GOD’S GARDEN

For my Aussie friends and family, a garden is all the land next to their house with flowers, trees, and grass. It is the equivalent to what we Americans refer to as our yard or lawn, which, to the British, is a hard, often paved or concrete area. Our garden is their “veggie patch” or even their “allotment.” God’s garden is full of beautiful flowers and trees. Ours was not.

I grew up on a small 90-acre farm in rural Pennsylvania, and we always planted a vegetable garden. My mother gave my two siblings and me seeds to plant: carrots, lettuce, radish, beans, peas, and corn. We would plant them in rows, the smaller seeds with less soil on top of them than the larger ones. It was a veggie garden and not paradise.

I read in an online encyclopedia that the word "paradise" can be traced to the Greek word parádeisos (παράδεισος) and the Hebrew pardes (פִּרדֵּס). Both shared a root meaning of a walled garden, an enclosed pleasure park, or an orchard.

God who created the earth, also planted a garden: “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.” (Genesis 2.8 NIV)

God, who created the earth, with its vegetation, animals and two humans, planted a garden. That seems ironic. Couldn’t he just wave his creation wand and “produce” the garden. He had already created land and declared, “’Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” (Genesis 1.11-12)

When God put two people in the garden, they were surrounded by all kinds of beautiful trees, some with edible fruit, as well as “the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (2.9b) And God told them that they can have anything and eat anything, except from those trees.

I wondered: If my dad and mom said, “We are going to town, but you kids can have any of the cookies in the cupboard or what you want to eat or drink from the refrigerator, only don’t eat the chocolate bar in the top drawer in the kitchen.” Dad and mom leave and what do my siblings and I do? We head for the kitchen and the chocolate bar. In our choice, we were able to disobey, and the same thing happened with Adam and Eve. They went straight, as it were, for the chocolate bar—fruit from the tree of good and evil.

Does “paradise” then refer to the “garden of God,” or “the garden of Eden”? From what I have read, the answer is both “Yes” and “No.” The Garden of Eden was the first home for Adam and Eve, but the word also can refer to any place of special joy. Eden was a specific place, but Paradise may be either that place or any place of pure delight.

We read in Revelation 2.7 that “To those [at the church in Ephesus] who win the victory I will give the right to eat the fruit of the tree of life that grows in the Garden of God.”

When Jesus was dying on the cross one of the thieves on a cross next to him rebuked the other thief and declared that Jesus “had done no wrong.” Because he believed in Jesus, he asked that he would be remembered when Jesus came in his kingdom. He did not have to wait that long. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23.43). Did he go with Jesus to the garden of God or to a place called “heaven,” or are heaven and Paradise the same place? (For every theologian who answers this, there is an equal and opposite theologian!)

Another story that concerns “Paradise” is found in Luke 16.19-31, a story involving a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. They both die and the beggar was carried by angels to “Abraham’s side.” Where was that? Paradise, heaven, or a new location? Many theologians view it as a temporary holding place, a Paradise compartment, where OT believers rested until the final resurrection and ascension. A kind of holding pen perhaps?

Confusing? Here is another story, this time by Paul, recorded in 2 Corinthians 12.2-4: “I know a man in Christ, about fourteen years ago (whether he was in the body I cannot tell, or whether he was out of the body I cannot tell, God knows), who was taken up into the third heaven. And I know the same man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows), how he was taken up into Paradise and heard words not to be spoken, which no man can utter.”

Where is the third heaven? It seems to be another reference to “Paradise.” A popular view (online) is that it is “is the spiritual dwelling place of God and the ultimate realm of paradise. It is located beyond the physical universe, distinct from earth's atmosphere and outer space.” That is a weird definition because evidence in the Bible does not indicate that God lives in “outer space” or that heaven exists there “somewhere.”

Although I am left with a puzzle, I can look to Jesus for help. After the death of Jesus, 40 days later, his disciples saw him go physically up to heaven. He was also with the thief in Paradise, so that must be a part of heaven. Paul thought he saw a special part of heaven as well, and Abraham is in residence there. Paradise is obviously a “special place” because Jesus, the patriarchs and all believers are there—in bodily form. 

I believe I will go to “God’s Garden” (aka Paradise, the Third Heaven, and Abraham’s side/bosom) when I die, a place of eternal joy, rest, and of continual praise. It will be heaven.

Karl Franklin

Note; The ”Garden of Gethsemane” was an olive grove at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.