God’s Word for You

Genesis 2:8 The Garden of Eden

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, August 20, 2026

8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the eastern part of Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

We are compelled to ponder this primitive paradise in a world ruined by the fall and rinsed bare by the flood. If we want to imagine, we must do it through those difficulties, and then as if in a room in a new house with freshly painted walls and no furnishings at all; no landmarks, no familiar boundaries.

Since the world where Eden was was unmade by the flood, we cannot say where anything was, and therefore even conjecture is of no use. But there are a few things we can say about Eden and its garden:

1, Eden was a large place, designed for man with his descendants, and so we would be mistaken to think of a small or narrow garden of only a few miles. It might be more accurate to think in terms of it being the size of a county, or even a small country. God did not set man in a place where he would be unable to obey the command, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

2, The garden of Eden was an area within the larger region of Eden. It reminds me of the place the church has within the world. It was specially prepared by God: “A model of parental care. The fledgling is sheltered but not smothered,” on every side discoveries and encounters awaited Adam and his wife as their natural curiosity led them to explore and to raise their family.

3, The garden was on the east side of the region of Eden, since Moses says it was miqedem (מִקֶּדֶם) where ‘mi-’ shows direction: toward the sunrise. The east side looked to the sunrise in the same way that the entrance to the tabernacle was toward the sunrise (Exodus 27:13).

4, The entrance to the garden was also on the east side, where both the garden and the region of Eden shared this entrance, as we see when the Lord set cherubim there to guard it (Genesis 3:24). Moses had weavers work images of cherubim into the tent curtains of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:1).

5, The garden was in particular renowned for its lush beauty, the very opposite of a desert (Joel 2:3; Ezekiel 36:35; Isaiah 51:3). It reminds me that the whole world has water, but the church has the water of life.

6, Many varieties of animals, birds and fish had access to Eden and to the Garden in Eden. They were brought there by God for the man to give them names (2:19).

7, In the middle of the Garden were the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life (Genesis 2:9).

8, A very large river that broke into four other rivers flowed from Eden (Genesis 2:10).

9, Those rivers wound throughout many other lands (Genesis 2:11-14).

10, Since four important rivers flowed from Eden, all or part of this land had to be higher in elevation than the lands that were around it (Genesis 2:10).

11, Further east, beyond Eden, was a land called Nod (Genesis 4:16).

12, The trees of Eden bore fruit. As Luther notes, “There were no linden trees, no oaks, no holly trees, or whatever other fruitless trees there are; but there were fine fruit trees of every variety” (LW 1:89), since God assures his created man, “You are free to eat from any (מִכֹּל, that is, from every) tree in the garden” (Genesis 2:16). Not that other trees have no use, but God promised Adam he could eat from any tree in Eden.

We do not know where in the world Eden was. The flood in Noah’s time destroyed everything, and surely Eden and its beautiful garden were among those things that were ruined.

Just as God created this world as the special place for man in the created universe, so also God created this region or nation, Eden, to be the place in which man’s family would live and grow. And so also God created this garden within Eden to be the delightful home for the man to begin this family.

In this way, Eden was a model of the church, the place where God’s people “will be like a well-watered garden,” and a place without sorrow (Genesis 13:10; Jeremiah 31:12). There the people of the church, the bride of Christ, are “locked up, a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain” (Song of Solomon 4:12). And from this garden the well of water flows out and streams down (Song 4:15), as in heaven “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flows from the Throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1). The true church in Eden, as we shall see, was based on the command of God and was the focus of their worship, and it was on account of the breaking of this commandment that the man and his wife were driven from the physical garden, but not without the gospel promise of forgiveness and the destruction of the devil’s power through temptation, sin, and death. Like the two trees in the center of the garden, the law and gospel are at the center of the true church. For God’s desire is once again to put the people he has formed into Paradise, and he puts us there by bringing us to repentance and faith in Christ through his word. This church (that is, the present Holy Christian Church) actually exists, just as the ancient garden of Eden actually existed. Our church is made up of true believers and righteous men and women scattered throughout the world. The marks of the true church are the pure teaching of the gospel and the sacraments. It is “the pillar of truth” (1 Timothy 3:12). In it, we are nurtured and loved by God, brought to faith, taught to practice and use our faith, and commanded to make the church fruitful and multiply its numbers by baptizing and by teaching, to the eternal glory of God.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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