The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 7-8
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil had the potential of life or death. Because no one knows what your choices will be, until you make them. Otherwise, they aren’t really choices at all. When Adam and Eve ate the almond, they chose a bitter one, which fatally poisoned them.
But they had time to find an antidote. After all, they clearly had time enough to sew fig leaves together before God’s judgment. But that was the wrong antidote. The tree of life would have given them life again –God clearly said so.
Eating the almond tree gave our ancestors cyanide poisoning. So they needed salvation from the other tree, which was specifically said to have leaves which were “for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2).
The only reason the nations are sick in the first place, in every sense of the word, was because of the other tree (1 Corinthians 11:29-31, Romans 5:12). Which means that, again in every sense of the word, the tree of life exists as the antidote to the tree of the knowledge of evil.
Which begs the question… if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is indeed a real-life almond tree… what is the real-life tree of life?
And as always, the answer is quite obvious if we just look for it. For what fruit is there in the Bible, which has the power to make a sinner well again? Proverbs 31:6. Wine represents, for obvious reasons, blood (Deuteronomy 32:14).
And it is only through blood that we can be forgiven (Hebrews 9:22). Which is another way of saying, “healed” (Luke 5:20-24). That, of course, is why it’s part of the Passover (Matthew 26:28). So blood and wine are, essentially, the same; wine is just the #VeganAlternative.
Both have the power to make men forget their problems, and make God forget their sins. To give them, in short, their life back. No other fruit has this power; and, as always, you’ve always known this answer without realizing it. For the tree of life was, clearly, representative of Jesus… and what did Jesus say?
John 15:5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
VINE TREES
You might say “but a grapevine isn’t a tree!” True… by your definition of the word “tree”. But by our definition, an almond isn’t a fruit tree, either… it’s a nut tree. Our groupings of things are certainly not universal, however well reasoned they may be.
For instance, we think of “meat” as the flesh of anything that was once alive; fish, chicken, beef. In most languages though, “meat” does not include fish (Spanish for instance). In many of them, it doesn’t include chicken either. Most commonly, the word for “meat” includes beef, goat, sheep and pork (Russian, for instance).
We don’t have a word that encompasses only the flesh of those animals, and excludes chicken and fish (“red meat” excludes pork, obviously). Then again when we use the word “seafood”, that includes fish. But in many countries, fish is a category outside of seafood (Italian, for instance).
As another example, many cultures divide colors differently than we do; we consider blue and green different colors. Others see them as shades of a single color. Whereas we call something light blue or dark blue that in other languages are two completely different colors.
There is no right or wrong way of looking at these words –there’s only our way, and their way. So we need to look at words with a broken spirit. Being willing to break our definition of words and accept that our own understanding of them is not absolute truth. So what the Hebrews called a tree, you might call a bush or, conceivably, a vine.
With that background, the word tree in Genesis is the Hebrew ets. It means, generally, “wood”; not a tree, necessarily; just wood. There is actually no Hebrew word for “living tree” in the way we use the term. The word “tree” to them, means anything made of wood –be it a plank, a stick, a pole, a tree; all of these have a single word in Hebrew, ets.
The word was even used for stalks of flax (a small flowering plant) in Joshua 2:6; so clearly, ets has some flexibility in interpretation, and Strong’s says the word is based in the idea of “firmness”. Which, if you’ve ever tried to break a grapevine, they certainly have.
Some might still argue that Hebrew had a specific word for “vine”, which is sort of true –actually there are several, and the meanings aren’t quite what we would call specific –loosely translated, they are words like “bendy thing” and “source of effervescence”.
Regardless, God could certainly have tried harder to say “there was a tree, and there was a vine”. Why wouldn’t He? First, Proverbs 25:2. And second, Judges 9:8-15. In this parable these “trees” clearly considered the vine –and the blackberry, incidentally –to be one of them!
And if that’s the case, then it could certainly have been one of them in the Garden of Eden!
