The Abiding Gift of Prophecy

The Beginning of Human History

“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.” Genesis 2:8. AGP 16.5

This perfect man and woman were placed in a perfect environment, with the most alluring and glorious possibilities. Paradise was their home. They were to be the parents of the human family. They were to have dominion over the whole earth, and it was to be a glorious dominion. In it there was to be not one inharmonious note. There was to be no sin; hence the dire results of sin as we know them today—disease, pain, suffering, sorrow, and death—would be unknown. The earth AGP 16.6

was to be filled with a sinless race, and everything in that realm was to give joy to the inhabitants throughout all eternity. AGP 17.1

“God’s first man, then, was perfect; he was put in a perfect environment and he had perfect fellowship with God. Harmony reigned within himself, within all his relationships both with the inferior creatures beneath him and with the sovereign Creator above him. There was everything within and without his life to foster complete submission to the sovereignty of God and perfect obedience to His will.” “Life on the Highest Plane,” Ruth Paxson, Vol. I, p. 38. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1928. AGP 17.2