Main reference: Gn 2:7-17
What are the true identities of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
It is said that eating the fruit of the tree of life leads to eternal life while eating that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads to death. God said to utter hidden things from of old in parables to the next generation (Ps 78). Jesus spoke about the secrets of the kingdom of heaven in parables (Mt 13) and promised to tell them plainly when the time comes (Jn 16:25).
This means that not everything was revealed in the past or at the first coming of Jesus. This would mean that the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil are secrets as well. Due to the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the world became a world of sin, and the devil has been reigning over it. Thus, God, who is the Creator and Life, left man and people died due to the sins they were born with.
However, God has worked for 6,000 years to restore everything and made covenants with people in each era. According to Isaiah 5, the choicest vines were planted, but they yielded wild grapes. God said they stand for the Israelites and according to Deuteronomy 32:32-33, the wild vine, the vine of Sodom and Gomorrah, is the venom of serpents and the deadly poison of cobras.
Jesus, who came in the name of God as the light, said he is the true vine, the twelve disciples are the branches, and that these 12 branches would bear much fruit (Jn 15). On the contrary, in Daniel 4, it is said that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon is a large tree with abundant fruit and that an angel comes down and cuts down the tree. As the king of Babylon, the nation of demons, is compared to a tree, a pastor whom the devil (Satan, serpent, and dragon) is with is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Jesus told another parable saying that the kingdom of heaven is like a small seed that was planted to grow into a large tree, where birds come and perch in its branches (Mt 13:31-32). The seed is the word of God (Lk 8:11).
How can the seed that stands for the word of the kingdom of heaven be sown in the soil when it is not a physical seed? This means that as God said man is soil, God’s seed is sown in man for it to grow and become a tree that bears fruit. Since this is the kingdom of heaven, it is not a physical tree or a physical seed.
In John 1, it is said that the word in the beginning is “God”, “the power to create” and “the light of life.” The tree that grows from the seed of life is the tree of life. Jesus, who had twelve disciples, was born of God’s seed. He was together with the Spirit of God, and he was the word of life (Jn 1:1-4). Thus, he is the tree of life.
According to Rv 22:1-2, there is the tree of life that bears twelve crops of fruit every month, and its leaves heal the nations. This means that just as Jesus preached gospels through the twelve disciples and bore fruit, there are twelve disciples on earth that become the promised twelve tribes to bear twelve crops of fruit every month; and its leaves, which stand for saints, become a healing medicine by preaching the gospel.
On the other hand, Babylon, the nation of demons (Rv 17, 18), became the devil’s nation as its pastors fed their congregation the wine of adulteries, the wine made from the wild vines of serpent. All nations have fallen as these pastors fed people the wine mixed with the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras. In Rv 13, they are those who invaded the tabernacle of heaven, defeated the saints, and put the mark of the beast on people’s foreheads and hands.
However, this Babylon, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is thrown out from the tabernacle of heaven in Rv 12. Those who were victorious at the tabernacle become the bowls of wrath in Rv 15, and in Rv 16, they pass judgment on the betrayers and destroyers, who are the dragon’s armies and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is the kingdom of the devil, Babylon, disappears and only the tree of life remains. This is the time when God reigns.
SHINCHEONJI Healing All Nations