But it was a paradise. It was the original land flowing with milk and honey. And where are we now? We're on page 34. I remember a few weeks ago someone asked a question and my way of answering it, I anticipated the heart of what we'll be saying again here in the next few pages. So what was Eden? When you picture the Garden of Eden, we said, all right, we should think of it as a good terms of God's holy presence, the mountain of God and so on. But then beyond that, there are other questions that that do arise. The Covenant served and Eden found himself in the divine protector under God's guardian care. Certainly that was so. Everything man encountered in this realm spoke to him of his Lord's sovereign goodness. Manifested in God's creative acts, that goodness continued to be displayed in perfect constancy in his providential government of his creatures, the Lord of the Covenant who created man's world order also preserved it. God's goodness was evident all over the place that that's certainly so. Man's homeland in Eden is proverbial in the Bible, as the paradise ideal, well-watered and fertile, I give a series of passages where they say such and such a place was like the Garden of Eden, that's the ideal thing. There grew all manner of trees, the glory of the vegetation kingdom, their roamed all manner, representatives of the animal kingdom, accessible nearby to where the resources and the treasures of the mineral world, all these kingdom spheres of creation were richly stocked with provisions to satisfy man's physical needs and delightous aesthetic sensitivities, nor had the creator left man socially unfulfilled. He had blessed the man with the woman, the woman with the man, he made mankind male and female, king and queen over the Garden of Eden, everything was great. And so the original covenant order was thus everywhere one of blessing, the attitude for there in the Garden, the creator raised his hands over man in protective, prospering benediction. Now of course when you read all the terms of the covenant there is the threat that you can lose this. But if you lose it it's going to be your fault, as things come from the hand of the Lord himself, the original condition of man traceable to create a fire alone could reflect only the pure goodness of the creator. The covenantal kingdom protector was at the first a realm of unmixed blessing. I think we would all agree on that. Now however what I'm going to try to suggest is that some traditional ideas of what the things were like in the Garden of Eden are too idyllic and idealized on the one hand. I think another problem with the traditional approach is that what I have tried to emphasize about the supernatural presence of the Garden of glory, I'm not so sure that that element is in the common notion about paradise. So we are missing the boat in terms of the feature, this wonderful feature of God's visible glory presence there in the midst on the one side. But then on the other side I'm complaining that as to the physical character of things there that there has been a tendency to over idealize the thing. Now involved here is the question of the meaning of the biblical concepts of blessing and curse. And we may get at this by asking whether it necessarily, I'm just trying to focus the question here now, by asking whether it necessarily follows from the pure blessedness of man's original state that the earth at that time before the fall doesn't necessarily follow just from the goodness of God and the blessed that that time that the earth was without anything violent or dangerous. That the ground was without thorns or thistles, that there was no death in the world. These things follow necessarily from the fact that this was a territory of unmixed blessing and that the curse comes only after the fall. And now this question may be approached I suggest by examining the pattern of consecration. When we discuss the days of Genesis we keep coming back to that thing. We found a pattern of consecration that was present where these various kingdoms were established and they were consecrated through the use of the kings of the second triad of days. And now I suggest that as you analyze here's a basic principle that I know what I would think would want to dispute. The fact that God has set things up so that the lower orders are serving the higher interests of higher orders. They are consecrated. Everything ultimately consecrated to the higher interests of man and man, of course, in turn consecrated to the highest supreme interests of the Lord Himself. But now when you further analyze that concept of consecration and what's going on as you go up the ladder here, then you get yourself involved in not just consecration but the idea of sacrifice. And then as you analyze the concept of sacrifice it takes on the specific form of death as well. All is part of the original created order. Such subordination of interest assumes various forms and among the specific forms of subordination consecration met with sacrifice and death are especially important. In the interrelationship of the lower orders of creation to one another there were forms of subordination that did not amount to sacrifice. The kingdoms of light and darkness are subordinated to the rulership of the luminaries who are the kings of day four. But is that kind of subordination, that kind of consecration involved? Well, that involved the regulation. These kingdoms were regular. This is a function of kings to set bounds and to regulate things. Well, the luminaries are setting the bounds and there is no element of sacrifice involved especially in that. Now let's go on to something else. When we move along, however, to the use made of the soil by the plants, we're talking about the elements described, for example, here on day three where you have both the land and the vegetation, walk to the way the air is utilized