Now we come to the second step. Most people cannot accomplish anything in a single step. Thus, after God created man as vessels with a human spirit to receive Him and to contain Him, He took another step by placing man in front of the tree of life.
As I mentioned in the last message, when I was a young Christian I was troubled by Genesis 2 because it did not seem to be a classical piece of writing as I felt the Bible ought to be. It reminded me of the play of some little boys who made images out of clay and put them before certain objects. Nevertheless, according to Genesis 2, God placed man in front of the tree of life. What is life? Life is mysterious. Not even medical doctors or biologists are able to define life. Although life is mysterious, it is presented in Genesis 2 in a solid and substantial way as the tree of life. We may be eager to know the meaning of the tree of life, but we cannot afford to be hasty. We should not approach something as mysterious as life in a quick and superficial way. It is easy to talk about this blackboard, but very difficult to speak about life. For the time being we simply need to see that God put man in front of this tree of life.
When I was young and read the first two chapters of Genesis, I wondered why God did not command Adam to worship Him as the Creator. I thought God should have told Adam, "I am your Creator. You must worship Me every morning, noon, and evening. You must worship Me at least seven times a day. You must bow down, kneel down, and prostrate yourself before Me. I will write some praises for you so you may practice how to worship Me." That was my concept. As far as I was concerned, it was foolish of God to place man in front of the tree of life with nothing to do. Furthermore, I felt that after God had created Eve, He should have given both Adam and Eve a wedding sermon, saying, "Adam, you must thank Me for giving you such a dear wife. You must promise Me that you will love her forever. Eve, I command you, as his wife, to submit to him." It seemed to me entirely logical for God to make such demands. Under the influence of Christianity, especially the conduct of wedding ceremonies, I assumed that God would have delivered a wedding sermon to the first couple. However, God gave them no such word. He only seemed to tell them, "Be careful about your eating. You must eat correctly. I don't care whether or not you love your wife or submit yourself to your husband. I don't care very much about worship. I care about your eating. If you eat wrongly, you will be wrong. If you eat the wrong tree, you will die. Adam, you must realize that it is not a matter of what you do; it is a matter of what you are. You will be what you eat. If you eat death, you will become death. If you eat life, you will become life. It is not a question of doing, but of being. Take care of your eating." In my early days as a Christian, I was bothered by this. To tell you the truth, during that period I did not like Genesis 2. I liked chapter 1 which described God's work of creation, but I felt that chapter 2 resembled a children's cartoon.
After God created man, He put him in front of a tree. God did not charge him to obey ten laws and requirements. There were no commandments, but there was a placement. God placed man in front of the tree of life; He wanted man to eat this tree. Later in this message we will see the meaning of the tree of life.