GRAPEVINE OF LIFE
So the tree of life was in fact the grapevine of life. And knowing that, a lot of things suddenly make sense that never did before. Consider the story of the brass serpent of Moses (Numbers 21:5-9). Now this is a very odd story, one which borders on (and widely is used to justify) idolatry.
It gets even stranger, for Jesus compares Himself to that serpent in John 3:14-15. So Jesus dying on the stake and a brass serpent hanging on a pole in Jesus’ own words were symbols of each other. Let that sink in for a moment.
How is Jesus a serpent? Aren’t serpents devils? No, all serpents are not evil any more than all birds are evil. Moses and Aaron each had a holy serpent made from an almond branch in Exodus 4:2-3 and Exodus 7:9-12.
Serpents are unique among land animals in that they have no legs. Yet they move across the ground, seemingly using will power alone –not unlike things which move by the spirit. In addition, their bite feels like a burn.
These two connections explain, at least in part, why the word “fiery serpents” used in Numbers, is the Hebrew seraphim, which is a word used for angels in Isaiah 6:2 and elsewhere. Seraphim comes from a root word meaning “to burn”, which of course, is exactly what spirit beings do (Hebrews 1:7).
Likewise, there are evil birds (Revelation 18:2) and good birds (Matthew 10:16) –both are symbols of spirit beings, in different ways. So both snakes and birds can be good or evil. True, most serpents are evil in the Bible; their bite kills, and they lay in wait for victims.
Yet they are also wise, and many are completely harmless to humans (Matthew 10:16). God can appear as a bird (Luke 3:22), or as a serpent –in the case of Moses’ rods eating the evil serpents of Pharoah’s magicians.
And so when a serpent hung on a stake, to Jesus that meant Himself hanging on a stake. Hanging there, as a serpent, in order to heal the bites of the evil serpents! Now try to imagine, for a moment, what Moses’ statue looked like.
No one would carve or cast a straight serpent onto a pole; to be a recognizable serpent, it would have to be wavy, or coiled. And how would you represent a serpent on a pole if not coiled around it, the way a snake naturally would climb it?
So the serpent was no doubt wrapped around the pole, because that’s what a snake on a stick looks like. Thus, it would have looked something like this symbol; the rod of Aesclepius, Greek god of healing whose symbol is used even today for healing (well, for hospitals at least), just as God commanded in Numbers!
This symbol has survived for thousands of years –granted, most of the time wrongly worshipped as an idol (2 Kings 18:4); but rooted in a very real truth, dimly groped at by the world (Acts 17:27).
The truth that… wait for this… the grapevine was hung upon the almond tree! To take away the curse of the law!
HANGING ON THE OTHER TREE
We think of the two trees, naturally enough, as two separate trees in the Garden, side by side, separated by some little distance. But the Bible never really says that (Genesis 2:9). In fact, if you read it closely without preconceptions, it kind of suggests the opposite “the tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil [alongside it]”.
If you really didn’t have a mental image in your mind already, that’s the easiest one to picture. And what’s more, we know it has to be true; because if the tree of life was a grapevine… think about it… what was the grapevine growing on?
It is in the nature of grapevines to wrap themselves around other trees. To hang on them; it’s just what they do. So when Jesus said “I am the vine”, you have to ask what was that vine hanging on? Because vines ALWAYS hang on something!
So either God built a trellis… or the tree of life hung on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! And if a grapevine wraps around a tree, doesn’t it look just like Moses’ image?
In the Garden, Satan appeared as a serpent. A serpent wrapped around a tree looks like a vine wrapped around a tree. Thus, this first appearance mentioned his subtlety and deception (Genesis 3:1). Because he was pretending to be the tree of life!
Which gives new depth to Eve’s statement in Genesis 3:13. Further, if the serpent was, say, a viper, consider God’s punishment in Genesis 3:14. Why that punishment “eat dust” and “go on your belly”? Because it had been climbing a tree, pretending to be the tree of life!
