In which we discuss the story of the Garden of Eden as a type of the Christian community.

Tim: This is a rabbit trail we are pursuing because of the thought that came to me reading Galatians 3:13. This verse says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us – for it is written: cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”

This caught my eye because of the word “tree.” We spent time in Genesis looking at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was eating of the fruit of this tree that brought the curse. Paul’s comment includes both elements – the tree and the curse – so it caught my eye. There are several other verses where the instrument of Jesus’ death is called a “tree.”  This could turn out to be nothing, but how will we know unless we explore it?

I keep thinking about our split from the Baptist ranks 23 years ago. Remember that we really didn’t spend a great deal of time studying what caused us to split, which was preterism. What really affected us was the casting aside of love and willingness to abandon relationships over traditional doctrinal positions.

In my travels, I have involved myself with other denominations and traditions. In England, I visited Anglican churches. I have had interactions with Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. I’ve read a variety of historical theologies, such as Calvinism. In all of these situations and theologies, I have not found a group that has explored the dynamic that Paul exhibited when he said, “…the love of Christ compels me” (2 Corinthians 5:14). What ideas were in Paul’s head where Christ’s love for him made him obsessive in showing love and compassion to Jews and Gentiles even to the point of suffering?

I think, historically, the church took up the subject of the Gospel more like the rabbinic teachers did, picking it apart and debating conflicting opinions and interpretations. They lost that sense of awe and wonder about the plain statements of the love of God. The result was that passionate love, and forgiveness took a back seat to being theologically exact. Without this zealous love for one another, it became more important to defend traditions than it was to love sacrificially. It was shown that the Baptist Faith and Message mattered more to the church than loving and persevering with fellow believers.

So, when we come across images in Hebrews like the city of the living God and the Jerusalem above, and if we take the position that we should be reading Christ into those Old Testament image, then it’s not a great leap to interpret the Garden of Eden as an illustration of Christ and his community. Just like Genesis begins with the creation of a Garden, Revelation ends with the recreation of that Garden. Revelation ends with the Old Heavens and Earth passing away and a New Heavens and Earth coming down out of heaven from God. The language is identical to the creation story in Genesis.

The city in Revelation has the throne of God there, with a river flowing from under that throne. You have trees whose leaves are for healing. All that’s really missing is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Earlier, Roger pointed out the streets of gold and gates of Pearl which is reflective of the Garden of Eden where there were many precious gems and metals. This leads us to consider that the end of Revelation is about the recreation of the Garden of Eden in its pristine state. The Garden of Eden then is a picturesque metaphor for the Gospel community.

When we look at Genesis, we do not see a description of a community that is loving and forgiving in so many words. I think what we are seeing is the foundation for that community, something that is the catalyst for a dynamic life of love, compassion, and unity. I think we are seeing what is needed before we can really experience this community of love.

Instead of descriptions of character traits like love and compassion, we see a description of lush and fruitful trees and an abundance of livestock. We see the commandment of God for Adam to have dominion over these things. It is a picture of sufficient and abundant blessings and provision by God to his people. We are told after the creation and when Adam and Eve occupied the Garden, that they were “…both naked and not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). I take that to mean that they were exceedingly happy and satisfied with nothing except what God has provided. This is similar to the New Covenant community in Christ where his followers are satisfied with the righteousness of Christ alone. They are satisfied with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and they need nothing else.

 I’m going to be arguing that a community cannot arise simply by a command to “love one another.” The Garden of Eden story tells us that a loving community begins with the recognition of the abundant blessings of God given to us. In other words, we start with the acknowledgement of how vast and sufficient the blessings of God are to us, and from that springs a joy in life that instills a love for one another. So, if the Garden of Eden is the Old Testament version of the early church, then the beginning of a loving community is not the command to “love one another,” but a people in joyful delight of God’s blessings.

