God in the Garden

“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” (Genesis 2:8)

This was the world’s first garden, and it must have been a beautiful garden, for God planted it Himself. Every tree was “pleasant to the sight,” there was a lovely river “to water the garden” (Genesis 2:9-10), and God was there.

Then one day God was “walking in the garden” only to find that “Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3:8). Sin had entered, and Adam and Eve had to be cast out, leaving God alone in the garden (Genesis 3:23).

Many years later, God entered another garden with His loved ones. “He went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into the which he entered, and his disciples” (John 18:1). There in the garden of Gethsemane the disciples soon fell asleep, once again leaving Him alone in the garden, “withdrawn from them about a stone’s cast” (Luke 22:41). There He “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears” (Hebrews 5:7) as He faced the death He had pronounced on His very first loved ones long before in that first garden.

There was yet another garden where He must be alone. “In the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus” (John 19:41-42). God walked alone in the first garden, seeking His own. He knelt alone in the second garden, praying for His own. He was buried alone in the third garden, having died for His own. Therefore, in the new “paradise of God” where the pure river flows and the tree of life grows eternally, “his servants shall serve him” and reign with Him “for ever and ever” (Revelation 2:7; 22:1-3, 5). HMM