How long were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

The trial of innocent man in Eden; brief indeed — the history of a day rather than an age, — yet all-important in its results for every step of the journey afterward.

Dispensation of Innocence. This probably lasted a very short time. The record is covered by Genesis 2:7-3:24.

Adam was created innocent. Placed as head over the first creation. Given a helpmeet. One test was imposed upon our first parents, namely, not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In their attempt to rise and become as gods they fell. Their act was prophetic of the rise of antichrist, who will make the greatest attempt to be as God. The dispensation ended in failure. It was closed by the fall of the creature and the introduction of the reign of sin.

This dispensation extends from the creation of Adam in Genesis 2:7 to the expulsion from Eden. Adam, created innocent and ignorant of good and evil, was placed in the garden of Eden with his wife, Eve, and put under responsibility to abstain from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The dispensation of innocence resulted in the first failure of man, and in its far-reaching effects, the most disastrous. It closed in judgment: "So he drove out the man." See Gen. 1:26; Gen. 2:16,17; Gen. 3:6; Gen. 3:22-24.)

When God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, He set him up in all the delights of the earthly paradise, so that he might he happy in the circumstances provided for him in God's goodness, and be there with his God-given companion for the pleasure and glory of God. Alas! so very soon after, Adam and his wife forfeited fair Eden: and the tree of life was guarded by the Cherubim and the flaming sword, lest they should eat of it and live for ever in their sinful condition. That God had eternal life for man did not come out in relation to Adam innocent or fallen; indeed, it is expressly recorded that life, found in the tree of life, was forbidden to man in sin: nevertheless the tree of life surely indicates that God had in reserve a life upon which man had never fed, in which there was divine life and blessing for him. With the sentence of death upon him, Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, but death at length claimed him; and although men in the successive generations lived to nearly a thousand years, every one of them, save Enoch, departed by way of death.

The garden of Eden (that is 'delights'), in which dwelt Adam and Eve for the short time before they sinned. In it God made to grow every tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for food: in it also was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:8-15. A fruitful place is described as being like the garden of Eden. Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 36:35; Joel 2:3. The fall of Pharaoh, under the figure of an exalted tree, is said to comfort the trees of Eden, which is called the 'garden of God,' etc. Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13; Ezek. 31:9, 16, 18. The trees of Eden having been planted by God, they are in this last passage used as a symbol for the various nations placed by God in the earth, Israel being the centre. Deut. 32:8. Adam was put in the garden to dress and to keep it; but on his fall he was driven out and cherubim were placed to keep the way of the tree of life. Gen. 3:23-24.

Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of all the trees of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: of the which if they ate, in the same day they should die. Eve, being beguiled by Satan, ate of that tree; and at her suggestion, though not deceived as Eve was, Adam also took of it. Their eyes were at once opened, they knew they were naked, and hid themselves from God. They were transgressors, had fallen from their state of innocence, and acquired a conscience, and with it the sense of their own evil and guilt. When questioned by God, Adam laid the blame on Eve, ungratefully saying, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." The ground was then cursed for Adam's sake: in sorrow he should eat of it all his life: thorns and thistles should be produced, and in the sweat of his face he should eat bread.

God made for Adam and Eve coats of skins and clothed them, foreshadowing the need for a vicarious sacrifice, and the righteousness that could only come to them through death. They were driven from the garden, and Cherubim with a flaming sword prevented them re-entering, lest they should eat of the tree of life and live for ever in their sin. Adam did not beget a son until after his fall: hence all mankind are alike fallen creatures. Acts 17:26; Rom. 5:18-19; 1 Cor. 15:22. Adam lived 930 years and begat sons and daughters. We have no details of the life of Adam as a fallen man. Viewed typically as head of a race he stands in marked contrast to Christ, the last Adam.

