Keep these details in mind as we jump forward many pages in the Bible.
Imagine yourself approaching the Holy of Holies. Moving westward, you would eventually come up to the veil which divides the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. Embroidered on the veil are cherubim (Exodus 36:35). You can venture no further than these cherubim. The cherubim mark a boundary line that you cannot cross. But you know that behind these cherubim, God’s immediate presence rests on the ark of the covenant, a continuum of Day 7 in the Garden of Eden. Now the ark of the covenant has two poles attached to it. In Hebrew, the poles are not called poles, though. The Torah calls them atzey––“trees” (Exodus 25:13). In other words, behind the cherubim are two trees. The trees are in the middle of the Holy of Holies like the two trees were in the middle of the Garden of Eden.
Again, you are not allowed to enter this space. The embroidered cherubim which tower over you block your passage. The same goes for everyone else as well. No one is allowed to enter. That is, but for one exception: the High Priest alone, on one day a year (Yom Kippur). On this chosen day, this chosen man may enter, but when he does, he does so with great fear and trepidation. Every motivation must be pure, every action perfect. There is no room for error; his very life depends on it. Therefore he stays up all night beforehand to ready himself, check himself, make sure he doesn’t misstep or forget one detail in a long sequence of duties. He feels the weight of the moment: God is here allowing him and only him to venture around the cherubim and enter into the perfection of the Garden of Eden. If his actions or motivations are less than perfect, the sheer holiness of God will consume his life (as happened to two very respected individuals in Leviticus 10). But if the High Priest does exactly as God commands, he is able to enter the Garden, atone for his people, then escape with his life.
In these short, tense moments on Yom Kippur, a very fallen humanity comes as close as it can get to the immediate presence of a perfectly holy God. But amazingly, the story isn’t over yet. God’s rescue mission is about to be realized.
We jump forward to the New Testament. I would like to point out that the word “garden” (kepos in Greek, with various conjugations) is used only 6 times in all 27 books. Five of those occurrences are found in the last few chapters of John. This should catch our attention. If John includes a detail, not only is it historically accurate, it is spiritually significant. When the word “garden” is used, at some level John is tracing a connection to the original garden, the Garden of Eden. Notice where we find the word “garden” in his Gospel:
John 18:1: When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was a garden, and he and his disciples went into it.
John 18:26: One of the high priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged Peter, “Didn’t I see you with him in the garden?” Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.
John 19:41: At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid.
John 20:15: Jesus asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the garden-keeper, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
In sum, we find that: Jesus is betrayed in a garden; Peter hides from what he did in a garden; Jesus is crucified in a garden; Jesus is buried in a garden; His resurrection is in a garden.
Each of these events is tied to Genesis 3. John isn’t making the connection as much as he is marveling at what God has done. Let us do the same. We’ll see that everything Jesus does in a garden is a correction to that which took place in the original Garden.
What unfolds in the Garden of Gethsemane is an encounter between good and evil. Recall, back in Genesis 3, who entered the Garden? Who came to attack? The serpent. Now reading in John, who comes into the garden? Judas does. And it says earlier that Satan had entered into him (Luke 22:3). So the old serpent is back! The serpent who betrayed Adam and Eve with his lips will now, through Judas, betray the Son of Man with his lips (a kiss). We read that Judas guides a detachment of soldiers into the garden. Imagine a sort of mob falling in line behind Judas as they travel up the winding path into the garden. Looking down at them from above, the mob even resembles a snake with Judas at the head!
As these men approach Jesus, what does Peter do? Well, since Jesus embodies the Tree of Life, of course Peter pulls out a sword! A sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life. But here, Jesus’ instruction to Peter is profound. He tells Peter to put the sword away. This is a picture of God commanding the cherubim to lay down the sword. The Tree of Life, you see, is making itself available to man.
But there is an issue: the right ear of the high priest’s servant has been severed. Jesus, stepping into action, heals the man. It’s a picture of how God is undoing the damage that’s been done. He is healing the separation. It’s meaningful, too, that the injured man would have served in the Temple (him being the high priest’s servant). According to Leviticus 21:18, any physical deformity disqualifies a person from serving in the Temple. Having lost his ear, this man had effectively lost his position. But when Jesus heals the wound––when He undoes the separation––the man’s privileges are restored. Again he can serve in the Sanctuary. It’s a picture of how God is returning man to the Garden. He is picking up the fallenness of the right side and restoring what was once lost.
