We’ll first consider the eschatological import of the tree (as it pointed to an escalated future reality) and then demonstrate how it reveals true life to consist in having God himself as your eschatological reward and kingdom inheritance (Rom. 8:17).

While man possessed life since the beginning when God breathed the breath of life into him and placed him in his garden-kingdom for life-giving fellowship, the tree of life was a symbol or token of a higher form of life that was offered to him.[1] As we noted in our previous post, life was not a fixed or static concept for Adam, but a redemptive-historical one that was to organically progress from its protological beginnings to an eschatological consummation of union and communion with God in perfect fullness and permanency. As Vos puts it, “The universe, as created, was only a beginning, the meaning of which was not perpetuation, but attainment.”[2]

In order to attain this eschatological blessing of escalated life and glory Adam was required to render unto the Lord perfect and personal obedience to his command, “You may surely 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 you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17; WCF 7.2). The protological life of original communion with God in the garden-kingdom was not incorruptible, but corruptible; it was not irrevocable, but susceptible to removal in death. Herman Bavinck captures well the character of this probationary stage that Adam found himself tested in:

Adam … stood at the beginning of his ‘career,’ not at the end. His condition was provisional and temporary and could not remain as it was. It either had to pass on to higher glory or to sin and death. The penalty of transgressing the command was death; the reward for keeping it, by contrast, was life, eternal life. Our common conscience already testifies that in keeping God’s commands there is great reward, and that the violation of these commands brings punishment, and Holy Scripture also expresses this truth over and over. It sums up all the blessedness associated with the doing of God’s commandments in the word “life,” eternal life. Both in the covenant of works and that of grace, Scripture knows but one ideal for a human being, and that is eternal life (Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11; Ps. 9:13; Matt. 19:17; Luke 10:28; Gal. 3:12). Hence, Adam still stood at the beginning. As yet he did not have this reward of eternal life but still had to acquire it; he could still err, sin, fall, and die. His relation to God was such that he could gradually increase in fellowship with God but could also still fall from it.[3]

The possibility of eschatological life (the consummation of the covenant communion bond with God) and death (separation from God) was symbolized in the two trees: (1) the tree of life and (2) the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to which certain death was appended (Gen. 2:17). Here we are first introduced to the polar forces of life and death as the two possible destinies of humanity. This life-death antithesis from here onward will run throughout redemptive-history and the apostle Paul will pick it up with full eschatological might (see Rom. 4:1-25; Rom. 5:1-11).

Life, as the enjoyment of the covenant communion bond, was not to continue in perpetuation, but would either be corrupted in death on account of disobedience or advance to a higher state of life beyond probation on account of obedience.[4] Vos affirms the “disclosure of the principles of a process of probation by which man was to be raised to a state of religion and goodness, higher, by reason of its unchangeableness, than what he already possessed.”[5] The higher state of life consisted of an unchangeable rectitude, being confirmed in holiness forever, and rising beyond the possibility of death in eternal life—all of this was to serve the communion bond with God.

As we have been saying, the tree of life was a sacrament through which God would convey eschatological life that was permanent and forever (Gen. 3:22). It is absolutely crucial to recognize that this promised reward of eternal life is not to be understood at any point apart from God himself, who is the comprehensive source of all life. The tree symbolized his life-giving presence.[6] More pointedly, the reward offered in the tree of life was nothing less than God conferring himself in a consummated communion bond in face-to-face fellowship with a holy people in his holy kingdom. True life, therefore, does not only have its source in God, but also its goal. As Vos puts it, “As it is strongly bound to God in its production, so it has a telic character directing it to God as its solitary goal.”[7] God himself is the eschatological reward of his people (see Gen. 15:1; Ps. 16:5; 119:57; 142:5; Rom. 8:17).

Our analysis thus far confirms the above point. Creaturely life has its archetype, source, and goal in the absolutely personal life of God, so that life can never be conceived of apart from him.[8] It is further confirmed when through a wider canonical lens the location of the tree of life is considered. The Genesis account informs us that it took root “in the midst of the Garden” (Gen. 2:9). In Revelation 2:7, the original tree reemerges in the paradise of God, that is, the restored and consummated kingdom of glory.[9] Then in Revelation 22:1-2 the tree of life is brought into the closest proximity with the throne of God and of the Lamb. It is from the throne that eschatological life is decreed in its consummate fullness, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (21:3).

