The Garden of Eden

Well, please turn with me this morning to Genesis chapter 2. be looking at verses 4 through 25. This passage of Scripture describes for us life in this world as it was before the fall. before sin entered in and ruined everything. And what a blissful, idyllic, perfect place it was.

Let's read it together. Genesis 2, verses 4 through 25. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and the mist was going up from the land, and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

The name of the first is the Pashan. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havalah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Vedelium and Onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gehan.

It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.

Now, out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman, and brought her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother.

and hold fast to his wife. and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Let's pray. Father, what a creative and powerful God you are.

What a good and kind God you are to have made such a wonderful place for. Mankind. Providing everything necessary for happiness and Fulfillment. But when we look at life as it has become and compare it to what it once was, Lord, what a wreck and ruin we've made of it. Oh, how we need a Redeemer.

Thank you, Lord God, that you not only have the power to create. but also the power to redeem. Thank you for the promise that you will redeem this earth and the people in it. that the paradise which was lost might be regained. and enjoyed for all eternity.

So, Holy Spirit, please take this description of a perfect paradise and use it to create in us a godly grief over our sin. Use it to create in us a hopeful longing for the day when all will be made right. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Our text is a retelling of the creation accounts, specifically of day six, with an emphasis on man and his role in God's newly created world.

Where the emphasis of Genesis 1 is on God and his power. The emphasis, the focus of Genesis 2 is on man and his relationship to God and to the world and to each other.

Now, not everyone agrees that chapter 2 is a retelling of the creation account with simply a different emphasis. There are those who believe that it's a different and even contradictory account. They point to the fact that Genesis 1 refers to God as Elohim.

Well, Genesis 2 refers to God as Yahweh Elohim, the Lord God. Clearly this must be a different author, they say, otherwise he would have continued using the same name. when referring to God. Others claim Genesis 2 is a different, contradictory account of creation because verses 5 through 7 of chapter 2 have man being created prior to plants, not after plants, like we find in Genesis 1.

Now, we've got a whole lot of ground to cover this morning. I don't want to spend it all defending our reading of the text against the detractors, but it might be helpful to very briefly answer these two primary objections that are often raised. First, the idea that two different names of God indicates two different authors or two contradictory accounts of the story is really absurdly unnecessary. A more likely explanation is that Moses is emphasizing a different aspect of God in chapter 2 than he did in chapter 1. The name Elohim of Genesis 1 is a name that emphasizes the power, the position, the authority of God Most High.

The name Yahweh Elohim, Lord God of Genesis 2, is emphasizing the accessibility of God. Moses, it would appear, adds Yahweh to God's name in order to show that the transcendent God of Genesis 1 is also imminent. He's with his people, actively engaged in the affairs of his creation. It's simply a change of purpose, not an entirely different story. As for the apparent change of sequence, verse five does not necessarily refer to all plants.

Rather, it refers to two special categories of plants: bush of the field and small plant. These descriptions could refer to cultivated, edible plants, not all plants in general. In other words, Moses is describing a world in which plants exist, yes, but the edible, cultivated plants still needed a cultivator, a man. And this makes sense when we see man finally created and then charged with the task of tending the garden in verse 15. What we have in today's text then is simply a retelling of the story of day six in order to give us more details about the creation of man with an emphasis on God's relationship with man and God's purpose for man.

Genesis 2 describes a paradise that God has made for the human race, complete with everything He needs for happiness, and fulfillment and purpose. This description is, in fact, so beautiful, so perfect that it elicits some inevitable responses from us when we read it. First, I think it makes us long for a place like Eden. It was so idyllic, so right, so.

Well, perfect. And we yearn for it even though we have never known such a place. Secondly, we read a description of a place like Eden, and we cannot help but notice how far removed from that ideal our world is. Sin has ruined everything. And I think these two responses are exactly the intended purpose of this account of paradise in Genesis 2.

It ought to make us grieve. over the condition of our world as we know it. And it ought to make us long for the restoration of what we've lost. Church, God wants us to remember paradise. Because life as it was in Eden before the fall makes us grieve over our sin and long for redemption.

What then did that perfect life of Eden entail? I want to highlight four attributes this morning of life in Eden, four aspects of that life that we experience still today, albeit imperfectly. And our imperfect experience of these things ought to increase in us a distaste for sin and a longing for redemption. The four attributes highlighted in Genesis 2 of life in a perfect paradise are worship, work, faith. family and innocence.

