Class Notes

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The Garden of Eden

Read Genesis 3

Intro

• The Bible uses Heaven and Earth to describe God's space and our space.
• In the beginning, these spaces overlapped perfectly (Genesis 1-2)
• God created a common place for Himself and humanity to cohabitate and called it the Garden of Eden.
• Tempted by the evil one, humans decided to have autonomy and live in a world where they rule, apart from God, and so the two spaces were driven apart (Genesis 3).

​The Temple

• During their travel from Egypt to Canaan, God gave Moses instructions to build a tabernacle (mobile church tent) to meet with His people.
• God wants to live with his people, so he made a place (tabernacle/temple) and a practice (animal sacrifice) for humans to be forgiven so that God's space and humanity's space could once again overlap.
• Animal sacrifices was supposed to absorb the sin when the animal died in your place. And it creates a clean space, so to speak, where you are now free to enter into the temple and be in God’s presence.

 
Heaven and Earth Overlap in Jesus

• In the Gospel of John 1:14, we hear that God became human in Jesus and “made his dwelling among us.” (dwelling in Greek uses the word tabernacle=he set up a tent among us).
• So, wherever Jesus went, the Kingdom of Heaven was present because of Him.
• Christ dying on the cross replaces the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. His sacrifice unites us with God wherever we are.
• When we unite ourselves with Christ, we also become a "dwelling" place for the Lord to reside in.

 
The Future: Heaven Comes to Earth

• Heaven and Earth are reunited through Christ and will be completely brought together one day when He returns.

Remember

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About the Garden of Eden:

• Was a place where God’s space and humanity’s space were one (The Kingdom of Heaven).
• We lost this privilege by sinning.
  
• God sent Jesus to bring us back into this place.