Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Typological treatment in the corpus
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9) is identified by Witness Lee (b2) as a type of Satan — “the source of death” — and by Watchman Nee (b6) as a type of soulish, God-independent knowledge that suppresses the human spirit. Both dimensions are present in Nee/Lee, with Lee providing the sharpest typological formulation.
Biblical Anchoring
| Reference | Context |
|---|---|
| Gen. 2:9 | Tree of the knowledge of good and evil stands in the middle of the garden, alongside the tree of life |
| Gen. 2:17 | God prohibits eating: “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” |
| Gen. 3:6 | Eve eats of the fruit and gives some to Adam |
| Ps. 36:9 | ”For with you is the fountain of life” — contrast verse: God as source of life vs. Satan as source of death |
| Heb. 2:14 | ”him who has the power of death” — Satan as the power of death |
| Rom. 7:17 | ”no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me” — Sin as personified indweller |
Typological Interpretation by Author
Lee
Witness Lee places the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in a cosmic-dualistic framework: the two trees in the garden represent two opposing sources operating in the universe. The tree of life represents God as the source of life; the tree of knowledge represents Satan as the source of death.
“What is the significance of the second tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? This tree represents nothing else than Satan, the source of death. The second tree brings death, because it is the very source of death. The first tree is the source of life, and the second tree is the source of death. In the whole universe only God Himself is the source of life, and only Satan is the source of death. A verse showing that God Himself is the very source of life is Ps. 36:9: ‘For with thee is the fountain of life’; and a verse showing that Satan is the source of death is Heb. 2:14: ‘him that had the power of death.‘”1
Lee emphasizes that eating the fruit was not primarily a moral act but an ontological one: Adam received Satan — via the fruit as carrier — into himself:
“The fruit contains the reproducing power of life. Adam was the ‘earth.’ When he took the fruit of the tree of knowledge into himself as the earth, he received Satan, who then grew in him. The fruit of Satan was sown in Adam as a seed in the soil; thus, Satan grew in Adam and became a part of him.”2
Lee explicitly rejects the ethical interpretation of the Fall — doing good or evil — as a misreading of the typological significance of the tree:
“Oh, that our eyes might be opened to see that in the whole universe it is not a matter of ethics and of doing good, but a matter of either receiving God as life or Satan as death. We must be delivered from the ethical and moral understanding. It is not a matter of doing good or evil, but of receiving God as life or Satan as death.”3
Nee
Watchman Nee treats the tree of knowledge as a type of soulish, God-independent knowledge. His exposition is embedded in a tripartite anthropological framework (spirit–soul–body): the tree of life presupposes dependence on God through the spirit; the tree of knowledge suggests independence through the soul.
“On the other hand, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil implies independence, because the man, by the exercise of his will, sought for knowledge that was not promised, something God had not intended for him.”4
God’s prohibition is for Nee not an arbitrary test but has an anthropological ground: eating the fruit activates the soul-life and thereby smothers the spirit as the organ of contact with God:
“The ‘fruit of the knowledge of good and evil’ exalts the human soul and suppresses the spirit. God does not prohibit man from eating this fruit merely to test him. He prohibits it because He knows that eating this fruit will so stimulate man’s soul-life that his spirit-life will be stifled. This means man will lose the true knowledge of God and thus be dead to Him.”5
The death God announced (Gen. 2:17) was therefore primarily a spiritual death:
“When God first spoke to Adam, He said, ‘In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die’ (Gen. 2:17). However, Adam and Eve lived for hundreds of years after eating the forbidden fruit. This clearly indicates that the death God predicted was not physical. Adam’s death began in his spirit.”6
Nee also describes how Satan executes his temptation strategy through the tree in a stepwise fashion — first the body (eating), then the soul, then the spirit:
“Satan always uses the physical need as the first target of attack. He mentioned only eating fruit to Eve — a completely physical matter. Then he proceeded to tempt her soul, suggesting that her eyes would be opened to know good and evil… Satan’s temptation reaches first to the body, then to the soul, and finally to the spirit.”7
Disputed Aspects
The board approved dispatching despite an earlier disputed marking. The tension lies in the following: the tree of knowledge is not described by Nee/Lee as a type of Christ — the antitypes are negative (Satan as the power of death; soulish independence). This departs from the classical typological pattern in which an OT type has a positive antitype in Christ or the church. However, Nee/Lee employ an expanded typological vocabulary: Satan and death can also be represented by biblical symbols. The corpus-author criterion is fulfilled: Lee uses the term “represents” explicitly.
Related Types
- Connected: tree-of-life (contrast type: tree of life as type of God/Christ as source of life)
- Connected: adam (Adam as carrier of the fruit and type of fallen humanity)
Footnotes
Footnotes
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Witness Lee, b2 (The Economy of God), chapter 12. ↩
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Witness Lee, b2 (The Economy of God), chapter 12. ↩
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Witness Lee, b2 (The Economy of God), chapter 12. ↩
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Watchman Nee, b6 (The Spiritual Man), Part I, ch. 3 “The Fall of Man”. ↩
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Watchman Nee, b6 (The Spiritual Man), Part I, ch. 3 “The Fall of Man”; Gen. 2:17. ↩
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Watchman Nee, b6 (The Spiritual Man), Part I, ch. 3 “The Fall of Man”; Gen. 2:17. ↩
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Watchman Nee, b6 (The Spiritual Man), Part I, ch. 3 “The Fall of Man”. ↩