Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #9 of Genesis, chapter 2 and we are going to read Genesis 2:8-10:

And JEHOVAH God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made JEHOVAH 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.

I will stop reading there. God had just finished describing the creation of Adam and we spent some time discussing this in verse 7. Now He turns His attention to planting a garden eastward in Eden. It is within that garden that He will put the man He had just made.

One of the questions we have when we read this is: “Why did God section off an area and call it the Garden of Eden and why did He put the man in that particular place?” The reason we ask this question is because the whole world was a paradise. The whole world was like a garden. Everything was beautiful. Everything was glorious and good. There were no thorns or thistles. All of the trees would have been fruitful and good to eat. There would have been no poisonous fruit of any kind in all the world. We have to keep in mind that God created a big earth, even though from what we understand the earth was all one continent. It was not in the present form with divided continents, but it was still a huge land mass full of vegetation, fruitful trees and full of beauty. It says that God planted a garden eastward in Eden. We do not know how big the garden was, but we know that out of the whole world God established an area that was to receive special focus and care and there is where He placed the man that He had just created in His own image and likeness.

Again, as we wonder about this, we think of possible reasons why God would do this and we can only conclude that God did this in order to continue painting a spiritual picture. Everything God has done in the creation to this point has had an underlying and deeper spiritual meaning. While it is true history, it was designed to teach various aspects of His Gospel, His salvation program and spiritual truth. So, too, when it says, “JEHOVAH God planted a garden eastward in Eden,” God was establishing a special arena for testing and an area for special concern and care that can only be prefiguring the outward representation of the kingdom of God on earth because the Lord will later establish the nation of Israel to be His outward representative and the New Testament churches to carry on that representation of God’s kingdom of heaven to the inhabitants of the earth.

In the case of Israel, what did we see? God was dealing with a family and He turned Jacob’s name to “Israel” and his 12 sons formed the 12 tribes of Israel and they became a great nation after being delivered from Egypt. God established the nation of Israel in the land of Canaan. Let us look at how God refers to this in Psalm 80:7-9:

Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.

God likened the bringing of the Israelites out of Egypt and their entry into the earthly Promised Land to “planting” them. He planted them like a vine. He took a plant out of Egypt and He planted it in the land of Canaan and this relates to God planting the garden eastward in Eden. Eden is the garden of God within the world of that day. The rest of the world was not called the “Garden of Eden,” but only this special area. God planted Israel in their land in the Middle East and they, alone, became the representatives of God to the people of the earth. None of the other nations were God’s holy people or “set apart” people. It was only Israel. God speaks of Israel in a parable in Matthew 21:33:

Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:

Of course, this speaks of a vineyard, but there are similarities between a garden and a vineyard. They both involve growing things and fruit can come forth from a garden as well as a vineyard. Notice the word “planted” in this verse. The householder “planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it,” and so on. We know that the husbandmen to whom the vineyard was let out slayed the son of the householder and God said that He will turn that vineyard over to other husbandmen. That is what happened when the Lord Jesus entered into the world into the land of Israel in 7BC and died on the cross in 33AD. With the exception of Christ’s short time in Egypt, these events of the Gospel took place in Israel (in the vineyard) until Jesus, the son of the Householder, was slain. Then God took the vineyard that He had planted, as Psalm 80 said when it described God taking a vine out of Egypt and planting it, and He turned it over to other husbandmen, the New Testament churches and congregations. It was the vineyard of the New Testament era and the Lord speaks of this in the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, where it says in Isaiah 5:1-2:

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

Of course, that “choicest vine” that God planted in the Old Testament vineyard of Israel and in the New Testament vineyard of the churches is Christ, as it tells us in John 15:1-2:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

God is likening His salvation program to planting the vine (Christ) and bringing forth the fruit thereof. We know from other Scriptures that God identifies His program of “times and seasons” with periods of rain and fruitfulness. The early righteous rain produced the fruit that was Jesus Himself. The early rain brought forth the firstfruits unto God as represented by those saved during the church age and the Latter Rain brought forth the great multitude. God’s salvation program that spanned the history of the world is likened to growing fruit by the “rain” that falls upon it. This is exactly what happens in a garden, is it not? A garden is a place where vegetation grows and a garden must be cared for and watered so the plants will grow. This is where the Lord’s times and seasons and periods of rain came into play. He had to send the rain in order to bring forth the fruit.

