Orange Park Bible Church
(10)Sermon Text: Genesis 2:4-17
God’s Covenant with Adam and Adam’s Probation with God
AM Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Genesis 2:4
The words “these are the generations of” always begin a new “section” in Moses’ writings.
Moses’ narration moves from the introduction or overview (2:1-2:3) to the details which happened within the context of 1:1-2:3.
Moses’ details God’s creation of Eden, man, covenant, probation, marriage, original sin, the imputation of sin (Cain) and God’s sovereign choice to preserve a people for himself (Seth).
2:5-7
We see God’s sovereignty, wisdom, creativity. We see man’s frailty and dependence
2:8-9
Meaning of “Eden” is “pleasure”
God highlights two specific trees (note that all of the trees were pleasant to the sight and good for food). Sin looks good even though it is deadly.
2:10-14
Satisfaction is offered here; Life is offered here; refreshment is offered here:
Psalm 36:7-9, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see.”
Jeremiah 17:13, “O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water” (Jeremiah 17:13).
Turn and Read Revelation 22:1-5
John 4:14; 7:37-39 – To know Jesus is often equated to being satisfied, refreshed, washed, clean. Jesus describes Himself as living water and the Holy Spirit as springs of water welling up inside of you.
2:15-17: God’s Covenant with Man and Man’s Probation with God
What are the principal elements of a covenant?
A covenant is an agreement between two or more parties whereby they stand bound to each other to perform the conditions contracted for. Covenants include clear stipulations, agreement between two parties, penalties for disobedience and rewards for obedience.
Turn and Read Hosea 6:1-7
What kind of covenant was this? “A Covenant of Works”
As the Creator and King over all creation, God was obliged to establish His authority. Adam was placed under a covenant of works, not merely a covenant of law. There is a very important difference:
· A law requires obedience and a penalty for disobedience proportionate to the offense. Obedience to law maintains impunity or neutrality, but nothing more. Give the example of a King: If a King’s subjects obey the law of the land, they are not promised, nor deserving of promotion within the King’s castle. However, if the King contracts or establishes a covenant with a knight and the knight goes off to battle, wins a war, and fulfills the covenant, he is rewarded with pre-determined rewards. There is a vast difference between a covenant of works and the mere establishment of a law. Adam is promised a larger degree of happiness, a state of eternal blessedness. Adam is now a creature who is able to fall, but is promised the Tree of Life (eternal life) where he might enjoy God forever without the ability to fall. “Those who do the will of my Father enter in.”
What is the purpose of the covenant? Why didn’t God just make man in a state of eternal blessedness?
One thing God cannot do and still be God is create a peer. God made people who were not eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. God must establish His authority and govern man by His wisdom.
In forbidding Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil his Maker asserted His dominion and enforced His authority. God was giving Adam the duty of having dominion by judging evil, but He instead fell subject to it. Since He had been pleased to give Adam dominion over all creatures here below, it was surely fitting that He should require some peculiar instance of homage and fidelity to Him as a token of Adam’s dependence and an acknowledgment of his subjection to his Maker – to whom he owed absolute submission and obedience. This single restriction was well suited to teach our first parents the lesson of self-denial and of implicit resignation to the good pleasure of the Most High. God was showing them they must subordinate their bodily inclinations to finding their highest delight in God alone. Even in Eden man was placed under the holy awe of divine threatening, which was a hedge placed around him for his protection.
God’s restriction was ultimately a command for Adam to love God. God’s restriction from one tree was an open invitation to eat from all the rest. Every time God says in Scripture “thou shalt not” He is simultaneously screaming “Thou Shalt.” If Adam would have been filled with the endless fruit God provided, His appetite would have been satisfied and he would not have been hungry to entertain a conversation about forbidden fruit.
Herman Wistius:
Man was to be taught:
1) God is to be obeyed because He is God: That God is Lord of all things and Owner of all things- that it is unlawful for man to even eat an apple without His permission. In all things, the Word of the Lord is to be consulted, for He is the sovereign authority over all things.
2) God is to be obeyed because He is good: Man’s true happiness is to be found in God alone. God is all-knowing and does only that which is best for man. We pursue our own good when obeying God’s Word.
3) God created man to love Him (Matthew 22): The only way to love Him is to obey Him. The only way to obey Him is to be given the possibility of disobedience. God was exerting His authority and establishing His Kingdom. This is seen in that the restriction itself was not inherently evil (not eating of certain trees is not a prohibition found elsewhere in Scripture).
