Sword & Trowel 2015: Issue 1
of the passage. Genesis 2.6 tells us ‘there went up a
mist from the earth,’ (some translate it ‘springs’) ‘and watered the whole face of the ground.’ God watered the earth and then produced the plants from it. After that (on the sixth day) ‘the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ The Lord breathed into man something special that was not given to the animals. This is more than a reference to life and animation, for it describes the spiritual element of man. The language of craftsmanship,
revealing how God made everything with man in mind, continues in Gen- esis 2.8: ‘The Lord God planted a
garden eastward in Eden.’ This geo- graphical reference shows that there was a time when people could deter- mine where the Garden of Eden had been. Perhaps the Flood obliterated all trace of it. Today, some think it was in Iraq, others elsewhere, but long ago, there was a defi nite place: ‘eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.’ The word ‘formed’ is a craftsman’s term, and we may note the words that fol- low: ‘Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.’ It is all done for the human race.
The Personal Spiritual Life by Dr Masters and Nearly a Christian, the updated edition of C H Spurgeon’s Around the Wicket Gate, have been published in Korean. These books were translated by Rev Horace Shon, a former LRBS seminarian, and published by Word of Life Press. Copies are available from Tabernacle Bookshop.
page 38 The Garden of Eden
When man was put into the Gar- den of Eden to dress it and keep it, he did not have to work in a way that was onerous or diffi cult for him. Hard labour came later with the curse (chapter 3.19). Before man’s Fall it was pleasure and delight, activity that engaged his best capacities and abilities. We can only imagine a form of crea- tive gardening with no chores or negative as- pects, no deterioration and decay, and no un- wanted invasive weeds, so that all was fulfi lling, enjoyable, constructive and astonishingly beau- tiful. We observe that even in the ideal environment of Paradise, man was ap- pointed to ‘work’. Before the Fall, the application
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