The Tree of Life — Why Adam Had to Leave
> Genesis 3:22-23 — Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever ‘ — therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden.
The reason God expelled Adam from the garden is stated directly: lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. The danger was not the knowledge of good and evil itself. The danger was living forever in that condition. A being who is sinful, who knows good and evil and has chosen evil, who carries the consequence of that choice in their nature — living forever in that state was the outcome God prevented by the expulsion.
The Tree Returns in the New Creation
> Revelation 22:2 — Through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
The tree of life returns in the new creation. It is accessible. Bearing fruit. Healing the nations. The condition that made the tree dangerous in Genesis 3 no longer exists. Sin is gone. The record of sin is the constitution of the new world, guaranteeing it never returns. In that condition the tree of life is no longer a danger. It is the provision of permanent life in a permanent creation that will never choose its own way over God ‘s way again.
The Arc from Genesis to Revelation
The arc from the garden to the new creation is the complete story. The tree of life accessible in the garden. Access cut off at the Fall. The kinsman redeemer paying the debt across four thousand years. The tribulation completing the cup. The judgment. The new creation. The tree restored. The access restored. The condition that prevented permanent access — sin present in the vessel — permanently removed. What was lost in Genesis 3 is restored in Revelation 22, not by forgetting what happened between them but because of everything that happened between them.