“In Eden”
The sixth in a series: “I Will be Your God and You Will Be My People.”
Texts: Genesis 2:8-25; Ephesians 5:21-6:4
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When God made man and woman in his own image, he placed them in Eden, the replica of heaven on earth. Eden is that place where God walked with man. The high point of God’s creative activity is when he made the man and woman and assigned to them the task of ruling and subduing all three realms of creation. Having been fearfully and wonderfully made in the true image of God, Jesus Christ, God now placed Adam and Eve in their new home and earthly sanctuary, that paradise which is Eden.
As we continue our series on the unfolding drama of redemption, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” we are in the second chapter of Genesis. Last time, we devoted our attention to the creation of the man and woman in God’s image, the theological high point of the six days of creation. Having finished his work of creation on the seventh day, God began his Sabbath enthronement as he ceased from his creative work and began his sovereign rule over all creation. It is this pattern of six days of work, followed by rest on the seventh, which serves as the background for our text (Genesis 2:8-25), when God gives the image-bearers the divine mandate to rule and subdue the earth.
As we have already seen, there are a number of important conclusions to be drawn from the Genesis account when God formed the man from the dust of the ground and then breathed into him the breath of life. It is the creation of the man and woman to be God’s creature-kings, created to rule and subdue the earth, which serves as the starting point for the unfolding drama of redemption which will take us from these opening chapters of Genesis all the way to the end of Revelation. The man and the woman who have been fearfully and wonderfully made and whose days have been ordained by God are now commanded to be fruitful and to fill the earth.
It is also from the creation account that Christianity derives its doctrine of human dignity and worth. The fact that the man and the woman are divine image-bearers not only means that God sanctifies all human life, but as a result of the ruling and subduing of the earth which flows from it, God also sanctifies the institutions of marriage and family, establishes the importance of work and labor, as well as assigning to the first couple the task of creating culture. The Christian doctrine of creation as set forth here by Moses, is absolutely foundational to all subsequent human history, as well as redemptive history which flows from it, and builds upon it.
We have also seen that the creation of the man and woman on the sixth day of creation is completely unlike that of God’s prior creation of the animals on the same day. For all of the animals and creatures who move along the ground are said to be created “after their kind.” By contrast, Adam and Eve were created by a direct act of God, who uniquely formed Adam from the dust of the earth and then breathed into him the very breath of life. It was this act which constituted man as a divine image-bearer, a copy of sorts, of the original divine image, Jesus Christ. This means that there is no biblical possibility that Adam had non-human, animal ancestors. The essence of man as a divine image-bearer is that of creator of culture and Lord and ruler of all three realms of creation, a point which is set forth in the second chapter of Genesis. This morning, we now turn our attention to some of the additional ramifications of the man and woman being divine image-bearers. This takes us to the paradise and sanctuary of Eden, and that which is known in Reformed theology as the cultural mandate given by God to Adam and Eve– “fill the earth and subdue it....Rule over every living creature.”
In verses 8-14 of Genesis 2, we come to the account of God’s creation of man’s earthly home and replica of heaven, that glorious paradise which is known to us as Eden.
As the account of God’s creation of Adam and Eve is clearly intended by Moses to be historical, so too are those events which now transpire in this mysterious garden, Eden–which is located in the east–and whose name comes to us from a Hebrew word which means “delight.” It may also interest you to know that the Greek translation of the Hebrew word for “garden” is “paradeisos,” from which comes the term “paradise” (Kidner, Genesis, 62).
It is important to notice that in verses 8-14, Moses goes to some lengths to anchor this garden in human history, taking great pains to point out that the garden has geographical locale. Eden is not in any sense merely an ideal or mythological. Eden does not exist “once upon a time in land far, far away.” Rather, Eden has concrete existence, and is as real as any other wonder of the ancient world. Thus we read in verse 8, “Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.” Once God formed the man, the man is placed in Eden–his new home–which, we will see, is an earthly replica of God’s heavenly temple.
Though Eden is depicted by Moses as historical, it is also depicted as hallowed ground and the images of the pre-Fall garden are undeniably glorious. Says Moses . . . “And the LORD God [here Moses uses God’s personal name, Yahweh-Elohim, since Moses has moved from creation to God’s relationship with the man and woman] made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. The fact that Moses distinguished the flora into two types, namely that which was beautiful from that which was edible, certainly mitigates against any idea that Eden is mythical–a suggestion which arises, no doubt, from the next sentence. “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Though we will turn our attention to the tree of life and to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil next week–when we take up the subject of the covenant of works and that period of human probation–there is nothing at all in the text to suggest that these two trees are merely an ideal or symbol. These trees stand in the middle of the garden and they bear fruit. In Genesis 3:22, we read, that after man had eaten from the forbidden tree of testing–the tree of the knowledge of good and evil–man is subsequently barred from the sacramental tree, the tree of life. These trees are just like any of other trees that grew in Eden, though their import is obviously much greater.
