Genesis 3:22, commentary and pictures

God spoke after Adam and Eve's disobedience to bar fallen humanity from the life-giving tree, driving them from Eden and setting cherubim with a flaming sword to guard its way lest they reach out, eat, and live forever as sinners. The tree in the midst of Eden had power to perpetuate immortality, so that continuing to eat its fruit and its sustaining leaves kept death away and prolonged life. Access to it was conditional upon perfect and perpetual obedience, and by transgression man forfeited all right to its fruit and healing leaves. Therefore there is no immortal sinner, for exclusion from the tree enforces the sentence of death and leaves persistent sin to end in everlasting death, while through disobedience disease, sorrow, and death entered the world. The execution of the sentence was delayed because Christ pledged His life as substitute and surety, giving a second probation in which faith, repentance, and keeping the commandments restore to the obedient the right to eat of the tree and live forever.

Fall Setting and Knowledge

Genesis 3:22 belongs to the account of Adam and Eve's disobedience in eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a transgression of God's prohibition and law and not a small matter. Their eating disregarded God's command about the tree of knowledge and brought the penalty He had warned of, even though Eve at first felt no harm and mistook a pleasurable sensation for entrance into a higher life, whose absence of immediate effects did not make disobedience safe or undo God's word. Retribution followed in the fall, the loss of Eden and expulsion from it, and the opening of the floodgates of woe and suffering to the world, warning that disobedience to God's commands brings death and that His justice does not fail. Their experience demonstrates the sacred character of God's law and that God means what He says and is exacting about obedience, whose violated debt required the giving of His Son to die so that fallen man through the merits of Christ's blood could keep the law.

Eve had been cautioned not to separate from her husband in garden labor where she would be safer from temptation, yet absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side. She felt apprehension at being alone but dismissed fear, trusting her own wisdom and strength to discern evil and withstand it. She gazed with mingled curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree with its very beautiful fruit and questioned why God had withheld it, giving the tempter opportunity to address her thoughts through the serpent. The serpent was then one of the wisest and most beautiful creatures, with wings and dazzling brightness like burnished gold, resting in the rich-laden branches and eating the fruit.

By indulging desire for knowledge God had withheld, man came to know good and evil only as an acquaintance with sin and its results, and in seeking that forbidden knowledge lost all that was worth possessing. If they had obeyed, God would have imparted to them knowledge free from the curse of sin that would have brought everlasting joy. By disobedience humanity was estranged from God and earth was separated from heaven. Adam thereby became a law to himself, bringing discord and unhappiness into his life and making a separation between him and God, in contrast to a life of perfect and constant obedience.

Instead of gaining strength, the fallen pair gained weakness and could not be trusted to remain loyal, so they could not remain in Eden where access to the tree of life would let them live on in sin. Their nature had become depraved by sin, lessening their strength to resist evil and to maintain integrity. They had opened the way for Satan to gain more ready access to them, so that having yielded to temptation in innocence they would in conscious guilt have less power to maintain integrity. Though they earnestly begged to remain in the home of innocence and joy, confessed they had forfeited all right to that happy abode, and pledged strict obedience for the future, they were refused.

The knowledge taken by disobedience was forbidden knowledge that leads man away from God into forbidden paths and wearies minds to death in trying to obtain it. If they had never touched the tree of knowledge, God would have given them from His own word a true knowledge that would not be left behind with the things of this world but could be carried with them to the paradise of God, bringing everlasting joy. That forbidden knowledge stands for a worldly education that is only wood and stubble to be burned in the last great fire, an education that dies with its possessor, on which God places no value, and which shuts out and dims the brightness and value of the word of God. Understanding the change in man's condition through the coming in of a knowledge of evil belongs to understanding what is comprehended in education and God's plan for still fulfilling His glorious purpose in the education of the human race.

