Hi Mike,

I could not find an answer to this question. I hope I have not been taking up to much of your time, but I just re- read the Law of Moses vs the Law of the Spirit (Great Paper) and I had a question. I was wondering why the tree of Life was not guarded before Adam ate of the tree of good and evil? It’s obvious that Adam was weak and carnal, and his transgression came from his condition. It’s also obvious since the tree of life was there, he obviously was destined to die before he transgressed for if it were otherwise, then he wouldn’t need a tree a life. I am wondering however why this tree of Life was not protected from Adam, in his weak and carnal state. Why did God protect it after?

Your Brother in Christ,
Matt

Hi M____,
You ask:

Why [ was] the tree of Life… not guarded before Adam ate of the tree of [ the knowledge of] good and evil?

The answer is that the tree of life had no form or comeliness that they would desire it:

Isa 53:2  For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [ there is] no beauty that we should desire him.

So there was absolutely no danger of Adam or Eve desiring to die to the flesh, turn the other cheek or suffer for Christ’s sake, until after they had become aware of the knowledge of good and evil. But once they had developed to that point, they were on their way to becoming like God:

Gen 3:22  And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

It is only then that the fiery sword of God’s word in the mouth of all of His elect, becomes necessary to “guard the way of the tree of life.

Gen 3:23  Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Gen 3:24  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

That “way of the tree of life,” was totally unknown until the tree of Life Himself came to this earth with the flaming sword coming from His mouth:

Rev 1:16  And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance  was as the sun shineth in his strength.

That sword is the same fiery sword which guards the way of the tree of life. The only way to get to the tree of life is to pass through that fiery sword of God’s Word which will never pass away.

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

There are many who claim the name of Christ who want to parse those words and say that there is one event for the wicked and an entirely different event for the righteous, but they are fighting against the word of God which tells us that God’s fiery wrath and His fiery words are all for the righteous and the wicked alike. There is a difference in timing but there is no difference in the means or the method:

Rom 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.

We have all “held truth in unrighteousness,” and have lived in the deceptions of Babylon, at our appointed time, and we will all be tried by the same fiery words of God, which will never pass away:

Mat 24:34  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

Christ’s every word is lived and experienced in the lives of His elect of every generation. All who are not being judged at this time, will have the same fiery judgment on their unrighteousness and ungodliness in a later judgment which will purge and clean out all that needs to be burned up and cleaned out. “There is one event to all men,” but that one event is “each in his own order.”

Ecc 9:1  For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, [ good or evil] are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
Ecc 9:3  This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness [ is] in their heart while they live, and after that [ they go] to the dead.

All that any of us do or ever have done or ever will do was written in God’s symbolic book before we were ever born. This includes the lives of Adam and Eve.

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.

So we are all destined to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, spiritually, before we can spiritually go through the fiery sword that guards the way of the tree of life.
I hope that you can see that everything being planned and “written in thy book, before there were any of them,” explains why there was no need to guard the tree of life until after our original parents had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There really was no danger of Adam eating of the detestable fruit of a tree he just naturally disdained. Notice it is “ the way of the tree of life,” that is guarded by the fiery sword of the cherubims. The natural man will never, of the pulls of his own flesh, desire to pass through that flaming, trying, purifying fire of the words of Christ.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike