Recalling Adam and the first garden, with its two trees of death and life in the midst (Gen 2:9), the evangelist poetically places Jesus’ cross in the midst (John 19:18) of his account of the Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:1) and the Garden Tomb (John 19:41). It is upon the cross, then, that John presents Jesus as the new Adam, whose own tree of cursing and death becomes to us the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God (Rev 2:7). Now on the cross God brought upon the new Adam the sleep of death. Although Jesus, like Adam, was innocent, nonetheless God wounded him, permitting his side to be pierced by a Roman spear (John 19:34). God took the substance out of the side of Jesus and created a bride for this new Adam, purchased with blood and washed with water. God then healed Jesus of his wound, and awakened him from the sleep of death in a garden (John 20:15), having given life to his bride, who will one day be presented to him in all the beauty and purity of her new creation in a redeemed garden (Rev 21:2). In other words, the narrative of the creation of Eve through the wounding of Adam proclaims the gospel from the foundations of the world, all in the good purposes of God. After suffering a pierced side, Adam was awakened to the glory of his reward, the bride of his heart’s desire.
If we are to read the Old Testament as the apostles did, we must be open to figural images of death and resurrection in the pattern of suffering and glory. This study, if successful, will suggest a method of reading the Old Testament to see such patterning, all within the “third day” contexts to which the Lord himself directed his Emmaus disciples. May the Lord open our hearts to read the Hebrew Bible and to see the gospel of our Lord. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about me” (John 5:39).