Genesis 2, we're going to begin in verse 4 and read down to chapter 3, I believe verse 18. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden. And from there it parted and became four river heads. The name of the first is Pishon. It is the one which skirts the whole land of Hevalia, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bedellum and Onyx Stone are there. The name of the second river is Gion. It is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hadekel. It's the one that goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it. Surely you shall surely die in Hebrew. It's literally in dying. You will die in dying. You will die. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper. comparable to him. Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, to the beasts of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman. Literally, is she, because she was taken out of man, ish, in Hebrew. Then a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said, Where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate. There are so many things we could look at in Genesis 2 and 3, but what we want to focus on in this time we have together is what theologians have called the covenant of works. So understanding the relationship that Adam had with God in the garden before the fall is of utmost importance because we all came from Adam. And so understanding all of God's dealings with our first father is probably the single most important thing you could ever get. I think it was Cornelius Van Til who said, if you want to understand everything in the rest of the Bible, you get Genesis 1 through 3. You get that, you get that properly, and you get everything else. And I think it's helpful because I used to build houses and when we would build the risers for stairs, if you got it off a 32nd of an inch, which is like nothing, on the first riser, by the time you got to the top of the stairs, it was like inches off because of each level. And I think that the Bible works that way, that if you get it wrong at the beginning, you get it wrong throughout. Now, it's common in especially Reformed tradition, I want to read to you from the Westminster Confession just so you guys know where this is really articulated. what theologians call the covenant of works. Nowhere, we just read Genesis 2 and 3 essentially, nowhere in those chapters is the word covenant ever used. In Hebrew, the word covenant is bereath. In the Greek, covenant is diathake. So when you read about the new covenant in Hebrews, that is the kaine diathake. Diathake is the Greek version of bereath. Bereath is used for the first time with Noah. It's the first time in the canon, that the word bereath is used, it's with Noah, but theologians are going to say God was dealing covenantally before Noah with Adam. We saw Genesis 3.15, we looked at before, but even before that, in the garden, in a state of innocency, God was dealing covenantally with this creature because God is a God of covenant. Now, The Westminster Confession, I'm just going to read a couple statements on chapter 7, God's covenant with man. I want to read these first couple sections and then we'll get back into the text a little bit. They say, the distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures owe obedience unto him as their creator, Yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part." Now that's a lot of language. It sounds very legal. What they're going to say basically is, you as a creature, owe God obedience, because He's God and you're the creature. But, you would have no idea of anything, of any reward, or of God being your highest joy, or of eternal life, if God did not voluntarily condescend to offer that. Because God doesn't owe us anything. And they're actually going to say, they're going to say, they could never, the creature could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part. which he is pleased to express by way of covenant. So everywhere in the Bible, whenever God says, I'm going to do this for you, I promise you, I'll do this. I'll do this. It's always by way of covenant. And so listen to where the Puritans go. After that statement, they say the first covenant made with man was a covenant of works wherein life was promised to Adam. This is where I want you guys to really listen carefully. Life was promised to Adam. and in him to his posterity, to his offspring, that's us, this involves you, there was a promise that the Puritans are going to say that they believe the Bible taught that life was promised to Adam and then to all of his offspring, that's us, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. So God promises life, to Adam and everybody he represents that are going to come from him and Eve, including Eve because she came from him, didn't she? She came from his ribs, so he is her federal representative. And so he is representative of all mankind. And God enters into this dealing according to the Puritans. And I'm going to tell you in church history, other people. But the condition of that life, how is Adam going to have that life confirmed so that he can never lose it? He's going to have what we call eternal life because he lost it. So we know he didn't have eternal life