EDEN: ONCE UPON A PARADISE
IN THE BEGINNING GOD
DR. JIM DIXON
GENESIS 1:1
MAY 18, 2008
It was Plato, the Greek philosopher, who first wrote about the mythological continent of Atlantis. The year was about 360 BC when Plato wrote of Atlantis. He described Atlantis as the perfect continent, a perfect civilization, a society based on beauty and justice and peace. According to Plato, Atlantis went into corruption and received the judgement of God and was destroyed by volcanic eruption. Today, many scientists and historians believe that Plato was thinking of the Minoan civilization, the Minoan civilization that was destroyed in 1470 BC by volcanic eruption when the Island of Thera or Santorini exploded into the Aegean Sea.
The truth is we don’t know. We don’t know what Plato was thinking. We do know this: We know that we can look at writings throughout history and there has been much mention of mythological continents. There’s the continent of Lemuria. Lemuria allegedly existed somewhere between Africa and India and ultimately sunk into the sea. Thomas Huxley, the famous British biologist who promoted Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, claimed that this Continent of Lemuria was the cradle of human civilization and the real Eden.
Then there was the continent of Mu. Mu is not only the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet, but Mu is the name of a mythological continent that probably never existed. Supposedly it was a Pacific continent, massive in size, 5,000 miles by 3,000 miles, surely an exaggeration but of course today as people read throughout history books that mention these places, people want to know: “Did they ever really exist?” Some people ask that question about Eden. They want to know if the Garden of Eden ever really exist and where was it? Where was the Garden of Eden and does it exist today? Does it exist today in our time space continuum or perhaps in some way does it transcend? Does paradise exist today? Does it await the people of God?
Of course, Eden is described in the Bible in the Book of Genesis, the 2nd chapter and the Bible tells us that in Eden there were trees, special trees—the Tree of Life that had power to give eternal life of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree whose fruit was forbidden to mankind. In Genesis, chapter 2, we’re also told that in Eden there were four rivers. The first river was the Pishon. The second was the Gihon. These first two rivers were associated in Genesis, chapter 2, with the Land of Kush. Many historians relate Kush to Ethiopia and therefore they think that the Pishon or the Gihon might be the White and the Blue Nile and that Eden was in Africa. But that seems unlikely since the third river in Genesis 2 is the Tigris and the fourth is the Euphrates. It would appear that Eden was in the region of Mesopotamia, but the problem is that scholars and theologians debate these things.
As Christians kind of argue over coffee, sometimes they miss the message of God. They miss the word of God. They miss the truth of God. So we’re going to, as a congregation over the next few weeks, take a journey through Eden. We’re going to look at the truth of God and the message of God. We’re going to look at Paradise lost and Paradise regained. We’re going to look at Eden lost and Eden regained. We’re going to look at Genesis, chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 and we’re going to look at Revelation, chapters 21 and 22. We’re going to look at the first four chapters of the Bible and we’re going to look at the last two chapters of the Bible. We’re going to look at the nature of God and the nature of man and the plan of God for man.
Today as we start our Eden series, I want us to focus on the nature of God and the existence of God. I have three simple teachings this morning and the first teaching has to do with the beginning. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning…” We might ask ourselves, “What is the Bible referring to?” “What is God referring to here in the beginning?”
Now, I know most of you have heard of Horology. Horology is the art and science of measuring time. Most of us have wristwatches. We like to measure time. In 1933 a multimillionaire, a man named Henry Graves asked a watchmaker to make the greatest wristwatch in the world. And so, this watchmaker and his company began to make for this millionaire in 1933 what was to be the greatest wristwatch in the world. It would include great horological sophistication, superior technology with many dimensions of function. It took three years to create this masterpiece, this great watch, and it was heralded as the greatest watch in the world. When Henry Graves died, that watch passed on to the Chicago Museum of Time. Just recently the watch was put at auction by Sotheby’s. It was put at auction and it sold for what? Some of you may have read about it. It sold for $11,300,000. Pretty amazing.
