What Is the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3?
1) Direct Answer
- The tree of life is Christ—God’s own Life and Word offered to man.
- The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is Satan’s perverted wisdom, offered through the serpent, mixing truth with error and bringing death. It was not an apple tree; it was a channel of union with unbelief that produced a corrupt seed.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- Genesis 2:9 places both trees “in the midst” of the garden, making them central to man’s choice.
- Genesis 2:17 says, “in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” After partaking, death set in (Genesis 3:19; Romans 5:12).
- Genesis 3:1-6 shows the serpent ministering a message contrary to God’s Word, and Eve receiving it. 2 Corinthians 11:3 confirms, “the serpent beguiled Eve.”
- Genesis 3:7 says “they knew that they were naked” and covered their loins, showing moral shame, not a stomach issue from fruit.
- Genesis 3:15 declares enmity between two seeds: the woman’s Seed and the serpent’s seed. That speaks of a real lineage. 1 John 3:12 says, “Cain was of that wicked one,” revealing the serpent’s line through unbelief.
- Genesis 3:14 curses the serpent “upon thy belly,” showing a creature brought down—once upright, now degraded.
- The tree of life points to Christ: “In Him was life” (John 1:4). He said, “I am the life” (John 14:6), “I am the living bread” (John 6:51). Overcomers are promised to eat of the tree of life (Revelation 2:7), and in the New Jerusalem it appears again (Revelation 22:2). God barred the way to it (Genesis 3:24), so fallen man wouldn’t live forever in sin. Access opens again by redemption.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Literal fruit cannot give a conscience of good and evil, nor does it make one ashamed of nakedness. But receiving a wrong word and entering a wrong union brings moral shame and death.
- God speaks of “seed” in Genesis 3:15. Fruit doesn’t beget a lineage; reproduction does. That’s why sorrow in conception and childbirth was multiplied (Genesis 3:16). The issue touched the womb and the life stream.
- If Adam and Eve had then taken the tree of life, they would have lived forever in a fallen state. Therefore the tree of life is eternal life in Christ; the other tree brought death by mixing good and evil—religion without revelation, truth mingled with a lie.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice: to “eat” is to receive and become one with what you take in. Receiving Christ, the Word and Spirit, is partaking of the tree of life today; receiving the serpent’s reasoning is partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Stay with the pure Word, and you live. Mix it, and you die.
Ask a Follow-up Question
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.
God's Provided Way
61-0516M §33
When he invented gun powder, kills his brother. When he invented an automobile, science, what did he do? Kills more than the powder does. Now he's got hisself an atomic bomb, a hydrogen bomb. See, he drives hisself farther away from God. In the garden of Eden there were two trees. One of them was a tree of life, the other the tree of death ... the tree of knowledge. And when man left the tree of life to eat from the tree of knowledge, the first bite he took he separated himself from his maker. And every time he bit...
Seeing God
62-0609M §35
If you'll notice, God testifies every day of our life. Of a morning the sun is born. At ten o'clock it's in its teenage. At noontime it's in its full strength, and it sets in the evening (Is that the end of it?), only to come up again---birth, life, death, resurrection. Constantly, God testifying in life. The tree goes back down, the sap into the roots, to bring forth life again next year. We're ... you and I are hanging on the tree of life. We are the fruit of that tree. The old man, after he sat there a little bi...
The End Time
54-0307A §41
Now, then Cain came and knelt down, built an altar. I'd imagine they come to the east side of the gate, for there's where the Angel stood with His flaming sword, guarding the tree of life. By the way, He was guarding the people away from the tree of life. Now, He's here trying to drive the people back to the tree of life. Jesus was that tree of life. The woman was the tree of death. We're the fruit of our mother; she was a fruit tree. And when we come here ... by woman come death, and by woman come life, also which...
The Queen of Sheba
61-0219 §5
And now, science can only climb so high. Then they have to leave, go back. The tree of knowledge only produces so much. That was set before us in the Garden of Eden, and a human being is prone to live from that tree of knowledge. But it never was God's plan for us to live by that tree of knowledge. The first time man took a bite from the tree of knowledge, he separated his fellowship from God. Every time he takes a bite off that tree, he destroys himself, continually. He bit off gun powder. Look what that does---ki...
United under One Head
58-0326 §11
Knowledge will never save you: it takes you farther away from God all the time! There's only one way of salvation---that's back to the tree of life. Knowledge isn't even in the picture. It's back to the tree of life. There was two trees: one was knowledge, the other was life. As long as the man eat from this tree, he lived. When he bit from that tree, he died. But you see, it's his nature to try to do something to save himself. There's not one thing that you can do to save yourself. A man said to me one time, he sa...