Genesis 2b
Genesis 2 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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If you could choose anywhere in the world to live, money is no object, where would you live? New Zealand. Montana. If you could invite anyone to live with you, who would you invite? How many?
If you were God, where would you choose to live and with whom?
Over the last month or so we’ve discovered several things about the beginning of Creation. We’ve discovered that God had a spiritual family prior to the creation of our physical world (Divine Council or sons of God). In Job, we see that they were present at creation and rejoicing. God created order out of chaos by speaking the world and life into existence. God created humans to image Him (to reveal or reflect His love and goodness - character), that all humans are valuable, and humans were to oversee this new world (the Dominion Mandate) – to go and care for (steward) creation. So in essence, Genesis chapters 1 – 2 reveal a “Template” for Life – an order of things – how life is supposed to be.
As Cpt. Kirk might ask, “But, Spock, why did God create all this?” We’ve already established that God wanted a human family. That’s all there is to it.
Now, when God created humans, He could have dropped them off anywhere on the planet and let them be – “Shoo - have at it.” But He didn’t do that. God did something quite surprising – even a little shocking. He created a garden in which humans could live and thrive. That’s very nice of God, but what’s shocking about that? Let’s find out.
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.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
In the ancient world this would have been unthinkable – even ridiculous. Why? According to Genesis, the garden was a lush paradise with an abundance of food and water – ideal living conditions – somewhere in Eden. The Garden was not Eden. Eden was a geographical area (no one knows where).
The ancient world would have understood this imagery because most of the ancient world lived in desert areas – dry and arid – and believed that green places on mountains were where the gods lived. Only gods lived in gardens and on mountains where the sky / heavens and earth connected. Humans don’t belong where the gods live. But here in Genesis, this God, Yahweh created a man and “broke divine protocol” and placed him man in the garden. God brought this little dirt creature into His home – then God created another one – so that humans could live with Him and dwell within God’s life-giving presence. Unlike the other gods of the world, this God - Yahweh - wanted people to be in His presence in a loving life-giving relationship to enjoy one another’s company.
“What! The gods live up there – we live down here. We don’t live together!” That’s makes this so shocking or unimaginable. Even today – still hard to believe that this God wants to live within a little dirt creature like me.
So the Garden was literally God’s place of residence on earth where the spiritual realm and physical realm intersected. God chose to create a place where He and His children, humans and spiritual beings could dwell together. I call this God’s family room. I want that to sink in for a moment because this is not some fairytale. The God and Creator of the universe loves and wants to be with His creation.
How long Adam and Eve were living in the Garden, we don’t know. But when we get to Genesis 3, we’re introduced to the first of three major rebellions against Yahweh. By this time Adam and Eve must have been teenagers. This spiritual being that we call a serpent deceived Adam and Eve. Serpent is nāchāšh in Heb. – shiny bronze-like serpentine, diviner. This serpent is not a snake (spiritual being). It’s my opinion that jealousy and anger were at the root of the serpent’s rebellion. How do I get that?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,
We’re lower, yet God gave us dominion. And God has this unique relationship with us. This nāchāšh is like, “Who are they – these little dirt creatures – they get to rule the earth!” There’s anger, jealousy, dissension. In Ezekiel 28, we get a glimpse into who this nāchāšh was / is.
You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared.
You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
Stones of fire – reference to other shiny spiritual beings. You can read Isa. 14.
This nāchāšh deceived Adam and Eve, they ate from a tree that God said don’t eat from that or you’ll die. They eat from it, and sin entered the world, the consequence of disobeying God is spiritual death – it’s a separation in the relationship with God and one another. They had to leave the garden – they had to leave the life-giving presence of God – could no longer eat of the tree of life. Don’t blame them. Adam and Eve are not responsible for our sin – we are – and all sin leads to death – physically and spiritually.
So what was God supposed to do with Adam and Eve and with the rest of humanity? He did what only a loving merciful gracious forgiving God would do – if humans could no longer live in the Garden, then He’ll take the garden to them. Eventually, God instructed Moses to build a Tabernacle to “house” His presence – so He could dwell with His people as they traveled to the Promised Land. Later, God instructed King Solomon to build a Temple so that God’s name, His presence could dwell with His people on Mt. Zion. God wants to be with His people!
Then Israel, because of their rebellion goes into Exile under the Assyrians, Babylonians. Then God told the prophet Ezekiel that someday,
I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
God wants to be with His people!
Then God sent His Son, Jesus Christ who said,
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
God wants to be with His people! Until then,
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
If you believe and trust ….
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Humanity began in a Garden – the dwelling place of God. For those in Christ Jesus, we end in a Garden to live within His presence forever (the end of Rev. is Garden imagery – water, fruit, tree of life). At the beginning I asked if you were God, where would you want to live? He wants to live with us!
So as we make our way between the two gardens –
Believing in Jesus is not the same as living in Him or for Him.
