Welcome back to lesson two in our series on the covenants. My name is Hunter Gately, and I'm a laborer here at HeartCry Missionary Society. In this series, we're talking about the covenants walking through the scripture. So in our last lesson, we had an introduction on what is a covenant, what to expect with this series, why the covenants are relevant, why this study is relevant. And today, we're going to talk mostly about the covenant of works, as some have called it, or God's covenant with Adam. So in traditional Reformed Baptist understandings of the covenants, they have three major covenants throughout the Bible. So if you're familiar with covenant theology, maybe you know this. There's a covenant of redemption in eternity past, before the world was founded by God, that The triune God has made an agreement or a covenant within themselves to redeem a people for this God, for the seed of Adam to come, for the Messiah to be revealed, for this people to be redeemed for God. So that's before the foundations of the world, the covenant of redemption, this inter-Trinitarian pact, as some have said, of eternity past that affects what's to come in the future. Second with that is the covenant of works. So the covenant of works is what we'll talk about today. Strictly speaking, it's the covenant that God has made with Adam. So from when Adam was formed out of the dust of the earth, all the way until Adam broke the covenant with God by eating of the forbidden fruit, there was this chance that God gave Adam to do something in a sinless world and to have eternal life with God, to have perfect communion with this perfect God in the perfect world that he had just created. And so we know that because we're here that that covenant was broken, that Adam disobeyed God's proposition for him, his covenant with him, and that all of humanity was cast into sin, into death, into destruction. But there's a promise that we find in Genesis 3.15 that is the heart of covenant theology. It's the heart of the covenant to come. So we had covenant of redemption, covenant of works, and the covenant to come is the covenant of grace. So from the fall of Adam, promised in Genesis 3.15, all the way until now is the covenant of grace. So in the Old Testament that covenant had not yet been realized. But every covenant that we'll study up until the new covenant is anticipation, it's looking forward, it's leading forward to this grace that God has offered through the promised seed, the promise that he gave to Adam and Eve. Lastly, we have the covenant of grace realized or the new covenant. So you are familiar with this covenant. If you're a Christian, you talk about yourself as being in Christ. So this covenant is the covenant of grace. It's the covenant that God promised for his people that he said the serpent's head will be crushed by the seed that I will send by the one to come, that where Adam failed, Christ will perfectly and has perfectly obeyed the law. He's lived a life perfectly unto me." So we have covenant of redemption, eternity past, covenant of works, and the covenant of grace. There are other words for these covenants that you might have heard, that you might be familiar with, to help you get a grasp for what we're talking about. So you can call the covenant of creation, or as some have said, the kingdom of creation. So that would be the time in Genesis before Abraham. So from Genesis 1 until Abraham, the covenant of creation of these rules and these covenants that God gives to Adam and Noah apply to all of creation. There's also an Old Covenant that some will speak about. That's from Abraham all the way until the close of the Old Testament, until Christ comes. So it's the Old Covenant and God's covenant agreement with the nation of Israel as they move and work and try to enter into God's promises. And then we have, as I've already mentioned, the New Covenant. So you can think about the Old Testament, the New Testament. So in the New Testament is finally revealed, finally consummated the New Covenant that is in Christ. So there's different terms, different understandings, different very minute details about these covenants that theologians have tried to hammer out. So I want to get away from a lot of those specific words and language that I do hold to these views of the covenants, that I do think they are an accurate representation of what's found in Scripture. But I'm not going to use a lot of those big words. I'm going to talk about each covenant individually. So, for example, with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, and I'm going to talk about the Messiah to come, the anticipated seed that God has promised. So, going on then to the covenant of works, or the Edemic Covenant, the covenant with Adam. You're probably familiar with Genesis 1, 2, and 3, maybe more than any other chapters in the Bible. So there's so much that we learn in those three chapters. There's the creation accounts of all of creation, of God speaking and things coming forth. There's the creation of man. There's God placing man in the Garden of Eden. There's the fall and the curses that come. And if you start out reading your Bible in Genesis 1, you make it through those, and they're so familiar. In having familiar text and familiar passages, there's a danger that we gloss over some details. So even in my own personal study of following the covenant with Adam or the covenant of works, I've seen things that I haven't seen before. I've noticed details and wording that I haven't known before. So when I say covenant of works, I mean an agreement that God has made, a covenant, with works involved for Adam. So God says, here's all these things that you need, here's what you will do. And we'll get to that in a minute, but it's this work that God gives to Adam, this good work, and he says, if you keep it, you'll live. If you don't keep it, you'll die. So let me read a few verses of Genesis chapter 2. If you have your Bible you can follow along. Genesis chapter 2, I'll start in verse 7. Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, and there he placed the man whom he had formed. 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. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to 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. So this is what we could call the preceding context of the covenant. So let's start back. Genesis 1 and 2 is a creation account. So Genesis 1 is all of creation of God speaking and in seven days all of creation being created and the seventh day he rests. Genesis 2 is really a narrowing in of that creation. So instead of just mentioning in chapter 1 verse 27 of man is created, God expands what exactly happened in the creation of man. Some people view these as two different creation accounts that some mastermind wove together, but we have to read them as complementary, as the same creation account just with more details because we believe this is the word of God. So we have as the first thing right off the bat, chapter 2, verse 7, Adam was created. So we don't have time to read how all of creation was created, but it was spoken. So God said, let there be light, and there was light. But in this case, God formed with his hands, so to speak, man, and he crafted him in his image so that he would reflect something of his creator back to him. So this gives man a preeminent place in creation, that he's the height of God's creation, we could say. He's the divine image that God created man for a specific purpose. And in chapter 2, verse 8, God gives man that place. So it says that he created man and he placed him in Eden. He placed the man whom he had formed. So God didn't just create Adam and say, okay, here's this earth I've made, go for it. But part of a covenant involves a specific set of circumstances, a specific relationship with the creator. So in this case, God gave Adam a specific place to live, to carry out his dominion of the earth and his care for God's creation. In chapter 2 verse 15, God gave man a purpose. He says he put him in the garden to cultivate it and to keep it. And so with that purpose, it gives Adam the place, Eden, on a mountain that God had created, that He had set apart for Adam. He gave him the purpose of cultivating the garden, of keeping it, of tending to it. So in summary, the context leading up to the covenant, the agreement that God has made, is that God creates creation, He creates man, He places man in a special place with a special mission. So going on then to the covenant itself, as a reminder of a definition of what is a covenant, we have a promise by God with sanctions. So instead of God saying, I will do this, and man's being told, and you will do this, to keep my covenant with you. It's a special relationship between the creator and the creature. So we can ask ourselves, okay, if that's what a covenant is, where do we see that in this passage? So chapter 2 verses 16 and 17 tell us, they say Adam was given a promise with a warning. So in God placing Adam in the Garden of Eden, he was given the promise of life, of here's everything that you need to thrive, to eat of any fruit. But then there's this warning that God gives. He says, if you cultivate it and you do what I've told you, you will have life. But he says, if you eat of the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, in verse 17 he says, you will surely die. So that is a very clear statement. It's boundaries that God has placed. Previously, if we were to go back in Genesis chapter 1, we would see that God gave another mandate, another set of laws or rules to Adam that he said, be fruitful and multiply. So there's a lot that we could get into with this, but we see in the future, we'll see that command to be fruitful and multiply. Adam was supposed to have filled the garden with his offspring, with his children. We'll see it in Noah. Noah is supposed to fill the earth with his offspring and children. So that command seems to go beyond the covenant with Adam. But because Adam broke the covenant with God, the command for him to not eat of a certain fruit was ended. That when Adam broke the covenant, when he ate of the fruit, that command no longer stands. We can talk about those things in terms of natural law and some have called it positive law. So there's natural rules, there's a morality put within all of us, there's a law written on our hearts of there's good and there's evil. Like for example, there's never a case in which it's okay to murder somebody. And that is moral regardless of whether or not God has revealed it explicitly. But in this case, the case of Adam being told to not eat of a fruit, it was sort of an arbitrary rule it seems like. So there was nothing positive or negative, nothing moral or amoral about the command, but God gave it so that made it a law that Adam should have followed. So part of the covenants also, we have blessings and curses that are listed. So it's not just a promise of, okay, do this, don't do this, but we have with those the promise of life for doing and the promise of curse for not doing or for disobeying. So we have in the end of verse 16, God says, do this, so fill the earth, keep the garden, don't eat of this hurt and fruit, and you will live. And verse 17, we've already read, he says, if you don't do these things, if you go eat of the fruit, which I have forbidden, you will surely die. one concept of covenant theology, of the covenants that we'll see in the scriptures that we have to remember as the covenant of headship, of covenant headship. So it's a principle that that word sounds kind of obscure, but I think it'll make sense. We know from passages like Romans 5 that every human born after Adam and Eve and the mystery and providence of God is considered to be in Adam. So there's this sense in which Adam and Eve are our representatives, as our forerunners, as the first humans created, as the first man and wife created, that we are all, if we're not in Christ, we're in Adam. He is our federal head. And with that federal headship, with that covenant headship of Adam and Eve being our representatives on earth many, many years ago, we have to insist on there being a literal Adam and a literal Eve. So some with a high degree of speculation have read this text and thought, there's no way that this can be true, that there's all these questions I have because we don't know everything about Adam and Eve, we don't know everything about the Garden of Eden, but we know this is God's word, so we read it as true. We also see later in Scripture that in the verses to come and in the New Testament that Adam is blamed for the fall of man. So that even though Eve ate first, it was Adam who was held responsible. He was formed first, he was given the commission to eat and to not eat, to be fruitful and multiply, and he was the one who was put over creation