair from God by cunning and deceit, misrepresenting God's character as selfish and untruthful and twisting the broad permission by asking whether God had forbidden every tree. He could exercise no power over them while they obeyed, for their happiness and safety depended on obedience and on remaining under God's favor, so he planned to make them doubt God's truthfulness, question the reason for the restriction, and forfeit that favor and come under his direct influence. Taking another form and showing false interest for man, he deliberately fixed their attention on the one forbidden tree, though danger lay only in disobeying concerning it and not in approaching the other trees, and he plied them with flattery, envy, distrust, questioning, and unbelief. He insinuated evil through the prohibition, excited curiosity to pry into God's unsearchable plans and to reason about the cause of the restriction, and worked by curiosity and ambition with the false promise of higher wisdom, exhilaration, a happier life, and existence as gods. Believing his wily insinuations and false assertions against God's character was the beginning of disobedience and transgression in the world, and that listening opened the floodgates of woe, brought sin into the world and death by sin, a work he has continued by leading men to accept his assertions as proof against God and by working against Christ in restoring God's image and similitude in man.
Eve was beguiled and, though surrounded with beauty and plenty and unsatisfied with abundant provision, yielded when appetite, curiosity, and ambition triumphed over reason through the flattering idea of a higher and happier life. The fruit looked pleasant and desirable to taste, and appetite became Satan's means of tempting the sinless pair amid stately trees, vines, shrubs, flowers, and every good fruit-tree grown for variety and inexhaustible supply for pleasure of taste and support of life. Adam was not deceived as Eve was but knew exactly what God meant, so his transgression was rash, presumptuous, and inexcusable; when his wife had sinned he was sad, troubled, and tempted over what would become of her, listened to Eve repeating the serpent's words, let constancy and integrity waver, and doubted whether God meant just as He said. He fell with her from love for Eve and ate, and by listening to the tempter and obeying his voice instead of God's words they broke God's just command and became sinners by transgression of His law. That free gift had placed man on probation to develop a perfect character by self-control, keeping appetite subordinate to moral and intellectual powers under warning of death, and their failure lost innocence and plunged the race into six thousand years of guilt, transgression of moral and physical law, sickness, pain, sorrow, and death.
Their disobedience was transgression of the law of Jehovah that brought sin into the world with death as the result, and knowing that result yet still disobeying God's Thou shalt and thou shalt not leaves men no less sinners than Adam. The grant belonged to life in a garden where everything was beautiful and pleasant for food, given as farm and vineyard to tend and keep in holy dependence with the Lord as Educator, and to a test of obedience and of trust and confidence in God on which happiness depended, keeping which would not have hurt Adam or deprived him of any necessity of life. The one reserved tree was a test proving loyalty and showing the sovereignty and authority of the Creator, a lesson and symbol of dependence so that whenever they looked at it they were reminded of God's authority, and the very smallness of the test made eating inexcusable, for they had no need of that tree. Disobedience to a plain Thus saith the Lord brought sorrow and woe and death into the world, forfeited God's gifts and favor, and brought guilt, fear, loss of the covering light, misery, remorse, wrath, curse, anxiety, toil, sickness, pain, sorrow, and exclusion from the Eden home with expulsion and a flaming sword guarding the tree of life. Posterity became depraved sinners and the earth was corrupted, and Infinite Wisdom devised redemption, bringing Christ to this world as the second Adam to place man on a second probation with the great Redeemer to help form a perfect character and restore what was lost.
The greatness of the sin was not in the act of eating itself but in disobedience to God's specified requirement, a virtual denial of God, for it is disobedience itself and not its apparent size that is the crime. God in mercy gave no severe test but free permission to eat of every tree with only a very light prohibition, because man created after His likeness, free from sin, to people the earth with beings only a little lower than the angels, must have obedience tested lest the world be filled with those who would disregard His law. The very lightness of the prohibition made Adam's sin exceedingly great; if he could not bear the smallest of tests he could not have endured a greater trial or been entrusted with higher responsibilities. That removes the excuse that God is not particular about little things and proves that sin in any degree is offensive to God, ruinous to the transgressor, and fatal to the well-being of the universe if allowed to prevail, and that right and wrong are the same for human beings and angels. Adam and Eve knew God's express command with its definite penalty, so their disobedience was deliberate transgression and not lack of information, and their experience showed that God carries out the punishment He declares for transgression, that the wages of sin is death, that His retributive justice never fails, and that He exacts a strict regard for His commandments with a penalty as definite and sure as when the law was proclaimed at Sinai.
Law Doctrine and Parallels
The grant to eat freely is the divine law given in Eden, the holy law of God's kingdom and the law of love requiring love to God and to neighbor, spoken then and afterward proclaimed at Sinai as the Ten Commandments. It carries the authority of God and of His Son, demands perfect obedience, promises reward for obedience and death for disobedience, and was given with its penalty made known beforehand so that loyalty could be tested. Transgression of that Eden law introduced sin into the fair world, and men and women grew more bold in disobeying until death became the portion of the rebellious. Disobedience brings the wages of sin which is death, God's retributive justice never fails, He exacts strict regard for His commandments with a penalty as definite and sure as at Sinai, and the degree of light given measures responsibility. All in responsibility, especially rulers of nations and those united with them, must begin with this Eden law and realize amenability to it and obey all its requirements, with the fall and its results plainly kept in view.
