In the Garden of Eden – Behind Blood Falls

Pamela Thorson

February 20, 2024

Articles

Holy Mountain

Where is the “holy mountain” spoken of in the Bible?

The term “mountain of God” is associated in the Bible with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Ezekiel 28 places it in the Garden of Eden.

Again the word of the LORD came to me saying,

“Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him,

‘Thus says the LORD GOD,

‘You had the seal of perfection,

Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God;

Every precious stone was your covering:

The ruby, the topaz and diamond;

The beryl, the onyx and the jasper;

The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald;

And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets,

Was in you.

On the day that you were created

They were prepared.

You were the anointed cherub who covers,

And I placed you there.

You were on the holy mountain of God;

You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.

You were blameless in your ways

From the day you were created

Until unrighteousness was found in you.

…I cast you to the ground.’”

-Ezekiel 28:11-15,17

The prophet Daniel defined God’s holy mountain as Jerusalem, the city first spoken of in Genesis.

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High.

– Genesis 14:18

O Lord, in accordance with all Your righteous acts, let now Your anger and Your wrath turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain….

– Daniel 9:16

The Anti-Christ will…

…pitch the tents of his royal pavilion between the seas and the beautiful Holy Mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.

– Daniel 11:45

Is it possible that the Garden of Eden was in the same area as Jerusalem?

Intriguing evidence points to the Garden of Eden in the area approximating the land of Israel. Jewish and Muslim tradition alludes to this belief. Mt. Moriah is the high point of Jerusalem; upon it sat both Jewish temples and now Islam’s Dome of the Rock.

Here Abraham prepared to offer his son.

Here dwelt the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies, the ark guarded by golden cherubim.

In his excellent post “Finding Eden,” attorney and novelist Craig Parshall addresses the difficulty of the biblical placement of Eden as the source of four rivers. Two of these rivers described in the Bible are nonexistent now, and two don’t flow into Israel. A reasonable conclusion is movement of land features resulting from the geographical upheaval of the Flood. Parshall notes that Ezekiel 31:8-9 describes the trees in “God’s garden” and clearly connects these trees to Eden in Lebanon in verse 16.

From Guardian Angel to Serpent

Contemplate the breathtaking scene set by the Scriptures: An angelic being majestic and perfect in beauty, adorned in precious stones. Ezekiel called him the “anointed cherub who covers.” A literal rendering of the word “covers” is “guarded.” In verse 16 he is called the “covering (guardian) cherub” of this perfect world.

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

– Genesis 1:31

The beautiful angel Lucifer walking in Eden presents a dramatically different picture than the one we’re usually presented. He was a perfect, dazzling, entrusted with guarding God’s precious and crowning creation: Adam and Eve.

This makes more sense of the entire narrative of the Fall. It brings into focus the depth of Lucifer’s betrayal.

Adam and Eve were perfect humans, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. They may have been innocent, but they weren’t stupid. Is it possible Eve would have been convinced by a snake to disobey the God of creation Who walked with them in Eden?

Satan is identified in the Fall as a serpent. Jesus is identified in the New Testament as a lamb.

Mankind was the crowning creation of God. Job 38:6-7 tells us the angelic beings “sang together” and “shouted for joy” when they witnessed the creation of earth. Since God saw His entire creation was “very good” at its completion, we are given no evidence of a fallen angel or principle of sin in force until the deception of Satan in Eden. And since the Bible clearly states “sin entered by one man, Adam (Romans 5:12), there is also no Biblical basis for theories of a Luciferic pre-Adamic creation, rebellion, or re-created world.

Did the Fall of Satan coincide with the Fall of mankind?

The mystery of the origin of sin is an age-old one. The fact Ezekiel describes Lucifer as an exalted, anointed guardian of Eden, “until unrighteousness was found in you,” reason suggests Lucifer’s sin was in the Garden. As others have noted, perhaps his pride was wounded at being just a ministering angel to creatures born of the dust. Perhaps he became jealous of their favored status.

Isaiah prophesied the king of Babylon’s fall but seems to be speaking to an otherworldly power:

How you are fallen from heaven,

O Day Star, son of Dawn!

How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!

You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven;

above the stars of God I will set my throne on high….

I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.’

– Isaiah 14:12-14 ESV

Did Lucifer see an opportunity to win mankind’s adoration, become god of creation, and perhaps usurp God’s throne completely with a coup driven by the one-third of the angels he had gathered against Him? Did he slither up to Eve not in the form of an animal, but as the trusted and beautiful guardian of the Garden?

Perhaps we are afraid of turning the entire Genesis account into a mere allegory by wondering aloud if it were Satan’s traits described in the Genesis account, not his physical appearance. If we can tell the difference between the symbolic and literal descriptions of the Christ, can we not accept a symbolic description of the devil without tossing out all of Genesis? We know Christ is not a literal lamb. We understand the term speaks of His divine characteristics and role as the sacrificial lamb of the Passover.

The devil is specifically identified in the Revelation as the “serpent of old.”

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.

– Genesis 3:1

Note the serpent is compared with and separate from the of the creatures of the field. Not more crafty than the others, but more crafty than any animal. Not only is he more devious than the animals, he can speak. We know from the story of Balaam and the donkey that God can make an animal speak. But making it able to outwit a perfect human in a sinless world?

It could be, and is usually assumed, that Satan spoke through the snake. This is certainly possible. But it makes a lot more sense of the whole of Scripture if he approached Eve as a snake approaches its victims, with stealth and a plan to consume them.

While it’s true Eve might have carried on a conversation with a snake with no sense of surprise or fear, since she had not experienced death, I submit the scenario is much more powerful and Scriptural if she were approached by Lucifer, the beautiful cherub angel and guardian she trusted. She would have had no reason to doubt his word and would have been tempted to succumb to his sly twisting of God’s Word.

What we do know is this: Lucifer’s sin stripped him of his exalted position and, ironically, sentenced him to crawl in the same dust out of which sprang the humans he hates so much. Since one law of science states acquired characteristics can’t be inherited, we know snakes were created without legs. Snakes did not lose their legs in Eden.

Lucifer did.

Remember Ezekiel 28:17, where we are told God cast Lucifer to the ground. Since he already walked in the Garden of Eden, the only way he could go lower was to crawl in the dust.

And he has since the Fall, eating God’s dust as he hunts human prey to consume before he is officially taken off the planet.

Whether Lucifer entered a serpent’s body, transformed into a serpent, or appeared in his role as guardian cherub with a snake’s deceit, matters not as much as learning the crucial lesson of his rebellion:

Resist his lies.