As if to make sure that higher critics would have to fall all over themselves to turn the historical into the mythical, Moses speaks now in some detail of Eden’s locale. In verse 10, he speaks of “a river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.” As one commentator notes, “the area may be a relatively compact one, above the Persian Gulf into which the Tigris and Euphrates, among others, make their way. This gulf, whose tidal flow sets up a natural irrigation and drainage of the . . . region . . . fitting it for vegetation and fruit trees even in primitive times” (Kidner, Genesis, 64).
It is certainly not accidental that the so-called Fertile Crescent is the historic cradle of civilization. Though the site of Eden is lost to the sands of time, Moses certainly regarded Eden as a place near the Persian Gulf and the confluence of Tigris and Euphrates river.
And yet, we also cannot overlook the fact that this mysterious river in Eden, which serves as the headwaters for the four other rivers, has a profound symbolic meaning elsewhere in Scripture. For this river which was the source of all life in Eden, is itself typological of the source of spiritual life and renewal, which God alone imparts to his people in the heavenly city and from the heavenly temple. This is why we speak, in part, of Eden as the earthly replica of the heavenly temple. This image of a river as a source of spiritual blessing appears throughout the Scriptures.
In Ezekiel 47:1-12, the prophet speaks of a glorious river which flows forth from the heavenly temple, a river which is impossible to cross, and which also produces huge amounts of vegetation as well as providing fresh water and nutrients for the fish of the great sea. Says Ezekiel in verse 12: “Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.” In Ezekiel’s vision, he speaks of a river, flowing from the heavenly temple, symbolic of life and renewal, of which the Edenic headwater in Genesis 2 is but a type and shadow.
The same thing can be seen when Eden is restored, indeed glorified. We read in Revelation 22:1, in the New Jerusalem, the angel showed John “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing down from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing its twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” The river in Eden, points the true river of life which flows from the heavenly throne, and which waters the tree of life, which, one day, will bring healing to all the nations, when the curse and all trace of human sin have been removed from creation.
Man’s paradise home was well-watered, extremely fertile, and filled with lush growth and vegetation. “All kinds of trees,” some beautiful, some edible, as well as great mineral wealth were in abundant supply (Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 34). For not only was there much flora and fauna, there was fine gold and “aromatic resin and onyx are also there.” And though no one knows for sure what Moses meant by these latter two terms, the picture he gives us is that of spectacular mineral wealth and splendor. In Ezekiel 28, when the prophet mocks the King of Tyre–himself a type of anti-Christ and Satan–he speaks of Eden’s mineral wealth in these terms. “You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you; ruby, topaz, and emerald, chysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl.” Once again this same imagery reappears in Revelation 21, when John describes the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, using many of these same gemstones to describe its heavenly splendor. The New Jerusalem–the true heavenly paradise–is depicted in terms which mirror the original paradise in Eden.
From images such as this, it is clear that Eden was an earthly replica of sorts of God’s holy dwelling, that place where the man could exercise his function as creature-king, to rule over that which God had made, a point Moses will now make in the next few verses (Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 54).
But Eden was also that place where God would meet with man. Since man was not a creature of the heavens–that is, the invisible world–but a creature of the earth, God must come down from the heavens to dwell with man. Eden is that divinely-appointed place. This too, is clear from the Genesis account. We have already seen that God’s Spirit is present, as he was hovering over the face of the earth during creation. God’s Spirit was also present and active when God breathed into the dust and made man a living being. Indeed, in Genesis 3:8, we read of the “Spirit of the day” walking with Adam in the garden in the cool of the day.
Therefore Eden is the original promised land flowing with milk and honey. And though man has been trying to regain Eden ever since the fall, Eden is not man’s garden, it is Yahweh-Elohim’s. Eden is that place where God chooses to dwell with man since God placed man there as his creature-king to rule and subdue in God’s name. Eden was the first sanctuary and first place of worship. Eden was that place specifically designed by God where he could meet with man, where God’s glory could safely be revealed. It is in this garden that man and God could enjoy intimate fellowship. Eden is that place where God walked with man in the cool of the day (see the discussion of this in; Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 31 ff). Thus Eden is an earthly replica of God’s heavenly temple, that place where Adam and God dwell together as Adam rules and subdues creation as God’s creature-king.
