Jesus Restores Paradise (Sermon from 2008)
Our world is troubled and full of suffering. Our first parents enjoyed the bounty of the Garden of Eden, apart from any burdensome work. But after the fall, toil and labor was guaranteed. But into this broken world came Jesus the Messiah to restore creation. Having compassion on the weary multitudes, He renewed the bounty of Eden. So also our Lord Jesus, having endured the burden of our sin, was raised on the third day to bring us back to Paradise.We have been redeemed!
Today’s sermon text is taken from Genesis 2,
7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. . . .
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”