A framework you MUST HAVE when reading the Bible
What's Eden got to do with it?
It is full on gardening season and every year, I get a little better at working the land. When I walk the garden, I think about what it will be like in eternity when everything we put our hands to will thrive—unlike my garden. sometimes seeds don’t take, sometimes the squirrels dig up your cucumber seeds, sometimes plants get diseased and die. So I think about Heaven a lot back there. It helps that in seminary, we took a New Testament class along side of an Old Testament class and had to write about 4 papers about Ezekiel over the semester and one huge NT paper due at the end on a topic we would like to explore. Of the 6 options in NT, I picked: land/creation/new creation where you have to follow that theme from the OT to the NT. This is an important skill we have been learning about through seminary but this particular NT professor drilled it into our brains(context is queen!). If you read the bible through overarching themes, you’ll find a very consistent God of the OT is the same God in Jesus in the NT. I fear I have already written about this but that was my struggle going into seminary: Mean God in OT vs Nice Jesus in NT.
Come to find out, I had it wrong. Mostly because churches focus so heavily on the NT, bc the OT is complicated and feels disjointed from our modern lives. But when we ignore the OT, it’s really hard to catch the incredible continuity that will make you say, OMG, why isn’t this taught in churches? This would have been so helpful to know. I guess no one is banging down the door to study the weirdness of Ezekiel? I get it—but this is a huge loss. Instead, we cherry pick verses or want to do a topics study which opens believers up to some terrible hermeneutics and misinterpretations which usually bolster some kind of political agenda/ reasoning for hierarchy inside the church/ cultural hot topic opinions/ etc. That’s why bible literacy is important and inside literacy, overarching themes help the reader understand some of the weird. So maybe this will help you:
Your bible bookends itself with Eden, or what might be understood as heaven. Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 21-22 are pictures of perfect creation, where everything is right and God’s presence is fully realized. Everything in the middle contains what went awry and the solution culminating in Jesus. Isn’t that a cool framework? So now we have a Map we can trace from beginning to end.
Now that we have the location, we need the characters who live in the land on that map. The Bible shows a clear pattern of the people and the clear pattern of God in the OT and NT:
The people experience God’s presence and Goodness. Then something else gets their attention and they sin/worship idols (usually emperors, kings, self, or false gods who promise them something they want). Then, far from God, though being the people of God, they begin to practice injustice by not taking care of the poor, foreigner, widows, orphans, and become power hungry and greedy, abusing God’s creation/land and it’s people. God won’t allow His name to be taken in vain (Bearing God’s name and then practicing social and communal injustice) so He brings judgement and it’s usually pretty sad— but the people are so stubborn and destructive, He has to stop it. Eventually, the people remember God was better and repent and finally restoration is brought back to the people and the land. The land is and always has been important to the Jewish people (See this playing out in real time now. They are fiercely protective of their land because of all the exile and abuse they’ve experienced from foreign rulers. So ya, land is still a big deal).
The pattern of God is that He wants to be in relationship with His people and pursues them. He makes outrageous covenants with them because He’s so good and all He asks for is that they don’t prostitute themselves by being in bed with power and greed and government. But they forget God is everything they need and bow their knee to worldly idols. Grieved by the people’s unfaithfulness, He brings judgment by removing His presence, and with that, protection, so surrounding nations overtake them. Then He remembers His covenant with them and pursues them and they repent. He brings restoration back to the people, gives them their land back and they’re no longer in exile. This is the story of Adam and Eve, The Exodus story, the Isrealite’s in the prophet books (think, Amos, Hosea, Ezekiel, Isaiah). And this is the story of the Prodigal son, the letters to the churches in the NT, and it is currently our story. Doesn’t that make so much more sense now that we know the pattern of the people and God? But this is exhausting. We need it to stop, right?
The solution to breaking the pattern of sin and exile culminates in Jesus in the NT: A new upside down kingdom has been inaugurated! The poor are first, there are no foreigners—only siblings, everyone is taken care of and fed for free (Come drink wine and buy food with no money!). Finally, there is a way for the people to live in God’s presence and no longer be constantly exiled in a hostile world. So yes, the new kingdom has broken in, but it’s not fully here. We have glimpses of eternity, but it’s still tainted by sin, idol worship, and injustice. We wait in the hope of the second coming where everything is made right finally and forever. Revelation 21-22 is the answer in the back of the book while we wait: It is not scary, it’s hopeful. Evil is defeated and the world returns to Eden. New creation. The land is restored back to the exiled people of God because we have God’s full presence! N.T. Wright says it well: “Jesus came to launch God’s new creation, not to rescue people from it.”[1]
Failing to understand the overarching theme of land and creation in the Bible is like trying to get to a complicated destination without first looking at a map: Where is the starting point and where is the intended destination? It is easy to become lost in the many turns of scripture, the bizarre symbolism, or the stories that do not make sense without understanding the Jewish context of land being an enormous part of the Jews’ identity, heritage, discipline, trauma, and healing. Yet, when the biblical creation narrative is traced carefully, a clear and consistent pattern and destination begins to emerge. In Eden, humanity was created to live and work in fruitfulness and joy, dwelling in the presence of God (Genesis 1–2). But when Adam and Eve chose to sin, they chose exile and separation (Genesis 3). That first act of disobedience set a pattern that would repeat itself throughout Israel’s story: sin, separation, exile, and the hope for return.
Therefore, God launched a redemptive plan to reconcile His people to Himself repeatedly by making an irrevocable covenant with Abram, calling him to leave his land and follow in faith to receive an inheritance. This was not just a promise of physical territory but also the beginning of a restored relationship. Through Abram, God set in motion a new trajectory that would ultimately culminate in Jesus Christ. And through His death and resurrection, Christ inaugurated the kingdom of heaven and opened the way for full restoration of ALL people (Jews and Gentiles). What Adam ruined, Jesus renewed. Full circle, bayyyybay.
Thus, the central message of scripture is not about escaping the earth or physical bodies, but about transforming both into something new and glorious. As Wright writes, “Eschatology means, not the end of the world, but the rescue and renewal of Israel and hence of the world.”[2] This is the hope that anchors the story of scripture from Eden to the New Jerusalem: God with His people in a renewed cosmic creation where sin, exile, and suffering are no more.
He has had the map back to Eden the entire time. This is our great hope while we wait and are tempted to live in despair with all the rotten things going on in the world. But we remember God: He knows where He is going and how to get there.
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1. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Isaiah 55:1
[2] N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 477.
[3] N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, 91.
This is the conclusion to my paper. If it sounds overly academic, it’s bc we have to write like that. Though I can’t help but put some flare to it. LOL.
The difference between Jews and Christians is that we believe Jews AND Gentiles are included in this land inheritance, and that the land is now expanded to more than a Middle Eastern location. That is controversial but nothing that isn’t belabored much by many people. ;)
Thank you Jami! That was lovely and it gave me something good to think about in a way I hadn't before. P.s. love the flair 😉
So good Jami!! Thank you!