In the Garden of Eden...
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In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are forbidden from eating of the tree of life. In the final grand vision of Revelation, however, the leaves of the tree of life are given for the healing of all the nations. That which was originally withheld from humanity as dangerous is, in the age to come, given to humanity for healing. Someone has suggested that God has allowed us to gain new powers only after we have become capable of using them for good. Imagine what would have happened, for example, if Attila the Hun had possessed armed tanks and machine guns. Many discoveries can be either destructive or healing, depending upon human choice. The first anesthesia was developed from a poison into which natives in South America would dip their arrowheads. Radiation therapy has saved far more lives than were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City employed chemicals that normally fertilize food crops. Before new drugs and medical procedures are made available to the public, they must be tested on human beings. The horrors of unethical medical experiments in Nazi Germany and in the United States prompted Federal regulations requiring that any medical testing on humans must first be approved by an institutional review board. Adam and Eve could not be trusted to eat of the tree of life. But eventually there will be a time, writes the author of Revelation, when it will become the source of healing for all the nations. Whatever else the biblical image of the "tree of life" symbolizes, it does represent progress in human responsibility. -- Bristow
