The Temple of Creation: Part Two 

July 29, 2020

By Trevor Laurence

Part One of this exploration began with the observation that the Old Testament frequently depicts the cosmos as a house for God—the temple of the Lord—and noted that the world-as-temple metaphor that recurs in the psalms and prophets has its roots in the earliest chapters of Genesis. That article surveyed eight ways that the first pages of the biblical story present the work of creation as the construction of a holy dwelling for God with his people, attending to the abundant parallels between the creation account and the tabernacle and temple where the Lord would later reside among Israel.

But Part One only took us through Genesis 2:8, and there is so much more to behold.

“And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen 2:9). From the soil of the garden in the east of Eden, the Lord brings up beautiful trees that are good for food. God nourishes, provides a meal for, the man whom he has planted in his presence. In the tabernacle, too, God set a table for those in his presence. In the Holy Place, twelve loaves of bread were set before the Lord, and each Sabbath when new bread was arranged, Aaron and his priestly sons were to take the old bread and eat it in a holy place (Lev 24:5–9). God provided food for his priests in the Holy Place, and in the garden—whose location between the Edenic land to the west and the surrounding lands to the east corresponds spatially to the Holy Place—God gives food to the humanity who will serve him as priests.

“The tree of life was in the midst of the garden…” (Gen 2:9). Planted in the midst of Eden’s holy place, the garden, the tree of life is given as a sign and seal of the promise of abundant and unending life with God. The lampstand that shone in the Holy Place of the tabernacle was fashioned with a base, stem, and branches, with “cups made like almond blossoms, each with calyx and flower” (Exod 25:33). The lampstand was intentionally crafted to resemble a tree, and its light represented the life-giving light of God’s glorious presence—the light of his countenance—shining upon his people. The tabernacle’s lamp-tree was a “stylized tree of life,” an arboreal image of life with God, furnishing the Holy Place in the pattern of Eden.

“… and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2:9). As the place of God’s royal residence, from which he ruled, Israel’s sanctuary held God’s covenant law. The Ten Commandments were kept inside the ark of the covenant (Exod 25:16), the footstool of God’s throne, and the Book of the Law was placed by the side of the ark in the Holy of Holies (Deut 31:26). In the temple of Eden, God places the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to which he attaches a command: “…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 2:17). This tree serves as an emblem of God’s covenant law and a sign of God’s royal authority over his people, and by submitting to the royal word of the Lord they are to grow up into the wisdom that is fitting for kings. Psalm 19:7–8 celebrates God’s law as “making wise the simple…rejoicing the heart…enlightening the eyes,” paralleling the threefold description of the tree as “good for food…a delight to the eyes, and…to be desired to make one wise” (Gen 3:6).

“A river flowed out of Eden…” (Gen 2:10). God’s house sits atop a mountain. The Lord revealed the pattern of the tabernacle in a theophany on top of Mount Sinai, and the tabernacle in which God’s glory resided was a portable Sinai. The temple rested on Zion as a mountain sanctuary (Exod 15:17; Pss 68:16; 78:54; 87:1). Ezekiel’s vision of a glorious restored temple sees it fixed on a “very high mountain” (Ezek 40:2; cf. 43:12), and the new Jerusalem that descends from heaven in John’s vision is a mountain city (Rev 21:10). Eden is a temple mountain as well. Water falls downhill, and since there is a river moving west to east from Eden to the garden and to the surrounding lands, this suggests that Eden is a high place, a most holy mountain summit. Ezekiel 28 confirms this with its description of Eden as “the holy mountain of God” (v. 14).

“A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden…” (Gen 2:10). A river flows from Eden in the west, moving eastward into the garden to water its vegetation and bring life. Elsewhere in Scripture, God’s dwelling place is presented as the source of a life-giving river. In Ps 46:4, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High” (cf. Ps 36:8–9; Jer 17:12–13). Ezekiel 47:1–12 describes a river flowing eastward out of the temple all the way to the sea, bringing life wherever it goes (cf. Joel 3:18). And in Rev 22:1–2, the consummate temple contains “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” That the garden’s river flows into it from the west suggests that this first river likewise finds its source in the most holy place of God’s enthroned presence.