In his book, Paradise Restored, David Chilton makes a point that trees are associated with blessing. The abundance of trees and plants in a desert area is a picture of sustenance and life. Remember in Psalm 1: 3, the godly man is like a “…tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.” In other words, the godly man is the one dwelling in the Garden of Eden.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus adopts many images from the Garden of Eden and applies them to himself. Years ago, I presented a study comparing John’s Gospel to the book of Genesis. It starts with, “In the beginning…” There are the motifs of light and darkness. The narrative says of Jesus that, “…in him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4, 5). There is also a narration of seven days ending in the wedding feast at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine.

As we go on through the Gospel, Garden of Eden images continue to show up. Remember the rivers that flowed through the Garden? Jesus told the woman at the well that he would give her living water, so she would never thirst again. That water would become a well within springing up to eternal life (John 4:13-14). Remember the abundance of trees in the Garden and how the fruit was all good for food? After Jesus fed the five thousand, he told him that he was the bread life. That whoever came to him would not hunger and whoever believed in him would never thirst. He claimed to be the living bread that came down out of heaven, and if anyone ate that bread he would live forever (Tree of Life?). Jesus was reviving the environment of the Garden of Eden.

Not only do these images reflect back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis, but they would also foretell the images of the New Heavens and Earth in Revelation. In chapters 21 and 22, there is that river flowing from the throne of God with crystal clear water. There are trees for healing. So, just as God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed for joy and happiness, needing nothing else to be sustained and joyful, so it is in the New Heavens and Earth. In Christ, there is every blessing for joy and peace. If Adam and Eve had a music time, they would sing, “Amazing love how can it be!” We see that the beginnings of a loving community is based on the idea that every person in the community is a partaker in the abundance of God’s blessings. In Ephesians, before Paul ever talks about the traits of the community, he says, “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Again, this is not unlike the abundance in Eden.

Spiritually, Christ eradicates the thirst and hunger of the soul. In Christ, we no longer sing psalms such as Psalm 42:1-2, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God.” The poet goes on to speak of the tears he sheds because of God’s absence. It is a song of despair thinking God has forgotten him. This is certainly life as it was being cast out of the Garden. It represents the mindset of the Old Covenant, which was largely experienced in the wilderness rather than the Garden.

2 Peter 1: 3 also reflects this thought: “Seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence.” This is the language of the Gospel. It is the language of Jesus and the apostles. It is the truth that we are not lacking a single thing to enjoy life in the presence of God in Christ.

Roger: When you quoted 2 Peter which spoke of the true knowledge of him who called us, that would contrast with the knowledge that comes from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Tim: Good point! Christians are partakers of the Tree of Life which distributes the blessings of God completely equally to everyone. If the community were to hold to a system or theology of “haves and have-nots,” then judgmentalism and condescension is eventually going to creep in. This is how a group trying to become a community of love fails. We sing the song which says, “No condemnation now in him I dread; Jesus, and all in him is mine!” If the Gospel proclaims that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, then the community must stand on that as an undeniable truth if we are going to be that loving and forgiving community.

You cannot expect to have a loving community where there is a strategy of inspiring guilt and fear. Ministers fail when they say, “Well, we need to preach guilt and fear in order to get people to walk down the aisle to the altar. We need to get results to report to the association.” They might achieve their goals, but this approach won’t build community. Before a preacher can preach condemnation, he must withhold blessings from the people. He must preach Christ in such a way that there remain blessings that are unattainable without works. This is his leverage to instill guilt and fear. That preacher withholds from God’s people the riches that God gives freely in Christ!

The preaching of the Gospel declares that God has withheld nothing from his people. If a preacher is mixing the Old Covenant in his theology, then he must preach to Christians that God has left them deficient, that there are still blessings to be earned by their actions and beliefs. To build community, we must preach as an undeniable truth that we possess vast riches from God in Jesus Christ alone. Being in possession of those riches, we are in a position to enrich others instead of worrying about how to make up for the riches we lack.

Ty: It is interesting that in Christ we have everything, and we do not need a preacher to tell us that we’re guilty or that we should be thirsty and hungry spiritually. Christ has already provided those things. It is not good when told that God loves you, then in the same message told that he condemns you. Why would a person be comfortable in that church or situation? It’s sad when someone attends church and comes away feeling that being condemned is the right feeling we are supposed to have before God.

