Adam and Eve Looking Over the Land at SunsetBible World
3:23Genesis 3:23
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
God sent Adam out of Eden to work the ground from which he had been made, ending his life inside the garden. He was expelled as retribution for transgressing God's prohibition and law by taking the forbidden fruit. He was sent forth to keep him from again eating of the tree of life and becoming an immortal sinner living forever in sin, which would have perpetuated and immortalized sin. Outside he must till the ground under toil and anxiety, struggling with stubborn soil and thorns and thistles for daily bread, instead of the pleasant and happy labor of dressing and keeping the garden. Death entered by transgression, but Christ gave His life to give another trial and second probation, suffering the full penalty of the broken law and securing the right to destroy the devil who had the power of death.
Sent Forth to Till
After sin and the curse on the ground, God sent Adam out of Eden to work the ground from which he had been made, ending his life inside the garden and placing him outside where he could no longer eat from the tree of life and live on indefinitely in sin. That removal cut him off from free access to the tree and made him subject to death and the wearing out and extinction of life, and it marked his departure from the visible presence of God and the holy angels. The sending closed the daily labor of the first parents together in the garden, in which Eve had been cautioned by angels not to separate herself from her husband because with him she would be in less danger from temptation than alone. Absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side, felt apprehension at being alone but dismissed her fears as having wisdom and strength enough to discern evil and withstand it, and unmindful of the caution lingered to gaze with curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree and to hear the serpent instead of fleeing. They then left and bade farewell to their beautiful home in humility and deep and unutterable sadness to dwell upon the earth where the curse of sin rested.
The expulsion was decided by decree after counsel in heaven over the guilty pair and was carried out by holy angels. Those angels drove the transgressors out with the appearance of glittering swords in the right hand and barred the way to the tree, with beams of light like flaming swords turning every way to guard it. The fall and expulsion were witnessed by angels, the very ones who fought for God when Satan sought supremacy in heaven and who from their exalted position shouted for joy over the creation of the world and of the first sinless parents to inhabit it. Those same heavenly messengers are now most intensely interested to work in union with the fallen, redeemed race for the salvation of human beings perishing in sin, with invisible angelic agencies cooperating with visible human agencies to bind up the wounds and bruises sin has made and to restore the moral image of God in man.
The sending marks the beginning of humanity's life outside Paradise, shut out from God's visible presence, under sin's darkness and subject to suffering, temptation and death. From that turning away and departure from Eden, God's children have watched, waited, longed and prayed for the events to come and the future fulfillment. After being sent out to till the ground, Adam lived nearly a thousand years among men as a witness to the results of sin and faithfully sought to stem the tide of evil. Commanded to instruct his posterity in the way of the Lord, he carefully treasured what God revealed to him and repeated it to succeeding generations, to his children and children's children to the ninth generation, describing man's holy and happy estate in Paradise, repeating the history of his fall, telling of the sufferings by which God taught him strict adherence to His law, and explaining the merciful provisions for salvation. Yet few gave heed to his words, and often he was met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity.
Leaving the garden and being cut off from the tree that prolongs life brought home to Adam that he must die. At first he regarded death as a dreadful calamity, but after centuries of sorrow he came to see the sentence as just and merciful because it would end a miserable life. Only a few generations had passed since Adam had that access when Noah lived, so the human race still retained much of its early vigor and man's existence was still measured by centuries.
Disobedience That Caused Expulsion
Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden as retribution for breaking God's prohibition and law by taking the forbidden fruit. One act of disobedience cost them their beautiful home, their favor and happiness, and brought sin, woe, misery and despair upon the human race. Their expulsion belongs to the record that disobedience brings punishment and that God's justice does not fail, warning all not to disobey His unchangeable law. It proves God does not excuse transgression out of mercy but punishes disobedience with severe and exacting justice.
Eve was beguiled by the serpent to disbelieve God's warning that in the day of eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. She ate and felt no death but a pleasurable sensation she imagined as new and more exalted life like the angels, then bore the fruit to her husband. Adam let her experience stand against Jehovah's positive command and was seduced, and both thus discarded the words of the Lord and heeded the words of Satan. Adam insulted his Maker by believing Satan and disbelieving the Lord, and Adam and Eve lost their beautiful Eden home because they believed Satan's lie rather than the instruction of the word of God. The same temptation has continued ever since, with Satan's word received through human agencies against a plain thus saith the Lord to make Jehovah's law of no consequence, and the same result follows now, causing a person to lose heaven and an eternity of bliss.
The first surrender was to appetite over what seemed a small act of eating what was beautiful and pleasant to taste, breaking allegiance to God and opening the gates to a flood of guilt and woe. Desire for a single gratification introduced sin into the world with all its horrible consequences, and failure to control appetite together with curiosity and ambition led to the fall. Intolerance in desire, intemperate desire, cost our first parents Eden and sent them forth to till the ground. True experience is in harmony with natural and divine law, while false experience arrays itself against the laws of life and the precepts of Jehovah.
Though the act seemed simple and unworthy of God's notice, it opened the floodgates of woe to the world. By that one transgression Adam lost the gift of life and immortality, became an outcast excluded from the tree of life, and all born of Adam forfeit this gift, with sin, misery, despair and death entering and then steadily increasing ever since. What looked like a small transgression shut them out of Paradise and began an increase of sin in volume and prevalence that has continued and is still increasing, until God destroyed the old world by a flood saving only Noah and his sons. Violation of God's law is the greatest loss and deepest injury conceivable, and those who have this history before them should ever shun the same course, abhor sin as hateful, and feel it better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of God's commandments.
Satan's promise that eating would give higher perceptions to know good and evil and make them like the angels in heaven was proved a lie when they could no longer cultivate their beautiful home but were shut out to work among thistles, brambles, thorns and weeds brought by the curse which Satan had sown. They listened to his sophistry, and their fall gave him his first control in the Lord's vineyard to begin sowing seeds of evil in the earth.
Satan planned that after incurring God's displeasure the pair would remain in Eden in rebellion with his party, uniting with the fallen angels to take possession of Eden as their home. He intended to beguile them into disobedience so God would provide a pardon for them that he and his fallen angels could then share, and he claimed the world as his dominion by conquering Adam to possess Eden for his headquarters and throne. His party also thought that if they could gain access to the tree of life in the midst of the garden their strength would become equal to the holy angels so that even God could not expel them. God sent Adam out to till the soil he was made from as an immediate measure taken in heaven to defeat that plan, cutting off united occupation of Eden and strengthening by the tree of life. Their exclusion was enforced by strong angels with beams of light like flaming swords turning in every direction placed as sentinels to guard the way of the tree of life from the approach of Satan and the guilty pair.
