The hidden tree of life

THE HIDDEN TREE OF LIFE
In the story of creation, the Bible says there were two trees in the midst of the garden of Eden. They were the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life.
Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

‘In the midst’ does not mean ‘in the middle’. The word midst (taewk) is mostly translated as ‘midst’ and rarely translated a middle (209 vs 7) If I told someone that I saw them in the midst of the crowd it would not mean that they were in the very centre surrounded by everyone else. So we are not talking about two trees standing side by side, on grand display in the centre of the garden. However, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the tree that was featured and even showcased in the story.  It was the tree that God told Adam not to eat from and it was the tree that became their literal downfall through disobedience.

THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF TREES
A tree is part of the order of living creation and it is rooted in part of the non-living order of creation, the earth. Adam was created out of the earth and the word adamah means the ‘ground or earth’, from where we get the name Adam. So the spiritual significance of the two spiritual trees is that both trees are rooted in humanity.
Both of these trees declare the powerful symbolism of something which has life and bears fruit and is rooted in the earth, or the ‘adamah’, the ‘Adam’ of our humanity. 

THE COMMANDMENT AND THE CONSEQUENCE OF DISOBEDIENCE
Genesis 2:16 And the Lord God gave the man an order, saying, You may freely take of the fruit of every tree of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you may not take; for on the day when you take of it, death will certainly come to you.

THE TEMPTATION AND THE FALL
Genesis 3:4 And the serpent said, Death will not certainly come to you: For God sees that on the day when you take of its fruit, your eyes will be open, and you will be as God, having knowledge of good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and gave it to her husband. And their eyes were open and they were conscious that they had no clothing and they made themselves coats of leaves stitched together.

Adam and Eve were the first of human creation to be tempted by darkness to eat of the tree of knowledge and they were the first to experience the TRAGIC downfall of disobedience and sin. All of humanity is tempted by darkness to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and all have eaten and all have fallen, not just because of Adam falling, but as well as Adam falling (Romans 3:23). They just happened to be the first. They had a conscience before they were tempted, so they knew right from wrong just like us, but the temptation was too great for their UNTESTED human nature TO RESIST.
There is one exception, and that is Jesus, who was tempted in every way just as we are, being human, and yet he did not ever miss the mark or fall into disobedience because he had a relationship of perfect integrity and harmony and unconditional love with his Father. He was in alignment with his Father’s heart (righteous) and so he did not sin, and he did not fall. He was born from above and had the seed of life from his Father through the Holy Spirit (UNLIKE ADAM), and so was also born into his mother Mary’s humanity. 

1Peter 1.23   we were born again not through corruptible but incorruptible seed– logos – the seed from above…

Through their disobedience Adam and Eve broke relationship with God from them to God, but it was NEVER broken from God to them – or to us. They were the ones who broke the harmony, the openness and freedom and their trusting friendship with God. 
They were told by the serpent that when they ate the fruit they would NOT die, AND here they were, still alive, so what did ‘you will surely die’ mean?
There was going to be a physical death and a spiritual death. In the New Testament there are two words for life. They are ‘bios’ (biological life) and zoe (spiritual or Godly life).
When they sinned against God and their own conscience something triggered an inner emotional and spiritual mess within them. Their eyes were opened for them to see that they were unclothed, exposed for who they now were. Shame and guilt and fear rushed into their lives uninvited. They tried to cover themselves with leaves, and a life of covering up began for humanity.
Their relationship with God had been one of unconditional love, but now everything became conditional to a new mindset of what good and evil meant.

They had died spiritually by cutting themselves off in mind and heart from the life of God, the source of all forms of life on the earth and they retreated into an independent experience of their own ‘separated self’ life. They had ceased to consciously make the life of God central in their minds and hearts and became confused as to the meaning of life itself. Life from that moment on was now perceived to belong to oneself so that each person had to make a conscious choice whether or not to share the personal rights of their life with God or anyone else. This became the beginning of conditional relationships for humanity instead of unconditional love. 
It became the mission of darkness to destroy Godly covenant relationships between people and God and also with one another, where we can allow certain other people to share our own personal rights as a human being and where people thinking of themselves as ‘belonging’ to another person as in marriage. We all live with the relational consequences of the fruit of that first act of disobedience to this time.

The Bible describes the plight of people living in this state of spiritual death.
Ephesians 4:18 having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, without the knowledge of God because of the blindness of their heart. 

This is speaking about people who have become self-conscious rather than God conscious. All those things are the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam and Eve’s minds had become alienated from the life of God yet they were nonetheless still being impacted by the life of God because they had been created in his image so that his goodness and mercy and blessing still came upon them and could be reflected through them to one another so they could still be kind and loving if they chose to. And even though unconditional love became an uncommon thing for us it always remained in God’s heart towards us. Great is his faithfulness even in our unfaithfulness.

