Those who seek the Garden of Eden in the world

 

Those who seek the Garden of Eden in the world

 

Genesis 2:8-9 『And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

East (Hebrew: kedem) means “east” and “beginning”. There are examples where the word ketem is used. In Psalm 55:10, “Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it.” In addition, Psalm 68:33, Psalm 78:2, Proverbs 8:22 In verse 23, the word “beginning, long ago” is used together with the Hebrew word for east (kedem). Therefore, East should be interpreted as meaning 『beginning』, because it tells the story of the time of the creation of the world. The Hebrew word “Eden” also has the meaning of ancient times.

In the garden, the mountain means the temple (sanctuary) of God. The temple (sanctuary) is a type and a shadow of what is in heaven. In Exodus 25:40, “And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount.” God had Moses build the sanctuary according to the pattern of heaven. What is the sky pattern? The pattern of heaven is the word of Christ. In Hebrews 9:24, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”

When you enter the temple, there is a courtyard. The priest kills the beast on the bronze altar in the courtyard. After he kills an animal, he always washes his hands in a laver. Two things must work in the temple courtyard. The sacrifice must die, and it must be washed on the basis of death. When the priest enters the sanctuary, a lamp of olive oil is lit. And there is the bread of showbread. And he enters the Holy of Holies. Between the sanctuary and the Holy of Holies is a veil. Only the High Priest can enter the Holy of Holies once a year. The high priest poured the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat covering the ark of the covenant. This blood served to cover the sins of the people of Israel. In the Holy of Holies, there is the ark. Outside, the manna decays over time, but the manna inside the ark does not decay. Next to it is Aaron's staff, which has sprouted. Life is at work in the Holy of Holies.

It is very important to understand the kingdom of God to examine the relationship between the garden in Eden in the East (Garden of Eden) and the temple made according to the pattern of heaven. The Bible says that in the Garden of Eden, a man created by God was placed. Man is adam Adam is the first man born into the world. The first man, Adam, is the figure (model) of Christ, the last Adam. In Romans 5:14, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.” The word the figure has the same meaning as form and property. This has to do with sin. The first man, Adam, came into this world as a sinner, and the last Adam became like a sinner and died on the cross. So, God tells us that all people are born with a body of sin and must die to sin.

The first Adam is the Christ who was born into this world to give people a body of sin, and the last Adam is a Christian who died to a body of sin and was born to give a body of spirit (body of righteousness) to people.

All those who received a body from the first man, Adam, each come into the flesh with original spiritual sin (the sin of wanting to become like God). 『that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression』 Here, Adam's transgression is a sinner who becomes a ransom sacrifice. The high priest would kill an animal that would take the place of the sins of the people, pass the blood on to him, and enter the Holy of Holies as a representative of sinners. Eve symbolizes all those born into this world who sinned against God, whose spirit departed from God and united with the body. Therefore, it is not a sin like the sin of Adam.

The sinner and the sacrifice are separate from each other. A sacrifice died in the sinner's place, and the blood was poured out on the mercy seat by the high priest. When God accepts the sacrifice, God acknowledges that the sinner is dead. The sinner and the sacrifice become one. Thus, the death of the sacrifice and the death of the sinner become one, and the sinner also dies and is reborn as a new life. Eve was separated from Adam in the Garden of Eden, and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and sinned against God. And she gave the fruit to her husband, Adam.

The fact that Adam ate the fruit means that God Himself was born into the world as the first man and gave the body of sin to people for the spirits who sinned in the kingdom of God. God was born into this world as the body of the last Adam, and died as a substitute for sin as a body of sin.  God wants to become one with the sinful spirits who want to leave Him. God united the flesh (God himself became flesh) and the spirit (a sinful spirit) to become man (the first man, Adam). After God died on the cross, He took on the body of a resurrected spirit and rose again, and those who are in Christ receive a new body, and the Spirit is united with the Holy Spirit to become the sons of God. This story is explained in terms of the relationship between the high priest and the people who are sinners.