Adam's accusation against Eve did not save him from the result of disobedience, and he and Eve were shut out with an angel with a flaming sword guarding the way so the disloyal pair could not gain access and thus immortalize transgression. They begged to stay in the home of their innocence and joy, admitted they had lost all right to that happy home, forfeited all right to it, and promised strict obedience in the future, but they were refused. Sin had made their nature depraved, weakened their strength to resist evil, and opened the way for Satan to gain easier access, so having yielded in innocence they would have even less power to maintain integrity in conscious guilt. Outside, Adam was to remain exposed to Satan's temptations while he lived and finally pass through death back to dust.
Barred From Tree of Life
God sent Adam and Eve out to keep them from reaching out again to eat from the tree of life and becoming immortal sinners living forever in sin and disobedience, which would have perpetuated and immortalized sin. They had transgressed the law of God by disobedience and thereby lost the right to the tree, and the driving out separated fallen man from it because eating after transgression would perpetuate sin. Man was dependent on the tree for immortality, and God barred the way lest men eat and live forever as immortal sinners. The expulsion defeated a studied plan that after disobeying and incurring God's displeasure and frown they would without forgiveness eat of the tree and make sin immortal. Death entered the world because of transgression, but Christ gave His life to give another trial and second probation, not to abolish the law and not to make sin immortal, but to suffer the full penalty of the broken law and secure the right to destroy the devil who had the power of death, so that men would return to loyalty and keep the commandments.
Endless existence required continuing to eat its fruit, for the tree had supernatural virtue to sustain life and immortality and to counteract death. Its fruit was the antidote of death and its leaves were for sustaining life and immortality and for healing. Deprived of it after being sent out away from it, human life and vitality would gradually diminish and wear out until life became extinct. The angels appointed to guard man before his sin were assigned to guard the gates of Paradise and the way to the tree, preventing return and making sin immortal.
God immediately commissioned holy angels to guard the tree, with the appearance of glittering swords in the right hand and beams of light flashing around them like flaming swords turning every way, placed as sentinels to guard the way from the approach of the guilty pair and of Satan and to bar approach. He guarded the way with cherubim and a flaming sword so man could not approach and eat its fruit, which perpetuates immortality. Not one of Adam's family has passed that flaming sword and eaten, so there is not an immortal sinner. This proves false the word that sinners will not die, and the soul that sins dies an everlasting death that lasts forever with no hope of resurrection until God's wrath is appeased.
By transgressing the commandments they came under a curse and were sent out deprived of all right to the tree, forfeiting all right to it and losing free access to it. Disobedience took away the right, and doing God's commandments is the condition for having right to the tree again and entrance through the gates into the City. Obedience to all the commandments, including the words spoken from Sinai which are the conditions of life, will give free access again to its life-giving fruit and its leaves which are for the healing of the nations, and obedience through Jesus Christ gives perfection of character and a right to the tree again. Christ died to save man and yet preserve the honor of the law, so that by virtue of His blood obedience makes man worthy of the heavenly blessing, and transgression made it needful for Him to come to reconcile fallen man by His own death. Access in Eden was conditional and was finally withdrawn.
After the entrance of sin the tree was removed from the earthly garden and transplanted to the Paradise above, so access was removed from the earthly garden. Yet its branches reach to the lower world and hang over the wall, so that through the redemption purchased by the blood of Christ fallen people may still again eat its life-giving fruit.
What Became of Eden
After the fall Paradise was taken up from the earth, so that no place remaining on earth matches the description of it given by Moses. The sending forth of man from Eden was followed by God's taking Eden itself up, for He would not suffer the garden to feel the marks of the curse. He caught it up and preserved it as a specimen of His handiwork as it was in the beginning, and that lovely garden still exists preserved.
The garden itself remained on earth after the first parents were driven out. God preserved it from the earth's curse as a specimen and sample of His perfect creation as it was in the beginning, specially blessed and kept free and untouched by the curse sin brought on the earth. God withdrew it from the earth when He destroyed the world by the Flood and removed it in preparation for the Flood. He will return it to earth in a more glorious and adorned form than before.
Beautiful Eden was Adam's home, the Paradise of God from which humanity was shut out. Adam and Eve were excluded from it and lost it because of transgression, because they yielded to temptation and transgressed the law of God. Sin blights and mars everything, stripping away the beauty God had given, and beautiful Eden was degraded by the introduction of sin when man was sent forth from the garden.
Changed Life Outside Garden
Outside Eden Adam had to till the ground from which he had been made, working under toil and anxiety for his daily bread against stubborn soil that brought forth thistles, brambles, thorns, weeds and briers because of the curse, instead of the pleasant, happy, health-giving labor of dressing and keeping the garden. His expulsion closed his right to live in Eden and to cultivate his beautiful home, since it was no longer safe for the disobedient pair to remain near the tree of life and perpetuate sin, and the guarded way kept them from returning. The earth outside was cursed to ever after bring forth briers and thorns that Satan had sown, exposing Adam to temptation while he lived until he would finally pass through death back to dust. The change from Eden's happy labor to struggling with the soil for bread was wide, yet the toilsome work appointed outside remains a blessing and not a curse.
That labor was appointed by God who knows what is for man's happiness, to occupy the mind, strengthen the body, develop the faculties, safeguard against temptation, and give happiness, with true joy of life found only by working men and women. The conditions of life were also changed in the air itself, for the atmosphere once mild and uniform in temperature was now subject to marked changes of heat and chill, cold and heat. In mercy the Lord clothed the guilty pair with garments of skins as protection from those extremes. Their case was not altogether hopeless, for Christ's promised sacrifice opened a door of hope and a way to redemption through faith.
The fall broke the close attachment to God and the tender attachment to one another that God purposed for men, bringing discord and unhappiness, misery to the race, estrangement from God, and separation of earth from heaven. Adam was driven from Eden and from the tree of life, losing open access to God's visible presence and the holy angels, and this departure marks the beginning of life outside Paradise under sin's darkness and subject to suffering, temptation and death. That separation did not lessen or change the claims of God's law. The history shows the same principles of Satan still at work playing the game of life for every soul while Christ works for every soul, with each person on probationary trial working out salvation by the choice of character formed, laying hold of the Saviour and receiving His merits by faith to perfect a character like His and receive God's moral image, while those who refuse Christ's character lose heaven.
