Playing in the garden:

We Kiwis sometimes call New Zealand “Godszone” as we consider our country a “little piece of Heaven”. I guess a little patriotic hyperbole is allowed, and hopefully, forgiven.

Strictly speaking we can’t describe anywhere on earth as a “little piece of Heaven", or Heavenly; nothing on this planet is comparable to God’s dwelling place. Perhaps a more accurate depiction for my country is “a little piece of Eden.”

When Eve ate from the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” it was a day that forever changed the way that things were meant to be. She ate from this tree, not out of curiosity, but rather because she wanted instant results!  

 

And the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.” And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make wise, she took of its fruit, and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Genesis 3:4-6 MKJV

Adam, on the other hand, who was not deceived, plainly knew what his wife had done, and understood the consequences of their actions, took the forbidden fruit because he valued his relationship with his wife above all else!

Thousands of years latter, Jesus, aware of our tendency to set relationships on a humanistic pedestal, said to His followers… “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26  

The Amplified Version of the Bible explains this difficult verse more clearly.

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his [own] father and mother in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God] and [likewise] his wife and children and brothers and sisters--[yes] and even his own life also--he cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:26

I don't think Adam or Eve gave to much thought to the endless damage and pain that their actions would cause, nor the reality of dying. Their exit from Eden left all of us bereft of any hope of finding paradise this side of the grave. Very few people believe in the existence of an actual place called Eden anymore, and most have given up hope of finding paradise... 

However we can rejoice, for there is a time coming when we will return to paradise.

Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14:1-3

Adam and Eve may have lost the keys to the Garden, but as Paul writes in Romans 8:21 we will be allowed back to play in the garden…“All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious creation from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”