Continuing to elaborate upon the earlier declaration in Genesis 1:28 that man, the creature-king was created to work, to rule and subdue the earth (vv. 15, 19-20), we are now told that it is in Eden that God assigns to man and woman their first duties as creature-kings.
As we have already seen on several occasions, the words of Genesis 1:28-30, are particularly germane to our topic. For there we read, "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.’ Then God said, `I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.” This same theme is reiterated here in Genesis 2:15, when we read, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
In Eden, man’s task of ruling and subduing and exercising his dominion over all three realms of creation begins with the divinely assigned task of man functioning as creature-king over Eden, specifically seen in the task of tending God’s garden, this earthly replica of the heavenly temple. Since man was formed from the dust of the earth, man was to bring the earthly realm into submission. Since man is of the earth, man is to be sustained by the fruit of the earth. Man will eat as he labors. This entails not only his task as caretaker of Eden, but as we read in Genesis 2:19, the care-taking responsibility also includes Adam excising his Lordship over all the creatures which God had made. Says Moses, “Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” This is how the creature-king is to exercise the dominion he has been given.
There are several very important points to be drawn from this. The first is that as divine image-bearer, Adam, was created to work six days, and then to rest on the seventh. This means that work is assigned to Adam before the fall. In fact, Adam was made to work, and it is through working in God’s garden that Adam’s dominion is to be exercised. There is no hint here of Adam ensconced on a throne, shouting orders to the creatures. Rather, Adam’s dominion manifests itself in the task of gardening and naming. Ruling and subduing entails work.
But before the fall work was not toil. Weeds did not grow in the garden. Lions and tigers feared man. Work does not become toil and drudgery until after Adam rebels against God, and when, because of human sinfulness and the curse, sweat not only appears upon our brow, and callouses appear on our hands, but our sin is so great and offensive to God, that as just punishment he allows the IRS to come and take away that which we have earned through our labors! (Just kidding . . .)
That the man was created to work is why God regards laziness and sloth as such great sins. Since God has designed man to work, man is to find his identity and purpose through that which he does. This why Paul tells the Thessalonians to “keep away from every brother who is idle,” and “that if a man will not work, he shall not eat.” Paul also goes so far as to tell Timothy that if any man will not work to provide for his family, “he is worse than an unbeliever and has denied the faith” (1 Timothy 5:8). Paul’s not talking about someone who gets laid off or who is temporarily out of a job. Paul is talking about men who are too lazy to work and who will not support their families. As even cursing a fellow image-bearer, much less taking a person’s life with our hands or our hearts, are great sins, so too it is a sin against the Creator when an image-bearer will not work. God has made us to labor for six days, so that can we rest on the seventh. Sad to say that in this culture, with so much material wealth and prosperity, sloth and laziness are seen as a virtues! As the Puritans used to say, idle hands are the devil’s tools.
But alas, something was missing, even in Eden. As we read in verse 18, as God had made man to be the creature-king, God now forms Eve, the mother of all living. In verses 18-24, we have the account of the royal marriage–the creation of Eve, and the establishment of the human family.
Recall that in Genesis 1:28, before God commanded the man and the woman to rule over all creation, “God blessed them and said to them, `Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.” It is the institution of the human family, which underlies the cultural mandate. Man not only rules and subdues by keeping God’s garden and naming the animals, man rules and subdues by being fruitful, increasing in number, and filling the earth! It is through the family unit and the marital union–which is not only sanctioned but commanded by God–that man and women exercise their dominion over the earth. In fact, this marital union, ungirds the cultural mandate and man’s divinely commanded duties as caretaker of the garden and Lord of all the animals. Unlike the angels, made to inhabit the heavens which is the invisible world, men and women are created as sexual beings, designed for the express purpose of forming family units to bear children to fill the earth. It is through marriage and family that men and women, in part, fulfill their tasks in ruling and subduing the earth.
As we read in verse 18, “The LORD God said, `It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’ But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, `This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’ For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”
Even though Eve is biologically a child-bearer, she is valued because she is Adam’s companion and partner. There is nothing biblical about seeing a woman’s role as that of a submissive servant designed to serve the man. Rather the woman is man’s partner in the cultural mandate, the ideal complement to the man, who found no suitable partner among the creatures.
