The Garden of Eden (Doughty)/Chapter 9

by John Doughty

 

 

IX.

THE RESTORATION.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. . . . Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.— Rev. xxii. 1, 2, 14.

S the Word of God, in recording the spiritual history of man, begins by placing him in the Garden of Eden, so it ends by restoring him to that beautiful dwelling-place from whence, through sin, he was driven. Eden is the first blessing and the last promise which the Lord offers to man. It is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, of the divine alphabet of human holiness. It embraces all things delightful and pleasant, all things wise and true, all things loving and good, all things innocent and pure. But as the Lord looks especially to man's eternal good and not to his temporal success—to that other world which is spiritual and whose joys are unending, and not to this which is natural and whose pleasures are transient—it is evident that the blessings which Eden comprises must be of a spiritual and not of a worldly character. This realm is no Mohammedan paradise of beautiful houris, delicious perfumes, voluptuous music, and other sensual delights. It is that generous, pure and holy state of the soul which rests in the Lord, which takes home to the heart the spiritual life that He has taught, and which finds its chief pleasure and delight in doing good.

We fully understand, now, that Eden is a state of the soul and not a natural locality. Were it not so, we could not approach the closing chapter of Scripture with any just appreciation of its meaning. Like the great I AM who is the only God, and yet is called by many names, Jehovah, Jesus, Christ or Lord, Adonai or Immanuel, so, in a large sense, there is only one spiritual home for man, although it is referred to or spoken of in Scripture under many names. In Isaiah it is called Hephzibah, the Lord's delight, and also Beulah, the married land. In many places it is called Jerusalem, sometimes Zion; Jesus preached it as the kingdom of heaven; John described it as the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. But it is introduced in the early chapters of Genesis as the Garden of Eden

Now all these expressions are typical of a spiritual state of the Church or of man. True, Zion and Jerusalem were literal localities; but they are used as the symbols of interior states of purity, wisdom and love. The restoration of Zion and Jerusalem so often described under glowing imagery, is but the restoration of Eden under another name. It is not natural cities in their pride of numbers and outward glory concerning which the Lord is solicitous, so much as it is a spiritual state of his Church. The kingdom of heaven which Jesus preached, and into whose courts He invited his followers, was only Eden again under another name. It was a thing of the heart, and He so distinctly stated. "Neither," said He, "shall ye say, Lo, here! or Lo, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Charts could not place it nor geographies describe it, for it was of the spirit. And, given this kingdom of heaven fully established in the minds and hearts of men, then was the whole prophecy fulfilled, the kingdom restored to Israel, the glory to Zion, and Jerusalem rebuilt; and this, though the children of Israel according to the flesh, were dispersed to the uttermost parts of the earth, the natural Jerusalem a heap of ruins, and the literal Zion razed to its foundations.

It is even so with the Holy City, New Jerusalem, which was to descend out of heaven from God. As heaven in the Scriptural view is a spiritual realm, whatever descends from thence must be spiritual in its character. It is not visible to outward sight; it comes to us within. And the New Jerusalem is but another term for Eden. It is a new dispensation of light and love. It is the doctrine of Eden retaught and the life of Eden restored. If we cannot see this by intuition, there is one fact which shows it clearly; it is that the peculiarities of Eden reappear in the New Jerusalem. When John in vision looked up, he saw a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Natural rivers do not proceed from visible thrones; they well up from hidden fountains in the earth. This, therefore, is the same river under a different name, which went forth in Eden. It is the same water of which our Lord spake when He said to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well: "Whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." That was the new truth of the Gospel which, inwardly received, would be a well of spiritual wisdom that would so turn the current of the thoughts, affections and desires, as to prove a fount of everlasting life to whomsoever should drink it.

