By Rev. Arthur Allen
From Our Banner: August, 1955.
A covenant, in general, is an agreement made between two different
parties on certain terms. When God condescends to enter into a covenant, the
party with whom God enters into such a covenant cannot refuse the terms, or
propose terms to God; for all God's terms are consistent with His holiness.
When God created man, "God's law was in his heart." In his blessed and holy nature there was not anything contrary to God's law which required man to love, honour, and obey God. Nevertheless, God in His infinite wisdom saw that an outward law was essential to prove if man was worthy of the "Crown of Life," therefore God gave a positive commandment, which was added to the law of God in man's heart, which constituted the terms of the Covenant of Works.
(1) God entered into a covenant with Adam by translating His will into a law, requiring perfect obedience, under the gravest penalty, and giving happiness and life on the fulfilment of the terms.
(2) The Covenant of Works reveals the infinite condescension of God. Adam was created perfectly holy and upright, inclined and capable of fulfilling the terms of the Covenant of Works (Gen. 1:7-5:1). God's condescension is revealed by entering into a covenant that required obedience which He could have required by His supreme unbounded authority.
(3) Adam was the representative head of the human race; and the representative nature of Adam under the Covenant of Works unfolds the goodness and wisdom of God. The covenant was the means by which the reward of obedience would be secured for the whole human race, under the most favourable circumstances.
(4) Adam was the only person of the race fitted to be the covenant head and representative, for the following reasons:-
a. Adam was created an adult, in the image of God, perfectly holy, fully capable and inclined to fulfil the terms of the covenant.
b. Adam had the strongest motives for his own happiness and that of his posterity, to preserve his created perfections.
c. The environment and circumstances in which he was placed was perfectly suited for the happiness and contentment of man, as a moral and intelligent being. All his needs both physical and aesthetic were supplied in the Garden of Eden. Adam's moral and intellectual requirements were met, in the favour and fellowship of God.
d. Adam being equally related to posterity as the common parent.
e. The infinitely wise and holy God having chosen Adam as the representative of the race for covenant favours.
f. Adam's posterity, had they all been present in Eden, could not have refused the terms of the Covenant of Works without self-condemnation by sinning against God (Gen. 18:25; Deut. 32:4; Psa. 119:68; Eccl. 3:14).
The terms of the Covenant of Works proposed to Adam consisted in (1) The condition - Perfect Obedience; (2) Promised reward - Life; (3) Penalty - Death.
Obedience. - God as creator and sovereign, and man as the creature, necessarily requires that God should prescribe the law to regulate the creature's actions and moral conduct; also the commandment set down by God, who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever," places the creature under perpetual obligation to obey, regardless of the period, disposition, or the behaviour of the creature (mankind).
The commandment, to love, honour, and obey God, is the continuous standard which the Covenant of Works requires in every age and by which the individual conduct and moral qualities of men are to be judged. The above principle of obedience is fully maintained in the Apostle Paul's letters to the Romans and Galatians. To quote Dr. C. Hodge: "Such is the nature of God, and such the relation which He sustains to His moral creatures, that sin, the transgression of the divine law, must involve the destruction of the fellowship between man and his Creator, and the manifestations of the divine displeasure. The Apostle therefore says, that he who would offend in one point, who breaks one precept of the law of God, is guilty of the whole." (Systematic Theology, Vol. 2).
Promised Reward. - The end of obedience was the reward of life. A life congenial and one that equalled the attributes with which God had endowed man whom He created, including honour and immortality. As the Apostle Paul says, "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life" (Rom. 2:7). Apart from Adam being created in the image of God, he received a positive commandment, an actual precept, which placed clearly before him that obedience would gain the promise for himself and posterity. God actually set before Adam a direct command: "Thou shalt not" eat of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." An external object that would remind Adam of the Covenant every time he looked upon it."
Penalty Death. - Death consisted in the loss of the Divine Image. A complete break of all fellowship with God. The progress of spiritual death involves the growing strength of sin; the destruction of the will to encourage good; the hardening of the heart; the darkening of the mind, and bringing the individual into subjection to Satan. The progress of spiritual death eventually reaches a state which is called by the Apostle "the second death" - eternal death; when the weight of the curse is manifest in the internal convulsions of indwelling lust, envy, malice and hate. (Rev. 16:10, 11, 21). The subjects of the second death being confined in their own place where eternal condemnation alone can equal the violation of the infinite obligation to obey God.
The Covenant of Works was made with Adam, the representative head of the human race before Eve existed. (Gen. 2:16, 17). The period over which obedience was required by the covenant in order to secure the reward is unknown, nevertheless, the covenant being made with Adam as the representative of the human race appears to make it evident that the period of probation would probably expire with the birth of his first born son, as perfect obedience on the part of Adam would have conferred the reward of life to his son. Whatever the period of probation may have been, on the completion of it Adam would no longer be exposed to the possibility of sinning against God. Dr. Hodge says: "Thus we read of the Angels who kept not their first estate, and of those who did. Those who have remained faithful have continued in holiness and in favour with God. It is therefore to be inferred that had Adam continued obedient during the period of probation, neither he nor any of his posterity would have been exposed to the danger of sinning. (Systematic Theology, Vol. 2). The point we wish to emphasise is that Adam was the sole representative of the race under the Covenant of Works.
Eve fell by her own personal transgression (Gen. 3:1-5). Eve was deceived by Satan, but Eve was not the covenant head of the race. Adam was the covenant head, and Eve was represented by Adam before she existed, and it was by Adam's violation of the infinite obligation to obey God that death fell upon Eve. "As in Adam all die" (1st Cor. 15:22). The opening verses of Genesis, chapter three, clearly reveal that Eve was deceived by Satan, and the Scriptures make it equally clear that Adam was not deceived. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression" (1st Tim. 2:14).
The circumstances immediately following the fall were extremely favourable for the cultivation of holiness by human endeavour. Paradise was yet before their eyes, though guarded by Cherubims and a flaming sword. Adam lived among his posterity for many ages, and could tell of the blessed state that existed before his breach of the covenant. But the unsubdued passion of Cain revealed the completeness of spiritual death in Adam's posterity, and the succeeding generations emphasise the progress of spiritual death, the darkening of man's understanding:, the corruption of his nature and his inability to merit God's favours; indeed, man left to himself and his own resources is so utterly perverted and degraded that God is despised. (Romans 1).
Condemned in Adam. Gen. 6:5, 8:21; Job. 14:4, 15:14, 15; Psa. 14:2, 3, 51:5, 58:3; Jer. 17:9; Mat. 15:19; Mark 7:21-23; John 3:6; Romans 3:9-23, 5:12, 8:7-9. 5:15-19; 1st Cor. 2:14, 15:22; Eph. 2:1-3; Titus 3:3.