The Temple of Eden?

One of the central messages in Scripture concerns our relationship with God. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, had a perfect relationship with God, and they lived in the garden of Eden, a paradise with everything they needed.

However, when they sinned, they lost that perfect relationship with God and their perfect home. The rest of Scripture records the actions God took to restore people’s relationship to himself and renew the now-cursed creation.

When we read Genesis literally, we have a better foundation for understanding the garden and God’s mission to restore his relationship with mankind. Faulty interpretations lead to faulty conclusions.

One such faulty conclusion is that, because God required Adam and Eve to leave the garden, the garden was God’s dwelling place. This assumption comes from those who read Genesis figuratively or argue that it was written by Jews around the time of the exile. They claim that the garden of Eden is modeled as a temple.

For instance, theologian G.K. Beale notes that Eden was “the unique place of God’s presence,” “the place of the first priest,” “the place of the first guarding cherubim,” “the place of the first arboreal lampstand,” and “formative for garden imagery in Israel’s temple.”1

There are a few problems here. To start, Eden and garden are not interchangeable. The garden was a place within the land or region of Eden. Adam and Eve were driven from the garden—not Eden. They may well have spent the rest of their days in Eden but not the garden.

Scripture never says that the garden of Eden was the unique place of God’s presence. God rules in the heavens, and he gave humans dominion over the earth (Psalm 115:16).

Furthermore, a temple is a place for God to inhabit and for sacrifices to be offered. The garden was a home for humans, not God, and there was no need for sacrifices before Adam sinned.

In Genesis 4, Cain laments that God is driving him from the Lord’s presence. It seems that God’s presence was still among them well after they had been booted from the garden. God spoke to Cain to warn him of sin “crouching at the door” (vs. 7). Thus, from the Genesis text, we can infer that God’s presence was not confined to the garden.

There is a link between the garden of Eden and the houses of worship that Israel built, but not the link that scholars such as Beale claim. These links symbolically look back to the garden and forward to a day when sacrifices would no longer be necessary. But if the garden isn’t a historical place, then these links don’t make sense. If the garden is only symbolic, how do we know the New Jerusalem isn’t also only symbolic?

The Tabernacle

While the garden of Eden was not a temple, the Old Testament temple and preceding tabernacle reflected it. From the time of Adam to Moses, people offered sacrifices to God without a designated place until God gave Moses the instructions for building the tabernacle.

While the garden of Eden was not a temple, the Old Testament temple and preceding tabernacle reflected it.

The tabernacle was a visible symbol of God’s presence with the Hebrews—a glimpse of restoration. The tabernacle was literally a tent to shield Israel from God’s glory and provide a place for sacrifices.

Like the garden, the tabernacle had one entrance to the east. Its curtains were embroidered with cherubim, the same creatures that guarded the garden after Adam and Eve were expelled (Exodus 26:1, 31).

The most impressive furniture most priests would ever see was the golden lampstand fashioned to look like a tree (Exodus 25:31–40). Modern menorahs reflect the seven-branch design of the lampstand, likely a reference to the tree of life.

The bronze altar received the offerings to burn day after day (Exodus 27:1–8). And in the holiest place, behind a curtain most priests would never pass through, sat the ark of the covenant. Over the mercy seat, two more cherubim guarded the place where the high priest sprinkled blood once a year (Exodus 25:10–22).

In Genesis 2:15, God put Adam in the garden of Eden “to work it and keep it.” In Hebrew this phrase is two words, ‘ābad and shāmar. Because those two Hebrew words appear again only in reference to the service of priests (Numbers 3:7–8; 8:26, 18:5–6), some, like John Walton in The Lost World of Adam and Eve, claim that Adam served a priestly function in the garden of Eden. But those interpreters have it backwards.

The priest “keeping” the tabernacle and temple reflects man’s original duty to keep the garden of Eden. It doesn’t prove that the garden was a temple.

Solomon’s Temple

Once Israel settled the promised land, David wanted to build a more permanent temple in Jerusalem. His dream became reality under his son Solomon.

While God did not give specific design plans for the Jerusalem temple, Solomon’s temple took significant design elements from the tabernacle, and some of the Edenic garden elements were amplified.

Numerous plant designs recalled the garden of Eden (1 Kings 6:18, 29; 7:20, 22, 42). There were ten lampstands (1 Kings 7:49), and carved cherubim stood in the inner sanctuary (1 Kings 6:23).

Ezekiel’s Temple

In Ezekiel’s day, God judged Judah’s rebellion and idolatry with exile in Babylon. The temple was destroyed. However, to signify that God had not permanently abandoned them, God gave Ezekiel a vision of a new temple. This temple not only promised that God would dwell with his people, but that he would restore his relationship with them in a greater, permanent way.

Ezekiel’s first description of the temple is that it is in Jerusalem, which is renamed “The Lord is there” (Ezekiel 48:35). It is a “structure like a city” to the south of a mountain (Ezekiel 40:2).

This temple has more obvious garden of Eden elements than the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple. A river begins below the southern side of the temple and gradually becomes a great river. It turns saltwater into freshwater, providing a fertile bank for trees to grow (Ezekiel 47:12).

Ezekiel’s temple was never built, and whether it will be a future physical or spiritual reality is a question beyond the scope of this article.

When the Israelites returned and built a second temple, God’s glory never resided there. One commentator explains, “Over the next four hundred years, the second temple [was] architecturally improved and expanded, especially during the reign of King Herod, but the glorious, indwelling presence of God [did] not return to this temple until Jesus [entered] in through the gates.”2

The New Jerusalem

Several decades after Jesus ascended into heaven, God gave the Apostle John a vision of the New Jerusalem, a heavenly city that God’s people will inhabit after Jesus returns, defeats Satan, and reverses the curse of sin and death. There, a river flows from the throne of God, with the tree of life growing on either side, recalling Ezekiel’s temple vision (Revelation 21:22).

The New Jerusalem represents God’s permanent habitation with his people, and the absence of a temple signifies believers’ complete reconciliation with him (Revelation 21:1–2).

Just as the tabernacle and temple pointed to Jesus’ sacrifice that would make the temple unnecessary, so we now await the consummation of everything those temples symbolized.

When we read Genesis literally, we have the foundation for understanding the rest of Scripture. There is imagery of the garden of Eden in the tabernacle and temples, but the imagery looks forward, not backward.