God has an amazing plan for us after Jesus returns. Along with being in the direct presence of Jesus and the Father we will live forever in a perfect community of love with God’s followers. This is what God originally intended for humans in the Garden of Eden. He told Adam and Eve “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals” (Gen. 1:28 NLT).
If Adam and Eve and their descendants had not sinned then they would have built a community of people who were completely godly. Thus, their “city” would have been a fantastically harmonious and loving community. It would have been thoroughly creative and constructive as everyone joyfully used their god-given creativity to create and build beautiful and glorious homes and machines and whatever else was needed. They would have explored and discovered all the complexity of God’s universe. They would have developed fascinating relationships with the animals. They would have been at perfect peace inwardly and outwardly. Instead of fighting and war everyone would have received wisdom and kindness and encouragement from one another. All in all, the virtues of God would have flowed through each Adam and each Eve so that the goodness of God would be displayed and enjoyed everywhere.
All this was lost when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They lost their unity with God and their high Spiritual vitality. Their very nature became corrupted; their inborn image of God cracked and distorted. They became prisoners of their own destructive desires. All their relationships were infected with fear and destructiveness. Knowing that they were destructive and desires to live by their own knowledge instead of by communion with himself, God put the sentence of death on them so that they would not live forever in such a degraded state.
But God did not abandon his original plan. He began a long process of bringing humans back into intimate relationship with himself. The Old Testament narrates this drama with all the stories of all the characters who were part of God’s venture. He even provided a small taste of the lost Garden of Eden by directing his people to build a temple in which he would dwell. His presence was in the innermost room of the temple, the holy of holies and only one person could visit each year, the high priest.
But Jesus came to restore direct communion with God to every individual not just a high priest! When Jesus ascended to heaven God sent his Holy Spirit to dwell inside you so that Scripture declares “you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you” (1 Cor. 6:19 ESV)! We have a taste of the Garden of Eden inside us. We have intimate communion with God and his living presence at our core, even when we don’t feel it. This is the beginning of God bringing us to a new Garden of Eden.
After Jesus returns God assures us that the Garden will return by describing parallels between the old Garden and the new Garden of Eden in which we will live. The biggest parallel is the direct presence of God and Jesus that we mentioned above. In the old Garden God “was walking in the garden” (Gen. 3:8 NIV) and spoke to Adam and Eve directly. In the New Creation the throne of God and the throne of Jesus will be in our midst (Rev. 22:3). In the old Garden there was a river flowing through it (Gen. 2:10). In the new Garden there will be “a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1 NLT). In the old Garden there was a tree of life (Gen. 2:9). In the new Garden there will be “a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations” (Rev. 22:2 NLT). Finally, in the old Garden there was a marriage between a man and a woman. In the new Garden there will be a marriage between Jesus, the Lamb of God (Rev. 19:7; 21:9), and his bride, “God’s holy people” (Rev. 19:8 NIV).
This is why we can set our hearts on a new Garden of Eden, a paradise, that God has promised to us. We will recover all that we have lost and more. Our troubles will be past and we will live on a new earth with God in peace and joy forever.
