Spring is on us and we can see the beautiful trees and the leaves returning from winter. We can see all the different colors, patterns and the shade it gives us during a hot day. As Christians we need to recognize that it was two trees that played an important part in our Christian lives. There is third tree that I will talk about at the end. It is something joyous to look forward to experience in heaven. The first tree ended up cursing us and we lost paradise and the second tree was used by Christ to forgive us from the curse, redeem us, died for our sins and give us back the promised paradise.
God gave us every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains food for us eat (Genesis 1:29). In the Garden of Eden, God grew every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). God gave only one rule to Adam, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die (Genesis 2:17).”
The devil is so cunning and always tries to make us question the commandments of God. The serpent asks Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’ (Genesis 3:1)?” Eve responds appropriate by telling the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die’ (Genesis 3:3-4).” We all know what happens next. The serpent convinces that she would not die and that she would be like God, knowing good and evil. This is the same rebellious spirit Lucifer has, to want to be like or greater than God. Eve saw that the tree was desirable and delightful, took a bite and then gave it to Adam who also ate the fruit. This was the first sin and because of it 3 curses fell upon humanity and paradise was lost.
The first curse – (Gen 3:14-15) So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel.”
The second curse – (Gen 3:16) He said to the woman: “I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.”
The third curse – (Gen 3:17-19) And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust and you will return to dust.”
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil cost us paradise. First Satan was cursed for causing Eve to sin and hostility (feud/enmity) was born between his seed and her seed. God promised that eventually the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman but the seed of the woman will strike a fatal blow to the head of the serpent. The ultimate seed is Jesus and the Redeemer who strikes Satan on the head and defeats him. Childbirth will be painful for woman and husbands will rule over you. Man would work and labor all the days of his life and the ground is cursed because of that decision. In Eden everything was done for Adam and Eve and there was no real type of work except to be in God’s presence. There was no sin, no knowledge about good or evil. That was lost completely when they sinned and God kicked them out of Eden and placed a cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.
I always wondered what would have happened if Adam and Eve ate the tree of life in the middle of the garden first. There was no command from God against eating that tree specifically. Genesis 3:22, The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat and live forever.” God knew that because man now knows about good and evil that they could not be trusted with eternal life. Imagine the amount of sin that would occur in a human’s life who could never die. Noah and the flood could never have happened and we all know how wicked those people were in that time period. God knows how wicked our hearts are as it says in Jeremiah 17:9, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We can’t be holy alone or trust our own hearts. It is only because of God that we are able to become holy. We can’t be HOLY WITHOUT GOD.
Now the curse due to sin has occurred. It is not till the death of Jesus that this curse is ultimately broken and we are redeemed by his blood. It was a huge offense and a curse to be hung on a tree. Deuteronomy 21:22-23, If anyone is found guilty of an offense deserving of death penalty and is executed and you hang his body on a tree, you are not to leave his corpse on the tree overnight but are to bury him that day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Under the Mosaic Law, those who were hanged on a tree were cursed and it was illegal to leave the body hanging overnight. Jesus who was executed on a tree, had done nothing wrong and no guilt was ever found in him. Jesus’ body was removed from the cross the same day of his death and placed in Joseph’s tomb.
I think we miss the significance and how much Jesus really loves us, due to commercializing his death with Easter. To die on a tree was for the worse of the worse criminals. Most sin during those times were usually punished by stoning yet they all wanted him crucified. The Jews saw this death as having no dignity and was shameful. Crucifixion is the most humiliating, degrading form of public death. It was agonizing, you are dragged around naked in public and flogged (whipping or lashing the body with whips or rods). It could last for days and you would die by suffocate from bleeding internally on the cross. You would not be able to gasp for air. We must also realize God planned all this and it had to be completed to break the curse and redeem us (Acts 2:23, 1 Peter 1:20, Rev 13:8). Do you think the Jewish people would ever accept Jesus, who died on the cross as their Messiah after all this? The devil blinded them and hardened their hearts. They completely missed what Jesus was preaching and that his kingdom is not of this world. The act of dying for our sins by Christ is something we must take to heart every single day of our lives. If it wasn’t for Christ breaking this curse, being redeemed we would never have been forgiven and never have the chance to be adopted as his children and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. Christ was cursed for us, hanging on the cross as a substitute for our sins. I Peter 1:18-19, For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited by your fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.
The 3rd tree I am going to mention is the one I hope we all get to eat from after the final days. Revelation 22:14, Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. God removed Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden so they could not eat this fruit and live forever knowing good and evil. I am guessing that once we enter in Heaven we will see that beautiful tree of life in the middle of the garden and get to eat its fruit. The paradise God wants us all to have is in our reach and Christ sacrificed his life, his spotless/unblemished blood to break the curse by dying for us on that tree. That is not something to celebrate on a Sunday once a year, but every single day of our lives. The curse has been broken and we only need to accept Christ as our Savior to start our walk with him. This is the warning I leave you with, in Revelation 22:19, And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share of the tree of life and the holy city, which was written about in this book.
