Part III: Chaos and Separation

Chapter 8: His Fellowship with Adam

Yahweh-Elohim—the LORD God, the Word appearing in visible form (a theophany)—would come to the garden eastward in Eden, where Adam and Eve were, to have fellowship with them. Scripture does not tell us how many times God visited them, but it tells us something far more telling: they knew the sound of His coming. They recognized the sound of His walking. This means they had real knowledge and settled experience of God drawing near to share fellowship with them:103

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8).

It is worth pausing on that little word, “walking.” In Hebrew it carries the sense of habitual, to-and-fro movement—not a single, unprecedented visit, but a settled pattern. God was accustomed to come; Adam and Eve were accustomed to meet Him. So familiar was the sound that, on the tragic day recorded here, they recognized it even as they hid. The verse that records the breaking of their fellowship is the very verse that reveals how real and habitual that fellowship had been.104

The JFB commentary captures the tenderness of the scene beautifully:

“…they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden”—the divine Being appeared in the same manner as formerly—uttering the well-known tones of kindness, walking in some visible form (not running hastily, as one impelled by the influence of angry feelings). How beautifully expressive are these words of the familiar and condescending manner in which He had hitherto held intercourse with the first pair.

105 Note the phrase “in the same manner as formerly”—the commentator, too, sees here a long-standing habit of holy fellowship, now shadowed by sin.

And mark the hour: “in the cool of the day.” The Hebrew speaks of the “wind of the day”—the gentle evening breeze, when the heat has broken and the light is soft. It is the unhurried hour, the time set apart from labor, the time for unhurried communion. God chose the quiet of the evening to walk with the ones He loved.106

The Garden Where God Dwelt

There is something deeper still in this picture, and it sets the theme for everything that follows in this book. The garden of Eden was not merely a pleasant place; it was the first sanctuary—the dwelling place of God with man. Scripture quietly draws the lines for us. The same verb used of God “walking” in Eden is later used of His presence moving among His people in the tabernacle and the temple (Leviticus 26:12; Deuteronomy 23:14; 2 Samuel 7:6–7). Ezekiel looks back and calls Eden “the garden of God… the holy mountain of God,” a place of “sanctuaries” (Ezekiel 28:13–14, 16). A river flowed out of Eden to water it (Genesis 2:10), just as a river of life flows from the temple of the world to come (Ezekiel 47; Revelation 22:1–2).107

This is why the fellowship Adam and Eve enjoyed was so precious—and why its loss was so catastrophic. Eden was the place where heaven and earth met, where the Creator walked with His creature in the open intimacy of an unbroken relationship. Man dwelt in the presence of God, and God delighted to dwell with man. The whole long story of Scripture—tabernacle, temple, incarnation, and the new Jerusalem—is, in one sense, the story of God working to recover what was lost in that garden: His dwelling with His people.

What Did They Share?

We learn, then, that Adam and Eve used to have fellowship with God in the cool of the day. What did they discuss? The Bible does not tell us. But God had given Adam an assignment—to tend and keep the garden, to be fruitful, and to have dominion (Genesis 1:28; 2:15). So there is every likelihood that, among other things, they talked about the work: what Adam had done, what he was planning, what God was purposing for him and through him. Picture it—a man speaking with his Maker about the labor of his hands, and his Maker delighting to share His own plans in return. Simply a beautiful fellowship between a man and his Creator.

Did they eat together? Here, too, Scripture is silent—but it is a silence worth pondering. There is a real possibility that they did, for God appeared in visible, bodily form and walked in the garden. And Scripture elsewhere shows us human beings who shared a meal in the very presence of God.

The first is Abraham. By the oaks of Mamre, three men appeared to him; two were angels, but one was the LORD Himself. Abraham hurried to welcome them, prepared a feast, and “stood by them under the tree, and they did eat” (Genesis 18:1–8). The pre-incarnate Word sat at a man’s table and shared his food.109

The second is Moses with the elders of Israel upon the mountain, in one of the most astonishing scenes in all the Old Testament:

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank (Exodus 24:9–11).