In the same way the tree of life stood in close relationship to God, so the river that flowed out of Eden and divided into four rivers to water the garden (Gen. 2:10-14) will come to be referred to as the streams or waters of life. The waters are said to flow from God’s mountain dwelling place and also from the throne of God in the New Jerusalem with the tree of life on both sides (Rev. 22:1-2). In light of this, Vos’s comment is apt:

It will be observed that here the two symbolisms of the tree of life and the waters of life are interwoven. … The truth is thus clearly set forth that life comes from God, that for man it consists in nearness to God, that is the central concern of God’s fellowship with man to impart this.[10]

Both the tree of life and the waters of life point to the One who is the source and goal of life. The eschatological reward of life promised to Adam was nothing less than God promising to confer himself in a consummate communion bond of face-to-face fellowship to his holy people in his glorious kingdom. This conception of life is inherent to the Genesis account itself and enhanced with the clarifying light of later biblical revelation. So Vos can rightly state about the apostle Paul,

The tree of life and the other tree and the primeval paradise and the fall and death and the expulsion from the garden on account of the sin committed, all these are present in the scriptural narrative, and a single glance at Rom. v is sufficient to convince of the fact, that in the most fundamental manner they support (qua history) the entire eschatology of Paul. And the Apostles’ eyes were centrally focused on life and death in their forever interacting force.[11]

[1] On the nature of symbols and tokens see Vos, Biblical Theology, 27: “It is largely symbolical, that is, not expressed in words so much as in tokens; and these tokens partake of the general character of Biblical symbolism in that, besides being means of instruction, they are also typical, that is, sacramental, prefigurations conveying assurance concerning the future realization of the things symbolized. The symbolism, however, does not lie in the account as a literary form, which would involve denial of the historical reality of the transactions. It is a real symbolism embodied in the actual things.” On the tree of life as a sacrament see Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, trans. George Musgrave Giger, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992), 1:580-82; Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 1: God, Man, and Christ, trans. Bartel Elshout, ed. Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 1:259, 362-63.

[2] Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament, ed. James T. Dennison, Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001), 73.

[3] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:564-65.

[4] Meredith Kline speaks of the tree of life as a symbolic “reproduction of the theophanic Glory-Spirit” and the “sacramental seal of man’s participation in the glory of immortality” (Kingdom Prologue, 93).

[5] Vos, Biblical Theology, 27. See Vos, Eschatology of the Old Testament, 73; Collins, Genesis 1-4, 115.

[6] This point is especially clear with the reemergence of the tree of life in Rev. 2:9 and 22:1-4. See G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 235.

[7] Vos, Pauline Eschatology, 309. Vos notes an organic consistency in biblical revelation on the concept of life: “What lends confirmation to thus joining the earlier and later is the emphasis placed upon the divine favor as an indispensable concomitant of the eschatological life. The concept of life would never have obtained in the Old Testament its comprehensive and pregnant significance, had it not from the outset been wedded to the profoundly-religious thought of prospering in the favor of God” (307).

[8] Death also can never be conceived of apart from God as it is nothing less than separation from God.

[9] See Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 94.

[10] Vos, Biblical Theology, 28.

[11] Vos, Pauline Eschatology, 304.

[T]hen the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed (Gen. 2:7-8).

Life cannot be possessed in the abstract, but only in relation to the source of life himself. As Kline writes,

Eternal life properly so called, the life signified by the tree of life, is life as confirmed and ultimately perfected in man’s glory-likeness to God, life in the fellowship of God’s Presence. Access to the tree of life and its fruit is only in the holy place where the Glory-Spirit dwells; to be driven from there is to be placed under judgment of death.[2]

This is the consistent testimony of Scripture.

Life is invigorated within a holy kingdom filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).

The true path of life leads into a realm maximally charged with the presence of God where there is fullness of joy (Ps. 16:11).

Life is found there, where God receives unto himself a people to be his special possession and he gives himself to them as their God (Exod. 6:7; Lev. 26:12).

True life is nothing less than to possess God himself as one’s inheritance (Ps. 73:26; Rom. 8:17).

This concrete conception of life as a covenantal communion bond with God is evident from at least two elements contained in Genesis 1-3: (1) the garden of God and (2) the tree of life. We’ll consider the first in this article.

