Covenantide

Category: Reading Scripture Covenantally

  • Start of the Covenant of Grace (Gen. 4-5)

    Start of the Covenant of Grace (Gen. 4-5)

    The Fall of man resulted in the Covenant of Works being broken, but God did not leave matters there. If man was to have the intimate, eternal communion with God for which he had been made, then the initiative for bringing that about would have to come from God by His grace. Grace is God’s unmerited favor toward man; indeed, it is God’s favor despite man’s demonstrated demerit. Even in the curses God pronounces in judgment (3:14-20), there are elements of grace. In this, we see the beginnings of the Covenant of Grace, which encompasses the rest of Scripture and centers on Christ. The curses on Adam and Eve—toilsome labor and difficulty in childbirth—reflect a postponement in the execution of God’s decree of death for their sin and will force the couple to place their faith upon God in everyday life. More importantly, in the curse on the serpent God announces there will be enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of Eve, and that a Seed of Eve will someday crush the head of the serpent, even while being bruised by him (3:15). This is the first prophecy of a redeemer who will save mankind from the consequences of the broken Covenant of Works.

    This promised Seed is probably in Eve’s mind when she gives birth to her firstborn child, Cain, and says she has acquired a man from the LORD (4:1). Cain hardly is a deliverer though. The biblical account focuses on the differing sacrifices of Cain and Abel and Cain’s subsequent murder of Abel in a fit of jealousy. Many commentators observe the typological parallelism of Abel as a type of Christ, as well as the idea that Abel’s offering was of a blood sacrifice, anticipating the sacrifice that Christ would make in dying on the cross. More, however, can be said in terms of the covenantal significance of Gen. 4:1-6:8. This passage speaks of both the nature of man, the nature of God, and the way God has chosen to engage with man under the Covenant of Grace.

    The account of the offerings made by Cain and Abel establish a key point about how man is to approach God, namely with reverence, humility, and awareness of one’s own sin. The Hebrew word used for offering in Gen. 4 is one that also is used to describe the offering of tribute to kings. In offering tribute, there is the presumption of rendering honor to one’s superior. Abel, in his offering, provides the firstborn of his flock; with Cain, Scripture records that he merely gave an offering (4:3-40). The Genesis account does not provide a reason why God accepted Abel’s offering, but rejected Cain’s, but the original readers probably would have understood that from the nature of the offerings, seeing the offerings as both antecedent to and in continuity with the sacrificial system God instituted after the Exodus. A burnt offering, like what Abel probably made, was done for making atonement for sin; a grain offering, however; was a fellowship offering. Abel therefore came to God acknowledging his sin and seeking atonement, whereas Cain presumed fellowship with God without that. It was the heart attitude that was behind whether or not God accepted the offerings. Abel demonstrated reverence, awe, and humility before the LORD. Cain did not, and that led to the LORD’s rebuke (4:7).

    The account of Cain and Abel tells us something of the character and work of God as well. God exhibits grace in rebuking Cain and warning him that sin is crouching at his door (4:7). After Cain murders his brother, God demonstrates that He is a just king, seeking justice for the victim. Yet even this is tempered with mercy, in that while Cain’s own death could have been required as retribution, God spares him and sends him into exile, putting a mark on him so that he will not be killed by others. God’s purpose in acting that way is not immediately obvious, but is implicit in the genealogies that follow. Genesis 4:16-24 lists the descendants of Cain and 4:25-5:32 the descendants from the next child of Adam and Eve, Seth. God’s overarching plan involves progress toward fulfilling the original cultural mandate, of man multiplying and having dominion and that requires providentially preserving mankind. God has chosen to work through the course of history in His dealings with man, moving man toward the final (eschatological) end that He intended from the outset. The contrast between the ungodly line of Cain and the godly line of Seth shows a principle of differentiation also at work in history; as mankind grows, God is drawing out a people for Himself. The presumptuous rebelliousness of Cain’s descendants is shown by Lamech’s arrogant violence (4:23-24), while God’s blessedness on Adam’s line is evident in the longevity of the patriarchs, and especially in the fact that Enoch was taken to God without dying (5:24). This is the beginning of redemptive history.

