The Spiritual Significance of Biblical Locations – Part 6

Where is the Garden of Eden, and Where is Paradise?

Gen 2:8  And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

Gen 2:15  And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Luk 23:43  And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

2Co 12:4  How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

Introduction

The great red Dragon has this world believing that God created man in His glorified image, and while God had His back turned for just a few minutes, Satan sneaked into the garden of Eden and talked Adam and Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, contrary to God’s explicit commandment, just before God got there. Then because they made that mistake, all men ever since have had to live under the curse of Adam’s and Eve’s mistake. One very prominent American minister, who claims he knows Christ and that he has the mind of Christ, has famously said that at the resurrection, the first thing he is going to do is to walk right up to Adam and “punch him in the nose” for what he did to mankind. Is that any example of “the love of God” and how to implement Christ’s commandment to “love thine enemies”?

Here is how Christ Himself handled the sins of our original physical parents:

Gen 3:23  Therefore the LORD God sent him [Adam] forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Gen 3:24  So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. 

It is of utmost significance to the answer to our question, “Where is the garden of Eden and where is paradise” that we notice when Adam and Eve were driven out of “Eden, the garden of God” (Eze 28:13), that God then “placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” It was “the way of the tree of life” of which Adam could not partake in the rebellious state in which he had been created. What this tells us is that the only way to partake of the fruit of the tree of life is to go through the flaming swords of the cherubims by “keep[ing] the way of the tree of life”. So before we reveal the scriptures which will show us exactly where the tree of life is, we will first discover the meaning of the name ‘Eden’, and we will find that this word, too, has both a positive and a negative application in the scripture. After we have learned what Eden means, we will reveal the location of the garden of Eden.

Here is the meaning of Eden:

H5731
עדן
‛êden
ay’-den
The same as H5730 (masculine); Eden, the region of Adam’s home: – Eden.

Here is the total number of times we find this word in the scriptures. ‘Eden’ is the only English word used  to translate this word H5731:

H5731
עדן
‛êden
Total KJV Occurrences: 20
eden, 20
Gen_2:8 (2), Gen_2:10, Gen_2:15, Gen_3:23-24 (2), Gen_4:16, 2Ch_29:12 (2), 2Ch_31:15, Isa_37:12, Isa_51:3, Eze_27:23, Eze_28:13, Eze_31:9, Eze_31:16, Eze_31:18 (2), Eze_36:35, Joe_2:3, Amo_1:5

When we look up the meaning of 5730, which we are told is “the same as” 5731, we find:

H5730
עדנה    עדן
‛êden  ‛ednâh
ay’-den, ed-naw’
From H5727; pleasure: – delicate, delight, pleasure. See also H1040.

Here is the total number of times we find this word in the scriptures, along with the various English words used to translate this word ‘eden’:

H5730
עדנה  /  עדן
‛êden  /  ‛ednâh
Total KJV Occurrences: 4
delicates, 1
Jer_51:34
delights, 1
2Sa_1:24
pleasure, 1
Gen_18:12
pleasures, 1
Psa_36:8

5730, which we are told is “the same as” 5731, is defined as ‘pleasure’, and it is translated with the English words ‘delicate, delight, and pleasure’.  We are then told that it comes from 5727, and when we look up 5727, this is what we find:

H5727
עדן
‛âdan
aw-dan’
A primitive root; to be soft or pleasant; figuratively and reflexively to live voluptuously: – delight self.

We are now all the way back to the “primitive root” for the word used as the name for “Eden… the garden of God”. Here is the one place this word is used in the Old Testament:

H5727
עדן
‛âdan
Total KJV Occurrences: 1
delighted, 1
Neh_9:25

This word as the primitive root of the name for the garden of God, which we are told means “to live voluptuously”, appears only one time in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, it should be clear, considering all the similar meanings assigned to all the words that come from this root word, that this word ‘eden’ carries with it in its positive application the concept of that which gives pleasure to God, and in its negative application that which gives pleasure to our old, carnal, first man Adam. It was in the garden of God that Adam and Eve disobeyed and rebelled against God and cast His law behind their backs and provoked Him. It was all done to “delight self” before delighting God.