That the garden-kingdom was a theocentric realm where God placed man in personal relationship with himself is seen in that it was a garden he personally planted and was called the garden of God (Gen. 2:8; Ezek. 28:13; 31:8, 9). The garden, according to Vos, was “not in the first instance an abode for man as such, but specifically a place of reception of man into fellowship with God in God’s own dwelling-place.”[3] The garden was a created holy realm or kingdom that facilitated life, that is, union and communion with God.[4] It was the place where God walked with man in life-giving fellowship (Gen. 3:8).

The same point can also be argued by way of contrast. Death, as the opposite of life, is banishment from the kingdom where God’s presence abides and so to have the communion bond with the source of life severed.

In the Bible, death is the reverse of life—it is not the reverse of existence. To die does not mean to cease to be, but in biblical terms it means ‘cut off from the land of the living,; henceforth unable to act, and to enter another condition.[5]

Collins notes that מות can refer to a kind of “spiritual death,” that is “estrangement from a life-giving relationship with God.”[6] This sense is found in Prov. 12:28, “In the path of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death” (see also Prov. 23:13-14). More pointedly, Vos writes,

It was intimated that death carried with it separation from God, since sin issued both in death and in the exclusion from the garden. If life consisted in communion with God, then, on the principle of opposites, death may have been interpretable as separation from God.[7]

So in carrying out the judgment of death in response to Adam’s disobedience, God drove man out of the garden of God, that is, out of his kingdom and so away from his life-giving presence (Gen. 3:24).[8] For this reason, the later exile of Israel from the promised land, in which the typological kingdom of God was established, was understood as a kind of death from which the nation would need to be resurrected like dry bones to new life (Ezek. 37:1-14).

[1] For an extensive argument for the garden as God’s covenant-kingdom see Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview, 22-61. See also G. K. Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New, 617-22.

[2] Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 94-95.

[3] Vos, Biblical Theology, 27.

[4] See Van Groningen, From Creation to Consummation, 1:71-72: “Eden … was the place of life.”

[5] Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis, 171.

[6] Collins, Genesis 1-4, 117.

[7] Vos, Biblical Theology, 40.

[8] Those who are sentenced to eschatological death in Revelation are found outside the gates of the city (Rev. 22:15), having no right of access to the tree of life (22:14).

The psalmist answers our heart cry for full and everlasting happiness in his praise to the one true God: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). In God’s glorious presence there is a joy that is unbounded by space and time, one that is bursting with fullness and untouched by temporal decay. Fullness—like pouring a thousand oceans into a single bucket. Forevermore—like the ancient mountains withstanding the test of time from age to age.

We exist to experience this, and every lesser pleasure will leave us unsatisfied and longing for more. “You have made us for yourself,” Augustine prays to God, “and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” Similarly C.S. Lewis remarked,

It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

The Westminster divines also knew that joy wasn’t merely optional for us: “man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” Twice Paul refers to God as “blessed” or “happy” (μακάριος; 1 Tim. 1:11; 6:15). We have been created in the image of the supremely happy God whose dwelling is charged with fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

What we come to marvel at in Scripture is that God reveals himself to be fiercely committed and desirous to dwell with his people in unhindered communion so that we might enjoy him forever. Here is the very heart of God as he has expressed it in his covenant: “I will be your God and you will be my people.” This is what drives the biblical story from its conception to its consummation. Playing off the words of Psalm 16, we can say that the theme of God dwelling with his people in joy-full fellowship is a vital vein that runs throughout the single story of the Bible stretching from Genesis to Revelation.

We have already begun to trace this theme as it is first set forth in blueprint form in the Garden and then, following the entrance of sin into the world, the period of the patriarchs. In our next article we’ll consider the advancements that the tabernacle made toward this end of joy-full fellowship. We consider these Old Testament realities with our eyes looking forward to the ultimate fulfillment of Psalm 16:11 in and by Jesus Christ who will graciously confer it upon his church—but more on that later.

In Revelation 21-22 John is shown a climactic vision of the new heaven and new earth descending as the final dwelling place of God with his people. He hears an accompanying royal proclamation from the throne knighting this new creation: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3). While you’re not going to read about this in any newspaper or hear about it on the evening news, the truth is that history has been and continues to move toward this appointed end: the maximal enjoyment of union and communion between the triune God and the church forever.

