Man's history, past, present, and future, in in the scriptures wonderfully linked up with four gardens; two of which are far separated, two very close together. The first is the garden of Eden. What a delightsome place that must have been! The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, that is in the land of "Delight." There He made to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food. Into that paradise God placed the man whom He had made, and to fill up his cup of happiness, gave to him a "help meet," the woman that was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones. Now among the trees of the garden two are spoken of as being in the midst of it: the one the tree of life, and the other the tree of the knowledge of good and evil--the one to remind the man that he had no independent life of his own; the other, as the symbol of God's authority, which called for man's willing subjection to Him. "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Gen. 2:16, 17.)

      It is not necessary here to relate in detail the circumstances of the fall of man. The serpent found his way into that fair Eden--not by accident, but by God's purpose and permission. God had made man in His own image and likeness. He must have a mind, a will, a right and opportunity of choice. Man must be tested; he must be tempted and tried. We may be sure that the test was a fair one: God would see to that. And man fell; the woman because she listened to Satan's falsehood; the man because he hearkened to the voice of his wife. Both disobeyed God. By God's just, yet merciful sentence they were excluded from the garden and debarred from the tree of life. And thus "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men for that all sinned." (Rom. 5:12.) The entail of that one representative act of disobedience in the garden of Eden has extended to all humanity through all the centuries, even until now: all pain and sorrow and sickness and death dates back to man's first disobedience. That is the longest sermon that has ever been preached, and the end of it is not yet. The world's misery and distress, and every heart-break and every funeral cries aloud to the sons of men--it does not pay the creature to turn away from his God.

      We come now to the second garden--near 4000 years later. It is night, midnight. The full-orbed paschal moon sheds its radiance in the clear Syrian sky, and in the garden the olive-trees cast black shadows. There a man lies [44] prostrate on His face and cries pitifully unto God: "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not my will but thine be done." What does it mean? Who is it that prays so there? And why that agony? The garden is Gethsemane. The man is God's only begotten Son, His dearly Beloved. It was Passover-time, and the night was the night of the betrayal. In the upper room in Jerusalem the Lord Jesus had poured out His heart to His disciples in those final farewell talks; and to God in the great high-priestly prayer. And "when Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Kidron, where was a garden into which he entered, himself and his disciples." Eight of them He left at the outskirts; three (the three that had witnessed His glory on the mount of Transfiguration) He took nearer, and said to them, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: abide ye here while I go yonder and pray." He went about a stone's cast into the garden and fell on His face, and His sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground. Black was the shadow of the olive-trees; blacker still was the horror of great darkness into which His soul entered. Was it death that He dreaded? Not that. Unnumbered men of smaller strength have met death without a tremor. Jesus' whole conduct throughout the ordeal of the crucifixion showed that in Him was no craven fear of suffering or of physical death. But what He must encounter was a death of a different sort: It was of the nature of judgment. For He was the burden-bearer, for us all: He must face the wrath of God upon man's guilt and transgression. One of our oldest hymns sets forth the deep meaning of the scene,

      An angel appeared strengthening Him; and our Lord Jesus shrank no more, but the cup did He drink to its dregs. "The cup which the Father hath given me,"' He said, "shall I not drink it?" Soon thereafter came Judas with the soldiers, and the servants of the high priest, with staves and lanterns. They [45] arrested the Lord Jesus, bound Him, led Him before Annas, then before Caiaphas. There was the farce of a trial; and again, at early dawn (for it was illegal for the Sanhedrin to conduct a trial at night) they hastily assembled once more, condemned Him all over again, and hurried Him to Pilate's praetorium; where, after much remonstrance and delay, unwilling Pilate gave sentence that He should be crucified. Three hours He hung on the cross in the light of the sun; then a darkness fell upon the land which lasted three more hours. Out of that darkness came the cry that marked the climax of the sufferings of Christ--"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Then after a little pause--"It is finished"; and, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. We can hardly bear to hasten over the details of this marvellous story--the rending of the temple-veil, the strange impression on the multitude and the contrite confession of the centurion; the piercing of Jesus' side by the soldier's spear, and the flow of blood and water from the wound thus made. The bodies of the three men crucified must be buried, for the Sun is sinking low, and by Jewish law they could not be permitted to hang on the crosses after sundown. Left to His enemies the body of Jesus would have received the most dishonorable burial that could have been given an executed criminal. But there God intervened. Centuries before, God's prophet had uttered the strange prediction that His grave should be made with the rich man in His death (Isa. 53:9)--a prophecy that would have seemed as unlikely of fulfilment as any that was ever uttered. But God's word never fails. As the sun was sinking toward the west--here came the "rich man" long foreseen by the scriptures: Joseph of Arimathea was his name--he had gone to Pilate and asked for the body, and to whom it was granted by the Roman authority. With him came Nicodemus also, who at the first came to Jesus by night. Reverently, tenderly they removed the limp and lifeless body from the cross: they swathed the limbs and the body with grave-clothes, binding up spices with it; and they bore Him (O the privilege of it all!) to the tomb. "Now in the place where he was crucified [says John] there was a garden; and in the garden a new tomb wherein was never man yet laid. There then, because of the Jews' Preparation (for the tomb was nigh at hand) they laid Jesus." (John 19:41, 42.) This is the third garden.