    Genesis 4:8 – The Death of Abel
  • The Covenant of Works (Gen. 2-3)

    The Covenant of Works (Gen. 2-3)

    The covenantal motif laid out in chapter 1 continues in chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis in describing God’s relationship with man. Adam was to be God’s vice regent, given a dominion of his own, and representing God to creation in stewardship and the creation back to God in worship. Man bore God’s image, reflecting not only God’s rationality and volition, but also His an original righteousness, holiness, and true knowledge. Such an exalted stature for man was a unique idea among ancient cosmologies (ways of explaining reality). All other ancient cosmologies saw mankind as simply being slaves for the gods; none saw man as possessing an inherent, albeit derivative, dignity, and authority. Even today, this is a radical idea when one considers that evolutionary views and other religions like Buddhism and Hinduism see man as having no greater significance than other beings, and, in many ways, even less significance. Even where man’s uniqueness is granted in comparison to other creatures, such as in Islam, man is little more than a slave to God.

    In the Bible, man’s original exalted status in creation only highlights the depth of the tragedy of his subsequent fall and descent into evil and rebellion, which we are the heirs of to this day. In the Garden of Eden, God provided for man’s needs, like food and companionship, but also called man to exercise dominion over creation, not in self-serving ways but helping to order it, through the naming of the creatures. From ch. 2 we can see that man had direct communion with God. Moreover, we can see from later Scripture that the intimacy of the marital relationship between Adam and his wife was to be a picture of sorts of the intimacy of the relationship between God and man, not in a sexual way, of course, but in the bonds of steadfast love and devotion (see, e.g., Matt. 19:4-6 and Eph. 5:22-31, as well as the Book of Hosea for a negative contrast making the same point). Even with all this, man was promised more, and that is the significance of the Tree of Life (2:9). Man already had physical life, but what the Tree of Life promised was eternal life. This is why when man did fall, his access to the Tree of Life was foreclosed, lest he be eternally confirmed in a state of enmity toward God (3:22-24). At the end of Scripture, the Tree of Life reappears, signifying eternal communion with God (Rev. 22:2). Such intimate communion was to be man’s ultimate end.

    This ultimate end of man having eternal communion with God raises the issue of how man was to move from his initial condition into this place of greater intimacy with God, and that highlights the importance of man’s testing in the Garden. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil presents a choice for Adam to make. If he demonstrated faithfulness to his covenant bond with his Lord, he would enter into that greater intimacy; if he were unfaithful, then that covenant bond would be ruptured. As God accomplished a great thing before entering into His rest, so too man had to accomplish a great thing before entering into that greater intimacy with God. Merely to refrain from eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would not have been a sufficient accomplishment for man to demonstrate his devotion to God. There needed to be a testing and God in His providence allowed Satan’s temptation to be that testing and to force a decision.

    To understand the significance of this trial, we have to understand that Adam’s responsibility was more than just obedience to God’s Word about the Tree. In 2:15 God commands Adam to “tend and keep” the Garden. The Hebrew behind the word “to keep” literally has the sense of “to guard.” What does this mean about Adam’s responsibilities? This can be best understood in comparison with Christ. The Apostle Paul draws the comparison between Adam and Christ in Romans ch. 5 as heads of respective covenantal arrangements and other parts of the New Testament draw out how Christ has the offices of prophet, priest, and king. If Christ has these offices and is the Second Adam, then presumably, the First Adam had these offices as well. What do these offices entail? A prophet is to speak rightly the Word of God. A priest is to keep the sanctuary pure and facilitate the right worship of God. A king is to defend the realm against intruders and to execute justice.

    So, what would this have meant for Adam in the Garden? As priest, Adam should have been on the alert for that which could defile the sanctuary, like a serpent questioning the Word of God. As a prophet, Adam should have corrected his wife when she misquoted God’s command to say that they were not even to touch the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a king, Adam should have expelled the intruder from the Garden. If Adam had done these things, he would have earned a great triumph that would have brought him into eternal and more intimate communion with God. In the actual test, he did none of them. The result of the Fall was immediate shame, spiritual death, and eventually physical death. As head of his people, the benefits or sanctions that a king receives convey to his people as well. In this case, as head of the human race, the guilt of Adam and Eve and the curses God laid upon them convey to all their offspring as well, along with the ravages of sin in practice.

