The Doctrine of the Garden of God

Introduction

Luke and I have had a running discussion about the value of a song that a lot of people like. The song is “In the Garden.”

I come to the garden alone, While the dew is still on the roses; And the voice I hear, falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses.

Refrain: And He walks with me, and He talks with me, And He tells me I am His own, And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known.

I have always disliked the song not because of the words, but because it sounds too much like a funeral parlor. I hear organs in my head. Luke on the other hand dislikes the song because to him the words seem shallow. Contrary to mine and Luke’s views, I want to show today how the topic of the Garden of God is a deeply theological concept. There are differing ways of looking at theology:

historical theology- looks at what the Church has taught throughout history

Natural theology- looks at what can be known about God apart from scriptures through General Revelation

Systematic theology- the most common version of theology and also the type I am teaching on Wednesday nights looks at a particular doctrine and asks what does the whole bible teach about that topic.

Biblical theology- looks at the teaching of specific authors in sections of the bible, but it also tries to trace themes throughout the bible and how they progress from beginning to end. Tonight we are going to do a little bit of a biblical theology looking at the Doctrine of the Garden of God.

The First Garden

If we are going to understand the significance of something we want to know what it was originally created for. Somethings are symbolic or meaningful to God in scripture. The rainbow is a promise that God will never flood the earth again. The dove is a picture of purity. Thunder and Lightning are often used as pictures of God’s power and majesty. White hair symbolizes wisdom and fire pictures judgment. These themes are traced throughout scripture. But the question we need to ask ourselves at the very beginning of the bible is Why did God put Adam and Eve in a garden?

Wasn’t the whole of creation good? Why the need for something else? God obviously had a purpose and a reason for placing mankind in the garden and when man sinned, he had a reason for kicking them out of the garden. So why are gardens significant to God? Notice that after God had completed all of the work of creation, He then went back to work planting a garden.

Gen 2:8-15 “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 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. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 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. And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

They are a place of enjoyment

A. Beauty

The very first thing we are told about this garden is that it was beautiful. The trees were pleasant to the sight. I love going out in nature and hiking. Here in Oklahoma some of the best hiking is in the Wichita Mountains, but there aren’t a whole lot of trees out there. I love going to Colorado and hiking up the Mountains there. A couple years ago, our family took a vacation to Breckenridge, CO and hiked most of the way up McCullough Gulch. It was beautiful and we made it up to the lakes that they have towards the top. When you go hiking, you engulf yourself in the beauty of what God has created.

God could have created a bland, boring world; but He didn’t. God appreciates beauty. In fact, He is the standard of beauty. The beauty of the garden teaches us about the beauty of God. All of this beauty is merely the external expression of the beauty that is God.

Psalm 27:4 “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”

As we will see later, this beauty was intended to point men to a relationship with God. He Himself is beautiful and we should long after Him. When we stand in view of the majestic mountains and the beauty takes away our breathe, we should be reminded of the breathtaking God we serve.

B. Enjoyment

Notice the words pleasant and good. This garden was intended to be a place to enjoy. God is not some prude who wants us to grind under his service day in and day out. There is a tendency to think that God doesn’t want us to enjoy life, but this is the furthest thing from His mind. God wants us to truly enjoy life, but He knows that true enjoyment comes from finding our greatest joy and satisfaction in Him. Mankind was created to find their greatest joy in God. I have stated it many times and it isn’t original to me: God gets the greatest glory from us when we find our greatest delight in Him.

They are a place of gentle work

Not only did God create the garden as a place of enjoyment, it was also a place of gentle, fulfilling work. I think we make a mistake when we think of work as an evil that must be endured. When man fell into sin, God cursed mankind with hard labor not work. Gen 3:17-19 “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: 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 thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

But mankind was always intended to work. According to Gen 2:15 “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Mankind was to dress and keep the garden. Mankind was to cultivate the land. This is the meaning of dress to till, or work the land. He was also to keep or protect the garden. To take care of or preserve it. God wanted mankind to be involved in the work of nourishing the garden or taking care of this world and making it prosper. We call this the cultural mandate.

The work of taking care of this world was not intended to be a thing of hard labor. In the fall that ceased to be the case, but in Jesus, we again find a gentle yoke. Matt 11:28-30 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I think sometimes we get burnt out in ministry because we have failed to see the heart of Christ and we are doing the work in our own strength.