Satan misused the fact that Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life before sin and its fruit sustained life and still lived to argue they could not die and the divine warning of death would not actually be fulfilled but was only meant to intimidate them. He twisted God's prohibition into jealous withholding, claiming God forbade the forbidden tree because of its wonderful properties imparting wisdom and power, to keep them from a more exalted existence, broader knowledge, nobler development, greater happiness, and exaltation to equality with Himself as knowers of good and evil. He told them eating would give higher perceptions to know good and evil and make them like the angels in heaven, but their experience proved his words a lie, as they could no longer cultivate their beautiful Eden home and were shut out of the garden to work among thistles and brambles and thorns and weeds brought by the curse which he had sown.

Genesis 3:22 belongs to the account of Adam and Eve's disobedience in eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a transgression of God's prohibition and law and not a small matter. Their eating disregarded God's command about the tree of knowledge and brought the penalty He had warned of, even though Eve at first felt no harm and mistook a pleasurable sensation for entrance into a higher life, whose absence of immediate effects did not make disobedience safe or undo God's word. Retribution followed in the fall, the loss of Eden and expulsion from it, and the opening of the floodgates of woe and suffering to the world, warning that disobedience to God's commands brings death and that His justice does not fail. Their experience demonstrates the sacred character of God's law and that God means what He says and is exacting about obedience, whose violated debt required the giving of His Son to die so that fallen man through the merits of Christ's blood could keep the law.

Eve had been cautioned not to separate from her husband in garden labor where she would be safer from temptation, yet absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side. She felt apprehension at being alone but dismissed fear, trusting her own wisdom and strength to discern evil and withstand it. She gazed with mingled curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree with its very beautiful fruit and questioned why God had withheld it, giving the tempter opportunity to address her thoughts through the serpent. The serpent was then one of the wisest and most beautiful creatures, with wings and dazzling brightness like burnished gold, resting in the rich-laden branches and eating the fruit.

By indulging desire for knowledge God had withheld, man came to know good and evil only as an acquaintance with sin and its results, and in seeking that forbidden knowledge lost all that was worth possessing. If they had obeyed, God would have imparted to them knowledge free from the curse of sin that would have brought everlasting joy. By disobedience humanity was estranged from God and earth was separated from heaven. Adam thereby became a law to himself, bringing discord and unhappiness into his life and making a separation between him and God, in contrast to a life of perfect and constant obedience.

Instead of gaining strength, the fallen pair gained weakness and could not be trusted to remain loyal, so they could not remain in Eden where access to the tree of life would let them live on in sin. Their nature had become depraved by sin, lessening their strength to resist evil and to maintain integrity. They had opened the way for Satan to gain more ready access to them, so that having yielded to temptation in innocence they would in conscious guilt have less power to maintain integrity. Though they earnestly begged to remain in the home of innocence and joy, confessed they had forfeited all right to that happy abode, and pledged strict obedience for the future, they were refused.

The knowledge taken by disobedience was forbidden knowledge that leads man away from God into forbidden paths and wearies minds to death in trying to obtain it. If they had never touched the tree of knowledge, God would have given them from His own word a true knowledge that would not be left behind with the things of this world but could be carried with them to the paradise of God, bringing everlasting joy. That forbidden knowledge stands for a worldly education that is only wood and stubble to be burned in the last great fire, an education that dies with its possessor, on which God places no value, and which shuts out and dims the brightness and value of the word of God. Understanding the change in man's condition through the coming in of a knowledge of evil belongs to understanding what is comprehended in education and God's plan for still fulfilling His glorious purpose in the education of the human race.

Satan misused the fact that Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of life before sin and its fruit sustained life and still lived to argue they could not die and the divine warning of death would not actually be fulfilled but was only meant to intimidate them. He twisted God's prohibition into jealous withholding, claiming God forbade the forbidden tree because of its wonderful properties imparting wisdom and power, to keep them from a more exalted existence, broader knowledge, nobler development, greater happiness, and exaltation to equality with Himself as knowers of good and evil. He told them eating would give higher perceptions to know good and evil and make them like the angels in heaven, but their experience proved his words a lie, as they could no longer cultivate their beautiful Eden home and were shut out of the garden to work among thistles and brambles and thorns and weeds brought by the curse which he had sown.

