From Prosperous Eden We Came, To A Prosperous Eden We Return

By Bishop Dave Chikosi

If you are one of the thousands of Christian believers struggling to know the will of God concerning the subject of prosperity, I would suggest the place to begin is right at the very beginning. Go to the Book of Genesis and see how God created His world at the very outset. 

Genesis is the seedbed of all major Christian doctrine. If you have a doctrine but can’t find its seed in Genesis chances are you have a heresy. When Jesus wanted to argue against divorce, He appealed to Genesis. When Paul wanted to make the case for the priority of male headship in marriage he harked back to Genesis.

All major doctrines in scripture behave like rivers. They become deeper and wider as they flow from the watershed of Genesis to the sea of the Book of Revelation. Even Satan himself begins in Genesis as a garden variety snake (sort of) but ends up in Revelation as a fierce dragon. And so to Genesis we shall go.

Prosperity, Not Poverty, Is the Original State of Man

The one very clear message of the Book of Genesis is that prosperity is our natural state. God did not create Adam and place him in a state of poverty or want. God placed Adam in garden of abundance. Abundance was the watchword of the universe that God created. No-one was trying to escape earth to go to heaven. They had everything they needed right there in the Garden.

I once quipped to my church that the modern idea of an ‘all-you-can eat country buffet’ must have originated from Eden. There, Adam and Eve could eat as much as they wanted from whatever tree, whenever – with that one exception, of course.

The very name Eden is suggestive. It literally means “delight.” Eden was the most enchanting and magical place on earth – a luscious garden full of trees all laden with juicy, tasty, delicious fruit. It was paradise on earth. Everything was perfect and wonderful to behold.

And to cap it all off, God buries tons gold and other precious metals in the garden. For who, and for what? Undoubtedly for His man Adam. God knew Eve was coming soon and that this special species of mammals normally requires lots of bling-bling! Nothing much has changed since. Remember the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” in the old Broadway production featuring Carol Channing?

And so we learn that “the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there” (Gen 2:12). This wasn’t just ordinary gold. The NLT calls it “exceptionally pure gold.” If gold is so evil and to be shunned by all God-fearers what is Yahweh doing? What’s the point?

Living High On A Hog?

The other mineral mentioned in Genesis is bdellium. The word “bdellium” means pearl. This is the same precious stone you and I will find in heaven. The heavenly Jerusalem has twelve gates and “the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl” (Rev 21:21).

We know for a fact that the Jerusalem in heaven is about a thousand times larger in area than the Jerusalem on earth (Rev 21:16). So can you then imagine the size of these gates? And the size of all those pearls? Where did they get the giant oysters to make those giant pearls? How extravagant. They must be living high on a hog up there!

In Heaven They Use Gold As Pavement

But we are also told that “the great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass’ (Rev 21:21). Its amazing to me that here on earth we fuss and fight over a substance (gold) that they use as pavement in heaven! It can’t mean that much in heaven-inhabitants walk on it daily.

When the angels hear all the bickering in the church about who has the gold and why, they must shake their heads in disbelief. They’re thinking: didn’t their Father declare “The silver is mine and the gold is mine” (Haggai 2:8)? Doesn’t what belongs to Father belong to the children also?

Didn’t they hear Paul fairly shout: All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God (1 Cor 3:21-23). 

And if Christ be God’s how then say some that he was poor? Is it conceivable that the son of billionaire Bill Gates be poor? What poor man ever came into town and fed over 10 000 people? Poor people don’t feed anyone. They have need to be fed.

When Peter and John said “silver and gold have we none” they were not declaring bankruptcy. They were merely stating that right there at that moment they had no money. Why would that be surprising? Most married men know that whether you like it or not the wife generally keeps the money. You only get a weekly or monthly stipend!

Context Is Everything: Respect the Text

If context is everything, as my debating partner so eloquently argued, then let’s take it seriously. If the first book of the Bible (Genesis) presents prosperity as man’s original state, and the last book (Revelation) presents prosperity as man’s final state, then why does my good friend Learnmore want to suggest that in between the first and the last book the Will of God has somehow changed?

If God kicked creation off with prosperity and ends it with the same, what makes any of us think that in between the alpha and the omega the Almighty has had a rethink? Didn’t He say: “For I am the Lord, I change not” (Mal 3:6). Isn’t “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever.” 

If Yahweh abundantly supplied all of Adam’s needs and wants, will He do any less for Adam’s descendants? If our father Abram was said to be “very rich in livestock, silver, and gold” (Gen 13:2), why should we, his descendants, be happy being broke?

It is interesting that the physical descendants of Abram, the Jews, don’t even believe any of these poverty ideologies that we in the church are so fond of. You don’t find too many broke Jews – even in Zimbabwe.

Even those among them who really don’t care two cents about their own religion, still do well financially and materially. How come? Because they are still part of the Covenant that God cut with their ancestor Abraham. That Covenant has material prosperity woven in to it.

So Will We Be Polishing Rainbows and Washing Cosmic Dishes For Eternity?

The Church has traditionally taught that the goal of Christian discipleship is eternal residence in heaven. But that is incorrect (yes, I know this is quite shocking to many people – even offensive to some). No, we will not be spending eternity polishing rainbows and washing heavenly dishes. That would be quite boring I think.

The goal of salvation is not a geographical place but a state of being. The goal of Christian discipleship is “to be conformed to the image of God’s Son” (Rom 8:29). Further, our final destination is earth, not heaven. Christ will come back with His saints to set up the eschatological Kingdom of God here on earth established.

From the very beginning God gave mankind the earth as our inheritance. We are told: “The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind” (Psalm 115:16). Jesus taught that the meek are blessed because “they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). St John records the community in heaven declaring how God has made believers “to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”

It’s important to understand that our residence in heaven after the ‘Rapture’ (the catching away of the church) is temporary. The Rapture is God’s plan to take us away to a place of safety while He renovates the heavens and the earth with fire. St Peter tells us that: “the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Pet 3:7).

St Peter also lets us know that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare” (2 Pet 3:10). Its only after the cleansing of the present earth by fire, God will usher in a new heaven and new earth.

St John records: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared” (John 21:1). We are coming back to a refurbished earth, restored to Eden’s glory. We came from prosperous Eden. To a prosperous Eden we shall return.

(To see more articles by Bishop Dave Chikosi go to his blog http://davechikosi.blogspot.com/.

Also, his book “Dynamics of Heroic Faith” is available on Amazon.com at:

http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Heroic-Faith-Dominion-Circumstances/dp/0595415369)