by the birds and the beasts or the waters by the fish of the seas. In other words, when you try to relate the way in which the birds and the fish of day five serve themselves of the kingdoms of the sky and the sea, then something beyond regulation is involved. There is here a royal exacting of tribute. There is an assimilation on the part of these higher creatures of lower elements into higher orders. And in this process, these lower elements into the air and in the sea undergo conversion change loss. And we may regard this as an elementary form of sacrifice that is undergone by these kingdoms as they serve the higher interests of these living creatures. So here's a form of consecration that involves a sacrifice that trains an assimilation of the lower orders. And then, proceeding still further, there is that form of sacrifice that actually involves death. And when something belonging to the organic living level of creation is sacrificially consecrated to something higher, then the biblical usage warrants are describing this as being death. And so all I'm talking about here is especially plants. Here are organic living things. And plants experience death as in their own growing process. And of course, then as they are also simulated to use by those who eat them, whether animals or beasts. And this is biblical language. And I'm thinking of the way our Lord and John 1224 and the Apostle Paul in the first Corinthians 1536, both speaking about the sea, the corner of wheat that the accepted dyes and not the biblical language, it has to die in order to bring forth fruit so that there is death in the plant life as it can't be disputed. This is biblical language. There is death in the world here as part of the original natural order of things as God created it. Now mind you, in this whole discussion, we are not leaving the door open for a second for the thought that there was human death. Definitely our contention is the traditional position that for man, sin is the death is the wages of sin. For man, death is the wages of sin. No fall, no death for man. But now we're not talking about human death. And the problem is with the people who are squeamish about the conclusion I'm coming to is that they are unable to distinguish clearly enough between the significance of the meaning of death at the human level and death at these other levels. They have a natural omorphic interpretation of the subhuman. And they see animals giving signs that for human being would be pain and so on. And they interpret it as having the same value as a human being experiencing pain. And they don't want any part of this nature which is a red tooth and clawed in all of this sort of a thing. But that's a mentality that comes from the society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. And like mine did the nonsense ideologies and it doesn't come from the Bible. And so I think that we should sensitize ourselves to the scriptures. And if we do so, we will not interpret animal experience or still less plant experience in terms of human experience. So no death for human beings before the fall. But yes death as far as the natural order lower on. Now what is the biblical case for this? And so I try further than to focus this whole issue of whether there was death in the world by taking up the question of whether here, right from the outset, it would have been proper for Adam and other human beings that would have come along apart from sin. To make use of animal life, I don't suppose anyone could dispute that they made use of plant life and so that there was plant death. But could they make use of animal life? Could they take animal life? Could they introduce death into the animal realm in that way in order to serve their own higher interests in whatever way? And of course animals could be killed and thus provide for all kinds of human needs. And so with that have been acceptable from the beginning. And you can sharpen the question still more by asking just in terms of diet food. Was man necessarily compelled to be vegetarian before the fall? Or could beef steaks have been or even pork chops have been a part of their regular diet from the beginning? And I'm arguing of course that yes that they could have been. So a question then that calls for consideration of this connection is whether the idea of man before the fall, sacrificing animal life for his own higher interests, whether that idea is compatible with the Bible's representations concerning the original state of blessedness. Now in my case then I on page 35 now moves along this way. Since all creatures were subordinated to man's dominion, we've seen that in terms of this pattern of Genesis 1. All creatures were subjected to man's rule he has demeaned over the fish of the sea to follow the air and everything else. So that is so. Then more over we have also seen that sacrifice and death are normal forms of consecration even before the fall since those two things are true then. That all things are subordinate, consecrated to man, sacrifice and death are normal forms of consecration. I can't for myself find any principal objection then to man's putting animals to death and thus consecrating them to his own higher interests. Moreover it is generally conceded I don't know if all of you would concede it or not. And of course there are our institute for creation research people who wouldn't concede this but I would say that most would concede that the study of natural history shows that all manner of animals as a matter of fact had lived and perished not just before the fall but even before a man appeared on the face of of the earth including all those dinosaurs from about 135 million to 65 million years ago who lived and that death was in the animal world and all these fossil remains are not all post-lapse serian remains as I say most people would recognize then that there was