as the ruler, the one responsible for the care of The last part of the covenant that we have to bring out is, in many covenants, there's a sign or a promise that God gives as, here's my evidence that I will do what I have promised. And here's my evidence that I will keep this agreement with you in the generations to come. So we don't have any sign, technically speaking, that there's no physical thing that God does or says, like a rainbow in the sky that says, okay, I'll keep my promise. But what we do have is, because God gave Adam a place, he gave him a position of authority, he gave him a mission to do, that that's God's promises. He said, I've provided everything for you. Now go and do this and live life with me in perfect communion. Now, you may be saying at this point, if you've studied covenant theology at all, maybe you've heard bad things about it, maybe you're reading this chapter 2 section and you're saying, I don't see the word covenant anywhere in this passage. And you're right. I didn't read the word covenant in here because it's not in Genesis chapter 2. But if we take our words, our definitions of covenants that we've just talked about, about divine promises and divine sanctions, about headship, about future blessing and curses, then all the elements of the covenant seem to be there even if the word itself is not. One other way that we know that this is a covenant, that we can think of it in covenantal terms, is there are clear passages of scripture that are in the chapters to come in the Bible that shed light on the creation account. So it reveals how those writers understood the creation account. So, there's an example, Hosea chapter 6 verse 7, So even though God didn't con us in and say, here's my covenant with you, there's still the reality that even the Old Testament prophets considered this to be a covenant with God and with man. So we've had the context, the preceding details around this covenant. We've had the covenant itself, the relationship of God and man, and the expectation that God created. And now we have the result. What happened? What was man's response? What happened afterwards? So first, of the federal head of Adam, he fell. Let me read very quickly this section in Genesis chapter 3. If you have your Bible, Genesis chapter 3 verses 14-19, this will explain the fall and the curses that God enacted as a result. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, you shall bruise him on the heel. That's the promise that we have to look forward to is the bruising of the serpent, of that ancient dragon, of that great deceiver. Verse 16, to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children. Yet your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. Then to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground. From the ground you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." So that's very clearly laid out, all of the stipulations, all of the curses, all of the promised death that God has said. So maybe you read God's promise of death and thought, well then he'll kill them immediately. But in some ways God did something much worse and he did something much better. He did something much worse in that he cast them out of the Garden of Eden. That the perfection they had there of sinlessness, of life with God, of nothing to be ashamed about, they're cast out and they're given pointless work. They're given hard toil that has no fruit. They're given pain in childbirth. They're given conflict and difficulty in life. But in some ways it was better that God could have killed Adam and Eve and he would have been right to do so. They disobeyed him after the promise he had given them and he could have killed them right then and there. But he gave that promise in Genesis 3.15 and said, there is one to come who will be a second Adam, a better Adam, who will fulfill this covenant of works for you. So that removal from the Garden of Eden is significant in that it's this special place and purpose that God had given that there's no access to God that way anymore. That because Adam broke that covenant, there's no way back to God through works. There's physical death that will come that we all know there's a day coming, maybe sooner than later, that we will all die. There's also spiritual death. Ephesians 2.10 talks about our being born under the prince of the power of the air, of our need for a new life that is not found in our father Adam, but it's found in Christ alone. So the realization of these promises then, of this seed, it's very clear. So mankind lives on, we see all kinds of people who come after Adam, they're removed from the garden, they experience the curses, they have Cain and Abel and one kills the other. But in the future, God in his providence and his working out of things that men mean for evil but God means for good, he produces this seed of Adam, this second Adam who comes and he obeys the covenant perfectly. That if we were to contrast Adam and Christ, we would see in Adam, death reigns and it rules. that there is nothing but transgression and condemnation and judgment, and all of it is rightly due on us, that we're all born in Adam under that same curse. That in Christ, though, the beautiful contrast of Christ, that there is nothing but life abundant, there's justification, there's a free gift that God offers that if you will place your faith in Christ that you can be saved from death. That there is a righteousness, there's a right standing before God that's ours because of Christ. So if you'll understand me for a second, we can say in one way that we're saved by works. That if I go to heaven, if I die right now and go to heaven, we're saved by works. But it's not my works, it's the works of another. It's the work that Christ has done in his earthly life and his death on the cross. So at the end of the last lesson, I warned us about approaching these covenants, approaching the scriptures with an attitude of just gaining knowledge. And so if you're sitting there and you're realizing that you still live in Adam, that your life is marked by sin and transgression and death, that you know when you stand before God you're not going to be right before Him, This is the call for you to see the beauty of what God has done in Christ, to repent of your sin, to turn away from it, to place your saving faith fully and finally in Christ and to rest in Him as the One who has come to redeem many.