Paradise Lost
Genesis 3:22-24
Rev. Brian Bill
April 1-2, 2023
Many of you know that I have four sisters and no brothers. Do you feel my pain?
Growing up, the only good thing about this arrangement was that I’m the oldest. Being a brother, I was always on the lookout for ways to bother my sisters. It didn’t take me long to figure out that if I teased Cathy she would scream loudly and then she would get in trouble for screaming, at which point I would casually exit the room with a big grin on my face.
Cathy has tried to pay me back over the years. For example, my wife Beth received a birthday card from her with these words, “To a Great Sister-in-Law. Now that you’ve been in the family a while, you’ve discovered our funny little secret…in fact, you’re married to him!” Real funny.
One of my goals growing up was to get all four of my sisters to cry at the same time. This was actually quite challenging, but I’ll never forget what happened when I finally accomplished my goal.
One Friday night, we were driving in our 1966 yellow Ford station wagon (with no radio, air conditioning, or power steering), to visit our grandparents in the Promised Land. Before we left, my dad warned me not to irritate my sisters, but after about 30 minutes, I decided this was a good time to launch my attack.
I pinched Cathy, pulled Jeannie’s hair, insulted Mary, and teased my baby sister Beth. As I sat there with a big grin on my face while they all cried in surround sound, my dad, who is normally a soft-spoken man, said, “All right. That’s it.” Then, he pulled over to the side of the road, slammed on the brakes and with dust flying from the loose gravel, shouted loudly, “Get out. We’ll pick you up on Sunday!”
I stared at him in disbelief. As I got out of the car, I pleaded for mercy only to hear my dad exclaim, “Get out and close the door behind you.” I couldn’t believe it! I had finally accomplished my elusive goal and here I was standing on the shoulder of a deserted country road in the middle of Wisconsin. As I shut the car door, my dad pulled away and drove off…
My sense of abandonment that Friday was nothing like what Adam and Eve experienced when God told them to get out of the Garden and shut the door on them. Let’s give our attention to Genesis 3:22-24: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—’ 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, 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.”
Here’s our main idea: Because of our sin, we can’t come in; but since Jesus died on the cross to take our sin, we can now come in. As I reflected on this passage, three words jumped out at me – misery, mercy, and mission. We’ll use them as our outline.
1. The misery of man. Verse 22 is one of the few unfinished sentences in the Bible: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever --’”
The word “then” means “now” or “since.” The word “behold” is used in an emphatic way to get our attention and means, “Look now!” We see again how God holds Adam ultimately responsible for their sin as the representative head of the human race, though the consequences applied also to Eve. When he sinned and was sentenced, so were we. The use of the plural, “like one of us” is an allusion to the Trinity, which takes us back to Genesis 1:26.
The statement “knowing good and evil” means Adam and Eve intellectually knew the difference between good and evil because of God’s command to not eat of the tree’s fruit. But, when they chose to disobey, they also knew evil experientially because now evil had been unleashed within them.
Now they see themselves as judges and arbiters of what is right and wrong. Instead of allowing God to be the measure of all things, they have usurped His role. In essence, they’re saying, “We will not submit to God, but instead we will be God ourselves.” Anytime a person believes he can decide for himself what is right and wrong, he or she is acting like God.
An illustration of this is found years later in Judges 21:25, which serves as a summary of society at that time: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” We see this in our culture today as people define right and wrong according to what feels good to them. Many people today listen with their eyes and think with their feelings. The popular mantra is, “You have ‘your truth’ and I have ‘my truth.’” Unfortunately, this has led to an explosion of raw evil as children continue to be exterminated in wombs and murdered in their classrooms.
Pregnancy Resource Centers have come under fire in the State of Illinois and somehow the killer of six Christians has become the victim while Christians are being blamed. One pastor tweeted: “We have entered a new phase of persecution where Christians are literally being murdered and then being blamed for the murder. This is how the father of lies works. He murders, and then blames the righteous for their unrighteousness.”
Brothers and sisters, we are not simply in cultural conflict, we’re in a spiritual battle as we see the truth of Isaiah 5:20-21 lived out in front of our eyes today: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!”
