The Heart of the Earth

This morning while waking up another thought came to me. The Garden of Eden was to the earth like our heart is to our own being. Since God designed us to live openly and nakedly from our heart He placed Adam and Eve in the heart of the world to live naked and unashamed. When they received the sinful, twisted “programming” of Satan and moved quickly to a focus on external identity in place of internal value they immediately begin to experience fear and shame and loss of personal worth. They then attempted to fix the problem by addressing the externals and looking for someone to blame only aggravating the situation exponentially.

Because of this new condition, God had to change their physical circumstances to match their internal condition. Since they had chosen to live outside their hearts He required them to leave the Garden, the heart of the world, provided external coverings for their nakedness and gave them someone to lay their blame upon—an innocent lamb. He did this to protect the heart of His new world from experiencing the same defilement as their hearts had experienced until the plan of restoration for all humanity was sufficiently progressed to allow them back into the Garden. This will take place after the Second Coming of Jesus when all the saved are introduced to heaven where the original Garden was transplanted temporarily for protection until the New Earth is restored.

Thus God illustrated how He is dealing with our own heart. He initiated protection for the “heart” of the world by personally keeping it with Him. He also protects our original hearts as He designed them with an angel with a flaming sword to keep us from trashing it completely until we learn to live from it once again in innocence, honesty and naked transparency. This is the object of salvation – salvaging us, restoring us to our original function and design. “Getting to heaven” is almost incidental as simply part of the process of restoration, not the main focus of salvation. The main passion of God in salvation is to accomplish full reunification of the broken relationship of intimacy between Him and every human being willing to accept a vital connection to Him at every level of existence. He is hungry for our affection. He craves to make us outlets and channels of His own feelings and emotions. He wants us to experience the joy of closeness to Him and to each other that He created us to experience. And He is relentless in pursuing His passion until He has drawn every willing soul into the redemption that He has provided in Jesus Christ.

Then humanity will again have access to literally live once again in the “heart” of the earth, the original Garden of Eden restored to the original earth from which it was taken so long ago. The New Earth will externally reflect the restoration that has taken place internally within all the redeemed.

And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, "To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever." (Revelation 5:13)

“The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love. {GC 678.3}