In the Garden of Eden, there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and there was also the tree of life. Hebrews 9:4 says, “Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant. 』The stone tablets of the covenant mean the law of Moses, the word of God. Manna means Jesus Christ (the bread of life that came down from heaven), and Aaron's rod that budded means the Holy Spirit. The stone tablets representing the law symbolize the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

It is through the law that God convicts sinners of their sins. Good is following the word of God, and evil is following the temptations of Satan. Through the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we need to see whether human beings have a greedy heart to become like God. Sin is precisely this greed. But Eve (the sinful spirits) did not realize the sin. The spirits who have sinned do not think that their desire to become like God is a sin against God.

In Colossians 3:5, “Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry” The Bible defines covetousness as idolatry. However, Eve ate the forbidden fruit. The root of sin does not start with eating the forbidden fruit, but with covetousness. In Genesis 3:6, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat , and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” In this story, the spirits who have sinned in the kingdom of God committed a crime by not keeping their status because they wanted to become like God. First, greed to become like God becomes original sin against God. To not keep one's position means to break God's commandments.

The sinners who entered the sanctuary broke the commandment, but they already had the original sin of greed before they broke the commandment. The background of original sin begins with Satan. In Genesis 3:4-5, “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

The serpent symbolizes Satan. The serpent appears in the Garden of Eden, which means Satan in the kingdom of God. Satan was originally an archangel. His name was Heelel (Greek: Lucifer), meaning commandment, but after God threw him into the material world, his name came to be called Satan (the Devil). In Luke 4 he is translated as the devil, in Matthew 4 he is called the tempter, and in Revelation 9 he is referred to as Satan. Satan does not have a physical body and is a spiritual being who has taken power over the air.

God cast out Satan and his followers into the world together. Spirits were confined in the flesh to become human beings, and Satan works in the hearts of men with the spirit to cause them to sin through covetousness. The serpent that appeared in the Garden of Eden also worked in Eve's heart, causing her to sin through covetousness. All sinners who entered the sanctuary sinned in this way. But they understood that sinners were forgiven for their sins if they killed an animal and sprinkled its blood on the altar. They did not realize that they were dead with the sacrificial animal, that is, they were dead to sin. They should have remembered the descendants of the woman God had promised through their continued sin and sacrifice, but they failed to do so. They misunderstood that they could attain righteousness if they obeyed the commandments of the law, and they continued the vicious cycle of offering sacrifices if they sinned.

Dying to sin is the way to become one with the atoning sacrifice. To be one with the ransom offering in the sanctuary is to become one with the high priest whose sins have been imputed. This means dying with Jesus Christ who died on the cross, and this is the rite of baptism, union with Christ, and entering into Christ. So, in Genesis 2:24, the Bible says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

The man symbolizes Christ, his parents are God, and his wife means spirits who have sinned and turned away from God. The Bible says that those who left God to become like God must now become one again through Christ. The Apostle Paul says this is a great mystery. In Ephesians 5:31-32, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Regarding the saints who are united with Christ, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit puts a seal on their hearts (spirits). Sealing the seal means that the saints become a temple where the Holy Spirit is with them. When the heart (spirit) of the saints becomes the temple, it means that they become dead on the cross with Christ, who became the sacrifice, and become born again.

If people have spiritual eyes to see the Garden of Eden, they will hear the Garden of Eden as a story about the kingdom of God because the sanctuary is made according to the pattern of the kingdom of God. The Garden of Eden symbolizes the kingdom of God, the serpent is Satan, Adam is Christ, and Eve is the evil angel who has been deceived by Satan. So, through the sanctuary (temple, church: the Spirit sealed with the Holy Spirit) called the Garden of Eden, God makes people living in the world realize that the world is a prison of sin. The Garden of Eden was also a temple in the hearts of the saints.

If people understand the Garden of Eden anywhere in the world or as a story about the history of Israel, they will become ignorant of the kingdom of God. They are not people whose spirits are animated by the power of the Holy Spirit. Satan works in the person's heart, and the spirit is still dead in darkness, the prison of sin. They are spirits who came to this world through the Garden of Eden, where all human beings took off their spiritual bodies (clothes of righteousness) in the kingdom of God. They must realize that because of Christ, they must return to the kingdom of God in a spirit body. Didn't it say that the hometown to which the saints should return is the kingdom of God?

Hebrews 11:13-16 says, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.