Such is the water that comes from above. It is spiritual truth. Such was the water that flowed from Eden. Such is that which in the New Jerusalem descends out of heaven from God. Can we have any truth which is not his? Can we have any enlightenment except from Him? The river of spiritual wisdom, in its refreshing of the understanding and its quickening of the life, flows always from Him. It is the river of Eden, the water of life, whose fountain-head is the throne of God and the Lamb. It flows to mind and heart; and it gives to him who receives it the power to live an intelligently holy life, and to perform the duties of existence not only in a rational way, but in the spirit and faith of Him in whose name it is done. This living water is '"clear as crystal." There is nothing so clear to the receptive mind as spiritual truth. The natural mind does not think so; but that does not alter the fact. The sun is not clearer in its shining, than the apprehension of divine truth by the spiritually awakened intellect. But as the faculties suited to the apprehension of mathematics, or music, or poetry, must be aroused before their higher truths become clear or cognizable, so must it be with truths of spiritual wisdom. Without the proper quickening of the spiritual faculties, these truths will remain obscure or altogether unseen; with it, they will be pellucid as the mountain spring; clear as transparent crystal.

But in the Holy City was to be reproduced another feature of the Garden of Eden, and a central one. "In the midst of the street of it and of the river, on this side and on that, was the tree of life." I give the literal rendering of the original Greek, as preferable to the authorized version. This tree of life fixes the New Jerusalem as Eden restored. There is but one tree of life. It grew in the midst of the ancient garden, and it will grow again, not only in the midst of the street of the New Jerusalem, but in the midst of its river and on this side and on that. And the promise had already been recorded, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God" (Rev. ii. 7). It is not which was in the midst of paradise, nor which will be there, but which is. The tree of life is of perennial growth. It always is; it always was; it always will be. It grows ever ready for the acceptance of man. The gates of paradise are perpetually open for the entrance of all, and the sacred tree forever stands laden with fruit for the sustenance of every hungry soul. But the profane cannot see it, and they think it does not exist. For them it does not; for the wise and intelligent it does.

Paradise is the kingdom of heaven. Call it by what name the Scripture may, Eden or the New Jerusalem, the tree of life grows in the midst of it; and without that tree, it is not paradise at all. For the tree of life, as we have often said and shown, is the Lord as the central love and life of the soul. Now, having this and partaking of the fruit of this tree, man is in Eden, in the kingdom of heaven, in the New Jerusalem, no matter what the age of the world or where his dwelling place may be.

Yet these expressions, though synonymous in a general sense, in a specific sense, especially as prophetic of different ages of the Church, have a somewhat different meaning. Eden refers, in a strict sense, to that state of innocent perfection of life which was characteristic of the most ancient Church. It was, in its goodness and wisdom, of that peculiarly infantile or tender genius, which is past and gone and which can never on earth be exactly reproduced. The New Jerusalem is more properly that state of heavenly perfection in the Church at large, or in the individual heart, which has been attained through severe conflict with evil in emerging from the baptism of hell. It will be compatible with the knowledge and possession of natural science, art and luxury, to which those primitive people were strangers. It will, therefore, have a broader basis of natural knowledge. The two are similar states, but developed under different circumstances. This truth is alluded to for the purpose of taking note of the fact, that when different expressions are used in Scripture for a similar idea, though they mean the same thing, they mean it under different phases. Thus while the New Jerusalem is a restoration of Eden, it will be of a different genius from the ancient Eden, because the people of whom it is to be composed will be of a different character, though of equal perfection. Yet it is not improper to use the term Eden, or any other Scripture term for the state implied by it, to describe the state of hearts and lives to-day that have attained to it, because all Scripture is applicable to all ages and to all hearts.

This tree of life—the Lord with his matchless love—grows in the midst of the street of the New Jerusalem. The street, or to use a more common phrase, the way or path of life, is the truth by means of which we walk. When our Lord says, "I will show thee the path of life," He means that He will point out to us the heavenly truths which shall constitute our daily walk, or show us how to live. The street of the New Jerusalem may just as well be translated its path. The tree of life is said, therefore, to grow in the midst of its street, because the Lord as love (or the love of the Lord) is the central principle of life to whomsoever comes to dwell in the New Jerusalem. All his life-walk turns to it; all his desires and affections look to it. It is never out of his sight. It is before him whithersoever his steps tend, and in the very midst of his path.