Deprived of the tree of life, endless existence was cut off, for continued eating of its fruit was necessary for endless life, and without it human vitality would gradually diminish and wear out until life became extinct. God therefore immediately commissioned holy angels with beams of light flashing around them like glittering swords to guard the tree, so that none of Adam's family could pass the barrier to eat the life-giving fruit, and hence there is not an immortal sinner. Outside, Adam remained exposed to Satan's temptations while he lived on the cursed earth bringing forth thorns, and was finally to pass through death back to dust, with the sentence of returning to dust meaning extinction of life. Man's first education in sinless manhood by communion with God was thus broken by the coming in of a knowledge of evil. Eden could no longer teach the lessons now needed, and the pair had to regain their lost position under the unfavorable conditions their choice had brought under sin's curse.
Even outside, God did not cut off the supply of fruit but still prepared for Adam the most nourishing food because He knew how to give proper nourishment. That continued provision teaches gratitude and gives a lesson for diet now, to appreciate good food in its natural state with clear discernment, without spending time and labor cooking a variety of foods and mixing them together, for food good in its natural state is rendered unwholesome by mixing and burdens the digestive organs. The sending itself was mercy and not arbitrary severity. The builders of Babel misread the expulsion with the Flood as harshness and complained against God instead of gratefully remembering His mercy, revealing a false view of Him as arbitrary and severe, and by rejecting His justice, purity and love placed themselves under Satan the cruelest tyrant, whose oppression, violence and brutality supplanted the divine attributes; and Cain likewise thought God treated Adam harshly in expelling him.
The expulsion was meant to keep sin ever before the mind, and offering the blood of the slain lamb was a confession of entire dependence upon Christ, a Power outside of man, which Cain in his offering refused to acknowledge, finding the requirement of constant confession torture to his high spirit. Through Christ's mercy the exclusion from Eden work is reversed, for He calls fallen men back to work in His vineyard as His purchased heritage, accepted as laborers together with God to build obedient character. Though the earth was cursed when Adam and Eve lost Eden and were sent to work the ground from which Adam had been formed, God's people can cooperate with Him in restoring their land to fertility and beauty by following His instructions for cultivating the soil. The land's renewed abundance illustrates the spiritual fruits of obedience to God's moral law.
Regained Through Christ Alone
Death entered because of transgression, yet Christ gave His life to grant another trial and a second probation. He suffered the full penalty of the broken law for the whole world and secured the right to destroy the devil who had the power of death. This provision did not abolish God's law and did not make sin an immortal attribute, for God does not show benevolence at the expense of justice nor set aside righteousness to give unconditional pardon, which would exalt the impenitent sinner and encourage transgression. With cherubim and flaming sword blocking access to the tree of life, Christ took the human family into close relation to His humanity and gave His life as Substitute, so that all now have privilege to reach for soul-reviving fruit and eat freely and live forever.
In close converse with the Father, Jesus obtained permission to give His own life as ransom, to bear human sins and take the sentence of death upon Himself. By that ransom, blood, and obedience to God's law, a way of escape was opened whereby pardon for past transgressions is found through the merits of His blood. Through that pardon and God's favor the lost who were driven out as offenders doomed to misery, sickness, and death may by obedience be brought back to the garden and again have access to the tree of life.
Christ passed over the same ground where Adam fell and overcame the test Adam failed, thus redeeming Adam's failure and fall. Adam's disgraceful failure put the race at a disadvantage and divorced earth from heaven, shutting fallen humanity out from favor with God and the right to the tree. In the wilderness Christ met a temptation a hundred times more trying than Adam and Eve met in Eden, fasting forty days and forty nights and overcoming appetite by living by every word proceeding from God's mouth. By that victory He placed the family on vantage ground with God, encircled the fallen race, reunited earth with heaven and fallen man with God, and opened communication with heaven through His merits as crucified and risen Saviour. All who now live by every word from God's mouth will be brought back to the Eden home.
Being sent from Eden placed fallen Adam in a new relation, for the Son undertook to become Redeemer while wrath still hung over him. The full execution of the pronounced sentence of death was delayed and divine indignation restrained because Christ entered upon bearing the wrath that in justice should fall on man. A door of hope was opened and Christ became a refuge, so that though man was a criminal deserving wrath he could by faith run into the refuge and be safe, with life in the midst of death if he chose to accept it. No direct communion could now exist, for the holy infinite God dwelling in unapproachable light could no longer talk with man, yet Satan's claim to have forever broken the link was mistaken. The Father gave the world into the hands of His Son to redeem it from the curse and disgrace of Adam's failure, so through Christ alone man finds access to God and through Christ alone God holds communication with man, with the gospel promise of an invincible Deliverer, the Only Begotten full of grace and truth, given even as blessings were removed and access to the tree cut off. Christ laid aside royal robes, clothed divinity with humanity, and came as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, suffering insult, reproach, and mockery though He was heaven's Majesty, taking human transgressions and their just penalty upon Himself to open escape for the ruined race laboring under sin's oppressive load.
The tree of life possessed supernatural virtue, for to eat its fruit was to live forever, its fruit the antidote of death and its leaves for sustaining life and immortality. Adam failed his test by eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil, and his disobedience brought death and opened floodgates of woe. That tree was a type of the one great Source of immortality, for Christ is the fountain of life in whom was life as the light of men, and obedience to Him is life-giving, vivifying power gladdening the soul. Life and immortality are now brought to light through Jesus Christ, who is the bread of life so that whoever comes and believes never hungers or thirsts, whose flesh is meat indeed and blood drink indeed giving eternal life and resurrection at the last day, whose words are spirit and life. Jesus now stands to the world as that tree stood in the garden, presenting Himself as Lifegiver whose flesh and blood received by faith perfects spiritual life and gives eternal life, and to the overcomer will be granted to eat of the tree in the midst of God's paradise. After sin God transplanted the tree to the paradise above, yet its branches hang over the wall to the lower world so that through redemption purchased by Christ's blood fallen people may still eat its life-giving fruit.
The tree of life is truth, whose fruit perpetuates immortality and gives life measuring with God's life. Adam and Eve excluded themselves from it by eating the forbidden tree and suffering the consequence. The same self-exclusion befalls those who read the Word by their own ideas and opinions and eat of the forbidden tree by accepting Satan's fallacies instead of Thus saith the Lord, partaking error, falsehood, and deception and dying in sins, never gaining eternal life unless they repent.
Sin drove Adam from paradise and guarded the way lest he return and make sin immortal, and paradise itself was removed from earth. Through the gospel the way to the fruit is now open to all who will receive it, that they may live forever with no flaming sword barring the way. Paradise may be regained through obedience to the Father's law and faith in Christ's atoning blood, for repentance toward God for breaking His law and faith in Jesus as the only Redeemer are acceptable, and Christ's merits avail for sinful humanity. By relying on the merits of His blood people receive pardon, are washed and sanctified and made worthy, keep God's law and return to loyalty, overcome, are brought back to the garden and city, and eat again.