because we know he fell and he lost life. How would Adam have had that eternal life? upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. Now, the divines are going to get that from Romans 5. They're going to go to Romans 5, the Adam-Christ parallel. By one man's disobedience, by the second man's obedience. They're the two federal heads, Adam and Jesus. By Adam's disobedience, Paul says, many were made sinners and death spread to all. By one man's obedience, the many are justified. So they're going to go to Romans 5. That's going to become everything in this discussion. They are going to read Romans 5 back onto Genesis. I think that's appropriate when the apostles do that. When an apostle does that, we can do that. So now notice that that's all they're going to say. That's all they're going to say about the covenant of works. In chapter seven of the confession in the catechisms, they're going to say more and in their own writings, they're going to say more. Now, the question is, were they right? If nowhere in the text does it say anything about covenant brief and nowhere in the text on the surface does it seem to say Adam had a promise of life, only a threat of death. That's very clear and the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in that day in dying you will die Where are they right? Well, there's lots of debate in church history about what it's called the covenant of works that the Puritans will also call it the covenant of life and And I think what they're doing in the standards when they call it the Covenant of Works in the Confession and then in the Catechism call it the Covenant of Life. The Covenant of Works is denoting the demand for perfect obedience, works, the condition. Covenant of Life is denoting the promise. They're speaking of the same thing. Covenant of Works, what God is requiring for the blessing. Covenant of Life, what the blessing is itself. As you read the Puritans, as you read Jonathan Edwards, who is not technically considered a Puritan, as you read other theologians in church history, including Augustine, you're going to find very clear statements of a first covenant in the garden with Adam before the fall. So there's a lot of support in church history, not just with the Puritans, but even with Augustine, early church. I printed off a quote by Augustine. I'll go get it in a second if you guys want to read it, or I can give it to you later. But very clearly speaks about the covenant God had with man in the garden before the fall. So where did they get this idea? Well, Two things I want to say before we look at the text. The first is probably the best treatment. And I'm going to give you a couple of book recommendations tonight. Best treatment of whether we should call it a covenant that I have read is A.A. Hodges, Outlines of Theology, Chapter seventeen on the covenant of works. I'll be glad to make you guys copies if you want it. He goes through all the objections. He basically goes through and says, what is a covenant? Here's the different parts of a covenant. Can we say that about what God's doing without him in the garden? I think it's very convincing. So I'll leave you with that. You can look that over. I think that's the most helpful treatment of what a covenant, what a covenant is and then whether there's a covenant of works. Before I look at the text, turn over to Hosea, the book of Hosea. Chapter six, verse seven. As theologians debate this subject, and we have to deal with the objections, I think, first, before we can go in and kind of glean everything. But when theologians deal with the objections to a covenant of works, This is the text that oftentimes gets appealed to and debated in church history, and it's for a very obvious reason. Hosea 6-7 says, but they like, in Hebrew literally, Adam, Adam, transgressed the covenant. Now, your Bibles may say they like men. The word in Hebrew is Adam. There are three possibilities. It's speaking of Adam, and it is an absolute proof text of a pre-fall covenant. It is speaking of a town called Adam, which was a Hebrew town, that there's no biblical substantiation for why we would say that particular place broke a covenant. Or it's speaking of men generally, because Adam can also mean men, which is why English Bibles say, so they like men broke the covenant. I think the strongest support is that it is Adam, that it is referring back to Adam. A couple of reasons for that. One is Job, in Job I think 31-33, or 33-31, I think it's 31-33, speaks of his hiding his sin like Adam did. And so you have other verses in the Old Testament that seem to other figures referring to what they've done in regard to what he did. It seems natural that Israel in their covenantal position, having broken the covenant, saying they did it. God's saying Israel broke their covenant like Adam did. So I do think it's a proof text, personally. If you want to read a thorough, because we don't have time to do all this, if you want to read a thorough treatment of that subject with objections and everything else, and I think it's worthwhile, is B.B. Warfield in his Selective Shorter Writings. Again, I can make copies of this if you guys want. chapter 17, Hosea 6-7, Adam or Man. So he'll deal with all