THE GARDEN
[p. 108] THE GARDEN
Genesis 3: 8 - 10; 2 Corinthians 6: 16 - 18; Song of Songs 4: 12
What is on my mind to speak of, as you may have perceived from the scriptures read, is the thought of a garden. The thought appears early in Scripture, and God never gives up any thought of His. If He fails to realise His intention in it in one way He secures it in another. God is very persistent; were it not so, many of us would have been left out. If God takes us up it is for a definite end, and He never gives up His thought in regard to any one of us. He may allow our feet to wander into bypaths, but He never withdraws His eye from us; and the moment there is a touch of restoration we are reminded of the primary thought. Abram had to go back to the place of the altar, and Jacob to Bethel where he had been twenty years before; so God never gives up His thoughts, nor His ways with us.
Now, among God’s thoughts, you get this idea of a garden. A garden is that which is special, and for a man’s own peculiar pleasure; we know what labour and attention are bestowed upon a garden, and the end is that it is for the pleasure of the owner. We may have thought the garden of Eden was for Adam. It was for him, no doubt, but it does not say it was formed for him. God planted it and man was placed there, but he was not to be the sole owner; the garden was the garden of God (see Ezekiel 28: 13). Satan was said to be in the garden of God. So Adam was not going to reap all the pleasure of it. It was divinely arranged; the design was perfect, and it was laid out by God, and the planning could not be surpassed. Adam had a place in it, but it was for God, and in proof of that we find God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. The garden was designed for God, for the [p. 109] pleasure of God but in relation to man; He was to have His pleasure in it for He was to be with man. In Genesis 2 we get the garden planted and man placed in it; in Genesis 3 God walked in it and talked in it; His voice was heard; “They heard the voice of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. That was the situation; and this fact brings to our hearts what God is and what His thought is. He purposed to have a sphere, and in that sphere He seeks to have the affections of man.
Well, all that has failed as regards Adam, for he was driven out and the garden was lost, but God has not given up His thought; the divine thought remains. God has found the man, and He has found the sphere; He has formed the garden. It is this I want to make clear so that we may understand what is in God’s mind for us. You will remember how Israel was alluded to. Israel was spoken of as a garden. Now, sin having come in, if God is to have a garden there must be separation. There was no thought of separation in Eden; the garden was planted eastward in Eden, and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; there was to be influence so that it might be maintained; that is, God was prepared to perpetuate freshness and fruitfulness in the garden. There was no thought of separation, but sin having come into the world all has become corrupted, and there can be no garden. Now, perhaps you think the world appears sometimes so fair and attractive, even to the believer. You will remember Lot lifted up his eyes toward Sodom, and it looked to him “as the garden of Jehovah”. Abram had been called out of the world, and Lot had not, but he came with Abram, and he did right. I would say to the young people here, if you see people moving and responding to the call of God, go with them; you will do right to follow them. If you are the [p. 110] children of christian parents and their faces are heavenward, go with them; you do right. Now a moment came when there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. Lot set his face to well-watered plains; Lot lifted his eyes and beheld all the plain of the Jordan. It was thoroughly watered before Jehovah had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, “as the garden of Jehovah”, so deceptive was the vision; it was a delusion, for Sodom was the city of abominations; it was equivalent to concentrated wickedness. The scripture says, “And the people of Sodom were wicked, and great sinners before Jehovah”. The world may seem fair, and it may allure you, but it leads to judgment, for that is its end, but the grace of the Lord delivers out of it. Nothing is more encouraging than the grace of the Lord which works to deliver us from it. John’s estimate of the world was the estimate of intelligence governed by the affections. His estimate of Christ was that if all the things He did “were written one by one”, he supposed “that not even the world itself would contain the books written”. There is one continuous flow of grace upon grace, wave upon wave, and “He gives more grace”. Think of the grace of the Lord; nothing is more encouraging. Lot’s righteous soul was vexed with the “abandoned conversation of the godless ... through seeing and hearing, dwelling among them”. He stayed there and judged the thing; that will not do, so you must get out. Now the Lord’s grace works to help us out of it. There is no limitation about His grace. Do you want to get out of it? The Lord will help you to get out of it. Think of Him sending the angels to get Lot out of Sodom. There was no hope for Lot to escape apart from the help of the Lord. How many have been delivered that way, and there is no way of escape apart from the support of the Lord. If we climb up [p. 111] for worldly glory, or reputation, or to the pinnacle of the temple to get a place amongst the saints, the devil will say, “Cast thyself down”, but the Lord will help you down; we have to come down. You can always count on the grace of the Lord. May you not be diverted by that which looks like the garden of the Lord, but is not. If sin has come into the world, the idea of a garden cannot be realised without separation.
