From the beginning, the Lord’s purpose was to dwell with His people in the midst of a magnificent paradise Garden.  In the opening salvo of the Creation account we read of God’s powerful voice, His Logos, speaking all things into existence, as the Spirit hovered over the face of the waters with holy affection.  The crown jewel of God’s creation was the making of man and woman, fashioned and designed in His own unique image, to be the lords of the earthly dominion. 

In His loving care, God set man apart from the rest of Creation in the special manner that He created him.  Instead of merely speaking the man into being, we read that God “formed the man from the dust of the ground,” and very intimately, in a Face-to-face way, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of Life”.    Such beautiful storytelling conveys the imagery of the majestic God stooping low to sit in the dust for a moment, taking utmost care to shape the human form with His very own hands, skillfully working the dust into a well-crafted clay vessel.  This vessel He then imbues with His very own breath of Life, as He draws near to its face in the most-intimate scene of Divine love.

For such an exquisite creature, made in the image and likeness of God Himself, no humble abode would do.   The Lord of Heaven, who dwells in a temple of glorious and resplendent light, would have His human lordlings dwell in an earthly copy of the heavenly things.  And so, God made for man a Garden called Eden, but this was no ordinary garden.   Rather, we are told that it was a lofty Garden from which a river flowed to water it.  This river then divided and became four rivers, by which the surrounding lands were watered.   The topographical imagery presented to the thoughtful reader is one of lofty elevation.  This well watered Garden of the Lord was on a mountain.  For, how else do four rivers flow outward to run their meandering course unless their fountainhead is elevated above the surrounding region?

In this developing picture of Eden, it is clear that we have a description of the original mountain of the Lord.  This was a place that He designed to have intimate fellowship with man, walking with him in the cool of the day.  This Divine Garden is the place where Heaven met Earth in the most sublime beauty and unblemished perfections. 

As we walk further into this mountain paradise we see that it was designed with a central clearing where, in the midst of it, we find two trees – The Tree of Life and The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  To the second tree God appended the holy commandment, “you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  In this sacred space, as our eyes begin to adjust to the familiar settings, we are led realize that we are in the midst of God’s original earthly Holy Temple.   It is here that we discover that man was made as God’s original priestly servant, to work within the precincts of Garden Temple and keep it.  And here in the midst of the Garden we have the original Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.   The Most Holy Place is recognized to be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for it was a forbidden holy space to the daily priest.  It contained the forbidden knowledge of the Most High God, and any entrance upon it was subject to the sentence of death.

Generations later, long after the tragic fall of mankind and their sad exile from God’s original Mountain Garden Temple, we find a wilderness shepherd alone with God on another mountain (Sinai) receiving instructions for the construction of another Divine meeting place, where heaven would once again meet earth in the midst of his people.  This Tent of Meeting, known also as the Tabernacle, and later becoming the Temple, was “made according to the pattern” that was shown to him.  It was to “serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Exodus 25:40; Hebrews 8:4-5).  This tabernacle/temple was to serve as a means of God once again having limited fellowship with man, through the redemptive means of the shedding of blood. 

This temporary holy space was designed according to God’s specific patterns, complete with trees, fruits, flowers, nuts, lights, a heavenly canopy, and angels.  In the midst of this Temple were located the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, a forbidden space that carried the sentence of death for those who trespassed therein, save for the High Priest once a year .  This was a shadowy reconstruction of God’s original Garden Temple.  It was traveling with His people, leading them ever onward to the true Temple of God, to be revealed later in the divine-man and the true High Priest, Jesus Christ the Lord. 

For the attentive Bible reader, this imagery should be flooding our hearts with the beautiful truths of what the New Testament Scriptures have already revealed to us.  It is here that we now focus our eyes on the realities of what has come and what is yet to come.   In the gospels we read that Jesus was crucified on a cursed Tree, as both the sacrificial Paschal Lamb and as the Great High Priest who offered Himself in love for us through the shedding of His own blood.  It is by the fruit of this forbidden Tree (the bread and the cup) that we now eat and drink and truly become like God, partaking of His divine nature and receiving eternal life.  When we eat of this blessed New Covenant tree, the curse of death is reversed, and the serpent’s lie now becomes a blessed truth, to his own shame!  We will “not surely die” but truly “be like God” and live forever! 

Similarly, by partaking of this blessed Tree we now are granted access to the true hidden knowledge of Christ, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:2-3; 1 Corinthians 2:7-8), in contrast to the serpent’s original deception (Genesis 3:5).

We also learn that Jesus became the Cornerstone of the great eschatological new Temple of God that He is building out of human living-stones (1 Peter 2:5).  On the day of Pentecost, this New Covenant Temple of God was inaugurated with Heavenly Fire as in the days of Moses and Solomon (Exodus 20:18; 2 Chronicles 7:1; Acts 2:1-4).  We are now blessed to be the blood-sprinkled, fire-baptized, and sanctified dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, built upon the Rock, Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18; 1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:21-22).  We are now God’s living Garden Temple, the Holy Mountain of God!   Our God dwells in our very midst, both individually and corporately (2 Corinthians 6:16-18).  Out of this new Garden Temple flow rivers of living water, by which the surrounding peoples are watered:

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’  Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” – John 7:37-39

It is here in this Garden that God lovingly tends His vine, pruning, caring, watering, and nourishing the branches, as we abide in His love and bear much fruit (John 15), even the glorious fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23; Philippians 1:11; Hebrews 12:11)!   All of this glory is still leading us onward, as strangers and exiles here, to the true City that is to come (Hebrews 13:14).  The Heavenly Jerusalem above.  Mount Zion.  The City of the Living God, where the River of the water of Life flows freely and the Tree of Life is in eternal bloom (Revelation 21 &22), where the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the true Temple, and under whose overspread garments we tabernacle forever (Revelation 7:15).

My beloved reader, let us now reclaim this rich spiritual self-awareness as God’s own well watered Garden Temple proclaimed to us in the written Word.  Let us now strive to be Spirit-filled sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, flowing with rivers of living water to the parched and thirsty land all around us.  Amen.