Genesis 2:8
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 1:28
And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it."
When God first made man, He placed him in a garden. He made him a gardener and charged him with the task of conquering more land for the purpose of cultivating it and making the world increasingly more and more fruitful.
Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
So when Satan desired to tempt Adam, he led him to believe that all his hard work was actually fruitless. He led him to wonder if the fruit he had been working so hard to cultivate wasn't perhaps only second-rate produce and that the good stuff was being withheld from him.
Genesis 3:8
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
After Adam and Eve sinned, their familiar garden was no longer a home, but a hiding place.
Genesis 3:15
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her Offspring;
He shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise His heel.
So God, in His mercy, provided hope in the midst of destruction. Though Adam had given in to fruitlessness, God promised a new Seed would be planted which would one day erase all of the weeds.
Genesis 3:17
17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
But in the meantime, gardening was going to become much more complicated. Adam was not given a new chore. Gardening was still the work du jour.
For thousands of years, God's people held onto the hope of a garden where they could walk with God. And along the way, He provided sneak previews. For example, the land of Canaan flowed with milk and honey and produced enormous, enjoyable produce.
But no garden could be found that man could not corrupt. So the Seed came down from Heaven to be planted in our earth. And the Seed grew and flourished.
Luke 2:52
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
But the plant that grew was not appreciated by those who watched it. Though it defied all the odds of dry ground and lack of nutrition, it grew on food of which no one else knew, nutrition from God's Word that supplied Him with everything He needed to thrive.
Isaiah 53:2
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
John 4:32
He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
But the time came for the plant to die so that the dry earth could live. The blood of the Son would give the soil the nutrients it needed to produce fruit again the likes of which had not been seen since Eden.
Galatians 3:16
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ.
John 12:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
So the Seed prepared Himself to be cracked open and shoved into the soil.
John 18:1
When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.
As He began to crack, the blood began to spill. It would continue to spill until it was all of it emptied out into the ground for the people He loved, who themselves were born of dust.
Luke 22:40-44
And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, w“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
But this blood would not be spilled in vain or in futility.
2 Samuel 14:14
We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.
This blood would not remain in the dirt. By this blood, God was devising the means by which those born of dirt may rise again.
John 19:41-42
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
So God buried His precious Seed in a garden. What began in garden with one man now ended in another garden with the Man. The first Adam forsook his fruitful calling and plunged the earth into turmoil. The second Adam did not forsake His Father and died what appeared to be a fruitless fashion. But this death was merely a sowing which would become the soil from which growing would forever take place. And the Seed arose a new creation.
John 20:15-16
Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Mary assumed the Seed was buried in the soil which is why she never considered that the gardener was, in fact, the Seed.
Revelation 22:1-2
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 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. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
And in the end, everything will be restored again to the state of a garden in which we will live, move, walk, work and have our being with God.
There is more, of course, but that is a Cook's Tour of the Gospel of Jesus Christ according to: GARDENS
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