Genesis 2 and 3 that are most relevant to my subject this morning. First of all, Genesis chapter 2 and verse 9. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Verses 15 to 17. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden to cultivate and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die." Genesis 3.22. Then the Lord God said, Behold, a man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him up from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out, and at the east of the Garden of Eden, he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life. My subject this morning is Whatever Happened to the Covenant of Works? And when we deal with this subject, I want to say several things by way of introduction to it. First of all, I want to talk about the name of the subject. I happily use the terminology covenant of works because that is the name most often used in the history of covenant reform theology. Some of you may know that in my modern exposition, I opt for John Murray's terminology, the Adamic administration. But I have been more and more convinced that this arrangement between God and Adam in Genesis 2 may be called the covenant over the years, and I'm happy to use that terminology. And I also want you to know that it's also been called, and there may be reasons to prefer some of these terminologies, the covenant of life or the covenant of creation. The title Adamic Administration is used for this arrangement by John Murray in his article in Volume 2 of his Collected Writings, and I owe a great debt to John Murray on this subject and his discussion of it. Now, he discusses their problems with the terminology covenant of works and asks the question whether God's arrangements with Adam may be called the covenant. And if they may be called the covenant, whether it is aptly called a covenant of works. Now he's been roundly criticized for doing this and using the phrase Adamic administration in this article as opposed to the covenant of works. But frankly, let me give you my opinion about that. I think John Murray held all the substance and essentials of the covenant of works and merely had reservations about the name. And to identify him with things like the new perspective or some of the errant views of Norm Shepard on the subject, I think it shows an ignorance of what Murray really taught on this subject. To identify then him with serious error is simply wrong, because though he may have had terminological reservations, he held everything the Covenant of Works means historically, and probably more than some people that criticize him for the terminological reservations he had. Now, I will speak then of the Covenant of Works and grace in this conference in harmony with historic Reformed theology. But I have to admit that sometimes I wonder if a number of theological problems would not be avoided by opting for terminology like Murray's and speaking rather, say, of the Adamic and Messianic administrations. But nonetheless, I feel like I'm very happy and I'm submissive to the historical momentum of the phraseology covenant of works and covenant of grace. Let me talk to you about the outline of the lectures I'm going to give this morning, or the one lecture I'm going to give this morning. I shouldn't be plural there, I guess. I'm going to talk about the basic definition of the Covenant of Works, its intended goal, its historic formulation, its scriptural evidence. And I'm not going to get to its redemptive historical expression. I missed that out in my preparation because of the lack of time. And then I'm going to talk about its crucial importance. All right? So five points rather than six this morning. So first of all, basic definition. We'll do this in catechetical style. What is the Covenant of Works? Well, the Covenant of Works refers to the sovereign gracious arrangement of God, wherein the first man, Adam, as the representative of the human race, might attain the destiny of a mortal life upon choosing personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience to divine law, or otherwise suffer death as the due penalty for disobedience. Now let me open up that answer to the catechism question there. Key assertions here. There is an arrangement with involves the first man, Adam, in creation or the pre-fall state. This arrangement is sovereignly imposed by God upon Adam. Sometimes covenant has been understood as contract. Whether and how much that's appropriate is a big question, and we certainly must not understand it in this sense, that there's equality between God and man, or there's some sort of agreement reached between them. No, this covenant, this arrangement is sovereignly imposed by God upon Adam. And I am happy to use the term gracious, and I know my using that terminology is controversial, and I certainly agree that it needs to be explained. When I use the term gracious, I am not talking about saving or special grace. I'm talking about what I would rather call creation grace. That is to say, I think that this arrangement between God and Adam represents a free condescension of the part of God in which promises and blessings were promised that in no way were proportional to what Adam would do. And so, went way beyond anything that he might have deserved. And so, it's gracious in that sense. But I do want to say, and say very clearly, that if we're going to use the term gracious for something like the covenant of works or the covenant of life, we need to have in mind and keep clearly in mind very important distinctions between creation grace and special grace. If we're going to talk about Adam's faith, we better have very much in mind a clear distinction between the kind of faith Adam had and distinguish from that quite clearly, saving faith and justifying faith, because they are very different things. This also implies a concentrated test as this arrangement of Adam's loyalty and freedom of choice. And beyond that, This