The tree of life was in the midst of the river also. This is a curious expression from a natural point of view, but a beautiful one spiritually considered; for it indicates that the Lord as love, is not only the central principle in the mind, and consequently in the path of life, of all the dwellers in the New Jerusalem, but that He is the central point (in the midst or center) of all their spiritual wisdom. The river of water of life, is the wisdom of life made manifest to the mind as it flows into the understanding from the Lord; and God and the Lamb—the invisible Divinity and the Divine Humanity—are the center of it. It all comes from the Lord—the glorified Christ; it all looks to Him; it regards Him in every turning of the thought. All principles, all truths, are Sowings forth from Him, and bear his image and superscription. The mind which, in all its meditations, never loses sight of the Lord as its central light and warmth, is the one in the midst of whose river of water of life, as it proceeds from the throne of God, the tree of life forever stands.

And it is "on this side and on that." It is to the right and the left; in heavenly considerations and earthly; in states of light and in those of obscurity; at church and at work. Under all circumstances the tree of life is before the eyes, forming a part of every thought, entering into every motive, guiding in every act. "Guiding," we say, "in every act," because it bare twelve manner of fruits. Twelve is a symbol employed when it is intended that the expression shall be all-embracing. Twelve manner of fruits is every kind of fruit which the tree of life is capable of producing. The fruits are good works. He in whose heart the tree of life is planted, bearing its twelve manner of fruits, is he who in all his works bears heavenly fruit, and all whose deeds are good. It is he, the entire works of whose life are the fruits of love—of that love whose center and source is the Lord; of love which is all-embracing in its character; of love which is holy, pure, unselfish, overflowing with benevolence to all mankind.

Such a tree when planted in the heart, "yields its fruit every month;" because the Lord's love, when it is the soul's animating principle, produces works that are genuinely good in every changing state. "And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Leaves signify the thoughts or rational intuitions of man; and the leaves of the tree of life, or the thoughts of those in whom the love of the Lord is the ruling principle, are all good and for the good of all mankind—for the healing of the spiritual diseases of themselves and all the world.

And how beautifully comes in the declaration, "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Is it not wonderful how many different ways have been held as essential to the obtaining of salvation? Yet we have it here in its perfection. Who obtain it? They who do the Lord's commandments. Simple, brief, and clear! Yet it has been said that no one can keep the commandments; and that, therefore, faith alone is the way to salvation. But the tree of life is the Lord our love. That is what we need; that is what we must receive. That is innocence, purity, bliss—the sum of all faith, hope and charity. That is salvation and eternal life. That is Eden, Beulah, Zion, the kingdom of heaven, the New Jerusalem. And the way to it is, doing the Lord's commandments.

This is only a repetition of the Lord's words, "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." Paul had grasped the truth when he said, "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Eden was lost by breaking the commandments; it will be regained by keeping them. The cherubim guard the tree of life from the hands of the profane. The flame of the sword, or the self-love of man himself, protects it from the touch of sensualism by rendering it unappreciated and unknown. But it is gained again, and our right to it is re-established, by the persistent effort to obey the Lord's commands, or to live the life that He has taught us in his Word.

Is it true that we cannot keep the commandments? We cannot, indeed, keep them of ourselves, or in our own strength. But it is ours to make the effort, and it is the Lord's to furnish the power. If we make the effort in earnest, the power is always sure to be supplied. If we lift no hand, make no exertion, raise no prayer, no strength comes. The Lord flows always into active, never into passive agencies. Man is like the flowers. As they hold up their modest cups to receive the refreshing dew and the light of the morning sun, so must he look up, open his heart to the sweet influence of heaven, will to do the right as of himself, and then the Lord flows in with invigorating power. We can keep the commandments; yet not in our own strength, for we have none. But we can if we seek the Lord's strength; for He is the fullness of strength, and is ever ready and waiting to give us all we ask or really need.

