Chapter 2
The Church in
the Garden of Eden
1. The
Original Will of God
God
declared “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon
the earth” before He created man (Gen 1:26). And God formed man from the dust
of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen 2:7). Since the body of man was formed from the
dust of the ground, man became confined in time and space, having opposite
functionality of God Who is spirit.
In
other words, because the body is formed from the dust of the ground, man can
freely choose things on earth and can freely enjoy all things on earth,
according to God’s design (Gen 1:28-29).
Man also received a power (function) to exchange spirit through words;
man is able to enter spiritual realm.
Words
are a channel of personality (love) that comes out from ‘inside’. Receiving other’s words, therefore, means
receiving other’s personality (presence).
Speaking a word means that one is giving his/her personality (presence)
to others.
So
man can converse with God, with the devil, and with neighbors as well. Man thus became a divine being who can enter
into spiritual realm through these words (Joh 10:35).
Hence,
God planted the tree of life which represents God’s presence, and the tree of
knowing good and evil which represents presence of the devil (Gen 2:9). Both trees, the tree of life and tree of
knowing good and evil, were both channels of presences; depending on man’s
response upon the word of God, man was able to experience God’s presence or the
devils presence (Jos 1:3).
God
created the Garden of Eden for man. In
it were the tree of life, the tree of knowing good and evil, and the trees that
were pleasant to the sight, and good to eat of(Gen 2:8-9). If man obeyed the word of God, man would have
never experienced death and man would have kept and enjoyed everything in the
garden in the continuous presence of God through the word of God (Gen 2:15).
Furthermore,
Adam was able to continue and extend his rich and abundant life by sharing
presences with his spouse, who was also created in the same image of God. Adam could have been successful in keeping
and filling all of the earth through lives of his descendants.
Man
then never would have to have experienced death. Man’s life would have been more spiritualized
as time passed, just like Enoch, Elijah, and the resurrected Jesus our Lord,
man would have had glorified bodies and ascended to heaven (Gen 5:24; 2 King
2:11; Luk 24:39).
2. Opened to Outside
The
love which is the life of God enters and presides ‘inside’ of the body of a
person. The devil’s world, which can be experienced by the five senses, comes to
a person; it turns on the person’s interest (consciousness) toward the
‘outside’ of the body of the person. The
Garden of Eden was a realm of ‘inside’ before the fall of Adam.
The
Garden of Eden was a place for God’s presence, and God’s life itself was the
love which can open the ‘inner person’.
God lets humans share their presence each other by opening their inner
persons with His love.
Pro 27:19 As in water face answereth
to face, so the heart of man to man.
Love
reflects another’s presence (heart) in oneself, in their ‘inside’. The more in love, the wider the other’s
presence becomes in a person. The tree
of life in the G
Of
course the Lord Himself is the Tree of life, the Bread of life, and the Way of
life (Joh 6:48, 14:6), but Satan enticed the first man so that his
consciousness be opened to the ‘outside’.
The
serpent approached the woman with ‘words’.
Word is spirit. The word of the serpent made the woman feel emptiness–
which is opposite to the presence of love – by extending the five senses of the
woman to the outside.
When
the woman saw the tree of knowing good and evil, she felt that it would satisfy
her visual sense; she felt that it would satisfy her taste sense if she would
eat, and she felt that it would make her wiser if she would taste it. In other word, the tree looked much more
valuable to her. She therefore took and
ate of it, and gave it to the man and made eat it as well.
They
experienced an opposite result from being rich and abundant ‘inside’ of them
which could have been experienced by reflecting their ‘inside’ with each
other’s love. The first man experienced
and learned that he became empty by looking at, thinking about, eating, and
making others eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowing good and evil, and
their emptiness made them recognize that they were naked, and they took leaves
of a fig tree to cover themselves (Gen 3:7).
Instead
of sharing their riches and usual joy with each other, they let their
acknowledgement of their shame in their mutual nakedness and emptiness, their
outer form, impede in their relationship. When God was walking in the garden
during the day, they hid themselves from the presence of God and rejected
interaction with Him, yet letting their shame change another one of their
relationships.
Furthermore,
they were blaming each other to cover up their own faults in the matter, for
they had lost their channel of love through which they could share what ever
they wanted. Yet, God did not curse
them. God just assured them that what He
said is true: “You will surely die if you eat of the tree of knowing good and
evil”.
The
relationship between the two devolved to suppress, deprive, rule and be ruled
in order to satisfy their emptiness and to cover their nakedness.
Genesis 3:16-24 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over
thee. (17) And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast
hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I
commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat
of it all the days of thy life; (18) Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth
to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; (19) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat
bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for
dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return. (20) And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because
she was the mother of all living. (21) Unto Adam
also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed
them. (22) And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is
become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: (23) Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from
the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the
east of the
Woman shall be ruled over
man and she will desire man. Man shall
eat of earth to satisfy his hunger, and shall live a life of hard labor. People cannot help from oppressing others and
being oppressed by others because of their own personal desires (sins).