Worship, work. Family and innocence. First, we find worship. The relationship between God and man was to be one of worship. From the creature to the creator.

And we see this creator-creature distinction highlighted in how man was even created. Verse 7: The Lord God formed the man of dust. from the ground. and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. and the man became a living creature.

God had already made the stuff of the universe, the matter, if you will, and here in verse 7, he takes some of that stuff, specifically dust. Clay, dirt. and forms man. It is literally like a potter taking a lump of clay and making a human being. Only this potter, after forming the shape of man, is able to breathe actual life into him.

Now what does this method of forming man imply about man?

Well, it implies that apart from the life-giving, animating power of God, man is no better than a lump of clay. We have no grounds for pride. And yet, how often we compare ourselves to ourselves and let it drive us to conceit: I'm better than you, richer than you, smarter than you. Or let it drive us to jealousy. She's prettier than I am.

He's smarter than me. I wish I was as talented as that person. What we fail to see when we act this way is that we are allowing ourselves to be puffed up or dejected based on how someone else's dirt compares to our dirt. Zwingli, the Protestant reformer, said, What reason can clay and ash have for haughtiness? None.

We are but lumps of clay. But on the other hand, we are lumps of clay who bear the image of God. This doesn't exalt the clay, it exalts the potter who can take dirt and make a man, who can take dust and give it agency and consciousness and life. Man is nothing without God. God is everything.

And God invites man to hold the prime place in his theater of glory. That's worship. Lumps of clay who have been fashioned to worship their Creator.

Well, what does the potter do next? Verse 8. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed, and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant and good. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. and the tree of the knowledge.

of good evil. You know the story. God. Forbade the eating of fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil upon punishment of death if man ate. It was a simple law, very clearly understood.

with irreversible ramifications if the law was broken. And again, this arrangement emphasizes the superiority and authority of God over man. Man is made to worship God, and that worship looks like, among other things, obedience to God's law.

Now, I want to stop right here and preach about 10 sermons on this first law of God. The prohibition of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead, I'll try to just summarize what I want to say. The early church fathers and the Protestant reformers as well spoke of a sacramental nature to this tree. And the law surrounding it.

A sacrament, of course, is a visible sign and seal of an invisible reality. This tree was a real tree in a real garden, but the sin of eating from this forbidden tree was not due to some mystical property contained in the tree, it was just a tree. The sin involved in eating from this tree had everything to do with God's prohibition. To eat from this normal tree would be devastating because it would entail rebellion against the Creator on the part of the lumps of clay. The act of eating.

was a sign and seal. of cosmic rebellion. Conversely, the act of abstaining from eating would have been a sign and seal of submission to the Creator and the consequent blessings of that worshipful act of submission. Wise theologians from generations ago say that this A tree gets to the root of man's worship of God. One of them said, God prohibits a thing lest we prefer to know and decide which things are good or evil based on our own sense of reasoning.

God wants us to depend only on Him and His Word. Whatever He judges to be good, we should consider as such. And what He judges as evil, we should hold to be evil. This is what it means to trust God, to prefer God's counsel to our own. This is worship of God, this is pure obedience.

By the very name of that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we are taught what God requires of us above all else, namely, that we reckon good and evil based on His authority, that we take our stand on God's judgments. lest we fashion other rules for ourselves. Another theologian said this prohibition was given to mankind so that they would aspire to be no wiser than was fitting for them, lest having cast off God's yoke and trusting in their own understanding, they set themselves up as arbiters and judges of good and evil. And this is the origin of free choice that Adam wished to to be independent. Church of the Garden was a sanctuary.

where Adam could offer worship to his all-powerful, gracious creator. This tree was an altar where Adam could demonstrate joyful submission to his all-wise, all-knowing Creator. Adam was given the opportunity to worship. He was also given the opportunity to rebel and die. He chose the latter.

As we will see in the next chapter, and on that very day began to experience the death brought on by the miserable tyranny of sin. My friends, we've been kicked out of Eden's garden. But our purpose of existence has not changed. We have been made to worship our Creator. That's why we're here.

However, the sacrament has changed. No longer can we approach him on the merit of our obedience to his law. As sinners who have already fallen, we need the mediation of a perfect Adam. Jesus Christ is that mediator. And if we would fulfill the purpose for which we exist, If we would have any hope of ever returning to paradise and worshiping God rightly, we must come to God not through the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but through Calvary's tree and through the merit of the better Adam who hung on that tree.

