let's think about this now God creates the world everything heavens earth and everything in it and then he takes out of the ground he says he forms atom however you understand all of this the principle is still here he's taking from the earth a physical world that he's created that's the raw material and he forms Adam and also Eve and he breathed into him the breath of life and then what does he do with Adam places him in the garden ok notice that after the fall it says he kicks him out of the garden -
what worked the ground from which he had been taken so he was formed out of this placed in this where'd the garden come from anybody have any idea where that garden came from the text tells us God planted it ok so he made the world didn't he planted this garden and there are actual boundaries of the garden don't let the flattened graphs and powerpoints confuse you the entire globe was not of the same quality as the Garden of Eden there was a different quality the early church fathers talked about it as being a of a
finer essence which means nothing but it but it gives you a night or it's like uh you know a we went to Ikea we go to Ikea it's a it's a but a semi annual pilgrimage my wife's European and so you know we go to Ikea it's just like being home you know they're all laid out wherever you go in the world IKEA is set up the same way and we had to buy sheet linens I don't know anything about linens like ok that's fine that cow that's white ok grab the linen no you have
to you know thread count it's like who counts threads I don't even understand that and I'm like mmm you know these these carts with wheels that move in every direction and I'm trying to you know navigate alright just grab the linens let's go you know but there are linens that are finer okay the idea is there is a qualitative don't ask me what that look like because I wasn't there a qualitative difference between the world outside the garden and the world inside the garden the tree of life the tree of knowledge and all these other
trees are there in the garden and Adam and Eve had they not fallen let's think about this for a moment had they not fallen they would have been fruitful multiplied filled the earth tended and keeping the garden right working the garden and fruitful multiply fill the earth and what subdue it subdue it what had to be some done something had to be sub done right they had something to do there and so the the church fathers by reading the text carefully more carefully than some of our Sunday School teachers apparently saw that God had brought
it to a point engine day6 and then handed the work over of completing the task of ordering and filling that there was some set I kind of pictured probably you know if he could take the fall out with all the weeds and thistles and thorns what happens if you just let things just grow just kind of it's probably needs to be manicured okay I don't know maybe there is a a higher physicality of the garden a higher quality a maybe uh something like heaven and earth touching and there's a transformation of the of the physical
world that you see and eat and that is different than the outside world but the idea is had Adam and Eve not fallen had they been fruitful and multiplied filled the earth and subdued it so what's the past tense of subdue sub done okay I'm just gonna go with that it's a word now the garden would have progressively grown and filled the earth that's my understanding now I I'm I'm totally plagiarizing I'll put the patristic tradition here okay just so you know I don't make stuff up you may not like it you can doodle on
it you come up with a different solution okay it's you know that this makes sense of course we knew that what we know that wasn't to be it didn't happen but that was the that was the idea it grow progressively subdue it and and you identify there's a new verb for you I didn't make that up I thought that I thought I made that up and then found it so other people have used it to identify the world make the whole world like Eden how long do you think that could have taken to identify the
entire globe yeah maybe thousand years give or take okay see where I'm going with this okay you had your hand up so diligently David go ahead yeah Herzl yeah we got the rocks because and it's as they progress towards the mountains which is that they become great illustration yeah interactive creation yep people who come from the bus stop yeah shadowy but see in their world they feel like they're you know normal and then they get to a world that's more real more dense I guess of a more qualitative substance and they're they're the ghosts suddenly
what was was CS Lewis uh well read and patristic s-- he was yeah he really was he may have may have plagiarized that I should yeah but none of the church fathers have ever sued us yet so I think that there's something to it I don't know now there are there wouldn't you get to eschatology and all this there are certain degrees of speculation on a scale of 1 to 10 I will get to like level 10 speculations for you where you'll just laugh at me this is okay okay on a scale of one to
ten this isn't really that high to be honest it's pretty pretty may not be typical of what you hear or have heard but in the Christian tradition it's pretty typical and so when they are thrown out of the garden they are now to tend and they're immediately cut off from this better source of sustenance etc now there are some people again a sunday-school answer is well they you know he said you could eat from the tree of life and live forever or you could eat from the knowledge of good and evil and die and as
they were on their way to that tree of life you know you know their knees just they just felt like taking a rest and there was the you know and they got sidetracked and they never did eat from that tree of life and then when they fell God kicked him out so they wouldn't eat that take a bite of the fruit and live forever and there's a sumption there that all that I do is take one bite of the Tree of Life and they would have independent immortality you know they're glowing well I can fly
okay thanks for the life God see you later you know the normal understanding of that before your Sunday School class was they were to continuously eat from the tree of life it was the thing that would continue to grant to their bodies which you remember where that Gabe from came from the earth in fact the same place all the other animals came from the good the dirt your dirt that has been transformed by some means and and because God created this physical world he has also provided a physical means of imparting to it ia Raider
kind of nature than what it is transcending its dirty nature dirt nature earthy nature but as you are eating from the tree of life it is granting to your physical body sustenance of of immortality it's it would inoculate you from all diseases it would keep you from death from suffering from pain etc so the normal assumption has been that you know they had eaten from the tree of life they were kicked out so they would not continue to eat from the tree of life and thus live forever this is why the tree of life appears
again in the restoration you'll be able to eat from the tree of life it's it's leaves will be for the healing of the nation's well they need to be healed no I mean the idea is as they are continuing to eat from the tree of life and from its leaves and whatever what are we having tonight for dinner well we're having eggs cheese and leaves from the Tree of Life okay that's part of our I don't know what that looks like but but now some people on a level of speculation this is about a five
okay-y coming out of Adam and Eve in the early generations did you have these people living for nine hundred years eight hundred five four to 160 and then pretty soon it kind of bottoms out at sixty seventy eighty the idea amongst some is Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life and the residual effects of having participated in this tree of life continue to echo for several generations you see and this is why humanity early on had exceptionally long lives that's one way of looking at it makes sense to me you know I have
nothing against it and it fits the story but it is it is a certain speculation there's no verse that says the reason why they live long lives is because they can't real life nobody says that okay so that's my understanding my understanding again then is that going looking at the end in light of the beginning when Christ returns you have many many commentators have pointed out that you have Genesis 1 and 2 language echoed in the restoration and there is the sense in which God restores Eden and then surpasses it right which was Eden was
never meant to be where it was all at anyway though there was a it was a progressive identification of the world was anticipated anyway so it's not we're just gonna go back to Eden know God is going to bring Eden to earth and there will be a glory and knowledge of God filling the earth in a process the gradual process of glorification and identification through the image of God which is Christ and redeemed humanity conformed to his image you and me we actually have something to do during the Millennium okay now where is Eden now
though there is another Indiana Jones movie coming out I think maybe he'll find the Garden of Eden okay where is it what do you think that what are some possibilities out there got destroyed got destroyed in the flood what's another possibility gaga okay which is would be emphasizing location Israel Jerusalem possibly the center of the Garden of Eden what else in the heavenly realm what else there's another one still out there somewhere bottom of the ditch it's out there somewhere in a cave it's hidden you know they just found another Dead Sea Scrolls cave so
maybe it's no apparently there's nothing in it I don't know I just I just skimmed the article but who knows there's lots of stuff out there David actually articulated the traditional Jewish and early Christian view which is you're going to want to resist it because it's like a pill that's big to swallow because it's like I can't seem done no because it sounds strange but you know I'm attracted to strange things the idea is you got the garden kicks Adam and Eve out in God I don't know how else to put this he scooped up
the Garden of Eden you know the idea is that the garden was on a high mountain anyway you know they had to ascend to the garden okay and it was kind of the a meeting place between heaven and earth it's where heaven came down and earth met and that was it had this in-between essence I guess of heavenly and earthly heaven on earth I suppose and after the fall God took it and brought it into the third heaven in a heavenly realm in other words you can't get there from here okay between it and us