Tree of Life Power

The tree standing in the midst of Eden possessed life-giving power to perpetuate immortality and served as an antidote to death. Its fruit was life itself and gave everlasting life to those who ate, while its leaves were for the sustaining of life and immortality and possessed healing properties. Its glory surpassed that of all the other trees of the garden. Jesus is now to the world what that tree was to Adam and Eve, the Lifegiver, so that as eating its fruit gave life, so feeding upon His flesh and drinking His blood restores eternal life to the receiver.

Endless existence depended on continuing to partake, for as long as man ate he could not die. Its life-giving power was passed onward and prolonged the lives of the antediluvians. After disobedience man was denied access and cut off from it so that he could not continue a life of sin forever and immortalize sin. Deprived of it, vitality gradually diminished until life wore out and became extinct, yet vigor remained for centuries, with Adam having access only a few generations before the Flood and man's existence still measured by centuries in Noah's day. Created life depended on God and on access to the tree, and by forfeiting the privilege of eating what would have perpetuated the life God had given, Adam brought the human family under the death penalty.

Access was conditional upon perfect and perpetual obedience as the condition of eternal happiness and life. By disobedience man fell and forfeited all right to its immortal fruit and to its leaves for healing, losing free access to it. Right to it is given again only to those who keep God's commandments, the words spoken from Sinai which are the conditions of life, for only the loyal and true shall have right to the tree and enter through the gates into the city, while the disobedient have no place there. Obedience through Jesus Christ gives perfection of character and restores that right through His blood. Man was not created already immortal but was to receive immortality after remaining loyal through his first trial, and had he borne that test he would also have been exalted equal with the angels.

After sin the tree was removed from the earth and moved to the paradise above, for sin drove man from paradise and caused paradise to be removed because of transgression. The heavenly Husbandman transplanted the tree of life to the paradise above, though its branches hang over the wall to the lower world. Through Christ's redemption its life-giving fruit remains available to fallen people.

Expulsion and Guarding

After sin God drove the transgressors out of Eden and sent them from the garden so they could not return, cutting off their access to the Eden home they could no longer cultivate and removing His blessings. That expulsion ended open beholding of God's glory and talking with God and Christ and angels in Paradise without a dimming veil between, driving man from the visible presence of the Lord and His holy angels. It marked the loss of access to God's visible presence and the beginning of mortal life amid sin, suffering, and death.

All heaven was troubled and a council was held over what to do with the guilty pair, and their possible continued access to the tree of life was a grave concern in deciding what should be done with them. In that council the angels feared they would reach forth for the tree of life and eat and become immortal sinners, continuing to live forever in a sinful condition. God therefore determined to drive the transgressors from the garden to prevent living forever in sin and disobedience.

God drove them out and appointed angels to guard the gates of paradise and the way of the tree of life with cherubim and a flaming sword, barring approach so fallen man could not put forth the hand and partake and live forever. The angels appointed were those who had guarded Adam in his Eden home before transgression, now set to guard lest fallen man return and gain access and eat and live forever and sin be immortalized. Its fruit perpetuates immortality, so fallen humanity could no longer be permitted to approach it and eat.

The guard was cherubim with a flaming sword turning every way to bar approach, commissioned immediately after the fall to guard the tree of life. They appeared each holding in the right hand something with the appearance of a glittering sword, flashing beams of light having that appearance. Flaming swords were placed around the tree of life to guard it and keep the way.

This barring defeated Satan's studied and deliberate plan that Adam and Eve should first disobey and incur God's frown and displeasure and fall under it, and then, if unforgiven, eat of the tree and live forever in sin and disobedience and perpetuate an existence of sin, misery, and disobedience, by which sin would have been immortalized. Satan had believed that gaining access to the tree would make their strength equal to that of the holy angels and even God, so that they could not be expelled from Eden. Though disappointed in that plan, he still triumphed that as he had been shut out of heaven they were shut out of Paradise.