Here is that verse in Nehemiah 9:25 with the verse before and after to demonstrate the negative application of  the root of the word for ‘Eden”:

Neh 9:24  So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would.
Neh 9:25  And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance: so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted [H5727: adan] themselves in thy great goodness.
Neh 9:26  Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. 

God Himself uses “Eden the garden of God” as the place where the man of sin within all of us puts himself when he exalts himself against God, and where we “rebel against God and cast His law behind [our] backs” and provoke Him just as Adam and Eve did in the garden of Eden. Twice in the book of Ezekiel we are told of what we do as we are typified first by the king of Tyrus, and then by Pharaoh the king of Egypt:

Eze 28:2  Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: 

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

This is not reality! This is all “your heart” that you think you are a god who “sits in the seat of God… though you set your heart as the heart of God.” Here is this same message concerning the man of sin within all of us in the book of 2Thessalonians 2:

2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped: so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

Here is our second example of how we do this within our hearts in the book of Ezekiel:

Eze 31:2  Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness? 

Eze 31:8  The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.
Eze 31:9  I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him. 
Eze 31:10  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; 
Eze 31:11  I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.

Physically, the garden of Eden was located somewhere near the Pison, Gihon, Tigris (Hiddekel) and Euphrates Rivers. No one thinks any of these rivers are in China, Russia, North or South America, or in central or South Africa. All Biblical scholars agree that mankind originated in what we now call the Middle East. There is no doubt that after the flood of Noah, mankind sprang out of the plains of Shinar where the tower of Babel was built.

Here is what we are told, and the fact is that the physical location of the garden of Eden is of no spiritual consequence.

Gen 2:8  And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 
Gen 2:9  And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Gen 2:10  And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
Gen 2:11  The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
Gen 2:12  And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
Gen 2:13  And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
Gen 2:14  And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. 

The “garden of Eden” we are seeking to locate is the one from which the prince of Tyrus and Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had to be “driven out”. That is right, God tells us He drove Pharaoh out of His garden just as He had driven Adam out of His garden. Let’s read it again:

Eze 31:2  Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?

Eze 31:9  I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him. 
Eze 31:10  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; 
Eze 31:11  I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. 

For those with spiritual eyes and ears, we have now revealed the exact location of “Eden, the garden of God” in its negative application. Eden is that “place of pleasure and delights” which is first given to us by God, for which we have no gratitude and by which we become exalted in our own hearts and lift ourselves up against our God. This all takes place in our first ‘Garden of Eden’. Where is this place out of which Adam and the kings of Tyre and Egypt were driven? We just saw that Pharaoh was driven out of this garden because “His heart is lifted up…”, and that is the exact same condition which afflicted Adam and the prince of Tyrus:

Eze 28:2  Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: 

Eze 28:13  Thou [“because your heart is lifted up… you have said, I”] hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

2Th 2:4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God,.

Here is this first ‘garden of Eden’ as it is described for us in the New Testament:

1Co 1:1  Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
1Co 1:2  Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours:
1Co 1:3  Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
1Co 1:4  I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
1Co 1:5  That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; 
1Co 1:6  Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
1Co 1:7  So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:

It all sounds just like the garden of Eden! “Sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints… in everything enriched by Him, in utterance and in all knowledge… the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: So that ye came behind in no gift” sounds something like:

Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest feely eat:

What does this first untried Christian experience produce? Here is what we are told:

1Co 2:2  For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Paul could not yet speak of being crucified with Christ, as he later did with the Romans, the Galatians and the Colossians as they were able to receive it:

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Col 1:24  Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:

Since Paul could not yet speak to them in spiritual terms of being crucified with Christ and of presenting their own bodies to God as a living sacrifice, what then is first produced under such conditions? We need not guess, because we are plainly told:

1Co 3:1  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
1Co 3:2  I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
1Co 3:3  For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
1Co 3:4  For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Is our first ‘garden of Eden’ a bad thing? This is what God thought of the first garden of Eden with its marred vessel of clay, its crooked serpent and its tree of the knowledge of good and evil:

Gen 1:25  And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. 