entails Adam acting as the representative of humanity in his choice. There is representation, and as a consequence of that, imputation as a result of what he does. This arrangement identifies death as the penalty for sin and says that death is not merely the result of some natural way that God made the world. It requires perfect obedience to God's law to reach its intended goal of immortal or eternal life. That brings me in the second place to the intended goal of the Covenant of Works. What is the intended goal of the Covenant of Works? of this pre-fall arrangement? The answer to that question, in my view, is this. Immortal, or what is synonymous, eternal life is the intended goal of this arrangement of man's original destiny and situation in relationship to God. Immortal life is the intended goal. And so eternal life, we know from Christianity and from our understanding of the Bible, is a result of Christ's cross, salvation coming from Christ's cross, and what Paul calls in Romans 6, the benefit or the end, eternal life. And we are accustomed to the notion that eternal life is the consummation of man's salvation. However, What I am asserting here is that immortal life is not just the last thing, it is a first thing. It was intended to be the consummation of man's creation. Human creation and then the obedience of Adam to the covenant of works was to result in the human destiny in the original order of immortal life. And this is the view of Gerhardus Voss, insofar as the covenant of works posited for mankind an absolute and unchangeable future, the eschatological may be said to have preceded the satiric religion. What's Gerhard de Sois saying? He's saying there was an ex-eschatology before there was the need for salvation. The world and mankind was supposed to go someplace and reach a destiny even before man fell. That's what he's saying. The eschatological precedes the esoteric religion. And I want to say something in the third place here about the historic formulation of this. And this is all too brief, but at least it gives a flavor and some support for the notion that this whole idea of the Covenant of Works is not a novel invention of 17th century scholastic Reformed theologians. Let's talk about the early church fathers. Louis Burckhoff says of them, in the early church fathers, the covenant idea is seldom found at all, though the elements which it, the Covenant of Works, includes, namely the probationary command, the freedom of choice, and the possibility of sin and death, are all mentioned. Herman Boving says, quote, still everyone acknowledges that Adam did not yet possess the highest humanity. Especially Augustine made a clear distinction between the ability not to sin, posse non peccari, and not to die, posse non mori, which Adam possessed, and the inability to sin, non possi peccari, and the inability to die, non possi mori, gifts that were to be bestowed along with the glorification of the first man in case of obedience, and now granted to the elect out of grace. Do you understand what Hermann Bavink is saying there? He's saying what we receive as a result of the grace of Jesus Christ, Adam would have received and his children would have received as a result of his obedience to the covenant of works. We'll say more about that. He is saying that Adam, though created innocent, was not created with the inability to sin and the inability to die, but rather with the ability not to sin and the ability not to die. Now this brings us to Augustine's view of Adam. As created, Adam possessed morally these things. He was both able to sin and able not to sin. And physically, he was both able to die and able not to die. As glorified, this is not possessed by Adam, he would have become morally unable to sin and physically unable to die. And so the glorified state, as Bobbink said, is superior to the created state in at least these two ways. The medieval scholastics. Now the notion of a higher state of existence for Adam is continued in them, and yet this higher condition could be, in the language of Thomas Aquinas, merited by Adam. God would be indebted to reward Adam as a matter of strict justice on the basis of his intrinsic worth if he obeyed God's law. And that brings us to the Reformation, John Kelvin and the Reformed Tradition. Kelvin, I think it's fairly well known, did not hold a fully developed doctrine of the covenant of works or Adamic administration. And yet Calvin clearly held to this whole notion of the intended goal of the covenant works, that is to say that it was intended to bring Adam to a higher state of existence, or what we are calling immortal or eternal life. On Genesis 2.7, Calvin says this, Paul makes an antithesis between this living soul and the quickening spirit which Christ confers upon the faithful. 1 Corinthians 15.45. You remember the passage. I won't turn you there right now. But in contrasting the Adam with Christ and our present state with the resurrected state, Paul quotes a text from Genesis 2 that speaks of Adam not as fallen, but as created. Adam became a living soul. And he contrasts with Adam being a living soul, what Adam was as created, he contrasts with that what we become as resurrected. Christ became a life-giving spirit. Adam, this is the implication of 1 Corinthians 15.45, Calvin is saying, was not created in the highest state of existence to which he could attain. He was created a living soul. But the resurrected and glorified state is a higher state of existence. Calvin goes on to say, Paul makes an antithesis between his living soul and the quickening spirit, which Christ confers upon the faithful, for no other purpose than to teach us that the state of man was not perfected in the person of Adam. But it is a peculiar benefit conferred by Christ that we may be renewed to a life which is celestial, whereas before the fall of Adam, notice what he's saying here, before the fall of Adam, man's life was only earthly, seeing it