Eden

Was Eden a special divine dispensation a garden setting only to introduce us to Adam and his crime against God's goodness? Or was Eden a vision of what God ultimately wanted to and will bring about in the Kingdom of Heaven? Was Eden designed to be a lesson only an historically accurate metaphor teaching us our need of a Savior? Was Eden about the Fall of Adam and nothing more? If we could go from Heaven to Eden or Eden to Heaven would the similarities be strikingly obvious to our hearts? There is some legitimacy in imagining Eden to have some relationship to heaven but with some differences of course. There will be no marriage or given in marriage there. But in Heaven we will be the Bride of Christ. In this short work it is not my purpose to propose any theological changes to what fundamentally we already know and believe about Eden and our first parent's life in their sweet innocence before the unthinkable happened. But I wonder if we have looked close enough at the text. Does God see you and me hiding in the trees? We have possibly assumed Adam and Eve because they were first would take complete liability for everything that went wrong. Like Peter I might have vowed to be faithful-I know so little about me! But the good news is the restoration of Eden. That's coming.!