The perfect obedience required of Adam in Eden is no less broad under the covenant of grace and the gospel today, demanding harmony with God's holy, just and good law and extending to all His commandments. Eternal life still requires perfect righteousness, harmony with God and complete conformity to His law, and every command carries the promise that God will enable obedience and make men like Himself unless resisted by a perverse will. That same obedience to all God's requirements is laid upon every human being as the condition of life and salvation, giving moral power to repent and obey so that men may be restored to Eden and become safe members of the royal family. Christ as the second Adam came to the same ground where the first Adam fell, beginning where Adam began in purity and holiness and connection with God though less favorably situated, and by perfect obedience overcame where Adam fell, honored the law by His sacrifice, and gives imputed righteousness. The first Adam was abundantly supplied with pure undefiled nature, fruits, flowers and lofty trees and fell under the smallest test that could prove obedience, opening the floodgates of woe and making many sinners with depraved posterity, and since then the family with few exceptions has served Satan under his galling yoke and heavy burdens until redeemed by Christ.
As God gave free use of every tree with one reserve forbidden to use, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so He lends men His goods to trade upon while reserving one tenth as His own. The reserved tree was a constant reminder that all belonged to Him and gave opportunity to show faith, trust and perfect obedience, and safety and security lie in obeying His directions rather than following human ideas and using what He reserved. The same principle governs means: the tenth of all increase is sacred, to be faithfully laid aside and returned to Him and placed in His treasury for sacred purposes. It is to support those carrying the message of salvation to all parts of the world so means may ever flow into the treasure house and the light of truth reach those nigh and afar off, and by faithful obedience men prove they realize all belongs to God.
As God gave use of every tree save one, so He has given men six days for common business and labor but has put His sanctity upon the seventh day, declaring it holy to be sacredly observed as a memorial of creation. Whether Adam obeyed about the trees made every difference, for eating the forbidden fruit instead of the permitted trees was disobedience and transgression that opened the floodgates of woe, and obeying which day is kept makes every difference in the same way. Doing the very thing God told him not to do decided loyalty against Satan's reasoning that it makes no difference, and searching the Scriptures that testify of Christ shows obedience in contrast with disobedience, for as by Adam's disobedience many were made sinners so by Christ's obedience many are made righteous. Disregard of the Eden command with its terrible consequences warns against rejecting God's commandments, the Sabbath is a present-day test of obedience, and men who have not learned that God means what He says now repeat Adam's sin by discarding God's Sabbath and losing what God gave.
The same probation of abundant provision joined to one prohibition exists on other unfallen worlds, where intelligent beings have two beautiful fruit trees with power to eat of both but are forbidden one, one tree resembling the tree of life. By strict obedience to God's commandments and never tasting the forbidden tree they remain noble, majestic, lovely, free and happy in holy joy bearing the express image of Jesus. If they should eat they would fall by disobedience like those on the earth.
The history of the two trees with the order of creation and the object of the garden is closely connected with man's destiny and remained undisputed fact while Eden stood in sight with its entrance barred by watching angels, giving that age unequaled advantages to gain knowledge of God through His works as an age of great light. The free grant of every tree belonged to man's holy and happy estate in Paradise under strict adherence to God's law, and breaking it brought the fall whose sufferings taught the necessity of obedience. Adam treasured what God revealed, was commanded to instruct posterity in the way of the Lord, and for nearly a thousand years lived among men to the ninth generation as a witness seeking to stem evil, describing Paradise, repeating the fall, telling obedience learned through suffering and explaining merciful provisions for salvation, though few heeded and he often met bitter reproach for the woe his sin brought. The gift of Eden held under conditions is the same kind of test as the giving of Canaan to Israel to cultivate for the Lord, where compliance with the conditions would have brought spiritual and temporal prosperity.
Present Warnings and Duties
The free permission to eat from every tree except one was a moral test of appetite, requiring self-control that keeps appetite subordinate to moral and intellectual powers. God in beneficence welcomed man to eat freely, having caused every good fruit-tree to grow to provide inexhaustible variety of what was good for food for pleasure of taste and support of life amid delightful surroundings of stately trees, vines, shrubs and flowers. Man was first created upright with perfectly balanced mind and every organ full in size and strength and harmoniously developed, placed on probation to develop perfect character, and warned not to eat of the one tree on pain of death. Though the forbidden tree was beautiful to sight and pleasant to taste and transgression seemed a small matter, Adam and Eve basely yielded when appetite, curiosity and ambition triumphed over reason through the flattering idea of a higher and happier life, losing innocence and breaking allegiance to God. That fall opened the gates to a flood of guilt and woe that has deluged the world in six thousand years of transgression of moral and physical law, sickness, pain, sorrow and death, with the laws of nature working out their full penalty, and stands as the example of the effects of yielding to appetite. Coveting forbidden food meant placing appetite above God's command, just as He later commanded Aaron and his sons to abstain from wine and strong drink when serving in the tabernacle, teaching that strict temperance is necessary to preserve powers for clear judgment and faithful obedience. Satan succeeded in Eden by tempting through appetite, and intemperance weakens physical, mental and moral powers until people fail to distinguish right from wrong and treat eternal things as common. Infinite Wisdom devised redemption placing man on a second probation with the great Redeemer to help form perfect character, in which men are tested just where the first parents were tested, with the Hebrews in the wilderness and with professed Christians now, for when appetite rules reason and conscience they are not walking in God's favor. Indulgence of appetites and passions is the greatest moral evil, and perverted appetite must be brought under strict control to prepare for Paradise restored.
