God's Seed-Plot

[This is a most beautiful, in-depth study! I think you will be very "awed" in reading]


"And the Lord planted a garden ..." (Genesis 2:8)


A new world has been brought into being: there is no fault to be found with it - it is all good - there is no sin in it; everything is for God ... the whole satisfied God's mind up to that point; that is, there was nothing about it that was contrary to the mind of God.


Yet, having brought into being the whole world - all the earth in primal beauty and light - the Lord God chose a certain spot in the whole and planted a garden ... placed a garden in the heart of His world, His creation. He planted that garden, enriched it, and filled it with everything that was good. Why?


That garden was an epitome - a microcosm - a representation of God's thought for the whole world. We might say it was a kind of seed-plot for the world. God's mind for the whole world was gathered up in fullness in that garden: trees pleasant to the eye - the beauty of the Lord in the garden; herbs for food - the sustenance of the Lord for man; fruit to rejoice the heart. The Lord never stops at bare necessities for maintaining life. His thought is fullness - something more luxurious - full maintenance of life and health in herbs and shrubs. Nourishment, beauty, rejoicing - life on a high level is His provision for us.


Then there was a river to water the garden; and going out from the garden and parting into four, it was to benefit the whole creation. All that is in that garden is for the whole creation; it is God's thought for His whole creation. A tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All this, with the exception of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was to be cultivated - exploted, if we may use such a word - to be turned to account, to be exercised in relation to the whole earth. God placed in the garden the man whom He had created to keep, to cultivate, to tend the garden - to exercise himself in the garden - so that what was there should be of practical value. This was the starting place of the knowledge of God.


Look at that garden ... contemplate it (and remember that the word "Eden" means "delight") ... and you see that it is a revelation of the glory of God. All the thoughts symbolized there in the garden are thoughts of God's glory, God's nature, God's grace, God's goodness, God's beauty. They are expressed in the garden. If you want to know what God is like, to into the Garden of Eden. God's thoughts are written there - God's nature is there.


A dim reflection of God is to be seen in any lovely garden in this creation. It is dim at best; but nevertheless, if you contemplate it for the fleeting moment of its existence, you have cause to wonder. But go back into the garden, where death as yet had never come nor sin entered - where things are in their pristine glory and beauty - and you have something to think about as to what God is like. That garden therefore was a revelation - an illumination - of the knowledge of the glory of God.


Who can fail to see that this garden is a type of Christ? Is He not the tree of life? Is He not the river of life? Is He not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Is not such knowledge in a secret way bound up with Him, to the end that through Him it should be known? Are not the deepest secrets of God concerning good and evil bound up in the mystery of the person of Christ? He is the fruit, He is the health, He is the nourishment. In a word, He is the sum of the knowledge of the glory of God.


Christ is set forth in type by that garden. All that the garden speaks of is in Him ... and is for the whole creation. The creation is to take its character from Him. That is God's thought. Out from Him to the whole creation God intends the fullness of His own likeness to go forth. That is how the former creation should have been, and that is how all is to be at length. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and it is all going out through Christ. Christ is, so to speak, God's seed-plot for the whole creation - the microcosm of God's universal thought and intention. He shall fill all things. Out from Him all things shall be filled.


It is all summed up in Him, but it has to be expanded. It is, after all, but a garden in the midst of God's universe. It has to be expanded - increased - and that by exercise. What was Adam's ministry? It was to care for that garden in relation to the whole creation - to develop in the creation, so to speak, the good of that garden, to make that garden and its contents of practical meaning and value to the whole creation. That was Adam's ministry.


~T. Austin-Sparks~


(continued with # 2)