Genesis 3:22-24 AMP And the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), knowing [how to distinguish between] good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take from the tree of life as well, and eat [its fruit], and live [in this fallen, sinful condition] forever”— [23] therefore the LORD God sent Adam away from the Garden of Eden, to till and cultivate the ground from which he was taken. [24] So God drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He [permanently] stationed the cherubim and the sword with the flashing blade which turned round and round [in every direction] to protect and guard the way (entrance, access) to the tree of life.
There is a good translation from the NIV version of verse 22, “and the Lord God said, behold 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.” Man had become like God in the sense that he now had independent knowledge (though a very skewed and extremely limited knowledge) of good and evil, but it did not mean that a man had the independent ability to do good and avoid evil just because he had some level of knowledge. This is a simple yet great description of fallen mankind; people left to their own wit and will to make life work. For human beings who were created to contain, enjoy, and display the life of God through their dependent humanity, being left on their own was a total disaster. The reason that cars need gas to run is very simple: they were made that way. The reason oil lamps need oil to give light is because they were made that way, and the reason that human beings need God to be fully human and to function as humans were intended to function is that we were made that way. That is very simple theology, but it is fundamentally the most important foundational theological truth you will ever know. It is the key to all historical studies of true anthropology and the only valid way to interpret human behavior. You can have an oil lamp in your house and a car in your garage, but without oil in the lamp and gas in the car, they just won’t work right. You can have a human being who is bountifully active, full of intelligence, personality, and strong will, but without God in the person, they simply won’t work right. Without understanding how we as people were created, how we were meant to function, and the impact of sin, it is impossible to practice good psychology or have any kind of sane philosophy concerning human behavior.
God’s concern that man would stretch out his hand and take hold of the tree of life, eat, and live forever was because of His great lovingkindness. The tree of life (a type of Jesus) carried grace to live by the life of God, which is what eternal life is all about, but the tree of life also carried the element of physical immortality, and therefore, God could not allow man, who was now dominated by guilt, shame, limitation, self-rejection, and all forms of fear and loss, under the authority of the evil one, eat that tree and be lost in that condition forever. It would mean that man would never physically die but would go on in this fallen horror forever.
God’s loving solution follows, “So he drove the man out; and at the EAST of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the WAY to the tree of life.” Notice that it does not say “to keep people from coming to the tree of life;” instead, it says “to guard the way to the tree of life.” There would come a day when the Tree of Life would be accessible to men once again, but it would be a different WAY. The old WAY would no longer work, for there is nothing man could do to get to the Tree of Life; that was the old WAY. There would come a day at a place called Calvary when the one who declared Himself to be THE WAY would come to man by hanging on a tree. There was nothing man could do to get to the Tree of Life after the fall, so the Tree of Life came to man with healing in its wings. The result of the fall was so conclusive that mankind could do not one thing to save himself, so the God of grace, who had declared His mad plan in Genesis 3:15, came in the person of Jesus to make all things new without an ounce of help from there. Pay attention to all the expressions of God’s heart and grace in the story after the fall. He came to man, searching for him, crying out, “Where are you.” He declared the curse on the serpent, and He declared the solution for the fall. Revelation 13:4 says that Jesus was slain from before the foundation of the world. Truly, we were saved before we were lost. This is our God, and this is His nature. He slaughtered the animal, shedding its blood, and He made garments of skin with His own hands, and He clothed them to cover them and protect them from their own brokenness. He drove man out of the garden to keep him from physically living forever in his fallen condition, and He guarded the way, knowing that in ages past, He had already provided the one who is THE WAY. It is true; His lovingkindness is everlasting.