      What happened in this garden? The deepest gloom that ever fell and the brightest light that ever dawned on this world, met here together. They had "rolled a great stone in front of the tomb and departed." On that night the triumph of the powers of darkness seemed complete. Man and Satan [46] had done all they could do. All hope seemed dead for ever. So,

      The new day after the sabbath was breaking and women were on the way to the tomb, to add more spices to the body so hastily laid away on the evening before the sabbath; discussing among themselves how the stone could be removed for them, "for it was exceeding great." When they reached the place they found the stone already rolled away, and the sepulchre empty. The body of Jesus was gone! The first one to see this was Mary Magdalene. She ran to the home of Peter and John to bring them word. They in turn ran to the tomb--John outrunning Peter, gets there first, and stands timid and reverent, stooping and looking in. Peter, bold and impetuous, rushes on from behind and leaps into the tomb. Then John follows. There is the place where the Lord lay; and the grave-clothes lying in the contour of the body; the napkin in which His head was bound rolled up in a place to itself--about a neck's length away from the other grave-clothes! The two stood and looked and saw--and believed. What they believed is not told us. Only that they looked no further. They knew that some tremendous thing had happened; and they returned to their home. If men had stolen the body they would never have taken the grave-clothes off; and no man could have taken them off in such fashion.--That was a day! All day long rumors and reports continued to accumulate. But on the evening of that day Jesus Himself came and stood in the midst of them, and bade the incredulous disciples to "handle me and see that it is I myself: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye behold me having. And he showed them his hands and his feet"; and, as John tells us, His side also.

      It is enough. The great work is done. Death had met its mighty Conqueror. God had vindicated His righteous Servant. Christ, in His resurrection had brought forth light to the people and to the Gentiles. "He was delivered up for our trespasses and was raised for our justification." (Rom. 4:25.)

      One more garden appears in the word of God. The reference is found in the last, the crowning book of the New Testament: "To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God" (the R. V. margin [47] says, "or garden: as in Gen. 2:8"). Here then is the garden of God again, but in new and wondrous light and glory. The garden and the city were ever the ideals of God for man; and here the two combine. The tree of life is back again, and no cherubim with flaming sword here bars the way to it. Nay, now it has become a grove fringing both shores of the river of water of life, the stream of which, bright as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God, flows through the midst of the great street of the city. It is Paradise restored; but God's idea of restoration is not the mere bringing back of what has been lost. God never loses but to make gain. Here is a home more wondrous for sweetness or beauty than ever the eye of Adam beheld; here is life of a sweeter and more enduring sort than Adam ever knew. "And death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more. The first things are passed away. And he that sitteth on the throne saith, Behold I make all things new." Behold the garden of God which He has prepared for them that love Him! For "without are the dogs and the sorcerers and the fornicators and the idolaters and everyone that loveth and maketh a lie." And His proclamation is sent out to all the sinful world today--that atonement has been made, that forgiveness of sin is provided, that sinners may return, and accepting the glorious gospel of Christ, be saved that they may enter in through the gates into the city.

      I had been telling Bible-stories to a very little girl, and, wondering whether a child could grasp the message of the gospel, I put it to the test, After having related the story, how God sent forth the man and the woman out of the garden of Eden, I asked, "Why did they have to go out of God's beautiful garden?" "Because they did wrong," she answered brightly. "Could they ever go back?" "No!" she replied with much emphasis: "the angel stood in the way with the sword." "Can nobody that has ever done wrong go back into that garden?" "No!" she answered. Then I said to her, "Did you ever go wrong?" She looked at me with wide-open eyes: she had not thought of that; and she began to weep. "And you can't go into God's beautiful garden?" She shook her head, still weeping. "Don't cry," I said--"do you remember the story I told you how Jesus died on the cross?" "Yes." "What did He die for?" "So I could go back into that beautiful garden," she answered. "And what does He want you to do?" "He wants me to love Him," she replied through her tears. Just so. This is the essence of the Christian faith; this is the heart of the gospel; and this the salvation preached to sinful men, through Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. [48]

[SSS 44-48]