One veteran pastor reflected on the shootings in Nashville by quoting 1 Peter 5:8: Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Then he made a statement that has stayed with me: “Evil is real and always looking for an opportunity to devour and destroy. Perhaps it is a coincidence that “Evil” is the word “live” spelled backwards, but it is a poetic reminder that evil is ‘anti-life.’”
Since Adam and Eve now know evil, if they were to reach out and take from the Tree of Life, they would be sealed in evil eternally, with no hope of change. In other words, had they stayed in the Garden and eaten from the Tree of Life, they would have lived forever in their sin, separated from God for eternity. Paradise was not only lost; it was transformed into a prison.
As our triune God contemplated their miserable condition, it was as if He stopped mid-sentence, leaving a “sudden silence,” because the result was too terrible to describe. We see this in the use of a “dash” in our English translations. I like how the ESV Study Bible puts it: “God begins a sentence and breaks off without finishing it – for the man to live forever in his sinful condition is an unbearable thought, and God must waste no time in preventing it.”
Because of our sin, we can’t come in; but since Jesus died on the cross to take our sin, we can now come in.
2. The mercy of God. We see God’s mercy on display in verse 23: “Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” The word “therefore” helps us see the reason God “sent him out,” which can be translated as, “sending forth and away.” This is the same word used by Abraham in Genesis 21:14 when he sent “Hagar away.”
I’m reminded of a boy who drew a picture of a man driving a car with a man and a woman in the back seat. When asked to explain what it meant, the boy replied that it was God driving Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden.
The first phrase in verse 24 is quite strong: “He drove out the man…” Adam and Eve were not just sent out; they were forcefully evicted. This has the idea of “casting out.” Due to their sin, Adam and Eve were not allowed to stay in but instead were driven out. This same word is used in Exodus 6:1 to describe what Pharoah would do to the Israelites: “For with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.” From this point forward, a definitive line of demarcation was drawn between God and man, leaving humans as exiles searching for home.
Ultimately, this was an act of mercy, so Adam and Eve did not have to live forever in their cursed condition. God protected them from the horror of eternal Hell by preventing them from eating from the tree of life. If God would have let them stay, they would have been doomed forever. One person writes: “Had they eaten from the tree of life in their spiritually dead condition, they would have perpetuated that existence indefinitely. Thus, the Garden would have become Hell on earth, populated with the undying dead – forever living and forever dead.”
Once again, we see God’s mercy and judgment mingled together. Because God is just, He decisively and swiftly expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden. Because God is merciful, he protected them from eating of the Tree of Life so they wouldn’t live in their fallen state forever.
Because of our sin, we can’t come in; but since Jesus died on the cross to take our sin, we can now come in.
3. The mission of the cherubim. After casting Adam and Eve out, God called up His mighty angels for a mission in the next part of verse 24: “…and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim…”
Following their expulsion, Adam and Eve went east, a direction often associated with disobedience in the Bible as seen in Genesis 4:16: “Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” At the same time, the entrance to the tabernacle and the temple faced east, which means the Garden of Eden was a foreshadowing of where God would meet with His people.
The idea behind “placed” means they “encamped or settled.” This was a long-term assignment. The cherubim were a special class of heavenly messengers, appearing some 65 times in the Bible. The word “cherubim” is plural for cherub, but not the cute chubby cherubs that may come to mind. Somewhat mysterious, they are often depicted in the Bible with human and animal-like features. These celestial beings are often depicted with wings.
• Their purpose is to magnify the holiness and glory of God.
• Their presence marks the throne of God.
• Their power is exhibited by serving as guardians of holy spaces where God dwells. They are like the Heavenly Secret Service.
When God gave instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 25:18-22 the cherubim figure prominently: “And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.”
Cherubim play a key role in God’s redemptive narrative. Listen to the intricate instructions in Exodus 26:31-33: “And you shall make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen. It shall be made with cherubim skillfully worked into it. And you shall hang it on four pillars of acacia overlaid with gold, with hooks of gold, on four bases of silver. And you shall hang the veil from the clasps, and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil. And the veil shall separate for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy.” The embroidered images reminded them of Eden and the flaming sword in the hands of the cherubim.
