Beautiful Garden -- The Paradise of God

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Beautiful Garden -- The Paradise of God
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam

“And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Gen. 2:8.).

The Greek name for the Garden of Eden is Paradise (Gr. paradeisos, “beautiful garden”). While this garden is not discussed in the New Testament, it is surely alluded to several times. In any case, we may be sure that if God planted the garden in Eden it was indeed a “Paradise,” a beautiful garden.

PARADISE LOST

Let us not blame God for the hideous scars this earth now bears. Blame man and his pride and greed. Blame his marching armies, his guns and bombs. Blame his “intellectual achievements,” his ability to pollute its surface and its atmosphere with toxic fumes and wastes, and with deafening noises—all in the name of progress. Blame his irresponsibility in cluttering its habitable surface with debris.

God did not place man in such an atmosphere. Rather, “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” How breathtakingly beautiful, how ineffably delightful these surroundings must have been! Adam and Eve, in Eden, must have enjoyed each other’s company here as no other wedded couple since, with only the light and pleasant responsibility to “dress” and “keep” the garden 1 (Gen. 2:15), and with the special blessing of open fellowship with God, perhaps especially “in the cool of the day” (Gen. 2:19,22,23; 3:8.).

But when man fell, all creation fell with him. Man now had a fallen, sinful nature. The animal creation suddenly became wild and vicious, and as to the vegetable creation, God said to Adam: “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and…in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread…” (Gen. 3:17-19). And to the woman He said: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…” (3:16). And even this manner of living was to be cut short at last by death and a “return unto the ground; for out of it,” said God, “wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (3:19). Indeed, lest man should now eat of the tree of life and live forever, God “sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till 2 the ground from whence he was taken” (Gen. 3:23). Thus it is that we read in Romans 5:12:

“Wherefore…by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all 3 men, for that all have sinned.”

Ever since that dreadful day, man’s greatest problem has been his sin. This is what lies at the root of all his trouble and misery, though the subject is not even dealt with in our great works on science. Obvious as is the fact of sin and its results, any consideration of this subject is brushed aside by the intellectuals of this world.

A GARDEN FOR THE REDEEMED

The results of the fall were indeed disastrous, changing man’s habitation from that of a beautiful garden to that of fields and forests that must be cleared and cultivated by laborious effort in the face of relentless opposition from many quarters. For the redeemed who departed this life, however, God again provided a beautiful garden.

In “Old Testament” times the general designation for this place of the departed was sheol (Hebrew), with its Greek equivalent hades, both meaning “the unseen.” However, an examination of Luke 16:19-31 reveals that sheol, or hades, was divided into two areas, separated by “a great gulf” (Ver. 26). The term “Abraham’s bosom” (Ver. 22) describes one aspect of the place where the redeemed went. It was the place where Abraham, the “father of believers,” welcomed all his dear children home, as it were. But another aspect of this wonderful place is described by the name Paradise: Beautiful Garden.

In his youth this writer somehow envisioned hades as a great two-part cavernous region, dimly lit and mysterious. But our Lord’s designation of the blessed area as “Paradise” throws an entirely different light upon it.

How it must have touched the heart of the repentant thief crucified next to our Lord, to be assured by the Savior Himself:

“Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).

This assurance must have filled him with comfort and joy despite the pain he suffered. Soon he would be with Christ in a beautiful garden! Gardens are where people go to rest and be refreshed, thus a garden of God’s planting must be infinitely more delightful, and to be in such a garden “with Christ”: what unspeakable joy!

PARADISE RESTORED

But according to the prophetic Scriptures, the Paradise of Eden will one day be gloriously restored and vastly enlarged. This will take place when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to earth to reign and Israel is saved and salvation and blessing flow from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Here we could cite literally scores of Old Testament passages in confirmation, but a few will suffice:

“Out of Zion shall go forth the law, 4 and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isa. 2:3).

“The Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem” (Isa. 24:23).

“Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him” (Psa. 72:11).

“Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord” (Zech. 8:22).

Paul confirms this in his epistle to the Romans:

“And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Rom. 11:26).

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers;
“And that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written…” (Rom. 15:8,9).

The results of this spiritual transformation will be far-reaching. No longer will man need to till a perverse soil and eat his bread in the sweat of his brow, for the curse will be removed from the vegetable creation:

“The desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly…for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water” (Isa. 35:1,2,6,7).