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.
The End-time Evangelism
62-0603 §104
Looky here. Remember my message recently on the bride tree, see, how that they took Jesus? He was a tree, the one that David saw, a tree planted by the rivers of water, His fruit in its season, the most perfect tree. And they cut Him down and hung Him on a man-made Roman tree, for a mockery. But what did He do? Rose up again on the third day. What else did He do? He set forth a bride tree, a man and a woman like the trees that was in the garden of Eden, two trees. One of them, the tree of life, and one the tree of...
The restoration of the Bride Tree
62-0422 §186
But watch. He was God's perfect prophet tree, the example tree, the bridegroom tree. Amen! Glory! (I'm going to say something directly.) If He is the bridegroom tree (do you believe it?) from the garden of Eden, then the bridegroom tree without the female don't bear fruit. So He's got to have a bride tree; she's got to be born of the same material, the Word made flesh in the tree. (I hope you get it.) The same life in this female tree, the bridegroom, as it is in the bride. "The works that I do shall you also." Is...
I will restore unto you, saith the Lord
54-0809A §12
And we see God teaching them as a tree. Israel was usually considered an olive tree in the Scriptures---God's tree. I believe in Ezekiel He gave the both the wild tree and the tame tree. And how that through the censor pipe the oil was coming from both trees into one candlestick. Now, then, in order to get the basis of this for a few minutes, I believe that everything that is now, began in Genesis. The word Genesis is "the beginning." And every cult that we have on the face of the earth today began in Genesis. Ever...
Jehovah-Jireh, part 2
62-0706 §26
God put seraphims there, guarding that tree, that no one would touch it. Now He's got seraphims out, trying to drive them into the tree. Then they seen the vision, they wanted to the tree ... to get back without an atonement. But now after the atonement is made, the devil is blinding them, turn them this way from the tree. Notice. When Christ came on earth, He was God's perfect tree. David saw Him in the first psalm, said, "...tree planted by the river, rivers of water." Many rivers, one water; many gifts, same Spi...
The restoration of the Bride Tree
62-0422 §190
Now, He was God's prophet tree. Why? He preached all the perfect Word of God, for He was the Word of God made manifest. He was the perfect prophet tree that preached the perfect prophet Word that brought forth the perfect prophet fruit, by the perfect Word of God. Oh, brother, talk about a tree! A tree! He was that life tree, that the angel kept Eve and Adam away from with a guarding cherubims, away from that tree. Now, the same cherubims is trying to run them into it, 'cause there's been a way made for them, see....