God gives us freedom within the rules. He loves us so much, He gives us freedom to explore the consequences, even if we do wrong sometimes. However, He also does things to protect us, though, when it’s important.
This was clearly one of those times. Whereas God – the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost conferring, hence the term “one of us” - knew good and evil, and always did good, He knew that people would sometimes choose evil. That would mean bad things for the evildoer, or for others. God wanted people to turn to Him so they would always choose good. However, there was a problem.
The way thigns stood now, Adam and Eve would slowly get older – much more slowly because of the protective layer of water which was mentioned. They would die, but by trusting God to change them on the inside, they could still live for Him without sin. In other words, they wouldn’t have those tendencies to do bad things.
However, there was still that tree of life. People had to be shielded from it, because if they weren’t, they might eat of it. Oh, the horror of a body that decays, but never dies! Oh, the horror of always having to live with sin! They would have lived forever, but without the cleansing power of God.
Of course, in John 3:16 and elsewhere, we see that those who believe on Jesus to save them have everlasting life. It’s yours now if you trust in Him! You don’t have to wait to have your sins cleansed. You are cleansed, right away. All your past, present, and future sins are forgiven.
That wasn’t the situation here, of course. God hadn’t yet come in the flesh, in the person of God the Son, Jesus Christ. People had to believe by faith that God would, in the future, redeem them, and thus save them from their sin. This is why Gen. 15:6, as we’ll see later, says Abraham believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness. His faith let Christ’s righteousness be imputed to him. Still, he had to die to receive that full blessing, because he always had that sin nature while he was alive.
That’s why the tree of life was a huge problem, now that sin was in the world. The sin nature that Adam and Eve now had would never go away, as long as they lived. If they lived forever, they could have all faith, and have their sins washed away, but they would live forever on a fallen world. They would always feel that decay that comes from sin. They would always feel be able to feel pain and suffering.
God could let them have the freedom to choose to sin in the first place. He had the remedy already available – the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ, which washes away all of our sins. That problem can be solved, by our choosing to allow God to make us new on the inside. Then, He comes and lives inside us, through His Holy Spirit.
Once our bodies get old and die, if we’ve trusted in that precious Redeemer to make us new on the inside, we go to live with God in Heaven someday. We don’t have to suffer or feel pain or anything bad anymore. All is perfect in Heaven, and for His children, like it was supposed to be when God made the world.
But, here on earth, we have a sin nature. And that’s why it was vital that God get us away from that tree of life. Because, the earth had already been contaminated with sin. All the violence and depravity and selfishness of this world mean that it can never be a perfect place. It couldn’t be even if everyone god saved, though it would be a whole lot better. No, the only place that is perfect is Heaven. In fact, Revelation 21 shows that this world will perish, and a new Heaven and new Earth formed, in order to finally eliminate all the ravages of sin that have taken their toll on this one.
In order to get to that perfect, awesome Heaven – a place so incredible one can’t even imagine how awesome it will be - we need to either die or be caught up in the air with Jesus in the Rapture. Life on this world will always have sin in it. So, God removed the tree of life, for our own protection.