God's law could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained Eden and Christ could have remained in heavenly courts without the immense sacrifice. The penalty remained death and the law remained changeless in character with binding force on every person, so Christ became substitute and surety by giving Himself as sacrifice, and Adam with all posterity was placed on probation where each soul's salvation turns on obedience or disobedience.
Adam and Eve's sin cost them holy Eden and brought its loss to descendants, sending them to work the ground from which Adam was taken. Those who continue breaking God's law will not regain paradise, and choosing that same disobedience now forfeits the right to Eden restored, proving the disobedient can never enter through the city gates nor have right to the tree. Through Christ's grace people may obey acceptably, keeping the precepts in home life and all business transactions, which fits them to regain lost Paradise. Pardon was made possible because Christ gave His life, and return requires the wedding garment of Christ's righteousness received by faith. The life Christ offers is more perfect, full, and complete than Adam forfeited, for Adam had no power to redeem the past or win back Christ's gifts, but Christ bore sin's penalty and by incarnation became fully competent to place man where he is no longer an outcast, bringing life and immortality to light and opportunity to stand again in original position before God.
After resurrection Adam again sees Paradise and is granted access to the tree, his loss and return linked to disobedience and to repentance and faithful obedience. His banishment for transgressing God's law provides the setting for Christ as Substitute to suffer and die outside Jerusalem's gate and boundaries. Through redemption God aims to restore His image in humanity and bring people back to the perfection for which they were created, after sin marred the likeness, weakened powers, dimmed spiritual vision, and brought subjection to death.
Warnings For Obedience Today
God's word must be treated as sacred and His commands obeyed, for He does not excuse transgression out of mercy but punishes disobedience with severe and exacting justice. Keeping His commandments is the test of love for Him, so the human family must obey the light given about the binding claims of His law. The history of expulsion from Eden belongs to the account of disobedience and its punishment, showing that disobedience brings punishment and that God's justice does not fail.
One act of disobedience brought expulsion from the garden, proving that breaking even one requirement brings serious consequences and reveals the sacred character of the law. What seemed a simple act unworthy of notice opened the floodgates of woe, so violating one command such as the Sabbath brings punishment just as violating stealing, murder, or adultery does, and mercy covers guilt only after sin is repented of and forsaken. After the fall they continued to observe the Sabbath, having learned through disobedience that God surely punishes transgressors.
Being once in grace does not mean always in grace, as shown with Satan shut out of heaven for his fall and Adam and Eve shut out of Paradise for theirs, in which Satan triumphed by making others suffer through his own fall. Discarding the words of the Lord to heed Satan proves transgression does not pay, and the same result follows now, causing loss of heaven and an eternity of bliss, so each must decide whether to follow the Lord or Baal. Transgressing that same law will cause loss of heaven, for the disobedient can never enter through the gates of the city nor have right to the tree of life, though pardon was made possible because Christ gave His life and return requires the wedding garment of His righteousness received by faith.
Adam's fall began a succession of falls continuing ever since, and if falls had stopped with his expulsion the race would now be far more elevated physically, mentally and morally. Instead men repeat his disobedience while mourning it, indulging appetite and passion in direct violation of God's law, and successive falls have brought greater crime, disease, and loss of health, beauty and moral power. Parents who disobey now perpetuate the disobedience that led to Adam's fall and set an example leading children to follow in that same disobedience and fall. Disobedience broke the charm of obedience and set up the law of self in place of willing submission, making Adam a law to himself with discord, unhappiness and separation from God, and leading people to think they can choose whether to obey, in contrast to Christ who lived perfect obedience as the example all can follow.
Seeking happiness by having one's own unrestrained way brings unhappiness and loss instead of exaltation, for Eve imagined high exaltation from eating what God had forbidden even to touch lest she die, and lost all the glories of Eden and was sent out. Gaining forbidden knowledge through disobedience brought an experience God had not intended, and pursuing knowledge from unsatisfied desires and unholy aims brings loss rather than bliss and illustrates the grave cost of unholy desires. Had they never touched that tree they would have remained where God could impart knowledge from His word that could be carried to the paradise of God, but the knowledge they seized wearies minds to death with unnecessary labor and is mere wood and stubble like godless education today, to be consumed in the last burning, dying with its holder and of no value to God.
Violation of God's law is the greatest loss and deepest injury conceivable, for it lost beautiful Eden and opened the floodgates of woe, and fallen man has another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ. Those who have this history before them should ever shun the same course, walk in humble obedience, avoid sin and abhor it as hateful, feeling it better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least commandment. The loss of Eden came through intemperate desire, and temperance in all things has more to do than is realized with restoration to Eden. Eating what God forbade cost the right to Paradise, so getting ready for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control, because indulging depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits and ensnare in his devices.
If Adam and Eve had lived by every word proceeding from God's mouth they would never have fallen nor lost the Eden home, but they fell on appetite by not so living, divorcing earth from heaven and shutting the race out from favor with God. Christ came to pass over the same ground, meeting in the wilderness a temptation a hundred times more trying, fasting forty days and nights and overcoming appetite by living by every word of God, thus redeeming the disgraceful fall, reuniting earth with heaven and opening communication through Himself. All who now live by every word will be brought back to the Eden home, and the way back is not to transgress as they did but to be obedient to all requirements and overcome as Christ overcame by perfect obedience, with footsteps bending heavenward pointing others there.
The command to work is to take exercise in the open air of the garden, teaching outdoor exercise and obedience to health laws. Transgression in Eden brought evils into human life, and continued violation of physical laws has greatly aggravated those evils with suffering, disease and weakness. The account belongs to sacred and inspired history of the race that all may research, tracing from holy innocency and communion with God and sinless angels the introduction of sin, the disobedience and impenitence of man, and just retribution. It is a great fact of creation practically rejected wholly or in part by many professing Christians, yet salvation depends on full obedience requiring spiritual knowledge obtained only by studying the living oracles.
The greatest events hang on apparently small things, for desire for a single gratification of appetite introduced sin with all its horrible consequences, as disobedience also brought the Flood. Adam and Eve were shut out for what looked small, proving God cannot approve work with even one thread of selfishness, and that sin began an increase in volume and prevalence continuing and still increasing, yet expulsion did not cut off divine benevolence for God's love and care still flow earthward. After the fall Satan claimed control over nature, though God permits his work while protecting those who follow heaven's principles.