“…and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there” (Gen 2:10–12). The tabernacle and temple were filled and beautified with precious stones. Many of the furnishings of God’s house were made of gold (Exod 25:10–40), the temple walls were overlaid with gold (1 Chron 29:4), and gold and onyx were used to ornament God’s dwelling (Exod 25:3–7; 31:4–5; 1 Chron 29:2). The high priest’s ephod and breastpiece were also formed with gold and onyx (Exod 28:6–30). Genesis 2 specifically mentions that gold and onyx may be found in the land outside Eden, suggesting that part of the royal-priestly work of the image of God in God’s temple-garden was to bring in precious materials to beautify God’s sanctuary. Numbers 11:7 notes that manna had the appearance of bdellium, and a jar of manna was kept in the sanctuary before the Lord (Exod 16:33). Intriguingly, 1 Chron 29:4 states that the gold for overlaying the walls of the temple came from Ophir (cf. 1 Kgs 9:28), and the queen of Sheba brought Solomon gold and precious stones (1 Kgs 10:10). According to the biblical genealogies, both Ophir and Sheba are siblings of Havilah who occupied common territory (Gen 10:28–30; 1 Chron 1:22–23).

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). Adam’s God-appointed task—as it is frequently translated in English—is to work (עבד) and keep (שׁמר) the garden. Adam is to tend and cultivate the Lord’s garden, to be sure, but the specific terms used in Gen 2:15 are regularly used to describe the priestly duties to serve or minister (עבד) in the care of the tabernacle and performance of ritual worship and to guard (שׁמר) the dwelling of God’s holy presence (Num 3:7–10, 31–32; 8:25–26; 18:5–7). Adam the king is also a priest: he is to work the garden by servicing the sanctuary and ministering before God’s face as he guards sacred space from anything unfit for the Lord’s holy presence.

“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden…” (Gen 3:8). God resides with his people and even walks among them in the garden. The precise form of the verb translated “walking” that occurs in Gen 3:8 (hithpael of הלך) is used elsewhere to describe God’s walking among his people in the camp around his tabernacle dwelling (Lev 26:12; Deut 23:14) and his moving about with Israel in the tabernacle as they moved from place to place (2 Sam 7:6–7). God walks with his people in the garden as he walked with the camp organized around his holy sanctuary.

“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden” (Gen 3:8). At Sinai, the air was filled with the noise of thunder (קוֺל) and trumpet blast (קוֺל) as God descended in his glory-cloud to tabernacle on the mountain (Exod 19:16, 19). Seeing all this, the people stood far off (Exod 20:18, 21), afraid (ירא, Exod 20:20) and beseeching Moses that God in his thundering not speak to them, lest they die (פֶּן־נָמְוּת, Exod 20:19). The parallels with Eden are striking. Adam and Eve hear the sound (קוֺל)—the thunderous noise—of God walking in the ruach of the day, and ruach is the term for both wind and Spirit. The Spirit of God who hovered over the face of the waters in Gen 1:2 and who would settle in storm atop Sinai now approaches Adam and Eve in thunder, and they are afraid (ירא, Gen 3:10) and hide, knowing that God had spoken to them to obey, lest they die (פֶּן־תְּמֻתוּן, Gen 3:3; cf. 2:17). Eden is a Sinai before Sinai—Sinai is a recapitulation of Eden—and the Lord’s holy presence in the glory-cloud that stormed on Mount Sinai and took up residence in the tabernacle is present with his people in the garden-temple of his Edenic mountain.

