The Tree in the Midst of the Garden Meaning?
1) Direct Answer
It means the two great choices God set in the very center: the Tree of Life (Christ, God’s own Life and Word) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Satan’s reasoning). In the “midst” of the garden stood life by the Word or death by unbelief.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- The Bible says there were two trees in the midst: “The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9). Eve later refers to the forbidden one as “the tree which is in the midst of the garden” (Genesis 3:3).
- God’s command: “Of every tree… thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it” (Genesis 2:16–17). The issue was obedience to God’s Word.
- When they chose the wrong tree, “their eyes were opened,” shame entered, and death followed (Genesis 3:5–7; Romans 5:12).
- God then guarded the Tree of Life with cherubim and a flaming sword (Genesis 3:22–24), showing that life is now only by God’s appointed way.
- The Tree of Life is Christ. “In him was life” (John 1:4). He said, “I am the life” (John 14:6). Wisdom is called “a tree of life” (Proverbs 3:18), and Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24).
- Access to the Tree of Life is promised again to the overcomer: “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life” (Revelation 2:7), and it appears in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 22:2,14).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Now notice: it wasn’t an apple. Eating fruit doesn’t open spiritual eyes, bring moral shame, multiply sorrow in conception, or create two opposing seed lines. Yet Genesis 3:15 declares two seeds at enmity, and 1 John 3:12 says Cain “was of that wicked one.” That shows the forbidden “knowledge” was Satan’s corrupt approach to life and reproduction, not a harmless bite of produce.
- The serpent was cursed to go on his belly (Genesis 3:14), meaning he was different before the curse. Through that subtle beast Satan introduced a carnal, unbelieving union, and death followed. Adam and Eve were to live by every Word of God; instead, Eve received the serpent’s reasoning against the Word (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14).
- So the “midst” marks the center of decision: Will man live by God’s revealed Word (Tree of Life), or by a mixture—good and evil together—offered by the serpent (tree of knowledge)?
4) Reinforcing Statement
You see, the question of the garden is still the question today. Choose Christ the Word and live, or mix the Word with human reasoning and die. The way back to the Tree of Life is opened through Jesus Christ, and the overcomer will eat of it again.
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What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
Why many Christians struggle to live the Christian life
57-0303A §68
Then what is these other things? It's attributes: apples that fall off the tree, see. But don't get the apples for the tree; get the tree and it'll bear the apples. You can have all the signs and fantastics you want to pick up under the tree and still not have the tree. The tree's got the life. You see, you're just taking something that fell off the tree. Get the tree first, and it'll bear it itself. But if your tree isn't yielding these things, then there's something wrong. That's right. That's what you want. My,...
Fellowship
55-0813 §11
...Lord bless His Word. Now, there's many people can open the book like that, but it takes God to open it and reveal it. You'll never understand it by education. You'll never find it in a seminary. You'll never find it through science. You'll never find it in knowledge. In the Garden of Eden, there was a tree of knowledge, and a tree of life. As long as man eat from the tree of life, he had everlasting life. But the first bite he took off the tree of knowledge, he lost his soul. And every time that man takes a bite of...
Satan's Eden
65-0829 §62
Notice, now, the Holy Spirit of God's holy Word had a man and woman naked, and didn't know it. How beautiful---life of the Word, the seed, the Word. God said, "There is a tree in the midst of the garden, (the woman). And in the midst of the garden is this tree. Don't even touch it, for the day you eat thereof, that day you die." They were holy veiled from it, didn't know nothing about it, daresn't to touch it. They were holy veiled. They were safe in God's pavilion. They were alive. They had no death around them. H...
What it takes to overcome all unbelief: Our faith
60-0729 §8
That's where it started in the garden of Eden. There were two trees: one was the tree of life, the other a tree of knowledge. Man took his first bite from the tree of knowledge; he separated himself from the tree of life. And every time he bites off the tree of knowledge, he continually gets further away from the tree of life, because he begins to think he knows how to reason it out. You cannot reason God; you got to come back to the simple tree of life, and abide under there eating the fruit of life. That's what w...
The greatest battle ever fought
62-0311 §114
Now, not discr... disbelieving the doctor, the doctor is working on the line of scientific. And the doctor has done everything he can to save the person's life; and it can't be saved, because there's nothing else he knows to do; he's at the end of his wits. The man's honest. But now, the tree of knowledge is all right, but when you go as far as it'll go, then step off on the tree of life and just keep on going. Amen. That's it. It'll just work so far. Yeah! Now, what is Satan's tactics now? What did he say here? No...