The Covenant of Works

God placed Adam in paradise and gave him commands. God placed Israel in the Promised Land and gave them commands.

We also see that both disobeyed. Adam was exiled from God's presence. Israel was eventually exiled from God's presence. Just as Adam experienced death and returned to the dust, God cast Israel out of the land, which the prophet Ezekiel characterizes as an exilic graveyard.

They're a valley of dry bones in Ezekiel chapter 37. Romans 5 19 reads, For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Understanding this one man's disobedience, that is, the disobedience of Adam, helps us understand the bad news and what makes the good news of what Christ has accomplished for his people so good. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and you're listening to Renewing Your Mind as we continue a three-day study on covenant theology. Sadly, when speaking with many unbelievers, many professing Christians begin an evangelistic conversation with God's love or his mercy, and they never get to discussing an individual's personal sins or the sin of Adam. But when we understand what took place in the Garden of Eden and the covenant that Adam broke, it helps us understand our need for a Savior and what Jesus did to secure salvation.

Here's Dr. Fesco on the covenant of works. The opening chapters of the Bible reveal God's creation of the heavens and the earth. One of the things that we might notice as we're doing our study of covenant theology is that the word covenant doesn't appear in the opening chapters of the Bible. It doesn't appear in Genesis 1, 2, or 3. It's not really till Genesis 6 that we find that term appearing.

And so thus, we might initially think that, well, I think it may be DOA, it may be dead on arrival, that we cannot talk about a covenant appearing in the first three chapters of the Bible because the term simply doesn't appear. But I want you to imagine with me for a moment that you're sitting at lunch at a restaurant with a friend who gets a phone call, and at least for this particular mental experiment, you don't think it's rude that your friend takes the call. And so they take the call, but you can only hear one half of the conversation. You hear your friend asking a question about the caterer. You hear your friend asking a question about the guest list. You hear your friend talking about a florist. And then you hear them saying the words, bridal party.

And then they smile, they conclude the phone call, and then they rejoin you for conversation. Now, you've never heard them say the word wedding. But what would you conclude from overhearing one half of that conversation? Would you conclude that they were getting ready for a hockey game?

Would you conclude that they were getting ready to go to a wrestling match? You wouldn't conclude that you would hear all of the various pieces of the puzzle and you would rightly conclude, oh, my friend is talking about wedding arrangements. You hear all of the pieces of the puzzle, even though the word itself is absent. Well, I think we can take a similar approach when we're talking about the covenant of works in particular, if we're looking specifically there at the opening chapters of the Bible.

Do we hear all of the pieces of the puzzle, even if we don't hear the term itself? But before we go forward, let's get a brief definition as to what we mean by the covenant of works, and then we'll proceed. We can define it in this way, that it is the first covenant that God made with Adam, wherein he promised him and his offspring eternal life, upon the condition of perfect, perpetual, and personal obedience to his commands.

So upon rendering perfect obedience to God's commands, he would give to him and to his offspring eternal life. So keeping that definition in mind, we first want briefly to look at the historical origins of the covenant of works. Secondly, we'll examine the biblical evidence.

And then third and finally, we'll set forth the doctrine itself. So let's take a look at the historical origins of the covenant of works. Believe it or not, the earliest testimony to the existence of a covenant between God and Adam comes with Israel's uninspired writings on theology. We would say that these are the writings that unfolded in the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, what we call the apocryphal writings. Now these are uninspired, but what we can say is these are some of the earliest commentaries on the Bible, on the Old Testament itself.

Uninspired, but nevertheless helpful in understanding things that are going on in the Bible, the way that we might pick up a commentary today to help us to understand a passage of scripture. This particular passage comes to us from a book called The Wisdom of Ben Sirach. And it says this in chapter 14 verse 17, All fleshes wax old as a covenant, for the covenant from the beginning is you shall die the death. For the covenant from the beginning is you shall die the death. This is a quotation of Genesis 2 16 and 17 when God prohibited Adam and Eve from eating from the tree of knowledge in the garden.

