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.
Sir, we would see Jesus
62-0724 §21
If you could take the sap, the life out of an apple tree, and put it in a grapevine, that grapevine would bear apples, see, because the life that bears apples ... the germ is in the life, and it would bear apples on a grapevine. Depends on what kind of a life was on the inside of it, see. That's right. Now, if you could take a peach tree, and a pear tree, and take the life out of the peach tree (just take out all the life), and put it over into the pear tree, every bit of the life (no more pear-tree life in it, but...
God's provided way of healing
54-0719A §41
Now, what happened to that tree? Jesus... How many knows that a tree has a germ of life? Everybody does. If it didn't, it wouldn't live. Now, there was... Now watch, the tree died from where? The roots. The Bible said it was withered from the roots. Now, in the root was the tree life. Jesus didn't speak to the leaves; neither did He speak to the branches. He never spoke to the roots, but He spoke to the life. And the life left the tree. The tree was left standing without life. It was withering. Is that right? Now,...
Remembering the Lord
63-0122 §48
Standing the other day talking (I believe it was Brother Carl Williams), there was a palm tree. I believe it was Brother Carl, or someone. And I said, "Isn't that a beautiful tree?" He said, "Yes." I said, "What is it? Volcanic ash. That's all it is, dust of the earth with a life in it. And that life was a certain kind of life made it a palm tree." Over here stands another. It's a different kind of a tree. It's a fig tree. What is it? Volcanic ash from the earth with the fig tree life in it. Well, look at us. What...
Jairus And Divine Healing
54-0216 §14
Now, if the life is in here is God's faith, and it's of God, it can produce nothing but a Christian life. That's all. You can't make a thorn grow on a ... make apples grow on a thorn tree. Whatever the tree, if it's got sycamore bark on it, looks like a sycamore tree, and bearing apples, it's just apple tree, 'cause the life in it is a apple tree life, and it's producing apples. See what I mean? Don't make any difference, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Full Gospel, Pentecostal, whatever you are, Nazarenes, if yo...
The stature of a perfect man
62-1014M §133
Like I've always said: Take the sap out of a peach tree, and if you could transfer it by a transfusion into an apple tree, the apple tree would bear peaches. Sure, certainly would. No matter what the branches look like, it's got apple tree sap in it, see, or whatever tree it is. You take the life out of the apple tree, take it all out, and give it a sap transfusion; and drain from the peach tree over into the apple tree. What happens? It won't bear any more peaches. No, sir. If the peach tree life comes into the ap...