All right, we’ll jump in quick. The Bible is separated into two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. You probably already knew that right? Okay. Stay with me…the Bible has layers. So do you.
You’re probably thinking to yourself, “What crazy psychology man? What did you say?”
Yes, the Bible has layers and so do you.
You have layers of ability that you use, and you don’t even realize that they are there. There is truth that you are benefitting from, and you aren’t even aware of it. We try to make life way too academic sometimes and try to explain things in really big sentences. I’m terribly guilty of this myself. Just think about this question for a second. How many times did you tell your heart to beat this morning before you left for work or for school? Or how about this…how many times did you take a breath today? You probably weren’t aware of these things. You take them for granted because they are subconscious. You just do them. But you know that it is true and happening, because you can feel yourself breathing or take your pulse as you read this.
The Bible has layers too, and we neglect to recognize the significance of the information we have been given.
Still with me?
God is mysterious, right? Of course He is. But He is consistent to the point that we miss it completely. I like to think about it as though God made things so simple that we try to complicate things… just so that smart people can say…they don’t know.
We miss a huge piece of God’s message to us when it comes to the Garden of Eden.
It’s kind of like not being able to see the forest, because all of the trees are in the way.
When you were in Sunday school as a kid did they teach you about the Garden of Eden? Did they teach you it was between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in Iraq? That’s what I was taught.
The Bible starts in Genesis. God created everything in six days. He planted a garden in Eden. A river flowed out of Eden and became four rivers. They are the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. I was taught that the Garden of Eden was in modern day Iraq because that’s where the Tigris and Euphrates are. I asked where the Gihon River was, and they could not give me an answer. What about the Pishon River? Again they could not give me an answer. So I was taught that the Garden of Eden is lost forever, and there’s no way to find it, because we don’t know where the other two rivers were located. So they told me, “Maybe it was in Turkey.” I think they just wanted me to stop asking so many questions.
Then I read the Bible some more.
The Gihon River was in Jerusalem. Underneath the temple mount is a slow flowing spring called the Gihon spring. They even named it the Gihon Spring! Imagine that. Pretty convenient! If you look in Revelation you will see the restored version of the Garden of Eden, called New Jerusalem. It has a river flowing out from underneath the throne of God. The “River of Life” flows from God’s throne in the New Jerusalem and waters the earth for the healing of the nations. The River of Life has the Tree of Life on both sides of it. The Tree of Life was in Eden, and now we see the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem, having water flowing underneath it. The image I get here is that the tree is split like a tunnel with the River of Life flowing underneath and through it.
So geographically there are some parallels between the Garden of Eden, Israel and the New Jerusalem. Underneath the current Jerusalem is a spring called the Gihon Spring. In the Garden of Eden there’s a river feeding four rivers. In the New Jerusalem there’s a River of Life flowing out from underneath God’s throne and past the Tree of Life. I was beginning to see that the Garden of Eden really never went anywhere. God told the story of Israel and the promises of the Messiah centering on Jerusalem…for a reason. It was in Israel.
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