Gen 1:31  And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

That sounds a whole lot like the first seven verses of 1Corinthians 1, just before Paul tells those Corinthians that even though they “came behind in no gift… [they were] yet carnal… babes in Christ”. Yet it is all pronounced “very good” for what it was created to accomplish.

In His own ministry, Christ Himself fed the multitudes with loaves and fishes before He told them those gifts would no longer be given to them because those gifts were no longer serving any good purpose toward dragging those people to Himself:

Joh 6:26  Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. 
Joh 6:27  Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

The first garden of pleasures is actually the worst place we can possibly be after a certain period of being spiritually coddled, because it keeps us from having our faith tried when we “come behind in no gift” and loaves and fishes are just given miraculously to us right before our very eyes:

Joh 6:14  Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
Joh 6:15  When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.

At this point we have become lifted up, and we actually think we can command God and “by force” make Him do our will. Of course that is not the case and will not be tolerated by Christ. So we must now pass from the negative application of the garden of Eden into “the paradise of God… the garden of God”, wherein we will find “the tree of life”, and we will be given “to eat of the tree of life”.

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. 

However, not just anyone is allowed to enter into “the midst of the paradise of God” spoken of here in Revelation 2. The translators of the Septuagint, the Old Testament translated into the Greek language, used the Greek word for ‘paradise’ to translate the Hebrew word for ‘garden’.

Here is Genesis 2:8 in the Septuagint:

Gen 2:8  And God planted paradise^G3857 in Eden according to the east, and he put there the man whom he shaped. (ABP)

So when we read of “the paradise of God” in the New Testament, that phrase has its source, and it is taken right out of Ezekiel 28 and Ezekiel 31:

Eze 28:13  Thou [the prince of Tyre] hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Eze 31:8  The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him [the king of Egypt]: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.
Eze 31:9  I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

The Septuagint translates each of those entries as “the paradise… of God”.

Here is how Strong defines this Greek word for ‘paradise’:

G3857
παράδεισος
paradeisos
par-ad’-i-sos
Of Oriental origin (compare [H6508]); a park, that is, (specifically) an Eden (place of future happiness, “paradise”): – paradise.

Here is where this Greek word appears in the New Testament:

G3857
παράδεισος
paradeisos
Total KJV Occurrences: 3
paradise, 3
Luk_23:43, 2Co_12:4, Rev_2:7

This word appears only three times in the New Testament. Let’s look closely at those three verses and see if we can discern, from what God reveals to us within these three verses, exactly where this “paradise of God” is.

Luke 23 is our first entry:

Luk 23:43  And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. 

It is not the purpose of this study to deal with the false doctrine of the immortality of the soul. Here is a link which deals with the proper translation of Luke 23:43:

http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/thethief.php

Nevertheless, I will include the CLV version, which puts the comma in the right place:

Luk 23:43 And Jesus said to him, “Verily, to you am I saying today, with Me shall you be in paradise. (CLV)

What we can see clearly about ‘paradise’ from this verse of scripture is that everyone (“all in Adam” – 1Co 15:22) including all repentant thieves, will in time be with Christ in paradise. From this verse we can understandably deduce that whatever paradise is and wherever paradise is, it is a place which, in time, all men of all time will experience.

Our second entry is:

2Co 12:4  How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

Paul goes on to make it clear he is speaking of himself, by telling us he will glory only in the Lord in whom he was “caught up into paradise”, just as we all are.

Let’s read this verse with the preceding three verses and the next verse:

2Co 12:1  It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.
2Co 12:2  I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. 
2Co 12:3  And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)
2Co 12:4  How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
2Co 12:5  Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities. 

“The third heaven” to which Paul was “caught up” and being “caught up into paradise” are one and the same experience. Babylon would have us all to believe that it was Paul and Paul alone, who was “caught up to paradise… the third heaven”. Such teaching and doctrine deprive us of understanding these verses of scripture:

Mat 4:4  But he answered and said, It is written, Man [Greek: ‘anthropos‘, mankind, all mankind] shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 

Is it true that you and I, too, are “caught up to… heaven”? Is it true that you and I are “caught up into paradise” just like the apostle Paul? Here is Paul’s own answer to that question:

 Eph 2:6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

The word ‘places’ is added in that verse, and it really simply tells us that in Christ we have all been, “caught up to the third heaven… caught up to paradise” and been made to sit with Christ in the heavens.