We next encounter the word garden when Peter is confronted. The person who confronts Peter is a relative of the man whose ear Peter had struck. This person says to Peter, “Didn’t I see you with Jesus in the garden?” Behind the question, the person is thinking, “Wait, isn’t this the guy who injured my relative?” Peter responds by denying his actions: “No that wasn’t me!” Basically Peter hides from what he did in the garden, reminiscent of the way Adam and Eve hid from what they did in the Garden. If you remember the story, Adam and Eve felt shame and had to go outside the Garden. It’s interesting that Luke tells us Peter “went outside and wept.” No doubt his tears were tears of shame.
We see that Jesus is crucified and buried in a garden. When he is buried, He is put into the earth (which is cursed). When he is crucified, He wears a crown of thorns (thorns being part of the curse). The night beforehand, He sweats blood (sweat also being part of the curse). Through each of these, Jesus is bearing the curse of Genesis 3. We read that when Jesus is crucified, the veil in the Temple is torn from top to bottom. Remember that cherubim are embroidered on the veil. So when the veil rips in two, the cherubim embroidered on the veil separate. Symbolically God is commanding the cherubim to step aside. Through Jesus’ death, God is tearing open a way for man to reenter the Garden.
We must recall why man was evicted from the Garden in the first place. Because of sin, yes. But more exactly, it was because man, in his fallen state, could stretch out his hand and eat from the Tree of Life and live forever (Genesis 3:22). Of course, living forever sounds ideal at surface value! But living forever in a fallen state is to be forever caught in a diminished version of reality. It keeps us from sharing in the intimacy that God desires to have with us. So what does God do? He separates man from the Tree of Life so that man will die. Death is the doorway through which man can shed his fallenness and reenter into God’s Presence. In this sense, death is a gift! It is our portal away from the curse.
But a problem remains. If man dies, death takes him! Death robs him away from God who is Life. So incredibly, God takes the matter into His own hands. God goes through the doorway Himself. He claims authority on the other side. He then steps back on this side and says, “Alright, it’s safe now. Go through the doorway and I will take you; death will not.”
Returning from the other side, Jesus is resurrected in a garden. In fact, this is the final occurrence of the word garden in the New Testament. Mary thinks He is the garden-keeper when she encounters Him. He says to Mary, “Woman...” This is meaningful, because in a deeper sense, He is talking to “woman”––as in––Eve, the woman. He says, “Why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Think back to God’s first words to fallen man: “Where are you?” At the time, God was searching for man. But now, thousands of years later, the question Jesus asks is, “Who is it you are looking for?” My how the tables have turned! At first God was searching for man, but now man is searching for God. What does Mary say? She asks Him for directions. She wants to know His whereabouts.
Again, we see that everything Jesus does in a garden is a correction to what took place in the original Garden. Through Jesus, the way to the Tree of Life is open––first spiritually, then physically. If we jump to the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, we find that God’s rescue mission is a success. It proclaims, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne. . .through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the Tree of Life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. . .No longer will there be any curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. . .the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever (Revelation 22:1-5 ESV). The Tree of Life is so large that it spans the width of the river! Such that the tree can be accessed on either riverbank. Verse 14 adds, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the Tree of Life and that they may enter the city by the gates.”
To have the right to the Tree of Life, with what do you wash your robes? With the water from the river of life? Good guess, but no! Rather, you wash your robes in the blood of the Lamb! (See Revelation 7:13-17.) And this is key: it is His death that affords you the right to the Tree of Life. Death is a portal away from the curse, yes, but it’s His death! You must enter in through His death to access the Garden and marvel at what it has become: a Garden with many mansions! So many mansions that it’s become a city, a city with streets paved of gold and children splashing in water as bright as crystal.
To have the right to the Tree of Life, with what do you wash your robes? With the water from the river of life? Good guess, but no! Rather, you wash your robes in the blood of the Lamb! (See Revelation 7:13-17.) And this is key: it is His death that affords you the right to the Tree of Life. Death is a portal away from the curse, yes, but it’s His death! You must enter in through His death to access the Garden and marvel at what it has become: a Garden with many mansions! So many mansions that it’s become a city, a city with streets paved of gold and children splashing in water as bright as crystal.