Vipers, at least today, rarely climb trees, unlike many other species of snakes. They are found under rocks, in the dust, in the bushes. Lest they deceive man again, they were cast out of the tree of God, cast down to the EARTH (Luke 10:18, Ezekiel 28:16).
This is how God’s symbols work; they’re intuitive, obvious connections any child would make and which, usually, we already know –we just don’t put the pieces together. You already knew Jesus was the vine; you knew vines climbed trees; and you knew they looked just like snakes. You just didn’t add them all up.
And so when the Israelites looked on Moses’ brass serpent and were healed, it was because of Hebrews 9:28; and more specifically, because of Galatians 3:13. Because this vine hung on the other tree and died… but in the dying, took away the bitterness of the other tree (1 Corinthians 15:55-56).
The quote from St. Basil in the previous lesson suggested driving a stake into the heart of the almond tree to purify its fruit. Scientists think that this sweetened the fruit by stressing the almond tree, which prevented it from creating the poisonous amygdalin in the nuts.
A similar effect would probably have been achieved by a grapevine wrapping around the tree and strangling it; to survive, the plant would have to focus on itself, and not on making its fruit toxic. Thus, the tree of life would have purified the other tree, had Adam and Eve given it time; on every possible level and in every sense of the word (think of verses like Genesis 3:15).
OIL, WINE, AND FIGS
Read the story in Judges 9:8-15. These trees –people, obviously –were seeking a king over them; and they first asked the olive; now what does the olive tree represent? Psalms 104:15, Ecclesiastes 8:1. Add those verses together, and you can see that the olive represents a wise soul.
Talking to such a wise soul makes your face shine, in every sense of the word; as in the brightness of the eyes (Matthew 6:22); as in the glowing of the skin (Exodus 34:29-35); and in being transformed into the glory of God (2 Corinthians 3:18) by educating our soul to make better decisions.
Oil does not represent the holy spirit, as most people believe (the Bible never said that it did). Oil represents the fruit of a wise soul. Good judgments, made by a soul that is transformed into God’s image; which makes sense, because oil, when burned, produces light… as do the saints, when they are tested (Philippians 2:15). And of course, these are the things that most honor God (Judges 9:9).
A wise soul knows that becoming king over others is going to make that more difficult (James 3:1). So the olive tree refused, because to rule over other trees would mean to neglect its job ruling over its own fractions.
Skipping down to the vine (Judges 9:12-13); wine is by definition a spirit; because spirit means air, and the process of fermentation creates a great deal of spirit which makes wine seem alive, which in a way it is.
So this righteous spirit realized that it would be wrong to forsake the vital work of cheering God (its soul) and man (its own heart). It knew they needed it, so it declined to be made king over the other trees.
They had actually asked the fig tree second (Judges 9:10-11), but I wanted to discuss it after the wine so it would be clear this can only be a righteous heart. A heart which realizes that it must focus on keeping its flesh holy, so that it could be a sweet savor to God (Ephesians 5:2, 2 Corinthians 2:15).
A FALSE LEAF
Why, of all the leaves in the Garden, did they choose to cover themselves with fig leaves? I mean think about it; fig leaves aren’t that large; they’re also fragile and don’t easily sew together. Why not use a banana leaf, or a palm frond, or any of the other many leaves and grasses people have historically used for clothing and shelter?
So figs were a bad choice. Hence, their reason for choosing figs was about more than just ease and efficiency; figs, particularly, served some purpose in their mind; the leaves were, you might say, “to be desired to make one covered”.
Why? At right is a picture of a fig leaf; below it, a grape leaf. Notice anything particular about them? Like the fact that one is a counterfeit of the other??
Adam and Eve could have used grape leaves to cover their sins; they were, after all, for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2). But instead they chose something that looked just like it. A counterfeit –because they were either unwilling, or unable, or simply afraid, to use the real thing.
Now a fig is clearly not an evil tree (Judges 9:11); although, like any other tree, it can have both good and bad fruit (Jeremiah 24:1-8). But good tree or not, it was not the right tree to cover their sins!
