Note:  “To Eve it seemed a small thing to disobey God by tasting the fruit of the forbidden tree, and to tempt her husband also to transgress; but their sin opened the floodgates of woe upon the world. Who can know, in the moment of temptation, the terrible consequences that will result from one wrong step?”  (Patriarchs and Prophets page 61)

11.  Why was mankind driven from the Garden of Eden?
“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:  Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”  Genesis 3:22-24

Note:  The Tree of Life was placed in the midst of the garden of Eden.  It must be an amazing tree.  Not only does it bare twelve different types of fruit all twelve months out of the year, it also has the ability to give eternal life.  The tree was given to our first parents on the condition of obedience.  When they sinned, the way to the tree of life was bared to them.  Should a sinner have eaten its fruit they would not only have immortalized sin but immortalized the misery that always follows sin.  The tree now resides in the “paradise of God,” New Jerusalem.  It is waiting there for the obedient.  (For further study into the Tree of Life see Revelation 2:7; 22:2,14)

12.  What was the nature* of mankind after their fall?
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”  Psalms 51:5
“For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal***, sold under sin.”  Romans 7:14  (For further study see Romans 3:23)