From Sacred Garden to Holy City: How Genesis 1-3 Shapes the Whole Bible

From Sacred Garden to Holy City: How Genesis 1-3 Shapes the Whole Bible Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (208)

Beginning at the End

This morning we’re going to begin at the end (Rev. 21:6-22:5). In 21:1, John sees “a new heaven and a new earth” that replaces the “first heaven and the first earth.” But then for the remainder of the section he describes a city that’s in the shape of a temple with garden-like features. Why does John equate the new world with a garden-like city-temple?

Because he wants us to understand that the end will look like the beginning. The Bible ends with a vision of a holy garden-like city that fills the new earth where God will live alongside humans.

The Bible begins with a similar picture. Genesis opens by telling us how God created the earth, on which he places a human couple. The earth is designed to be a divine residence where God intends to coexist with people. God’s plan is disrupted when the first human couple disobey God and are removed from his presence. The entire story of the Bible that follows is about how the earth can once again become a place shared by God and man.

God undoubtedly intended the opening and closing scene of the Bible to match closely in order to frame the entire story of his work in the world. One scholar says, “The prophets looked forward to a time when the End would be like the Beginning, and everything would be restored to its original state.”[1]

What is Biblical Theology?

In our study of Genesis 1-3, we’ve spent a lot of time looking at the trees, examining individual sections and verses, mining them for all the gold they contain. But today we’re going to zoom out and look at the forest and consider how Genesis 1-3 shape the whole Bible.

I want us to spend some time considering how the Bible fits together. This is often called “biblical theology.” Biblical theology “attempts to read the whole story of the Bible and asks how each part relates to the whole. Biblical theology is a way of reading the Bible as one story by one divine author that culminates in who Jesus Christ is and what he has done, so that every part of Scripture is understood in relation to him. Biblical theology helps us understand the Bible as one big book with lots of little books that tell one big story. The Hero and centerpiece of that story, from cover to cover, is Jesus Christ.”[2]

Biblical theology is based on the conviction that, because God is the author of the Bible, the Bible is a single book and therefore the comprehensive story of God.[3]

The Presence of God with His People as an Organizing Theme

The presence of God among his people is an organizing theme of the whole Bible. The big story of the Bible is how the relational presence of God with his people was lost and yet is in the process of being restored. We see this theme from beginning to end.

The opening chapters of Genesis portray the earth as God’s dwelling place. The earth is God’s cosmic temple where he lives with his people. This reality is quickly shattered when Adam and Eve disobey God and are kicked out of the Garden.

People continue to live on the earth, but God’s presence is now associated with heaven. From there, he occasionally comes down to meet with select individuals. These visits are usually brief and for specific purposes. This is what we find throughout Genesis and the first half of Exodus.

In the second half of Exodus a major development occurs. After God rescues Israel from slavery in Egypt, he enters into a covenant relationship with them at Mount Sinai. He tells them to build him a tent that’ll become his dwelling place in the midst of their camp. This is a big step forward in the biblical story because God lives with his people on the earth again.

After the Israelites enter the Promised Land of Canaan, this tent, or tabernacle, is set up in Shiloh and stays there for a long time (Josh. 18:1; 1 Sam. 1:3). Eventually, the tabernacle is replaced by a temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. The temple was now God’s residence on the earth.

For almost 400 years, God coexisted with his people in Jerusalem. A major reversal happens in 586 B.C. when the Babylonians destroy the temple and the city. Then in 538 B.C., the Persian king Cyrus allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. It’s finished in 516 B.C. The books of Haggai and Zechariah show us that the restoration of the temple was divinely sanctioned, telling us that God was still committed to dwell with his people in Jerusalem.

The next major development in the biblical story is the coming of Jesus. The opening to John’s Gospel says that Jesus, as God, tabernacles, or dwells, among human beings. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14).

God once again lives with his people on the earth. This is why Jesus says his body is the temple. John 2:19, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” Then John adds, “He was speaking about the temple of his body” (v. 21).

Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension prepare the way for another significant step in the process by which God comes to live with humans again. He hints at this in his conversation with the Samaritan woman in their discussion on the place where God is worshipped (Jn. 4:19-24). Through Jesus’s death and resurrection, he became the temple of the living God, the focus and place of worship.

The next major development is when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. God’s presence is now linked to the newly created church. The church becomes the new temple of God. Wherever the followers of Jesus are, the presence of God is there with them by his Spirit. As the church expands throughout the earth, God’s dwelling place is also expanded. The ever-expanding church of Jesus Christ replaces the Jerusalem temple as the place where God lives on the earth.

But the Bible gives us one more development before the process of God inhabiting the whole earth reaches completion. As the end of Revelation reveals, there’s coming a time when all evil will be removed from the earth and his presence and glory will fill the earth. This is what John sees in Revelation 21-22.