So if grape leaves were the right covering, why not use them? Genesis 3:10. They were afraid of God, so they hid! And since they knew God dwelt in the midst of the Garden, surely they would have hid somewhere else… and since they were afraid to approach the grape vine, they grabbed fig leaves instead!
…But you can’t get blood from a fig! Just a sticky, sweet, milky-white sap (James 3:12). Nor can you get wisdom from a fig; for a heart is flesh, and not capable of producing oil. Nor can the vine produce flesh; for the spirit has no selfishness to burn away upon the altar of God.
A KING OVER US
Think for a moment about what was really happening in Judges 9; the trees were seeking a king over them. Why? What does a king do? He makes judgments, choices (2 Chronicles 1:10-11). In other words, he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that his people won’t have to!
You’ll notice they didn’t ask the almond tree to rule over them; because that was ALREADY the tree of judgment. They wanted a second one, a different tree which would be a mediator between them and that tree, to soften his judgments! (Obviously, I’m referencing Exodus 20:19, and more particularly, 1 Samuel 8:5-7).
And that leads to the cool part… because the olive, fig, and wine weren’t symbols of just any soul, heart, and spirit… they were specifically representative of one particular soul, heart, and spirit! The One who told us that HE WAS THE VINE!
Remember when Jesus was tempted by the devil? Remember how many times it was? Matthew 4:1-11. Three times! And look at the temptations; each targeted a different fraction! His beast was hungry, and wanted BREAD, the lust of the flesh.
The devil tempted His spirit’s need for justice, its need to PROVE once and for all that He was RIGHT by leaping from the Temple, just to prove that God was with Him –the pride of life. And finally, the devil showed to Jesus’ eyes all the kingdoms of the world, and tested the lust of the eyes in His soul.
But this was only one layer of the tests; for the trees literally tried to make Jesus king three times! First, His soul was offered to be king over the world, above; again, when the herd tried to make His spirit king by force (John 6:15).
And finally, to save His own beast, He had one last chance to proclaim Himself king; and it would have worked, too (John 18:33-37; Matthew 26:50-54). So three different literal chances to be king. One to tempt each of His fractions.
But Jesus knew that, were He king, He wouldn’t be able to focus on His own oil; His own figs might lose their sweetness; and His own wine would therefore not be sufficiently cheering. He successfully resisted these temptations by putting the health of His own soul, spirit, and heart above all else.
Because as He said in Judges 9, and as you learned in Lesson 7-2, these are the things you owe to your fellow man above all else (Romans 13:8-10); yet how often have you let other trees tempt you to leave your fatness, your sweetness, or your wine?
GRAPES FROM THORNS
Why would they try to make Jesus king over them (John 6:15, Acts 1:6)? Because they didn’t want the responsibility of choosing from the almond tree for themselves. They wanted a king to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for them… and Jesus won’t do that for you.
But when Jesus refused to be their king, instead of manning up and making the hard choices, they looked for another king; another savior, another intermediary. And they found the blackberry (Judges 9:14-15), who was only too happy to help.
Now consider the blackberry bush; it has sweet fruit, but to eat it, you must be willing to endure endless barbs and the certainty that your fingers will be bloody at the end of the day. Not barbs when you reach into the bush to get the fruit… but wickedly curved barbs that trap you there, and snag you on the way out.
Yet the blackberry fruit makes a juice which both looks and tastes significantly like grapes. And blackberry is, in my experience, alone among all the fruits of the world in being capable of making a wine that tastes identical to grape wines.
I’ve made it myself many times, and the quality is not behind the best “blood of the grape” out there. But there’s a problem… it’s not grapes (Luke 6:44). According to Jesus, they are specifically a counterfeit of grapes!
Blackberry is an excellent wine, but no matter how close it tastes to grape, it’s not grape wine because you can’t gather grapes from blackberry bushes! And whatever blood comes out of the thornbush, you can be sure it isn’t the blood of Jesus… because the tree of life has no thorns on it!
