Why Did God Put The Tree In the Garden?

God creates man in his image and likeness. Man has no sin in him and no knowledge of sin and doesn’t even know how to sin. Then God creates two special trees; the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He puts them right where they cannot be unseen.

Then, He tells man to eat from any other tree but the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Really? It’s like telling a kid not to switch on the TV. It only sparks more curiosity. Did God actually expect Adam not to eat from the tree?

God is always revealing a side of Him we have never known. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever but to our limited capacities, today we understand Him as El-Shaddai, tomorrow He reveals Himself as El-Elyon. Our capacities are very limited in comparison to an infinite God.

So God created Adam with the ability to grow and be more like God. Adam wasn’t fully like God. He had to grow everyday to be more like Him. How do I know this? Because even as completely new creatures in Christ, we still need to grow. To understand this more, check out my blog post on the Revelation of Mystery.

So just as you’re born with a sex drive but you have to mature to a certain stage before you can “taste the fruit”, God put the tree there as a remembrance of further things to come and as a motivation to mature.

Trust me, there are things that already belong to you that God gives you but still asks you to wait for the kairos moment. Just like kids gotta wait till Christmas Day to open their presents. You can open it 2 days before Christmas. It satisfies the curiosity but takes the fun out of the whole idea.

Adam was like God. God has all knowledge of good and evil. (After all, He’s the judge of the universe. How will he judge evil if He had no knowledge of it?) But Adam wasn’t like God yet in that sense; he didn’t have “the [experiential] knowledge (recognition) of [the difference between] good and evil” yet.

How do I know this? Because after eating the fruit, God Himself admits that Adam now has the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil….” in Genesis‬ ‭3:22‬.

The sin Adam and Eve committed had little to do with the fruit. The actual sin was choosing the word of the devil over the Word of God. It was believing and obeying the devil. The sin was disobeying God. Alhough they had become enlightened, they became naked and ashamed and vulnerable. They hid from God, why not the devil? That’s what sin did and does to us all the time, no matter the kind of sin.

God does not and cannot be tempted. God wasn’t tempting man. If this was so, Adam and Eve would have eaten the fruit long before the serpent (the enemy) came along. Adam and Eve had everything they needed. What did the enemy do? He tried to draw their minds to the only thing they couldn’t have at the moment.

Are you being motivated to pursue the things of God while being patient with His perfect timing, or you’re focusing on what don’t have and desire to have it contemptuously?

I love you ❤️