Genesis 2 - In the Garden

It is very clear that in Genesis 2 we have a different account of the origins of the world and of humankind. Some people have deduced from that that we have here two different authors, and that an editor has at some time put the whole account together. That is not necessarily so; any writer can treat the same subject from different perspectives and different angles.

In Genesis 1, we have an account of the beginnings of the world in an order of time, and of 'days'. But in Genesis 2 we have the same creation brought before us as a landscape - a sweeping picture image of what it was that God actually did.

A Garden From God

God rested on the seventh day. When he did that, he placed a day of rest in man's weekly cycle of days; the fourth commandment takes us back to the Creator's rest as the authority for sabbath observance. God placed a day of rest into man's routine, so that no matter how much he would try to forget God, God's day would be a perpetual reminder to him of the need to acknowledge God in his life.

The result of the Creator's activity was this: "the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished". The work was complete. What God made was good, and the work he made was completed.

Then God focussed on a particular place in his own world - a garden, planted by God "eastward in Eden " (v8). We do not need to know the precise location of this Garden - we simply accept, by faith, that God took a distinctive action to plant in this garden "every tree ... that is pleasant to the sight and good for food" (v9). He also made sure that the garden was irrigated and watered by four streams.

There is something quite striking here. The God who in his sovereign majesty has formed a universe, with galaxies and a solar system and a multi-faceted world order, now plants trees and waters his garden by his own creative genius.

God is the God of the particular. He takes interest in particular locations. He stops to look at different scenes. More than all of Jacob's dwellings, he says in Psalm 87, God delights in Zion's gates. He rests in his love (Zephaniah 3:17) and he chooses places in which to work and in which to dwell. Sometimes we are tempted to think that God is not interested in us, but only in the big picture. But the big picture is made up of little pictures; we may be poor and needy, but the Lord thinks on us (Psalm 70:5). It is part of the glory of Jehovah that he is interested in gardens as in worlds, in the particular as in the universal, in the individual as in the mass.

But there is more. God is a transforming God. A changing God. Eastward in Eden he planted a garden, and flowers grew where there had been none before. Trees sprouted where previously there was nothing. Rivers flowed where up till then the ground had been dried. God cannot touch any part of his world without it being changed. Isaiah captures this for us in Chapter 35 of his great prophecy: "God will come!" he says. And when he does, the wilderness will rejoice and blossom like the rose.

The Gospel is all about God making the soul of his people like a well-watered garden (Isaiah 58:11), of him coming in and sowing seed, and bearing fruit, and watering our soul, and transforming our landscape, so that our lives can have meaning and purpose and beauty.

A Man For God

Into that Garden God brought a man. It is interesting to read in Genesis 2 a new perspective on man's creation; Chapter 1 showed us man as the crowning pinnacle of God's activity, formed by divine counsel and purpose. What a piece of work is a man! as Shakespeare said. But look at him; there is another aspect to his being - he is made from the dust. His origins are humble. He has an affinity with the soil. He is made out of the material that covers the ground, as a permanent reminder of his nothingness and his smallness and his need.

But God takes the dust and he breathes into it. And man stands up, a thinking, feeling, rational, affectionate being, who is both material and non-material, physical and non-physical, body and soul. He is a unity.

Do you ever wonder why your physical condition can affect your mind - leave you depressed - leave you feeling downcast? Do you wonder why depression can have physical symptoms? It is because man is both body AND soul, yet one unique being. There is a unity to our make-up and a uniqueness to our being that sets us apart. The very breath of God is over us.

Adam was God's man in God's garden, with duties and responsibilities and work to do. There is a sense in which Adam is all of us. We believe he was a historical individual, and that Genesis 2 is recording history. But Adam is you and me, placed by God in God's world to work to His glory, to look after His universe, and to give God the supreme place in our being.

Jesus is called the last Adam, sent into our world because we failed to do what God asked us to do. He kept God's law. He died on the cross. He is our righteousness, and in Him we can be God's men and God's women in this world.

A Life In God

So how was Adam's life to be one of meaning, fulfillment and purpose? How was he to experience the blessings of God's nearness to him and presence with him?

First, Adam was to stay within God's limits. God gave him the run of the garden, but told him to stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was the great test. Obedience would lead to blessing. Disobedience would lead to loss. Adam was called to stay within the spiritual, moral and ethical fence which God set up around the garden of Eden. God's law is not given us to restrict us or to restrict our happiness or our joy, but rather to show us the area within which we can have real joy and lasting happiness.

Second, Adam was to care for God's world. He named the animals. He tended the trees. He looked after God's garden. Our positions in life are not accidental. Our responsibilities are not accidental. God has given us places to be and things to do and duties to fulfill. If we do so, we will know his blessing. If we do not, we will lose out on that blessing.

Thirdly, Adam was given a wife! He slept, and when he woke up Eve had been formed. One look at her changed his whole perspective. God told Adam to love Eve, to cleave to her, to remain hers, and hers alone. In the blessing of family life, Adam was to know fulfillment and peace, and the blessing and nearness of God. God is our God, and the God of our families and the God of our children and the God of our homes. That's where His blessing will be - on the house of the righteous. Are our homes God-fearing homes? Are our marriages God-glorifying marriages? Are our lives lived for God, especially when they are out of the gaze of the church? Are we living consistent lives in the presence of those who know us best?