Death and Lost Eden

The barring from the tree was to keep fallen man from reaching out, taking also, eating, and living forever in a sinful condition, which would have continued a life of sin and perpetuated sin, transgression, and misery by making men live forever as immortal sinners. After Adam and Eve broke the command by eating the forbidden tree and became sinners, they could still have eaten from the tree of life and continued living, for its fruit perpetuates immortality and sustains life, so access had to be prevented. They were therefore driven from Eden so they could not return and eat from it and live forever as sinners, with cherubim and a flaming sword set to guard the gates and the way of the tree so man could not approach and eat its fruit. The angels sorrowed and feared that outcome, that sin would be made immortal.

Because of that guard, there is not an immortal sinner, for not one of Adam's family has been permitted to pass the barrier and partake of the life-giving fruit. If man after the fall had been allowed free access, he would have lived forever and sin would have been immortalized, so a flaming sword was placed to keep the way and no descendant has passed it and eaten. Immortality promised on condition of obedience was forfeited and cannot be transmitted to posterity, and the soul that sins dies an everlasting death lasting forever with no hope of resurrection. Exclusion from the tree enforces the sentence of returning to dust and points to utter extinction of life, and eternal death is the final punishment for those who persist in sin.

Through disobedience death entered the world because of transgression, and disease, sadness, and suffering entered with it, so that humanity became subject to sickness, pain, sorrow, tears, and death under the blight of sin and Satan's almost universal sway. Created life depended on God and on access to the tree, and by disobeying Adam forfeited the privilege of eating what would have perpetuated the life God had given, bringing the human family under the death penalty. Sin marred the divine likeness, weakened physical powers, lessened mental capacity, dimmed spiritual vision, and made the race subject to death, with inherited disease, weakness, and vice repeating that fall.

Adam and Eve lost God's favor, happiness, their beautiful Eden home, and right to Paradise, and could no longer cultivate it but were shut out of the garden to work among thistles, brambles, thorns, and weeds brought by the curse which Satan had sown. Adam lost Eden by disobedience and was cut off from access to the tree of life because of transgression, and choosing that same disobedience forfeits a person's right to the Eden restored. After sin they were no longer to dwell in Eden, yet they earnestly begged to remain in the home of innocence and joy, confessed they had forfeited all right to that happy abode, and pledged strict obedience for the future, but they were refused because their nature had become depraved. They had lessened their strength to resist evil and opened the way for Satan to gain more ready access, so that having yielded in innocence they would in conscious guilt have less power to maintain integrity, proving that to be once in grace is not to be always in grace. Cain later resented this expulsion of his father as harsh, in his refusal to acknowledge dependence on Christ and confess sin by the slain lamb.

Man left the gates of Paradise to wander nearly six thousand years under moral darkness, driven from the garden, from the tree of life, and from the visible presence of the Lord and His holy angels, ending open beholding of God's glory and talking with God and Christ and angels without a dimming veil. Adam was commanded to instruct his posterity, and for nearly a thousand years he lived among men to the ninth generation as a witness to the results of sin, treasuring what God had revealed and repeating the Paradise estate, the history of the fall, the lesson of obedience learned through suffering, and the merciful provisions for salvation. God taught him through the sufferings that followed the necessity of strict adherence to His law while giving those merciful provisions, yet few gave heed and he was often met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity. The tree was to prolong life and Adam had access to it, and only a few generations had passed since that access by the days of Noah, so the race still retained much early vigor and man's existence was still measured by centuries.

Redemption and Restoration

The execution of the death sentence hanging over Adam after his fall was delayed because the work of redeeming humanity had already begun, and through faith fallen people could find refuge and life. The Son stepped in and pledged His own life as the penalty for transgression so that man might have another trial, laying aside robes of royalty and clothing divinity with humanity to come as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief who endured insult, reproach and mockery though He was the Majesty of heaven. He suffered the full penalty of the broken law as substitute and surety, made fully competent by incarnation to bear sin's penalty and to place man where he would no longer be an outcast excluded from the tree of life, bringing life and immortality to light.

