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As I write this post, I have literally just gotten back home from a long weekend trip from Ohio to the far western part of Missouri and even into Kansas. I got to spend a good bit of time in 2 major cities - Kansas City and St. Louis - that I had never been to before in my life. I enjoyed a baseball game at a beautiful stadium that I had only seen before on TV, saw a well-known federal prison at Fort Leavenworth, dipped my toes in the Mississippi River, visited the Gateway Arch, and ate amazing food in both cities. Despite all of these awesome experiences, I doubt that any of them really would’ve mattered to me had I been by myself. What made the trip so much fun and so rewarding is that it happened with three people that are very close to me. There was one day that we basically spent inside relaxing and watching movies, and we had just as much fun doing that! In contrast, the most physically beautiful “paradise” I have ever been to is Buena Vista, Colorado. I spent two full weeks there during an autumn season and the landscape was amazing, but I had no one with me to share the experience. I brought back many pictures and showed them to many people, but it’s not like I can sit and reminisce about the experiences with someone else.

Who you share an experience or a physical location with makes all the difference in whether you view it as “paradise” or “just some amazing place you visited once”. In the New Testament, the Greek word for “paradise” is a word that was used in that context to describe “a pleasure-park, forest where wild beasts were kept for hunting, or garden of trees of various kinds” (Mounce). In other words, life is pretty good and easy. There may be work to be done, but it’s enjoyable and fulfilling work. There are no problems, no tears, no unmet needs or desires, and no evil. The word is not only used in the New Testament, but is also the word, when translated from Hebrew to Greek, that is used for the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2. Isn’t that interesting? Man’s history in the Bible begins with God placing him in “paradise”, and also ends in the “paradise” that Katie described from Revelation 21-22 in Monday’s post. While the first “paradise” was reserved for the man and woman who knew God by their very nature, the last “paradise” is reserved for those who willingly choose to know God through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ. So, it seems to me that the common denominator about these two physical places must not be WHAT is there, but WHO is present.

Scripture tells us about some of the physical details about these two locations, but not many. However, there is no denying that Scripture makes it abundantly clear who is present in each place. We know from Genesis 2 and 3 that the Lord God was present with Adam in the Garden of Eden because he spoke to him freely and openly (2:16-17), brought animals to him to be named (2:19), formed another human being out of his rib (2:21-22), and walked in the garden in a way that was heard by Adam and his wife (3:8). We are led to believe that Adam enjoyed a fearless and shameless relationship with God up to the point that he sinned, which caused him to feel like he needed to hide from God out of fear and shame (3:10). One of the huge consequences of Adam’s sin was that God banished him from the Garden of Eden (aka “paradise”) and even set up angels to guard its entrance in case the man tried to come back (3:23-24).

In the same way, Scripture tells us that God is present in the last “paradise”. We are told that “now the dwelling of God is WITH men, and he will live with them” (Revelation 21:3 [emphasis mine]). Later, we are told that this new location “does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23). In addition to these passages, Luke 23:43, which Katie also referenced in Monday’s post, makes it clear that Jesus is telling the criminal that he is not sending him to paradise alone, but that Jesus will be there too! I find it fascinating that Jesus tells the man nothing else about paradise. I mean, seriously, what else did he need to know? Jesus didn’t need to tell him what to pack, what to eat, or what to wear on this trip. The only thing that mattered to the criminal was that he would be with Jesus!

I hope you all understand that God’s work of redemption that is told throughout the entire Bible is just that – a plan to redeem us by bringing us back to the “paradise” where it all started for us. His plan is to bring us back to a place where we can enjoy an open relationship with Him walking right beside us because we have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. If you have accepted Jesus as your personal Savior AND ALSO made him your Lord, your journey of getting back to paradise has already begun and there are days when you feel like you are already there with him. But there are also still those days where your sin causes you to hide and be afraid. While Christ completed the work of redemption on the cross with the resounding words “it is finished”, we know that we will not realize its completion until we can once again live and walk with God 100% of the time. And that’s precisely what will make it our “paradise”. People have opinions and have even written books about what heaven and hell will look like, and Scripture gives us a little bit of an idea. But what really makes all the difference is that God himself is there in paradise, and that outside of paradise he is not there. In this lifetime and by how we live, we choose between inviting God to dwell in and with us and kicking him out of our lives. Whatever we choose in this lifetime is what he will grant us for all eternity.