The Covenant of Life

Q. 12. What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created?
A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.

At its most fundamental level, a covenant is an agreement between two parties. Throughout Scripture, covenant is the way that God interacts with his people. This is how the Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes it:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant. (WCF 7.1)

Previously, we talked about the Creator-creature distinction, and here we have one of its many implications. Because God and man are so different, there is no way for man to interact with God unless God meets us in the middle, and covenant is his prescribed way of doing that.

The very first covenant between God and man has taken many names. In the Shorter Catechism, it is called the covenant of life. More often, it is called the covenant of works. Even in his perfect state of innocence, Adam was unable to access God, so God immediately meets him in covenant from the very beginning. The word “covenant” never appears in the Genesis narrative, but Scripture elsewhere speaks of this relationship as a covenant (Hosea 6:7). In the Genesis story, we can also detect each part of a covenant: parties, stipulations, and blessings and curses. Consider Genesis 2:16-17.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The two parties are God and man, but God is clearly in charge of the situation. Most of the time, when agreements are made, someone has the advantage in terms of strength, power, and authority. The covenant of life is no different. God is the sovereign here, and so he is the covenant initiator.

Next, we see stipulations, what Adam is required to do. God singles out the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the rest of the trees and tells Adam not to eat it. But this specific command is just a sign of the whole of what Adam is expected to do. It’s not as if Adam can commit all sorts of other sins as long as he doesn’t touch the tree! So we say that perfect obedience is the standard, including obedience to this specific command.

Finally, there are blessing and curses associated with Adam’s obedience. The curse is laid out as death. If Adam disobeys, he will surely die. But one principle of Scripture interpretation is that whenever a promise is given, the opposite threat is implied, and vice versa. In other words, when God says Adam will die if he eats the forbidden fruit, he is also saying that Adam will not die if he does not. In fact, he will live forever.

One thing to notice is that Eve is not yet present when this covenant is made. This helps us understand the concept of covenant headship. In the garden, the covenant was not only made for Adam, but for all people in Adam. That’s one reason Eve was made from Adam’s rib instead of being individually created, because she was under the covenant headship of Adam. And since we are all descended from Adam, he is our covenant head as well. He is our representative before God.

As a result, in man’s natural state, he is born into this covenant of works. God requires all people in all places to be perfectly obedient to all his commands. The same promise of eternal life and curse of eternal death applies to us all. But as we know, Adam did not continue in obedience to God, and neither do we. But we’ll unpack that in the next questions!

Updates

1. Next week, we’ll be having our Reformation Day Youth Fellowship! Be sure to invite children and youth who may want to join us!

2. Starting November 6, our adult Bible study is going to transition into a weekly prayer meeting. If you haven’t been joining us for Bible study, this is a great opportunity to join in on our midweek fellowship.

3. The Session has scheduled a congregational meeting for Sunday, December 7. More details are forthcoming, but be sure to mark your calendars!

Your friend in Christ,
Reid