Ron: I think when I was a teenager and heard the condemnation, it was my belief that no one could be perfect, so you just give up on trying.

Ty: Do you think they just ignore it?

Tim: I do not think they just ignore it. The established traditions get cemented into them. Our passage in Hebrews (12:18-24) declares that Christians have not come to that mountain of judgment. We reflected on this and, as Hal mentioned, every time a revival preacher would come to town, they preferred preaching about the terrors of Mount Sinai more than the comfort of Mount Zion, the Jerusalem above, and the city of the living God.

Ty: When my father died, everyone who tried to console me could not because there was a spiritual void, and they were giving me spiritual answers to help overcome the physical things that I was dealing with. Since becoming a Christian, the spiritual answers have helped me understand the physical things that happened to me and have provided healing in giving me a reinterpretation of the physical things that have happened in my life. My journey has been a healing process and the spiritual strength I got from Christ filled that empty void that was missing at the death of my father. When my mother and brother died, I did not have that void and I did not have a problem with them dying. Christ did something for me and I do not need to be condemned. I have already heaped enough criticisms on myself so I am an expert at self-condemnation!

Tim: You needed something to give you peace.

Ty: I needed something that God provided. It was not a message that God abandoned me, so when I hear that God loves me and forgives me and has taken away the condemnation, that’s what I needed.

Tim: The challenge in institutional church is to know how you embrace that truth of God’s love when many are throwing doubts on it.

Ty: That’s the challenge that comes with the “Accuser of the Brethren” and those accusations should be ignored.  

Tim: We’ve mentioned facetiously that institutional Christianity thinks that the “accuser of the brethren” should be a staff position. It’s not satire to say churches like hiring pastors who preach a really good hellfire and brimstone sermon. This conflicts not only with Hebrews 12, but also the Garden as a model for the Gospel community. Genesis 2 relates to the blessings there, the trees, the rivers, the gems and precious metals that were all there. God said you could eat of all of them except for that one tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The chapter is capped off saying that Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed.

Artistic depictions of Adam and Eve in the Garden always show them with their private parts discreetly covered by strategically placed foliage or long hair giving the impression that their nakedness was literal. If we do a deeper dive, we want to ask if this imagery has a deeper meaning of greater significance spiritually. I have pondered that this image, to be “naked and not ashamed,” perhaps means that Adam and Eve were comfortable with the notion that they had everything they needed for life and happiness in the Garden. They were perfectly content and happy with what God had created for them they were satisfied that there was nothing outside of the Garden that was necessary for them to have lives of joy and peace.

I find this to be consistent with the Gospel message which says God accepts you completely on the basis of Christ’s righteousness alone. Clothed in his righteousness, you don’t need anything from anyone for spiritual fulfillment and satisfaction. Like Jesus said in his prayer in John 17, the glory that he received from his father he was going to pass on to those who believed in him. In the Garden, we could say that God put Adam and Eve into the glory of his creation and there was nothing else they needed for happiness and joy. They just had to avoid eating of that one tree.

Dwight: It seems like before eating from that tree and before The Fall, they had no real concept of judgment or condemnation. In their relationship with God, I don’t think that idea was even in their vocabulary. It wasn’t until they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that they put themselves in judgment over God and began choosing what was good and evil in their own minds. I think that is when they became aware of judgment.

Ty: Add that God created a helper for Adam so that they were support for one another. There was unity there and they helped one another.

Tim: What Dwight says is intriguing. When you think about it, God created the stars in the heavens, the land and the seas, the moon and the sun, the birds and the land creatures and gave man dominion over all of them. In all of that there is not a word of condemnation, no threats or warnings. In other words, God created the beauty of the Garden first and then he puts people into it. Like you said, there was no condemnation, only everything he needed as far as food, water, precious gems. It was there and there was no need to go outside of the Garden to supplement their blessed existence.

