Q. Was the Garden of Eden to humanity basically the same as the Ark of the Covenant was where we could not directly approach it because of God’s holy presence?
A. First, let us look at the clues in the Bible. Before the fall of man, the LORD God walked in the garden of Eden (Gen 2:8) to have fellowship with man. After Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven from the garden:
- Gen 3:22-24 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden, He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
The reason why they were driven out was so that they would not eat from the tree of life and live forever, i.e. perpetuate their sin into eternity. It was not because of God’s holy presence, although that was important.
Next, let us look at the Ark of the Covenant. When the Philistines captured the ark, the hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, Gath, Ekron, wherever the ark was sent (1 Samuel 5), so they sent it back to Israel. But the punishment was not just against the Philistines, as God also struck down Israelites:
- 1 Sam 16:19 He struck down some of the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck down of all the people, 50,070 men, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter.
- 2 Sam 6:7 And the anger of the Lord burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence, and he died there by the ark of God. (Also 1 Chron 13:10)
- 2 Sam 6:11 Thus the ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.
My observation is that there is a severe penalty for treating the ark with irreverence, but a blessing when you respect it. The ark always represented the presence of God, but it was the attitude of the people that determined how they will be treated.
In summary, I would say that while both the garden of Eden and the ark of the covenant are associated with God’s presence, they are not the same. Men were barred from Eden for their good, to prevent access to the tree of life which would perpetuate their damnation. In other words, their future destiny is at stake. Men are killed for showing the ark irreverence, as a retribution for their present insolence. There is no mention of their eternal destiny. So the two are related but different.
RayKLiu 