had no firm and settled constancy. Adam only had earthly life, says Calvin, in contrast to the celestial or heavenly life we attain by way of the resurrection. And why was it only earthly, he says? Because it was not guaranteed to be permanent. It could be lost. He could sin and he could die. We are accustomed to say, well, Adam was perfect. And of course, in some sense, that's true. He was certainly innocent, certainly without the stain of sin. But if we mean by perfect that he possessed the life of the resurrection and the glorified life that he could attain no higher life, that's certainly not. Calvin also comments on 1 Corinthians 15.45. In short, Paul's meaning is that the condition that we obtain through Christ is greatly superior to the lot of the first man, because a living soul was conferred upon Adam in his own name and in that of his posterity. But Christ procured for us the Spirit, who is life. Well, that's clear, and growing out of that, the Reformed tradition developed the doctrine of the covenant of works. By 1596, the doctrine was clearly enunciated in all its essential features in Robert Raleigh's development of federal or covenant theology. The Latin here is foetus, of course, for covenant. By 1615, an abbreviated statement of the doctrine appears for the first time in creedal form via the Irish Articles of Religion. And the Irish Articles of Religion are very important for the Westminster Confession. And so it's not surprising that by 1647, an explicit, mature statement of this doctrine appeared in the Westminster Confession of Faith and later in our own 1689 Baptist Confession. All right? And that brings us to the all-important question of the scriptural evidence for the covenant of works. And we're going to look at the evidence for four things. The representative rule of Adam, the specific requirement of perfect obedience, the threatened punishment for disobedience, and then the intended goal of obedience. First of all, the evidence for the representative role of Adam. And you know, this comes primarily in two ways to us. It is implicit in the universal scope of God's curse. Genesis 3.17b and 19b tells us that though Adam alone sinned, all of the race was cursed. It wasn't Adam alone who couldn't go back into the garden. Adam's children could not go back into the garden. Adam sinned, but the race was cursed. This was the representative role of Adam. And this is certainly how Paul reads Genesis in Romans chapter 5, 12 to 21 and also 1 Corinthians 15, 21 and 22. You know those familiar texts. Romans 5, 12-21 contains language like this, "...just as through one man sin entered into the world, if by the transgression of the one the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for judgment arose from one transgression, if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, through one transgression the result of condemnation to all men." And of course, you're familiar with 1 Corinthians 15, 21 and 2, which among other things says, since by a man, a man, came death. It talks about the fact that as in Adam, all die. This is the representative role of Adam. About this, there should be no doubt in the heart of any Bible believer. But then, we need to talk as well about the specific requirement of perfect obedience. This is something that is up for a lot of question and debate among modern evangelicals and especially in seminaries under the influence of the New Perspective on Paul. But again, it is something that is clear. What Adam was required to do was not simply be generally faithful and persevere in some gracious covenant. What he was required to do was be sinlessly perfect and especially manifest this in his obedience to the arrangement there in Genesis 2, 16 and 17. And this, of course, is implied by the one transgression language of Romans 5 and is explicit in Genesis 2, 16 and 17. In the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Not after being disobedient and apostatizing for 12 days. But in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. One act of transgression resulted in the loss of life, resulted in the threat and punishment for disobedience. Death. And the death here is both temporal and eternal. It is both physical death that results from the disobedience of Adam to the covenant of works and eternal death that results from it. And a reading of Genesis 2.17 in light of the unfolding message of Scripture in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 makes this, I think, clear. But the place about which one has to gather the most evidence, and it's perhaps the most controversial, is with regard to this whole matter of the intended goal of obedience. The intended goal of obedience. And I want to give you scriptural evidence for this intended goal, and here's how we're going to do it. We're going to look at implicit evidence for the intended goal, the dynamic nature of the creation scene. And then we're going to look at the very fact of the existence of the Tree of Life as further implicit evidence. Then we're going to look at the explicit evidence for the intended goal, the quality of the Tree of Life. And then we're going to look at the cleared evidence. I'm going to answer some objections that are raised to this whole matter of the intended goal of obedience being eternal life. But first of all, the implicit evidence. And first of all there, the dynamic nature of the creation scene. One thing that's often missed in our naive statements about, well, creation was originally perfect, which is, as I said, in some sense true. Adam was innocent. Sin was not in the world, true enough. But one thing that that naive assertion of the perfection of the original creation does is make us miss the dynamic nature of the creation scene. Because when you read Genesis 1 and 2, it is clear that creation was intended to go somewhere. Yes, the train was on the tracks. huffing and puffing there at the station from which it was