"And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had
formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of
good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted,
and became into four heads" (Gen. 2:8-10).

Eden means "pleasure" or "delight" (the same Hebrew word is found in 2 Sam. 1:24 and Psa.
36:8). It suggests a scene in which was found everything that could minister to the natural
happiness of an innocent man. Every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food was
there. The garden also contained features_the tree of life and the river_that are distinctly typical
of Christ and the Spirit. From the very outset God gave an intimation that He had in His mind a
greater good for man than anything that could be found in the natural sphere. The tree of life in
the midst of the garden was a suggestion and promise of something better and greater than all the
good with which He had surrounded Adam. It was the promise of life before sin came in, before
the ages of time had begun to run their course, and while death was only known as the terrible
penalty attached by Jehovah’s word to disobedience. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil
was there also. But this was a question which God alone was equal to; man was not competent to
take it up; it meant ruin for him to touch it. Hence God fenced about the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil with the most restraining prohibition possible, and with the most solemn penalty
attached to disobedience.

The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bring in such great and important
subjects that they call for careful consideration. It seems as if God here plainly declared the two
great questions which He purposed to work out in connection with man. The two trees standing
together seem to suggest that the question of life for man was bound up with the solution of the
question of good and evil. That question having come into the universe, it had to be settled
according to God’s glory, so that life according to His thought of it might become the portion of
His creatures. Man became involved in that question by his disobedience and fall. God knows
good and evil, and can take account of both perfectly; man could only get that knowledge by
becoming evil himself. But it was in the purpose of God that man should be as Himself in knowing
good and evil in a holy nature, and this comes about through Christ and through the cross.

The question of good and evil was too great for the creature; man gained the knowledge of it, but
in so doing, fell under the penalty for disobedience. But now, God has made it possible for good
and evil to be known in the way of pure blessing, and not simply in a guilty conscience. What a
setting forth of good and evil was there at the cross! Good in God was brought to light by the evil
in man in a way it could never have been known in a world of innocence! We see the evil judged
there too, and the death penalty attached to that tree coming upon One who bore it in love, to
God’s glory. As a result, streams of life and blessing flow out from that very spot. Evil has
become the background to show out the luster and glory of good in the blessed God. The
revelation of God in Christ seems to be what is really typified by the tree of life. When the
creature is brought to live by the knowledge of God as revealed in the Person of Christ through
the Holy Scriptures, a power of life is brought in that no evil can touch.

We see in the cross the two trees brought together. Good and evil have been brought to light and
disentangled there. We see the infinite goodness of God there, and we see evil both in man and
Satan fully exposed, but the good in God has triumphed over the evil. The whole question is
settled now, and the One who has settled it has become the Tree of life. But having been involved
in that question by the fall, we have to learn its character and solution through moral exercises,
in which we make discovery of what we are, and also, through grace, of what God is. And this
is not only in connection with the first exercises of the soul that prepare it for the gospel, but
through those experiences by which the people of God "have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil" (Heb. 5:14).

"A river went out of Eden to water the garden." When God recovers man through redemption He
gives him His own Spirit; that is more than Adam innocent ever had. It is God’s way when
anything fails which He has set up to bring in something better. He permits in His wisdom an
order to exist in which failure can come, and when it comes He secures greater glory for Himself
and greater happiness for His creatures by bringing in a better thing. To be forgiven, justified, and
indwelt by the Holy Spirit puts one in a higher and better place_into much greater nearness to
God_than Adam had as an innocent being. The Christian through redemption has the Spirit of
God, and that is more than living by the inbreathing of God. The believer has his own spirit, but
he has also God’s Spirit bearing witness with his spirit that he is a child of God (Rom. 8:16).

The picture of the garden of Eden given here is most wonderful. The tree and the river are here,
and we get them again at the end of Revelation. What God begins with He ends with. He began
with Christ in a typical way, and He will end with Christ in fullest reality. He has brought all that
Christ is into view, and the very fall of man has become the occasion of his appreciating in a very
deep and blessed way, when born again and having the Spirit, all that God is as revealed in Christ.
It is wonderful that we should have before the fall such a setting forth typically of grace and of the
outgoings of God’s heart.

God has come in and solved the question of good and evil in the cross and death of Christ. He has
brought everything into clear light there, and has done it in favor of man, so that from that spot
blessing flows out. The rivers suggest that, and four points to universality (as in the four
directions). No doubt they speak, too, of the outflow of blessing from the sanctuary on earth and
from the heavenly city in a coming day (see Ezek. 47:1-12; Rev. 22:1,2). But at the present time
the rivers find their answer in the gospel going out in the power of the Holy Spirit.