of the Hebrew and all of the theology and really helpful focused studies on that. But that's the big verse. Mark that in your Bible, Hosea 6-7. I don't think that it's a game changer if you conclude it's man and not Adam. Because I think the Genesis account gives you enough to see this is a covenant. There are promises, there are stipulations, there are threats, there are obligations, there's a covenant maker, and ultimately there will be a covenant breaker, Adam. So I think you have all, and this is where Hodge is helpful, you have all the structure of what a covenant is elsewhere. When we come and we look at God's dealings with Adam, we see that God creates this special place for Adam. He's created the world, He's created everything. He then plants a garden in Eden. Eden is not the garden. We call it the garden of Eden, and we think we mean the garden that is Eden, but it's actually the garden that is attached to Eden. So Eden was a special place. A lot of theologians think it was a mountain. We'll get into that. We'll do a Biblical Theology of Mountains one day. We'll talk about that. But they think it was a mountain and they think God put a garden on top of the mountain, which would explain all the other mountains in the Bible. Mount Zion, Mount Sinai, all the mounts. If Eden was a mount, that would make a lot of sense. Why you have this biblical theology of mountains with a garden on top of it, because heaven then becomes a garden. God plants this garden, puts Adam in it. What what is he doing by creating that garden? He's saying, I am going to have a special relationship with my image bearer. Man is not an animal. And though there are animals in the garden, God is dealing with man, his image bearer. And he's dealing with him, I'm going to argue, covenantally. And now, here's the first thing you have to understand. Before we look at any of the things that God does with Adam in the garden, what's the last thing that God tells us he created? in the order of creation? It's actually, it's not a trick question. Well, woman, but yeah, man and woman. Man is the last thing he creates, right? Mankind, right? And then what does God do? Sabbath day. Now, this is super important to what we're going to talk about, because Hebrews 4 is going to tell us that the Sabbath day from creation then given to Israel at Sinai was pointing forward to heaven. And what we're going to say is eschatology, that there was something higher, a higher sphere, eternal life, something secured, rest, rest from labor. Remember, Adam is going to have to work in the garden. That physical work is going to have a correlation to his spiritual working in the Covenant of Works. There is a rest set out in front of Adam. Yeah, it's one day in seven. in the here and now, but the writer of Hebrews clearly tells us in Hebrews 4 that there remains a Sabbath for the people of God, an eternal rest, a higher sphere. So Adam had set before him something higher. And here's why this is important. From the beginning, human history was moving towards something. Before the fall, there was eschatology. People get all up in arms about premill, postmill, amill. Forget all that and think about eschatology as there is a goal. God is always moving what he's doing towards something. And that was true of Adam in the garden before the fall. There was something higher for Adam to enter into. I think Adam would have known that to some extent. That that day prefigured something to come. that seventh-day rest, pointing forward to the rest he needed to have in God. Now, I think there's also something else in the garden, when God puts man in the garden, that speaks of something higher. What do you think that is? What does God put in front of Adam in the garden? Two trees. All the trees, but two in specific, right? the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. Now we know when Adam sins, God boots him out of the garden with Eve, after he gives him the promise of redemption in Genesis 3.15, kicks him out of the garden, puts the flaming swords to do what? With the cherubim, with the flaming swords, showing the justice of God, keeping Adam from what? The tree of life. The tree of life is just like the Sabbath day. It was sacramental. It was pointing beyond itself. It wasn't a magic tree. They were just like any other trees. Like if we went up to Asheville, North Carolina, and we went to an apple farm. That's the only ones I know about. Maybe Georgia has some. And we saw all those apple trees. They were not apple trees, but they would have looked like apple trees probably. They were not magic trees. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was just a tree. It may have had a specific kind of fruit, but it was just like any other tree. The Tree of Life was just like any other tree. Just because painters paint them with these mystical hazes over them, doesn't mean they were magic trees. They had no power to convey anything. They were just like the Lord's Supper and Baptism. They were sacraments. They pointed beyond themselves to something else. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil pointed to the knowledge of good and evil, experientially. We'll come to that. The Tree of Life pointed to life, eternal life. Just like the Sabbath pointed to eternal life So Adam had these things in front of him to show that his dealings with God there was there was a goal Now this gets into what? theologians talk about the probationary period Now God says to Adam and Eve You can eat of every tree of the garden. Every tree. Is God a good God? Yes, God is a good God. Satan wants them to think that God's an evil God and that God's mean. Oh, did God say you can't eat of any of the trees? So it was improper thinking. God was saying, I've given you the whole world. Essentially, God said to Adam, it's all yours except for this one tree. Now, why does God do that? There's a couple of reasons. Why do you think God does that? Obviously, he's a good Calvinist. We're going to say because it was God's plan for them to fall. Obviously, it's all plan A. But I would say, laying the decree aside that he reveals later, God has to put the tree off limits so that Adam doesn't forget that he's a creature and that God's the creator. God made Adam the lord of the lower world. Right? He gave him dominion. When we hunt and fish, we are exercising dominion. When we build cities, when we do business practices, and we advance society, we are exercising dominion. God gave us all of that. God has said, I want you to exercise dominion, but know that I'm God. And know that you owe me perfect, perpetual, absolute, entire, continuous obedience. That's why that tree was there. And Adam was to see that, and Adam was to say, God is God, I am a creature, even though God gave me all these great things, I owe God perfect, perpetual, absolute, continuous obedience. Now, I said that theologians call, a lot of theologians, and the Westminster divines, the Puritans that wrote the Confession, are going to call this the probationary period. They don't think that that tree would have been off-limits forever. Like, had Satan come in and tempted Adam, and he passed that test, Adam would always be walking around the garden like, I am the tree, you know. All I do, better not go over there. But that Adam would have passed the test. God tested, Satan tempted. Adam would have passed the test. He would have learned the knowledge of good and evil by learning the good and rejecting the evil. Instead, he learned the knowledge of good and evil by choosing the evil and rejecting the good, experientially. Adam was good, right? Adam was upright. But with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it was a test from God. Satan always takes God's test and turns them into temptations. God didn't tempt Adam, Satan did. But Satan always takes God's testing and turns them into temptations. Adam should have passed the test, avoided the temptation, gained the knowledge of good and evil by choosing the good and knowing the good in contrast to the evil because the evil came in in Satan. He didn't know evil until evil came in the garden. So it's not a magic tree. It's a testing tree. It's a tempting tree, and as you guys know, every temptation and every test has an end. It has a passing point. Otherwise, you never know if you pass. If it's a trial, if it's a temptation and it's always there and there's no probationary period where once that's passed, you're passed, then there's no way to know that he would have obeyed. Had Adam obeyed, It would have had to been shown at that moment. When Satan came in, Adam would have said WAP to the serpent. Been done. Out of the garden. Guard and keep it like he was supposed to do. Like a good priest in a temple. Keep the evil out. Obey God. Adam would have then sacramentally eaten of the tree of life. Eaten of it. Had the thing because he had obeyed and he deserved it. entered into the Sabbath rest with himself and all of us. And the world would have been the garden and everything that Jesus does at the end of the Bible, everything that Jesus does via the cross. And we see in Revelation, Adam would have died. But it wouldn't have been as good because we wouldn't have known the dying love of a God who died to save his undeserving people, fallen in Adam. But there's a parallel, and I'll turn to Romans 5, because this is really where this comes home to bear. That's why we do the video, and you can come back to me and ask me questions. This is so important because it doesn't seem like there's that much there, but then when you come to Romans 5, Paul seems to say it's everything. When he's talking about justification and how we're accepted by God and how we have covenantal blessings, how we have covenantal blessing, how can we, who are covenant breakers in Adam, have covenant blessing, and Paul's going to say, it's only in the second Adam. Now, I'm not going to read all of it, but it's Romans 5, 12 through 21. And just notice what he says here. He says notice in verse 14 He says death reign from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam who is a type of Him who is to come So Paul says that Adam was a type of Tupac a type of him who wants to come who is Christ. Yeah Adam was a type of Christ How? Well, he represented a people. And if you read Genesis 2 and 3, it doesn't seem like God's saying anything about Adam representing anybody. It's not until you come to see that even though we didn't