We live in a kind of crazy world. Maybe that thought has occurred to you from time-to-time. We live in a kind of crazy world where there are a lot of people who want really expensive watches. Have you noticed that? There are people who spend thousands of dollars on their watches. Some people want Rolexes. Some people want watches that are adorned with jewelry. Other people want the cheapest watch they can possibly find. They think Timex is too good. They’re looking for something really cheap. Some people want large watches. Do you notice that watches are just getting bigger and bigger? Some want tiny little watches. Some people want watches that have all kinds of gadgets and dials. Some people want watches that will work when you’re a thousand feet under water. Some people don’t care but everybody wants a watch that works. Everybody wants a watch that measures time. Everybody wants a watch that works accurately and of course we live in a world that’s focused on time. Perhaps there’s never been a generation where the world or the earth was more concerned with time. We’re very busy people and we want to measure time and use time but a lot of people never stop to think, “What is time all about?”
A lot of scientists have looked at time and they pose the question, “What is time?” Of course, most scientists have reached the conclusion that time had a beginning and there was a beginning to the time/space continuum. You look at Genesis, chapter 1, verse 1. “In the beginning…” We’re talking about the beginning of time, the beginning of the time/space continuum. We’re not talking about God. God had no beginning. God transcends time and space. God had no beginning. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, the Eternal One, the Everlasting One. He was here in the beginning of the time/space continuum, in the beginning of time, in the beginning of the cosmos, in the beginning of the galactic systems, in the beginning of creation.
In Isaiah, chapter 9, the birth of Jesus is prophesied and the Bible says to us, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, And the government shall be upon His shoulders.” Then He is given names. We’re told, “His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.”
Some scholars debate how, many names are really there? Is He called Wonderful and Counselor or is He called Wonderful Counselor? It’s hard to believe scholars debate stuff like that. Of course, there is grave concern about the meaning of Everlasting Father. Why is Jesus called Everlasting Father? He’s God the Son. He’s not God the Father so why, in this passage, is He called the “Everlasting Father?” The Hebrew is Abi Ad. Abi, Hebrew for “father of” and Ad which means, “eternity.” Father of Eternity is perhaps a mistranslation of the Hebrew. Not Everlasting Father but Father of Time, Father of Eternity, Source of Eternity. When you look at Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God…” think of God in all of His fullness. Don’t just think of God the Father. Think of God the Son and yes, God the Holy Spirit. Think of God in his fullness. In the beginning, God created …” God in His fullness… Time, time space, the cosmos, the creation. This is the beginning of the Eden story and in a sense the beginning of our journey.
For a second teaching I want to take a look at God Himself and I want us to take a look at the divine name. The divine is, as many of you know, called the Tetragrammaton which simply means, “four letters.” It really means four consonants because in ancient Hebrew there were no vowels so the name of God had four consonants and these can be transliterated from Hebrew into English and they become either YHWH or they could be rendered JHVH so that the name of God would either be Yahweh or Jahveh. Of course, some of the Jews were afraid to say the name of God so they created a hybrid name for God and they took the vowels off of the Hebrew Adonai which means, “Lord” and added them to the Tetragrammaton and they called this hybrid word “Jehovah.” I think the big issue is, “What does this name mean?” “What does the name Jehovah mean?” “What does the name Yahweh mean?” “What is the meaning of the divine name?”
Scholars point out that it’s built on the Hebrew verb, “to be” and the divine name means, “I Am.” God is the great I Am. The name of God means, “I Am that I Am.” So, what kind of a name is this? What kind of a name is “I Am” or “I Am that I Am?” We should understand God simply IS. Everything else has come to be but God simply IS. No matter how far back you go, God is there. God IS. No matter how far in the future you go, God’s there, God IS, God simply IS. “I Am that I Am.”
Understand—this is so important for the Eden story—God has life in Himself. He doesn’t have derivative life. He didn’t get His life from somewhere or someone. His life is not derived. He has life in Himself. I don’t have life in myself. You might say, “Well, Jim, aren’t you alive?” Yes, somewhat, but of course my life comes from my parents and from my parents’ parents and my parents’ parents’ parents and ultimately from God. Your life also is derivative life. Our life is derived but God has life in Himself. “I Am that I Am.”