Briefly to sum up what has been said in these discourses about the Garden of Eden, as viewed in its true spirit and interpreted by the science of correspondences:

When the Lord created man at the first. He raised him up into a condition of love, purity, innocence, spiritual intelligence and happiness. This state of life is called in his holy Word, the Garden of Eden. He placed in the midst of this garden—in the inmost of man's soul—the tree of life, which was Himself as the only love and life of man. To eat of this tree was to live in love to Him derived from Him. But he also endowed man with the gift of freedom; because, not to be free was not to be man. In his freedom, and thus of his own motion, man, after a long period of happiness, turned from the Lord and his love, and began to live for self and from the love of self. This was eating of a tree, or living from a principle, of which the Lord had bidden him not to eat. It was the sensual principle, under the symbol of the serpent, which seduced him. Then man lost his blissful Eden, because he had departed from the Eden state; and losing that, he lost the spiritual wisdom which belonged to it, and finally all knowledge that it ever was, and even the conception that it could be. So the race for long centuries groped in darkness, all oblivious of things spiritual and divine.

True, the lamp was lighted and kept blazing in the inspired Word. But men's eyes were closed to its heavenly effulgence. The Word was a light shining upon closed and darkened minds that did not comprehend its meaning. "The light shone in darkness, but the darkness comprehended it not." Our Lord came upon earth to show man the way back, and encourage and assist him to return to his lost Eden. He was received by a few, yet his teachings were but partially comprehended and dimly discerned. He has waited with mercy and long suffering for man—waited for him to develop into a state wherein he could receive the divine words in their true spiritual meaning. Then He raised up a messenger, Emanuel Swedenborg, whom He illumined with his wisdom, to reveal the mystery of Eden, of the kingdom of heaven, of the New Jerusalem; to unfold in greater fullness the true nature of that wondrous spiritual life set forth in the divine Word for the restoration of man, and to make plain the true spirit of all He had hitherto taught.

So we find the New Jerusalem of divine promise, to be but paradise restored. The rivers of Eden break out afresh in its golden streets; the tree of life is growing by its river of living water; all the blessings that man ever enjoyed, shall be his again; all love, innocence, purity, wisdom and happiness, the river pure as crystal that flows from the throne of God, the tree of life with its healing leaves and heavenly fruit, will he but keep the Lord's commandments.

The invitation is full and free. "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The water of life is the truth of God's holy Word;— of the Word as apprehended, not in the obscurity of the letter, but in the clear-shining of the spirit. If it were truth only, mere knowledge and doctrine, it were not much. But there, in the midst of it, is the life itself. There is the Tree of Life, the Lord our love; there are its fruits of every hue; there are its leaves for the whole world's healing. And they are all parts of a heavenly whole. They are all divine. We can spare no portion of them. Doctrine is for our teaching; but we are taught it that we may live it. Truth is for our enlightenment; but it becomes our condemnation if we fail to walk in the light of it. It is only by living or doing as the truth requires, that our hearts are opened to the reception of the fruit of that immortal tree which is forever in the midst of the paradise of God.

Well, here is a condition of life we all ardently desire. The New Jerusalem is a state of spiritual life and wisdom. It is Eden restored. Its joys are for both worlds, the present and the world beyond. Its universal attainment will banish wrong, disorder, unrest, sorrow and sighing, from the earth. Its attainment by each heart, will banish them from thence. And when we ask, Lord, who shall have it? the answer comes echoing through the corridors of the soul, "Whosoever will!"

If there is a blessing that is worth gaining, it is this; if a life that is worth living, it is this; if a peace worth striving for, it is this. Shall we not take the lesson to our hearts, and make it the theme of deep and solemn reflection, and of sincere and earnest prayer? Shall we be thoughtless of that which is of so much higher import than any mere worldly things? or indifferent to that which the Lord regards as worthy our supreme effort? Let us reflect. Let us do more,—lift up our hearts to the throne of grace, and pray that we may be more earnest, more humble, more devoted—more believing, loving and obedient.