Genesis 2:9

"And out of the ground made Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

There is here merely a reiteration of the source of the lovely trees and fruits of Eden. The notion that man was created first is denied by the fact that the fruit-trees were created on the third day of creation and Adam on the sixth day (Genesis 1:11). The mention in this verse that "every" tree was in Eden makes this certain. Here is merely a recapitulation to show the desirability and beauty of the home that God prepared for his first human children. Furthermore, the narrative is moving rapidly to the two trees singled out and destined to bear such awful significance for Adam and his posterity, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

"The tree of life ..." It later appears that this tree had the quality of endowing men with immortality had they eaten of it, a conception that is vehemently denied by most commentators, many of whom are "Christian." They explain it as symbolical, or metaphorical, making it a reference to some unexplained power of God and refusing to allow any efficacy from the eating of some physical tree. All of that may be partially true, but the appearance of the tree of life in Revelation 21-22, and the statement of God Himself in Genesis 3:22 compel us to see something more than mere symbolism. All of the machinery for immortality is in man's body already. The tree of life, whatever it was, had the power to activate and continue life forever. We are not embarrassed by our ignorance of what that tree was. At one time, men might have eaten of it; but they did not; and then, and there, humanity forever lost the secret. All questions about whether this was a species of trees, or a single tree, later depicted as growing on either side of the river of life, and skeptical affirmations that "no food could provide immortality," and other enigmatical problems we leave absolutely unanswered. We simply do not know.

"The tree of the knowledge of good and evil ..." God endowed this tree, perhaps in his very prohibition of it, with the quality of being a test of the fidelity of Adam and Eve. The name of it shows that either the tree or what it stood for could give perpetual life.

That some type of symbolism is involved in understanding the trees is clear. The disaster to Adam and Eve did not come from the fruit of the forbidden tree, but from their eating of it in violation of the commandment of God. "The prohibition laid on Adam was for the time being the summary of divine law."[17] The necessity of two trees to deliver the entire truth to mankind appears in the fact that man's eating of the forbidden tree also resulted in the loss of the other tree. Inherent in this is the truth that, if man had obeyed his Creator, death would NOT have overtaken him, a deduction from the fact that the penalty was imposed after disobedience, with the inclusion of the idea that the penalty would not have been enforced apart from disobedience. Although Skinner rejected the suggestion, he made it in these words: "Can we suppose that the boon of immortality was placed freely within man's reach during the period of his probation?"[18] The answer must be affirmative. Indeed, we may say that Adam already possessed immortality throughout the whole period prior to his disobedience to God's Word. His expulsion from Eden after that event was the occasion of his losing it. In a sense, therefore, the tree of life stands for all the sacred privileges of Eden (and of the New Jerusalem), made specific here as "the tree of life."

All speculations about what the tree was are useless. That there was indeed such a tree appears from the appearance of it in the legends and mythology of many lands, all of which may be viewed as perverted and distorted reflections of a genuine reality in the beginning. The friezes that adorned the palace of Ashurbanipal showed the king with a stylized watering device, watering the tree of life depicted as an immense and complicated vine. No such description is of any value. (See more on this under Genesis 2:17).

Further thoughts regarding the tree of knowledge of good and evil show that the kind of "knowledge" meant is experimental knowledge. Adam and Eve already knew the difference in right and wrong; thus they were aware already of moral distinctions. God is not saying here that there were magical properties in a certain tree that would provide "knowledge" of good and evil, but their eating of that forbidden tree would result in their experimental "knowledge" of good and evil. Any tree that God might have prohibited would have done the same thing. Despite this obvious truth, very wild and irresponsible assertions are often made with reference to those "miraculous" trees in Eden.[19]

"Furthermore, it is wrong to assume that God endowed that forbidden tree with any particular desirability. Just as in the case of forbidden actions throughout the ages, it is the imagination and evil desire for forbidden things which endow what is forbidden with qualities that do not belong to forbidden things at all."