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.
Faith in the Son of God
52-0715 §8
"Well," I said, "Doctor, you excuse me for talking to you like this, for you're a smart man." But I said, "You know, when the trees, in the garden of Eden there were two of them, and one of them was the tree of knowledge, and the other One is the Tree of Life. And man left this Tree to bypass of this tree," and I said, "when he took his first bite off the tree, let it be whatever it was... (I got my idea of that.) So whatever it was, when he tooken his first bite, he separated himself from his Maker. And ever since...
The anointed ones at the end time
65-0725M §34
Now, you can graft it in there, you see? Every grapefruit, lemon, tangelo, tangerine, whatever the citrus fruits they are, every one of them can live in that tree, but bearing false witness of the tree, living by the tree. You see it? They are living and thriving on the genuine life that's in that tree! Now, there's Matthew 24:24. Living by the same life, but they wasn't right at the beginning. They're bearing false witness of that tree! It's an orange tree! Yet it's a citrus tree. And they say, "This church, this...
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,...
Marriage and Divorce
65-0221M §67
Now, let's see if that's right. Let's take Genesis 3 and find out if this is right now, as we go along, because we want to be positive that these things, that are taught out and brought out exactly true so that... Maybe right here we have a little time because we're not too far from the end now, to get to the closing part of the subject, to show why and what about divorces and so forth. Now, in Genesis the third chapter, and we will begin now with the third and the sixteenth verse. Let's begin at the fourteenth ver...
Separation from unbelief
55-0228 §26
In the Garden of Eden there were two trees: One was the tree of life; the other, a tree of knowledge. Man left the tree of life to eat the tree of knowledge. And the first bite he took, he separated his fellowship from God. Every time he takes a bite off of it, he destroys himself. He bit off gun powder; look what that did. Bit off automobiles; kills more than all the wars. He's got himself a hydrogen bomb now; wonder what he's going to do with that? See, he destroys himself. God don't destroy anything. Man, throug...