actually reach out and take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we fell in Adam, got the guilt of Adam's sin imputed to us, got the corruption of his nature and the death that he brought down on himself and all his descendants, and that there has to be another representative. He represented a people they fell in him. He represented them covenantally. I think Paul is saying that Jesus now represents us covenantally After the fall it's impossible that there could be a covenant of works now If indeed everything I said is true if God demanded perfect Perpetual that's continuous obedience. I If God demanded perfect, unblemished, perfect obedience before the fall, does he demand it after the fall? Yes. Yes. Why? Because God never changes. Because God is holy. If God didn't demand perfect obedience, He would cease to be God. He would be bending like the God of Islam that says, well, maybe He'll be just or maybe He'll be gracious. Our God doesn't work like that. Our God is always just and always gracious. His grace comes through His justice at Calvary. He can only be gracious to us because He pours out His wrath and justice on His Son. who obeyed for us. This is why the obedience of Jesus becomes so big, not just because He's got to be the spotless Lamb. That's true. But because he's got to keep the law for us, he's got to keep the demands. Yeah, hold your finger in Romans 5 and go to Galatians real quick. We're almost done. There's only a couple of places I would take you tonight. But Romans 5, we looked at briefly, and I'll come back to that. Galatians 3, how do we know that God demands perfect obedience? Well, Galatians 3, beginning in verse 10, Let's read down to verse 14. Paul says, as many are as of the works of the law. Now, that's a that's a tricky phrase. Obviously, biblical studies has made a lot of that recently. But I think the best way to think of it is those who put themselves under the moral obligations of God and are attempting in their strength to establish righteousness. Anything that human merit, anything that humans are trying to merit by their obedience before God. As many are as of the works of the law are under a curse. Why? For it is written, cursed is everyone, and Paul's quoting Deuteronomy 27, 26. Cursed is everyone who does not continue in Panta, all things. That little word, panto, that all, makes this verse as significant as it is. Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the book of the law to do them. What is Paul saying, quoting Deuteronomy 27? What is Moses saying in Deuteronomy 27, 26? What is Paul saying? God demanded perfect obedience to the Mosaic law. That law was a republication of that command to Adam for perfect perpetual obedience. Yes, it was more multi-varied with all of its different ceremonies and rituals, and this is a big subject, but in Reformed theology, we do believe the Ten Commandments didn't begin at Sinai, but back in the garden. They were written on Adam's heart. So, had Adam cut down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, made a bat and killed Eve with it, would that have been sin? Yes. If Adam had cut down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not eaten of it, just cut it down, chopped off part of it, threw the part with the fruit outside the garden, so he wouldn't eat that, and carved an idol and bowed down to it, would that have been sin? Yes. All of God's law was bound up in that one commandment to see if Adam was going to obey God in entirety. Every other moral command, if there were other women, it would have been wrong for Adam to have committed adultery with Eve. But God took that moral obligation of His creature that we see in the Ten Commandments, and He packaged it in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in that one command. Puritans will have whole books on this, treaties. Thomas Vincent... The tree was the object of whether he was going to obey God in entirety. When God gives the Ten Commandments on Sinai, he's calling for perfect obedience. That never goes away. See, this is the big thing. If you lose that, you lose the Gospel. Because then, somehow God lowers his standards so it's attainable, which is what the Pharisees wanted, and attainable General obedience. That's what all world religions want. It's 51%. God said it's 100%, so Jesus is born under the law. Right, right. And so this is where the covenant of works comes to bear on our understanding of the gospel. Because Jesus, the second Adam, is going to be, Paul's going to say in Galatians 4, where he was born under the law. He was born as an Israelite under the Mosaic system. In order, and then notice what Paul says in Galatians 3, what happened in verse 13. Somebody read 13 and 14 for us. Now there's a lot of Jew Gentile stuff in here and I don't want to get hung up on the Jew Gentile stuff. But what we want to see is that Jesus was born as an Israelite under the law and became a curse, taking the curse of the law for the violations of Israel and the nations that didn't obey God became a curse for us so that we might get blessing. Now, in 4, turn over to Galatians 4, 3 and 4. Galatians 4, 4. When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law. Now, that means he was born under the obligations of the law, wasn't he? Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things written in the book of the law to do them. Did Jesus continue in all things written in the book of the law to do them? Did Jesus ever sin? No. Jesus continued in everything. Perfect. Even when the leper came to him, And he healed him and he said, go show yourself to the priest as a testimony to Moses. I think he's even there saying that was what Moses prescribed and I have to fulfill the law. I'm not here in a sense to be over it. I'm here under it, even though he is the God that gave it. And when he says to John the Baptist that the baptism, it's fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness and he undergoes circumcision as a baby, he is undergoing those things. He is a law keeper. He is the law keeper. Now, what do you get if you could have kept the law? What would you have gotten? How do we know that? How do we know you would have gotten righteousness if you could have kept the law perfectly? Because Paul says that the law that should have given life, I found to give death in Romans. The law that should have given life And I think there he's referring to the covenant of works. The law that should have given life, I found to give death. Right. Right. Yeah, the law is not evil. We're evil. The law is only a letter that kills and a ministry of death on the unregenerate heart because of our sin. Because we can't keep it. God never intended for us to try to keep it after the fall. He intended for Adam to keep it. After the fall, we're in the covenant of grace. He intends for us to do what? believe on His Son, to repent of our sins and trust in the Son of God, who is our salvation, not to do anything for salvation, not to work for it, but to believe what God has said He has done in His Son. Now, for Jesus, though, and this is the big question, This is like the million dollar question in covenant theology. There's a lot of division and debate. I want to recommend a book to you guys. This is the third one tonight. God and Adam. This is the best historical study on the covenant of works in really throughout church history, really looking at all the various and there's a lot of variation on covenant theology and the covenant of works. One big question is, was the covenant of grace a covenant of works for Jesus? I say yes. I say that Jesus being born under the law as an Israelite, he was born under the legal demands of the covenant of works and he had no one he could believe on. He was the one who would be believed on. He had a people to save and in order to do that he had to obey perfectly and then atone for their sins at Calvary. So we have that two parts, what the Reformers are going to call the active obedience, keeping the law, the passive obedience, laying down his life willingly, that those form the righteous record that we get imputed to us by faith. That Jesus is everything to us in his perfect life and his atoning death, not just in his atoning death. Here's how I like to say it to guys. Jesus didn't start representing you at Calvary. That's what I like to say to our people at New Covenant. I love to say, if I could get you to think about Jesus Christ in one way, it is that He has always been your representative for maternity. We were chosen in Him, Paul says, before the foundations of the world, Ephesians 1.4. And that when He was born of Mary, He was representing you. And when He lived a perfect life, He was representing His people. And when He died in their place, He was representing them. And when He rose again, He was representing us. And when He went to heaven, you are seated with Him now in heaven. He is representing us. He is always our representative. And that makes his sinless life a life of sinless representation as the second Adam. So what does Jesus do? He undoes everything that Adam did. Remember Adam brought sickness, death, misery, everything in the world. When Jesus is healing people, The man with the withered hand, giving the blind their sight back, giving the lame their legs, raising the dead. What's he doing? He's undoing what Adam did as the second Adam. And then in obeying God's commandments perfectly and atoning for our sins on the cross, he is undoing everything. He is doing everything Adam failed to do. He undid everything Adam brought into the world, and he did everything Adam failed to do. Those are the two things Jesus does as the second Adam. Now, very briefly, turn to 1 Corinthians 15, and then we'll wrap this up and I'll take questions. 