They are a place of fellowship

The garden is a place of enjoyment and work, but both of those things are to be done with God. I doesn’t directly state this purpose for the garden, but after the fall we see something that I have to believe was true of the garden before the fall. In Gen 3:8 “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” I don’t think God just all of a sudden decided to take His very first walk in the garden the day Adam and Eve sinned. This garden was created because it was a place of fellowship with God.

God made it beautiful so He could enjoy it with Adam and Eve. God made it enjoyable and good for food so they could spend time eating together, sharing each others company. God even made the work so they could work together alongside one another. This is the key component of the garden in scripture: the garden is a place of fellowship with God.

God did not create you merely to get up every day and go work. He didn’t create you to merely eat and have some fun. God created you for a continual daily relationship with you. He wants to be with us and spend time with us. And it isn’t supposed to be a once a week, Sunday thing either. What kind of relationship is that when we only spend time with God at church?

As we survey the rest of scripture, I hope to show you that this is the intended significance of the garden throughout the bible. So when we talk about the garden of God, it is a place to meet God and enjoy Him.

The Gardens of Scripture

Kings had garden 2 Chron 9:11 “And the king made of the algum trees terraces to the house of the Lord, and to the king’s palace, and harps and psalteries for singers: and there were none such seen before in the land of Judah.” I am just going to give one sampling, but there are many other passages that show that Kings grew gardens for their own enjoyment.

The heathen planted groves 2 Kings 17:16 “And they left all the commandments of the Lord their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.” The heathen used their gardens as a place of worship.

Jesus had a garden

Luke 22:39 “And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.”

John 18:2 “And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place: for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples.”

a. Jesus often times resorted to a garden. But why? Jesus went to the garden to get away from the business of ministry. Jesus had a habit of taking time to retreat from the crowds. Sometimes it was to a lonely mountain, sometimes onto a ship. But often it was to a garden. Even the Lord needed time away from work and the needs of other people.

b. Jesus went to the garden often times to pray. Jesus was always in fellowship with His Father and yet He went to the garden to pray. To get alone with God. We need time in our lives to get alone with God. Your relationship with God cannot be only a community thing. It cannot be just coming to church, it cannot be bible studies and small groups alone. God wants a personal, private relationship with each and every one of His children. This is why we were created and this is why God placed man in a garden. This is why Jesus resorted often to a garden.

The Last Garden

In the beginning, man started in a garden. When man sinned, he was kicked out of that garden. His fellowship with God was broken, but the story of the bible is how God has been working to renew and restore that destiny for mankind. The bible begins with a garden, but it also ends with a garden. This concept didn’t come to me on my own. When I look at the last chapters of Revelation I see a city. Let’s look at this city. Revelation 21:1-2 “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” New Jerusalem the Holy city is spoke about in the last two chapters of Revelation. The picture we are given is that God is restoring everything that was lost in the fall. For those of you who absolutely hate cities, I am sorry to tell you that your going to have to change your view of cities because this city is going to be the central abode of the believer.

Here is where God’s presence will be found. Rev 21:3 “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” Rev 21:22 “And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”

But this city is not like any other city. This city is a gardened city. Notice the further descriptions that are given of New Jerusalem:

Rev 22:1-2 “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. 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.”

a river of water of life

tree of life on either side of the river

fruit

leaves

The description of this city is a lot like what we saw in Genesis. In the garden was the tree of life and a great river flowed through it. God has been working to restore that which was lost this whole time. God never gave up on a place of fellowship with His people

Conclusion

Clearly, while the story of the bible deals with literal gardens these gardens speak to something more than just trees. The garden of God speaks of a place where God’s presence and fellowship can be known in our lives. This figurative sense of the garden of God is used in:

Isa 51:3 “For the Lord shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; And he will make her wilderness like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness shall be found therein, Thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.”

Israel is going through exile, destruction, abandonment; but God promises that their wilderness will be made like the garden of God. God will turn beauty from ashes. In this garden with God, there is joy and gladness.

This is what I am saying to you tonight, God eagerly desires a deep intimate relationship with you. We need to find a place and a time where we can get alone with God and enjoy His presence privately. Away from the bustle of life, away from the clamoring voices of others. Gardens are places of quiet, calm, beauty, without hurry.

I am asking you tonight, to desire that time alone with God in the garden He has planted for you. Hopefully the doctrine of the garden of God means something more to you tonight than it did when you came in today.