Avatar and the Removal of Adam from Eden

In the closing scenes of the movie Avatar is an interesting scene. The remaining people from the Hells Gate camp are being escorted out of the camp into a shuttle to return to Earth. In the judgment of the Na’vi, with Toruk Makto being the intercessor, have concluded that the majority of the people are not safe to retain on Pandora and must be sent away lest harm come to Pandora as a result of their presence and their potential interference with life. This judgment is a result of the Investigative Judgment and is a result of the evaluation that came as a result of Eywa winning the war between the Na’vi and the people from Earth.

This scene is reminiscent of the events that came about from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God had created a special place for His first two children and God called the place the Garden of Eden. Eden means pleasure or delight in Hebrew, so the English translation would be the Garden of Delight or the Garden of Pleasure. In every way Eden was the picture of perfect peace, safety, and the fulfillment of righteous pleasure. Nothing killed one another in Eden and everything communicated with each other, in a way similar to the communication qualities of the plants and animals as represented on Pandora.

In the center of the Garden were two trees – the great tree was called the Tree of Life and Adam and Eve were to eat freely of the fruit of this tree for it would perpetuate life. God wanted Adam and Eve to never die but to live and enjoy the pleasures that He had designed for them. Near the Tree of Life was a tree to test the trust of Adam and Eve. God created a tree called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God had forbidden Adam and Eve to eat of this tree for it would expose them to evil, the evil of not trusting the good will and care of God. God allowed this tree to be in the garden to allow Adam and Eve to decide whether they would trust God or would they put their own wisdom above His.

In Genesis 3 the story is told that Satan, the great dragon and the great serpent of Revelation 12:9, came to this tree and started to talk to Eve, who had separated herself from her husband Adam. Eve apparently felt that she was strong enough to handle any kind of emergency by herself and did not feel the need to have her husband with her. When the serpent began to speak to her she was shocked but attracted to this new thing. She listened to the words of the serpent and when the serpent told her his reason why God did not want them to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of God and Evil, it made sense to her mind. The serpent told Eve that the reason that God did not want them to eat of this tree is because it would make them like gods and they would know good and evil and implied that they would not have to be dependent upon God any more but could judge things accurately on their own. When Eve heard this she thought that that made sense. The serpent also told her that when God told them that they would surely die if they ate of the tree, that that was not a true statement. The serpent told them just the opposite of what God had said. God said they would die if they ate of the tree and the serpent said that they would not die. Now Eve had to decide whether the Creator knew what was true or whether the serpent knew what was truth. She was not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and had not even tasted of the fruit. After weighing the data, as she understood it, she concluded that the serpent was correct and God was in error. She apparently concluded this, because the serpent could speak, and she apparently concluded that he was able to speak as a result of eating the fruit, a very erroneous conclusion. She did not know that a fallen angel can take on many forms, and do many supernatural things, that she did not understand fully. See II Corinthians 11:13-15 A fallen angel is, after all, an angel who had chosen to rebel against God, just as he was trying to get Eve to do.

After evaluating all of the data available to her, she decided that she was wise enough to eat of the fruit and be as wise as the serpent. After all she did not see, hear, smell, or sense any evil from the tree or its fruit. So Eve decided to eat of the fruit. Again she did not detect any evil and she decided to share this fruit with her husband Adam. When Adam saw Eve with the fruit he decided that she was going to potentially die, and since he also could not sense any evil, he chose to join her without talking to God about this event. After eating he noticed that he was naked as was Eve. To care for this he made clothing out of fig leaves to cover their nakedness. They began to notice that something had changed, but they did not know exactly what it was but they began to have a sense of dread and fear, especially of meeting with God.

It appears that God came to visit with Adam and Eve in the morning and evening of each day. That evening God came to visit his children as He had always done. But this time Adam and Eve did not come to Him. He called them and asked where they were. They said that they had heard his voice but they had hidden themselves from His presence. Adam told God that he was aware that he was naked and that was the reason he hid himself. God then asked Adam if he had eaten of the tree that He had instructed him not to eat of. Instead of answering this question directly Adam told God that it was God’s woman that made him eat implying that he, Adam, was not to blame. God asked Eve about the fruit and she responded it that it was God’s serpent that beguiled her. Then God turned to the serpent. God knew who the serpent was, God knew that the serpent was being used by Satan to be the medium of communication and that it was Satan who had deceived Adam and Eve as he had done one third of the angels in heaven. Revelation 12:4 Satan had deceived the angels and now he had deceived God’s children on Earth.

God condemned the serpent and used it as a symbol of deception and evil. God also made the serpent to crawl upon its belly when once it was a flying serpent, in some ways similar to the flying dragons of Pandora. Isaiah 30:6. God also makes a prophetic statement to the serpent that his seed, his descendents, will fight against the descendents of the woman – the church. But there will be One seed that will strike a death blow to the serpent directly, yet the serpent will wound the Seed of the Woman.

God then tells of the suffering and the changes that will come as a result of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. But inherent in all of these issues is the promise that the Son of God will come and die for the sins of Adam, Eve, and all of their children.

God then offers an exchange. He is willing to exchange the clothing made by Adam and Eve for clothing made by His hand. In order to get the skins necessary to clothe Adam and Eve God informs Adam that the sacrificial system will be instituted and that the animal sacrificed will be a symbol of the death of the Son of God in the future. In addition this death will provide the covering made by God to cover the nakedness of man. These sacrifices, and this clothing, are both symbols of the experience of salvation – provided for man by infinite God.

The last event to take place is that Adam and Eve must leave the Garden of Eden. God did not want sinful man partaking of the Tree of Life to perpetuate a life of rebellion and sin. So God sent them out into the world to be tillers of the ground. They would now have to work for their food rather than just pluck and eat. But again the promise of God was that the way to the Tree of Life was to be preserved. Satan will never be able to block our awareness of our need for this tree. The flaming sword of the Word of God was to ever keep Adam and Eve, and their descendents, aware of the Tree of Life and the original garden. It has been God’s plan to restore humanity to the life that He had originally made for them. This plan will be fulfilled. It is our opportunity to work with God to fulfill this goal. May we choose Him now.