Since
then, all human relationships were described by ruling or being ruled which is
a miserable law of sin and death. The
more a ruler oppresses and deprives others, the more he becomes lonely and
fearful. The oppressed, on the other
hand, cannot leave the oppressor even if he or she has a heart full of rage and
anger. The tragedy of mankind had
begun. The fate of mankind in their
necessity to oppress and deprive others had been established.
After
this, Adam and Eve begot children through satisfying their sexual desires. Their children had to live in the same law of
sin and death. The tragedy of Cain and
Abel was a clear example of this. Cain
became a wanderer after he killed his own brother Abel.
After this law of death
came onto mankind, man lost power and authority over the earth. The earth fell into hands of devil and devil
became the prince of the world. Wherever
and whenever the devil rules over man, the ‘world’ is established.
3. Binary Nature of Human
Consciousness
Corrupt
men live with a binary level of their consciousness: Ruling and being ruled –
they need each other. One of the states
of the consciousness, ruling, comes from the desire to rule others but it needs
some others who should be ruled. No one
likes to be ruled.
A
ruler always oppresses and deprives his neighbors and the ruled cannot live
well (Joh 10:10). The ruled have two
options; be destroyed or run away from the ruler. Both options will reduce the number of ruled,
and soon or later the ruler cannot keep his position as a ruler anymore.
A ruler
who would take things that belonged to the ruled (neighbors) eventually becomes
weak from a rich and self-indulgent lifestyle which would make the ruler lazy
and corrupt; the ruled however would get tougher and stronger. They often exchange their roles as
generations pass. This way the kingdoms
of the world, families, or companies evolve.
Their rise and fall are due to a corrupted human relationship. A ruler falls to a ruled, and a once ruled
rises to a ruler, but the basic problem remains unchanged (Matt 24:10). The rulers are lonely and full of fear of
losing his powers, and the ruled are unsatisfied, and full of dissent and
vengeance.
Man
cannot live apart from human society, although he/she is extremely corrupt (Gen
2:18). Every human being thus has
vengeance, rebellion, loneliness, and desires to rule others. The same may extend even to father-son or
husband-wife relationships.
Matthew 24:9-13 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. (10) And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. (11) And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. (12) And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. (13) But he that shall endure
unto the end, the same shall be saved.
The corruption of mankind brings the destruction of
natural circumstances, and all created groan in travail because the devil, the
most corrupted, is ruling over them.
Romans 8:19-21
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God. (20) For the
creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who
hath subjected the same in hope,
(21)
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
4. The
Man
lost his kingship, which God has given, to the devil and man became slaves to
the devil. But God started to build His
kingdom on earth by freeing man from the devil and judging the prince of the
world, the devil, who is the origin of all corruption.
It
started from Abraham.
Genesis 12:1-3
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from
thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show
thee: (2) And I will make of thee a great nation, and I
will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: (3) And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse
him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
When the first Adam sinned
against God, God said the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the
serpent (Gen 3:15). So God created
The law
God
so gave the Israelites the law of the year of Sabbath (7), and the year of
Jubilee (50). During the corresponding
number of years, anyone who was sold as a slave and any land which was sold to
others are restored to the original state (Lev 25:10-17).
When
harvest time came, God prohibited them to pick up the heads of crops once they
fell on the ground, so the poor can pick them up for their food. God even said that any fruit born after the
first harvest would belong to the poor.
According to God’s law, the rich cannot be rich forever, and the poor
cannot be poor forever (Ruth 2:2-3).
The
king of
As
the history of
Jeremiah 31:31-34 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I
will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of
Judah: (32) Not according to the covenant that I made
with their fathers in the day that I
took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant
they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith the LORD: (33) But this shall
be the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and
they shall be my people. (34) And they
shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying,
Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the
greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will
remember their sin no more.
Ezekiel 36:24-28 For I will take you from among the heathen,
and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own
land. (25) Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you,
and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will
I cleanse you. (26) A new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your
flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
(27)
And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my
statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. (28) And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to
your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Adam
in the Garden of Eden was corrupted when his life was opened to ‘outside’. Now God promised to open/create His temples
in everyone’s body ‘inside’ through the redemptive work of His Son Who is the
Tree of life and the Holy Spirit. This
is the new covenant. Through the
redemption of our Lord Savior, God opened new heavenly temple in each of us.
Hebrews 10:19-22 Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter
into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, (20) By a new
and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to
say, his flesh; (21) And having
a high priest over the house of God; (22) Let us
draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
We now can overcome the world and expand the
spiritual territories of the kingdom of heaven through the temple which is
opened ‘inside’ of us.