The next aspect of life that we observe in this perfect paradise is work. Vocation, calling. purposeful labor. Verse 15 says, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And this verse becomes the foundation for a theology of vocation.

Work is good, indolence is bad. The perfect existence is not one in which we're free to sit around and do nothing, but rather one in which we are to find fulfillment in meaningful labor. The New Testament upholds this assertion that meaningful labor is good, laziness is bad. Paul, for example, instructs the church in Thessalonica: if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.

Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

So, both before sin had entered the world and after Christ had completed his redeeming work at Calvary, work is commended and commanded. while laziness is condemned. As stewards, as bearers of God's image, we are to be laborers in God's creation. And once again, there are probably 10 sermons to be gleaned from Genesis 2.15.

However, suffice it to say, life in God's world is to be a life of work, not idleness.

Now, Adam was given the specific charge of working and tending a garden. In principle, we can identify meaningful, God-ordained work as anything that contributes to the good stewardship of his creation. Farming and husbandry, obviously, but there are other vocations that contribute to the good stewardship of God's world and to the quality of life in God's world. Finance, construction, politics, engineering, education. Domestic labor, such as child rearing, meal preparation, ordering and managing the resources of a home, and so on.

God has commissioned His image-bearers to be engaged in meaningful, creative, life-improving labor.

Now, there's no question that sin has altered this aspect of labor in God's world. In fact, the curse that God placed on man for his sin affected most directly his work, his calling, his vocation. Man was charged to tend the garden, but sin introduced specifically complications to the ground's ability to produce. Woman was charged with multiplying image bearers through childbirth and helping the man, but sin made childbearing excruciating and introduced conflict between husband and wife. Sin has made work.

far more difficult than it should have been. Nevertheless, work is a good, meaningful, and God-ordained reality of life, even in a fallen world. We need someone who can fix the the fallowness of the ground, and the barrenness of the womb. Friends, Christ is that Savior who redeems our work. No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground He comes to make his blessings flow, Far as the curse is found.

Do you find your work to be drudgery? Learn to see your vocation, your calling, your work. Through the lens of Christ's redemptive work, through which God's world is becoming more and more like the paradise He created it to be. and then labor with all your energy and enthusiasm. as unto the Lord.

Well, God made us to worship and God made us to work. God also made us to worship and work in the context of families. In verse 18, we read, Then the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.

In God's wisdom, he knew that it would be better for man to have someone with whom to worship and work, someone simultaneously like him and yet different from him. And by virtue of their very togetherness, their ability to worship and work would be elevated. And thus the marriage relationship, as we know it, was born. We get a better understanding of God's intended purpose for marriage by taking note of the two different names this new creature is given. She's called helper in verse 18, and she's called woman or wife in verses 22 through 25.

Helper indicates subservience. The man's task is tending the garden. The woman's task is tending the man. This title indicates a beautiful hierarchy. Woman is not man's leader, but his helper.

And as the man and the woman embrace those distinct roles, they together are able to worship and work with far greater effectiveness and delight. Secondly, she's called woman in verses 22 and following. The word woman, sometimes translated as wife, sounds like the word for man, just like it does in English. This title emphasizes both the parity or equality that exists between man and woman, as well as the distinction that exists between the two genders. Men and women are the same but different.

They're equals but distinct.

So as helper, her role is one of subservience to her husband. As woman, her value or worth is one of equality with her husband. Different roles, different functions, but with the same intrinsic value. And so, this balance between differing roles and equality of value is the biblical ideal for the marriage relationship. An ideal that safeguards us against the world's sinful and unhelpful extremes.

Once again, we know that. Sin has made a ruin of this ideal. Nevertheless, this is what we should aspire to in our marriages if we would be moving towards God's intended purposes. Women, as you Evaluate your life. and purpose and self-worth.

Measure yourself not by the world's metric, but by the standard that God has set. Before God, you are just dust. Let that reality temper your pride and vanity. Your need to be seen and heard and noticed and needed. You are created not to worship yourself.

but the God who fashioned and made you. Before God, you are just dust. Before your husband, you are Helpful dust. and very beautiful, helpful dust. Be his helper.

not his competitor. Be his encourager, not his challenger. Men. God's assessment of us is that we need a helper. Evidently just as much as we need a rib cage.