or the end is the Angelica realm and the reason the early church believed this was because Eden in intertestamental literature and the new it's paradise it's the place where the saints went temporarily until resurrection they went to the Garden of Eden in Paradise which is where in the heavenly realm and the place you can't get there from here in the third heaven remember when Paul has his he says a caught up to the third heaven to paradise today you will be with me in paradise if you do believe and read in the Bible in its
actual historical context and these and you're going to take the words as what they meant actually in that Palestinian Jewish environment they went to Eton meetings in the heavenly realm now God moved the island none of you none of you watched lost apparently yeah he moved the island it's just it was there now it's somewhere else he moved it The Tree of Life is in the paradise of God Jesus says you will eat for me from the eat from the tree of life which isn't and which is current present tense in the paradise of God
and then you have this coming down of Christ and the descent of ah the Tree of Life followed the tree okay where is it at and where is paradise so it's on this earth God brought it down originally he planted it there it's a foretaste or it's a present heaven on earth kind of presence it's brought up to the third heaven and it returns I know that's very difficult because it sounds mythical but you know I don't see anything wrong with it and now here it is it comes back and we pick up where we
left off is like alright now we're here let me return where I was before I was so rudely interrupted by that whole reprobation and damnation and fall and all of that and we're going to do this right this time through Christ and the second Adam Christ fulfilled with the first Adam failed to do all right comments or questions about the the big story light in light of the beginner I know that's a lot but it's sort of foundational yeah just trying to pick up what you're putting down with God putting down but why would there
need to be like a guard chair of flaming sword guy I don't know it's not on earth yeah well it sure was on earth it was on earth I don't know what that means what that looks like do you know the - you know what he's talking about right he's he kicks them out any places you know at the gate or the entrance - cherubs with lightsabers so I debts as far as George Lucas Scott in the Bible does this feels like I'm gonna read the Bible when to do it I'm gonna do it I
mean gets to Genesis 3 like something here about these flaming swords yeah I don't know I don't know I mean they're dot yeah it's a good question I wonder how long it let's say I'm right at some point you know you know they're walking away from the garden and they're seeing it there and they're seeing the angels did that had they left yet no can't get back can we sneak in at some point the gardens gone is that at the flood right before the flood is it sometime before I don't know yeah yeah yeah that
I the cosmology is that the angelic realm is though you know it stands between us and the in paradise but honestly they may have been getting that from Genesis 3 right like where are the Angels well here you know so they may be kind of allegorized in that a little bit I really don't know I have a lot of hunches but a lot of also uncertainty with regard to how how Genesis 1 2 and 3 I don't get it a lot of it be honest I think it's real but I just don't understand you know
yeah I don't think I don't think you have to take the narrative figuratively to say that it's also asserting that the clear and the clear idea is that you can't you can't get there it is we are it is inaccessible to us that's that's clearly what's what's being asserted right God has gone out of his way to make it inaccessible to us how that actually works out and for how long were they on you know stationed there was there an actual gate or you know I don't know sorry it's one of those things that you'll
know when you get to heaven oh wait to paradise wait for the new heavens it's like oh no he's completely ruining my entire personal eschatology it'll all be put back together again I promise all right anything else yep yeah when you talked about we will be forever our glorification just continue yeah or crucification are you saying that that isn't going to be completed when we're resurrected r-and-r right we will still continue yep resurrection is the beginning of a progressive growing in love for knowledge of in relationship with God and with one another and B being
more and more progressively conformed to the image of the eternal God man which can never end and if you don't if that that might be hard for you to swallow but spend an hour thinking about what would be the alternative to that that's yes what I what I just read and he says we we don't know what we're going to be like but yeah we're going to be conformed to his image but does that clearly doesn't mean we're all gonna become incarnate Godman right so in what sense are we going to be like him probably
it seems like it's a reference to our bodies all right like the spirit that raised him will give life to our mortal bodies that's right we'll be conformed to his glorious body yeah yeah yeah there's more in other words I'm thinking more more holistically we are still gonna continue to grow more and more and more I don't know what that looks like exactly but I don't know what other choice I have but to assert that because if we if we say we're going to be perfect we're gonna arrive at perfect knowledge perfect per you know