And notice that this uninspired book nevertheless says this is the covenant from of old that you shall die the death. Now, one of the greatest theologians of the early church, Saint Augustine, was reading The Wisdom of Ben Sirach and found this comment on the Genesis text. And it helped him to conclude that, yes, indeed, God and Adam were in covenant. When ancient interpreters, in addition to this, read texts such as Hosea 6 7, they likewise saw this as a covenant between God and Adam.

What does the prophet say in Hosea 6 7? Like Adam, they, Israel, transgressed the covenant. They transgressed the covenant. So like Adam, Israel transgressed the covenant.

Now, there's a lot more details that we could go into. But if we fast forward to the 17th century, there were numerous confessional documents that logged into their statements the idea that God and Adam were in covenant, whether it was the Irish articles in 1615 or the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1647, the Savoy Declaration, which was the congregational version of the Westminster Confession of Faith in 1658, and the Second London Confession in 1689, which was the Westminster Confession, but written and adjusted by particular Baptists for their particular theological views. These different confessional documents all acknowledge the existence of a covenant between God and Adam. But of course, as we said in the last lecture, we don't want to believe or promote something simply because it's confessional, but rather we want to believe it and we want to profess it because it's scriptural. So this brings us to our second point, which is considering the scriptural evidence. When we look at the biblical evidence, I think we need to use both what we can say is our narrow and our wide focus lenses so that we can look both at the immediate context in Genesis one through three, but then also look at the larger, wider scriptural context. So first, as we look at this narrow context in Genesis one through three, we want to take note of the various pieces of the puzzle that we find, even if we do not find the word covenant. So, for example, remember, God gave Adam and Eve commands. And remember, by looking at Psalm one hundred and five verses eight through ten, giving commands is one of the ways that God creates a covenant. Genesis one twenty eight, he gives the command, be fruitful, multiply, fill all the earth and subdue it. This is characterized as a blessing. Remember, one of the elements, common elements of a covenant is blessing.

Genesis two sixteen and seventeen. Don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Death is a curse.

So notice we have blessing and we have curse. We can say, in addition to this, that these commands ring familiar not only to our ears, but undoubtedly familiar to the ears of Israelites who would have heard these words. They sound like the commands of the Mosaic covenant, of the Mosaic law. For example, in Genesis two seventeen, you shall not eat. There's the negative particle, you shall not, with the imperfect form of the verb eat. You shall not eat.

This is the same pattern that unfolds in the law. You shall not have any other gods before me. You shall not have carved images. You shall not bow down to them. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not bear false witness.

You shall not covet. So an Israelite would hear, you shall not eat, and it would ring familiar to them. They would say, I've heard this kind of prohibition. I've heard this kind of command before. It sounds like the law of the covenant. In addition to this, we could also say that the penalty of death was a familiar covenantal element in the Mosaic covenant. What is it that God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 19? I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

This is what God sets before Adam, life and death, blessing and curse. In addition to this, we can also add to this the invocation of God's covenantal name. Remember in Exodus three fifteen, when Moses said to God as he was speaking to him at the burning bush, who should I say has sent me? And God says, tell them I am has sent you.

I am the great I am. Well, Genesis chapters two and three invokes the covenantal name of God 20 times. So this would be yet further evidence, another piece of the puzzle that says there is covenantal activity in the opening chapters of the Bible. One last thing that we would want to observe here in the opening chapters of the Bible is the existence of covenant signs. Now we'll look at covenant signs in greater detail in a lecture to come. But here we want to note the trees of life and the tree of knowledge or the tree of life and the tree of knowledge are covenantal signs. We can say that they are sacraments, signs and seals of God's covenant. In this case, the tree of life is a visual sign of God's promise of eternal life. Conversely, the tree of knowledge is a visual sign of the threat and the consequence of death.

