Difficult Questions: What Happened to the Garden of Eden?

From time to time, we dig into Scripture and seek answers to difficult questions from the Bible. Today, we are asking the question: “What happened to the Garden of Eden?”

The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. Genesis 2:8 (NKJV)

So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:24 (NKJV)

God created a garden for man in Eden, which means delight. After the sin of Adam, God drove him and his wife from the garden. We really don’t hear much about the garden after that. There has been much speculation about the original location of the garden, but it is obvious that the actual garden itself ceased to exist on earth since we do not see it anywhere today.

While some might consider this to be a difficult question, it really isn’t that difficult if we use the logic that God gave us. While the Bible does not tell us specifically about the garden after the fall of Adam, we can safely assume it continued to exist, since God had to put a cherubim to guard it and a flaming sword to block access to the tree of life.

We can also figure that the garden continued to exist until God sent something to destroy it. What did God send? A flood- the one commonly referred to as the flood of Noah.

And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. Genesis 6:17 (NKJV)

Two by two they went into the ark to Noah, male and female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were on the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. Genesis 7:9-12 (NKJV)

The flood of Noah produced complete destruction upon the earth. Only those who were in the ark survived. The rain continued for 40 days and the earth was covered with water for month upon month. No normal plant life or vegetation, other than those made to exist underwater, would have survived the flood. This would include the Garden of Eden. It was a physical garden made upon a physical earth for man to tend, therefore it would have been destroyed n the flood.

Although the original Garden of Eden ceased to exist on the earth, we need not despair. Because of Jesus, man once again has access to eternal life through the tree of life- the cross of Christ. As we are born-again, we are given the eternal life that exists because of the tree of life, the tree upon which our Savior was crucified. And, once again, man will live forever with God in an eternal Eden, a perfect place of delight and everlasting joy.