3:22 Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever.
In this passage, God here pronounces the banishment of man from the garden. The use of the word “man” here suggests that Adam represents his wife. It emphasizes his role not only as head of his family, but as head of the human race.
In eating of the forbidden fruit, man had become like triune God (“like one of us”) knowing good and evil. The Hebrew preposition “min”or “minniy” (of us) is here in the first person plural, reflecting the triune nature of God.
Adam & Eve had been created in God’s very image, but now that image had been severely marred and defaced by their experience of evil. They knew evil because they had done evil and were now evil themselves. God knows evil like a cardiologist knows about heart disease. Adam & Eve knew evil like someone who has clogged arteries knows about heart disease.
Apart from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam & Eve had been able to eat freely from all the other trees of the garden, including the tree of life. Eating from this tree was an expression of their life with God. Their disobedience had brought about a severance in that relationship. They were now sinners under the sentence of death.
3:23 So the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
In Eden in their sinless state, Adam and Eve rightly anticipated an eternity of life with God, who is the source of life. Having sinned, they were driven out into the world to earn their living by the sweat of their brow, bear children in pain, and at last die and return to the earth from which they were made.
Another reason they were sent out of the garden was to prevent them from eating of the tree of life and living forever in their sinful state.
The Garden had been like a holy sanctuary where God was uniquely present in all His life-giving power. Nothing unclean could live in that environment. In that sense, it was a type of heaven on earth, a type of the Holy of Holies where God’s “shekinah” glory dwelt.
3:24He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
Adam and Eve did not leave the garden by choice; they were driven out by Holy God. The same Hebrew verb is used for “stretch out” and “drove out” (shalach)—instead of fallen man being allowed to stretch (or literally drive) out his hand for eternal life, God drove him out of the garden.
Fallen man was driven from the holy garden like unclean lepers expelled from the holy camp of Israel. For an Israelite to be driven from the camp was far worse than physical death.
The final curse for unredeemed man is to be left “outside” the holy city with all who are morally unclean to burn forever in the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Revelation 22:14-15 Blessed are those whose robes are washed, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Outside are those who live like filthydogs; drug addicts (pharmakeus) and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
God drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
God drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Entrance back into the garden would have meant immediate death.
The cherubim were heavenly, angelic creatures of God who reflected His immediate presence. As such, they were not as other, “normal,” angels who appear as God’s messengers and run errands at His bidding.
The flaming sword is associated with God’s holy judgments and is continuously turning. The verb “turning” (haphak) is in the Hithpael pattern in Hebrew, signifying that it is “turning itself” in every direction.
APPLICATION
Every aspect of the original curse was endured by Christ on the cross as a substitute for sinners.
Hebrews 13:10-14 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might make holy a people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.
Our Lord also experienced the deadly sword of His Father’s wrath piercing His heart. In this way He has opened up the way for sinners to have eternal life and to look forward to a new earth where the curse of sin will be no more.
This was symbolically expressed when Jesus cried out on the cross, “It is finished!” And then the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom showing that through the blood and righteousness of Christ paradise is restored for those who turn from their sin and put their trust in Him.