really perfect everything well that's not really Christian right this idea of a because unchanging means you reach the level of perfection where that actually is only that space is only occupied by one being in this universe and we're finite so if you're not growing I don't know what you're doing but understand growing is in is I is a multi-faceted kind of idea I talk about growing in knowledge of love for relationship with these things that are that are that have to be dynamic it has to be dynamic it cannot be static static eschaton is not
Christian it is pantheistic okay it's not really Christian I know that's not a common Sunday school answer the the dynamic eschaton is Christian where you're actually learning growing doing which is exactly what we were intended to do right let me leave you we got one minute let me leave you with a level 12 level 12 and I'm gonna get the ID I stole this from CS Lewis but I think it might be it's worth at least speculating so fast-forward identify 1000 year identification of the universe and the final at the end banishment of auld sin
death devil everything is finally accomplished as it was intended now what what do you think what do you think some people have said she kickback look wow look at this wonderful world that we now have complete dominion over now what beyond that space transplant you got it you got it there are there are countless stars and planets out there you know so some have suggested that first thousand years just the beginning of a exercising dominion over the entire universe like not just in name Jesus aren't you lord of heaven and earth and exercise dominion over
all everything yeah have you ever visited that guy who cares about all those other planets and stars out there I own them I don't need to visit them you know maybe maybe there is you know something that has not yet been revealed for us maybe he did keep reading CS Lewis did CS Lewis did anyway pure pure speculation I don't have a I don't even have a half a verse for that ah although I have read certain people who think they do okay seriously okay last time we talked about the Adamic condition and that covenant
and the intention for Humanity as the image of God just to kind of summarize where we are have been and where we are this is the the you are here pin that we're dropping into the into the narrative we are really walking through the dispensations and the covenants coming out now of the garden we'll talk about the fall and the effects of that and then the means that God is now using to both preserve and administer his governance over fallen humanity as well as the means that God is using to bring about redemption through promise
anticipating ultimately the administration the governance of Christ in his kingdom and the temperature that comes through him as Savior so biblical covenants that we'll be walking through the Adamic covenant we've talked about this emphasizing humans ruling as the as the image of God or in the image of God the functional aspect exercising dominion over the earth the noahic covenant is coming up reaffirming the Adamic and promising preservation the Abrahamic covenant which is really the root of all of the covenants that God is going to be making kind of unfolding that at Abrahamic promise and affecting
that in history specifically land blessing nation extended through Isaac and Jacob we'll take a look at the whole idea of the promise of the seed that is to be the recipient of these promises the mosaic um covenant land centered blessing and cursing these good things are going to come if you obey these bad things are going to come if you disobey and this is kind of governing whether any given generation is going to receive the blessings in the land promised to Abraham Davidic covenant promised kingship pointing toward the Messiah and then the new covenant means
of fulfilling all of the promises and the covenants through Jesus Christ ultimately so we've seen this before I just wanted to remind you where we're at and then also to remind us we're looking yes this is an eschatology class it is a doctor of last things literally Eska toes the the end of the last things but you can't really understand the ending unless you understand where you're at in the beginning middle and where we are in that story so we understand the end in light of the beginning the purpose progressive expression of the image of
God that is carrying out the be fruitful multiply fill the earth and subdue it tend and keep the garden these were the things that God placed the embodied creatures called humans that were to reflect God's image both personally in their nature relationally with God and one another but also functionally and carrying out this imago Dei mandate that was derailed and the plan of preservation redemption is to bring that back and to ultimately fulfill that calling through the second Adam that's how I'm telling the story if you don't like it you know you can tell your
own story your own way in fact I'll even give you the slides you can just it must be changed and just teach this however you want but this is how I'm gonna tell the story and it makes sense to me and never makes sense it must be true right okay so hopefully I'm presenting you with good biblical theological arguments for this perspective the means divine rule mediated through humanity ultimately we know it's through the image of God and the new Humanity in Christ but it's through humanity nonetheless goal progressive glorification of humanity by God's grace