It was in this connection I read the passage in the second epistle to the Corinthians. When there are a first and second book in the Bible, the second gives you what is complete. 1 Corinthians is the water to cleanse, for there was sin there; the second epistle is the towel. There had been the allowance of what was defiling in the assembly, but Paul had learnt from Christ. He had learnt John 13; that was his own commendation. He was a competent minister “of the new covenant”, and had been made so by God, “not of letter, but of spirit”. Now, the first epistle, as I have said, was the water, and the second is the towel. It is a great service to convict a soul if he has got away. “My brethren, if any one among you err from the truth, and one bring him back, let him know that he that brings back a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins”, James 5: 19, 20. We cannot say we are not our brother’s keeper. If you approach God He will raise the question as to your brother. The Lord Jesus had the saints in His heart; He carried them to heaven with Him. Cain’s answer was, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”. The Lord Jesus kept people; “Those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished”. Did it ever occur to you as to your brother? If you come to the altar with your gift, and “there shouldest remember that thy brother has something against thee, leave there thy gift before [p. 112] the altar, and first go, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift”, Matthew 5: 23, 24. You cannot pass by your brother. The idea of reconciliation is collective. God takes pleasure in a man walking aright, but He has pleasure in the affection you have toward your brother. Paul could give an account of the saints; he would not allow sin on the saints; he brought in the water; he brought in the means of cleansing and he brought to pass self-judgment. Then the towel is to remove the unpleasant effect of the water, so that the saints are set down in ease in the presence of God.
When you come to this chapter you see that God sought a place among the Corinthians. They belonged to God; they were God’s assembly, God’s temple. God had title to them, but He did not have the income. He wanted a place among them. If God had a garden, He wanted to walk in it, and to speak in it as in Eden. God never gives up a thought, and He has wrought to bring it to pass among the saints. How could God come in and walk among the saints when a licentious man was allowed? The apostle removed the defilement, and then he says to them, “Ye are the living God’s temple”. If you take account of christendom you would never think God lived there; there is no regard for God; you would think He had no feelings or sensibilities. But God lives and says, “Ye are the living God’s temple; according as God has said, I will dwell among them, and walk among them”, and that leads me to think of Eden. Walking in a garden is for pleasure; it is not walking to go somewhere; and His voice was heard, and it was not that of rebuke. That came later. Think of God coming in to dwell, and of God coming in to walk; how touching! And then, look, He says, “I will receive you; and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”. Now all that [p. 113] is contingent upon separation. There must be withdrawal from a world of sin if God’s thought is to be realised; so it says, “Wherefore come out from the midst of them, and be separated, saith the Lord, and touch not what is unclean, and I will receive you”. Is that not worth while coming out for? Will you lose by doing so? God offers an inducement: “I will be to you for a Father”. I have often thought of the Fatherhood of God. Here it is not the heavenly side of the relationship, but the earthly. We have often thought that God enters into our sorrows, but He also enters into our joys, and He withholds no legitimate affection and relationship. I appeal to the young specially. God would take you under His wing; He will not deny you any joy; He withholds no good, and, what is greater still, He would lead you on to what is entirely spiritual, and in that connection He dwells among us and walks among us.
I turn now to the Song of Songs. The Song of Songs is not a matter of the relationship which exists between God and His people, but rather that of the relation between Christ and the earthly bride, Israel. It is a love song in which He triumphs over the affections of His people, a people who had been marked off by the grossest selfishness and greed, and now they love Christ and one another. In the last chapter what the Lord speaks of is His love to her, and she speaks of her love to Him, and then we get that she loves others. She speaks of her little sister, “We have a little sister ... What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? — If she be a wall, we will build upon her a turret of silver; and if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar”. It is the great triumph of affection. It is in this connection you get the thought of a garden: “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy shoots are a paradise of pomegranates, with precious fruits; henna [p. 114] with spikenard plants; ... with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices, a fountain in the gardens, a well of living waters, which stream from Lebanon”. There you have the primary thoughts connected with the garden; fruit, trees, spices and waters. The divine thought is now realised among the saints in this dispensation and in Israel in the future. All the elements of the garden are in the Spirit. It is by the Spirit that the fruits are produced. Then God brings in discipline upon us, so we read, “Awake, north wind, and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow forth”; the spices are all there, but God calls out the fragrance of His grace by His discipline. We need not dread discipline; it is God’s way of bringing out what is placed in you. If God’s love is shed abroad in your heart what a seed is there; and the wind of discipline, the wind of affliction comes and the spices flow forth. The south wind is the wind of affliction in a modified form. What a benefit discipline is to us! It is doubtful how we should get on without it. The cold comes first, and then the south, with warmth in it; so the Lord tempers the wind, and by it He receives what He seeks. The north wind awakes, and the south wind came, and then there is something for Him. Souls are often pressed down with discipline, but afterwards we all feel we would not have been without it, and instead of saying, like Jacob, that all these things are against me, we can say, “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat its precious fruits”. We should cultivate something for the Lord. In that sense we should all be composers, like the psalmist: “My heart is welling forth with a good matter ... my tongue is the pen of a ready writer”. After discipline we should be able to compose something for the Lord. Then He answers, “I am come into my garden”. He ever responds; He moves. He is invited [p. 115] into His garden, and He comes. He says, “I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey”. He eats the fruit of His own culture, and then He invites others to do the same. “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, beloved ones!”
Well, that is just what was before me. God never surrenders a thought. In the future we shall have the paradise of God, and the Lord says, “I will give him to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God”. It is a privilege, meanwhile, for this thought to be realised in those who have the Spirit.
May the Lord help us that there might be fruit in His garden.