Again, we'll look in greater detail at those in a lecture to come. But those are the different elements that we can say within the immediate context of Genesis one through three, where we see evidence of covenantal activity. But as we look at the wider picture of scripture, and in this case, we can look within the wider context of the Pentateuch.

The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Bible. This is a reading strategy, believe it or not, that was common among Jewish rabbis between the fourth and the sixth centuries A.D. And that what these rabbis do, and I think rightly so, is they draw a parallel between Adam in the garden and Israel in the promised land. God placed Adam in paradise and gave him commands. God placed Israel in the promised land and gave them commands. We also see that both disobeyed, Adam was exiled from God's presence.

Israel was eventually exiled from God's presence. We also find that there are some specific verbal and terminological markers. In other words, to put it as simply as possible, similarity in language with Genesis one through three at the beginning and Deuteronomy 28 through 34 at the end of the Pentateuch. In terms of these sections, bookend, the whole first five books of the Bible. In other words, the beginning looks a lot like the end. In terms of the creation and fall and restoration of Adam, there are similarities between that and the promised exile for Israel's disobedience. In addition to this, we can say that Eve's sin foreshadows the tenth commandment in its prohibition against coveting. Adam's duties of tending and keeping the garden mirror the priest's duties of tending and keeping the tabernacle. Genesis 2 16 with the prohibition against eating from the tree of knowledge anticipates the dietary laws of Leviticus chapter 11.

The only place where you find the words eat and touch in Genesis three as well as in Leviticus 11. The prohibition therefore mirrors these two sections in the garden as well as in the promised land. And then in addition to this, we can also say that Adam and Israel remain in their respective locations. Adam in the garden, Israel in the promised land, at least on the surface reading of the text by their obedience. If they're obedient, then they get to remain in the garden and in the land. If they're disobedient, then they're cast out of the garden and cast out of the land. Of course, both disobeyed God and they were subsequently exiled. Just as Adam experienced death and returned to the dust, God cast Israel out of the land, which the prophet Ezekiel characterizes as an exilic graveyard.

They're a valley of dry bones in Ezekiel chapter 37. But if we look at the wider canonical context, in other words, now we want to step back and look at Genesis one through three in the light of the New Testament. Remember what Paul famously writes about Adam's sin in Romans 5, 14. Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. When Paul writes of Adam's transgression, he uses a very specific Greek term.

Parabasis is the term, and that refers to a covenantal transgression, a transgression of a known law, the violation of a covenant. And so there is overwhelming evidence in both the Greek translation of the Old Testament, as well as even in the New Testament, that where you find that term, parabasis or transgression, that it is the violation of a covenant that is in view. And in fact, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this is what the prophet Hosea says.

But like Adam, they transgressed, parabenon, they transgressed the covenant. And so we've looked at the evidence in Genesis one through three in the first five books of the Bible, as well as in the wider context of the scriptures in the prophet Hosea, as well as in the apostle Paul. And I think that we can conclude that based upon this scriptural evidence, God and Adam were in covenant.

But what we want to do in the time that remains is we want to set forth the basic parameters of the doctrine itself. So under this category, we would want to say first, who are the parties of the covenant? And we would say that the two parties of the covenant are the triune God and Adam. These are the two parties, God and Adam. We see this, for example, whether you're looking at Romans five or first Corinthians 15.

It's not that we are sidelining Eve. Eve plays an important role, both in creation as well as later on in redemption. But when Paul talks about this covenant, he only mentions Adam and it's because Adam was the federal head.

He's the covenantal representative. And so we see this, God and Adam are the two parties of this covenant. In terms of the conditions of this covenant, or we can say the requirements is that Adam had to be obedient to God's command. He had to, with Eve, fulfill the dominion mandate, be fruitful, multiply, fill all the earth and subdue it. And he, for the duration of his time there in the garden, had to refrain from eating from the tree of knowledge. If Adam disobeyed, he would die.

