We have already remarked that the man's moral relations were with God, with the creation, and with the woman. All, however, was now completely ruined, although the full development of, and after history of that ruin had yet to be recorded in the pages of inspiration, and as witnessed to in the every-day life of the first man—of ourselves. Man did not eat of the tree of life during the brief age of innocence, so far as we know, and certainly he did not do so after his fall, for that would have rendered him immortal in misery as a living man on the earth. God, therefore, not only guarded the tree of life, but the very approach to it was hedged about by "cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." Why the expulsion of man from Eden? Why the jealous guard over life? What is signified by the cherubim? And what is meant by the sword of flame? Weighty and important questions for man! It had yet to be tried whether life could be gained as the result of human responsibility. Life in innocence had been forfeited in paradise; could it be recovered by the cultivation of man outside, under a process of education and training carried on by God Himself? This was the issue raised, the end proposed in the disciplinary dealings of God, for the first 4,000 years of man's history. But He who knows the end from the beginning in thus placing the ministers of His throne (cherubim) around the approach to the untouched tree of life, and in effectually interposing death (the flaming sword) between man and the possession of life, thus early intimated that life was beyond the reach of man; that the breach was irreparable on the human side, and that all human efforts to get to God—to obtain life and paradise could only result in death. Every doer for life must find the end thereof to be death, so that life, the gift of God, can only be bestowed sovereignly and in grace on the sinner.