Just before the story of God’s
creation of Eve, the Genesis account took us to the Garden of Eden. Not far
from where I lived in Puyallup, Washington there is an 80-acre park, the
majority of which is a natural, old growth, temperate rain forest. It is a beautiful place to walk and
appreciate the huge Douglas fir trees that grow hundreds of feet tall. Despite the natural beauty, its splendor
cannot compare with another park in the Pacific Northwest. Buchart Gardens in Victoria, British
Columbia, Canada is one of the most spectacular gardens in the world. Encompassing 55 acres of flowers, shrubs and
trees, the variety and colorful array of plants arranged in numerous settings
is breathtaking to behold. Although I
loved the natural beauty of Wildwood Park it couldn’t even come close to
approaching the cultivated and managed beauty of Buchart Gardens.
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| Buchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia |
Undoubtedly the competed earth,
unstained by sin, was very beautiful, much like the natural beauty of Wildwood
Park. Nevertheless, when God was done
with His work of creation, He went to the additional trouble of planting the
Garden of Eden in which He placed Adam “to work it and take care of it”
(Genesis 2:15). This was a very
gracious act on God’s part, by which He gave Adam an understanding of what sort
of things he might do as the steward of God’s creation. Undoubtedly it fueled Adam’s creativity and
made him dream of what creation might become as he worked with it. This gracious act of God also gave Adam and
Eve a sense of meaning and purpose. They
had a job to do, by which they could carry out their responsibility to exercise
dominion on God’s behalf, and by which they could honor and glorify Him. The Garden, which only briefly became home to
the first couple, was truly a gift of God’s grace. Sadly, they would soon have to exit their
beautiful home because of their rebellion.
Genesis 2:9 reveals something
special about the garden God planted for His pair of partners in horticulture. “In
the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil.” The Tree of Life was a gift of grace, intended by God to extend
Adam and Eve’s life in the flesh eternally. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil was an indication of one aspect of the image of God, that is, sovereignty
or free will. Sovereign, like Himself, God
gave Adam and Eve the freedom either to sovereignly obey His injunction not to
eat of the tree, or to sinfully choose their own will over God’s will. Had God not given that first pair any
prohibitions of any kind, they would not have complete freedom of will to
choose as they saw fit. This was grace
on God’s part, and sadly, grace that would require more grace. Because of their willful disobedience, after
the fall mankind’s will was unfortunately, bound by sin. True sovereignty could
never again be exercised apart from the grace of God, because only God’s grace
in Jesus Christ, and our new birth in Him frees us to choose God’s will, to
obey and honor Him. This gracious gift
of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was also essential for us to be able
to have a meaningful, personal relationship with the God who created us. If human beings were to be able to choose to
love and serve God freely in response to His love for us, then we had to have
freedom of choice. Ever since Adam and
Eve chose sin, it is only because of God’s grace and love, through the power of
the Holy Spirit who brings us to faith, that we are able to choose God’s glory
over our own selfish desires. That first choice that God gave Adam and Eve made
this possible.
As a result of their refusal to
obey God’s command, Adam and Eve lost the beautiful home that God had prepared
for them. “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become
like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his
hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord
God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had
been taken. After he drove the man out,
he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword
flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis
3:22-24).
Even this divine decree was a
gracious one, although at first blush it appears to be very harsh, enforced by
cherubim with flaming swords. It was not
God’s desire to trap Adam and Eve in an everlasting life of sin and sorrow. If
Adam and Eve had been allowed to remain in the Garden and had eaten from the
tree of life, their existence would be eternally marred by sin, as well as by
the effects of God’s curse on creation and the chaos it would bring. Instead, He intended for death to become the
portal to life. And how would this come
about? Through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Since
the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by
his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the
devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of
death” (Hebrews 2:14-15). Although death
itself would be a fearsome enemy, an eternal life of sin and sorrow would be far
worse. In the end, death itself would be destroyed, and through Christ’s
victory over sin and death, even the curse that was placed on the creation by
its Creator would only be temporary. “For the creation
was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one
who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its
bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans
8:20-21). Therefore, God’s judicial
decree that drove mankind out of the Garden would ultimately prove to be a
gracious one, when the definitive gift of grace appeared, that is, the gift of
God’s own Son.
Copyright by the author.
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