Cheryl Schatz

Gazza,

You said:

Thankyou for being willing to open the bible and explain your viewpoint from the text, I am still digesting your last answers but one follow –up question if I may:
Dosn’t living in the garden go hand in hand with eating from the tree of life and not dying (Gen 3:22)? If Eve is to die as a consequence of her sin then can she still have access to the tree?

Gazza, I am at your service and very happy to serve in anyway I can. The answer to your question is that God originally gave both Adam and Eve freedom to eat from every tree in the garden except for one but the freedom to eat from the fruit of the tree of life must be removed as God said that they would die if they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God can take away His permission to eat from that tree and it was a necessity to forbid them to eat of life since they MUST die. Eve was not kicked out of the garden as she was not rebellious and from this we can understand that she would have obeyed the new prohibition that took away the fruit of life. Living in the garden was not an automatic permission to eat from every tree. After all they were living in the garden where one tree was already forbidden to them, right? Once Eve’s eyes were opened to the deception and she received the prohibition that removed her freedom to eat from the tree of life, a now-wise woman without a rebellious nature would obey so she could stay. Adam is the one who, with his new sin nature that brings continual rebellion, would surely be a constant threat. God then kicks him out and puts an angel to guard the “way” to the tree of life. It sure seems to me that once Eve is out of the garden she isn’t getting back in because it appears that there is only one “way” in. Kind of like this way is a symbol of Jesus being the only “way” to life. The angel won’t let anyone near the tree of life but the angel would not have been necessary as a guard if there had been no threat from Adam, but for sure Eve would not have permission to eat from the tree of life as she must also die.