Pleasure...that is what the word Eden means and that is what the Garden of Eden was...it was a garden called pleasure...planted by Yahweh Elohim, the Lord God. And He planted this garden for the man, Adam, and filled it with many trees that were beautiful to look at and were good for food. Not one tree bearing fruit, which would have been adequate; after all, he was but one person. Instead God filled it with many trees that were lush and beautiful, and were filled with delicious and healthy fruit. Abundant provision from this God to His creation! And so in Genesis 2 were are introduced to a glimpse at another facet of the character of this God who has created all things. In Genesis 1 we learned that God is majestic and supreme, Sovereign over all, all-powerful, all-knowing, self-existent, self-sufficient. We learned that He is a God of order. A God that separates. A God that forms His creation and then fills it. But here, here in chapter 2, we see a whole new side to God. A personal, intimate side to Him. We begin to see His extravagant goodness!And the Lord God commanded the man... Oh,wait here we go...here's where God will pull the bait and switch on the man. He put him in this beautiful garden and then He is going to give him a whole stack of rules of things he can't do in this garden, right? Well, not exactly! And the Lord God commanded the man, "YOU ARE FREE," yep you heard that right! "You are free to eat from ANY tree in the garden." Wow! That's quite a few trees, with quite a lot of fruit! This is expansive permission from God! Then in verse 17 God goes on to say, "but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die." Expansive permission and limited restriction...but this one tree, Adam, do not eat from it because you will surely die." Even in this restriction we can see the heart of a good God...looking out for and protecting Adam from this thing called "death" which Adam more than likely had no real understanding of what that was.
Does this picture of God that we find in Genesis 2 sound like how we often hear God being framed? We more often hear of God as being a kill joy. Someone who has a bunch of rules that kill all my fun. But here in Genesis 2, we see just the opposite of that viewpoint. God, inviting the man into abundant, life-giving freedom and joy, in complete fellowship and harmony with Him! God, the creator of joy, and pleasure that is found wholly in Him.
All of this in and of itself, would be more than enough provision. Man has all that he needs. He has perfect relationship with God, he been given an abundance of food, a job to do, and beautiful place to live. And yet, there is something missing. This man, on his own, is unable to fulfill the instructions that God had given him to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. So the Lord God decided to give this man yet another gift. He decides to make a helper for Adam, someone that was suitable for him, someone that was like him but different from him. Someone who would be able to come along side him and help him carry out the mission from God! And like before, God is abundant in his provision for a helper for this man!
So while Adam slumbers in a deep sleep, God begins to perform surgery to create for this man the woman. He opens him up and removes a rib from his side...Hmmm...now this is quite interesting to me. He could have formed the woman just like He did the man, from the dirt of the ground. But He doesn't. He pulls her from his side and forms her from his rib. When Paul tells us in Ephesians that a man should love his wife like he loves his own flesh, it's because she is his own flesh! Wow...this is incredible stuff! God separates the woman from out of the man and then brings her to him and re-joins them together in the first marriage ceremony performed by the Lord God Himself...the creator of marriage. What an unbelievably sacred picture of how God has designed and established marriage to be!
And guess what...this beautiful picture of marriage is a shadow of something else! Something even greater! It's a shadow that points us to Christ and His bride, the church. She too was born out of Christ's side. As the soldier's pierced the side of Jesus as He hung on the cross and blood and water poured out, the church...the bride of Christ...was formed and was purified by the washing of His blood.
Christ, our bridegroom, initiated relationship with us, His bride. Those who are a part of the bride of Christ are those who have responded to the initiating love of her Bridegroom. The Bridegroom also has provided for His bride. He provided for her justification...freedom from the penalty of her sin. He has provided for her freedom from the power of sin over her life. The bride is made up of those who have received this provision of their Bridegroom. The Bridegroom protects His bride. He protects her from the power of the evil one who is out to destroy her and He will preserve her until His coming. He leads her in mission to call all people to be reconciled to God. Those who are the bride humbly submit to their Bridegroom's protection and willingly leave all to follow Him. And one more thing about this Bridegroom...He never abandons His bride. Never!
I am so in awe of our God...our perfect Creator and Designer, who has given for us such a beautiful picture! As we look into Scripture at Christ and His bride, the church, we see a perfect picture of what was designed for our own marriages. He has not left us to figure this out on our own but has willingly shown us exactly how we are to live, if we will have the eyes to see. And as we fix our eyes on this perfect picture and seek to imitate it, we become a display of the glory of God and the message of the gospel, to an ever increasingly darkening world.
We have an overwhelmingly good God who has created and designed us to be intimate with Him, and He has lavishly bestowed on His creation abundant provision, joy, and satisfaction. Humans created to love, enjoy, glorify, and obey God and as a result to flourish. And this picture of God and His love for His creation...this glimpse that we get of the beauty of His design for humanity, makes the treachery of what happens in Genesis chapter 3 that much more horrifying. And yet, even in the midst of a treacherous betrayal of all that is good, God is at work, looking ahead to the provision that was to come in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah...what a God!
Do we believe that He is this good? Do we trust in Him and believe that His ways...His designs...are always right and good? Pray that God would continue to open our eyes so that we can see the beauty of all that He is and all that He does and let us continue fix our eyes and our thoughts on Him!
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