The Significance to God's Temple in the Garden (Pt 2/2)
The more I ponder and meditate on Rev 21-22, the more impressed I became by it's overarching, multifaceted theme that will permeate the Eternal New Order: unity, love, joy, peace, tranquility, safety, comfort, security and harmony that will extend to all life in the New Order. The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf, lion and yearling will rest together, the infant will play by the cobra's hole and the young child will put his hand in the viper's nest -- and in none of these scenarios will any harm or destruction come to any creature in God's holy mountain (Isa 11:6-9). And all this stands very sharp contrast to this existing Old Order that is literally marked by division, division and more division. If anyone wants to get a good handle on this fact, look up the Hebrew word "badal" (Strong's H914) and let your fingers do the walking. The word appears in the OT about 42 times and it's translated "divide, separate, set apart, sever, distinction," etc. And we see this division immediately in the creation account when God divided/separated light from darkness, the waters below and above the firmament, the sea from the dry land, the night from the day, etc., etc. None of these divisions will be found in the New Order!
As I explained previously, I used to think that Adam's spiritual death was because God removed his Holy Spirit from Adam after he sinned (such as God did with king Saul), since He is the Spirit of Life. In one sense, however, I still think this is true but it still misses the thrust of the creation account, plus the indwelling Holy Spirit appears to be unique to the inaugural phase (this current Church Age) of the New Covenant. Yet, the saints in the New Order will experience the full, final and eternal magnitude of God's Grace by their presence in God and the Lamb (the eternal Temple). The saints will still be *IN* Christ by virtue of being *IN* the Temple (The Holy Presence), which evidently will fill the entire new earth.. And once this fact dawned on me, it changed my perspective of how Adam died spiritually when he sinned. In fact, I believe the New Jerusalem is the Church -- it is the Body of Christ. So...if this is true, then Temple in Rev 21 will be *IN* the City of God.
While many professing Christians will deny that spiritual death = separation from God's Life (on very flimsy arguments I might add), nonetheless that is exactly what happened in the Garden. Here's the biblical evidence:
1. A&E separated themselves from God by fleeing from His Presence after they sinned (Gen 3:8).
2. God's anger burned against Adam so He unceremoniously drove him out from His Holy Presence (Gen 3:21-24)
3. God's eyes are too pure to even look upon evil (Hab 1:13)
4. Man's sins separate him from God (Isa 59:2).
5. Spiritual Principles: What can righteousness have to do with wickedness (2Cor 6:14)?
6. Or what fellowship can there be between light and darkness (2Cor 6:14)?
7. Or what agreement can there be between the Temple of God and the idols of men (2Cor 6:14)?
8. Unrepentant sinners being darkened in their understanding are separated from the Life of God (Eph 4:18).
9. The enemies of God, due to their evil behavior, are alienated from Him (Col 1:21).
10. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him (Rom 8:9).
The big question, then, is this: What is Spiritual Death? But maybe first, we should find the answer to: What is Death? James tells us that physical death consists of the separation of the soul from the body (Jas 2:26). The soul is, evidently, the animating force that enables men to live physically in temporal reality. God has given all the physically living this capacity.
But God has also given man another capacity: He created man to also live with Him, worship Him, enjoy Him, to fellowship with Him, to commune with Him, to serve Him, to glorify Him, etc. by being intimately and personally connected to His Life which animates spiritual life within man (Eph 4:18). Two different kinds of life, each serving a specific purpose.
There is, however, another biblical way of viewing Death, no matter the kind. Is not Death like Evil and Darkness? As I explained recently, evil is not a thing in and of itself, but rather the absence or deprivation of something, which would be Goodness. Likewise, darkness is the absence of light. We would never know what either of these two things are apart from what has always eternally existed, i.e. Good and Light. And the same can be said for death! If James had said in Jas 2:26 that death consists of the absence of the soul from the body would such a statement change the sense of the text? Death is not an eternal reality because God has always existed. Death became a reality when sin entered temporal reality. Hell itself is a place marked by the absence of any Good, which is why it's also called "outer darkness" -- a place of no light!
So...this brings us full circle back to the final question: How did Adam die spiritually on the day he disobeyed? He died because he desecrated God's Temple in the Garden! He infinitely offended The Holy Presence in the Garden in which Adam was brought to live! Adam became unclean in God's Holy, Sacred Space. Being *IN* the Garden, therefore, is tantamount to being *IN" God and His Son (the Temple in Rev 21). God's Holy Presence filled God's dwelling place (the Garden/Temple). Adam, being mankind's federal head, truly had some very significant advantages over all his progeny, didn't he? None of us came into this dark, fallen, forlorn, corrupt, sin-filled world dwelling in God's Temple. All of us, therefore, come into this world in the state of spiritual death -- dead to God! This world in this age is most certainly not God's Holy Habitation. The saint's Holy Habitation in this world is Christ!