The Last Temple

John’s description of the New Jerusalem is unusual for a city. It’s a perfect cube (21:15-16). The only other cube specifically mentioned in the Bible is the holy of holies, or the inner most part of the temple (1 Kgs. 6:20). The New Jerusalem also resembles the holy of holies in that both are made of pure gold (1 Kgs. 6:20; Rev. 21:18). Both the holy of holies and the New Jerusalem are golden cubes. This means that the New Jerusalem is an expanded holy of holies. John makes this clear in 21:22. By associating the temple with God, John implies that the whole city is a sanctuary. John sees the New Jerusalem as a temple-city.

The First Temple

At the end of the Bible, we see God living in a gigantic temple-city. At the beginning of the Bible, we see the Garden of Eden portrayed as a divine sanctuary.

There are numerous parallels that exist between Eden and the later tabernacle and temple. Here are eight of these parallels: First, the presence of God is in Eden and in the later sanctuaries (3:8).

Second, after the fall, cherubim guard the garden (3:24). Pictures of cherubim decorated the curtains of the tabernacle and the walls of the temple (Ex. 26:31; 1 Kgs. 6:29). Two cherubim also sat on top of the ark of the covenant and two stood over the ark in the holy of holies.

Third, in the center of the garden is the tree of life and in the center of the tabernacle and temple is the menorah, or the branching lampstand, made to look like a tree (Gen. 2:9, 3:22; Ex. 25:31-35).

Fourth, the pair of Hebrew words in God’s command to Adam, that he should “work and keep” the garden (2:15) are only used in combination here and in Numbers to describe the duties of the Levites in the tabernacle (3:7-8, 8:26, 18:5-6).

Fifth, Eden and the tabernacle and temple are entered from the east (3:24; Ex. 25:18-22; 1 Kgs. 6:23-29).

Sixth, many of the decorative features of the tabernacle and temple point back to the garden. Gold and onyx stones are mentioned in Genesis 2 (vv. 11-12), and these are used to decorate the later sanctuaries and priestly garments (Ex. 25:7, 11; 28:9-14). Flowers, trees, gourds, and pomegranates decorate the tabernacle and temple (1 Kgs. 6:18, 29, 32, 7:20, 22, 24-26, 42, 49).

Seventh, the structure of the garden corresponds to the later temple. Just as the temple had three sections (the outer courts, inner sanctuary, and holy of holies), so also in Genesis 1-2 we find the outer world, Eden, and the garden.

Eighth, just as God rested on the seventh day after creating the world, so when the creation of the tabernacle and temple are finished, God takes up a “resting place” within them. Psalm 132:13-14, “For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place: ‘This is my resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it” (cf. vv. 7-8). His rest at the conclusion of creation doesn’t mean inactivity, but that, as the sovereign King, he has defeated the forces of chaos and assumed a position of kingly rest.[4]

The garden is purposely portrayed to be the first temple, or the first place where God lived with man on the earth.

God’s Blueprint for the Earth

The Garden of Eden was only a small part of the created world (2:8). The command in 1:28 is that they would “fill the earth” and “subdue (the earth).” So God’s design is that mankind begin in the Garden (2:15), but then extend out beyond the Garden. Genesis 2 introduces the start of this process. So God intended the boundaries of the garden to be extended to cover the whole earth as humans multiplied and filled the earth, so that, over time, the whole world would become a temple-garden-city, where God and man lived together.

God’s goal was to establish a garden-like temple-city where God and humanity would coexist in perfect harmony on the earth. This was God’s blueprint for the earth. God wanted the entire world to be his dwelling place.

Genesis 3 tells us that this blueprint was tragically interrupted by Adam and Eve’s disobedience. By following the serpent instead of God, Adam and Eve fail to maintain the sanctity of the garden-temple. As a result, their priestly status is revoked and they’re expelled from the sanctuary complex. They no longer have immediate access to God or live in his temple-garden. Their actions hinder the fulfillment of God’s blueprint that the whole earth would become a holy garden-city, but Revelation 21-22 tell us that God will complete this blueprint in the New Jerusalem. God will finish what he started.

Adam and Eve’s actions halt God’s plan to fill the world with his presence, but God isn’t caught off-guard. Despite their rebellion, he graciously embarks on a lengthy process designed to reverse what they’ve done and bring his plan for creation to completion. God first re-establishes his presence on the earth through the tabernacle and then the temple. Then God puts on flesh and comes to live among us. Then after Jesus ascends to heaven, he sends his Spirit and creates the church, his body on the earth.

The Current Temple

The New Testament makes it clear that the church has superseded the temple as the place where God’s presence dwells. Ephesians 2:19-22, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Each local church provides God with a local habitation.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” “You” in these verses is plural, so Paul is saying that the corporate body of Christ is the temple of God, not individual believers. The local church is God’s temple.