The permission belongs to the first grand hygienic rule prescribing man's diet, given for well-being in this life and as a rule by which immortal life may be attained. God gave the first pair free access to every tree except one, furnishing abundant wholesome food from fruits, vegetables and grains of the earth for enjoyment and gratification of unperverted appetite in bountiful variety palatable to taste and nutritious to system. That food was what their wants required and what He designed the race should eat, for there was to be no death in Eden and it was contrary to His plan to have the life of any creature taken, with no permission to eat animal food until after the flood. Prepared simply and naturally free from spice and grease of all kinds, with milk or cream, it makes the most healthful diet, nourishing the body and preserving its vigor, imparting power of endurance and vigor of intellect not produced by a stimulating diet, and mothers should study to set such simple yet nutritious diet before the family. Their simple habits in harmony with nature's laws represent life with God's natural provisions, while selfishness and unnatural appetite bring excess, want, sin and misery. Disregarding God's prohibitions like Eve beguiled by Satan and violating the laws of health brings disease, degeneracy and removal of God's prospering hand, for Christ planted no seeds of death while Satan's sowing brought poisonous herbs and drugs that destroy rather than cleanse.
Taking the forbidden tree now means seeking speculative knowledge that requires disobedience, for Satan tested the command by tempting Adam and Eve with a way to improve their condition, and their disobedience in touching the tree estranged humanity from God and separated earth from heaven. They sought withheld knowledge by disobeying, but gained only acquaintance with sin and its results of evil, toil and loss of Eden, whereas had they left the tree untouched and never tasted what alone could endanger their safety, God would have imparted true knowledge resting under no curse of sin and bringing everlasting joy. That true knowledge from His Word would not be left behind with this world but carried into the paradise of God, while forbidden knowledge leads away from God into forbidden paths and wearies minds to death in trying to obtain it. The same forbidden course is followed when youth spend years acquiring human wisdom from infidel authors with no vital connection to God, and when students study works that turn them from Scripture toward errors, superstitions, heresies and hellish science that counterwork truth. Such inquisitive and presumptuous sons and daughters of Adam who venture contrary to God's will share Eve's result, handling, setting, printing and publishing such matter with eyes, hands, mind and intellect lent for God's glory, opening the heart to criticism and darkness, forsaking Scripture study and ending in death, for that education is but wood and stubble to be consumed in the last great conflagration, dying with its possessor, valued nothing by God, lessening the brightness of the Word and eclipsing faith.
The clear command and warning in Eden is the measure for every other voice, for the holy pair came from God's hand without sin or taint of evil or predisposition to sin and could have kept innocence by living by every word from God's mouth and refusing the strange voice telling a different story from what God had told them. Satan came disguised in the serpent so they did not discern a fallen angel, and they fell by listening to his presentations instead of turning from the tempter when his words differed from God's words, abusing high and holy privileges to choose evil and believe his lie, perverting and defiling what was pure and godlike. Their experience is a constant warning never to turn aside from the Word of God under any circumstances, to turn from tempters, to choose associates from the pure and righteous, and to build on the rock by hearing and doing. God compels obedience from no one but leaves each free to choose between good and evil, giving all help required to become an overcomer while leaving him free to place inherited and cultivated tendencies under control of the Holy Spirit or follow his own imaginations. Those who truly receive Christ eat God's Word as the bread of life and eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son, which is the tree of life, escaping control of hereditary and cultivated tendencies, pride, vanity, self-esteem, worldliness and every sin, working out salvation with fear and trembling as God works in them to will and do, cooperating with God and showing respect by obedience rather than eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge. Breaking God's law by indulging foolish lust and appetite injures the breaker and defiles body, soul and spirit, and those blinded by passion cling to injurious indulgence and refuse effort to overcome, in fellowship with the world with no right to the Christian name, for a Christian is Christlike. To practice self-abuse and communicate vile practices and vile imaginations to youth is to give them that forbidden fruit and cause them to partake what God forbade, polluting the soul, which God charges as adultery, and to range idle imagination among permitted fruits and flowers as forbidden links this setting to temptation and unchastity. Evil speaking against brethren and defiling lusts likewise give the forbidden fruit, and when judgment sits all judged according to deeds done in the body will learn they misrepresented Christ and were a savor of death unto death, with no numerous company in the same practices to excuse iniquity or lessen condemnation for destroying brain nerve power and physical health, for all stand personally before God to hear sentence.