The LORD God said that the man had become as one of Them to know good and evil, so for fear lest he should eat the fruit of the tree of life, and live forever, the LORD drove them both out of the garden of Eden to work the land. At the East of the garden the LORD placed cherubim like angels with a flaming sword that turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

At the mention of Paradise the thoughts go back to fair Eden where Adam, in the goodness of God, was set up with everything that could delight the creature God had made. To share the bounty of a beneficent creator, Adam had Eve given to him, and over the lower creation Adam was the divinely appointed head, and Eve was his companion in the sphere of his glory. The man and his wife had the whole range of the earthly Paradise to gratify an innocent nature, God only reserving for Himself the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the divine prohibition to eating of this tree being accompanied with the words, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

Alas! under the temptation of the serpent Adam and his wife ate of the forbidden fruit, and the righteous judgment of God came upon them, and they were expelled from the earthly Paradise, the ground being cursed, and man having henceforth to eat bread by the sweat of his face. Amidst the scene of sin and judgment there is a wondrous ray of hope as God announces the coming of a Deliverer in the Person of the Seed of the woman. Still, in God’s righteous government, man must leave fair Eden behind, his innocency lost for ever, there being no hope of a return to the primeval conditions on earth.

For, looking more closely at these early days, do we find anything like a period regulated under God on distinctive principles? The facts are as simple as they are opposed to the notion. There was a positive place and command given to Adam. "And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Obviously such was not the tenure outside Eden, or afterwards. It was not a principle which governed men, or any portion of men, during a finite period. The tree of life, the creation-tree, was barred from the outcasts by divine power; and this, not in judgment only, but, in a certain sense, in mercy. For man was in sin, and death was the declared penalty. Not to have executed the sentence would have dishonoured God, would have introduced hopeless confusion into His dealings, would have set His words openly at nought. And besides, what could "living for ever," then and thus, have been but never-ending misery to him whose sin was unremoved? But if the transient condition of Paradisiacal innocence differs essentially from the fallen sinful humanity which succeeded, there was no new system, set up thereon by God, no subsequent human test given to the antediluvians. Man sinned then without law, as afterwards he sinned under it.

8 But there are some very interesting circumstances to note in connection with the judgment under which man had fallen. We have seen that Adam fled from the presence of God. The judgment pronounced upon him, upon Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:14-19) is an earthly judgment, not a judgment of the soul. Adam, and Eve also, are placed in a state of misery, and under the yoke of suffering and death. Before being driven out, Adam, by faith, as it seems, recognises life in the place wherein death had entered (Gen. 3:20); but there is more; there is the promise made to the woman, of the seed which should bruise the serpent's head: the Christ, seed of the woman by whom evil entered into the world, was to destroy all the power of the Enemy. Then as sin had destroyed innocence, and given, through the shame of nakedness, a conscious sense of its loss, God Himself, by causing death to intervene, clothed Adam and his wife, and covered their nakedness (Gen. 3:21). Before this, there was unconsciousness of evil; now evil is known, but is covered by God's own act. Man had sought to hide his sin from himself; but when he hears God's voice, his fig-leaves are nothing worth; they are of no avail to an awakened conscience in the presence of God: "I hid myself," he said, "for I was naked." So also before driving him out, God did not restore his innocence, which indeed was impossible; He did better: He clothed Adam and his wife, so that He might see His own work, that is, what was suited to Him in the state in which they were, accomplished by Him in His grace, besides the crushing of him who had led them into evil. Still man was driven out of the garden, where he had enjoyed all God's blessings without faith, to till the ground, to die, and until death to be separated from the God who before had walked in the cool of the day in the garden where he had dwelt. Man, thenceforth, knew God only by faith, if faith was in his heart - a new, all-important principle: he had lost God, had acquired a conscience, and, if he could, must live in painful toil to gain a temporal subsistence; he must find God, if he could; but he was from thenceforth outside the precincts which God frequented, and where His abundant blessings were dispensed without suffering or labour. Man had fled from God's presence, and God had driven him out. Adam was no longer in the relation in which God had formed him to be with Himself, either as to the state of his soul, or judicially: he was in sin. I repeat, man had fled from the presence of God, and God had driven him from the position in which He had placed him when He created him; he was estranged from God with a bad conscience, knowing God just enough to be afraid of Him, having learned however that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and being clothed by the grace and the work of God in a garment that bore witness to death, but which, as coming from God, covered, and that perfectly, the nakedness, the consciousness of which was the expression of man's fall and of his state of sin. Man was now outside - could he enter, anywhere, into God's presence to adore Him, to be morally with Him whom he had forsaken?