8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” (Excerpts from Genesis 2, Christian Standard Bible)
The second chapter of Genesis tells us that God gave the man (and the woman by extension) one prohibition – one tree from which they were not to eat, which was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That tree was in the midst of a fruitful garden containing many trees and plants from which they were allowed to eat freely, and one among them was the Tree of Life.
Our good God gave the first humans life and food and beauty and each other and productive work in the garden. And God himself would walk and talk with them daily.
But why would God build in one prohibition? An all-knowing God could see the future, right? Couldn’t He see it would be our downfall, and the downfall of the whole world? Yes, he could see that.
Why would he do it? I have raised four children and I remember teaching them rules – “no-no’s” – and seeing the rule tempt each of them to disobey. Adam and Eve were innocent, unlike my children, until after they ate. But even so, giving them a boundary and a choice allowed for the possibility that they would choose to disobey God.
There is a children’s catechism which I used to teach each of my children what we believed. The first five questions were these:
Who made you? God.
What else did God make? God made all things.
Why did God make you and all things? For His own glory.
How can you glorify God? By loving him and doing what he commands.
Why ought you to glorify God? Because He made me and takes care of me.
God gave Adam and Eve a choice to obey him. When we love God and do what he commands, we bring glory to him. Our obedience is not real if we have no choice to make. If we have no choice, we are robots incapable of love.
The tree was there to give Adam and Eve a choice. To choose is essential to being humans in the image of God. To choose to obey God is to live. To obey God is to lovingly bring him glory.