In fact, this consummative picture at the end of the Bible is the fulfillment of the purpose given to the creation and the mission given to Adam at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 1-2. There it is laid out in blueprint form that God’s image bearers would expand Eden (God’s dwelling place) by being fruitful and multiplying until they filled and subdued the whole earth (Gen. 1:28). Everything was “very good” in these opening chapters, but nothing had yet been perfected—a higher, escalated life of union and communion with God in a holy and glorified realm had not yet been reached (see 1 Cor. 15:42-49). Even though sin appears to fatally puncture this Immanuel vein in Genesis 3, God continues his pursuit of creation’s goal, restoring what sin ruined unto its consummation, according to the riches of his grace.

In a previous post I summarized the biblical-theological case for Eden being a temple-garden. Within it the Lord placed man with the mission of working and keeping it (Gen. 2:15). This man, Adam, was invested as the Lord’s priest-king, and as such was commissioned to extend the boundaries of the garden, so that God’s dwelling place would encompass the whole earth. This is most clearly seen in the dominion mandate: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). God’s goal for creation is made known in blueprint form in the creation account, namely that Eden would expand and the whole world would become his dwelling place. “This would be accomplished especially by Adam’s progeny born in his image and thus reflecting God’s image and the light of his presence, as they continued to obey the mandate given to their parents and went out to subdue the outer country until the Eden sanctuary covered the earth.”[1] From this we can understand why the new heaven and new earth is described in Revelation 21-22 with terms reminiscent of Eden. The eschatological goal of creation is pictured as completed with the earth having become a fit dwelling place for God. But how does it get there?

It does get there, Scripture assures us of that, but the path it takes is at times complicated and mysterious[2] because of the entrance of sin. “The biblical meta-story reveals that the process from blueprint to final reality is suddenly interrupted with tragic consequences for the whole of creation.”[3] Rather than guarding the garden-temple as God’s vice-regent and casting out the unholy serpent that opposed his word, Adam submitted himself and the entire human race whom he represented to the serpent.[4] Adam failed to bring about God’s eschatological goal for creation as he had been commissioned.[5] The holiness of the garden-sanctuary was compromised, it was not longer a fit dwelling place for the Lord. Subsequently, Adam was stripped of his priestly status and expelled from the sanctuary complex. His immediate access to God was lost and God’s blueprint was jeopardized, for “the very ones meant to extend God’s dwelling place throughout the earth are excluded from his presence.”[6]

So has God’s plan failed because of Adam’s disobedience? Has the Immanuel principle been forever lost? The Lord comes in judgment to pronounce curses upon the three guilty parties: the serpent, Eve and Adam. But in cursing the serpent he also holds out the prospect of hope, declaring the first gospel message, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). In the end, the serpent’s plot will not prevail; the Lord will see to it that his eschatological goal is one day realized. So begins the drama of redemption. God will restore what sin has ruined and bring it to its appointed end through a Savior. All hope now rests on this promised seed of the woman who will set things straight and bring the Immanuel principle to his fullest realization for the people of God.

But this promised seed does not immediately come. The rest of the Old Testament is occupied with preparing the way for his arrival through types and shadows, including the tabernacle and temple. It’s within this drama and new context of sin that the tabernacle narrative is to be understood as it uniquely contributes to the progressively unfolding plan of God to dwell with his people in union and communion forever. Beale writes, “The tabernacle sets the dwelling place of God in a sinful context.”[7] So we are left with both puzzlement (how can a holy God dwell with a sinful people in a sin-cursed world?) and hope (the seed of the woman will conquer) as man moves westward from God’s presence.

In our next article we’ll continue the story with a look at the Immanuel Principle in the patriarchal period.

[1] G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 622.

[2] See Beale, Hidden But Now Revealed: A Biblical Theology of Mystery.

[3] T. Desmond Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology, 26.

[4] Note the corporate language of Adam’s fault in Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 7 and 9.

[5] “When Adam failed to guard the temple by sinning and letting in a foul serpent to defile the sanctuary, he lost his priestly role, and the cherubim took over the responsibility of ‘guarding’ the Garden temple: God ‘stationed the cherubim… to guard the way to the tree of life’ (so Gen. 3:24; see also Ezek. 28:14, 16)” (Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 70).

[6] Alexander, From Eden to the New Jerusalem, 27.

[7] Beale, God Dwells Among Us, 52.