death not just of individuals but of whole species that came and went not just before man fell but even before man was created in the world. Now however some more specific biblical evidence and I cite two or three passages here in this page 35 that I think are useful and Psalm 100 4 is nice, Psalm 100 4 is one of those more we spoke about Genesis 1 itself is talking a sort of semi poetic flavor. Well now here's a meditation on the creation account Psalm 104 which is beautifully poetic and it's celebrating you know God's wisdom and the various things that he made and as it's described there this wisdom of God also finds expression in his providential control of things after the fall as well as before but certainly what is being described includes and really primarily focuses on the world as God created it right from the beginning and what were the advantages of the different things and the beauties and the wisdom of different things that would take the day and the night that's part of what God created the cycle the cycle of light and darkness of day and night. Look at the wisdom of God how he from the beginning was taking account of the needs of all of his creatures and including those little lion cubs that would be yulping to daddy lion to bring them home some wildebeest chops for breakfast and how the Lord provided the cover of darkness that therefore for the daddy lion to go out to more effectively to track down and to capture the prey and to bring it home to the den to feed the little lion. What a wonderful wisdom the Lord displayed when he set up that the cycle of day and night right from the beginning to accommodate the predatory functions of these creatures that he had made. In other words this is not as I said the the mentality of the society for the branch of cruelty the animals but it's the biblical mentality that God set it up this way he wasn't squeamish he wasn't squeamish about the the lion killing the the wildebeest and so we look at all of these nature movies on on TV and and there is the the the tiger there is the the lion there there is the cheetah going after the gazelle and you know they're going over the landscape and zigzagging back and forth and we're all rooting for the gazelle but the gazelle doesn't always make it and the and the cheetah captures him sometimes and that that's part of the good order of nature even even though you might look at the tender brown eyes of the the gazelle and then pity the thing but you shouldn't interpret that thing in terms of human pain and an experience this is part of the way God set things up from the beginning as Psalm 104 then around verse 21 indicates now also the question of diet comes up more specifically in 1 Timothy 4 verses 3 through 5 and a fall here takes up the fact that the false teachers who were forbidding some of them to marry and others forbidding to eat various kinds of meat some foods and meats and Paul says all all wrong thinking here because God made these things all of them to be received with Thanksgiving and they're all good so here's the language of God's intention from the beginning and creating them and he created them to for this very purpose and so whether the Bible throws some light on the subject for it it does not support the traditional schools along this line now in the light of this then why is it that the other point of view is that the prevalent to one and that certainty is and then the current debates within the PCA and the OPC over the whole business of creation and the length of the days and so on this is a part of the problem that people see there that they see that the view that I am now suggesting is a part of the approach that would hold to an old earth and so forth and they are vigorously opposed to this idea as a violation of the basic orthodox of our theology well it is not a violation of it and the tradition is just that it's a tradition that doesn't have adequate biblical foundations but why is it so prevalent and I suggest here the main arguments that I've come upon if you have some others you might want to mention them but here's a time is flying away much faster already than I had hoped it would but let's take we're in the bottom of page 35 and top of page 36 come to the end of chapter one in Genesis sort of have a hierarchy that pattern of consecration we were talking about and how God has established this hierarchy among his creatures with man at the top and animals and plants and so as you read those closing verses beginning with reverse let's say 28 Genesis 128 God bless them instead be fruitful increase build the earth subdued rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air so their man is given dominion over the animals so that's the first point and it's stated just in the most general terms rule over them and his rule of course over the animals is going to take the various forms the animals are going to serve man in all kinds of ways not just obviously for food but the animals are going to providing with transportation they're going to pull his plow they're going to provide him with the hides and fur as for clothing and so on and so on so on so on all kinds of uses and so it is just stated in the most general terms that man can rule over animals but then it also says then man of course it's also the rule or over the vegetation world and the most obvious way in which that comes out is the fact that vegetation is something that man can eat not exclusively that's not the only use of plants but that is the conspicuous use and so it is stated that way then the text goes on to say not only is man over the animals and over the vegetation but then there's also this hierarchy between the second and the third stages animals are also higher than plants because animals also they eat plants and so that's the way the thing is set up now the the appeal that is made to this is based on