1 Corinthians 15, is it 22? I think you're right. Yeah, no, I just got it. Actually, beginning in verse 20, why don't you read 20 through 22. First Corinthians 15, 20 through 22? Yes. But in fact, Christ has been risen from the dead, the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep. for as by one for as by a man came death but a man has come also to resurrection of the dead for as in Adam all die so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Okay so there again another parallel between Adam and Christ in verse 22 and then turn over to verse 40 to verse 42, and I'll just read down to 45 and then we'll wrap this up actually to 40 to 49. So Paul says, so also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is set in corruption. It's raised in incorruption. It's sown in dishonor. It's raised in glory. It's sown in weakness. It's raised in power. It's sown a natural body. It's raised a spiritual body. There's a natural body. There's a spiritual body. And so it is written. The first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam, the eschatological Adam, the eschaton Adam, the last Adam, there's never going to be another one. That's what he's saying. The eschatological Adam, Jesus, became a life-giving spirit. What he's arguing here is that what we have in Jesus is better. than what we even would have had in Adam, how to even Adam obeyed. We have it better in Jesus because he's a heavenly man. He's the Lord from heaven. He's the God man. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, afterwards the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven, powerful deity of Christ's passage, by the way. J-dubs, they're that other Bible, by the way. They say he's a spiritual being or something. It's in the Greek, it's heavenly. He is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are made of dust. As is the heavenly man, so those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man. Now here's the crux of all this talk. The Bible could be broken down into the very simplest, most basic, easy to understand paradigm. There's Adam and there's Jesus. One old Puritan said, I think it was Thomas Goodwin, It's as if there's two giants on the face of the earth and every man is hung around the belt of one of them. Either Adam, represented in hymn, the man of dust who fell and was corrupt and fallen and broke God's covenant, or they're hung around the belt of Jesus, who kept God's covenant, who is the Lord from heaven, who is the last Adam, who does everything the first Adam fails to do. And so all of the Bible is also broken down into covenant of works, covenant of grace, before the fall, after the fall. Now, it doesn't mean, and I know a lot of guys are going to say, well, you're saying the old covenant and the new covenant are not different. No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, though, if you think about the Bible simply, forgetting all the nuances that you'll get into as you go through Genesis 3 through Revelation 22. And there's a lot of nuances. Very simply, Paul tells us, Adam, Christ, before the fall, after the fall, all in Adam die, all in Jesus are made alive. Adam brought death on everybody. Jesus brings righteousness to his people. Adam is a man of dust and brought us back to the dust by sin. Jesus is the heavenly man and gives us glorified heavenly bodies one day. And that the Bible could be broken down into covenant of works, and then the fall, and then the covenant of grace, because nobody is saved except for Jesus. He's saved in his resurrection. Nobody is saved by what they do except for Jesus after the fall. Anybody after the fall is saved by grace through faith in the second Adam The one who was to come for the Old Testament Saints the one who has come for us So that's why this is such an important subject. I think probably the biggest thing is the fact that Christ merits righteousness for us and that by keeping the law, you know all the covenant blessings and curses in Deuteronomy, at the end of Deuteronomy, like, if you obey, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, if you disobey, cursing, cursing, cursing, and they're all earthly, they're these earthly things, Calvin will say they're typological of heavenly blessings, I think he's right, that what God is saying is The law demanded obedience, and if someone obeyed, they would have gotten the blessing. Well, someone did obey. That was Jesus. He got the blessing, but then he became the curse because we were under that curse because we haven't obeyed. We were under the law by nature. Paul will actually say that in Romans, that we're no longer under law but under grace. What he means is law as a covenant of works. We're not under it as a condemning, legal covenant. We are under grace. We live in light of the one who fulfilled everything for us. Questions or comments? I'm going to stop here because you guys look tired. Logan looks tired. What now? Right. Right. I do think Romans 8 4, though, is both justification and sanctification in view where I think also because we get the spirit and we don't just get in. We get we get imputed righteousness and justification. But then because of our union with Jesus, we also get imparted righteousness where, you know, John. I think Romans 8, 4 may be a both hand. The righteous requirement is fulfilled because he kept it, but then also his spirit is working obedience in us. Not that that makes us merit anything before God at all, but because it's an evidence that we're united to Jesus and it's what he's redeemed us for. To renew the image of Christ in us. But he has kept the requirements of the law, yes. We will never do it perfectly in this life. I see what you're trying to say. The righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in life. They're always going to have to be fulfilled in life. Yeah, they don't go away. It's not like once you're in