Genesis 3:22-23

"And Jehovah 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 forever - therefore, Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken."

Any thought that man in his fallen state constituted any kind of threat to the supremacy of the Creator should be rejected. It would have been an unqualified disaster if man had eaten of the tree of life and in consequence thereof lived forever in his shameful and humiliating condition. What man had already done was bad enough, but to prevent an even greater tragedy, God drove him out of the Paradise of Eden, here again, for "man's sake," and not because of any "threat to God's supremacy,"[22] as alleged by Simpson and others.

"The tree of life ..." is nowhere explained in the Bible, but it disappears from the pages of the Bible here and never reappears until the closing chapters of the Book of Revelation, where once more, it is presented as growing on either side of the river of life, yielding its fruit twelve seasons in the year, and the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations. Clearly, from what is said here, it is that reality which bestows immortality.