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What IfAdamHadTaken
oftheTree ofLife?
X
ost fruitful four-day visit to
Johannesbu rg and Cape Town
climaxed one evening in a dinner and
social occasion at the home of Dr. Roy
McCarthy, our regional director for South
Africa. Present were the ministers of the
Worldwide Church of God for the area, and
their wives.
As 1 sat at the table after dinner, the various
ministers and wives gathered around me. They asked
many questions, especially concerning the kingdom
of God, world conditions leading to it and other
biblical subjects.
Somehow, it seemed to me somcthing like times
described in the New Testament when Jesus sat
with a group of peoplc, answering their questions
and expounding about the kingdom of God. One
sensed the presence of the Spirit of God-a spirit
of !ove and peace, one of harmony and unity.
" What
if •• • "
Special interest carne when one askcd, "What would
have happened to the world if the first human,
Adam, had taken of the tree of LIFE?" That is a
question
1
have never heard or read of being
answered. But elsewhere than in Genesis the Bible
does at least imply the answer, partially.
lt
seems
almost no one ever thought to ask that question.
Would we not have lived in a different world?
You now live in a world of awesome progress,
development and accomplishment. Yet this same
world is filled with appalling evils. C rime, violence,
immorality multiply. Discontent, unhappiness,
frustration fill human minds.
WHY this astounding paradox?
Amid 20th century scientific and technological
advances approaching the miraculous- amid
tremendous advanccs in production of increasing
March 1983
knowledge and its dissemination, we live in a world
half literate, and half in abject poverty, living in filth
and squalor.
WHv? Why cannot mankind solve his problems
and eradicate his evils?
T he die was cast at the very foundation of the
world. Late 19th and 20th century intellectual
progress has turned to and accepted the theory of
evolution as the basic premise on which knowledge
production and advancement is based. But
knowledge development has been paralleled with
escalating evils. Evolutionary ideas have not led to
the increasing of, but the rapid elimination of
well-being. Evolution cannot give us the answer to
this mysterious paradox. It gives humanity NO HOPE
for the future.
T he only answer lies in the incident of the
forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. The only
explanation of this world's paradox and the meaning
of the purpose of human existence líes in
understanding of that incident , which in fact was the
foundation of this world.
Yes, WHAT
IF
the first man Adam had taken of
the tree of LIFE, instead of the forbidden fruit?
Adam was required to make a choice. In that
choice the die was cast on the whole 6,000-year
human society up to this time. The CAUSE of every
evil experienced by the billions of human lives
during these 6,000 years lies in the decis ion made by
the human father of all mankind.
Yes, WHAT
IF
he had taken of the tree of LIFE?
Look at that pivotaJ incident of all human
existence. The forbidden tree was to result in OEATH.
l t was the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of good and
evil. On man's taking
to himse/f
that knowledge,
God closed off the tree of life (Gen. 3:22-24) from
all mankind unt il Christ, the second Adam, carne.
The exception to this were the prophets of ancient
Israel for the writing of the Bible.
What did the forbidden trec really mean? That