Jesus gave His blood without price (Isaiah 55:1, Matthew 10:8, Ecclesiastes 3:13). Blackberries exact a high price for their blood; they think it should be sold (Acts 8:20), paid for with your own blood (as anyone who has picked them knows).
Now look at exactly what the blackberry promised the trees; that they could “trust in his shadow”. There are no thornbushes in the world that provide significant shade; so clearly, this wasn’t the kind of shadow the bush meant… rather, he meant the kind of shadow that hides men from God’s judgments… the cloud that hides God from them!
Which is exactly what they asked for, when they asked for a king; compare Ezekiel 31:3-9, 17-18, which probably speaks of the “blackberry” in a different symbol; for after the cedar tree “fell” (Ezekiel 31:12-13), it became not unlike a low patch of thorns –as any fallen tree does.
So if they wanted him to be their king, Satan would gladly shield them from God’s gaze; but if they chose not to make him their king, or later reneged, then he would be their mortal enemy and “let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon” (which will happen, but perhaps not in the way the blackberry meant –Ezekiel 28:18, Revelation 18:4-9).
With all this in mind, consider what that might mean in verses like Matthew 13:7, Genesis 3:18, Joshua 23:13, Proverbs 22:5, etc. And then remember… that in one of the final acts of these thorns, they made a false crown out of them and placed them on top of the true Vine! Matthew 27:29.
Is it any wonder Jesus intends to burn them up? Hebrews 6:8.
A HEAVY STAFF
A grapevine and an almond seem to be growing together; but really, they are competing. They are locked into a very slow struggle for survival, to see whether the vine can choke the bitterness out of the almond before the almond starves the grape of sunlight.
With that image in mind, consider Matthew 16:24. This uses the Greek word stauros, which, like ets, means stick or tree or anything made of wood. It is connected, etymologically, to the old English word stave which in modern English is simply staff. That’s why the words look alike.
So when Jesus said “take up your cross”, it didn’t necessarily mean His instrument of torture; although, in typical Biblical fashion, it is true on all different levels, because a staff is another word for a walking stick.
Now a walking staff helps us walk. And walking, as you know, is a soul word, involving choosing our steps. Having a staff represents the readiness and willingness to move down the path at a moment’s notice (Exodus 12:11). And as first-awakened saints, our staff is made of almond wood.
We wield that stick as we make our choices; if we make good ones, the staff is strong and light. Because our path is short, straight, and easy. But if we make evil choices, the staff seems to grow heavier –as the trail grows long, twisted, and uphill.
Every day, our life is the result of our choices. We can pretend it isn’t, but whether we want to take responsibility for our situation or not, the only way out of it is for us to pick up our almond staff and make better choices.
Jesus carried the choices of the world on His back to Calvary, and it was heavy. For it was a very old tree, symbolically. It was almost too heavy to bear, alone. Which is why we don’t always have to bear it alone (Luke 23:26).
We take that staff in our hand because we must either wield the staff wisely, or we will be hung upon it. We either make good choices, or the choices kill us. Either we wield it, or it wields us. But as long as we’re at least trying to carry it daily, when we do make bad choices Jesus will hang on that staff for us.
If we’re tied to His yoke, following His spirit, drinking of the tree of life, He will make sure the burden is light (Isaiah 9:4). And then the staff will not be a burden to us, but a comfort (Psalms 23:4), because we will no longer have to fear the fruit of the knowledge of evil!
Because think about it; every time a child is spanked, it is for his evil choices (Proverbs 22:15). Thus, children fear the rod –as they should. But is the rod really the problem? Is it really the thing to be feared?
He needs to have that correction while he is still young enough to master the art of judging before he becomes accountable (Proverbs 19:18)… because a spanking with an almond branch will not kill you. Eating the wrong fruit will (Proverbs 23:12-14). And that is the thing to truly fear.
And as the child learns how to recognize the good fruit from the evil (Isaiah 7:16), he will realize that there is nothing to fear from that tree if you treat it with respect. For it is only an evil tree if we choose the evil fruit (Jeremiah 4:22).
