Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—”“
(Genesis 3:22)

The ONLY tree that humanity was forbidden to eat of was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life wasn’t forbidden. It was right next to the other tree, both being in the middle of the garden (Genesis 2:9). Humanity had no reason to eat of the Tree of Life previously because life was all they had known. They didn’t deteriorate. They didn’t die. And neither did anything else around them. Death was unknown. Once Sin entered, there was death. Entropy was gaining a hold everywhere. Once humanity really got a hold of the idea that they were dying – truly deteriorating and facing an end at some point – they might choose to eat of the Tree of Life and gain immortality. But if they did, they would be trapped in this state forever. They wouldn’t die, but they would have NO WAY to get back into true conjoined relationship with God because the price of Sin was death and death was required to be free of Sin (Romans 6:23).

God’s actions here are not judgment. They are not punishment. They are protection. He sought to protect them from a wrong knowledge of evil by giving them authority through restriction. Humanity rejected that. Now, He must take action so that they would not use their free will in a way that would harm themselves forever. By separating them from the place of the tree, He would prevent them of ever thinking of it or having it pointed out to them. He removed the issue BEFORE it could become a choice. He wasn’t removing their free will, He was removing the circumstances where it would be abused.

Before they sinned, they were exactly life God – minus divinity and minus a knowledge of what evil was in and of itself. Now they knew what evil was in and of itself. Because they lacked the divine spark that made God GOD, they were in danger of evil. They could choose it as a viable choice. This was what God wanted to protect them from. He wanted them to grow in good knowledge that could not be a temptation. Infinite knowledge without any negativity or ill-use/application of that knowledge.