going to leave. But there was a road to be followed. There was a trail to be pursued. There was a goal to be gotten to. Creation was going somewhere according to Genesis 1 and 2. This account of creation is dynamic and not static. The heavenly lights, for instance, would mark the progress of seasons, days, and years. Water, air, land creatures, and man were to multiply and fill the earth. Adam was given authority, and yet he must subjugate, cultivate, and preserve the garden. And the seventh-day creation Sabbath was given, not in Exodus 16 or 20, but in Genesis 2, 1 to 3. And the seventh-day creation Sabbath, according to Hebrews 4, 1 to 11, I'm not going to turn you to these passages, but I think what I'm saying is really quite evident in them. The seventh-day creation Sabbath was not only a moral law to be obeyed so that Adam was to keep every seventh day holy and find it blessed to his soul, But the seventh day, Creation Sabbath, was also a type and sign. It's not either or, moral or typical. It's both. And the seventh day, Creation Sabbath, this seventh day according to Hebrews 4, 1 to 11, was symbolic of eternal rest and the final rest of the people of God. So that when we think of the pattern of creation, six days of labor and a seventh day of rest, we are not only to think of a moral pattern for the structuring of human life and the blessing of having rest once a week, we are to think of the creation Sabbath and this structure as typical of the history of the world. That is to say, there is labor and then there is rest. The seventh day is typical, a significant of, a final rest to which we are to attain. That we attain in Christ, the world was to attain through the obedience of the first father, Adam. So, we see in these things the dynamic nature of the creation scene. It was going somewhere. It was intended to go somewhere. But that's just the problem. Instead of taking it somewhere, Adam derailed the train by his disobedience. There is also, by way of implicit evidence, the very fact of the existence of the Tree of Life. the fact of its existence. Here we can think of this in terms of a syllogism. Major premise. Adam was created as a living being. That is to say, death is the result of sin, not nature. Clearly. Minor premise. And yet, in spite of this, strangely, we might think, there existed a tree of life in the midst of the garden. There existed a tree of life in the midst of the garden. What is the conclusion we should draw? Well, that the tree of life held forth the quality of life not possessed by Adam as he was created. Because otherwise the very existence of the tree of life is frankly meaningless. What could it mean if Adam already had all the life that he was ever going to have? But that brings us to the explicit evidence. And here we think first of all about the new quality of life symbolized in the Tree of Life and which is biblically declared in Genesis 3.22. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now, lest he stretch out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever." The passage goes on to say how they're driven from the garden and the cherry beam with the flaming sword is stationed to keep the way of the tree of life. Now this language, live forever, the Hebrew there literally live unto the ages, is the language, the typical language of the Bible everywhere that describes immortal or eternal life. The Greek has similar language. The Hebrew speaks of this language. And the new quality of life symbolized in the Tree of Life is explicitly declared here. To eat of the Tree of Life is to live forever. Let me say that again. To eat of the Tree of Life is to live forever. To live on to the ages. And of course, for Adam to eat of the tree of life in a condition of sin was to doom him forever to that condition. The new quality of life symbolized in the tree of life is biblically defined in many places. This eternal life is what we get when we eat of Christ. John 6, 50 and 51. He who eats of me, who believes in me, shall have, has eternal life. Now, you're a Calvinist. You preach that. And what do you say to your Arminian friends about eternal life? You say it's eternal life. That means if you have it, you can't lose it, right? Eternal life is eternal life. Once you have eternal life, you can't lose it, because if you have eternal life, it's eternal. That's what you say, right? Well, how can then other people say, how can some people say that Adam had eternal life and then lost it? But that's what you have to say if you don't agree with my assertions here right now. So it's used of believers. Believers possess eternal life. They possess a life they cannot lose. A life that is irreversible, unchangeable, and glorified. This language of eternal life, of living forever, is also used of God. Now, which of you would really want to assert that God could lose eternal life. No, what it means for God to live on to the ages is that He has an indestructible, immortal, irreversible, and unchangeable life. What it means is He's self-existent and He has a life that He cannot lose. But this very language is used of the blessing bestowed by the tree of life. This language is used of the glorified Christ. who lives forever, who has eternal life. Again, we know that this means it's irreversible and unchangeable. So in every case, whether of believers or of God or of the glorified Christ, in every case it's clear that this quality or condition of living forever is biblically defined as unchangeable, irreversible, and immortal life. and this unchangeable, irreversible, immortal, eternal life is bestowed by the Tree of Life. This means that Adam had not eaten of it, because if he had eaten of it, he would have lived forever. There's a third thing that is explicit evidence, I think, for this view, and that is that the new quality of life symbolized in the Tree of Life is biblically described in several places. It's described in 1 Corinthians 15, 42 to 45. Would you please turn there now? 1 Corinthians 15, 42 to 45. What is eternal life? In contrast to the life that Adam had as created. Look at the text. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable life. It is sown a perishable body. It is raised an imperishable body. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It has raised the spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Now, notice what text Paul chooses to quote to illustrate a natural body. Does he choose to quote a text that is spoken of Adam after the fall? No. He quotes a text that is used of Adam before the fall as uncreated and sinless. As uncreated and sinless, Adam had a natural body. But he did not have this powerful, this glorious, body that Paul calls a spiritual, should be capitalized, a spiritual body. There is a difference between Adam's unfallen body and the glorified state to which the resurrection of Jesus Christ brings us. Revelation 2.7 and 22.2 and 14 are also relevant here. Would you turn there? Revelation 2.7, He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. When do we eat of the tree of life? when we attain to a mortal, unchangeable, irreversible life in glory. Revelation 20-2. In the middle of its street, on either side of the river, was the tree of life bearing twelve kinds of fruit. yielding us fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. This is speaking, of course, of the new heavens and new earth, the eternal state. Verse 14, blessed are those who wash their robes so that they might have a right to the tree of life and might enter by the gates into the city. The tree of life, eternal life, is tasted only by those who have washed their robes in the blood of Jesus Christ. So getting the right and access to the Tree of Life is a central quality pertaining to the Garden City of God, the New Jerusalem, in the age to come. Now there is a fourth line of thought here. The new quality of life symbolized in the Tree of Life is biblically assumed in the creation narrative. So we ask the question, though created, indisputably a living being, Could Adam die? Of course, there's no doubt about the answer to that. Not only could Adam die, he did die. He sinned, and he died, of course. Then, whatever may be said of the level of life Adam possessed as created, it was clearly not a mortal life. Because one possessed of a mortal life, like God, and Jesus Christ, and believers in Christ, cannot die. Immortal life, by definition, as we have seen, is unchangeable, irreversible, and eternal. Therefore, we conclude straightforwardly that Adam did not possess it as created. Now, that brings me to the cleared evidence, and I want to deal with some objections here. The first objection, and I understand these objections, And I think they need to be answered. I think there are answers for them that are adequate. First objection is the assumption of people that Adam was already partaking of the tree of life before the fall. Now, I assume that people think this because they quote the text that says that Adam could eat of every tree of the garden. So, there was permission given to eat of every tree of the garden. Now, if we assume that the tree of life was included in that permission, The permission still doesn't mean that he'd actually eaten of it, does it? Permission is not the same as actually eating of it. And, in fact, there's reason to know that he had not already partaken of the tree of life before the fall. You say, well, how could he have permission to eat of it and not actually eat of it? Well, maybe there was no fruit on the tree yet. I don't know. See, now look, what I'm about to do here is not tell you what I know for certain to be the case. I'm only going to give you a plausible way of answering an objection. And I don't need to show that it's absolutely and indisputably true. So, it's sufficient for me to say, well, maybe there was no fruit on the tree yet, so I couldn't eat of it. Maybe that was the case. How do you know? I don't know, but you don't know that he was eating of the tree of life either, merely from the fact that he had permission to do so, if that's true at all. But in fact, Genesis 3.22 actually shows that partaking would have been a new activity never before performed. Look back at Genesis 3.22 again, would you please? And I have to hear, I suggest to you that it's embedded in Genesis 3.22 as a little word that actually shows that he had never eaten of the tree of life. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now he might stretch out his hand and take... What's the next word? Also. of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Now, are there other ways to take that little Hebrew word, gam, also? Yes, there are. But the way I'm taking it is perfectly appropriate. perfectly possible and provides a perfectly plausible response to this notion that Adam was already eating of the tree of life. Victor Hamilton, the Hebrew commentator, says, taken by itself, the wording of verse 22 could suggest that man is not yet eaten of the tree of life. How else is one to explain the use of also, Hebrew, gam, in the verse? And where gam was used earlier in the narrative, it implied new and additional activity. Look at Genesis 3.6. He's referring to there. Genesis 3, 6, which using this little Hebrew word says, When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its root and ate, and she gave also to the man. He hadn't eaten of it yet. Now he also eats of it. See the meaning? So, I think Hamilton has a point. In fact, I think that's how we ought to understand Genesis 3.20-22 in the little particle gam there. But, there are further things that can be said about this. Adam was already partaking of the tree of life before the fall. Well, but aren't you forgetting something, sir? Isn't it true that with regard to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a single partaking of the forbidden tree acquired its attribute. How many