God sent Adam out of Eden to work the ground from which he had been made, ending his life inside the garden. He was expelled as retribution for transgressing God's prohibition and law by taking the forbidden fruit. He was sent forth to keep him from again eating of the tree of life and becoming an immortal sinner living forever in sin, which would have perpetuated and immortalized sin. Outside he must till the ground under toil and anxiety, struggling with stubborn soil and thorns and thistles for daily bread, instead of the pleasant and happy labor of dressing and keeping the garden. Death entered by transgression, but Christ gave His life to give another trial and second probation, suffering the full penalty of the broken law and securing the right to destroy the devil who had the power of death.
Sent Forth to Till
After sin and the curse on the ground, God sent Adam out of Eden to work the ground from which he had been made, ending his life inside the garden and placing him outside where he could no longer eat from the tree of life and live on indefinitely in sin. That removal cut him off from free access to the tree and made him subject to death and the wearing out and extinction of life, and it marked his departure from the visible presence of God and the holy angels. The sending closed the daily labor of the first parents together in the garden, in which Eve had been cautioned by angels not to separate herself from her husband because with him she would be in less danger from temptation than alone. Absorbed in her pleasing task she unconsciously wandered from his side, felt apprehension at being alone but dismissed her fears as having wisdom and strength enough to discern evil and withstand it, and unmindful of the caution lingered to gaze with curiosity and admiration on the forbidden tree and to hear the serpent instead of fleeing. They then left and bade farewell to their beautiful home in humility and deep and unutterable sadness to dwell upon the earth where the curse of sin rested.
The expulsion was decided by decree after counsel in heaven over the guilty pair and was carried out by holy angels. Those angels drove the transgressors out with the appearance of glittering swords in the right hand and barred the way to the tree, with beams of light like flaming swords turning every way to guard it. The fall and expulsion were witnessed by angels, the very ones who fought for God when Satan sought supremacy in heaven and who from their exalted position shouted for joy over the creation of the world and of the first sinless parents to inhabit it. Those same heavenly messengers are now most intensely interested to work in union with the fallen, redeemed race for the salvation of human beings perishing in sin, with invisible angelic agencies cooperating with visible human agencies to bind up the wounds and bruises sin has made and to restore the moral image of God in man.
The sending marks the beginning of humanity's life outside Paradise, shut out from God's visible presence, under sin's darkness and subject to suffering, temptation and death. From that turning away and departure from Eden, God's children have watched, waited, longed and prayed for the events to come and the future fulfillment. After being sent out to till the ground, Adam lived nearly a thousand years among men as a witness to the results of sin and faithfully sought to stem the tide of evil. Commanded to instruct his posterity in the way of the Lord, he carefully treasured what God revealed to him and repeated it to succeeding generations, to his children and children's children to the ninth generation, describing man's holy and happy estate in Paradise, repeating the history of his fall, telling of the sufferings by which God taught him strict adherence to His law, and explaining the merciful provisions for salvation. Yet few gave heed to his words, and often he was met with bitter reproaches for the sin that had brought woe upon his posterity.
Leaving the garden and being cut off from the tree that prolongs life brought home to Adam that he must die. At first he regarded death as a dreadful calamity, but after centuries of sorrow he came to see the sentence as just and merciful because it would end a miserable life. Only a few generations had passed since Adam had that access when Noah lived, so the human race still retained much of its early vigor and man's existence was still measured by centuries.
Disobedience That Caused Expulsion
Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden as retribution for breaking God's prohibition and law by taking the forbidden fruit. One act of disobedience cost them their beautiful home, their favor and happiness, and brought sin, woe, misery and despair upon the human race. Their expulsion belongs to the record that disobedience brings punishment and that God's justice does not fail, warning all not to disobey His unchangeable law. It proves God does not excuse transgression out of mercy but punishes disobedience with severe and exacting justice.
Eve was beguiled by the serpent to disbelieve God's warning that in the day of eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they would surely die. She ate and felt no death but a pleasurable sensation she imagined as new and more exalted life like the angels, then bore the fruit to her husband. Adam let her experience stand against Jehovah's positive command and was seduced, and both thus discarded the words of the Lord and heeded the words of Satan. Adam insulted his Maker by believing Satan and disbelieving the Lord, and Adam and Eve lost their beautiful Eden home because they believed Satan's lie rather than the instruction of the word of God. The same temptation has continued ever since, with Satan's word received through human agencies against a plain thus saith the Lord to make Jehovah's law of no consequence, and the same result follows now, causing a person to lose heaven and an eternity of bliss.
The first surrender was to appetite over what seemed a small act of eating what was beautiful and pleasant to taste, breaking allegiance to God and opening the gates to a flood of guilt and woe. Desire for a single gratification introduced sin into the world with all its horrible consequences, and failure to control appetite together with curiosity and ambition led to the fall. Intolerance in desire, intemperate desire, cost our first parents Eden and sent them forth to till the ground. True experience is in harmony with natural and divine law, while false experience arrays itself against the laws of life and the precepts of Jehovah.
Though the act seemed simple and unworthy of God's notice, it opened the floodgates of woe to the world. By that one transgression Adam lost the gift of life and immortality, became an outcast excluded from the tree of life, and all born of Adam forfeit this gift, with sin, misery, despair and death entering and then steadily increasing ever since. What looked like a small transgression shut them out of Paradise and began an increase of sin in volume and prevalence that has continued and is still increasing, until God destroyed the old world by a flood saving only Noah and his sons. Violation of God's law is the greatest loss and deepest injury conceivable, and those who have this history before them should ever shun the same course, abhor sin as hateful, and feel it better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of God's commandments.
Satan's promise that eating would give higher perceptions to know good and evil and make them like the angels in heaven was proved a lie when they could no longer cultivate their beautiful home but were shut out to work among thistles, brambles, thorns and weeds brought by the curse which Satan had sown. They listened to his sophistry, and their fall gave him his first control in the Lord's vineyard to begin sowing seeds of evil in the earth.
Satan planned that after incurring God's displeasure the pair would remain in Eden in rebellion with his party, uniting with the fallen angels to take possession of Eden as their home. He intended to beguile them into disobedience so God would provide a pardon for them that he and his fallen angels could then share, and he claimed the world as his dominion by conquering Adam to possess Eden for his headquarters and throne. His party also thought that if they could gain access to the tree of life in the midst of the garden their strength would become equal to the holy angels so that even God could not expel them. God sent Adam out to till the soil he was made from as an immediate measure taken in heaven to defeat that plan, cutting off united occupation of Eden and strengthening by the tree of life. Their exclusion was enforced by strong angels with beams of light like flaming swords turning in every direction placed as sentinels to guard the way of the tree of life from the approach of Satan and the guilty pair.