Now, here’s the amazing thing. Jesus takes the Tetragrammaton and applies it to Himself. “Ego eimi,” “I Am.” He does this again and again and again. He takes the divine name and applies it to himself. Of course, He makes that amazing statement that He, as the Father has life in Himself, so He, the Son, has life in Himself. What an amazing, even audacious, statement. As the Father has life in Himself even so the Son has life in Himself. That’s why, when Jesus came into the world, it says of Him that, “In Him was life.” This is John 1, The Prologue of the Gospels. In Him was life. It’s talking about divine life, the life that belongs only to God, the life that belongs to the I Am. So, our life is derived, and apart from God, short. My guess is most of you would like to live a long time. I think most of us would like to live forever. I know I’d like to live forever. Who could make that possible” The Great I Am could make that possible. He offers life. He offers everlasting life. God.
Some of you have heard of the Winchester family. In American history, the Winchesters kind of are significant. I don’t mean to trace their whole history, but I want to go back to 1860 when Oliver Winchester was the CEO and the President of the Winchester Rifle Company. Oliver Winchester, in that same year, 1860, created and crafted the Henry Repeating Rifle and it was the weapon of choice, the rifle of choice across America. People used the Henry Repeating Rifle to hunt and they used it to protect themselves and it was a weapon of war. During the Civil War you saw the Henry Repeating Rifle. Money began to pour in to the Winchester Rifle Company en masse.
Then in 1873 Oliver Winchester crafted the Winchester Rifle, the Winchester ‘73 and it became a huge seller and millions of dollars began to come into the Winchester Rifle Company. In 1880 Oliver Winchester died but Leonard Winchester took over. Leonard Winchester led the Winchester Rifle Company for 38 years, until the year 1918, and during those years the money just came in in droves. Then Leonard Winchester died in 1918 and his wife Sarah remained. Sarah was young. Leonard had kind of robbed the cradle. When he died, Sarah was 42 years of age—42 years of age and she had more money than she ever thought possible but she read the obituary when Leonard died and it blew her away because in the obituary it said that the Winchester Rifles have killed more human beings on the planet than any other weapon in history. That just went to her soul. That just damaged her core. She began to be afraid of death because she did not want to face God. She was so afraid of death because she did not want to face God, having been associated with the Winchester Rifle Company.
She moved to San Jose that same year. She was 42. In 1918 she moved to San Jose and she bought a house that was being built and then consulted a psychic because Sarah Winchester dabbled in the occult. She consulted a psychic said a strange thing to her. “You don’t need to worry about death. You will keep living as long as you continue to build that house you bought.” Sage advice from a psychic! And so, she did continue building. She continued to build the Winchester house and she did it the rest of her life. She only lived 38 more years and died at the age of 80. Today you can go to San Jose and you can see the Winchester House. You can see the Winchester House with 150 rooms, with 150,000 panes of glass in 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, and incredibly, incomprehensively, 2,000 doors, some of which just open into nothing. Why is it there? Because she was trying to extend her life. She longed for eternal life.
Of course, in this room nobody is that flakey. I’m pretty confident of that, but I think there are a lot of people who would like to extend their life and ward off death. Thank God for medical doctors and thank God for science but science is not going to give us eternal life. It’s good to eat well. It’s good to exercise. You might add a few months, maybe even a few years, but if you don’t ward off death maybe there can at least be less morbidity. Of course, there is no eternal life apart from the Great I Am. There’s no everlasting life apart from the One who said, “I Am that I Am,” apart from God.
So, in Eden is The Tree of Life. When you think of Eden, don’t you think of The Tree of Life? Whatever your view of Genesis, whether you view it as parabolic or historical narrative, when you think of Eden you think of The Tree of Life. Of course, whoever ate of that fruit would live forever so God denied mankind access to The Tree of Life but you come to Revelation, chapter 22, and you see this description of the New Jerusalem but again Revelation is apocalyptic literature. Remember in the Bible God uses a variety of genres of literature, so the Book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature and it describes the New Jerusalem with this kind of apocalyptic language. It describes a river flowing from the Throne of God and the land through the middle of the street of the New Jerusalem and on either side of the river, the Tree of Life.