Our final verse with this word ‘paradise’ in it will make that message clear to us:

Rev 2:7  He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. 

This verse helps us to see that Paul was not just caught up to the third heaven, the most mature heaven of our experience. He was also caught up to “the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”

Rev 22:2  In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

So what is paradise, and where is paradise? What we have seen is that ‘paradise’ is “the garden of God”. More importantly, like every other part of that cloud which is Christ and His Word, ‘paradise’ has both a positive and a negative application. Just like the name “Adam”, there is a first ‘Adam’ who is carnal and immature, but serves an absolutely essential function in producing the “last Adam” who is “conformed to the image of His Son” for the express purpose of “be[ing] the firstborn among many brothers”.

Rom 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 

1Co 15:45  And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
1Co 15:46  Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47  The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

So there are two heavens, two earths, two Jerusalems, and there are two “Eden[s]” and two “garden[s] of God”. If we think that the first ‘Eden’ does not give God pleasure, then we certainly will not be capable of understanding this verse of scripture:

Isa 53:10  Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 

A loving heavenly Father gets no joy out of suffering just for the sake of suffering, but He does get great joy out of knowing what His perfect plan is producing, and knowing that the cruel death of His sinless loving Son did more to make sin appear for the evil it is than anything that has ever been done by man. Our heavens and our earth are first polluted by sin and in need of being purified to become a “new heavens and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness”:

Heb 9:23  It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves [should be purified] with better sacrifices than these. 
Heb 9:24  For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

2Pe 3:13  Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

These verses should cause us all to appreciate more than ever what Christ taught us all about where our concerns ought to be in this parable:

Mat 23:25  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 
Mat 23:26  Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 

If we are clean on the inside (our heavens), then the outside (our earth) will be clean and will take care of itself.

This last purified “heaven itself” is “the [last] paradise of God”. There is no mention of a “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in this last paradise. It is the place of His pleasure. It is where the tree of life is growing with its leaves which will heal the nations, and we are not left to wonder where either of these gardens is to be found. They are both within us all. The first ‘garden of Eden’, the first ‘paradise’, is within our ‘first heaven’ which must be “purified” (Heb 9:23). Our second ‘garden of Eden’, the second ‘paradise’, is in the third heaven where God sits on His throne in His kingdom, and that kingdom is not a physical location, but is the spiritual realm out of which all physical things are spoken into existence and in which all physical things consist:

Col 1:16  For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17  And he is before all things and by him all things consist  [including Eden, the third heaven, and paradise].

“Eden, the garden of God”, called in the New Testament, “the paradise of God”, is in the kingdom of heaven, which consists only in Christ, and this is where He and His kingdom, along with His ‘Eden’, His ‘paradise’, both in its defiled and in its purified state, is to be found:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. 

Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The fact that there is still a need for “the healing of the nations” in the garden of God, tells us that our part in giving God the pleasure and satisfaction He experiences comes to Him through us as His bride through whom He is “heading up all things in one”:

Eph 1:3  Blessed, be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing, in the heavenlies, in Christ,
Eph 1:4  According as he made choice of us, in him, before the founding of a world, that we might be holy and blameless in his presence; in love,
Eph 1:5  marking us out beforehand unto sonship, through Jesus Christ, for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 
Eph 1:6  Unto the praise of the glory of his favor wherewith he favoured us in the Beloved One,
Eph 1:7  In whom we have the redemption through his blood, the remission of our offences, according to the riches of his favour,
Eph 1:8  which he made to superabound towards us; in all wisdom and prudence,
Eph 1:9  making known to us the sacred secret of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him,
Eph 1:10  For an administration of the fulness of the seasons, to reunite for himself [under one head] the all things in the Christ, the things upon the heavens, and the things upon the earth, in him:

It is all in Christ that God’s “good pleasure”, His ‘Eden’, is accomplished. If we are “in Christ”, we are the instruments through which that “good pleasure” of God, that filling up of God, will be accomplished, and He will in the end come to be “all in all” as we read here in this same chapter:

Eph 1:22  And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 
Eph 1:23  Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.