Adam's accusation against Eve did not save him from the result of disobedience, and he and Eve were shut out with an angel with a flaming sword guarding the way so the disloyal pair could not gain access and thus immortalize transgression. They begged to stay in the home of their innocence and joy, admitted they had lost all right to that happy home, forfeited all right to it, and promised strict obedience in the future, but they were refused. Sin had made their nature depraved, weakened their strength to resist evil, and opened the way for Satan to gain easier access, so having yielded in innocence they would have even less power to maintain integrity in conscious guilt. Outside, Adam was to remain exposed to Satan's temptations while he lived and finally pass through death back to dust.
Barred From Tree of Life
God sent Adam and Eve out to keep them from reaching out again to eat from the tree of life and becoming immortal sinners living forever in sin and disobedience, which would have perpetuated and immortalized sin. They had transgressed the law of God by disobedience and thereby lost the right to the tree, and the driving out separated fallen man from it because eating after transgression would perpetuate sin. Man was dependent on the tree for immortality, and God barred the way lest men eat and live forever as immortal sinners. The expulsion defeated a studied plan that after disobeying and incurring God's displeasure and frown they would without forgiveness eat of the tree and make sin immortal. Death entered the world because of transgression, but Christ gave His life to give another trial and second probation, not to abolish the law and not to make sin immortal, but to suffer the full penalty of the broken law and secure the right to destroy the devil who had the power of death, so that men would return to loyalty and keep the commandments.
Endless existence required continuing to eat its fruit, for the tree had supernatural virtue to sustain life and immortality and to counteract death. Its fruit was the antidote of death and its leaves were for sustaining life and immortality and for healing. Deprived of it after being sent out away from it, human life and vitality would gradually diminish and wear out until life became extinct. The angels appointed to guard man before his sin were assigned to guard the gates of Paradise and the way to the tree, preventing return and making sin immortal.
God immediately commissioned holy angels to guard the tree, with the appearance of glittering swords in the right hand and beams of light flashing around them like flaming swords turning every way, placed as sentinels to guard the way from the approach of the guilty pair and of Satan and to bar approach. He guarded the way with cherubim and a flaming sword so man could not approach and eat its fruit, which perpetuates immortality. Not one of Adam's family has passed that flaming sword and eaten, so there is not an immortal sinner. This proves false the word that sinners will not die, and the soul that sins dies an everlasting death that lasts forever with no hope of resurrection until God's wrath is appeased.
By transgressing the commandments they came under a curse and were sent out deprived of all right to the tree, forfeiting all right to it and losing free access to it. Disobedience took away the right, and doing God's commandments is the condition for having right to the tree again and entrance through the gates into the City. Obedience to all the commandments, including the words spoken from Sinai which are the conditions of life, will give free access again to its life-giving fruit and its leaves which are for the healing of the nations, and obedience through Jesus Christ gives perfection of character and a right to the tree again. Christ died to save man and yet preserve the honor of the law, so that by virtue of His blood obedience makes man worthy of the heavenly blessing, and transgression made it needful for Him to come to reconcile fallen man by His own death. Access in Eden was conditional and was finally withdrawn.
After the entrance of sin the tree was removed from the earthly garden and transplanted to the Paradise above, so access was removed from the earthly garden. Yet its branches reach to the lower world and hang over the wall, so that through the redemption purchased by the blood of Christ fallen people may still again eat its life-giving fruit.
What Became of Eden
After the fall Paradise was taken up from the earth, so that no place remaining on earth matches the description of it given by Moses. The sending forth of man from Eden was followed by God's taking Eden itself up, for He would not suffer the garden to feel the marks of the curse. He caught it up and preserved it as a specimen of His handiwork as it was in the beginning, and that lovely garden still exists preserved.
The garden itself remained on earth after the first parents were driven out. God preserved it from the earth's curse as a specimen and sample of His perfect creation as it was in the beginning, specially blessed and kept free and untouched by the curse sin brought on the earth. God withdrew it from the earth when He destroyed the world by the Flood and removed it in preparation for the Flood. He will return it to earth in a more glorious and adorned form than before.
Beautiful Eden was Adam's home, the Paradise of God from which humanity was shut out. Adam and Eve were excluded from it and lost it because of transgression, because they yielded to temptation and transgressed the law of God. Sin blights and mars everything, stripping away the beauty God had given, and beautiful Eden was degraded by the introduction of sin when man was sent forth from the garden.
Changed Life Outside Garden
Outside Eden Adam had to till the ground from which he had been made, working under toil and anxiety for his daily bread against stubborn soil that brought forth thistles, brambles, thorns, weeds and briers because of the curse, instead of the pleasant, happy, health-giving labor of dressing and keeping the garden. His expulsion closed his right to live in Eden and to cultivate his beautiful home, since it was no longer safe for the disobedient pair to remain near the tree of life and perpetuate sin, and the guarded way kept them from returning. The earth outside was cursed to ever after bring forth briers and thorns that Satan had sown, exposing Adam to temptation while he lived until he would finally pass through death back to dust. The change from Eden's happy labor to struggling with the soil for bread was wide, yet the toilsome work appointed outside remains a blessing and not a curse.
That labor was appointed by God who knows what is for man's happiness, to occupy the mind, strengthen the body, develop the faculties, safeguard against temptation, and give happiness, with true joy of life found only by working men and women. The conditions of life were also changed in the air itself, for the atmosphere once mild and uniform in temperature was now subject to marked changes of heat and chill, cold and heat. In mercy the Lord clothed the guilty pair with garments of skins as protection from those extremes. Their case was not altogether hopeless, for Christ's promised sacrifice opened a door of hope and a way to redemption through faith.
The fall broke the close attachment to God and the tender attachment to one another that God purposed for men, bringing discord and unhappiness, misery to the race, estrangement from God, and separation of earth from heaven. Adam was driven from Eden and from the tree of life, losing open access to God's visible presence and the holy angels, and this departure marks the beginning of life outside Paradise under sin's darkness and subject to suffering, temptation and death. That separation did not lessen or change the claims of God's law. The history shows the same principles of Satan still at work playing the game of life for every soul while Christ works for every soul, with each person on probationary trial working out salvation by the choice of character formed, laying hold of the Saviour and receiving His merits by faith to perfect a character like His and receive God's moral image, while those who refuse Christ's character lose heaven.