As we begin to talk about the Garden of Eden, it helps us to understand that this was a representation of God’s kingdom on earth at the time God established the garden. This was where God’s presence could be seen and it is where He communicated with Adam and Eve as He walked in the cool of the day. The Law of God was given concerning the garden.

Let us look at seven similarities between the Garden of Eden and the corporate church. Let us turn over to Genesis 3:1-3:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which JEHOVAH God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

I do not want to get ahead of ourselves because, Lord willing, we will soon be in chapter 3 and we will be discussing these things, but I think it is important because much of the remaining information in chapter 2 revolves around the garden. Again, this Garden of Eden was a special place established by God and we are going to look at seven similarities between the Garden of Eden and an outward representation of the kingdom of God. We will compare it to the corporate church, even though some of these things may also apply to national Israel.

1. 1) The Garden of Eden was established as a segment of the world, like God established churches within the world. The entire world was not a church, but God established the corporate church and these churches were His representatives to the rest of the world.
2. 2) The Garden of Eden was where the Law of God governed. God said not to eat of the tree that was in the midst of the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not outside the garden. We do not think about this, but not only could Adam and Eve have eaten of all the trees except one in the garden, but outside of the garden was a whole world full of fruitful trees. They had access to trees inside and outside the garden. There was plenty of food and plenty of trees that would have had good fruit. God gave His Law for this tree that was in the midst of the garden, so there was Law within the Garden of Eden, just as the Bible is the Law Book of God and the Bible was within the churches. If people out in the world wanted to hear the Law of God, they went to a church. Yes, people had Bibles in their home, but, primarily, if people wanted to hear the Bible taught and read they went to the churches.
3. 3) Satan comes as an “angel of light” and he came as the serpent that was more subtil than any beast. All the creatures, including the serpent, would have been beautiful and good. He did not come as a frightening thing, but he came as a subtil serpent, which would identify with wisdom in some ways. He came with the claim that he possessed knowledge and understanding as he came to Eve. He came as an angel of light and he was an angel. Of course, he became a fallen angel. Satan came against Adam and Eve and against the Garden of Eden, which was the focal point of Satan’s assault against God. He was not operating any place else in the earth at the time, but he focused his attention in the garden because God established the garden and placed the man in it. The whole focus of Satan, therefore, was on destroying that garden. He was coming against the garden God had established and trying to use the Law God gave concerning the tree in the midst of the garden against the people of God that had been created in God’s image.
4. 4) Adam and Eve were the people of God, just as members of the New Testament churches were the people of God.
5. 5) Satan targeted the woman. He did not come to Adam first. Adam was not the one he determined to come against, as we read in 1Timothy 2:11-14: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Since Satan was very subtil, he knew what he was doing. Eve came from the man and Adam had been formed first and the man was given the Law by God. We do not know Satan’s thinking, but he could have felt the woman would be the easier target. He first approached the woman and began a conversation and deceived the woman. As he targeted the woman, so, too, Satan targeted the churches, the bride of Christ. The churches were in the role of the woman in relationship to Christ, so Satan came against God by going through the woman and trying to deceive her. Just as Satan deceived Eve, he was very successful in deceiving the corporate churches and congregations as he distorted and twisted the Bible with his same tactic: “Hath God said?” He cast doubt on the truth of Scriptures and then introduced an idea or doctrine that was a lie. It was a tactic that worked in the very beginning in the garden and it has worked against the churches since the churches were planted. He was very successful in sowing tares among the wheat by infiltrating the churches with unsaved individuals. The serpent’s beguiling of Eve prefigured Satan’s beguiling of the corporate church.
6. 6) The Garden of Eden, the representation of God and His kingdom at that time, fell into sin. The garden lost its innocence and it became corrupt. Thorns and thistles would develop because of the fall into sin, just as the churches would later fall into apostasy.
7. 7) Man was sent out of the garden. It says in Genesis 3:23-24: “Therefore JEHOVAH God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Man had been given the garden to dress and to keep, but he was driven out of the same garden. Likewise, God planted the church as He gave it over to other husbandmen to care for the vineyard in order to bring forth fruit, but God finally destroyed the vineyard, as we read in Isaiah, chapter 5 and God commanded His people to depart out of the midst of the churches.

In the account of the Garden of Eden, we really see a spiritual picture of God’s dealing with Israel of old in many ways and, especially, God’s dealings with the New Testament churches and congregations. Let us keep that in mind as we read of the garden. It represents His kingdom on earth.