Those people couldn’t choose good; they had no understanding of that choice. But to do evil, they were wise. Compare to 1 Corinthians 14:20. So if we learn to make good choices while we are children, it will not be the tree of the knowledge of good and evil anymore (1 Peter 3:13).
To us, it will only be the tree of the knowledge of good (Ephesians 4:14). But that will only happen if we can say what David said in Psalms 131:1-3.
THE HOLIEST OF TREES
The world imagines the cross as the tree of life, and they couldn’t be more wrong; for it is that tree which brought them death. Ironically, most of their idols ignore the Man on it who was there to remove a curse brought upon us by that tree!
Thus there is certainly a temptation (get it?) to see the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as a symbol of the devil. But you literally couldn’t be more wrong. Remember, this tree is not evil; this tree judges you according to your works; giving you what you deserve dispassionately and without compassion, just as God Himself does.
Exactly as God Himself does.
The devil’s job isn’t to judge you for your works. The devil’s job is to tempt you to commit works you shouldn’t (Matthew 4:3). To tempt you out of your depth and over your head. And the devil was not the tree of knowledge of good and evil… he was the false grapevine who tempted us to eat it too soon (Ezekiel 18:2-3).
The tree itself… that represented the judge of all (Hebrews 12:23). God the Father, Himself. Adam and Eve were sinless; yet not perfect. If they had been, they couldn’t have ever sinned. They could have followed the very simple command “do anything you want… except eat that fruit”.
Their lack of sin made it possible for them to dwell near the Father, but their still-sleeping soul meant that they were not yet holy enough to have the Father in them –so the prohibition against eating the fruit was similar to the prohibition against approaching the mount (Exodus 19:21).
But they would have eventually been made holy enough for that, by eating the tree of life long enough (John 6:44-45), and giving Jesus time to remove the curse from the other tree. Then they could have safely eaten the almonds of God, the metaphorical eyes of God –picturing the soul of the Father.
And then they could have had a right to eat freely of the tree of life with open eyes (Revelation 22:14). Able to approach to the throne of grace boldly, without fear, knowing that He was nailed to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for us…
…killed by the Father’s judgment, cursed by the Father’s soul, so that we wouldn’t have to be (Isaiah 53:10).
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Read Revelation 22:1-3. In this passage, we see all the same characters we saw in Eden; we see the Father, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; the Lamb, the tree of life; and we see the river of life flowing out from under Their throne.
And yet we also see the tree of life; isn’t that strange? Why is Jesus in this symbol twice? He’s not!
Read this passage again, and try to really visualize it this time. There is the throne of God and Jesus; and from under that throne, flows a river down the middle of the street. And on both sides of the river there are TREES of life!
One tree can’t be on both sides of the river. So merge this vision with the same one in Ezekiel 47; this isn’t one tree of life… it’s a BUNCH of them. Because a tree of life is another term for a holy spirit, and 144,000 holy spirits is indeed a “great many” trees of life! (Ezekiel 47:7).
Because if He is the vine, and we are the branches… then we are also grapevines of life. Read Romans 6:3-5. Notice that word “planted with Him”. Planted, because we are cuttings from the same vine, bearing the same kind of fruit –trees of life like Him, lining both sides of the river of the Holy City.
And the waters grow deeper, the farther Ezekiel measured from the Temple, because every tree contributes this water of life to make the river deeper! (John 7:38). We will no longer be drinking this water, as we do today; we will be creating it.
And why don’t we see the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Revelation 22? Revelation 22:4-6 gives us the answer. The Father is still there, but there is no longer a curse from that tree! So the name would no longer make sense!
God no longer needs to fear that we will make the wrong choice, so men can see His face clearly. He’ll no longer need to hide behind symbols, no longer cloak Himself in the thick darkness, because the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will be gone forever.
There is of course, one verse that says all of this…
Psalms 1:1-3 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.