When Solomon built the temple, 1 Kings 6:29 says, “Around all the walls of the house he carved engraved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms.” The inside of the temple was made to look like the Garden of Eden.
One of the best children’s books to capture why Jesus died and rose again is called, The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross by Carl Laferton. I highly recommend it for parents of children ages two to seven. This book will be used as our Easter curriculum in our EdgeKids ministry at all four services Easter weekend. You can take a pic of the QR code on the screen to order the book or click on the link we posted on Sermon Extras on the app or website.
I’ve asked Chastity Holmquist read some excerpts:
A very long time ago, right here in this world, there was a garden…
The people did a terrible thing…they decided they didn’t want to do what God said. They decided they wanted a world without God in charge. God calls this ‘sin.’ Sin spoils things. So, sin has no place in God’s wonderful garden. God said to the people, ‘You can’t live with me in my garden anymore’…and He sent them outside.
To show the people they had to stay outside, God put some warrior angels in front of the garden. The angels were like a big KEEP OUT sign. Now things were sometimes bad, and people were sometimes sad. But people STILL kept sinning because they didn’t want God to be in charge. So no one could come into God’s wonderful place. God said, ‘Because of your sin, you can’t come in.’
God told the people to build a special building called His temple, where He would live. In the middle of the temple was the most wonderful place in the world – the place where God was, with nothing bad and nothing sad. It was very exciting…
But then God told people to put A BIG CURTAIN around this wonderful place. The curtain had pictures of warrior angels on it. It was a big KEEP OUT sign. For hundreds of years, the temple curtain reminded people that God said, ‘It is wonderful to live with Him, but because of your sin, you can’t come in.’
Whether cherubim are on mission at the east end of Eden, fashioned out of gold on top of the mercy seat, or embroidered onto the thick curtain, the message is the same: We cannot come in because of our sin.
Genesis 3:24 ends with a description of the mission entrusted to the cherubim: “…and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” This flaming sword was whirling and twirling rapidly in every direction to remind Adam and Eve how paradise was lost, and they could not go back.
Hebrews 1:7 says, “He makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire.” Fire is a common motif for the presence of Yahweh as we see in Deuteronomy 4:24: “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
Previously, Adam had been given the task of guarding the garden, but the job is now given to the cherubim. Notice they don’t shut down the way but guarded “the way to the tree of life.” This is a ray of hope that there’s still a way to life. The Tree of Life was guarded but not destroyed.
Let’s go back to the book…
Then, one day, God the Son came to live in this world as a person. He was called JESUS…
People still did not want to let God be in charge. So, they decided to put Jesus on a cross to die…
On the cross, Jesus took our sin. All the bad things we do, and all the sad things they cause – Jesus took them all from us. And when He did, something amazing, astounding happened…
THE CURTAIN TORE! God had ripped up the KEEP OUT sign! God’s wonderful place is open again! Because Jesus died, we can go in!
And Jesus sent everyone a message to come and live with Him there…God says it is wonderful to live with Him. Jesus said, ‘Because of your sin, you can’t come in. BUT I died on the cross to take your sin…so all my friends CAN now come in!’
Turn to the very last chapter of the Bible where the Tree of Life reappears in Revelation 22:1-2: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the Tree of Life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree were for the healing of the nations.” Verse 14 says those who have their robes washed by the blood of the Lamb will “have the right to the Tree of Life and that they may enter the city by the gates.”
The Garden was once closed but the gates are open again! The cherubim are no longer guarding the Tree of Life because the way has been opened by Jesus, who is Himself the way, the truth, and the life. The flaming sword is gone because Jesus took the full brunt of it for us.
Nancy Guthrie writes: “Ever since Adam and Eve were banished from His Kingdom; God has been working out His plan to bring people back in. But how will we get past the flaming sword that guards the way to the tree of life? Christ alone bared His neck to that sword to take the full judgment of God for sin.”
Let me pick up and explain what happened when I was cast to the side of the road that one Friday night. After my dad left me, my sisters started pleading with my father to come back and get me. Eventually, after what seemed like hours (which in reality was only minutes), my dad turned the car around, drove back to me, opened the door, and invited me back in.