Deprived of the tree of life, endless existence was cut off, for continued eating of its fruit was necessary for endless life, and without it human vitality would gradually diminish and wear out until life became extinct. God therefore immediately commissioned holy angels with beams of light flashing around them like glittering swords to guard the tree, so that none of Adam's family could pass the barrier to eat the life-giving fruit, and hence there is not an immortal sinner. Outside, Adam remained exposed to Satan's temptations while he lived on the cursed earth bringing forth thorns, and was finally to pass through death back to dust, with the sentence of returning to dust meaning extinction of life. Man's first education in sinless manhood by communion with God was thus broken by the coming in of a knowledge of evil. Eden could no longer teach the lessons now needed, and the pair had to regain their lost position under the unfavorable conditions their choice had brought under sin's curse.
Even outside, God did not cut off the supply of fruit but still prepared for Adam the most nourishing food because He knew how to give proper nourishment. That continued provision teaches gratitude and gives a lesson for diet now, to appreciate good food in its natural state with clear discernment, without spending time and labor cooking a variety of foods and mixing them together, for food good in its natural state is rendered unwholesome by mixing and burdens the digestive organs. The sending itself was mercy and not arbitrary severity. The builders of Babel misread the expulsion with the Flood as harshness and complained against God instead of gratefully remembering His mercy, revealing a false view of Him as arbitrary and severe, and by rejecting His justice, purity and love placed themselves under Satan the cruelest tyrant, whose oppression, violence and brutality supplanted the divine attributes; and Cain likewise thought God treated Adam harshly in expelling him.
The expulsion was meant to keep sin ever before the mind, and offering the blood of the slain lamb was a confession of entire dependence upon Christ, a Power outside of man, which Cain in his offering refused to acknowledge, finding the requirement of constant confession torture to his high spirit. Through Christ's mercy the exclusion from Eden work is reversed, for He calls fallen men back to work in His vineyard as His purchased heritage, accepted as laborers together with God to build obedient character. Though the earth was cursed when Adam and Eve lost Eden and were sent to work the ground from which Adam had been formed, God's people can cooperate with Him in restoring their land to fertility and beauty by following His instructions for cultivating the soil. The land's renewed abundance illustrates the spiritual fruits of obedience to God's moral law.
Regained Through Christ Alone
Death entered because of transgression, yet Christ gave His life to grant another trial and a second probation. He suffered the full penalty of the broken law for the whole world and secured the right to destroy the devil who had the power of death. This provision did not abolish God's law and did not make sin an immortal attribute, for God does not show benevolence at the expense of justice nor set aside righteousness to give unconditional pardon, which would exalt the impenitent sinner and encourage transgression. With cherubim and flaming sword blocking access to the tree of life, Christ took the human family into close relation to His humanity and gave His life as Substitute, so that all now have privilege to reach for soul-reviving fruit and eat freely and live forever.
In close converse with the Father, Jesus obtained permission to give His own life as ransom, to bear human sins and take the sentence of death upon Himself. By that ransom, blood, and obedience to God's law, a way of escape was opened whereby pardon for past transgressions is found through the merits of His blood. Through that pardon and God's favor the lost who were driven out as offenders doomed to misery, sickness, and death may by obedience be brought back to the garden and again have access to the tree of life.
Christ passed over the same ground where Adam fell and overcame the test Adam failed, thus redeeming Adam's failure and fall. Adam's disgraceful failure put the race at a disadvantage and divorced earth from heaven, shutting fallen humanity out from favor with God and the right to the tree. In the wilderness Christ met a temptation a hundred times more trying than Adam and Eve met in Eden, fasting forty days and forty nights and overcoming appetite by living by every word proceeding from God's mouth. By that victory He placed the family on vantage ground with God, encircled the fallen race, reunited earth with heaven and fallen man with God, and opened communication with heaven through His merits as crucified and risen Saviour. All who now live by every word from God's mouth will be brought back to the Eden home.
Being sent from Eden placed fallen Adam in a new relation, for the Son undertook to become Redeemer while wrath still hung over him. The full execution of the pronounced sentence of death was delayed and divine indignation restrained because Christ entered upon bearing the wrath that in justice should fall on man. A door of hope was opened and Christ became a refuge, so that though man was a criminal deserving wrath he could by faith run into the refuge and be safe, with life in the midst of death if he chose to accept it. No direct communion could now exist, for the holy infinite God dwelling in unapproachable light could no longer talk with man, yet Satan's claim to have forever broken the link was mistaken. The Father gave the world into the hands of His Son to redeem it from the curse and disgrace of Adam's failure, so through Christ alone man finds access to God and through Christ alone God holds communication with man, with the gospel promise of an invincible Deliverer, the Only Begotten full of grace and truth, given even as blessings were removed and access to the tree cut off. Christ laid aside royal robes, clothed divinity with humanity, and came as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, suffering insult, reproach, and mockery though He was heaven's Majesty, taking human transgressions and their just penalty upon Himself to open escape for the ruined race laboring under sin's oppressive load.
The tree of life possessed supernatural virtue, for to eat its fruit was to live forever, its fruit the antidote of death and its leaves for sustaining life and immortality. Adam failed his test by eating of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil, and his disobedience brought death and opened floodgates of woe. That tree was a type of the one great Source of immortality, for Christ is the fountain of life in whom was life as the light of men, and obedience to Him is life-giving, vivifying power gladdening the soul. Life and immortality are now brought to light through Jesus Christ, who is the bread of life so that whoever comes and believes never hungers or thirsts, whose flesh is meat indeed and blood drink indeed giving eternal life and resurrection at the last day, whose words are spirit and life. Jesus now stands to the world as that tree stood in the garden, presenting Himself as Lifegiver whose flesh and blood received by faith perfects spiritual life and gives eternal life, and to the overcomer will be granted to eat of the tree in the midst of God's paradise. After sin God transplanted the tree to the paradise above, yet its branches hang over the wall to the lower world so that through redemption purchased by Christ's blood fallen people may still eat its life-giving fruit.
The tree of life is truth, whose fruit perpetuates immortality and gives life measuring with God's life. Adam and Eve excluded themselves from it by eating the forbidden tree and suffering the consequence. The same self-exclusion befalls those who read the Word by their own ideas and opinions and eat of the forbidden tree by accepting Satan's fallacies instead of Thus saith the Lord, partaking error, falsehood, and deception and dying in sins, never gaining eternal life unless they repent.
Sin drove Adam from paradise and guarded the way lest he return and make sin immortal, and paradise itself was removed from earth. Through the gospel the way to the fruit is now open to all who will receive it, that they may live forever with no flaming sword barring the way. Paradise may be regained through obedience to the Father's law and faith in Christ's atoning blood, for repentance toward God for breaking His law and faith in Jesus as the only Redeemer are acceptable, and Christ's merits avail for sinful humanity. By relying on the merits of His blood people receive pardon, are washed and sanctified and made worthy, keep God's law and return to loyalty, overcome, are brought back to the garden and city, and eat again.
