Genesis 3:24 Commentary and Bible Study

We read in Scripture that the angels of all ranks are the servants given of God to minister to those who shall be the heirs of salvation. But when we are lost, in our lost condition, they are Cherubims of justice to make sure we come under judgment for our sin, and that we never are able to put forth our hand to take of the tree of life. The tree of life, Revelation 2.7 tells us, is at least figuratively now placed in the paradise of God. Anybody who enters the paradise of God, through trusting in Jesus Christ and his shed blood and his coming to him, is free to take of the tree of life. But until that point on earth, there is no sign of it throughout history. The angels, who are ministers to God’s people, are the Cherubims of God’s justice, ‘and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.’ As a result if any of us tries to get to heaven or to please God by our own efforts and own conceits and imagined good works, then God guards the tree of life, and we cannot do it and we will never get there. We will only ever make it by his mercy.