The Garden Tabernacle
The other day I posted on Facebook these two verses side-by-side, with no comment:
"He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life." (Genesis 3:24)
And,
"Those who were to camp before the tabernacle on the east, before the tent of meeting toward the sunrise, were Moses and Aaron and his sons, guarding the sanctuary itself, to protect the people of Israel. And any outsider who came near was to be put to death." (Numbers 3:38)
Despite having made no comments, someone responded that these verses were “unrelated” and I was stretching and contorting things by putting them together.
The connection is that the tabernacle was, among other things, intended as a call-back to the garden of Eden and a start towards redressing man’s expulsion from the garden and God’s presence. That connection is not something I made up and not some profound insight. It’s a commonplace in the commentaries and in biblical theology (for one example, Greg Beale’s “New Testament Biblical Theology” gives nine arguments that Eden was a temple, pgs. 617-621, and he is certainly not alone).1
One of the fundamental plot lines of the Bible is Adam’s being driven from the garden and God’s subsequent work in restoring man to dwell with him again—with the tabernacle and temple, then by the Spirit’s indwelling of the church, the city of God, the New Jerusalem. The cherubim with the flaming sword guarding the east entrance to the garden is pretty plainly alluded to by the Levites guarding the sanctuary at its east entrance, in the verses I posted. There could be no getting back to the garden without bloodshed, no getting into the Holy Place without bloodshed (an animal sacrifice), and no entrance to God’s presence in the heavenly temple without the shed blood of Christ (Hebrews 10:19).
Now, the person who responded, denying any connection, gave two reasons for denying that Eden was a temple:
“First, the cherubim. Since the cherubim are placed to guard the garden only after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, their presence in the tabernacle is probably an indication that the way to God is still barred for sinful humans rather than an indication that Eden was a temple”
But this doesn’t eliminate the connection at all. In his unfallen state, Adam could dwell in the garden and walk with God. With the entrance of sin, he was driven out, and cherubim were sent to block the way of re-entry. In fact, since one of Adam’s original tasks was to “guard” the garden (שׁמר, Genesis 2:15), and that was what he failed to do when he failed to deal appropriately with the serpent, the cherubim took over the job (שׁמר, Genesis 3:24). The images of cherubim woven into the veil in the tabernacle (cf. Exodus 26:31) were a sign that the entrance to the Most Holy Place was still under guard, and is “still barred for sinful humans,” but the point of the tabernacle is that the way is opened, at least symbolically and under the right conditions—the sacrifices and purifications carried out by an ordained priesthood. The implication is indeed that Eden had been a sanctuary with free access to God—access that was no longer free, as the tabernacle was set up to indicate (Hebrews 9:8).
His second reason was this:
“[T]o argue that God’s presence in Eden makes Eden a temple is to mistake the reality for the symbol. The temple is needed as a symbol of God’s presence because the reality of God’s presence has been withdrawn due to sin. When the reality is fully restored, then the need for the symbol passes away. Thus when the reality was present in the past, there was no need for the symbol. Because the reality of God’s presence was found in Eden, Eden was not a temple. The symbol was not needed.”
But there is some confusion here.
In the garden of Eden, the presence of God was a reality, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a “temple” in any sense. There may have been no physical structure, but the point of a temple is to be a dwelling/meeting place for God and man. Eden was that in reality, and the temple was that in part—in that man did meet with God there. There was reality to the cloud of glory, and there was a reason why improper entry would result in death. It’s also true that temples made with hands can’t actually contain God, so there is a symbolic dimension. No denying that. The tabernacle/temple is where God’s “name” dwells (cf. 1 Kings 8:27-29). But the point here is not that the garden of Eden was a “temple” in some kind of literal or wooden sense, just that it was the place of God’s presence, and where God dwelt with man. That is what the tabernacle and temple were re-creating, in temporary and sign form, yes, but there is a clear line of connection pointing through to God’s indwelling of the church by his Spirit, and the work of Christ in bringing his people into the presence of God, to the heavenly temple and the New Jerusalem, where there “is no temple,” no special building, because the “temple”—the place where God and man meet, is God’s presence itself: “The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22).
The Bible begins in a garden, and ends with a garden city. It begins with man walking with God, and ends with man walking with God again. That restoration happens through the work of Christ, and was begun in sign-form with the tabernacle and temple, so there are countless small connections both backward and forward when we look at the tabernacle in light of Eden, and both in light of the New Jerusalem. The guard at the east is just one.