“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?'” (Gen 3:8–9). God renders judgment from his temple. He exercises royal authority, assesses humanity, and gives justice from the sanctuary-palace where he is enthroned. Judgment for iniquity comes from the holy presence of the Lord (e.g., Lev 10:1–2), and the psalms repeatedly envision God’s throne in Zion as the place from which he appraises and judges (Pss 9:4, 7–8, 11–12; 11:4–5; 99:1–5). The Edenic temple, too, is a place of divine judgment. God approaches “in the wind/Spirit of the day”—in the thundering theophanic storm of the day of the Lord, a day of judgment—to address his priestly people, call them into his presence, evaluate them in righteousness, and render his decision over them. The prophets speak of God thundering in judgment from his temple mount (Joel 3:16; Amos 1:2; Jer 25:30), and John sees Sinai’s storm coming from God’s throne in the heavenly sanctuary (Rev 4:5). The King who is enthroned on his most holy mountain in Eden thunders in the garden to judge the sin that has corrupted the people in and place of his presence.

“And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Gen 3:21). Following the first human pair’s sin and God’s declaration of judgment and promise of salvation, the Lord makes (עשׂה) tunics (כֻּתֹּנֶת) for Adam and Eve and clothes (לבשׁ) them. When God instructs Moses about the consecration of priests in Exod 28:40–41, he says, “For Aaron’s sons you shall make (עשׂה) coats (כֻּתֹּנֶת). . . . And you shall put them on (לבשׁ) Aaron your brother, and on his sons with him, and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests” (cf. Exod 29:5, 8; 40:14; Lev 8:13). God makes priestly garments and clothes Adam and Eve with them to consecrate them, even after their sin, like the future sons of Aaron. God’s image bearers were priests in the garden, and they will be his kingdom of priests outside the garden as well.

“…therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man…” (Gen 3:23–24). Though Adam remains by grace a royal priest who is to work (עבד) the ground and serve the Lord in worship, he is sent out (שׁלח) from the garden of the Lord, driven out (גרשׁ) from God’s holy dwelling. Adam and his wife experience the death of exile from the life-giving presence of God. Like the ritually unclean put out (שׁלח) from the camp (Num 5:2–4) and the goat sent out (שׁלח) into the wilderness carrying Israel’s sin (Lev 16:10, 21), Adam is sent out of sacred space. Like the nations that the Lord drives out (גרשׁ) from the land where he will reside (Exod 23:28–31) and Israel whom he drives out (גרשׁ) of his house in exile (Hos 9:15), unholy Adam is unfit to abide where the Lord lives. God must do a new work if exile is to be reversed and his priestly people permitted back into his intimate presence.

“…and at the east of the garden of Eden…” (Gen 3:24). The tabernacle and temple faced east (e.g., Exod 27:13)—as did the glorious temple of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 40:6)—such that one would move from the east to the west on a journey toward God’s presence. The stationing of angelic guards on the east side of the garden indicates an eastern entrance to the Edenic temple as well. This coheres with the directional orientation of Gen 2:8. The land of Eden to the west holds the mountain summit and river source; the garden is planted in the east of Eden; and rebellious humanity is exiled eastward to the lands outside the garden’s gate.

“…and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen 3:24). At the garden-temple’s east gate, the Lord places cherubim and a flaming sword to guard (שׁמר) the way to the tree of life. In a horrifically ironic reversal, the priests who failed to guard (שׁמר, Gen 2:15) God’s holy garden are now themselves guarded against as angelic sentries perform the task originally granted to humanity. Recalling Eden, two cherubim were positioned on either side of the ark in the tabernacle’s Most Holy Place (Exod 25:18–22) and the temple’s inner sanctuary (1 Kgs 6:23–28). Cherubim were worked into the tabernacle curtains (Exod 26:1) and the veil that separated the Most Holy Place (Exod 26:31). In the temple, cherubim and palm trees were carved into the walls (1 Kgs 6:29) and into the doors to both the inner sanctuary (1 Kgs 6:31–32) and nave (1 Kgs 6:33–35), reminiscent of the cherubim guarding the way to the tree of life (cf. Ezek 41:18). To move through God’s dwelling was to be confronted with cherubic guardians at every turn. When Israel begins the journey into Canaan, they enter from the east, and Joshua meets the sword-bearing commander of the army of the Lord (Josh 5:13–15). As sword and angel barred the gate of the Edenic temple, an angelic mediator with sword in hand will now accompany Israel into a new Eden where God will temple with his people once again.

To be continued…

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Click here for Part One

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