Question
What is your understanding of what is the reason for the tree of life seeing all life is of God, why then what is the purpose is the tree of life as outline in the Bible?
Response
From what is set forth especially in the Book of Genesis and in the Book of The Revelation it is evident to me that the tree of life has more than one purpose to it. Its first or initial purpose is what is described in Genesis 2 and 3 and it pertained to the time when God created man on the earth and established him in his position of responsibility and accountability. The rest of the purposes for the tree of life are described in the Book of The Revelation, and they pertain to the time after God has His day of wrath and when He establishes His residence and kingdom on this earth in fulfillment of His original plan and purpose for the earth.
Regarding the tree’s first, or initial, purpose — Since God put it in the midst of the garden, and also spoke about it along with “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” it provided Adam with both the knowledge of, and the reality of, the issue of everlasting life. Simply put, from all that God said to Adam and taught him on the day that he was created Adam knew such things as who he was in the plan and purpose of God, and what his vocation was, and that he did not possess everlasting life by nature, and that evil existed, and that he needed to be on guard, and that he could disobey God, and that he could die. And as I said the tree of life fit into this package of fundamental knowledge by providing Adam with both the knowledge of, and the reality of, the issue of everlasting life.
However, as Genesis 3 relates, when Adam and his wife sinned and died before God by transgressing God’s commandment regarding the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God ‘sealed off,’ so to speak, man’s access to, and use of, the tree of life with respect to its first/initial purpose; just as Genesis 3:22-24 relate. And with this the tree’s first/initial purpose more or less came to an end.
The tree’s other purposes primarily all have to do with matters of functionally living unto God, and are for the benefit of, enjoyment of, and profit of, those who respond to God’s grace and become recipients of His gift of everlasting life.
For this reason the tree does not exist nor function again on the earth until God establishes His residence and kingdom on the earth, just as the Book of The Revelation relates. And as the references to it in the Book of The Revelation describe, access to it will be for those who have justification unto eternal life, and their partaking of it will result in them enjoying various forms of enhancement to their functional life with God in His kingdom.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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