Alma begins his explanation of Yahweh’s justice by spelling out how the Fall created the conditions requiring judgment. Adam and Eve were justly expelled from the garden after eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and were forbidden to approach the tree of life. These trees symbolize mutually exclusive states. We can have either one, but not both (see “Excursus: Understanding the Symbols of the Trees in the Garden,” following Alma 12).
Vocabulary: For the definition of cherubim, see commentary accompanying Alma 12:20–21.