“Garden of Eden” (God Gives Us a Choice)
(Genesis 2:8 – 2:17)
Many of you have beautiful gardens, I have seen some of them. And today we are going to talk about the most famous garden in history, one that we will never be able to recreate, but one that we may again see.
Does Eden still exist? While there have been many attempts to locate Eden based on the Scriptural description, most Christian archaeologists agree that it was destroyed in the flood. In fact there is no evidence that either of the rivers that still exist, the Tigris and Euphrates, are in the same location as they were pre-flood. So the theory that the Garden of Eden was somewhere in southern Iraq, doesn’t have much evidence backing it.
OK, Let’s look at how:
I. God Provides for Man in the Garden (vv 8-14)
The river that flowed out of Eden was almost by necessity an underground spring that burst through in the Garden, because there was no rain yet. The idea that a spring could sustain four large rivers is not very likely, so these were probably not the mighty rivers they are today, but because of the moisture in the air, there was probably very little evaporation either. The word for river (nahar) comes from the root to sparkle and flow, and an accurate literal translation is stream. This word is also figuratively used for prosperity.
A. It was a Place of Life
Without understanding the language and symbolism of the time we don’t get the full meaning from this passage. First of all God planted “The Garden of delight or pleasure” in the east. In this culture east represented life, and west represented death, perhaps based on the rising and setting of the sun. When God said he removed our sins as far as the east is from the west, not only was it an infinite distance as we saw in the video last week, it also represents the vast gap between life and death.
So the garden which literally means a fenced area (He needed to keep the deer out of his garden too) was planted (ie. specially made) to the east, and notice how it says God “put” the man there. Not sure how He did this but we can again read this as God putting Adam into life. But even more, it’s implied that Adam was not created in the Garden of Eden, he was put there. So Adam was somehow dropped into this posh gated community all by himself.
He then must have lived somewhere else before the Garden, and given the landscape of the area, the Garden was surely a paradise compared to what he knew before. Already we see God going ahead to prepare a place for us humans. Interestingly both the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the garden so neither was ever far away, and they would have both separated the east from the west, life and death.
This tree of life was very important and if we look at Gen 3:22 we see that even dying, mortal man would live forever if they ate from this tree regularly. This is why Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden after the fall. Rev 22:2 reminds us that this tree will grow in abundance once again in the New Jerusalem or heaven.
We will see later that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will give humans the first knowledge of evil, which is simply going against God’s will, they already knew good. We will see that this knowledge will come from an experiment in choice. There is nothing in the fruit itself that is magical, rather it is symbolic of the first breaking of God’s law, the fruit does nothing, but the act of disobedience or sin causes the result.
Here now is where I think it gets very interesting when we talk about the river. First it is noteworthy that most great cities had a river flow through or beside them, but Jerusalem didn’t, and I think we will see why as we continue. So the river flows from Eden or “paradise” and gives life to every living thing that God created. The water keeps the plants alive, and the animals, and man. As it leaves what is basically heaven on earth it flows in all four directions carrying life to all four corners of the world. Are you getting the picture?
I’m going to thump you with Bible a little bit here, you don’t need to follow along. Read Ezek 47:6b-12, Rev 22:1-2, Psalm 36:7-9a, Psalm 46:4-5
So what or who is this river, who gives eternal life? I am glad you asked, let’s look at Rev 21:6 hmmm now Rev 22:16-17. Then Jesus himself said to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:10-14. At first she didn’t get it and thought she would have to make the trek to the well everyday, but then finds out that Jesus is this water coming up from the ground in paradise to water, or give life to the entire world. Jesus, though he isn’t named until his birth in the New Testament, is the river of life even in Genesis 2.
B. It was a Place of Luxury
We have already seen the parallels to heaven or the New Jerusalem in Revelation. Eden was a place much like the New Jerusalem will be: paradise, delight, pleasure, beautiful. God didn’t give Adam a palace because no palace could come close to the glory of Adam’s natural home, with the heavens as its ceiling, the earth as his floor, and the rooms underneath the trees.
Matthew Henry says: “Perhaps the less we indulge ourselves with those artificial delights which have been invented to gratify men’s pride and luxury, the nearer we approach to a state of innocence. Nature is content with a little and that which is most natural, grace with less, but lust with nothing”.
The rivers from Eden led to jewels and gold just like the New Jerusalem. We were cast out of this place and we want it back. I believe this is genetically and spiritually programmed into every human as we all originally come from Adam and Eve.
We don’t know what that constant sense of something missing is sometimes, but doesn’t it feel like a longing for something better? Something we are missing that somewhere inside we knew once existed. This is why every soul longs for God in some way, and how even in Genesis we see it implied that Jesus is what we are longing for. He represents what we had and what we can have again if we drink from him.
Ezekiel said this of the King of Tyre, and many have said that he represents both Adam and Satan, but it is as easily spoken to all humanity today: Ezekiel 28:12-15 read.
We think we live in a life of luxury now, and when compared to most other people in the world we do, so on the surface we seem content. But isn’t it interesting that some of the richest people in the world are some of the unhappiest? Dentists have the highest suicide rate of all professions. But compared to what we had, and will have if we are in Christ, earthly luxury is nothing, because it does not include the inner luxury of being without a sinful nature with God. That is what we are really longing for.
