This was a garden made for man. Eden means “delight.” It faced the morning sun, and God “made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Gen. 2:9). A river watered it in a land of gold and precious stones (vv. 10, 12). Man had a job: “to tend and keep it” (v. 15). God gave him a wife, a helpmate, to enjoy it together with him (v. 22), and in the cool of the day He Himself would commune with him (3:8).

What went wrong? Our first parents’ disobedience to their beneficent God. At the prompting of the serpent, the devil, they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the only tree God had denied them. They had every reason not to do so: they would die if they did (2:17), but they succumbed to a lie. And so have we: “death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

What a relief to find a man 4,000 years later who says, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (Jn. 4:34). When the devil tempted Him to depart from His course, it was not in a garden but a desert, not with an outright denial of God’s word but beguiling words, not once but three times. But each time our Lord said, “It is written” (Mt. 4:4, 6, 10). Just before His death, when a misguided disciple tried to defend Him, He said, “Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given me?” (Jn. 18:11).

If the first man was put into the sweetest spot in creation only to bring death to it, the new creation is formed according to the Second Man who does not, will not, and cannot fail. It will hold its pristine character forever because of Him: “old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).