Heather: You are probably not going to like this, but in a way, God created temptation by saying “don’t eat of this tree.” As a human, when you tell me not to do something, that’s the first thing I’m going to want to do. What do you suppose the thought was behind that?

Tim: We are always taught that temptation is being drawn into doing something wrong, bad or immoral. When we look at the temptation in the Garden, we can apply this to life in Christ also. God had provided everything they need for happiness and all he was saying by warning them against the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was to be satisfied with that. The serpent planted in Eve’s mind that there were actually good things beyond the Garden.

A while back, we did a study looking at the temptations of Christ in Matthew 4. To understand those temptations, we have to look at Jesus’ baptism and chapter 3. Remember that Jesus, when coming up out of the water, heard the voice of his father saying, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” It was with this word that Jesus entered the “wilderness” and encountered the temptations of the devil.

We could say that this was the same condition as Adam and Eve before eating the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Jesus had the assurance that he was loved by his father as a son. We should notice a couple of things in this story. First, the wilderness here is not a geographical place to be taken literally. At least one of the temptations took place on the pinnacle of the temple. The wilderness here was a religious wilderness. The devil here is representative of the religious leadership who were always challenging Jesus’ identity. Remember, the Greek word for devil (diabolos) simply means “a malicious slanderer.”

So, the temptation of Jesus began with the challenge, “If you are the son of God…” He had already heard the voice of the father declaring his love for him. The role of the scribes and Pharisees involved questioning the assurances that Jesus had been given. For Adam and Eve, the serpent cast doubt on the sufficiency of blessings in the Garden and the integrity of God’s statement to them. The serpent’s challenge was sneering at the blessings of God within the Garden.

My take on temptation is not the traditional one of being lured into doing bad things. If we are tempted, it is to doubt the gift of God in Christ and to believe that further blessings can come if we seek to add to his righteousness. This is why I am such a stickler for saying that our blessings from God come from Christ alone. Jesus gave his glory to his disciples, and they passed it on to every believer from that time onward. We share that glory equally with one another. So, the worst temptation is to diminish that glory in yourself and in others. This is what gives rise to self-righteousness and condemnation. It is what drove Cane to kill his brother.

Heather: Well, if it was just Adam and Eve, that was not very good.

Tim: I know this will raise the hackles of the creation science advocates, but I don’t think the Garden of Eden story was about just the first two people on the planet. I think they represented a larger group.

Hal: it’s an allegory.

Tim: I think it’s allegory or a metaphor. Arguably, there were a lot more people around during that time, maybe even a whole culture. God asked them, “Who told you that you were naked?” Well, besides God, there was only the talking snake, so the list of suspects is pretty small.

Ron: Why would God ask the question if there’s only two people and a snake?

Roger: It was their conscience that told them they were naked because the blood of bulls and goats could never cleanse the worshippers or make them innocent. Eating from the tree defiled their conscience and it revealed their guilt. The serpent lured them into believing that they would be just like God and able on their own to decide what is good and what is bad. They would take it upon themselves to judge others on what is good and bad. He did not mention the shame that would come and their need to hide themselves from God.

Tim: It’s interesting that God created everything and after each day of creation, he looked at what he had made and declared it to be “good.” The only thing they were warned about was this Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This tree had an advocate in the serpent. He convinced them that there was more in life that lay beyond the Garden, that what they had from God was just not enough.

In the next chapter, we have Cain and Abel outside the Garden of Eden building altars and making sacrifices. The blessings of God were forgotten, and mankind were building their own blessings. Doing that killed the idea of a loving community. In today’s institutional churches, there is still theology that points beyond Christ to gain blessing beyond him. It is Christ plus baptism; or Christ plus confess your sins; or Christ plus embracing the Baptist Faith and Message; or Christ plus a certain theological system or futuristic doctrine. We faced that 23 years ago.

Ty: But isn’t that the real evil, denying that God has provided everything for you?

Ron: I’ve heard many times the message that people have to believe that Jesus is the son of God and the savior. I don’t understand about those who have a choice who don’t hear the message of Jesus. I’ve always been taught that you have to believe to be saved.