She is quite literally bone of your bones and flesh of your flesh. And so, the right response to this relationship is to treasure and cherish your wife just as you would your own body. One final brief point of application that I believe we can infer from marriage in Eden has to do with the priority or the preeminence of marriage above all other human relationships. Notice that God did not say, it's not good that man should be alone, I'll give him children. Nor did he say, It's not good that man should be alone, I'll give him parents.

Verse 24 says, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother. and hold fast to his wife. Marriage takes precedence. Over The parental relationship. Adam and Eve were husband and wife before they were mother and father.

This means that a husband ought not to prioritize his parents above his wife. Similarly, a mother ought not to neglect her duties as a wife in order to fulfill her duties as a mother. A strong, stable marriage leads to strong, stable parenting. and strong, stable relationships with parents.

So marriage, not parenting, is the biblical priority. Then, lastly, on this point, what of those who are yet unmarried? The single person, the widow, the widower. The Christian caught in a marriage of unequal yoke. Marriage is important, but not so important.

that mankind is unable to fulfill God's purposes without it. In fact, earthly marriage is the shadow, the foretaste of the one marriage that eternally matters. In the words of Paul, I'm speaking of Christ in the church. It's not good for man to be alone, but even this earthly institution of marriage, as wonderful as it can be, cannot fully satisfy that loneliness. Friends, union with Christ.

is the marriage to which we should all aspire. If you wish you were married, but God's providence simply has not allowed that to happen. Keep waiting on the Lord. Even as Adam slept while God prepared Eve for him, so God is still the one who can bring a suitable wife, a suitable husband to you. Wait on the Lord, rest in the Lord, and ultimately find contentment in the perfect bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ.

If that is God's providence in your life, you're not missing out on anything. you already have the best thing. Lastly, and very briefly, then, we observe that life in Eden's paradise was characterized by innocence. And this is amazing. The last verse of the chapter says.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. You know what should capture our curiosity and amazement in that statement as the little children in here snicker. is not that they were naked, but that they were not ashamed. There was no shame, no guilt, no fear, no regret, no self-consciousness in the Garden of Eden. Verse 25 is included.

In the story, for our sake. You realize that, right? It would have been totally unnecessary to make that comment for Adam and Eve's sake. They didn't even know what shame was, they were innocent. But for us sinners, we whose lives are characterized primarily by shame and sorrow and sin, we are amazed at the possibility of there ever having been human beings together in community with each other and there being no shame.

Can you imagine a life in which your conscience is quiet? Can you imagine a life that knows nothing of fear? Or death. Or judgment. Adam and Eve felt no shame.

They had no reason to feel shame. When God spoke, they listened with eager delight. When God speaks, we close our ears in dread oftentimes. When God pursues us, we run and hide. When God judges and overrules our wishes, we get angry.

and blaspheme. Friends, our first parents were not ashamed because they had no reason to be ashamed. We have every reason to be ashamed. embarrassed in the presence of our Creator. Oh, what grace we have lost Uninhibited worship.

Fulfillment in our work, intimacy in our homes. innocence in our souls. The life of the sinner is no paradise. But, beloved, listen to this. What grace.

is ours to find if we are in Christ. In the next chapter, Genesis 3, we'll discover what happened to destroy such a perfect world. We also discover God's promise to fix what sinful man has destroyed. Ours is no life in paradise, but God, through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, will carry Adam's race back to the garden, back to perfection, back to paradise. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam, who's Jesus Christ, became a life-giving spirit.

Jesus Christ is the way back to paradise. He who hung naked on the cross. Bearing our shame, clothes us with his perfect righteousness. that we might be unashamed before the face of God forever and ever and ever. Remembering life as it was in Eden before the fall makes us grieve over our sin.

And in grieving over our sin makes us long for Christ all the more.

So, beloved, remember paradise. that you might more readily repent of your sin. and that you might yearn more and more. Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

Father, what a good God you are. And oh, how sin has blinded us to that goodness. But you've given us a glimpse into paradise today. May that glimpse spur us on to faith and repentance. that we might once again know the exquisite delights of Eden.

Thank you for your Son, who removes our shame and guilt. Thank you for your spirit. who breathes new life into our souls. Thank you, Triune God, for your great love to us. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen. Mm-hmm.