The Order of Eden

Eden was not a place where a carefree couple ran naked in the garden, eating and drinking, being merry, and doing whatever it was that they fancied doing.  It was not a place of unbridled pleasure, nor was it a place where everything came free and easy.  Instead, the Eden described in the first chapters of Genesis was a place of order.  Those who lived there lived within the order established by the Creator of the creation. 

 

The order of Eden starts to be revealed in the middle of the second chapter as the Word reads, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden, to till it and keep it."  (Genesis 2:15)  While the ground did not fight against the tiller of soil with thorns and thistles as it would later (Genesis 3:18), it was not a free ride for the one known as the first of those like us.  There was both work and responsibility.  And secondly, the Lord God issued a command, or a perimeter around which life was to be lived, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that eat of it, you shall die."  (Genesis 2:16-17)

 

Eden and life set forth from the beginning was about the order established by the Creator.  And while there is no tree such as the trees in the Garden of Eden, there is an order by which we are to live if we are to live rightly.  The order by which we are to live is not an order set forth by common consensus and personal preferences, but the One set forth by the Word inspired by the Holy Spirit.  From beginning to end the divine order is set forth enabling us to know how to live in sync with all of the created order including those who bear the DNA, the heart, and the soul of that first couple who made the mistake of thinking that they could live outside the order ordained by the Lord God Who brought them into being.