the assumption that just the silence there it says it doesn't say specifically that man can eat animal flesh but it states in general terms that he used to rule over it and as I just pointed out the various uses that he makes are in fact so varied that this has to be stated in more general terms but that the eating of them is excluded it's not a warrant assumption at all and then a further point is this that there is a special reason for saying at this point that man may eat plants and vegetation what's that special point well it's setting things up for chapter two and three where you're going to get the special probationary prohibition that's going to involve man and vegetation and that's going to be such an acute test of man's obedience precisely because it's going to be in defiance of what is stated here that plants were given to man for food and yet God says here's a plant that you may not eat and so it's anticipation of that development in man's probationary testing and so on that we can understand the this special specific mention that he may eat of all kinds of all right so there there there is the one the passage that seems to that that has been appeal to the next one is in Genesis 9 this is after the flood and here things are going to depend as they often do on the right translation of the passage and I don't know what I'm going to find where I turn to the NIV here chapter 9 verse 3 everything that lives and moves will be food for you just as I gave you the green plants I now give you everything that seems to suggest that what God is saying is look up to this point you've been able to eat plants but now from now on you're going to be able to eat meat as well as plants now that is not the right meaning that that's not what a proper translation of the Hebrew bears up what the text is really saying is look up until now you've been you've been able to eat all kinds of plants and then now you may also eat all kinds of meat not just that you may eat meat for the first time but that you can eat all kinds of meat now what's the point of that all right here you've got to see the context what's going on here from the fall on the world was common there was nothing holy but you remember what we said when we were setting up our our theocracy squares on the board you come to Noah's ark and there you have a holy theocratic kingdom later on you come to Israel and you have another holy theocratic kingdom now what goes on in these holy theocratic kingdoms in terms of meats the distinction arises let's come to Israel where we're all aware of the facts right away in Israel you have a distinction made in meats between clean and unclean now all of a sudden back here in the story of the ark you encounter the concept of clean and unclean animals when Noah's being told how many of them they used to bring into the ark and you remember one pair of unclean but then seven pairs of the clean animals are being brought into into the ark and you hadn't read about that kind of distinction before because it didn't exist before everything had been common and you didn't have the idea of a holy sphere that we set off from the non holy the clean from the unclean now you do just as in Israel later on you have that and god introduces this distinction within their life in order to underscore the difference between them as it's called out holy people and the rest of the world out there that was defiled and unholy and so this is just a way of pressing that point home but meanwhile then here they had been for one year within the ark and I would say that what was going on there you can understand in the light of its parallel over here within the the ark experience they could eat only the clean animals they couldn't eat the meat of the unclean animals up until that point yes they could they could eat any kind of meat up to that point but now for one year within the ark within that special theocratic situation they had been obliged to refrain from eating unclean animals now where are we we are just beyond that Genesis 9 where our passage is taken from is this covenant of common grace here's the covenant of common grace and what god is saying is look now you're back in the covenant of common grace in terms of your diet you're no longer in terms of a theocracy with its particular scruples and so once again you're out of the ark now you're back in the common grace world no holy theocracies and so we're back to normal again now you just as you could eat any kind of plants you'll always eat any kind of plants so now once again you can eat all any kind of meat just as was the case before the the ark now that that's what's going on there is demonstrated I think very clearly by the fact that the same thing happens after this theocracy here and not just for one year but for centuries Israel was found into a system where they couldn't eat unclean meats and now they're just beyond it and here we come to the book of Acts chapter 10 isn't it huh that's the what isn't it where Peter yeah and now here here you are Peter this is just like Genesis 9 where Noah had to be told hey look Noah never mind that clean unclean business anymore they're all clean once again and so now Peter learn the lesson that Noah had to learn we're no longer in a theocracy we're back to common great once again you can eat all kinds of meat that's what's going on here so the text isn't saying now you can eat meat for the first time at this this passage actually is one that's strongly supports my position because it makes sense only as you understand that all along they could eat all kinds of meat and okay that that's a quick explanation a fairly quick explanation of it and when we come to Genesis 9 and the covenantal organization of common grace there's a more complete explanation of these things I guess in kingdom prologue but we'll have to move on beyond beyond these two