1 Corinthians 14:25 says that when an unbeliever comes into the church’s gathering, “the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.” The assembled church is a divine dwelling place. This is why Paul tells the church to remove the person living in unrepentant sin (ch. 5), so that holiness may be restored in God’s temple, his church.

The New Testament also says that God’s people will live in a new city. Hebrews 11:10, “For (Abraham) was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (cf. v. 16). And, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (13:14).

The theme of God wanting to live with his people on the earth progresses from Eden to the tabernacle to the temple to Christ to the church to the New Jerusalem.

God’s goal was to establish a garden-like temple-city where God and humanity would coexist in perfect harmony on the earth. This was his blueprint for the earth. God wanted the entire world to be his dwelling place. This is still his goal. And it will come to pass.

What Does this Mean for Us?

What does all this have to do with us? Here are four implications of these truths:

First, sin and suffering will not last forever. Those who belong to Christ will live in a world free from bad things and all the sad things they cause. Our “living hope” is that we have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for us” (1 Pet. 1:3-4).

Second, the next world is going to look like this world more than you think. God’s plan is to remake the world. Heaven isn’t going to be an ethereal or abstract existence in some airy space. It’ll be tangible, touchable, concrete, physical, and material. There will be joyful cultivation of God’s creation. It won’t be an unending worship service where we sing Holy, Holy, Holy on repeat for eons.

Third, God’s plan is to save sinners and recreate the world. Colossians 1:19-20, “For in him (Jesus) all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross” (cf. Eph. 1:10). In Christ, God is working to redeem a people and fix the world. Both are true. And both are needed. Sinners need forgiveness and the world needs fixing.

We often focus on the personal aspects of Jesus’ work and miss the cosmic scope of what God is doing in Christ. Yes, Jesus came into the world to save sinners. But he also came to make all things new. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Christians and churches should care about evangelism, but we can also reveal the glory and righteousness of God’s kingdom by not ignoring matters of social justice.

Piper said it best at the 2010 Congress on World Evangelization:

“One truth is that when the gospel takes root in our souls it impels us out toward the alleviation of all unjust suffering in this age. That’s what love does! The other truth is that when the gospel takes root in our souls it awakens us to the horrible reality of eternal suffering in hell, under the wrath of a just and omnipotent God. And it impels us to rescue the perishing, and to warn people to flee from the wrath to come (1 Thess. 1:10). I plead with you. Don’t choose between those two truths. Embrace them both. It doesn’t mean we all spend our time in the same way. God forbid. But it means we let the Bible define reality and define love. Could…the evangelical church say—we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering? I hope we can say that. But if we feel resistant to saying “especially eternal suffering,” or if we feel resistant to saying “we care about all suffering in this age,” then either we have a defective view of hell or a defective heart. I pray that (we) would have neither.”[5]

The reality of the coming of a bright and glorious kingdom where “justice rolls on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream” (Amos 5:24) compels us to do all we can to plead with people to bow their knee to the King of this coming kingdom and to promote every just cause we’re able to so that something of our King’s goodness and justice is seen here and now.

Fourth, and finally, because the local church is where God lives, we must take membership and discipline seriously. The church is made up of its members, not just anyone who shows up on Sunday. Its members are called to help each other look more and more like Jesus, to reflect his goodness and kindness and truth and love.

To be a member of a church is to be vitally connected, like a limb to a body. Church membership isn’t like joining a club for its benefits or services; it’s committing oneself to the good of a local body, even as that body commits itself to your own good. Our Church Covenant outlines a set of promises we make to one another as fellow members of Preston Highlands Baptist Church, promises intended to help us help each other look more and more like Jesus.

If the church is where God lives, then church members should actively be helping one another look more and more like God.

The theme of God wanting to live with his people on the earth progresses from Eden to the tabernacle to the temple to Christ to the church to the New Jerusalem.

[1]T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2008), 14, n. 3.

[2]Nick Roark and Robert Cline, Biblical Theology: How the Church Faithfully Teaches the Gospel (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 26.

[3]A list of book recommendations for those who want to study biblical theology further can be found here: https://www.zondervan.com/p/biblical-theology/bibliography/

[4]This list was compiled from Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2^nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018)., 247-9; James M. Hamilton Jr., God’s Glory in Salvation Through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 74; T. Desmond Alexander, From Paradise to the Promised Land: An Introduction to the Main Themes of the Pentateuch (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 21; and From Eden to the New Jerusalem, 23; G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology 17, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 60-76.

[5]https://www.epm.org/blog/2010/Dec/20/caring-about-all-suffering-especially-eternal-suff