They saw God, and they ate and drank—and He did not raise His hand against them. In Scripture, to eat together is to enter into covenant, peace, and fellowship; a shared table is a shared life.110 That the holy God would admit sinful men to His table is presented as sheer, breathtaking grace.111 So yes—there is a strong likelihood that when God visited Adam and Eve, beyond discussing their work and plans, they also ate together, host and guests in the garden-sanctuary of God.

A God Who Loves Fellowship

All of this reveals something about the heart of God. Fellowship is not incidental to who He is; it flows from His very nature. The God who is Himself an eternal fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit made us to share in that life of communion. It is God’s deep desire:

And here is the wonder toward which the whole of Scripture moves. The fellowship that began with God walking in Eden was never abandoned by Him, even when sin drove man from the garden. He pursued it through the tabernacle and the temple, where He came to dwell among His people. He secured it forever when “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14)—the verb means He tabernacled among us, pitching His tent in our very nature. And He will bring it to its glorious consummation when the voice from the throne declares, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). What Adam lost in the garden, the last Adam restores—and more.113

So let us have fellowship with our Creator, our God. Let us wait upon Him. Let us talk with Him and reason together with Him, for this is one of His many attributes: He loves to have fellowship with us. He loves family.

Notes

  1. 103. On the appearances of the LORD in visible form in the Old Testament as theophanies—and the historic Christian conviction that these were often manifestations of the pre-incarnate Word, the Son—see the discussion in Chapter 2. The Targums famously render the divine visitor of Genesis 18 as “the Word (Memra) of the LORD.” ↩
  2. 104. The Hebrew verb behind “walking” in Genesis 3:8 (mithallek, the hithpael of halak) denotes habitual, back-and-forth movement, implying that God’s coming was a settled pattern of fellowship, not a single visit. See Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 192–193. ↩
  3. 105. Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, on Genesis 3:8. ↩
  4. 106. The phrase rendered “cool of the day” is literally “the wind (ruach) of the day,” usually taken as the evening breeze—the gentle, unhurried hour of the day, fitting the tone of intimate fellowship the scene conveys. ↩
  5. 107. This is the great theme developed by G. K. Beale: that Eden is presented as the first sanctuary, the dwelling place of God with man. The very verb for God “walking” in Eden (Gen. 3:8) is later used of His presence in the tabernacle and temple (Lev. 26:12; Deut. 23:14; 2 Sam. 7:6–7), and Ezekiel calls Eden “the garden of God… the holy mountain of God” containing “sanctuaries” (Ezek. 28:13–14, 16, 18); a river flows from Eden as from the temple of the age to come (Gen. 2:10; Ezek. 47:1–12; Rev. 22:1–2). See G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 66–80; and Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 9 (1986): 19–25. Some interpreters urge caution about pressing every detail; the broad pattern, however, is widely recognized. ↩
  6. 109. Genesis 18 has long been read in the Christian tradition as a Christophany—an appearance of the pre-incarnate Son—since one of the three is repeatedly identified as the LORD (Yahweh) Himself, who remains speaking with Abraham while two go on toward Sodom (Gen. 18:22; 19:1). The Jewish Targums identify Him as “the Word of the LORD.” ↩
  7. 110. Eating together in Scripture regularly seals covenant and signifies fellowship and peace (Gen. 26:28–31; 31:51–54; Exod. 24:9–11; Matt. 26:26–29; Rev. 3:20). On the Exodus 24 meal as a covenant meal eaten “before God,” in communion with Him, see the discussion in R. Alan Cole, Exodus, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973), 184–186. ↩
  8. 111. That mortals “saw God, and did eat and drink” (Exod. 24:11) and yet God “laid not his hand” upon them is presented by the narrator as an astonishing mercy: sinful men admitted to table-fellowship with the holy God. See Cole, Exodus, 185. ↩
  9. 113. The trajectory that begins with God walking with man in Eden runs through tabernacle and temple, through the incarnation (“the Word was made flesh, and dwelt—literally, tabernacled—among us,” John 1:14), and reaches its goal in the new creation: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Rev. 21:3). The fellowship lost in Eden is more than restored in Christ. ↩
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