WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH EDEN AND THE TREE?
One of the biggest hurdles for me in trusting God was the plausibility of the historical account of creation. I tried to disprove God through science, but God had other plans for me, See: “What’s The Deal With Creation vs. Evolution?”
If at this time you cannot accept the biblical account of creation, that is OK, just consider it metaphor for now, but please dig deeper on this issue later.
The Tree: God arbitrarily chose the tree to help Adam and Eve understand the difference between good and evil. He could have just as well chosen a rock and said, “you can sit on any rock in the garden, except this one” or, he could have erected a giant playground and said, “You can play on any monkey-bar, except this one”. The tree was no more special than any other tree of its species, except that God said, “don’t”.
Of all God’s creatures, we are different because He gave us choice, rather than just raw instinct. God could have programmed us to have no choice and forced us to obey Him in everything. But God wants us to choose to have a love relationship with Him; he doesn’t want a bunch of robots.
Adam & Eve had never done anything wrong in Eden, therefore they hadn’t experienced evil. Without experiencing evil, they had no concept of what evil is. This is why God said, “don’t eat from this tree”. Not because He is a big meanie, nor because he was setting them up to fail. There were millions of other fruit trees, many just like it no doubt, that particular tree was simply a line in the sand that in effect said; “if you trust Me, then do what I say, because I love you and, because what I say is good and brings life”.
Of course we know that Adam & Eve stopped trusting God the moment they trusted the one who convinced them to eat from that tree, consequently, they were banished from Eden.
However, what many don’t realize is that even this banishment was done as an act of God’s love. This is because there was another tree in the garden; “The Tree of Life”[1]. Apparently, this tree was truly special, supernatural in fact. Had Adam and Eve eaten from it after they stopped trusting God, then they would have lived forever. God did not want them to physically live forever in their fallen state and separated from Him. This is because God had, and still has, a plan that can reunite Himself with any of his kids, if only they trust Him.