passages then there's the general kind of feeling that people have about what the world must have been like before the fall that they arrive at by looking at pictures of what the Bible says about the world of heaven to come and so they they feel that when they they read biblical prophecies about heaven and the predatory lie the beast lying down with their former victims peacefully that that here you have all the that you have a literal picture for one thing of the way things are going to be and then the assumption is made is that the way they're going to be is a restoration of the way they were before the the fall and that therefore before the fall there couldn't have been any predatory and now that's the case that is made up of their all kinds of fallacies and involved in it well one of which is that you can't simplistically look at what heaven is going to be like and say that's the way things were in the Garden of Eden and heaven we're going to have glorified bodies so you can't look and then see they were glorified bodies then and say that I must add a glorified body he didn't heaven is not just a restoration of paradise as we said but it's paradise consummated it is paradise taken to the stage that it would have come to if there been a successful probation and glorification or less and all that so that's simplistic another fallacy is that taking the passage literally of you know the whole problem we discussed a little the other what is the new heavens and the new earth how much of a discontinuity is there between that and the present order in the configuration of the galaxies if there are such things and heaven will it be an exact duplication of the present cosmic system of galaxies so will there be anything there that we recognize as planet earth itself in any solar system that is like ours are we don't know the answers to these questions that so we certainly can't speak comfortably that there will will be predatory animals of it or the other kind of animals there are all kinds of questions involved but that you can't take this business literally that there would be no animal death there is contradicted by if you were following a literalist approach by other passages and then the Bible let's speak about heaven in terms of its course being the great feast the great banquet which which is one I always like to say which is not provided for by some seeds that they picked up at the local health store you know but this but probably features the the the fatted calf you know and what not and so you would run into conflict with one biblical passage and another if you're trying to treat them all literally and another thing that strikes me is significant if you're trying to think of something which is is proper in terms of an ideal realm then then you look at the Lord Jesus in his resurrection experience which anticipates the state of glory and where in his resurrection appearances he partakes of food he eats fish and so on with the disciples and then that suggests to me that there's nothing improper in any sense of the word and in human beings taking animal life in order to be themselves if the the risen Lord and his glory there is is doing that so these are these are all considerations and so why the there there should be such high bound insistence then on this view that really doesn't have biblical support I think it's unfortunate but for you meditate on it further that as I say that involves then the question of okay if there was death in the world plants animals and so on then what is it that made paradise a state of blessedness and as I argue there and as we discussed before there was death there in the world and there were threatening circumstances that were there in the world the things that could frustrate man's efforts things that could harm him do Bobby damaged to him there could be avalanches that would fall on him there would be a season which he could drown there would be cliffs he could fall over there would be stones he could break his stone to one these things were all there and it wasn't to these things then that undermined the state of blessedness because God's sovereign control was there and now that's the secret that's the meaning of blessedness it isn't the presence of the threatening objects but it is the the way in which God controls the situation that he keeps those threats that those threats from being actualized in the experience of his people his people do not fall off of a cliff they do not drop because God takes care of them the cliffs there the seas there but God takes care of them so blessedness consistent in the fact that God's favor is on you he uses angels charge over you so you don't die shifu against the stone and so on so that there's no contradiction of the idea of the blessedness of the original order just by recognizing these features are there if you have a big enough view of God as the sovereign God of creation and Romans 8 doesn't say anything different than what I have been saying that's of course another passage that's often appeal to wrongly because what Romans 8 is saying here is the you know that the whole creation is groaning and travel together with the the sons of God waiting for the day of the redemption the resurrection of the bodies of God's people because the whole creation has been subjected to corruption not willingly but in terms of of God's ordering of things you remember the passage and so that is all the time referred to as a as a description of the results of the fall that there's been some basic change in the order of nature itself or by death for the first time enters the world and so on so on and that is not valid because it's not what the passage is talking about and what Romans 8 is talking about you discover when you see the roots of it which are back in Isaiah 24 Isaiah 24 25 26 27 I think I mentioned the other week is this the little