So, it begins in Genesis with The Tree of Life and it ends in Revelation with The Tree of Life but of course in Revelation you really have two Trees of Life because they’re on either side of the river but it doesn’t matter because it’s what it represents. It represents the greatest gift that could ever be offered to humankind, everlasting life. That’s what The Tree of Life represents. It represents, I promise you, Christ Himself, for He’s the life-giver. Don’t think for a second that when you get to the New Jerusalem or when you get to heaven or when you get to Paradise, you’re going to have to wait in a long line to eat some fruit from this tree. It’s Jesus who gives life.
“I have come,” Jesus said, “that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly.” The life He offers is “Zoe,” a Greek word which in the Bible means, “everlasting life.” So, as you begin the Eden story, you’ve got to begin with that knowledge, that life is from God and He has life in Himself. We have derivative life, but He can give eternal life in His fullness, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There’s a final teaching and it also concerns the person of God. The final teaching concerns the word “Elohim,” because of Genesis 1:1, the word for God is not Yahweh. It’s not Jehovah. It’s not the Tetragrammaton. In Genesis 1:1 the word for God, “In the beginning, God… “, the word there is the Hebrew Elohim. Elohim is the word for God in Genesis 1:1. Here’s the weird thing. It’s plural. Elohim is the plurality of deity. It’s the plural form of God and so, of course today scholars, theologians, everybody debates why. Why is the name of God in the plural? Why is it Elohim? Why do we have a plurality of deity? Some say, “Maybe it’s just kind of like the royal “we.” You know how kings and queens, when they issue decrees from the Throne Room, they might say, “We decree,” and it’s just a figure of speech, the royal “we.” Some say, “Maybe that’s what’s going on.”
There’s really not much to support that comparative literature of ancient times. And so, some have said, “Well, maybe it’s God and the Angelic Host. Maybe it’s God and the Heavenly Hosts and that’s why it’s Elohim. That’s why it’s in the plural.” And that’s possible. Of course, even the angels were created and had a beginning, but others have suggested that it’s the Trinity—God plural, Elohim, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Fullness of God, the fullness of Deity and this may be the case. It’s just possible that the whole concept of the Trinity begins with the very beginning of the Bible. “In the beginning, God (plural), perhaps Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
But of course, we live in a time and we live in a culture and a nation where many people deny the existence of God. About 4%-8% of Americans identify themselves as either atheistic or agnostic. About 92% of the people of America claim to believe in some form of higher power but there seems to be some growth within the world of agnosticism and atheism. In fact, many books by atheistic authors have become best sellers. You can go into Barnes & Noble, or you can go into Borders (in fact Barb and I did, just yesterday), go into the new Borders over at Park Meadows and it just kind of blew us away how huge it is. You can go into Borders or Barnes & Noble and you can see the displays of atheistic books. Sometimes they set up a whole table with nothing but atheistic books by atheistic authors—some of them physicists, some of them biologists, and of course the most popular atheistic books are those by Richard Dawkins, by Paul Davies, by Christopher Hitchens, and by Sam Harris.
They’ve written books from “The God Delusion to “God Is Not Good.” There’s “The Mind of God” by Paul Davies—Paul Davies doesn’t even believe in God but he only calls his book, “The Mind of God” because he’s acknowledging that science began with an understanding to know the mind of God. Ancient science desired to know the mind of God. Ancient science desired to know the mind of God, the thoughts of God, and that’s how it all began but Davies denies that God even exists. Christopher Hitchens of course has written many atheistic books, one of which is on the screen, and he’s a very popular atheistic author. Sam Harris, the same. Sam Harris has written “The End of Faith,” but that’s just one of many atheistic books he’s written.
