The Divine Covenants

The Adamic Covenant (Part 4)

Now think about this: the covenant God made with Adam demanded perfect obedience to only one command, namely, abstaining from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He had a full knowledge of God’s will concerning what was required of him. How simple and easy it was for Adam to obey this one simple requirement!

How serious the consequences of violating the command!

· What if the serpent had not appeared to Eve?

· What are we to learn from the above?

First, God is Lord of all things and we do all things by His permission alone. Second, man’s true happiness is placed in God alone and submission to Him is required for all of our desires.

Third, to be satisfied to do without our desires if they are contrary to God’s plan for us. That we have not yet arrived at the point of our greatest happiness, but we have reason to expect far greater happiness as we deal with the things of God.

What we have overlooked up to this point is that along with the prohibition that was placed on Adam was the clear promise of a reward greater than that which attracted Adam. There was a clear inference that to eat of any other tree was a better choice. So if Adam had obeyed the restriction he was guaranteed a better reward. Any time that God prohibits a certain behavior we can infer that the abstention from that behavior is a better reward.

Someone might say, how could life have been better for Adam if he had obeyed God than it was already? But remember that Adam was on probation by virtue of the test that was to be placed before him. If he had obeyed God then his standing before God would have been confirmed, and presumably taken off probation, as well as a blessing for his future fellowmen. There is great debate on this matter.

So we have seen that Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden on probation and was given a free will to be obedient or disobedient. On this basis God made a covenant with Adam. Though the word “covenant” does not appear in Genesis record of Adam, the elements of the covenant are clearly present. The central point of the story of Adam is that he was given one test of obedience. It was a matter of what would Adam do. Therefore this is sometimes called the “covenant of works” because it depended on what Adam would do. You see, Adam’s condition would continue in a state of uninterrupted happiness if he behaved according to his instructions. It was up to him. So his future condition was dependant on him. In this way the covenant differed from the new covenant where our future depends on the behavior of another. The new covenant then is the “covenant of grace”.

So God entered into a covenant with Adam to the effect that if he obeyed  the one command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he would continue in a state of holiness and righteousness. We will see this same method of divine dealing with men again in the covenants God made with Noah and Abraham.

Now remember that there is a penalty aspect to God’s covenants. He told Adam that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die. There was no provision for restoration of Adam if he disobeyed God. There was no provision for repentance. All his blessings were lost. Will you notice that the penalty of death here in the Garden of Eden and which is now the inheritance of the entire human race is not a natural calamity for us, but a penalty resulting from our federal head’s disobedience. A lesson here is that there is no escape from the wages of sin. Unless another bears the wages in our place!!

How should we interpret the penalty, “you shall surely die”. It does not say that you will die physically. Nor does it say that you will die spiritually. So we must use a wide interpretation since there is no further modifier. So we look elsewhere in Scripture. The Hebrew meaning of this phrase is interpreted, “dying thou shall die”. Just a little imagination helps us here.

From birth our physical body is entirely unfitted for the soul to reside in eternally, so there must be a separation from it. And by this separation the good things of the body, the pleasures on which the fallen mankind dotes, are snatched away. As “life” is not just being alive, but to be happy; so death is not just to depart this life, but to languish in dread and anticipation of certain death without knowing the time that God has set for it.

“Death” in Scripture also signifies spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God. The dead soul has no feeling; doesn’t understand truth, but wallows in evil. Eternal” death is also included in the Genesis passage.

· Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In this passage the word “death” involves and includes “eternal death” and this is plain from the fact that it is placed in direct opposition to “eternal life”.

What were Adam’s alternatives in the Garden to participating in this covenant? Well, he could agree to it. He could refuse to be a party to the covenant. Or he could simply disobey God. The evidence is that he voluntarily assented to be a party. It would be unthinkable for a pure and sinless being to refuse to be a party to the covenant.

There is no hint at all that Adam refused to be a party. It is evident that Eve thought the command was reasonable and she said as much to the serpent as a reason for her at first refusing the serpents idea. After his sin, Adam tried to excuse himself and place the blame on, not only the woman, but also on God for giving him the woman.

Finally, the penalty element of the covenant was clearly evident: sorrow and death and a curse on all creation followed.