Jesus My Lord and My God   Ajit Leons Ministries

Was the sending of man out of the Garden of Eden, by God, part of his punishment or was it otherwise? [Gen 3.22-24]

All the presentations of God sending man out of the Garden of Eden, whether in paintings, pictures/drawings, dramas, movies or books, it is shown as a part of the punishment given to man by God for his committing the original sin. From the beginning, this is what Christian believers have been taught in tradition and it is, in fact, a huge error.
A question that comes to our minds here is: ‘If God loved man, why did He throw him out of the Garden of Eden; and does it not amount to an act of cruelty?’ However, here a great new truth is revealed that teaches us why God did so and furthermore, proves the greater love of God for man and His greater glory.
Man was tempted by the Devil, in the Garden of Eden and committed the first ever sin; the original sin. [Gen 3.1-13] On account of this God pronounced His judgments on the Tempter, the woman and the man, individually. [Gen 3.14-20]
After that God made garments out of animal skins for Adam and Eve and clothed them. [Gen 3.21] Prior to this, immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, they covered their nakedness with fig leaves which they sewed together. In other words, “clothes” were made for them by God and thus, you could say, God was the first fashion designer in the world!
As a loving father would have done, God, our Father in heaven, made clothes not only to cover themselves but also to protect them, because He knew that their bodies could no longer bear the conditions of the world, like the cold, heat of the sun, rain, and so on. This was a clear act of care, of concern, of love for them; proving that although they sinned God’s love for them had not diminished.
Although God forgave them, Man had to suffer the consequences of his original sin, regarding which God had warned him at the very beginning. If God had not forgiven them He would not have continued to bless them with His presence. That God clothed them proves He continued to love them in spite of their sin. This brings us to the question: “Was Adam and Eve sent out of the Garden of Eden as a part of their punishment consequent to their having sinned?”
Let us think: If Adam and Eve were not ousted from the Garden of Eden, what would have been the situation that the world would have faced?
As mankind would have had access to the fruit of the Tree of Life, all the descendants of Adam and Eve, starting from Cain would have been alive even today. All the good and the evil persons would have lived for ever. Of course, from history we know that evil men killed or conquered in order to rule over others. In such case, evil would naturally have grown and become widespread, and if the evil did not have an end then the good would not have a chance to surface or survive.
For example, history shows us a list of extremely evil persons and the period for which they lived: Caligula-29 yrs (Rome’s 3rd Emperor), Nero-31 yrs (Rome’s 5th Emperor), Attila the Hun-47 yrs (aka Attila the Scourge of God), Genghis Khan-65 yrs (Khan of the Mongolian Empire), Tomas de Torquemada-78 yrs (Grand Inquisitor of Spain), Vlad Dracula-46 yrs (aka Vlad the Impaler), Ivan the Terrible-54 yrs (Tsar of Russia), Elizabeth Bathory-54 yrs (aka Countess Dracula), Leopold II-74 yrs (King of Belgium), Talat Pasha-47 yrs (Grand Vizier of the Sultan of Ottoman Empire), Joseph Stalin-75 yrs (Premier of Soviet Union), Adolf Hitler-56 yrs (Chancellor of Germany), Mao Zedong-83 yrs (Dictator of China), Emperor Hirohito-88 yrs (Emperor of Japan), Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini-87 yrs (Religious Leader of Iran), (Dr.) Joseph Mengele-68 yrs (Physician in the Concentration camp Auschwitz, aka “Angel of Death”), Pol Pot-73 yrs (Prime Minister of Cambodia), Idi Amin-78 yrs (Dictator of Uganda), Jim Jones-47 yrs (Leader of the Peoples Temple), Mathieu Ngirumpatse-76 yrs (President of the Hutu extremist National Revolutionary Movement for Democracy and Development), Kim Il Sung-70 yrs (Dictator of North Korea), Jeffrey Dahmer-34 yrs (American serial killer and sex offender), and so on.
All these persons would have been alive today, if they still had access to the fruit of the Tree of Life. The wickedness, the destruction, the horror and the evil in the world would have been so widespread and immense; we may not have been able to see any sight of good anywhere, let alone gaining eligibility for salvation, and we would have preferred death to living in such a world.
More importantly, as man would have had everlasting life on account of his access to this fruit irrespective of whether he was eligible or not, man would never have felt the need to change from his evil ways and turn to the ways that are pleasing to God in order to regain all that he lost by committing the original sin. With man committing the original sin, in him was born the tendency of evil; and it is this tendency which is in all of us and which continues in all future generations. Man would have reveled in his evil and the world would have been at war all the time as everyone would want to conquer and possess the Tree of Life.
However, God loved man and as man was his cherished creation he wanted man to regain all that he had lost and attain salvation in order to live in fellowship with Him. If man had continued living in the Garden of Eden and continued to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, God knew that good would never get an opportunity to appear as evil would rule him and rule the world. In such case, man would never have a chance to attain eligibility for salvation.
Therefore, for good to surface it was of utmost importance to bring an end to evil.
This could be achieved only if
1. Man did not have everlasting life in this world which could be only if man did not have access to the fruit of the Tree of Life, and
2. Evil was limited to a specific period of time; by limiting human life span.
To deny access to the Tree of Life and stop man from having everlasting life, man had to be removed from the Garden of Eden. So, to give “good” an opportunity to surface and give man a second chance to gain eligibility for salvation, God sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.
Therefore, God’s sending man out of Eden was not part of his punishment, rather it was done in order to save him; it was an act of salvation and not punishment.
Even after doing this, God saw so much wickedness and evil in man such that He regretted having created them. God decided to wipe all the people and all other living beings except Noah and his family along with the animals he took on his boat; for only Noah was found good in the sight of God. [Gen 6.5-22] Thus God send the Flood upon the world. [Gen 7 – 8] However, God makes a covenant with Noah that He will never again cause such total destruction of all people and all living beings. [Gen 9.8-17]
At that time man lived for hundreds of years. To limit the period of evil, God decided that man shall live no longer than one hundred and twenty years. [Gen 6.3] It took 14 generations from the time of Noah to Jacob (Noah/950yrs to Jacob/147yrs; Joseph/110yrs [Gen 9.29; 47.9, 28, 49.33; 50.22]) to reduce the span of life of man to this maximum of 120 years. You can see the most evil people in history, given above, lived for only below 121 years.
So, by God design, no matter how evil a person is, he/she will live to do evil only for a maximum of 120 years. Of course, with current trends in human life span, it is usually lower than 100 years.
We have revealed beyond doubt that the act of God sending man out of the Garden of Eden was not part of his punishment but an act of salvation of man. Thereby we have proved that this was not an act of cruelty but an act of the great love of God for mankind; so that man shall not perish but have eternal life. Such an act of the great love for mankind by the Lord our God, our Father in heaven is repeated in His act of sending His one and only Son, again so that whoever believes in Jesus Christ shall not perish but have eternal life. [John 3.16]