Below is a brief exploration of the state of things when God created the world.

What Happened

1. God, through Christ, created man in His image and likeness,
2. Gave him dominion over all things, and
3. Brought him into the Garden of Eden to work and keep it

Eden & the Garden of Eden

The Land and Garden of Eden was God’s tabernacle on earth, His first dwelling place

The Eden Temple or Tabernacle was for all mankind

Man’s Relationship to God

1. All Men are by Creation God’s Children/People (through Christ)
   1. They were created by God
   2. They were created in the image and likeness of God
   3. Man was appointed heir of all things from the start (he only needed to be glorified to realize his calling)
   4. By creation, all men are under Preincarnate Christ who is
      1. The One through whom God created man and the world,
      2. God’s Right Hand and Representative,
      3. The Radiance of God’s Glory,
      4. The Exact Representation of God’s Being,
      5. The Judge of All the Earth.
2. Man was a servant of God
3. Man dwelled in the Garden of Eden which was at that time the Holy Place.

The Resultant State of Things

1. By creation, man did not have
   1. Eternal life (This could only be gained on the condition of faithful and obedient service to God. This is apparent, from the fact that the Tree of Life was only present in the Garden of Eden and man only entered the Garden as a servant.)
   2. The Nature & Glory of God (he was created mortal, of the dust of the ground), and
   3. Access into Heaven, the “Holy of Holies”, the very Presence of God, (the Garden of Eden is equivalent to the Holy Place and not to the Holy of Holies).
2. Man was to be glorified for he requires glory to fulfil the purpose of his creation which is to rule over creation.
3. The fact that he was created in God’s image and likeness made conformity to the image of Christ, the Son of God, possible
4. Man was in a direct relationship with preincarnate Christ
5. Man needs
   1. The Glory of God to enter the Most Holy Place (man was created for glory)
   2. Eternal Life

Requirement For Glory and The Atonement

Glory is the key to our fulfilling God’s purpose for us which is that we should have the dominion over all creation [Psa 8:5,4-8; Heb 2:7-8]. The following are heaven’s requirements for glory

1. Membership in God’s family. It is sons that God seeks to glory [Heb 2:10], therefore, one must be a son of God, a member of his family to be glorified. Man was God’s son, a member of God’s family, from the moment he was created [Luk 3:38], therefore, man did not need to do anything to meet this requirement for glory. Man is God’s son because
1. He was created in the image and likeness of God, and
2. Because he was created from the soil of the land of Eden [Gen 3:23 cf., Gen 2:8; 4:14,16].

By creation, men are like princes, sons of the King, awaiting their coronation as kings under their Father. And the crown we are to be given is “glory” [Psa 8:5,4-8; Heb 2:7-8], i.e., the divine nature. But while you can only be crowned if you are one of the King’s children, being his child is not all that the Father has demands.

2. Obedient righteousness
1. Doing good in the eyes of God. God’s requirement before He would glorify us as his sons is obedience to Him [Rom 2:7; Ecc 12:13; 2Cor 10:6]. This is a well demonstrated principle throughout scriptures. The fear of God, true love for God, God demands these repeatedly with those he chooses for great positions,
1. God tested Abraham to see if he truly feared him [Gen 22:11-12]
2. God tested king Saul as well in the command for him to wait for Samuel and in the command to completely wipe out the Amalekites
3. Job was tested to find out if he loved God. He was tested to see if he would remain loyal to God even if he lost all his worldly privileges of riches
2. Service to God. For eternal life which man lacked at this point, all man needed was to be in God’s service [Rom 2:7; Joh 5:29]. The Garden of Eden served this purpose. When we think of the Garden of Eden, what we often think of is the benefit it was to man. However, it was God’s property and not man’s property, rather man was put their to serve God his maker [Gen 2:15]. Here Adam served God and in here was planted the Tree of Life from which if he ate, he would live forever [Gen 3:22].
   Serving God does not contradict being sons of God for in scriptures, sons serve their fathers [Mal 3:17; Exo 4:23] and their reward—what they get and how much they get—from their father is based partly on their service to him [Gen 49].
   1. The Garden of Eden offered eternal life through the Tree of Life as a reward for service to God
   2. The Old Covenant offered life as a reward to all who did everything it commanded [Lev 18:5; Eze 20:11,13; Mat 19:16-17]
   3. The New Covenant in Christ also offers eternal life as a reward [Rom 2:7; Mat 16:25; Mar 10:29-30]

In the beginning, since Adam was employed in the Garden, he didn’t have a problem here as he was already in the service of God.

The Atonement’s Solution

The Gospel of Christ therefore teaches us to repent of our sins and walk in obedience to God. Apart from this, there is no possibility of our being glorified or receiving eternal life [Tit 2:11].