times did Adam have to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before he received, in a condition of sin, the attribute, the quality of knowing good and evil? Genesis 3.22 says that he attained that quality. And how many times did he eat of it? How many times? Just once. And that imparted the attribute. So why should we think that it's any different with the tree of life? Why should we think that it's any different that he has to eat of the Tree of Life every day to maintain his mortal life? Really? Really? You think that's what Genesis 2 and 3 actually teaches? That somehow Adam had to eat of the Tree of Life every day to maintain his life? And how does that match up with the fact that it's a mortal, eternal life that it imparts, and that, assumedly, like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, one partaking imparts its attribute, eternal life. So on the basis of the irreversible attribute and the analogy in connection with the forbidden tree of knowledge, we must conclude that a single partaking of the tree of life would acquire its attribute. Now, I don't think this is my notes. This is always dangerous to do, to say something that's not your notes. You're a preacher, you know that, right? Stick to your notes. But I'm going to say something that's not in my notes here. There's something else that I think tends to commend this whole idea. A single partaking of the forbidden tree acquired its attributes. On the basis of its irreversible attribute, the analogy and connection with the forbidden tree of knowledge, we must conclude that a single partaking of the tree of life would acquire its attributes. In the Scriptures, wisdom, that is to say, a proper understanding of knowledge of good and evil, is always the pathway to eternal life. I mean, that's the analogy. Throughout the Scriptures, coming to a proper, not a sinful, but a proper maturation and knowledge of the good and evil, being made wise unto salvation, being made wise in the gospel of Jesus Christ to wash our robes in the blood of Christ, this is the pathway that always leads to eternal life. Oh, that's what the rest of the Scripture teaches, but now we're going to ignore that in Genesis 2 and 3? And we're going to say that Adam was actually eating of the tree of life before he had attained the knowledge of good and evil, when the rest of Scripture says that a proper godly understanding and knowledge of good and evil and wisdom is the pathway to eternal life? You see how that notion contradicts the very pathway and understanding of the rest of Scripture? So God went to great lengths. to prevent Adam from accessing the tree of life after his fall. Now why? If you had to keep eating of it to have eternal life, if one eating wouldn't give you eternal, immortal, irreversible life in a state of sin and therefore equivalent to damnation, if that was the case, Why did God so carefully bar Adam from eating of the Tree of Life even once after the Fall? Well, all of this tells us clearly, assumes clearly, that Adam was not partaking of the Tree of Life before the Fall. It contradicts everything we know about the Tree of Life from the rest of Scripture and from the passage. The second objection, only one tree was forbidden. All other trees of the garden were permitted. Now, again, I'm answering objections, and so all I need to do is not prove that something is actually and for certain the case. I just need to give you a plausible alternative. Do you agree with that? When you're answering objections, you don't have to prove that your answer is is absolutely correct and without doubt, you just have to offer plausible alternatives. I'm about to offer you a plausible alternative. What I think is a very plausible alternative, but I'm not asserting here that I can prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I think it's very suggestive and it does offer a response to the second objection that only one tree was forbidden, all other trees of the garden were permitted. And it is this, I think this objection forgets the twofold structure of the garden. In Genesis 2, 9, 3, 2, and 3, the garden and the midst of the garden are both mentioned and, I think, contrasted. Look at Genesis 2, 9 again. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. That's the garden. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Three, two and three. The woman said to the servant, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. But here's the point. Both the tree of the knowledge of good and evil garden, apparently, right next to each other. Now, this twofold structure, garden and midst of the garden, I think provides a possible answer to the objection. Permission to eat from any tree of the garden may have had exclusive reference to the outer circle. In fact, nothing at all is said about the tree of life in the permission to eat from all the trees of the garden. Now, if they could be from all the trees of the garden, certainly they could eat from the trees in the middle of the garden. Well, they couldn't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that was in the middle of the garden. And so, but people try to assume that all the garden includes the middle of the garden. Well, just a second. You're aware of, and this is very common, and I think there's powerful evidence for it, that the Garden of Eden was a kind of temple. You're aware of that. Greg Beals, famous for asserting that. and other people. And I think it's true that the Garden of Eden was a kind of temple to God. Now, let's just speculate a little bit. In later temples, there was a difference between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. And the fact that you could go into the Holy Place did not mean that you could go into the Holy of Holies. Permission to enter the Holy Place was not permission to enter the Holy of Holies. So is perhaps there's something like that here going on in Genesis 3 that permission to eat