Chapter 352—Eden Restored
To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in
the midst of the paradise of God.
Revelation 2:7
.
The garden of Eden remained upon the earth long after man had become
an outcast from its pleasant paths. The fallen race were long permitted
to gaze upon the home of innocence, their entrance barred only by the
watching angels. At the cherubim-guarded gate of Paradise the divine glory
was revealed. Hither came Adam and his sons to worship God. Here they
renewed their vows of obedience to that law the transgression of which had
banished them from Eden. When the tide of iniquity overspread the world,
and the wickedness of men determined their destruction by a flood of waters,
the hand that had planted Eden withdrew it from the earth. But in the final
restitution, when there shall be “a new heaven and a new earth” (
Revelation
21:1
), it is to be restored more gloriously adorned than at the beginning.
Then they that have kept God’s commandments shall breathe in immortal
vigor beneath the tree of life; and through unending ages the inhabitants of
sinless worlds shall behold, in that garden of delight, a sample of the perfect
work of God’s creation, untouched by the curse of sin—a sample of what the
whole earth would have become, had man but fulfilled the Creator’s glorious
plan.
Adam is reinstated in his first dominion. Transported with joy, he holds
the trees that were once his delight—the very trees whose fruit he himself
had gathered in the days of his innocence and joy. He sees the vines that his
own hands have trained, the very flowers that he once loved to care for. His
mind grasps the reality of the scene; he comprehends that this is indeed Eden
restored.
Restored to the tree of life in the long-lost Eden, the redeemed will “grow
up” to the full stature of the race in its primeval glory. The last lingering traces
of the curse of sin will be removed, and Christ’s faithful ones will appear in
“the beauty of the Lord our God” (
Psalm 90:17
), in mind and soul and body
reflecting the perfect image of their Lord. Oh, wonderful redemption! long
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