God's law could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained Eden and Christ could have remained in heavenly courts without the immense sacrifice. The penalty remained death and the law remained changeless in character with binding force on every person, so Christ became substitute and surety by giving Himself as sacrifice, and Adam with all posterity was placed on probation where each soul's salvation turns on obedience or disobedience.
Adam and Eve's sin cost them holy Eden and brought its loss to descendants, sending them to work the ground from which Adam was taken. Those who continue breaking God's law will not regain paradise, and choosing that same disobedience now forfeits the right to Eden restored, proving the disobedient can never enter through the city gates nor have right to the tree. Through Christ's grace people may obey acceptably, keeping the precepts in home life and all business transactions, which fits them to regain lost Paradise. Pardon was made possible because Christ gave His life, and return requires the wedding garment of Christ's righteousness received by faith. The life Christ offers is more perfect, full, and complete than Adam forfeited, for Adam had no power to redeem the past or win back Christ's gifts, but Christ bore sin's penalty and by incarnation became fully competent to place man where he is no longer an outcast, bringing life and immortality to light and opportunity to stand again in original position before God.
After resurrection Adam again sees Paradise and is granted access to the tree, his loss and return linked to disobedience and to repentance and faithful obedience. His banishment for transgressing God's law provides the setting for Christ as Substitute to suffer and die outside Jerusalem's gate and boundaries. Through redemption God aims to restore His image in humanity and bring people back to the perfection for which they were created, after sin marred the likeness, weakened powers, dimmed spiritual vision, and brought subjection to death.
Warnings For Obedience Today
God's word must be treated as sacred and His commands obeyed, for He does not excuse transgression out of mercy but punishes disobedience with severe and exacting justice. Keeping His commandments is the test of love for Him, so the human family must obey the light given about the binding claims of His law. The history of expulsion from Eden belongs to the account of disobedience and its punishment, showing that disobedience brings punishment and that God's justice does not fail.
One act of disobedience brought expulsion from the garden, proving that breaking even one requirement brings serious consequences and reveals the sacred character of the law. What seemed a simple act unworthy of notice opened the floodgates of woe, so violating one command such as the Sabbath brings punishment just as violating stealing, murder, or adultery does, and mercy covers guilt only after sin is repented of and forsaken. After the fall they continued to observe the Sabbath, having learned through disobedience that God surely punishes transgressors.
Being once in grace does not mean always in grace, as shown with Satan shut out of heaven for his fall and Adam and Eve shut out of Paradise for theirs, in which Satan triumphed by making others suffer through his own fall. Discarding the words of the Lord to heed Satan proves transgression does not pay, and the same result follows now, causing loss of heaven and an eternity of bliss, so each must decide whether to follow the Lord or Baal. Transgressing that same law will cause loss of heaven, for the disobedient can never enter through the gates of the city nor have right to the tree of life, though pardon was made possible because Christ gave His life and return requires the wedding garment of His righteousness received by faith.
Adam's fall began a succession of falls continuing ever since, and if falls had stopped with his expulsion the race would now be far more elevated physically, mentally and morally. Instead men repeat his disobedience while mourning it, indulging appetite and passion in direct violation of God's law, and successive falls have brought greater crime, disease, and loss of health, beauty and moral power. Parents who disobey now perpetuate the disobedience that led to Adam's fall and set an example leading children to follow in that same disobedience and fall. Disobedience broke the charm of obedience and set up the law of self in place of willing submission, making Adam a law to himself with discord, unhappiness and separation from God, and leading people to think they can choose whether to obey, in contrast to Christ who lived perfect obedience as the example all can follow.
Seeking happiness by having one's own unrestrained way brings unhappiness and loss instead of exaltation, for Eve imagined high exaltation from eating what God had forbidden even to touch lest she die, and lost all the glories of Eden and was sent out. Gaining forbidden knowledge through disobedience brought an experience God had not intended, and pursuing knowledge from unsatisfied desires and unholy aims brings loss rather than bliss and illustrates the grave cost of unholy desires. Had they never touched that tree they would have remained where God could impart knowledge from His word that could be carried to the paradise of God, but the knowledge they seized wearies minds to death with unnecessary labor and is mere wood and stubble like godless education today, to be consumed in the last burning, dying with its holder and of no value to God.
Violation of God's law is the greatest loss and deepest injury conceivable, for it lost beautiful Eden and opened the floodgates of woe, and fallen man has another trial only through the sacrifice of Christ. Those who have this history before them should ever shun the same course, walk in humble obedience, avoid sin and abhor it as hateful, feeling it better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least commandment. The loss of Eden came through intemperate desire, and temperance in all things has more to do than is realized with restoration to Eden. Eating what God forbade cost the right to Paradise, so getting ready for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control, because indulging depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits and ensnare in his devices.
If Adam and Eve had lived by every word proceeding from God's mouth they would never have fallen nor lost the Eden home, but they fell on appetite by not so living, divorcing earth from heaven and shutting the race out from favor with God. Christ came to pass over the same ground, meeting in the wilderness a temptation a hundred times more trying, fasting forty days and nights and overcoming appetite by living by every word of God, thus redeeming the disgraceful fall, reuniting earth with heaven and opening communication through Himself. All who now live by every word will be brought back to the Eden home, and the way back is not to transgress as they did but to be obedient to all requirements and overcome as Christ overcame by perfect obedience, with footsteps bending heavenward pointing others there.
The command to work is to take exercise in the open air of the garden, teaching outdoor exercise and obedience to health laws. Transgression in Eden brought evils into human life, and continued violation of physical laws has greatly aggravated those evils with suffering, disease and weakness. The account belongs to sacred and inspired history of the race that all may research, tracing from holy innocency and communion with God and sinless angels the introduction of sin, the disobedience and impenitence of man, and just retribution. It is a great fact of creation practically rejected wholly or in part by many professing Christians, yet salvation depends on full obedience requiring spiritual knowledge obtained only by studying the living oracles.
The greatest events hang on apparently small things, for desire for a single gratification of appetite introduced sin with all its horrible consequences, as disobedience also brought the Flood. Adam and Eve were shut out for what looked small, proving God cannot approve work with even one thread of selfishness, and that sin began an increase in volume and prevalence continuing and still increasing, yet expulsion did not cut off divine benevolence for God's love and care still flow earthward. After the fall Satan claimed control over nature, though God permits his work while protecting those who follow heaven's principles.