The tree of life is a symbol, signifying that God is life and the source of life (cf. Psa. 36:9; John 1:4; 10:10b; 11:25; 14:6; 1 John 5:12; Col. 3:4). This God became flesh (John 1:14) and was embodied in Christ (Col. 2:9). The Gospel of John tells us that in Him was life (John 1:4), He came that we may have life (John 10:10), and He is life (John 11:25). Hence, the tree of life mentioned in Genesis 2 typifies Christ as the embodiment of God, who is the source of life.
Christ is the life; He is also the true vine in the universe (John 15:1). These two combined equal the tree of life.
Colossians 3:4 says that Christ is our life. This indicates that Christ as the tree of life is life to the believers in the church today. That Christ is our life indicates that we are to enjoy Him daily as the food supply in our spirit, take Him as life and live by Him, and live Him in our daily life to experience Him, so that all that He is and has attained and obtained may become our subjective experience. Thus, we can grow in His life to have His image and be like Him (2 Cor. 3:18), and we can bear the fruit of life as His spreading in life (John 15:5).
Christ is life to the believers in the church today, and He will be the enjoyment of life in the Paradise of God to the overcomers in the kingdom in the future (Rev. 2:7b). This is the reward that the Lord promised to the overcoming believers in the New Jerusalem in the coming millennial kingdom, that is, a particular enjoyment of Christ as the life supply.
God’s original intention was that man should eat of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 16). Because of man’s fall, the way to the tree of life was closed to man (Gen. 3:22-24). Through the redemption of Christ, the way by which man could touch the tree of life was opened again (Heb. 10:19-20). But in the church’s degradation, religion crept in with its knowledge to distract the believers in Christ from eating Him as the tree of life. Hence, the Lord promised to grant as a reward to the overcomers, those who overcome all the distractions in the church’s degradation and enjoy Christ as the tree of life, to eat of Himself as the tree of life in the Paradise of God, which will be the supply of life for them to reign in the kingdom (Rev. 20:4b).
Eating the tree of life was not only God’s original intention for man but will also be the eternal issue of God’s redemption. In the ultimate manifestation of the New Jerusalem, all God’s redeemed people will enjoy the tree of life in full, which is Christ with all the divine riches as their life supply for eternity (Rev. 22:2).
The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil signify two persons in the universe—God and Satan. The tree of life typifies Christ as the embodiment of God, who is the source of life; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil typifies Satan as the source of sin and death. The content of the tree of life is God’s life; the content of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is Satan’s evil life, nature, and character—these three equaling sin and death. Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yet what entered into him was sin, which resulted in death (Rom. 5:12). Romans ——8 shows us that sin is like a person who can enter (5:12), reign (v. 21), lord it over people (6:14), deceive and kill people (7:11), and dwell in people, causing them to do things against their will (vv. 17, 20). This indicates that sin must be the embodiment of Satan, the evil one. It is dormant within the flesh of fallen man, but when it is aroused by man’s willing to do the good, it becomes the evil (v. 21), which results in death (5:12). Therefore, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil must be a type of Satan as the source of sin and evil.