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In The Beginning Bible Study, Lesson 4

The Garden of Eden

Genesis 2:8-14 tells us, 

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there He put the man He had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

So was the Garden of Eden in Israel, with the Tree of Life planted in Jerusalem, the center? You may say, “But the Euphrates and Tigris rivers are by Baghdad in Iraq.” We must remember that we cannot look at our modern maps and think that this is how the land was back in the beginning. We also have to take into consideration the Flood and how much the landscape changed after that, so the flow of these rivers also could have changed. But we also must think about this: just how big was the garden of Eden, if every animal and every tree and shrub that was created was there? Besides all of those that exist today, there have been so many kinds of animals, vegetation, and trees that have become extinct, even like the dinosaurs. We know that Israel once owned Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine. We will take a closer look as we go on.

We now see God as a gardener, planting a garden with fruit trees by four rivers in the east, a place called Eden. In the middle of the garden were two trees, specific trees which were called out from the other trees—one was the Tree of Life, and the other the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

Let’s take a closer look at these two trees. The Tree of Life was just that—it brought life. 

Proverbs 3:13-18 tells us this: 

Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed.

Proverbs 3:19-24 continues, 

The Lord made the earth, using His wisdom. He set the sky in place, using His understanding. With His knowledge, He made springs flow into rivers and the clouds drop rain on the earth. My child, hold on to wisdom and good sense. Don’t let them out of your sight. They will give you life and beauty like a necklace around your neck. Then you will go your way in safety, and you will not get hurt. When you lie down, you won’t be afraid; when you lie down, you will sleep in peace.

We know that wisdom can only be the Word of God/Yeshua, as John 1:14 tells us, “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, as we read in Ephesians 6:17, “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” 

So is Proverbs saying that if we find wisdom, we will find the Tree of Life? Yes! Yeshua was in the middle of the garden just like He was in the wilderness, for we saw Him in the rock that followed the Israelites and gave them water, and in the manna that they ate, as we read in 1 Corinthians 10:3-4, “They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Messiah.” 

Again in John 6:31-33,

“Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread out of heaven to eat.’” Yeshua then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”

So how about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? If the Tree of Life was God’s wisdom that brought life, we see that the Tree of Knowledge brought death to Adam and Eve. In Romans, Paul tells us exactly that about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. (Romans 7:7-12)

Genesis 3:1-6 tells us, 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

The Fruit of the Garden

So we have one more question: was the fruit that Eve ate really an apple? Let’s consider this. There are 613 commandments in the Torah. It is believed that the pomegranate has exactly 613 seeds. So could the pomegranate, which is also round and red, be the fruit Eve ate, being that it represents the commandments? The pomegranate is a traditional fruit eaten at the Biblical Feast of Weeks, otherwise known as Pentecost. It is the commemoration of the giving of the Torah and the Holy Spirit. The pomegranate was on the priestly vestments, as we read in Exodus 28:31-35,

You shall make the robe of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a garment, so that it may not tear. On its hem you shall make pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet yarns, around its hem, with bells of gold between them, a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, around the hem of the robe. And it shall be on Aaron when he ministers, and its sound shall be heard when he goes into the Holy Place before the LORD, and when he comes out, so that he does not die.

Again the connection between pomegranates and death. Also, when you eat pomegranates with your hands it leaves a red blood stain. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”

Again in Jeremiah 2:22, “’Although you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your iniquity is before Me,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

1 John 1:7 tells us (according to the Amplified Version), 

But if we [really] walk in the Light [that is, live each and every day in conformity with the precepts of God], as He Himself is in the Light, we have [true, unbroken] fellowship with one another [He with us, and we with Him], and the blood of Yeshua His Son cleanses us from all sin [by erasing the stain of sin, keeping us cleansed from sin in all its forms and manifestations].

Maybe the apple was the fruit on the Tree of Life, because the apple is eaten at the Biblical Feasts of Trumpets to represent the sweetness of life. 

One thing we do know is that they took fig leaves to cover themselves. Genesis 3:7 says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Now, maybe the fig leaves were within arm’s length, or maybe they had just eaten those figs, but we see that after mentioning the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, now we see here fig leaves. This is very significant because figs are mentioned many times in the Bible. So what does this all represent? 

The Story of the Fig Tree

We see that after the reign of King Solomon the kingdom was divided into two—the northern ten tribes and the southern two tribes, as 1 Kings 12:20-24 tells us,

And when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was none that followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only. When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, 180,000 chosen warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam the son of Solomon. But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: “Say to Rehoboam the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your relatives the people of Israel. Every man return to his home, for this thing is from Me.’” So they listened to the word of the Lord and went home again, according to the word of the Lord.

The house of Israel was referred to as an olive tree, and the house of Judah was referred to as a fig tree. We read in Scripture that both houses transgressed God laws and both fell into pagan practices. Jeremiah 24:1-10 gives us a hidden message:

After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the Lord showed me this vision: behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the Lord. One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten. And the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.” Then the word of the Lord came to me: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up. I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be My people and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart. But thus says the Lord: Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt. I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them. And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.”

Did you catch the message? One basket was good and the other basket was bad, or should we say, evil. The baskets represent the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

In Matthew 21:18-20 Yeshua also has an encounter with a fig tree. 

In the morning, as He was returning to the city, He became hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, He went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And He said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?”

So what is the meaning of all of this? The fig tree represented the tribe of Judah. The tree was full of leaves—you would think that was good. It showed that the tree was alive and healthy, which the tribe of Judah was. But the tree had no fruit on it (figs), so Yeshua cursed it because no matter how healthy the tree was, it wasn’t any good without fruit. It shows the lack of spirituality of the tribe of Judah.

John 15:1-4, 6 tells us, 

I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. . . . If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

Matthew 21:43-44 continues, “Therefore I tell you, the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

Of course, we know that in 70 AD the curse of the fig tree quickly came, and the tree that was cursed withered very quickly, for John the Baptist said that the axe was already laid to the root: “Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 3:10). Other parables regarding the fig tree are in Luke 13:6-9 and Matthew 24:32-34. 

So we see that eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil had quite the impact throughout the history of mankind, but God did not leave us in such a desperate state, for He tells the serpent in Genesis 3:14-15, 

Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 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.

And as we all know, the Savior, the Messiah Yeshua, came—and how did He die? On a tree! 

One more point. Genesis 3:21 tells us, “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” For God to make garments of skins implies that God sacrificed sheep to do that, symbolizing once again that Yeshua the Lamb of God would be sacrificed. How do we know that it was sheep? Because as we read in Revelation 13:8, the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. 

Where Is the Garden of Eden?

So let’s continue after that bite of fruit. If the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, then could it be true what the Jewish scholars believe: that the Garden of Eden was created before the foundation of the world? Even though many other scholars feel that the Garden of Eden was mythical and did not exist, Scripture tells us something different. So where was the Garden of Eden? Could it have been in the heavenlies, as Revelation 2:7 tells us: “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the paradise of God.”

And yet, Yeshua Himself made reference to Eden in Luke 23:43. “Yeshua answered him, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.’” Christians always make reference to the fact that we are going to spend eternity in heaven, so are they saying that Eden is in heaven? We say, find the Tree of Life and you will find Eden.

But to better understand the Garden of Eden, we must go to the Scriptures to look at the end of time to find the beginning. Here are a few clues on how it was at the time of creation.

Isaiah 11:6-9 tells us, 

And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

The Garden of Eden will be as peaceful and bountiful as it was in the day that Adam walked with these same animals. In Judaism the process by which the world will one day be restored to Edenic paradise is called tikkun olam, “fixing/repairing the world.”

Regarding the bounty of the restored Garden of Eden, the second-century church father Irenaeus preserves a tradition from the earlier church father Papias. Papias collected sayings which he claimed originated with the apostles. Unfortunately, Papias’ original works are lost, and all that remains of these sayings is what has been preserved by other authors who quoted him. One of these quotations is particularly interesting, touching on this topic of the Messianic Age. Irenaeus recounts one of the sayings that Papias attributed to Yeshua: 

The days will come in which vines shall grow, having each ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in every one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five-and-twenty metretes [approximately 264 gallons] of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, “I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me!” In like manner, He said that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear would have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds of clear, pure, fine flour; and that apples, and seeds, and grass would produce in similar proportions; and that all animals, feeding then only on the productions of the earth, would become peaceable and harmonious, and be in perfect subjection to man.

The quotation of Papias continues with an objection. Judas does not understand how such prosperity could be possible: 

And Judas the traitor, not believing, and asking, “How shall such growths be accomplished by the Lord?” the Lord said, “They shall see who shall come to them.” (Against Heresies, Book V, 33:4)

The reason that this is such an interesting saying is because it has parallels in early Jewish tradition. You may wonder, why does this saying use the specific figure ten thousand branches per vine? The reason is it is based on a Jewish style of interpretation which heavily relies on wordplay. We have seen a couple of examples of this interpretive style in earlier quotations from rabbinic literature. 

Here is how it works in the case of this saying attributed to Yeshua. Genesis 27:28 is part of a passage where Isaac is blessing his son Jacob. More than a blessing, it is a prophecy of the future. Isaac says, “Now may God give you of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of grain and new wine.” The Hebrew word translated “abundance” in this verse is very similar to the word for “ten-thousandfold.” The idea of the talking grapes is likewise based on a wordplay in Genesis 49:12. Similar to the other verse, this one is part of Jacob’s blessing of his son Judah—the royal, Messianic line. This verse contains the phrase, “His eyes are darker than wine.” If you split one of the Hebrew words (chaklili) into three (chak li li), it could then be translated, “Taste me! My springs are richer than wine” (this being the grapes speaking). These two creative midrashic interpretations are brought together, connected by the prophetic, Messianic nature of their contexts, in the saying attributed to Yeshua by Papias.

This saying, and especially the interaction with the skeptical Judas, is very similar to a saying preserved in the Talmud. It is recorded that Rabbi Gamliel was teaching about the miraculous abundance and fertility that will take place in the Messianic Era: 

Rabban Gamliel sat and interpreted a verse homiletically: In the future, in the World-to-Come, trees will produce fruits every day, as it is stated: “And it shall bring forth branches and bear fruit” (Ezekiel 17:23); just as a branch grows every day, so too, fruit will be produced every day. A certain student scoffed at him and said: Isn’t it written: There is nothing new under the sun? He said to him: Come and I will show you an example of this in this world. He went outside and showed him a caper bush, part of which is edible during each season of the year. (b. Shabbat 30b)

Additionally, in the book of 1 Enoch there is a passage similar to the teaching ascribed to Yeshua by Papias. Speaking of the Messianic Kingdom and its Edenic qualities, it says:

And then shall the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and shall all be planted with trees and be full of blessing. And all desirable trees shall be planted on it, and they shall plant vines on it: and the vine which they plant thereon shall yield wine in abundance, and as for all the seed which is sown thereon each measure (of it) shall bear a thousand, and each measure of olives shall yield ten presses of oil. (1 Enoch 10:18-20)

Again, there is a similar passage in 2 Baruch 29:4-8, which talks about the miraculous abundance of the Kingdom. Interestingly, within this fascinating passage we find the same teaching about the abundance of the vine, probably based on the same midrashic interpretation of Genesis 27. Also note the mention of dew, which we talked about earlier: 

And Behemoth shall be revealed from his place and Leviathan shall ascend from the sea, those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation, and shall have kept until that time: and then they shall be for food for all that are left. The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousandfold and on each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a cor of wine. And those who have hungered shall rejoice: moreover, also, they shall behold marvels every day. For winds shall go forth from before Me to bring every morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the day clouds distilling the dew of health. And it shall come to pass at that self-same time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years, because these are they who have come to the consummation of time.

These were not just extravagant musings or fantasies. They are based on the words of the prophets who spoke of a future era of abundance in the Messianic Age.

Amos 9:13-14 speaks of the agricultural abundance that there will be in the Kingdom:

“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.”

Likewise, Hosea 2:21-23 speaks of this same thing: 

“And in that day I will answer,” declares the Lord, “I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel, and I will sow her for Myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are My people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’”

Jeremiah 31:5 says, “Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit.”

Ezekiel 28:25-26 says, 

Thus says the Lord God: “When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest My holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to My servant Jacob. And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.”

Once again in Ezekiel 34:26-27, 

And I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them.

One final verse from the prophets is Isaiah 25:6, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.”

Yeshua also makes reference to the great feast in the Kingdom, which is a result of this miraculous abundance: “And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the Kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29). In another place He says, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 8:11). This theme also shows up in the parables about the Kingdom, such as in Matthew 22, “The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (verse 2), and Matthew 25, “And while they were going away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast” (verse 10).

What we must understand is that when God created time, or should I say history, He created it in seven parts. The first part was pre-creation, when the Scriptures tell us, “In the beginning…” The second part was creation: “God created.” The third part was from Eden to pre-flood. The fourth part was from the flood to pre-Yeshua. The fifth part was post-crucifixion. The sixth part is the day of the Lord (called the end times), and the seventh part is the restored Eden, also called “The Age to Come,” which consists of the 1,000 year reign of Yeshua. These seven parts, or should we say “days,” coincide with the seven days of creation. 

Some commentators have understood that the six days of creation followed by the sabbath is a timeline of history. Psalm 90:4 says, “A day in Your sight is like a thousand years.” By this interpretation, history will be consummated after the earth has completed 6,000 years. The seventh day Sabbath in this sense foreshadows and represents the thousand-year millennial reign of Messiah. The early Christian writing Epistle of Barnabas passes on this tradition: 

Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, “He finished in six days.” This implies that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years. And He Himself testifies, saying, “Behold, today will be as a thousand years.” Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. “And He rested on the seventh day.” This means: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day. (Epistle of Barnabas 15:4-5)

So let’s look at this seventh day.

The Seventh Day: The Restored Eden

The reign of Yeshua is not in heaven, but right here on earth. Revelation 20:4-6 tells us,

Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Yeshua and because of the Word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Messiah for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Messiah and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

God promised King David that a descendant of his would reign on his throne forever, as 2 Samuel 7:16 tells us, “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before Me; your throne will be established forever.'”

In 1 Kings 9:5, God passes the promise on to Solomon: “I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’”

Revelation 19:6-9 tells us of the great marriage feast that will take place for the redeemed in the restored Eden.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

So we see in Scripture what this will look like. Isaiah 2:2-3 says this: 

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Isaiah 35:8-10 tells us, 

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor any ravenous beast; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, and those the Lord has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Jeremiah 31:12-14 tells us, 

“They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they will be radiant over the bounty of the Lord—over the grain and the new wine and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; and their life will be like a watered garden, and they will never languish again. Then the virgin will rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old, together, for I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow. I will fill the soul of the priests with abundance, and My people will be satisfied with My goodness,” declares the Lord.

Revelation 22:1-2, says this: “Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street.” Just like in Eden, we see again a river flowing through it. This river is also mentioned in Zechariah 14:8, “And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.” We see something similar in Ezekiel 47:12, 

By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.

Revelation 22:2-3 continues, referring to the trees by the river: 

On either side of the river was the Tree of Life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;

As we see, there will be no Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the restored Jerusalem because man has been redeemed and the stain has been washed away. Now the Law is within us, as Hebrews 8:10 tells us, 

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

But we will come and eat of God’s Word from the Tree of Life: “And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them” (Hebrews 8:11).

Micah 4:2 also tells us,

Many nations will come and say, “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us about His ways and that we may walk in His paths.” For from Zion will go forth the law, even the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Isaiah 2:3 is very similar: 

Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

Zechariah 14:16-21 says, 

Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain. If the Egyptian people do not go up and take part, they will have no rain. The Lord will bring on them the plague He inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. On that day, “Holy to the Lord” will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord’s house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the Lord Almighty.

Isaiah 66:18-23 also says, 

“For I know their works and their thoughts; the time is coming to gather all nations and tongues. And they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them and will send survivors from them to the nations: Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands that have neither heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they will declare My glory among the nations. Then they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as a grain offering to the Lord, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the sons of Israel bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the Lord. I will also take some of them for priests and for Levites,” says the Lord. “For just as the new heavens and the new earth which I make will endure before Me,” declares the Lord, “So your offspring and your name will endure. And it shall be from new moon to new moon and from sabbath to sabbath, all mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the Lord.

As you see, the redeemed will be keeping the Feast of Tabernacles each year, because that is what this feast represents: dwelling with God for eternity. So this would be the fulfillment of this feast, along with the keeping of the New Moon celebration which brings in the new Biblical month. We shall also keep the seventh day Sabbath.

Hebrews 4:1-13 tells us this about the future Sabbath rest: 

Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’” And yet His works have been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all His works.” And again in the passage above He says, “They shall never enter My rest.” Therefore since it still remains for some to enter that rest, and since those who formerly had the good news proclaimed to them did not go in because of their disobedience, God again set a certain day, calling it “Today.” This He did when a long time later He spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience. For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

1 Corinthians 13:8-10 tells us, 

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

Many people feel that the day of perfection has arrived with the coming of Yeshua; but it is not His first coming that brought perfection, but His second coming that will bring perfection. With the restoring of Eden will come the restoring of Jerusalem.

And so Jerusalem shall become new, as Isaiah 54:11-13 tells us, 

O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and your foundations I will lay in sapphires. Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies, and your gates of crystal, and your entire wall of precious stones. All your sons will be taught of the Lord; and the well-being of your sons will be great.

Revelation 21:5-7 says this, 

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”

After the Age to Come, we will then enter into the “Hereafter.” The Hereafter happens after the thousand year reign of Messiah, also known as the restored Eden. Satan will once again be set free, and he will be cast into hell forever, and the second judgment takes place, and once again we see God creating. 

Isaiah 60:19-22 tells us, 

No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light; but you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory. Your sun will no longer set, nor will your moon wane; for you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be over. Then all your people will be righteous; they will possess the land forever, the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, that I may be glorified. The smallest one will become a clan, and the least one a mighty nation. I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time.

Who is “the branch of my planting”? Isaiah 61:3 tells us this about God’s planting: “So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”

Revelation 21:1 tells us, “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.”

As Revelation 21:9b tells us, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” Now once again we see here the bride in the age to come, but here she is the New Jerusalem. It continues in Revelation 21:10-27, 

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall. The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements. The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

The foundation stones to the New Jerusalem are like the ephod that was worn by the High Priest, as shown in Exodus 28:17-21, 

You shall mount on it four rows of stones; the first row shall be a row of ruby, topaz and emerald; and the second row a turquoise, a sapphire and a diamond; and the third row a jacinth, an agate and an amethyst; and the fourth row a beryl and an onyx and a jasper; they shall be set in gold filigree. The stones shall be according to the names of the sons of Israel: twelve, according to their names; they shall be like the engravings of a seal, each according to his name for the twelve tribes.

John 14:1-3 tells us about this New Jerusalem

Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

So, are we the New Jerusalem?

Ephesians 2:19-22 tells us, 

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Messiah Yeshua Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Again in 1 Peter 2:4-6, 

And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Messiah Yeshua. For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

We see from Scripture that there will be no sun or moon, for the glory of the Lord will illuminate it, and there will also be no sea. This means that the new Earth will not need to rotate around the sun, which means there will be no day or night, there will be no seasons, there will be no time. So you can basically say the Earth will not be round, because it will not rotate or spin around the sun or any other planet. There will be no sea, no tide, no weather, no atmosphere, no oxygen. 

Hebrews 1:10-12 tells us, 

You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; and they all will become old like a garment, and like a mantle You will roll them up; like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not come to an end.

Philippians 3:20-21 tells us that we are being transformed, 

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Messiah Yeshua; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

We will continue to look at our transformation as we now take a look at Adam, because he is a big part of the garden of Eden.