apocalypse of Isaiah in which the key problem he's dealing with is the problem of death death and resurrection and so it's right in the middle of that chapter 25 that you get the key passages about death being swallowed up in victory and so on that Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15 a little a couple of passages in Paul Romans 8 1 Corinthians 15 as well as Romans 5 are all very much drawing on roots from this little section of Isaiah 24 and following and so Isaiah 25 is dealing with the the the theme is really the the the resurrection victory of the Lord over death and and you come to the end of the thing in chapter 26 and it's a wonderful passage there where it's giving a comforting picture of of how at last the the voice of God's people is let loose that's been covered over in in shield and the ground has been covering over the cry of God's people and now it is heard and so on but right at the outset right at the outset in Isaiah 24 Isaiah describes the lamentable picture sort of like the Romans 5 thing we were talking about where he was by the the breaking of the original covenant that that sin and death entered into the whole world and death prevailed over everybody and that's what Isaiah 24 describes and so it describes right from the beginning how the realm of nature is mourning that's a term that you will perhaps find in every translation but it's a proper translation that the whole earth is mourning and languishing together with the human kind over this problem that death is everywhere because they broke the everlasting covenant that's the passage we cited the other day when we were wanting to show that the Bible uses the term covenant for the original arrangement there and the everlasting covenant was broken and that's how sin and death came into the world that's where Paul got Romans 5 from that's where he also gets Romans 8 from the business of nature groaning and mourning together with man that's Isaiah 24 and Isaiah 24 what's the problem there it's death it's the problem of death now when death enters the when human death when human death enters the world as it did at the fall now from that point on the ground to the earth the creation is obliged to play a new role that it didn't play up to that point up to that point man stood on the earth as a king over the earth now man the ruler of the earth dies he returns onto the dust and so Paul and Isaiah personify the ground as mourning and groaning over this new role that they are obliged to to perform that they have to absorb they have to take into themselves those who are made in the image of God the dead and that they must absorb this this corruption within themselves that the earth must become the netherworld that it must become the cemetery and play that role and that's what the earth doesn't want to play and most especially what the earth doesn't want to do it doesn't want to have to absorb the death of the saints the the martyrs and the blood of Abel that and these others that are sink into the earth and that the earth has a sense of revulsion that having to cover over the corruption of the dead and to to conceal and to suppress the the cry of the the martyrs that it can't rise to heaven for vindication and it's longing the of forest as Paul goes on to point out in Romans 8 the it's longing for the day of the resurrection that's when the problem will be solved when the dead are raised up and then the earth is no longer performing that cemetery another world function and so that's the whole passage is talking about it's it's a much more exciting the theme than the other for one thing but it's it has nothing to do with some basic laws of nature being being changed as a result of the fall it's just this new role so these are the main things that I've come upon and it's the factors in this discussion yeah I have an article on that that appeared it was called something like death the vieting and the martyrs or something like that in Isaiah 24 through 27 that appeared in a a fetch riff that was written in honor of Gleason Archer and I think that was the name of the the volume it was it was the name of the volume I think was a tribute to Gleason Archer and the editor of it one of the editors was Ronald Youngblood you know Ronald Youngblood he's the editor of his husband yeah I think he just gave up the other to ship of yet so I go but he and someone else were the the editors of this and and and my chapter in that was on on those so the the exercises that I just condensed is developed at some length there I don't know if it's just the book is still available are are not except in I forgot who published it I forgot who published out second out and I don't think I have that they sent me any off-prints of that that I could I'll look and see if I have a off-prints of that in which case I can bring one or we can reprint yeah the Paul was very very much involved in Isaiah and as I said in Romans 5 and Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15 all big passages you know and all of them very much developing Isaiah 24 25 26 and and chapter 27 is something then Isaiah 27 that he picks up in in the Romans 11 thing another big passage so the connections of you know Isaiah and Paul are very fruitful you you have a copy of it okay meanwhile I'll see if I do have any off-prints which would be much easier than take a good look I want to publish my collected work here we are we now where are we that's that that finishes chapter chapter two then the the good gifts of God to man the way he made him as king and then this holy kingdom over which he he placed them and but it does raise these other issues which are important in themselves and some of them much debated is this maybe a good time for a little break I think yeah let's try to keep it to five minutes because we have about another 3,000 years of history I want to cover it