Eden was the garden God planted right after creating humankind, a place of abundance, beauty, and perfect fellowship between the Creator and his creature.
There God placed Adam to work and keep the land, and later formed Eve to be his companion. The couple lived in full harmony with God, with each other, and with all of creation.
In the middle of the garden stood the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gave man a single prohibition: not to eat from the fruit of that second tree.
It was also in Eden that the serpent deceived Eve, and sin entered the world. Adam and Eve disobeyed, and the fellowship they enjoyed with God was broken.
As a result, the Lord drove the couple out of the garden and placed cherubim to guard the way to the tree of life. From then on, Eden became a symbol of paradise lost, an image the Bible returns to all the way to the end, in the promise of the tree of life restored in Revelation.
