She (wisdom) is a tree of life to those who embrace her;

Those who lay hold of her will be blessed (Prov 3:18).

In the middle of the Garden of Eden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But when man ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was driven out of the garden and lost the access to the tree of life. What does this mean to us? Is there a way still for us to regain the access to the tree of life?

In order to get answers to these questions, you will need to understand certain facts. First, it should be realized that the word “adam” in Hebrew means “man,” “human,” and is not used as a proper noun—a person called “Adam”—in the stories of creation, at least in the first three chapters of Genesis. It rather refers, as a type, to human beings in general—both the ones who lived in the past, and those living today. So, if a person sins, he/she sins as this “adam” sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Second, you need to know that the Garden of Eden symbolically represents a place where God and man meet—the point that connects the heaven and the earth as the tent of meeting, the tabernacle or the temple functioned the same way for the people of Israel. Note, for instance, the way God’s appearance before the “adam” and his wife is described:

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking (would walk) in the garden in the cool of the day…(Gen 3:8).

Therefore, it can be said that the “adam” in the Garden of Eden was a priest.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (2:15).

The verb ‘to work (‘avad)’ also means “to serve, worship,” and is sometimes used together with shamar ‘to keep, observe’ (here translated as “to take care of”) for the services and duties that priests performed in the tabernacle (Num 3:7, 8, 8:26, 18:7). The “adam” did not need to work the ground for living that time (cf. 3:23).

And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (3:22-24).

From this description of cherubim placed on the east side of the garden, we can easily draw the analogy between the garden and the tabernacle (or the temple).

There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites (Exod 25:22).

Note how the ark of the covenant was covered with a lid, and two cherubim were placed on it. In the ark were the two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were written. Why was the ark sealed with such a cover so that the tablets could not be seen? Furthermore, why was the cover called “an atonement cover”? And why were the two cherubim placed on top of it so that it was even more difficult to open it and see inside? We have the following passage in the New Testament:

… for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing (Phil 2:13-16).