BIBLE STUDY

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad

Also: tree of knowledge of good and evil, forbidden fruit, Genesis 2:17, why did God put the tree in the garden

The tree in Eden that stood for the event of sin on the timeline of creation. It was named for the first use of free will to choose bad, which was Satan's lie, not Adam and Eve's disobedience. Their choice came afterward and was still genuinely free.

(Ge 2:16, 17) And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: "From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die."

Knowledge is experience

In scripture, knowing something means more than having the information. It means you've been through it. Before any creature had sinned, free will was a stated truth that nobody had tested. Every choice ever made had been good. No one, not even the cherub who became Satan, knew bad in the sense of having done it. Free will had never been used to its full range.

The event the tree represented

Jehovah sees the events on our timeline without looking at the individual choices that produce them, so prophecy comes in symbols, and an event can be foretold without fixing in advance who will carry it out. The tree in the garden was that kind of symbol. It stood for the moment a creature would first use free will to choose bad, and that moment came when Satan told Eve, "You positively will not die" (Genesis 3:4). James says that desire, once it is fertile, gives birth to sin (James 1:15). Satan's ambition turned into sin when it produced the first lie ever spoken, and Jesus names that lie as the thing that marks him (John 8:44).

Why the tree isn't named for Adam and Eve

After Satan sinned, Adam and Eve still had a free choice. If they had refused the fruit, the tree would still have been the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, since the event it stood for had already happened. The tree marked Satan's fall. Adam and Eve's sin came after: Eve was deceived by a lie she had no category for, and Adam wasn't deceived at all but wouldn't live without the woman given "to be with" him. Death entered the human family through their choice. Sin entered the universe through Satan's.

What this doesn't mean

None of this makes sin God's doing. A gift that can be broken is still a gift. Free will was given in love, and the certainty that someone would eventually misuse it was met in advance by the Sacred Secret, formed before creation. Proverbs 16:4 says Jehovah made "even the wicked one for the evil day." He didn't create anyone to be wicked; everything, including the day free will would be misused, was already inside his purpose.

SCRIPTURES CITED

Genesis 2:16-17
“in the day you eat from it you will positively die…”
Genesis 3:4-5
“you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad…”
James 1:14-15
“the desire, when it has become fertile, gives birth to sin…”
John 8:44
“he is a liar and the father of the lie…”
Proverbs 16:4
“even the wicked one for the evil day…”
Ecclesiastes 3:14
“everything that the true God makes, it will prove to be to time indefinite…”
Genesis 3:22
“like one of us in knowing good and bad…”