And of course, we know that he did. And the blessing conversely is implicit in that if he obeyed, he would live. And so this is why, for example, we read this in Westminster Confession, chapter seven, paragraph two. The first covenant made with Adam was a covenant of works or in life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

Now to support this claim, the Westminster Confession cites two Pauline texts, Galatians 3, 12 and Romans 10, 5. Listen to what Paul says in Galatians 3, 12. The law is not a faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. The one who does them shall live by them. In other words, you believe the gospel, you obey the law. Or Romans 10, 5, for Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. The person who does the commandments shall live by them.

The reason why the Westminster Confession of faith, therefore, cites these two texts is because Paul is saying that you can achieve eternal life or receive eternal life one of two ways, either by obeying or by believing. And for Adam in the garden, God gives him the responsibility of obeying. This is the nature of Leviticus 18, 5.

And this is how Jesus himself explains this principle. If you remember in Luke chapter 10, Jesus receives a question from a lawyer. Luke 10, 25, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And so Jesus asks him, well, what is written in the law? To which the lawyer gives the response of the first and greatest commandments in verse 27. And so what is Jesus's response in Luke 10, 28?

You have answered correctly, do this and you will live. Now, Jesus doesn't say he can do it, but he says that is one path to eternal life. Perfect, personal and perpetual obedience. Now, in a sin fallen world, we're incapable of rendering this obedience that God requires.

But in a sinless world, prior to the entrance of sin and death, things were different. God created Adam with the ability to obey, but Adam willfully disobeyed. So thus within the covenant of works, Adam was the covenantal or federal representative for all human beings. Romans 5, 18 and following, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners. So by the one man's obedience, the many will be constituted righteous. Now, this is something that we'll see later on in the next lecture on the covenant of grace, is that God credits Christ's work to us in the covenant of grace, his obedience. But conversely, in the covenant of works, God credits Adam's disobedience to us, which is how we get classified as sinners.

Those are the conditions we've looked at the parties. Last but not least, I'll just touch upon this, is that the tree of knowledge is one of the sacraments, one of the signs, and then the tree of life is the other sign of the covenant of works. How can we summarize the covenant of works? Though what I'm about to read are words that Samuel first spoke to Saul, I think they could have equally been spoken to Adam. I read them from 1 Samuel chapter 13, verses 13 and following. You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God with which he commanded you, for the Lord would then have established your kingdom forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue.

The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. Or we can put this much more poetically in the words of Isaac Watts's hymn, the first and second Adam. Adam, our father and our head, transgressed and justice doomed us dead. The fiery law speaks all despair.

There's no reprieve, no pardon there. But, oh, unutterable grace, the Son of God takes Adam's place. Down to our world the Savior flies, stretches his arms and bleeds and dies. Therefore, in the next lecture, we will look at the work of the last Adam, or Jesus, and the covenant of grace.

He stretches his arms and bleeds and dies. What a great line from Isaac Watts. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and today you heard Reformed Theological Seminary professor J. V. Fesco from his brand new series on covenant theology, Signed, Sealed, Delivered. I hope you found this week's messages so far clear and helpful, laying out both the historical and scriptural reasons for why Bible teachers hold to their understanding of these covenants, and how they really do shine a light on the incredible work of Christ in our place. Well, this series is six messages, so be sure to request the entire series when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800-435-4343. We'll send you the DVD and unlock the messages and study guide in the free Ligonier app. But this series also has a companion hardcover book, and we'll send that to you as well as a further expression of our gratitude for your generosity. Renewing Your Mind is listener supported, so we are thankful for any gift, large or small. You can give your gift and receive this resource bundle at renewingyourmind.org, or by using the link in the podcast show notes. We heard a lot about Adam today, and as Dr. Fesco said, next time he'll consider the last Adam, that is Jesus. So join us Wednesday here on Renewing Your Mind. .