However, Genesis 1-3 does not explicitly state that Eden has an architectural structure, nor does it even use the word “temple” or “sanctuary” to describe it. So how do we know that it was a temple? Numerous scholars have argued for this understanding of Eden based on the many parallels that exist between the garden and later Israelite sanctuaries.[3] Here are twelve of those arguments in summary form.[4]

1. Just as the temple was the place of God’s unique presence experienced by the priests, so Eden was the place where God walked with Adam. G.K. Beale notes, “The same Hebrew verbal form (Hithpael) used for God’s “walking back and forth” in the garden (Gen. 3:8) also describes God’s presence in the tabernacle (Lev. 26:12; Deut. 23:14 [23:15 MT]; 2 Sam. 7:6-7; Ezek. 28:14).”[6]
2. Adam is depicted as a priest with respect to his task, namely, “to work” (עָבְדָ֖) and “to keep” (שָׁמְרָֽ) the garden, which is the priest’s task in the temple (Num. 3:7-8; 8:25-26; 18:5-6; 1 Chron. 23:32; Ezek. 44:14).[7] Adam also donned priestly attire (Ezek. 28:13ff.).
3. The cherubim assumed Adam’s function to guard the tree of life (Gen. 3:24), which became memorialized in the tabernacle (cf. Exod. 25:18-22).
4. The “tree of life” (Gen. 2:9) was probably a model of the lampstand in the tabernacle (Exod. 25:31ff).[8]
5. Israel’s tabernacle and temple had wood carvings that gave it a garden-like ambiance (1 Kings 6:18, 29, 32, 35; 7:18-20).
6. Just as the entrance to Israel’s later temple was to face east and be on a mountain, and just as the end-time temple of Ezekiel was to face east (Ezek. 40:6) and be on a mountain (Ezek. 40:2; 43:12), so the entrance to Eden faced east (Gen. 3:24) and was situated on a mountain (Ezek. 28:14-16).
7. The ark, which contained the law, in the Holy of Holies echoed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as both lead to wisdom.
8. As a river flowed out from Eden (Gen. 2:10), so a river flows from the eschatological temple (Ezek. 47:1-12; Rev. 21:1-2; cf. Ps. 36:8-9; Rev. 22:1-2).
9. Just as gold and onyx are in the garden (Gen. 2:11-12), so they are used to decorate the later sanctuaries and priestly garments (Exod. 25:7, 11, 17, 31).
10. Just as the temple had a tripartite structure of concentric circles of holiness (Holy of Holies > Holy Place > Courtyard), so the garden of Eden had the same (Eden > Garden > Outer World).
11. Ezekiel refers to “Eden, the garden of God… the holy mountain of God” and also alludes to it containing “sanctuaries” (28:18; cf. 7:24; Lev. 21:23; Jer. 51:51).
12. Just as the climax and purpose of creation was rest (Gen. 2:1-3), so the construction of the tabernacle culminates with rest (Exod. 31:12-17).

[1] G.J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 9 (1986), 19.

[2] J.H. Walton, “Eden, Garden Of.” In T.D. Alexander and D.W. Baker (eds.), Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2003), 202. The same idea is presented by G.K. Beale in God Dwells Among Us: Expanding Eden to the Ends of the Earth (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2014), 22, which includes a helpful figure.

[3] The following arguments are indebted to G.J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” 19-25 and G.K. Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 617-22; cf. Beale, G.K. “The Final Vision of the Apocalypse and its Implications for Biblical Theology of the Temple.” In Heaven on Earth: The Temple in Biblical Theology, eds. Alexander, T.D. and S. Gathercole (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004), 197-199; idem., The Temple and the Church’s Mission (Downers Grove, IL: Apollos IVP, 2004), 66-80; idem., “Eden, the Temple, and the Church’s Mission in the New Creation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 (2005), 7-10. For an argument against viewing Eden as a temple see Daniel Block, “Eden: A Temple? A Reassessment of the Biblical Evidence.” In From Creation to New Creation: Biblical Theology and Exegesis, eds. Daniel M. Gurtner and Benjamin L. Gladd (Peabody MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2013). While I do not find Block’s essay persuasive, it does call for more caution in connecting the garden and the tabernacle/temple.

[4] For more detail see Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 617ff. and Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 19-25.

[5] Beale, God Dwells Among Us, 51.

[6] Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology, 59.

[7] See Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview, 54.

[8] See Meyers, Carol L. The Tabernacle Menorah: A Synthetic Study of a Symbol from the Biblical Cult (ASORDS 2: Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), 180.