There is actually nothing wrong with the knowledge of good and evil. Knowledge blesses mankind in a myriad of ways and it is powerfully productive and helpful. The problem arises when we contend with the fierce ownership of our own individual rights that we believe are ‘good’ for us. Darkness sows suspicion and mistrust into our judgment of what is good and what is bad. What is good is now judged on the basis of what is good for me, no matter how it seems to someone else, and what is bad is judged by what is bad the way I see it, no matter whether it seems good to someone else. The closer a thing comes to what we like or want to happen for ourselves, the more it is good, and whatever prevents us from having that thing is bad, and that is why we can make such lopsided and discriminatory judgments against God and against one another. 

This is how humanity is tempted to live in its perception of what is objectively good and bad. Our eyes have been opened to see we must defend or assert our exposed and vulnerable selves. We live in a world of wrongly judging ourselves and one another. 

That is why Adam and Eve judged the fruit of the tree of knowledge to be good for them in every way. It was sold to them as being of beautiful appearance, good to taste and pleasing to the senses, and able to bestow special knowledge and wisdom. Mankind at that moment began to prize those things, and they judged God’s advice to them of not eating the fruit as being bad. They believed the lie that what they now thought was good for them was being cheated of them by God himself.
The outwardly self-gratifying life became more important than the inwardly fulfilling and satisfying life of trusting relationships, first with God and then with others.
The fruit of the tree of knowledge was not only on splendid display for Adam and Eve to see, and tantalizingly forbidden to eat, but sitting amongst its branches was a cunning deceitful serpent. Nothing has changed regarding this tree and we are all constantly being confronted by this reality.
The fruit of this tree has deeply affected the way people, especially in affluent cultures, live out their lives.  Even in Christianity there is a tendency to conform to the competitive performance-oriented success culture of the world rather than the inner transformational power of the exchanged life of Jesus. The outward display orientation has its source in the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The powerful inner reality of faith and love has its source in the tree of life. It seems that the western culture finds the outward display irresistible, and only when there is either persecution or a sovereign move of the Holy Spirit do the values of the inner life of God change the hearts of humanity and glorify God instead of man. But there is a better way.

THE HIDDEN WAY OF THE TREE OF LIFE
The tree of life was somehow strangely out of sight or out of mind or both, throughout the time of Adam and Eve and God and the serpent in the garden, They were not given any commandment concerning the tree of life because God didn’t even mention it except at the very end. Humanity was obviously destined to eat of the tree of life in due course and there was access to it, but this did not seem to be the time, and in fact only after eating of the tree of knowledge was the way to the tree of life blocked. Then God did not let Adam and Eve or any other human being have access to the tree of life and he guarded the way to it with cherubim and a flaming sword.
Genesis 3: 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard (sapor – preserve and reserve) the way (path, road, journey) to the tree of life.

There was however an appointed time for mankind to be shown the way of access to the tree of life, but for the time being it was forbidden, and the way was hidden.
There was one exception, and that is Jesus, who is the tree of life, and who is also rooted in Adam (adamah – the earth) as a human being, but who contained eternal life and bore the fruit of the tree of Life (The fruit of the Spirit and the power of the Spirit). He was born from above. The life and power of God was hidden as a hidden tree of life not only in the garden but within the humble humanity of Jesus.

Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the LORD revealed his power? My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected - a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.
Jesus did not try to attract people to himself or to put his power on display to impress people. This was a new kind of behaviour from someone of such power and authority, and even his disciples wanted him to display his Kingdom authority when they wanted to call the fire of judgment down on those who resisted and opposed him (Luke 9:54). 
They had always been attracted to and influenced by the tree of knowledge, but Jesus came as the tree of life and made himself of no reputation to become a servant to humanity (Philippians 2:7). They had no understanding of this hidden truth, the hidden tree.  It’s meaning was mysteriously hidden throughout the OT even though it was mentioned. But now it was with them veiled in his humility like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected.

This is in stark contrast to much of Christian activity today, that wants to be on display as the agent of God’s power and judgment of what is good and evil. 
The Bible does not say that knowledge is bad, but it shows how the self-centred use of knowledge differs from the blessing of a caring relationship
1Corinthians 8:1 Knowledge puffs up (inflates the ego) but love builds up…
The tree of life is hidden in the ordinariness of our New Creation humanity that is joined life to life with Jesus. 
Colossians 3:3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
This means that we died with Christ and now live with him. When Jesus went on the cross as a human being he took us as humanity, with him.… We now had access to another tree to live out of instead just the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We can now live our lives choosing the tree of life over the tree of knowledge. The pathway is God’s love - Total trust in Gods unconditional love coming to us – we trust that he knows what is good for us even if we don’t. The inflated EGO me is now constantly being invited to empty itself of pride and independence and self importance and emotionally opinionated judgments and to eat of the fulness of the hidden tree of life that is now able to live through us. We ask for and receive his wisdom in things – and love can grow and flow. That is the fruit that Jesus spoke of that would spring up out of the ground when he gave his life as a seed to die and be buried and rise again with us from the dead (John 12:24). This enables us to bless God and one another and to bring healing and wholeness to a broken world through a life of humble service.