Garden of the Gods: The Garden of Eden

In August 1859 a surveyor came upon some beautiful red sandstone formations in what is now Colorado Springs, Colorado, and rather flippantly said to his companion, “this would be a capital place for a biergarten,” to which his companion, more seriously and poetically said, “Biergarten! Why it is a fit place for the gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods.” It is a beautiful rock garden. God no doubt loves it, but more often than not His gardens are of a different sort.

⁸ Then Yahweh Elohim planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he placed the man he had made. ⁹ Yahweh Elohim made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches…¹⁵ Yahweh Elohim placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. ¹⁶ But Yahweh Elohim warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— ¹⁷ except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” (Genesis 2:8-10, 15-17)

The garden Yahweh planted for man was a garden of plenty and a garden of beauty. It’s trees were both beautiful and productive of delicious fruit. And the tree of life, in the middle of the garden, had fruit that enabled a human to live forever (Genesis 3:22). So it sustained both Adam’s body and Adam’s soul.

But it wasn’t just a garden to eat from and enjoy the beauty. Adam was instructed to “tend and watch over it.” It was a garden of work, as a garden must be if it is to remain a garden. For if a garden is untended, unworked, it will become a wild place, and though there is certainly beauty in the wild, it is not a beauty of arrangement and purpose. Adam’s job was to keep it so.

The garden, of course, was also a garden of testing. Man was formed in native righteousness, but it was untested righteousness. Would Adam choose righteousness if tempted to unrighteousness? Was he only conveniently righteous, that is, trusting in God and lovingly obedient to God, or did he choose to trust and obey? He would find out.