of the trees of the garden was not and did not assume permission to eat of the trees in the midst of the garden. That is to say either the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or the tree of life. Well, I think that's possible. I think it's even plausible. But I don't need to prove that it's absolutely true. I just need to offer a plausible response to this objection. And maybe you'll think I'm proud or wrong. But I think I just have. So look at it this way. PowerPoint slide, it's not intended to assert that the garden was in the shape of an oval. It's only intended to illustrate the fact that there was the garden, and of this it is said, from any tree of the garden you may freely eat. And then there was the midst of the garden, in which were both the forbidden tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and also, also the tree of life. Genesis 2.9, Genesis 3.2, and 3. So I'm just saying, maybe there's a two-fold structure of the garden here that this objection is forgetting all about. And maybe if we remember it, we have a plausible answer to this objection. I think we do. So that brings me to an interim conclusion. And it is the conclusion that the psalmist reaches in Psalm 8. Behold with the psalmist the majesty of God displayed in the mystery of man. From the beginning God determined to create and raise the lowly creature known as man to a position of exalted authority and eternal fellowship with himself. He takes this lowly creature so much weaker by creation, by his original creation, than the glorious beings of heaven. So much weaker by creation, so much more lowly by creation than the seraphim and cherubim. And yet it is God's purpose to exalt man far above those glorious beings and to do that, originally by means of the covenant of works. O Lord, our Lord, says the psalmist, how majestic is your name in all the earth. But that brings me to some conclusions. What's the crucial importance of all this? Well, I have four things I want to say. I hope I don't get to vehement here. I'm getting some things off my chest this morning, however, that have been on my chest for a long time. I'm so grateful to the organizers of this conference to give me the opportunity to get these things off my chest. The Covenant of Works, as here presented, is a doctrine taught in both the Westminster Confession and the 1689. Some of you know why I have to assert that. This is not controversial with regard to the Westminster. But some question is raised if the 1689 asserts a covenant of works. It is true that this phraseology, where it occurs in the Westminster and Savoy in chapter 7-2 and 19-1, is omitted in the parallel places in the 1689. And this is why some question has been raised. What is forgotten when that is used as to imply that the framers of the 1689 and its signers did not believe in a covenant of works, what is forgotten is that in both 1906 and in 20 paragraph 1, the framers of the Baptist confession retained the phraseology, the covenant of works. And many of the most important signers of the Baptist Confession approved of the Covenant of Words terminology and were emphatic advocates of it, I think including Nehemiah Cox, the framer. So the omissions of this phraseology in two of its four occurrences in the Westminster Confession and Savoy Declaration appear to be the result not of any objection to the Covenant of Works itself, but rather of editorial considerations, not doctrinal considerations. Now, got that off my chest? Now let me say something else. This doctrine of the Covenant of Works is basic to salvation as a whole. To understand salvation, to understand where Christ is taking the train, you have to understand what was God originally doing with the train. The eschatology assumed in the covenant of works is basic for understanding the structure of the covenant of grace. Or to put it in different language, the Adamic administration lays the foundation for the Messianic administration. The covenant of works is the foundation for the covenant of grace. The train Adam derailed, Christ puts back on the tracks and drives to its goal. That's what salvation is. So how can you understand salvation if you don't understand the covenant of works? How can you understand the covenant of grace if you don't understand the covenant of works? Misunderstand here and you're liable to misunderstand the whole biblical teaching about salvation and not get it right. This doctrine is basic to salvation as a whole. And this doctrine is basic especially to the contrast between law and grace. And let me tell you, that's an important contrast these days to assert and have clear biblical basis for. Basic to the doctrine of a justification, basic to a Protestant and Reformed doctrine of justification is the dichotomy or contrast between law and grace. There's a reason following Karl Barth that Daniel Fuller entitled his book with the opposite terminology, Grace and Law. No. This doctrine is basic, especially the contrast between law and grace. So, crucial to a Reformed and Protestant doctrine of justification, so left of day, is the dichotomy between law and grace, or works and faith, in the Bible. And the deepest and clearest foundation for this dichotomy and distinction is the contrast between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. This is why it's so important to get this right. Now, some attempt to ground this dichotomy and the distinction between the Old and New Covenants. Not a few people think that they believe in this dichotomy, but they think that, well, it can be grounded, you can forget about the Covenant of Works and just contrast the Old and New Covenants. Old Covenant, Covenant of Works, New Covenant, Covenant of Grace. Well, I'm thankful these people believe in the dichotomy between law and grace. I don't think you can believe in a biblical doctrine of justification unless you do. I think that distinction, dichotomy, contrast is crucial