The same is true with God’s demand on us today. Adam had to depend on God every day so that he could have the life of God every day. The condition to receive is the same as the condition to be preserved. Hence, he had to continue to exercise a dependence on God so that he could be preserved. Adam did not have the strength to live out this life. Since this life was not within Adam, he had to exercise dependence before he could receive it. Hence, he cannot live independently from God but must depend fully on God and must have unceasing fellowship with Him. But the minute a creature decides to live according to the Creator’s life, he has to exercise dependence, because such a life is not in him it is only in God. When a creature lives according to his created life, he does not have to depend on anything, because life is independent and can exist by itself. Here the significance of dependence or reliance is most obvious. God intended that Adam would live according to a life that was not his originally. God wanted Adam to refuse his created natural life, unite himself with God’s life, and live in dependence on His life every day. This would transform him from something created by God into something born of God. God’s intention was for Adam to exercise his will to choose the fruit of the tree of life, thus establishing a life-relationship with Him. Although Adam was sinless, he was natural, one among all the animals he did not have the divine life. Adam was a created being hence, he did not have this life. The tree of life signifies God’s life-God’s uncreated life. This was what Adam should have eaten first. We see from God’s specific mention of the tree of life that it was the most crucial tree among all the edible trees. "The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (v. Among all the edible trees, God specifically mentioned the tree of life in contrast to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told Adam: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it" (Gen. The purpose for God to create and save man was for man to depend on Him. God hates to see man acting independently apart from Him. As long as man seeks anything, does anything, or acts in any way by himself, he has sinned, regardless of whether the thing he seeks after or does is good or bad. In God’s eyes, the meaning of sin is not necessarily related to committing many defiling acts. Dear brothers, this is the first sin committed by man. What all these mean is that man is simply acting alone and independently, outside of God. The meaning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is man acting apart from God, man pursuing goodness according to his self-will, man hastily and impatiently seeking after the knowledge that God has not granted, and man pursuing progress by his own means rather than by trusting in God. THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL
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