and we see in Romans 8 and other passages Old Testament passages even anticipating us not just glorification of humanity resurrection and glorification in this immortal state but also a restoration and glorification of creation itself which is groaning eagerly longing for this this redemption of our bodies because we are going to be mediators of blessing even in creation itself there's an inextricable relationship if you haven't noticed between your body in this world it came from this world and it's intimately connected to this world we were not only designed to be embodied creatures but we were designed
to be Oh in in world did creatures what's the right word for this is there a word there it is result the maturing of all creation through humanity ultimately and it's not merely a restoration of Eden we're just trying to get back to the garden it isn't that yes you were we were in the garden we were kicked out of the garden the idea is we are restoring and then surpassing we were putting the the train back on the rails and then actually getting it to its destination you know that we barely left the platform
in the thing derailed and so there is a destination there is a destiny that God had in mind originally for his creatures so here we are we talked about the condition the garden what should have been but wasn't and now we're going to talk about the the bad news right the bad news good news here's the bad news it's the fall so Adam and Eve were created good just an innocent through the seduction of Eve by Satan and by Adams accommodating choice they deliberately disobeyed the Creator pursuing autonomy and betrayal betraying God's fellowship this is
a review basically of your st 103 course okay because of the deliberate sin all humanity has been subjected to physical and spiritual death according to the DTS doctrinal statement what we understand by spiritual death is total depravity this total inability this loss of relationship with God we can do nothing to merit favor with God we can do nothing to contribute to our own spiritual growth or salvation we are essentially and unchangeably unchangeably bad apart from divine grace that's how our dark no statement understands this ambiguous term spiritual death that may not be how other people
understand the term that's how we understand it we're totally depraved as a result of the fall man has lost his relationship with God and stands under the curse of divine wrath always we feel the effects of the fall don't take it personally okay we are living in a fallen world that is subject to corruption we have bodies out of subject to corruption the fall has affected our mind our emotion our will and we are going to feel the effects of this fallenness every day of our lives doesn't mean that God is striking you with a
lightning bolt and constantly on you Saints as well as sinners the saved as well as the lost are feeling the effects of the fallen world and so I I like to put it together this way maybe this is not the best way of putting it together but here it is as a result of the fall there is this common what I'm going to call general you've heard of general grace and common special grace right you can also think of this in terms of wrath as well or this feeling the effects of our fallenness justly so
there's this general or common wrath disaster sickness pain death all of these things we are subject to as creatures and fallen creatures in a fallen world whether you're saved or not God doesn't have to especially single you out for a disease or for a flood or a tornado this is just part of living in this fallen world at the same time scripture does narrate for us that God does sometimes select individuals or nations for a special focus of judgment we might call this special or particular wrath judgment affliction hardening invades a nation and puts an
end to the their wickedness or something like this right afflicts Herod with worms in his stomach and he dies all right that's my favorite judgment in the whole Bible it's just nasty or send someone into you know a HUD in judges you know sends in what's a what's the name Eglon that was a he the king he had set is sent in to kill England it's a it's an act of God's judgment so God does a flick direct specific what I'm gonna call special wrath so both of these things are functioning in God's world after
the fall at the same time we are under general or common grace I just we just thought we have rain you know it's not like it's raining on the on the Christians farm and the next door to him the reprobate you know the rain is just the sun is shining and burning up his crops it's not happening God reigns he sends sunshine he feeds he protects he heals right some people get sick and they recover from it it does it's doesn't that the the life that people have in the enjoyment of life is indiscriminate as
well God's general grace at the same time there is special or particular grace in this world where God specifically heals someone or delivers someone from hardship or saves them open opens the doors of heaven to them through the gospel of Christ and so healing providing there is this particular grace now we're mostly probably you've heard of the concept of general grace and special grace but we haven't thought too hardly hard sometimes about special wrath and general wrath the reality is both of these are happening at the same time and you are not smart enough to