This gift is another trial and second probation, not to abolish God's law, grant unconditional pardon, put benevolence above justice, or make sin an immortal attribute, for to do so would set aside righteousness, exalt the impenitent sinner and encourage transgression. Its purpose is that men through faith, repentance toward God and faith toward Christ may return to loyalty, keep the commandments, partake of the divine nature and eternal life of Christ, stand again in the original position before God, and that He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. The law could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained Eden, Christ could have remained in the heavenly courts, and the immense sacrifice would have been avoided, but the penalty was death and the law changeless.

Through Jesus pleading with the Father to give His own life a ransom, bear human sins and take the sentence of death upon Himself, a way of escape was made whereby men by the merits of His blood find pardon for past transgressions and by obedience are brought back to the garden and again have access to its glorious immortal fruit. Immortality, promised on condition of obedience and forfeited by disobedience so that Adam became subject to death and could transmit none to posterity, is thus brought within reach as a gift through Jesus Christ to all who comply with the conditions. The gospel opens the way so that all may partake of the tree and live forever, with no flaming sword now preventing anyone from coming.

Obedience through Christ restores perfection of character and right to the tree of life, the city gates, the garden and Eden regained by obedience to the Father's law and faith in the atoning blood with repentance toward God for transgression and faith toward Christ, acceptable through the merits of the Son despite sinfulness. All who believe on Christ as personal Saviour, return to loyalty and keep the commandments, the words spoken from Sinai which are the conditions of life, will enter through the gates, regain all Eden privileges and eat with no sword barring, and are eternally saved. Choosing the same disobedience forfeits restored Eden, proving being once in grace is not always in grace, and the disobedient and rebellious have no place there.

The tree was a type of the one great Source of immortality, Christ, in whom is life and who is the fountain of life and bread of life, so that obedience to Him is life-giving power gladdening the soul. As eating its fruit gave life, so eating His flesh and drinking His blood by His words which are spirit and life gives eternal life, so that he who comes never hungers, he who believes never thirsts, he lives by Him and will be raised at the last day. To him that overcomes will be granted to eat again of the tree in the midst of the paradise of God, whose fruit perpetuates immortality and gives life measuring with the life of God. Truth itself is the tree of life, while those who now interpret the Word by their own ideas eat the forbidden tree, accept fallacies in place of Thus saith the Lord, and unless repentant exclude themselves as Adam did and die in sins without immortal life.

Christ passed over the same ground where Adam fell and redeemed the disgraceful failure, overcoming Satan's temptations where Adam yielded by breaking God's command, so that His obedience and victory make it possible to regain what was lost. Adam and Eve had stumbled on appetite by not living by every word from God's mouth, but Christ fasted forty days and forty nights for a race grown weaker and endured in the wilderness a trial one hundred times more trying, meeting the first attempt on appetite with Scripture. That fall began a succession of falls leaving men so weak in moral power they cannot overcome in their own strength, so Christ left His heavenly home to meet and conquer the prince of darkness, bring divine aid and power, and place the family on vantage ground to overcome through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. All who now live by every word from God's mouth will be brought back to the Eden home.

At the expulsion God did not leave the fallen pair but, while removing blessings and cutting off access to the tree, gave the gospel promise to send an invincible Deliverer, the Only Begotten full of grace and truth, to be received and worshiped. Unlike conditional Eden access that was withdrawn, the gifts of the future life are absolute and eternal. The Scriptures are like Eden filled with every tree pleasant and good for spiritual food to nourish the soul, strengthen and ennoble the mind and fill the heart with pure emotion, but with this difference that no cherubim with flaming sword now bars access, and through Christ taking humanity and giving His life as substitute the redeemed family is given second probation with privilege for every person to put forth the hand to the soul-reviving fruit, partake fully and live forever.