I went to Barnes & Noble some time ago and I wanted to read these books but I didn’t want to buy them because I didn’t want to support such an agnostic cause. I just sat down in Barnes & Noble and I started reading and I read them without paying for them. But seriously, it’s sad, it’s just tragic what these guys have done, that these books are being written. Jesus said, “Woe unto those who destroy the faith of these little ones. Woe unto those who destroy faith. It would be better for them is a millstone were tied around their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea.” I tell you, Judgement Day is coming. There’s going to come a day of accountability. It’s one thing to not believe. It’s one thing to say, “Hey, I’m an atheist. I’m an agnostic.” It’s something else to try to destroy the faith of the world and that’s what these guys are doing. What a sad, sad, tragic thing. “They know not what they do.”
Of course, as you read their books there’s a tendency to “demonize” religion. They view most of the evils of earth history as having been caused by religion. They view religious people generally as whacko and of course they look at history, including Christian history, with a selective memory. They only seem to recall the bad deeds of religious or Christian people. They don’t seem to remember the tidal wave of awesome things that people of faith have done throughout the centuries, the hospitals built, the ministries of compassion, the transformed lives. How many lives have been transformed by atheism? Not many.
Of course, you go through these books and they try to destroy all arguments from reason or rationality, all arguments for the existence of God. So, they take a look back at St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Anselm and they look at cosmological arguments for the existence of God and ontological arguments for the existence of God and they try to show that none of these arguments hold water and ultimately you cannot prove the existence of God. They’re right. You cannot prove the existence of God but of course you cannot prove that God doesn’t exist either. The reality is it’s reasonable to believe in the existence of God. It’s reasonable to believe that the Christian has a Creator. It’s reasonable to believe that the material universe has a Maker. It stretches the boundaries of logic to believe that the material universe is eternally existent. It stretches the boundaries of logic to believe that this physical universe has always existed and has no maker and no creator; that it’s virtually the deification of matter and the ultimate expression of materialism. It destroys the boundaries of logic to believe that the material universe just spontaneously generated, that it just spontaneously generated ex nihilo, out of nothing, without a creator. That, I submit to you, is far less logical than believing in God.
It was Norman Geisler who said, “I would be an atheist, but I don’t have enough faith.” It takes more faith to believe in atheism than it does to believe in God. It’s reasonable to believe in the Bible, the prophesies of Holy Scripture being fulfilled even in our generation. It’s reasonable to believe in Jesus, the Son of God, who appeared to more than 500 people, resurrected and alive, and we have eye witness testimony. Jesus said, “I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” and today the church stands 2 billion strong. It’s reasonable to believe. Of course, you cannot prove, through the scientific method, the existence of God. Through inductive and deductive reasoning, you cannot prove the existence of God. Through inductive and deductive reasoning, you cannot prove the existence of God although the existence of God is reasonable. Ultimately the Bible tells us it takes “a step of faith.”
Soren Kierkegaard, looking back on the ontological and cosmological arguments of Thomas Aquinas and St. Anselm said, “Nah! You’ve got to take a step of faith,” what he called “a leap of faith.” Yes, that’s so true. It’s a reasonable leap. It’s not an irrational step but it is a leap or a step of faith.
I love Hebrews, chapter 11. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Faith is the conviction of things not seen. By faith men of old received divine approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were created by the Word of God so that what exists was made out of things which do not appear. By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice more acceptable than Cain through which he received approval. As righteous God-bearing witness by accepting his gifts, he died, but through his faith he is living or speaking still. By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death and he was not found because God had taken him and before he was taken, he was attested as having pleased God and without faith it is impossible to please God for He who would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He is the Rewarder of those who seek Him.” “A fool has set in his heart there is not God.” Psalms 14:1.
Adam and Eve sought to hide themselves from the presence of God in Eden, the Garden. Sinful people (and we’re all sinners) sometimes just don’t want to know anything about a Holy God and they would like to hide or deny His existence. There’s an agenda there. Don’t let it be true of you. God still loves you.
As we close this opening message on Eden, we begin this series by looking at the beginning and looking at the nature of God and His existence and the fact that He has life in Himself and that our life is derivative and He offers eternal life. As we conclude this, let’s have a word of prayer and maybe some of you here are ready to take that step of faith. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.