to a Protestant doctrine of justification. I'm glad they believe in it. All I'm going to say is, I think it's really problematic to ground that distinction in the contrast or distinction between the Old and New Covenants. It may be true. I'm not taking a position here. I'm only granting this for the sake of argument. It may be true that the dichotomy between law and grace can in some way be found and proved in the contrast between the Old and New Covenants. That may be true. We may grant that for the sake of argument, but it is also true, gentlemen and ladies, that there is vast disagreement about this issue in the Reformed tradition. There are three, four, five, or six, or seven different positions that people take about the Old Covenant and its relationship to the New Covenant. And whether it's a covenant of works, or whether it is an administration, as the Westminster Confession actually says, of the covenant of grace. And so, here's my concern, and here I'm speaking as a systemetician and a Christian. It is true that there is vast disagreement on this issue of the Old and New Covenants, and especially about the nature of the Old Covenant in the Reformed tradition. And it's not just true that that was true in the 16th and 17th century. It is just as true today. And therefore, to attempt to ground the vital, the crucial, the critical distinction between law and grace, dichotomy between law and grace and faith and works, to attempt to ground it in the distinction between the old and new covenants, I think is not wise. Many different views of the Mosaic Covenant are taught, including many Orthodox theologians who believe that it is an administration of the covenant of grace. The dichotomy between law and grace, faith and works, can only find, in my view, more obscure and qualified support in the contrast between the old and new covenants. So I think It's really important to ground this dichotomy between law and grace, so vital to a Protestant doctrine of justification, so of the day, to ground that distinction and dichotomy in the truths summarized in the Reformed tradition as the covenant of works. And this, this is why it's so vital to have right views of this. Lose a right understanding of the covenant of works and you obscure the contrast between law and grace, and then you obscure the doctrine of justification. Lose this and you open the door to neo-Nomian and new perspective views of justification as by faith plus words. Advocates of novel views of justification, men like Daniel Fuller and Norman Shepard and Don Garlington, and the whole raft of new perspective on Paul people, consistently, it's amazing how consistently they do this, consistently deny the Covenant of Works. There's a reason the Covenant of Works gives you the dichotomy between law and grace that they simply don't believe. And their errors, Shepard, Fuller, Garlington, and the New Perspective people, their errors about justification can be traced, among other things, exactly back to their problems with the covenant of works. Finally, this doctrine is basic to the gospel doctrines of the active and passive obedience of Christ. and double imputation. The true and most ultimate grounds of the doctrines of active and passive obedience of Christ, the distinction between the active and passive obedience of Christ, the true and ultimate ground of double imputation and clear views of that subject are to be found in clear views of the contrast between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. This is, again, why it's so important. Active and passive obedience and double imputation are, of course, closely related as the accomplishment and application of Christ's Word. Christ's passive obedience, you know, refers to his suffering for sin and how it satisfies our guilt Christ's act of obedience, fulfilling God's law, provides positive righteousness and the title to eternal life that Adam forfeited. And of course, these two things are what come to us when we believe in double imputation. In double imputation, the guilt of our sin goes to Christ and the righteousness of Christ comes to us. Double imputation. And this, some of you, many of you, most of you, preach as the very gospel of Christ. But this must be rooted, if it is to be clearly understood and plainly defended in proper understanding of the covenant of works. Seeing Christ as the last Adam, repairing the failures of the first Adam, gives clear support for the distinction between the active and passive, I should have written, obedience of Christ. Here's how it looks to me. See if you agree. The obedience of the last Adam. Passive and active. Passive obedience. This is Christ undoing. what Adam did by suffering the penalty for sins that resulted from Adam's sin and condemned us to hell. That's Christ's passive obedience, undoing what Adam did by his suffering, which satisfied God's wrath against our guilt. What is his active obedience? It is doing what Adam failed to do by becoming obedient unto death and perfecting a righteousness that gives us a title to eternal life. This is the passive and then the active obedience of Christ. This is the foundation of double imputation. And this is why it is so vitally important that you have right views of the covenant of works, of God's administrative arrangement with our first Father. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. But I hope you realize now that it's more than something a mere man had to get off his chest. I think, I think this issue is crucial to our defense of the gospel itself. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the privilege of studying these things, of taking the time, these men giving the time, freely to carefully walk through these important issues, to think about their biblical support, to think about the answers to objections to them, and to think about why these issues are so crucially important. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.