The fall belongs with the relation of the Son of God to the Father and His position in heaven, together with His mediatorship between man and the Creator.

Obedience and Application

God's word is to be held sacred and His commands obeyed implicitly, for the expulsion from Eden and the guarding of the tree of life show that Adam's eating was not a small matter but transgression of God's prohibition and law with awful retribution in the fall, loss of Eden, and the opening of woe to the world. The severity of that punishment exalts the sacred character of the law and proves God is exacting and means what He says, requiring the gift of His Son to die so that fallen man through the merits of Christ's blood could keep the law. Even an apparently small transgression closed the gates of Paradise, because God cannot approve work with even one thread of selfishness in it, and Adam fell by discarding the words of the Lord and heeding the words of Satan. Having and keeping the commandments is the test of love, binding upon the human family, and as Adam lost Eden by transgression so transgression of the commandments now loses heaven and an eternity of bliss, pressing each person to decide on which side to stand.

Adam's disobedience broke the charm of obedience so that humanity ceased to feel obedience an absolute necessity and imagined it could choose whether to obey or disobey, becoming more and more disobedient after sin entered the world. His fall and driving from Eden brought sin into the world with unutterable woe, leaving the race in lowered physical, mental, and moral condition through indulgence of appetite and passion in violation of God's express injunctions and law. His experience stands to warn later generations not to do as he did, yet men mourn his transgression while disobeying in the same way in a succession of falls, and to continue in disobedience is to perpetuate his fall. God is now proving every person to see if they will be obedient children in the kingdom of heaven, and those who do His commandments will have right to the tree of life restored and enter through the gates into the city and sit with Christ on His throne.

Adam and Eve stumbled and fell on the point of appetite where Satan tempted them, losing the right to Paradise and the tree of life because they did not live by every word proceeding from the mouth of God but ate what He had forbidden through intemperance in desire. Errors in food and indulged appetite affect the moral tendencies of human nature and weaken physical, mental, and moral efficiency so that temptation cannot be overcome and sincere piety and religious fervor decline, calling for aroused conscience and decided reform in food preparation and habits in every family. In preparing for Paradise restored, perverted and depraved appetite must be brought under strict control, because its indulgence weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits upon man and ensnare him in the net of his devices. Christ passed over the same ground to redeem that disgraceful fall, fasting forty days and forty nights for a race grown weaker and weaker and enduring in the wilderness a trial one hundred times more trying, meeting the first attempt on appetite with Scripture and giving man divine power to obtain the victory, so that all who now live by every word from God's mouth will be brought back to the Eden home and regain what was lost.

The fall placed all men on trial during probationary time, with Satan playing the game of life for every soul and Christ at work for every soul, and fallen man granted another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ. The end depends on the character chosen: those consenting to receive the moral image of God become like Him in character, but if they refuse the character of Christ heaven is lost to them, proving that to be once in grace is not to be always in grace. Therefore every soul should lay hold of the Saviour and by faith receive His merits and perfect a character like His, avoiding sin and abhorring it as hateful, feeling it better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of God's commandments. As Adam and Eve by violation of God's law lost beautiful Eden and opened the floodgates of woe, so transgression now loses heaven, and each must decide his side.

The account belongs to inspired history of the race placed in every hand for research, tracing holy innocency and communion with God and sinless angels, then human disobedience and impenitence and just retribution for sin with its results upon the race and the opening of suffering to the world. As a hidden treasure and jewel of truth with grand subjects, dignified simplicity, elevated themes, and light sharp and clear from the throne of God, its searching gives strength of intellect and develops powers of mind beyond all that philosophy embraces. After the fall Satan claimed to be prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature, yet God permitted him to sow tares and work out evil principles while protecting followers of heaven, and in love and mercy preserved the beautiful handiwork first seen in Eden as specimens of its beauty and expression of His love to lead from nature to nature's God. Trees and leaves and grass have no soul and are not God nor contain God in person but are only created handiwork under His care, existing today and passing away and consumed, so they are not to be worshiped.