figure it out okay you're just not the tornado hit my house and only hit my house in the neighborhood God must hate me what did I do wrong you know what oh I skipped one of my devotions okay that's not you you can't you can't figure it out God is working things together it is according to his will for His purposes according to his good plan whether he allows hardship in your life or not whether he blesses you or not it's really not up to you and you're really not called to figure it out I
don't know where we got this idea that some day you know I've been praying some day I'm gonna know why my brother died or why my mother died or whatever right someday God will let me maybe you won't ever let you know that what we can do is step back and say god I had no idea why you're doing this or what's going on or whether this is whether you're punishing me or disciplining me I'm sorry are you disciplining me is this your head of discipline or is this just me living in a fallen world
it's irrelevant okay we confess as a point of faith that God is good in what he's doing is good it's according to his good plan and ultimately for our good end into his glory it's for his glory and our good we're told that Romans 8 all things he's working all things together the good things and the bad things in our lives are being worked together for our good doesn't make the bad things good it just means God is bigger than the bad things so that's an important thing that we understand in this fallen world as
God is unfolding this plan at the macro micro level we step back and all what we're supposed to do is just do what's right respond with trust and obedience that's what he wants from us yep it just seems like there would be some life trying to figure out what it was general specific because if it's specific maybe there's something well there is something that you need to change I think that I don't think we have to know that and I don't know that right yeah right and I'm I'm disagreeing with you to a to a
degree I think that if God is disciplining us in some way to change some specific some specific behavior it's probably connected to the to the behavior or it's pretty obvious I don't think it's a constant mystery what God is trying to accomplish I mean he his will is revealed trust and obey and I really think that we don't I think we're really running down the wrong path we're trying to figure out every little bad thing or every good thing that's happening to us by the way this whole scheme also communicates that blessing is not a
sign of favor of special favor right your church explodes with with all kinds of people it means you must be doing something right and need to write a book about it not necessarily not necessarily and your church shrinking does not necessarily mean that you're doing something wrong and have to fix it all right otherwise martyrdom is inexplicable gee I thought he was a great Saint but they got himself killed ha don't do that don't ever do what he did live a godly life and stand for Christ cuz that'll get you killed death is bad therefore
ergo that it doesn't make sense that kind of math doesn't work in God's economy it's backwards God does everything a little backwards okay first will be last last way first hmm no you have too many too many men in the army to win this battle huh you know where'd you go to military College community military college barely all right so keep that in mind okay so how can we best understand the end of humanity in light of the beginning not the end in that sense it's really the end is the new beginning in Christian eschatology
redemption God is going to redeem humanity and creation from the effects of this curse this this purple stuff this purple world that we're living in is going to give way to the blue world right right now you know God could have just left us in the red world could have left us in death and curse and pain and sickness he had every right he would be perfectly just to do that I know that doesn't sit well with people but that's not God's character or plan for us his character and plan entails mercy and grace and
redemption not merely holiness and wrath and justice these are working together these two hands but one day it's going to give way to a a world free from the effects of the curse and restoration God will restore and surpass that's important the identity ssin because remember the Dedic condition itself was intended to be surpassed it was the beginning point of something much bigger you just you just have to think through four dimensionally if they were fruitful multiplied and filled the earth in their unfallen state and tended and kept the garden eight from the tree of
life what would have happened that must have been what God intended to happen okay it really isn't you don't have to be a genius you can be a C or D average student to project that out into the future so Romans 8:18 through 25 and revelation 21 through 22 is a forward-looking verification of this okay so Romans 8 we looked at this this is the all creation is groaning what is it groaning for what is it yearning for liberation from this bondage to corruption that means the corruption that we are seeing that the world is
experiencing itself is going to give way to in corruption the universe the the the world itself is going to give way to this the curse will be lifted in the world itself is going to experience restoration glorification