Roger: I read somewhere of a tribe and some remote country where the missionary showed up and started talking about Christ. They said they have known about him all along, they just didn’t know what his name was.

Tim: That could be. It’s an interesting thought exercise; what about people who are living in community, enjoying a life where there is love and forgiveness, but no system of theology? I think community can be ruined when there is the insistence on dissecting theology and getting everyone to agree. I think there will always be a trauma among the congregation when there is an attempt to establish a Gospel community. Traditions will have to be confronted and shattered.

There was a major speed bump when Peter went to Cornelius. Peter was the first one traumatized when he was confronted with a vision to eat things unclean. This trauma then spread to his Jewish brethren when they discovered he had dined with the uncircumcised. After Peter related everything that had happened, they grudgingly accepted it. The transition was hardly without its bumps.

The story of Pentecost is an interesting study also. When the Jews and proselytes from all over the world were confronted with the message of Christ and that they were guilty of crucifying the Lord, they were “pierced to the heart.” They had traveled many miles and many days to be in Jerusalem for their prescribed rituals, but the message of the Gospel caused them to abandon that so they could hear the teaching of the apostles. That was the beginning of the community.

Later, the Gospel goes to the Samaritans, then to an Ethiopian. Then we are back to that major hurdle of the uncircumcised household of Cornelius. All of these are drawing people through Christ back to dwelling in the Garden of Eden where God has every blessing provided and that they need nothing beyond Christ. Peter’s friends grumbled that some were not circumcised, but the thinking was shifting to understand that uncircumcision and ritual were things from outside of the Garden of Eden. They were products of the wilderness.

Roger: The concept of clean and unclean things came from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Tim: Right! You can see in Peter’s friends in Acts 11 how it was difficult shifting from that tree to the Tree of Life. They begrudgingly admitted, “I guess God has given repentance to the Gentiles.”

Ron: Then there was the challenge in Galatia where some claimed the Gentiles could not be a part of the community unless they were circumcised. Peter again had to argue against that.

Roger: The thinking was that if a man is not circumcised, he is not following the law. The circumcision of infants to a Jew was that they belonged to the Old Covenant. God poured out his Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his household who never kept one bit of the Jewish laws or customs.

Tim: Yes, that element caused Peter at the Jewish Christians too flip out a bit. In Galatia, Peter and Paul had to give testimony and draw a line saying circumcision is not a necessity where the Gospel is concerned. Paul demonstrates the line in the sand when he says anyone preaching that kind of Gospel is subject to destruction (anathema, Galatians 1:8, 9).  This is a more refined way of him saying, “They can go to hell!”

He gives the deeper, theological expression in the next chapter when he says that, “…if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly” (Galatians 2:21). In other words, if we could find righteousness outside of the Garden of Eden, if we could enjoy the blessings of God in the wilderness by creating altars and giving sacrifices of blood and grains, and by building temples and establishing priesthoods, then what need was there for Christ? If the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil could really show us genuine life, then we are wasting our time with Christ.

When the work of Christ comes to its completion as depicted in Revelation 21 and 22, where the New Heavens and New Earth and New Jerusalem are established, and we are back in the Garden with all of its beauty and riches. The big difference between Revelation and Genesis is that there is no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Only the Tree of Life is there telling us that Christ alone is the source of every spiritual blessing needed. This is why I am arguing that theology that leaves us lacking in the fullness of God’s blessings in Christ will effectively kill the dynamic of a loving community. It creates an atmosphere where judgment and condemnation grow freely. It preaches, “Jesus is good, but you need what the denomination is serving up, and that will put the blessings of God within your reach. Until you screw up again, of course.”

This is why the Garden of Eden story is so beautiful. The message of the church needs to be fervent preaching that we have every single blessing in Christ, and every one of us in the community enjoys those blessings. We must be vigilant in warning people not to look outside of Christ for those blessings, like the descendants of Adam and Eve did by looking beyond the Garden. If we are going to enjoy the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is Christ alone, then we need the community that embraces his riches and lavishly spend the bounty of his love to all those around us.