How could man fall? How is it that God cannot fall?
God alone acts from His power because He is the Creator (God is uncreated). All created things act from the power within themselves or depend on a power outside of them. Thomas Goodwin, “God’s own goodness and happiness is His ultimate end, therefore He can never act but in Holiness, for He acts for Himself and by Himself. Therefore, God acts Holy in all His ways and works, for that is all He can do.
It is first important to note that all created things were placed on probation. Man and angels were given the free will to obey or disobey the Creator and King (Jude 1:6).
Also note that angels were never offered redemption.
This covenant was not isolated to Adam, but was God’s covenant with all mankind. Adam’s was acting as man’s representative before God in the garden (Romans 5; 1 Corinthians 15)
Since the loyalty of man and the subjection of himself to his Maker were necessary, there were only two options: Either the human race must be placed under probation in the person of a suitable representative or federal head, or each individual member of the human race must be placed on probation himself.
G.S. Bishop
Had we been present, had we and all the human race been brought into existence at once, and had God proposed to us that we should choose one who was to be our representative, that He might enter into covenant with him on our behalf – should not we, with one voice, have chosen our first parent (Adam) for this responsible office? Since the angels which stood for themselves fell, why should we wish to stand for ourselves? And if it be reasonable that one stands for us, why should we complain when God has chosen the same person for this office that we should have chosen had we been in existence and capable of choosing ourselves?
Would you disagree with him? For those of you who think it unfair of God to place Adam as federal representative, think about the alternative. You would be placed in the garden; your eternity would stand or fall with your decision. For us to think that we would have had a better opportunity under our own volition is supremely arrogant. Think about your morning. Think about your day yesterday. Think about your week this week. You know of the Scriptures, you know of original sin, you know of the glory and grace of Christ, you know of Hell, you know of Heaven, yet you still are unkind, selfish, unloving, harsh, lustful, and persist in high-handed sin. Would you have made a different decision? Would you standing representing yourself have resulted in a different outcome? Absolutely not. How is this proven? You will prove it again and again today and tomorrow.
Why?
“This only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). What are inventions but devices created to better our lives? What gives rise to inventions but our dissatisfaction? They relinquished their Lord and preferred their inventions over His instruction.
Adam’s Free Will
God plainly told man the result of his disobedience. Adam had the ability to stand and the ability to fall. He was fully capable of loving God as his chief good and moving toward Him as his last end. Man was created capable of falling, yet was not induced by God in the least bit. Adam was allowed to act freely within the boundaries God had provided for him. God was under no obligation to restrain man, although He could have. Adam, like we all would do, willingly and deliberately cast himself and all mankind into a dismal state.
Mr. Moulton’s funeral: fulfilling his wishes was my duty. Adam fulfilled our wishes in Eden.
A.W. Pink
The morality of an action does not depend upon its abstract nature, but upon its relation to the law of God. Men seem often to judge of actions as they judge of material substances – by their weight or bulk. What is great in itself, or in its consequences, they will admit to be a sin; but what appears little, they pronounce to be a slight fault, or no fault. Had Adam been possessed of supernatural powers and wantonly and wickedly exerted them in blasting the beauty of paradise; and turning it into a scene of desolation, men would have granted that he was guilty of a great and daring offense, for which a curse was justly pronounced upon him. But they can see no harm in so trifling a matter as the eating of a little fruit. Nothing, however, is more fallacious than such reasoning: the essence of sin is the transgression of a law, and whether that law forbids you to commit murder or to move your finger, it is equally transgressed when you violate the precept. Whatever the act of disobedience is, it is rebellion against the Lawgiver; it is a renunciation of His authority, it dissolves that moral dependence upon Him which is founded on the nature of things, and is necessary to maintain the order and happiness of the universe. The injunction to abstain from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a proper trial of our first parent, and the violation of it deserved the dreadful punishment which was denounced and executed. He was put to the test whether the will of God was sacred in his eyes, and he was punished because he gave preference to his own will.
The existence of innocence was not enough to get Adam into eternal blessedness .The simple forgiveness of sin is not enough to enter the kingdom of God. Righteousness and perfect obedience is absolutely necessary. We are saved by works: The perfect righteousness of Christ.
Next Week: Contrasting Adam and Christ –We are saved by Christ’s righteousness. We are not only seen as sinless, but obedient. Obedience matters a lot to God – it is how we love Him and submit under His authority.
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