To I struggle with this concept of saying God allows those in eternal hell and suffering of torment to eat of the Tree of Life to be forever, in a constant torment of unresolved …while also this state of torment is confined by eating of the tree (the source) of Life.
Good questions raised in this thread.
Personally I like to look past the details to the bigger picture….and that goes back to the reason why God placed humans on earth in the first place.
What were they told to do right after Eve’s creation? They were told to “fill the earth and subdue it, having in subjection” all creation, both animate and inanimate. So what was man’s purpose? To act as caretaker for all that God had made here on this carefully prepared planet…..they were the very last of God’s creations and they were going to represent him here, being endowed with God’s attributes and qualities in their assignment. No sin existed at that time, but free will could introduce it if it was abused. How was God going to ensure that free will was not abused? He placed a penalty on the only way to introduce it into human experience….that penalty was the only way for humans to die. (Gen 2:15-17) So what were the humans told would cause death?….disobedience to this one command. Left to their own devices, humans would have had no reason to even think of disobeying their Creator….but we know what happened. They were persuaded to disobey, by satan deleting the penalty. “You surely will not die” is the lie he began…and continues to spread in all the doctrines that rely on that lie to even have a place in people’s belief system….but it infiltrates all false religions. “Hell” cannot exist if people are actually “dead”. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10)
Not many understand that satan was a “covering cherub” in the garden. In an indictment against the King of Tyre, God addressed the one whom this king was emulating. (Ezek 28: 12-17)
“Cherubs” in the Bible are portrayed as guardians, so the angel who became “satan” (“resister” or “adversary”) was in a position of trust and responsibility there in the garden as an overseer, but he was the first one to abuse his free will. He was carried away with his own magnificence and in an attempt to gain worship for himself, he devised the way to get the humans to abuse their free will, so that he could manipulate them to become their god and ruler.
So where does ‘sin and death’ factor into this scenario? Was there a “natural cause” of death in Eden? The answer to that question is “NO”! But creating humans alone in his image, God was going to use these creatures to maintain and care for, all that he had made.
The humans had no prohibition with regards to “the tree of life”, but only on the TKGE.
So, taking fruit from the TKGE meant being denied access to “the tree of life”…the means that God provided for mortals to live forever.
The very thing God put them out for; to keep them from remaining and eating of the tree of Life to continue on in this separation from Him and His presence. For me it blows apart the theology of this is what eternal suffering is…in Hell …torment is allowed to eat of the Tree of Life and to be in a never ending separation from Him. Sorry but I shake my head not seeing that as who He is or what He desires even from the beginning. Accentuating so they will not also eat of the Tree of Life and continue in this torment.
Yes, there was a dual purpose in evicting them and denying access to “the tree of life”…..imagine if all the despots in history had the ability to enjoy everlasting life!?
But evicting the rebels was a punishment because God in turn “cursed the ground” outside the garden and sentenced the pair to a very difficult existence outside of his care for them, up until their defection. They would have felt the vast difference between life in the garden with its abundance of food, and the austere existence outside where they had to raise a sweat even to grow enough food to “eat bread”….something they had not eaten in the garden. “Thorns and thistles” were not food, but these things were going to cause them problems in trying to feed themselves.
Since the Bible itself never says that there is conscious “life after death” except by resurrection, then “immortality of the soul” does not exist. If there is no conscious “soul” to experience torment or bliss, then what most people take for granted (that life after death is a Bible truth) is a satanic extension of his first lie….that you don’t really die, but go on living in a different form, in a different realm. This is not the hope held out in scripture for the majority of mankind.
God’s original purpose for humankind never altered, so Isa 55:11 shows us that it will yet become a reality.
