Topic
The Tree of Life
The tree in the garden of Eden and in the New Jerusalem. Genesis links eating from it with living for ever, and Revelation places it inside the city with the unrighteous excluded.
Also called: tree of life, the tree in the garden
God barred the way to the tree and gave the reason in plain terms: lest the man reach out his hand, take also of the tree of life, eat, and live for ever. Whatever else the tree signifies, Genesis connects it with continued life and not only with the quality of life.
The tree reappears at the end of Revelation, standing in the city, its leaves for the healing of the nations. Those who wash their robes have the right to it and enter by the gates. Those outside are named, and they are excluded from the tree and from the city alike.
That resurrected bodies go on receiving life through the tree is an inference rather than a statement of Scripture, and this site labels it as one. The argument from exclusion does not depend on it.
What this is not
Terms in this dispute are routinely collapsed into one another. These distinctions are what keep the argument honest.
- Exclusion from the tree and exclusion from blessing are different claims, and Genesis states the former.
- The tree may be an image rather than a literal tree, and the argument does not turn on which.
- Access to the tree is described as a right granted, not a property anyone holds by nature.
Principal passages
- Genesis 2:9Listed in the Scripture index
- Genesis 3:22-24Listed in the Scripture index
- Revelation 22:1-5
- Revelation 22:14-15
- Revelation 2:7Listed in the Scripture index
Where this is argued in the case
- S21 The Tree of Life and Conditional LifeWhat Genesis says the tree did, where it stands in Revelation, and which part of this argument is inference.
- RB2 Does the Image of God Make Humans Immortal?Why the image of God does not entail an indestructible soul, and where Scripture locates immortality instead.
- S22 The Biblical Case for Conditional ImmortalityThe synthesis: 1 Corinthians 15 read through, and the short chain of reasoning from perishable bodies to the fate of the soul.
Objections that turn on this
- S28 Are the Wicked Still Present After Revelation 20?The recapitulation reading, the promise that righteousness dwells in the new creation, and the tree-of-life argument for anyone who reads it literally.
Related topics
Sources for this topic
- Joseph Dear. The Bible Teaches Annihilationism. 1st edition, PDF version. 2016. approximately 590 pages View original of The Bible Teaches Annihilationism (opens in a new tab) Details
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