The situation of the Garden was extremely sweet. It was in Eden, which signifies delight and pleasure. The place is marked and bounded so all could find it who so desired. Let it be our care to make sure of OUR place in the Heavenly Paradise, and then the earthly Paradise will have lost significance!
The trees with which this Garden was planted were all the best and choicest of the Creator. God, consulted only Adam’s benefit, not his pleasure ; for there is a pleasure consistent with innocence , nay, there is a true and transcendent pleasure in innocence once passed never experienced again. BUT, the Garden had two extra-ordinary trees peculiar only to itself; on earth there were none like them!! There was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life was intended a sign and seal to Adam, assuring him of the continuance of life and happiness, even to immortality and everlasting bliss, through the grace and favor of his Maker, upon condition of his perseverance in this state of innocence and obedience. Of this tree man might eat and live. Christ and His Church is now to us the tree of life, Rev. 2:7, 22:2 Then, there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so called, not because it had any virtue in it to beget or increase useful knowledge, but, because there was an express positive revelation of the will of God concerning this tree, so that by it man might know moral good and evil. What is good? Whatever good was it was good not to eat of the fruit of that tree!
What is evil? It was evil to eat of the fruit of that tree. The distinction between all other moral good and evil was written in the heart of man by nature; but this, which resulted from a positive law, was written upon this tree.
In the event the tree of knowledge of good and evil proved to give Adam an experimental knowledge of good, the loss of it would declare evil never to be!! As the covenant of God has in it, not only believe and be baptized and you will be saved; it also has in it believe not and you will be damned. God confirmed by the very existence of the tree of life, “Eat this and die”. God set before man good and evil, blessing and cursing. Deut. 30:19
The rivers with which this Garden was watered, vs. 10-14, were one river branched into four streams. In the Heavenly Paradise, the Church of Christ, there is a river infinitely surpassing these. It is a river of the water of life, not coming out of Eden, as this, but proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb!! Rev. 22:1 A river that makes glad the city of our God!! Ps. 41:4 Havilah had gold and spices with precious stones but Eden had that which was infinitely better, the tree of life, and communion with God!!! We may say to the world, you have the gold but we have the gospel!! The gold of the world is good, but the riches of the Church of Christ is good and very good!!
When God formed man, He put him in this paradise of delight from which and by which man was formed, common clay, not Paradise dust. It seems only fitting that the new body of the redeemed would be out of material from Paradise. Adam could not even claim citizenship in Eden for he was not born there!! The same God who was the author of Adam’s being also authored Adam’s happiness. TRUTH THAT IS THE SAME, EVEN NOW!!
