The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum The Covenant of Works

Fred wrote:
well, regardless of Mark's endearing quirks, I believe he still has a legitimate point. That being, how exactly is the divine mandates of Genesis 2 a "covenant?" I understand it to be more of a creator/creature distinctive, rather than an actual covenant. When God reveals his purposes in a covenant, the first real mention of any covenant is by God in Genesis 6:18 given to Noah and his family. Eventually, this covenant is completed in Genesis 9:9 where you have God laying down specific terms in relation to this covenant, ie, I will no more destroy the earth with water. This covenant is also called an everlasting covenant, meaning that God will never break this covenant. It is then sealed with the sign of a rainbow. Though there are some similarity in the outline to God's command to Adam in Genesis 2, I think one is hard pressed to declare that it is an acutal covenant being made. I believe that is Mark's contention, and I for one agree with him - heaven help me.

The fact that the context of Genesis never refers to this relationship as a "covenant" is not a significant objection to this. For example, in 2 Samuel 7 God makes a promise to David that his dynasty would rule Israel. Although the passage which narrates the giving of this promise does not call the promise a covenant, we know from Psalm 89:3, 19-37 and 2 Samuel 23:5 that it was in fact a covenant. Likewise, since the essential elements of a covenant are present in the Genesis narrative, we should conclude that God made a covenant with Adam even though the word "covenant" is not used narrative account( Matt Perman)”

” (1) If one were to translate it with the word “man,” it would take away the emphasis of this text, for the words “as Adam” are added here to maximize rather than minimize the crime. What force of emphasis, yes, what purpose would there be to state that they had broken the covenant like other men who also are but members of the covenant. In order for them to transgress a covenant, they of necessity must be in the covenant; that is, they would have to transgress the covenant as they or their fellow members of the covenant did. This certainly makes no sense, and therefore Adam here refers to the first man."

“The evidences that God placed Adam under a Covenant of Works are well stated by the standard authors. A covenant, in its more technical sense, according to Turrettin, implies: 1. Two equal parties. 2. Liberty to do or not do the covenanted things before the covenant is formed. In this sense there could be no covenant between God and man. But in the more general sense of a conditional promise, such a transaction was evidently effected between God and Adam, and is recorded in Gen. 2:16, 17. There are—1st the two parties. God proposing a certain blessing and penalty on certain conditions, and man coming under those conditions. It has been objected that it was no covenant, because man’s accession to it was not optional with him: God’s terms were not a proposal made him, but a command laid upon him. I reply, if he did not have an option to accede or not, he was yet voluntary in doing so; for no doubt his holy will joyfully concurred in the gracious plan. And such compacts between governors and governed are by no means unusual or unnatural. Witness all rewards promised by masters and teachers, for the performance of tasks, on certain conditions. 2. There was a condition: the keeping of God’s command. 3There was a conditional promise and threat: life for obedience, and death for disobedience. That the promise of life was clearly implied is shown by the fact itself, that life is the correlative of death, which was threatened in the covenant. For the soul not to live, is to die; not to die, is to live. We argue next, from the natural law of conscience, which expects life for obedience, as death for transgression. Did this fatherly dispensation to Adam suspend the favorable part of this universal law, and thus place him in a worse, instead of a more hopeful condition? Heb. 11:6, tells us "he that cometh unto God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.," Here we have a general principle of service: surely Adam’s introduction into Paradise did not revoke it. Third: During his rectitude, Adam evidently enjoyed the use of the "Tree of Life," which was a sacramental pledge to him of the promised result. And when the covenant was broken, his partaking of this seal was forbid den, as utterly inconsistent with the new state of things. Unless Adam had had before him the promise of life for obedience, this would have been idle. Fourth: That the correlative promise of life was given, appears from the relation of Adam and Christ, the second Adam. Both were representative heads. The covenant which fell through in Adam’s inept hands, was successfully accomplished in Christ’s. But the result through Him was a "justification of life." And in the frequent contrasts which the Epistles of Paul draw between the justification of works and of faith, it is never hinted that the impossibility of the former now arises from anything in the covenant of works, but only from man’s sin and lost estate. See Rom. 8:3, 4….. Every one is familiar with the Bible account of the condition of this covenant: the eating or not eating of the fruit of a tree called the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." This prohibition was, obviously, a "positive command.".. Was this the only command Adam now had to observe: the only one by the breach of which he could fall? Presbyterians answer this in the negative. We regard all the moral law known to Adam is represented in this command, as the crucial test of his obedience to all. The condition of his covenant was perfect compliance, in heart and act, with all God’s revealed law. This is manifest from the unreasonableness of any moral creature’s exemption from the law of God, which is immutable. It appears also, from all the representations of the covenant of works, quoted in a previous paragraph; where the obedience required is to the whole law. It appears, finally, from this obvious view: that a consistent sense of moral obligation was the only thing which could have given to Adam’s compliance with the positive prohibition, any moral significance or worth… The seal of the covenant is usually understood to be the tree of life, whose excellent fruit did not, indeed, medically work immortality in Adam’s frame, but was appointed as a symbol and pledge, or seal of it. Hence, when he had forfeited the promise, he was debarred from the sign. The words of Gen. 3:22 are to be understood sacramentally