    This relationship between God and Adam before the Fall the Westminster Confession of Faith describes as a “Covenant of Works” and the Larger Catechism calls the “Covenant of Life”: “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him, to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience” (WCF 7.2). This covenant is now broken, and no person can achieve what had been promised to Adam by his own works. The rest of the Bible is the story of God’s redemption of mankind, not through works, but by grace.

  • Creation and Covenant (Gen. 1)

    Creation and Covenant (Gen. 1)

    Because the opening chapters of Genesis set the paradigm for the covenantal framework that binds together all Scripture, in this and the next few posts my intention is to provide notes that will help the reader to see that more clearly.

    When people typically read Genesis 1, the focus tends to be on the six-day creation framework and how that meshes with modern scientific perspectives.  Although that certainly is an important issue to grapple with, that debate obscures what would have been the more salient issue for Moses’s original audience regarding the chapter, namely, that the LORD God who saved Israel in the Exodus, the God with whom Israel was in covenant, is the God over all creation; He stands alone.  Israel’s king is the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

    The covenantal nature of Genesis 1 can be more clearly seen if one remembers three essential aspects of kingship, namely that a king—must have a realm over which to rule, the power to rule that realm, and legitimacy in exercising that rule, typically manifested in the majesty and glory that accompanies his reign. We see all of those things in Genesis 1:1-2:3, even though God is not explicitly called a king.

    First, the realm of God’s rule is creation (“the heaven and the earth”) as noted in Gen. 1:1 and 2:1. This is not a preexisting realm, but one that God creates out of nothing.  Also note that this realm is bifurcated between heaven and earth.  As modern people, our default mode is to assume that heaven simply means the cosmos and that is not incorrect as far as it goes.  But heaven also is the unseen realm of God’s dwelling place in glory, whereas the earth is the visible realm.  As the Nicene Creed states, “God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.”  In the Book of Revelation, we will see a coming together of heaven and earth, where the glory of God will illuminate the earth (Rev. 21:23).  The overarching narrative of Scripture is God bringing His people into communion with Himself.

    Second, Like a king who issues who issues commands and actions ensue, the exercise of God’s power is shown by the fact that He by His Word speaks and things are brought into being. God’s exercise of power is not arbitrary or self-centered, but establishes order to creation. In the first three days of creation, God forms the rudiments of the realms of existence, and in the second three days He fills those realms with life, culminating with the creation of His vice regent, man. Moreover, the order God creates is not just a material order of the cosmos, of light and darkness, land and seas, plants, animals, and people, but it is a moral order as well. This can be seen in that throughout creation week, God repeatedly identifies what He has created as good, and at the end of the week He pronounces it all to be very good. The material order and the moral order are intertwined.

    Lastly, the fact that God created it out of nothing both shows His absolute power and establishes the basis of His authority over it. He possesses legitimacy in reigning over creation because He made it; He is indebted to nothing and to no one. The legitimacy of God’s rule, moreover, is manifest not only in the beauty and diversity of His creation, but also in the glory and enthronement that accompanies His reign. One can see this in several ways. God’s glory and goodness are established at the outset of creation. In creating light on Day 1 (1:3-5), for example, the source of that light must be God Himself, since other sources had not yet been created and since the light is described as good, that goodness must also emanate from God. Glory and goodness accompany God’s mere presence. On Day 2 (1:6-8) God creates a realm—Heaven—in which His presence and glory are manifest; this precedes any creation of the earthly realm. God is holding court. That is reinforced on Day 6 of creation (1:26), when God gives a plural self-reference in His declaration “Let us make.” This royal use of “we,” (i.e., using a collective pronoun to describe Himself) may well refer to the heavenly host looking on God’s acts of creation—which would have been the most likely understanding of Moses’ original readers—as well as to the Trinity within the Godhead, which we can now better see in light of New Testament revelation.

    More than just His mere presence and His holding court, however, God’s glory is secured by the culminating act of His enthronement at the end of the week of creation. For ancient kings, it was not just the accoutrements of power that secured their glory, but the accomplishment of great deeds. After a decisive victory in war or the completion of a great building project, the king would have a major celebration where people could see His glory on display. In the Genesis account, God rests from His work (2:1-3). Such a rest is not a rest from weariness since God does not tire, but a rest of coming into a culmination of enjoying what He has accomplished, of coming onto His throne. This pattern of work and then coming into a consummating rest is one that exists throughout Scripture, and will reach its climax at the end of time. God’s people are continually looking to that consummating rest of God.