Again, we see the love of God in these verses. Paradise had become a dangerous place for Adam and Eve and their descendants after the fall.
The Lord now shows that at some point man has become like him, like the Triune God. The point here is not that man has become somewhat godlike at some point. He has rebelled against God, and the consequence is that man wants to judge for himself what is good and what is evil. Man has now felt what is evil and he wants to judge it independently of the Lord. The great danger now is that man by his own action would bring himself into a situation from which he can no longer be saved.
That situation would come if man would eat from the tree of life after the fall. That is the tree that stood in the middle of the garden next to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life, which showed God’s promise of eternal life in Paradise, has now become perilous to man. If he would eat from it now, he will forever stand before God as a sinful and guilty person. No longer would he be able to be saved. Then life on earth really becomes hell.
22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever ”