Sacred Fruit

The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.(Gen 2:8-9)

The Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it.(Gen. 2:15-17)

My daughter has been taking a Bible class on the study of Genesis and we were discussing Adam and Eve and Cain killing Abel and the wickedness of man following the sin of our first parents.  However, we rarely discuss the other tree in the garden……the “Tree of Life”.  After the sin of eating the forbidden fruit from the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”, Adam and Eve were forced from the garden. 

Actually the exiling of the pair from the garden was an act of mercy. How is that?  Had they remained in the garden they might have eaten of the Tree of Life.  God did not create them immortal, yet he left immortality hanging within their grasp.  They only needed to reach out and eat of the Tree of Life which was never forbidden in the first place!!  If they had eaten of that tree in their fallen state they would have been consigned to an immortal existence in rebellion against God, not unlike the Devil, unredeemable for all eternity!  So in His abundant mercy, God, exiled them from paradise and banned them from immortality. 

God created our souls and our bodies for the Garden of Delight.  In some spiritual memory, every human being can still recall the taste of the “fruit of the garden.” All human beings have a longing wired into their hearts for the place of God, which we cannot quite understand.  We thirst for water that we have never tasted.  We long for fruit that we have never eaten.  We hunger and thirst for the presence of God.  That’s why you are reading these words.  That’s why we are always seeking to fill the empty places of our lives, and why we are prone to addictions, sensuality and self destructive behaviors.  We are actually longing for Eden. 

There is a way back to Eden, past the flaming sword and between the cherubim.  It’s called the way of the Tree of Life.  When our Master Jesus died and the Temple curtain was torn in two it cleared the way for us humans to again enter into a relationship with the Father.  He Himself is  “The Way, the Truth and the Life.” 

The early sect of Jewish believers who followed Him and believed Him called themselves, “The Way.”  He has made the way through the curtain, into the garden, to the holy of Holies and the Tree of Life. 

  Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;  (Hebrews 10:19-20)

                        Are you longing for that fruit from the Tree of Life?