Chapter 3 (continued, part 3)
Such seems to be the true meaning of the above passage. There is no ground for believing it to be spoken as an interrogation, far less in irony. What more unlike God, than thus to be mocking His creatures at the very moment that He is bending over them in such deep true love? Is this like Him that 'upbraideth not'? Is it like Him who was 'grieved at His heart' because of man's iniquity? It is only once or twice that Scripture speaks ironically, and it is to the daringly ungodly, as to the priests of Baal. But does irony befit a scene like this? Standing on the wreck of a newly-made, newly-ruined world, having just proclaimed to man His grace, and pointed him to the coming Redeemer, is it possible that He can utter irony, and wound without a cause His weeping children? Besides, what follows is so solemnly expressed ('lest he put forth his hand, and eat, and live for ever'), even in its very abruptness so like the solemn oath of God against Israel's entrance on the land ('lest they should enter into my rest'), that we cannot admit of irony in the case at all. There is so
much of deep love on the one hand, and of stern judgment on the other, that the introduction of irony here would be quite out of place. Nor will there appear any necessity for such a supposition, if our previous exposition of the tree of life be remembered.
Ver. 24. 'So (Heb. and) He drove out the man: and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims2 and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way to the tree of life.'
Man, however reluctant, must leave paradise. Neither God's purpose, nor His honour, can allow him to remain. Whether ejected by force we cannot say, but his unwillingness to quit seems implied.
His expulsion is not to be viewed, as is generally done, as mere ejection from a happy dwelling, his own special home, as if this were his punishment. No, it is banishment from God and from His presence, that is the true idea which the passage presents to us. Paradise was not so much Adam's home as Jehovah's dwelling. It corresponded to the holy of holies; it was the chamber of the presence of the great King. And Adam's being, cast out of this, corresponded to Israel's being kept outside the holiest, and not allowed to enter into the immediate presence of God, where He dwelt between the cherubim.2 Though Adam's banishment was in some measure of the nature of a punishment, yet its chief object was to announce that truth which it took ages to unfold, that there was a hindrance to man's drawing near to God, that 'the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.'
Man is banished from paradise, yet he is left within sight of it; he is allowed to remain in Eden. He is not driven into some desert, as if there were nothing for him but wrath. There is favour for him in spite of his sin; and the expulsion does not cancel the pardon he has received, or intimate that God has begun to frown. It merely showed that before the full consequences of that favour could reach man, time must elapse, and barriers be thrown down. It is not the 'outer darkness,' neither is it the full sunshine, into which he is brought. It
is the twilight that surrounds him; and that twilight assures him of the coming noon.
He is left to linger at the gate, or wander round the sacred fences of that forbidden ground. For paradise is not swept off nor swallowed up. It is left as God's temple, now shut up and empty, but still within sight of man. Probably it shared the common blight of creation; though, like primeval man, it took long to wither; till, having waxed old and being ready to vanish away, the deluge came and swept it from the earth. It remained as a specimen of God's original handiwork, reminding man of the glory which he had lost. It stood as a monument of what sin had done in blighting God's perfect creation, and turning man into an exile. It showed how God estimates the material creation, and that matter is not the defiling and hateful thing which some conceive it to be. It proclaimed that God had not wholly left the earth, and that in His own set time He would return to it; nay, that man, though for a season dethroned and banished, should yet repossess, earth as king and lord. Thus God, in preserving paradise for a season, with man a wanderer outside its gates, announced these truths to the ages to come,—truths which were afterwards embodied in types and promises, and unfolded at length to us by His holy prophets. For the prophecies of after ages are but the translation into words of the facts which these primeval scenes presented to the eye.
Within the sacred enclosure, towards its. eastern extremity, God placed, or made to dwell, 'the cherubim.' Of this word no explanation is here given; but from the way in which it is introduced, and from the article 'the' prefixed, we conclude that it was quite familiar to Moses, and that the children of Israel would at once understand it as denoting the same thing which they were commanded to place in the holy of holies. No Israelite would understand it of certain living beings moving to and fro, but of a symbolic figure or statue, such as that in their own tabernacle. Just as 'the cherubim' were afterwards set in 'the holiest,' and for the same symbolical ends, so were they placed in paradise. There is nothing more to lead us to suppose that
they were living beings (such as angels) in their former abode in the garden, than in their latter in the wilderness. In both they were symbols.
Of what, then, were they the symbols? There is no proof of their being representatives of angels, still less of the Trinity, as some have thought; there are no passages connecting the cherubim with either of these. They are always introduced in connection with man, and man's redemption. They are referred to about a hundred times in the Old Testament, but only in the above connection. In Ezekiel (1:5, 8, 10) it is said they 'had the likeness of a man,' and the 'hands of a man,' and the 'face of a man.' In Isaiah, also (6:2, 6), they have face, and feet, and hands,—being evidently the same as in Ezekiel, though called seraphim. Then, further, we find them connected with the lower orders of creation, with the lion, and the ox, and the eagle,— the representatives of the different orders of animals (Ezek. 1:10). Then we find them associated with the vegetable creation,—the 'palm-tree' (Ezek. 41:18, 20, 25), the representative of that order of creation, and the well-known symbol of triumph and joy, not only in the case of Israel (Jer. 23:40), but of the redeemed multitude (Rev. 7:9). Then we observe them in connection with Christ Himself (Ex. 25:19, 37:8), being 'made out of the mercy-seat;' or, as the apostle expounds it, 'He that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one,' literally, 'out of one, made or taken out of one being or one piece;' and in Ezekiel's description (1:26, 27) we discover 'a man,' evidently the incarnate Son Himself, upon the throne that was over the cherubim. Further, we find them in closest relationship to the symbols of redemption (Ex. 37:1, 9). They were part of the mercyseat; they stood upon the mercy-seat, their feet were upon the blood with which it was sprinkled (Lev. 16:14), and, of course, they themselves would share the sprinkling; their abode was a chamber, every part of which was sprinkled with blood; they were enveloped in the incense which went up from the high priest's censer on the day of atonement (Lev. 16:12, 13); their eyes, bending downwards, were ever fixed upon the blood of the mercy-seat. And then, in Revelation, where these same symbols reappear, only as in Isaiah and Ezekiel,
instinct with life, there can be no mistake as to the beings represented, for they sing the song of redemption (Rev. 5:9), 'Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood.' The whole scene carries us back to the Old Testament emblems as given by Moses, by Isaiah, and by Ezekiel. These are the wings, the mystic faces, the incense, the blood, the throne, and, last of all, the glorious triumph of which the palm-trees were the symbol, 'We shall reign on the earth' (5:10).
