We’re well into our study of Genesis on Wednesday nights, but I wanted to share a thought that I had not long ago, taken from the second chapter…
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
(Genesis 2:8)
It’s something we take for granted, that God placed man in a Garden, and came down to walk with him in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8), but the implications behind that idea are tremendous. It’s no coincidence that many religions depict their gods as dwelling in gardens or on mountaintops. It’s no surprise that structures like pyramids in Egypt or ziggurats in Central America were constructed the way they were, to resemble man-made mountains in the midst of fertile regions. The idea, for them, was to construct spiritual places fit for their gods (or, in some cases, for their dead to dwell among their gods).
Those ideas came from somewhere: In the beginning, God placed man in a garden and walked with him. That, too—the idea that God wanted to be in the same place as man—flew in the face of other religions of Moses’ day (and beyond). In other religions, the gods are always distant from people. THEY live in the gardens. THEY live on the mountaintops. We have to slum it in the deserts and valleys. They get to eat fruit and recline on soft ground. We have to eat dust and sleep on rocks.
You can see how, generations later, in the fallen world, the ideas of Genesis would become corrupted by storytellers who created their own religions. They HAD to construct myths and reasons why the people couldn’t dwell with their gods, because their gods weren’t real to BE dwelled with! As a result, they told stories about how their gods are jerks, who must be worshiped from a distance lest they punish us from their lofty perches “on high.” In the beginning, however, God did not want to be separate from His people. In the beginning, God made a place perfect for both He and us to live in together. It was not God who changed that, but us, by way of sin. God, in response, enacted a plan to restore what was lost in Eden because God has always intended for us to be together.
Throughout the Old Testament, we see examples of God inviting us to come near to Him. He called Moses up to the mountain, first in the Burning Bush account, and later to receive the Ten Commandments. He commanded the construction of the Tabernacle (and later, the Temple), to allow the High Priest to approach His presence in the Most Holy Place on behalf of the people. It’s not a coincidence that the Tabernacle/Temple was designed to evoke the ideas of a Garden (with sculptures of pomegranate trees, as well as blooming flowers, not to mention the interior being made of cedar trees).
When Isaiah prophesied about the era of the Messiah, he spoke of the great invitation that would go out, saying “let us go up to the mountain and to the house of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:3). You could even say that Eden is an example of God coming down to be with us, and after the fall, God’s plan involves the salvation of man, by making us fit to “come up” and be with Him.
In the beginning, God placed us in paradise. Soon after, we were forced out because of sin. Everything God did after that, has been to make it so that we could dwell in paradise with Him again. What were we made for? We were made to live with God. I find that to be a tremendously comforting idea.
~Matthew