8
¶ And the LORD God planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to
grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of
life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and
evil. 10 And a river went out of Eden to
water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that
is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 And the gold of that land is good: there is
bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the
name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole
land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the
third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And
the fourth river is Euphrates. 15 And
the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and
to keep it.
Speculation is rampant as to where the Garden of Eden
was located. However, the destruction wrought by the Flood of Noah’s time has
erased all traces and, even if it had not, there are cherubim keeping it from
being seen by us as you will see later. The fact of later place names of Eden
given to locations in the ancient world or that name given to a person is not a
guide as today we see how memory of times past leads us to name towns and
places in America after European places and cities. Whether it be New York, New
York or Hanover, Pennsylvania the newer place was named after a memory of the
older. I believe that Eden is now in the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, based on
what the Bible says in Revelation literally. The word paradise comes to us from the Persian for a type of large garden or
park, typically a hunting preserve for them.
General locations of these rivers are given, hard to
pin down today, which indicate a general location for Eden. It was in the
Middle East. I would suspect by all of the references in the Bible to how
special Jerusalem is that there was a beautiful garden planted by God that
encompassed thousands of square miles in the vicinity of Israel and the land
promised to Abraham’s descendants. This is the part of earth that concerns God
the most as this is the location for the drama revolving around His restoration
of mankind to where they were meant to be, but not by their own doing, but by
His actions.
Not only did God plant beautiful, life-giving trees
for food in this garden but the Tree of Life was there. It is now in the
heavenly city.
Revelation
2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to
eat of the tree of life, which is in the
midst of the paradise of God.
Revelation
22:2 In the midst of the street of it,
and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve
manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree
were for the healing of the nations…14
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to
the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
Eating of the fruit of the Tree of Life restores the
body and permits the person to inhabit a physical body forever.
Genesis
3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the
man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth
his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
So, clearly this is like some tree you have never seen
and has not ever been classified by a scientist.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the one
that was in the event that cursed our ancestors and us to death and dying. Why,
we ask, was it called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? The fruit
imparted no knowledge. The simplest answer is that not eating of the tree,
obeying God, is good, and eating of the tree, disobeying God, is evil. Doing
what God said to do and not doing what God said not to do is the essence of
good and evil. The easiest way for Satan to undercut that, and we will see this
shortly, is to call into question what God said.
When you know, from reading the Bible, that God says
to love your enemies and you hate even those who disagree with you, much less
those who would do you hurt you have made the evil choice because you are
disobeying God.
Matthew
5:43 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been
said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye
love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the
same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren
only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect.
When you have read the book of Job and know that God
is angry at those who misrepresent Him and yet you, when somebody suffers,
think you know what secret sin they are hiding that makes them worthy of their
pain, you are choosing evil. Evil is malicious, meaning disaster, calamity, and
trouble. Like vengeance, it is God’s prerogative those who oppose Him. It is
not your right to express, particularly in the congregation of the Lord.
For us, in the context of our behavior in the
congregation of the Lord, the local church, we are not to even allow the
appearance of such malice to express itself, but we have failed in that, have
we not?
1Thessalonians
5:22 Abstain from all appearance of
evil.
Romans
12:17 Recompense to no man evil for
evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
Which way have you chosen?
If you wish to get snarky about the Law given to
Moses, the religious and civil law for the Hebrews, and start using examples
from there to point out things about killing Canaanites or stoning wayward
children, understand first that, for Christians;
Galatians
3:24 Wherefore the law was our
schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith is come, we are
no longer under a schoolmaster.
The laws given to Moses are not your marching orders
unless those commands are repeated by Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, Jude, and James
under the new covenant.
Mankind’s first job, his constant employment, was to
care for the Garden of Eden. What a wonderful, unmodern, thought. Imagine the
lack of running around like a madman, keeping schedules, cellphones,
televisions, timeclocks, deadlines, and greed.
No comments:
Post a Comment