That the cherubim were the symbols of a coming redemption, and foreshadowed re-entrance into that very presence of Jehovah from which man had just been cast out, seems evident. But the peculiar forms and various appendages belonging to them intimate that more than man are concerned in this restitution. The figures of the lion, and the eagle, and the palm-tree indicate that the whole creation is to share in the blessing. The symbol is not merely one of redeemed man, but of a redeemed creation, from man, the head, down to the lowest forms of being. All that God created 'good' is thus symbolized as awaiting deliverance in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God; and thus the three concluding psalms, so minute in their details of praise, so prophetic of the glory of creation in all its parts, and so often sung before that God who 'inhabited the cherubim,' with their commencing and closing hallelujahs, shall be found most wondrously to harmonize with that burst of universal praise from 'every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and in the sea' (Rev. 5:13),—to 'Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.'
But while the symbols of redemption are thus set up in paradise, they are not to be too nearly approached. In front of them there is placed 'a flaming sword which turned every way;' or, more exactly, 'the flame of the sword which turned itself.' This self-revolving flame was the symbol of Him who is 'a consuming fire;' of Him who appeared as 'devouring fire' on Sinai (Ex. 24:17); of Him who sent forth to Israel His 'fiery law' (Deut. 33:2); of Him whose throne is like the fiery flame, and His wheels like burning fire (Dan. 7:9); of Him who is to be 'revealed from heaven in flaming fire' (2 Thess. 1:8). That this
fiery sword was part of, or at least connected with, the Shekinah, is evident from the first chapter of Ezekiel, which is a description of the Shekinah.
This fiery sword took up its position at the gate of paradise, to bar all entrance to man. It not only, like the veil in the tabernacle, hindered his entrance, but threatened him with death should he attempt it. It was God's awful prohibition of man's entrance into the presence of God until the hindrances which existed should be taken out of the way. Till the woman's seed should arise, and by the blood of His 'bruised heel' remove that flaming barrier, man must remain outside. From that flame came the fire which consumed the sacrifice on the altar, which was doubtless erected in front of paradise, teaching man that it was through the altar, and the sacrifice, and the blood, that the way was at length to be opened up, and paradise repossessed in greater blessedness and glory than before. But not till the true altar had been reared, and the true sacrifice slain, and the true blood shed, could there be boldness to enter into the holiest. Not till then would it be said, 'Let us draw near with a true heart, in the full assurance of faith' (Heb. 10:19–22).
The 'tree of life' was not at once uprooted. It remained where it had first been planted. But man was not to touch it yet. He might see it afar off, with the fiery sword between, but access is prohibited. Its fruit is no longer to be tasted. He is to live, not to die; he is to be made heir of a more glorious life than he had possessed before, but not by means of that tree of life. His new life is to come in another way, and through another channel, of which that tree was but the symbol; through Him who is the resurrection and the life. So that it was as if that now prohibited tree were pointing his eye to something beyond and above itself, saying, Look not at me, but at Him of whom I am but the shadow.
Man is now to worship outside of paradise. The favour of God is freely given; but intercourse, though not denied, is restricted. Man must now worship in the outer court. The hope of re-admission is
vouchsafed, but the time is indefinitely deferred. The tree of life is to be again thrown open to him in far more blessed circumstances (Rev. 2:7, 22:2), but no intimation is made of what lies between.
Man's altar is reared before the gate of paradise, in front of the flaming sword; and there he lays his sacrifice, at once pleading for readmission, and preparing the way for it. The cherubim are at the eastern extremity; the tree of life in 'the midst;' the flame at the gate; outside, the altar! Such was God's first outline of a temple; an outline which, though often altered in the course of ages, still preserved its main features throughout. From that day to this we have been worshippers outside paradise. Faith takes us into the holiest of all: and in that sense we have been already re-admitted, for the veil has been rent, and the fiery sword withdrawn, or rather quenched— quenched in the blood of the sacrifice. But still we have not yet been actually admitted. We still wait the reappearance of the woman's seed, and then shall not only our first father Adam, but all the saved seed, a mighty multitude, in one glorious band, re-enter with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads, with no dread before of a second ejection and a second exile.
Then we shall have unhindered access into a better paradise than the first, and be privileged to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of it. Then shall the redeemed from among men, the true cherubim, of which all that have been seen hitherto have been but the shadows, take up their residence in the true tabernacle which the Lord hath pitched for them, where they shall abide in nearest communion, seeing face to face, and knowing even as they are known.