Covenant Religion, Part 3: The Edenic Covenant (Part 1)

I plan to only discuss the main three covenants that God has made with the human race. Though other, smaller covenants existed, the ones that I will study are the two “mass-redemptive” covenants and the first covenant. I will discuss the other covenants in terms of the main covenants. This is the approach that Andrew Murray used in his book The Two Covenants. This method is probably the least confusing way to approach covenant theology. Also, some covenants appear within others, and if you’re not careful, you may start to create artificial dichotomizations.
The Edenic Covenant was the first covenant that God made with humankind. It’s important to understand the implications and content of this covenant because the other two that I will discuss become necessary only when this one is broken.
In simple terms, the Edenic Covenant includes the promises that God made to humans if they fulfilled their purpose as His image-bearers. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’” (Gen. 1:26) God was good and He made humans good. (Ecc. 7:29) Additionally, all of God’s creation was good; in fact, it was “very good.” (Gen. 1:31) Man’s duty was to bear God’s image and to upkeep His perfect creation (as it expanded) in the good order in which it was created.
God’s first commandment in this covenant was, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:28) This task would be no problem as long as humans maintained spiritual life.
However, in order to do that, they had to trust God completely. I believe that it is this trust that formed the foundation of the Edenic Covenant. This fact is seen in another commandment, namely, that Adam and his wife were allowed to eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree that contrasted that one was the tree of life. Obviously, God was the tree of life. The real choice in the garden was between trusting God and trusting self. The choice between the two trees was whether Adam wanted to trust God to lead him into all righteousness, or whether he wanted to be responsible for choosing his own way.
In each of the covenants that I will discuss, you will see the presence of a physical law. The purpose of the physical law is not to determine our standing before God, but to demonstrate our attitude toward Him. In other words, it’s not what makes or breaks us, but what shows if we are in or out. To illustrate this, I want you to think of an indicator strip that is used to test water for the presence of chlorine. If you place the indicator strip in water and it turns a color to indicate that there is chlorine present, you understand that it’s not the strip that makes the water contain this chemical. The chlorine was already present, and the indicator strip simply made that fact evident. In much the same way, a physical law gives us an objective understanding of our position before God, as well as providing Him an objective witness. (Rom. 3:19)
Because we are physical beings, it is necessary that God communicates to us in a physical way. God could have told Adam and Eve, “The moment you fail to trust Me completely, you shall surely die.” Instead, He created a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The only way that Adam could have failed to trust God is if he turned to trusting himself. And what would have been the first thing about himself that he could have trusted? His wisdom—his ability to choose for himself what was right and wrong. So God strategically placed this thing called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil next to the tree of life, and told Adam and Eve if that the very day they ate of it, they would die. So what happened?
Satan deceived Eve and convinced her and her husband to distrust God, and to turn instead to their own wisdom. When they failed to trust God, they sinned. Of course when that happened, there was no way that they would be able to keep from eating of the forbidden fruit. It was the natural end of their failure. God’s promise was that they would die on the day they partook of the fruit. James points out that “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (Jam. 1:14-15) So was it the outward sin that brought forth death for Adam and Eve, or the spiritual sin of failing to trust God?
The answer is, “both.” Physical sin was the outward work that demonstrated the nature of the spiritual evil they committed. And physical death was the result of that outward sin, which of course, was a representation of their spiritual demise resulting from their spiritual sin.
In simple terms, physical disobedience is the outworking of spiritual sin; it physically demonstrates our spiritual nature. And physical death is the consequence of physical sin; it physically demonstrates our spiritual state.
God said that the day that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they would “surly die.” It was almost as if God were saying, “The day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, know this: you have died.” Of course He must have meant that would be their physical sign to show that they were not right with Him. And this plan worked because even though they had failed to trust God before they ate the fruit, it wasn’t until after they had eaten that they knew they were naked.
As soon as they ate that forbidden fruit they knew something was wrong. They had become guilty before God. And God had set it up perfectly so that they would have a physical representation to show them that. The guilt and disobedient they had physically experienced was pointing to this: They were spiritually fallen from the grace of God; they had sinned; and “all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.” (Heb. 4:13)