Christ, it's like I can just go send my head off. Even though grace abounds, we're sinned abound, grace abounds much more, and we're not justified by the law, and we're not condemned by the law, we're still... I mean, the promise in the New Covenant is, I will put my law in your heart. There's the anti-worship stuff. I have no idea, because I didn't grow up in those circles. I plead the fifth. You abide in Christ. We abide in Christ. I guess. Other questions or comments? I mean, give me a pushback on this, if you guys have never heard this. Yeah, I thought it was real good, even just dealing with the fact that when you think about the covenant, right? Just making the statement saying, if he would obey perfectly within the garden, the benefits that came along with that. He would have been confirmed, he would have had a secure life. The point of tests and passing the tests, you know, is good. And I try to be careful in those people's scriptures. Right, and this is where a lot of people push back and say, I don't see that, but it makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, what I'm saying is, I can definitely see that, you know. Yeah. And it definitely makes more sense. It does. Especially as we hold the mindset that God is all about His glory. Right. So if he's all about his glory, how much glory does he really get from Adam to obey him fully in the decision to choose life and not to choose death? And I would even think about the fact that, like, even... because it really just boils down to because God gave a command, Obed, you know, and even then on the fact, like, if he would have broke it down and carved the tree inside, idol, or whatever... All obedience was bound up, right. It would just bound up in obedience. I thought that was really rich. Now, there's a lot of books that deal with this. I mean, Thomas Boston wrote a book called Human Nature and Its Fourfold State. Very helpful. Old Scottish Presbyterian. Lots of... There's a lot that's been written on this. Sadly... I mean, Edwards. Actually, if you go on WJE Online, Jonathan Edwards Online Center, and type in Covenant of Works in the search bar, and then just go through every paragraph in all his writings, he actually has some really interesting things, because some people want to say, Well, if what you're saying is true, and there was always fruit on the tree of life, Adam could have just always taken it before the test. This is speculative theology, and I'm not promoting this. I'm not saying I'm going to go preach this, but I do think Edwards is on to something. Edwards thinks that the tree of life didn't yield fruit until Adam would have passed the test, and that as soon as he would have passed the test with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Satan was tempting him on, that God was testing him on, then the tree of life would have yielded fruit and he could have eaten. But then you have the hardship when he failed, it had fruit, because God kicked him out of the garden. So there's a lot of difficult things that... Now, at the end of the day, people can say, well, this is just speculation, and why are we going there? But I don't think, when you go to Romans 5, you go to 1 Corinthians 15, you look at that parallel of Adam and Christ, it's not speculation. We are meant to go back and say, what was Adam's dealing? Had Adam obeyed, what would he have gotten? We know he would have gotten death by disobedience. What would he have gotten for obedience? One thing we want to guard against is saying God owes the creature anything, because the only thing God owes us now is hell. Well, and in Christ he owes us eternal life because of what Jesus did. That's an absolute debt from God for the believer, eternal life, because Christ has merited it. God would be unjust not to give us life. if we're in Christ, because of what Christ has done. So God owes eternal life to the believer, not because of anything in the believer, but because of what Christ did. But the only thing God owes the creature now, in its natural state, is hell and death. In an unfallen state, I don't think that, and reformed theologians are going to make a huge deal out of this, God doesn't owe Adam anything. He doesn't have to give them a higher state. That's why they want to say that all of that, the tree of life, the Sabbath day, all that is voluntary condescension of God. He's coming down and he's saying, here's what I'm going to do. Here's the covenant I'm going to enter into with you. Any pushback? Because, I mean, I'm used to pushback on this subject, honestly. Any questions it raises for you guys? I think it does, but frankly, I think you could be a progressive dispensationalist and this should be a big deal to you. I mean, I think Adam's obedience should be a big deal and Jesus' meriting obedience and righteousness. Speaking of someone who's not quite a progressive, but somewhere in between a normative and a progressive. I mean, I don't have too much disagreement with anything he said. I would just phrase it differently. Yeah, yeah. But you believe Jesus merited. You guys, your school of thought would... I mean, you know, we would call that time the dispensation of innocence and things like that. Before the fall. