Walking With Christ

Genesis 3:24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.(ESV)

The garden of Eden was the place where man walked with God in harmony. It was a place of purity and innocence. When sin entered the world through the original sin, God had to create distance between mankind and Himself because God can’t be in the presence of sin. His natural reaction to sin is to remove it, destroy it. For us, who have sinned and are sinful by nature, to be in His presence would require us to be destroyed because of the sin we carry. So, God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden. We couldn’t be allowed back into the presence of God without the sin being removed first.

Human nature being what it is, people would try to go back into the garden if the gate wasn’t closed, locked, and guarded. To that end, God placed the cherubim at the entrance to the garden to make sure that no humans ever got close enough that He would have to destroy us. It’s important to note that death by the cherubim is not the same as being destroyed by God. One is merely a physical death. The other means that our very existence would cease.

God still walks in the garden. There is no reason to believe that the garden was ever destroyed, and it’s not like He was forced to leave. However, Eden wasn’t the only garden God walked through.

Mathew 26:52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”(ESV)

John 18:11 So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”(ESV)

Mark and Luke do not have the same details that Matthew and John give. Only John mentions Peter by name. This could be because John was one of the three present for this event. It could also be because of the sometimes comical relationship between the two.

Jesus, God in human form, told Peter in the garden of Gethsemane to put the sword away because it was His time to be taken out of the garden. The flaming sword at the entrance of Eden was, in one sense, protecting God’s holiness from our sinful existence, but more importantly, protecting us from the wrath of God that would be poured out upon any sin found in His presence. At the garden of Gethsemane, Peter uses the sword to try to protect God from being taken out of the garden and Jesus tells him to put the sword away. This was a necessary part of His mission on earth to redeem us so that we could enter into paradise with Him once more.

One last thing about this, I know that it’s important that it was Peter who used the sword, but I haven’t fully answered why that is so significant.

The sword at Eden barred humanity from God’s presence, while the command to put the sword away at Gethsemane opened the way for reconciliation. In both instances, we see God’s relentless pursuit to restore what was lost. Through Jesus, we see that the path back to Eden and to the presence of God, back to the original design, is not through force or human intervention but through the surrender and sacrificial love that only He could provide.