II. God Instructs the Man in the Garden (vv 15-17)
A. He was to Oversee the Garden
God blessed us with work. Work with Him. “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Colossians 3:17). Even though His creation was perfect, work was necessary for man’s good.
The word “keep” also means to “guard”, so God was commanding Adam to not only keep the garden in good shape, but also to guard it not in the way of protecting it from outsiders, but to exercise loving and careful stewardship over it. So here the idea of stewardship by man becomes his first real responsibility, and you could even say his only responsibility.
A very quick and clear lesson here is that none of what we have is ours. We are allowed to use it and are asked to take care of it, but ultimately nothing, including our children, are truly ours to keep.
Work here is part of the pleasure of paradise. We were not created to be idle and just bask in a hammock sipping margueritas in paradise, nor will we be in heaven. Revelation says we will be serving God even there. I think what we can take from this is that there is great joy in doing the work that He has put before us. Everything other kind of work becomes tedious and tiring.
All other animals were given instincts to carry out their duties in the world, only man had to be commanded. Again we see that we were created different from animals. Instincts don’t have a choice, but man was given reason and therefore the ability to choose to do God’s command or not. Sin and evil are simply the choice to not. So…
B. He was to Obey God
What are the very first words God utters to man? Basically, you can have everything except this one thing. God gave us everything and in that everything he put one thing that was forbidden and isn’t us like us to go for that which is forbidden, or to lust for that thing that we don’t need when we have everything we do need?
We are going to talk about what happens in a couple weeks, but for now the point I want us to get (and kids, you can listen to this too) is that whenever we desire something we need to check ourselves. Have you ever wanted something you really didn’t need, but couldn’t get it out of your mind until you got it? Then after getting it realized that it didn’t bring you what you hoped it would? Or was even a bad idea after you finally got it?
Just because God gives us choice, doesn’t mean we should use it for our own desires. He provided everything we need and told us we could have it all, so when you find yourself desiring something (which is much different from needing something, I can’t tell you how many times I have said I need a bag of Cheezies), we need to go directly to God and ask him to help us silence this desire.
Most desires that are not of God will dissipate if we don’t fulfill them immediately, whether it is buying something, eating something, smoking, or even some of the more damaging sinful desires. If we put off satisfying that desire we usually end up concluding that we were glad we didn’t act impulsively. Hear what Oswald Chambers says about impulsiveness: read 1st half of Oct 21
Don’t fool yourself into saying it’s not a big deal, it may not be, but I bet Adam and Eve didn’t think it would be a big deal either if they ate from that tree or that tree. Anytime we choose our own will over God’s, He notices and it matters.
So as I was studying this, I asked myself, when I am in the store and I want something I don’t need, am I disobeying God by going ahead and getting it? Then God said to me: what if by getting that you have caused me to withhold something far better that I was preparing to give you, but since you decided to pursue your own desire, I allowed you to have that instead?
Buying a bag of Cheezies is not a big deal, but what if it doesn’t stop there. What if I get so used to giving into these little, relatively harmless desires, I open the door and get in the habit of giving in to bigger, and more damaging desires. What if I decide to go into debt to buy that nicer car when the one I have is just fine, what if I decide to click that link and satisfy my curiosity? Is that how I want to train myself? Satan is licking his chops when we do.
I don’t mean to sound legalistic, or to say that Christians shouldn’t treat themselves once in a while, but we do need to check ourselves and make sure we are not getting into a dangerous habit of fulfilling our desires instead of thinking about how we can serve others instead of ourselves, trusting that God always provides, and knowing that following his desires are ultimately far more rewarding than the brief satisfaction that comes from following our own.
John Ortberg said He recently saw an actual, academic, peer-reviewed journal called Journal of Happiness Studies. "Positive psychology" is the big new trend looking for how people can be happy.
One theme that keeps cropping up is the happiness paradox which says: "the more directly one aims to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the more likely one is to produce a life lacking depth, meaning, and community." One article listed eleven separate facets of the happiness paradox. Another explained the principle of indirection: happiness, by its nature, cannot be obtained by direct pursuit. You have to sneak up on it. Or rather, you have to let it sneak up on you while you’re pursuing something more important.
The bottom line? Our relationship with God requires choice. An initial choice and then a never ending series of choices as we walk with Him. I suggest at the end of the day, that we want to have a balance showing that we chose him and his will much more often than not. The stakes are very high and the choice was given before God said anything else to us, life and abundance, or misery and death. Put that way, doesn’t it sound like an easy choice?
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for giving us choice. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have free will, it would be so much easier to be your servant. But I understand that you want us to choose to love and follow you, just as you choose to love us when we are unworthy. Help us to make choices that please you, help us commit to knowing you better through your word so that the choice is easy to make. May your Holy Spirit continue to convict us and transform our worldly nature. Deep down we know what we are longing for, and it doesn’t come from anything the world has to offer. I pray that everyone in this room, and world will experience the Garden once again through your loving grace and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us choose Him. Amen