Do you know what my sisters were doing? They were embracing me. Even though I had wronged them, they extended grace and community to me. Even though I deserved to be excluded, they interceded on my behalf. I’m sure they had second thoughts after I got them all crying again just a short time later!
So, here’s a question: Who can you invite to one of our Easter services? Our goal is for EVERYONE to reach one this year.
Your road back to Paradise is blocked if you try to get there in your own efforts. There is a flaming sword which turns every way if you try to approach Him on your own terms. God is holy and will not allow unholiness into His presence. Habakkuk 1:13: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.”
There’s a way back to God, but it is a narrow path entered by a narrow gate. The flaming sword of God’s righteous and holy wrath was plunged into the side of Jesus. Zechariah 13:7 says, “‘Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,’ declares the LORD of hosts. ‘Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered…’”
Anne Cousin, who was born 200 years ago, captures this poignantly:
Jehovah bade His sword awake:
O Christ, it woke ‘gainst Thee;
Thy blood the flaming blade must slake,
Thy heart its sheath must be.
All for my sake, my peace to make;
Now sleeps that sword for me.
Do you ever feel like there’s a brick wall between you and God? Does He seem far away and distant? As you read through the Old Testament, you can’t help but recognize that God is holy, majestic, and separated from His people. There’s a definite doctrine of divine distance because our sin prevents us from coming in.
The curtain that separated the people and the priests from going into the presence of God was 60 feet long, 30 feet high and was about two inches thick. It took 300 priests just to install it. This was a piece of lasting tapestry that was designed to withstand all strains, tears, and rips and the cherubim were the central figures on it.
When Jesus died, according to Matthew 27:51, this indestructible curtain “was torn in two, from top to bottom.” The word “top” can also mean “from above,” which helps us see that God did it.
Go back in your minds to the mercy seat, with the image of two cherubim constructed out of gold on the cover, one at one end and one at the other. Now ponder John 20:11-12: “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.” Are you ready for some spiritual goose bumps? These two angels may have been positioned like the cherubim were over the mercy seat!
Let’s pull all this together. In our misery, Jesus has extended us mercy, so we can live on mission.
Paradise has been lost and people are lost apart from Christ. But Paradise Lost has become Paradise Regained through the new birth. The door to heaven is now open! Those on the side of the road are welcomed in!
While the first cherubim were charged with keeping man out, the rest of Scripture speaks of angels fulfilling God’s plan to bring man back in. One pastor puts it like this: “Nowhere is this seen more prominently in angels announcing the arrival of the Son – marking the threshold between Heaven and Earth. The good news is announced by them to Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, and Joseph, and to the shepherds. Beyond this, [the good news comes] from the angel at the threshold of Jesus’ tomb, where Mary mistook Jesus for a gardener, no less, that the angel who formerly barred humanity out, excitedly announces that they’re able to come back in.”
If you have not yet entered in by being born again, it’s time for you to repent of your sins, believe Jesus died as your substitute and rose again on the third day, and receive Him as your Lord and Savior right now.
Because of our sin, we can’t come in; but since Jesus died on the cross to take our sin, we can now come in.
Because of what Jesus did for us, Hebrews 10:19-22 tells us we can now come right into the very presence of the Holy God: “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Communion
Through the broken body and the shed blood of Jesus, you and I can enter into that paradise from which humanity was expelled. We can take of the tree of life and eat abundantly from it.
As we move now to communion, the bread represents His body, and the cup represents His blood. This is a tangible way for us to “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”
1 Corinthians 11:28 says we’re to not take communion flippantly: “Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Take a few moments to examine yourself and to draw near to Christ.
Confession Time
We practice open communion, which means you don’t need to be an Edgewood member to participate, but you do need to be a born-again believer.
Our deacons and pastors will distribute the trays by passing them down each row. When the tray comes to you, simply lift a cup straight out. You’ll notice there are two cups stacked together. Give a little twist and hold one in each hand until everyone is served so we can partake together.
BTW, all the bread is gluten free, and we use grape juice instead of wine.
Distribution of Elements
Forever family, before we take the bread, let’s focus on these words from 1 Corinthians 11:23-24: “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, He broke it, and said, ‘This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
Before we drink from the cup, consider these words from 1 Corinthians 11:25-26: “In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”
