Genesis 3:22 Commentary and Bible Study

God now confers with himself out loud, using a plural pronoun consistent with the plurality of persons in the Godhead: ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.’ Adam is not included in this conversation but he must know the sentence that is about to passed on him. These words spoken by the Lord are a quotation of the serpent’s words to Eve in Genesis 3:5. There the serpent lured Eve into sin. Is the Lord agreeing with the serpent that Adam and Eve have now come to know good and evil? Eve gained a certain knowledge of evil by experience, but it was a miserable knowledge that left her hiding from God guilt. Her eyes were opened in that she knew herself to be sinful. It was hardly the case that they knew good and evil as God knows good and evil. We must therefore understand that the Lord quotes Satan’s words ironically. Have they really become as God in knowing good and evil? Certainly not. God knows good and evil and yet he is infinitely separated from evil. The serpent had distorted the meaning of the name of the tree.But what now was to be done with the human race? Adam and Eve were still in the garden; they still had access to the tree of life. Was that appropriate for them now that they had forfeited life by their sin? No. They cannot be allowed to remain in the garden any longer. It is true that the fruit of the tree of life was not efficacious; the tree was a symbol. These words do not express a serious concern on the part of God that Adam and Eve will now eat, and God will be unable to stop them living forever. The point is that it was no longer appropriate for man to have access to even the symbol of life in his fallen state. The tree of life would remain in the garden of Eden, and so to stop man eating from it, he must be removed from the garden. Later in Scripture we find that the tree of life is still in the garden: ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God’ (Revelation 2:7). This tree represents Christ and the gift of eternal life which comes exclusively through him, but mankind has no access to life in Christ without repentance and faith. It cannot be left available to man in his fallen unrepentant, unbelieving state. In their unconverted state, they must be separated from both the symbol of life in Christ, represented by the tree, as well as from the reality – Christ himself.