Eve is the one to whom Adam is to demonstrate his love, a love which is to culminate in the marital relationship and the birth of children. As Eve is taken from the man, she too, is an image-bearer, and she will be partner with Adam in the work of ruling and subduing. Thus it is God who has made man to work and woman to bear children. And any society or culture which denies this God-given mandate suffers accordingly.
It is also clear from the creation account that the human family is itself a copy of the relationship that the Creator has to his creature-kings in paradise. It is the Creator-creature relationship in Eden, which is the pattern for the husband-wife and parent-child relationships in the human family. The earthly father is the creature-king of his home, and children are to obey their parents, because these divinely commanded family relationships reflect Yahweh’s covenant lordship over Adam and Eve in the garden (Kidner, Genesis, 61). Though Eve is Adam’s partner and fellow image-bearer, it is God who assigns to Adam the role of covenant-Lord of his family. It is God who establishes parents as covenant lords of their children. He does this as a reflection of the way in which Yahweh-Elohim was Adam’s covenant-Lord in the garden.
This divinely-mandated family structure becomes even clearer in later biblical revelation when Paul tells us that God has built the husband-wife relationship into creation, because the husband-wife as well as parent-child relationships, are a picture to us of the relationship that Jesus Christ himself has with his church. Thus we read in Ephesians 5:21, that we are all to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” But that mutual submission to Christ is to be worked out in the divinely commanded partner relationship between the man and the woman, as set forth by Paul beginning in Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” In other words, as Adam was to submit to Yahweh Elohim’s covenant-Lordship in the garden, so a woman is to submit to her husband.
But being assigned the role of covenant head in the family is not itself without Lordship responsibilities and obligations. “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.” But Paul goes on to say, “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Thus Christ’s role as bridegroom for his church is once again the true image of which human marriage is but a copy.
This, then, is why God has built the institution of marriage into creation, because it reflects the relationship that Jesus Christ has to his church. But let us never forget that Christ alone is the perfect bridegroom. He alone has not broken his marriage vows with the lusts of his heart or with the urges of his body. Christ alone can make his bride, radiant and without the stain and blemish of sin. It is only because he has died for our sins and washed us in his blood that we will someday become his bride. This is why adultery–sexual relations with someone not your spouse–and fornication–which is sexual relations before marriage–create so much havoc and shame. For as Paul himself puts it, in a certain sense, sexual sins are sins against your own body (1 Corinthians 6:18). This is because sexual sin forms a union where there should not be a union. God has commanded us to be joined only to our spouses. When viewed against the backdrop of Jesus Christ’s fidelity to his own covenant vows to his church, we can see then, why sexual sins so severely undercut the sanctity of marriage and the family.
But that is not all. As wives are to submit to their husbands, and husbands are to love their wives, Christ being our model, so too, says Paul to children, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. `Honor your father and mother’—which is the first commandment with a promise—`that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.’” Yahweh-Elohim was Adam’s father in Eden, and Adam was to obey him. So too children are to obey their parents, because these human relationships mirror our the original relationship that we as creatures are to have with to our creator.
The creation account formally ends in verse 25 with the declaration that the man and the woman were naked, and without shame. This also raises some important practical questions as we wrap up.
The reason that the man and woman were naked and not ashamed is because man and woman had not yet fallen into sin. For as we read in verse 16, “and the LORD God commanded the man, `You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’” As we will see next time, this time in the garden is the period of divine probation when the man was to obey God’s covenant stipulation not to eat from the tree. At this point in redemptive history, work was not yet toil, childbirth was minus the pains of labor, weeds did not yet grow, and man walked with God intimate fellowship, in Eden in God’s earthly temple. All of that was to end when man rebelled against God.
Eden seems so long ago and so far away. Sin has destroyed all that Moses is describing here, yet we long for such a place nonetheless. Thus we end with God’s wonderful promise of Eden glorified. For sin never has the last word for God’s people. For God has sent a Second Adam, Jesus Christ, and he has not only saved us from the guilt and power of sin, he is the perfect bridegroom and as covenant mediator, he points us to the perfect father. And what is more, he will turn our present toil and labor into eternal Sabbath rest. And one day, Jesus himself will ensure that once again, redeemed divine-image bearers will walk with God in that heavenly paradise which the earthly Eden foreshadowed. For we shall see him face to face and his name will be written on our foreheads. And so will it be in that heavenly Eden yet to come when we walk with God in his garden in the cool of the day. Amen!
To read the next sermon in this series, Click here: Riddleblog - You Must Not Eat -- Genesis 2:15-17