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The Garden of Eden

Genesis 2:4-17

In Genesis chapter 1 through the first 3 verses of chapter 2, we read the beautiful seven-day creation story. It is the story told from a fly-over view, in an orderly manner, showing God’s intentions with his creation. Genesis 2:4 begins a second account of creation, this time from a ground-level view. The first account has God as the sole actor. This account tells the same story, only from a different vantage point—and we are introduced to other characters in the story. Today we meet Adam; next week we meet Eve; and the following week, we will meet the Serpent.

God is still the central character—God always is the main character of the Bible. The Bible’s first and foremost objective is to get us to meet and grow in our relationship with God—it is the revelation of who God is. It is also about us—but only in a derivative way, for we get our existence and meaning from God. 

There is a transition from story one to story two in the first words of verse 4: “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” In Genesis, we read “the account of…” ten times: The account of Adam’s line” (Gen 5:1), “The account of Noah’s line” (Gen 6:9), etc., all the way through “The account of Jacob’s line” (Gen 37:2). So, here in Genesis 2:4, we have the first of ten “accounts” that will explain how the People of God came into existence. 

So, first things first: This is the first “account.” We need to understand who the first human being was and what his relationship with God was like. Today’s passage is in our Bibles for a purpose: It is there to explain to us that Adam, as the representative head of all humanity, was formed by God and placed in a special garden to have a sacred relationship with God. This is the way things were meant to be for all humanity—to live in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, with God as the source of all our needs. 

We are troubled by the world in which we live. It does not seem to be very close to paradise—people do cruel things to each other, jets fly into buildings killing thousands, we hate, and we war. We live in a world of Saddam Husseins and Adolph Hitlers, a world where people starve to death every day. We look around us and wonder, “Where’s God? Is this really the world he created? Is this the way it’s supposed to be?” And something inside us says, “It can’t be!” And our gut feeling is right. We were created for something better than this. We were meant to live in paradise. That’s what this passage is telling us. We were not meant for this world—we were meant for more. And that is exactly what God has for us through Jesus Christ. When you feel despair because of the hardship in your life, when sickness hits, or financial troubles, or the threat of terrorism, you need to go back to Genesis 2 and remember that this is not the way it was meant to be. 

God Forms Adam (Genesis 2:4-7)

“This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground—the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:4-7)

The first scene we see shows us that no shrubs or plants were yet growing because God had not yet sent rain and people were not yet around to work the ground in order to irrigate it. The whole surface was simply watered from the water the seeped up from the ground. This will change in just a few verses. 

God then formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life.” I believe this is equivalent to the “image of God” that we read about in chapter 1. When we read this, we are meant to see the first man as the representative head of all humanity—he receives the breath of life, and we too receive this from God. 

All humanity is special in that God creates man in a very special way. In Genesis 1, the creation of humanity is reserved for the sixth and most important day. In Genesis 2, man alone is singled out for a special creation—God breaths into man’s nostrils the breath of life. We may have a lot in common with the animals, but the Bible is clear: Human beings are very different from the animals. Humans were created in the “image of God;” humans were the pinnacle of God’s creation; humans are more like God than any other creature; humans are alone appointed by God to rule over the rest of creation (Genesis 1:26-27). 

The creation account places the emphasis on the importance of humanity in distinction to the rest of the created universe. When we read the first two chapters of Genesis, we are forced to re-evaluate our modern misconceptions about humanity’s significance and the sanctity of life; we become more critical of today’s tendencies to see humanity as meaningless against the vastness of the cosmos. A biblical worldview places humans, all humans, as precious creations in the image of God. This forces me to also re-evaluate how I treat people in this world—even people who society writes off as insignificant, even people who are seen as the dregs of society, even people who cannot stand up for their own human rights, and even the people I don’t like very much. The biblical worldview says that social Darwinism—the view that deems it as proper in society for the fittest to survive—is an evil because it does not honor the sanctity of all created human life. The biblical worldview says that oppression of the poor and helpless is an evil because it does not honor the sanctity of human life. The biblical worldview says that abortion is an evil because it destroys helpless human life, life that has been created in the image of God. 

The biblical worldview explains why we were so horrified at the scenes of September 11. When we see human beings being burnt to death or jumping from windows, we find it to be a terrible evil. If it were dogs or giraffes or centipedes in those buildings, we would be upset—but nowhere near as upset as when we realize that those are human beings! And humans are special. Taking the life of a human being is evil.

God Plants the Garden and places Adam in it (Genesis 2:8-9, 15-17)

“Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and here he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:8-9)

God plants a garden. A garden in this ancient Near-Eastern cultural context is different from what we think of as gardens in today’s Northeast Ohio. A garden in those times was an enclosed, fenced off, protected area where a master gardener carefully arranged the flowers and trees and plants in such a way that the beauty is brought out to the utmost. Gardens like these were built next to the palaces in which the owners resided. You would have a palace, and next to it, this beautiful country garden, meticulously designed to the fullest of beauty. Near where I went to seminary in Chicago is the city’s Botanical Gardens. Linda and I would visit there and truly enjoy the magnificence of God’s incredible plant creations—perfectly arranged in specific areas for our pleasure as we walked around. The master gardener of that place did a wonderful job. 

Within the land of Eden, God plants the garden. While I believe that this was a literal place, we must not miss what God is picturing for us as we look at what he created. Eden and the garden were actually not the same place. “Eden” was the larger land in which God plants the garden (we are told in verse 8 that God “had planted a garden in the east, in Eden”). “Eden” is also the name of the specific palace in this land where God resides next to the Garden (we will be told in verse 10 that “a river watering the garden flowed from Eden”). The Garden is a special place of beauty and perfection where God plants trees that are pleasing to the eye and good for food. In other words, the Garden is planted specifically to be the place where the man will live. It is the beautiful place next to God’s palace where God can walk with his beloved creature in loving relationship, and provide for his beloved creature all that he needs. 

In this garden, God plants the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Skipping down to verse 15, we read, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.’” (Genesis 2:15-17) We will understand the significance of both of these trees in a couple of weeks when we read chapter 3. 

But the most amazing imagery in this passage is found in verses 10-14.

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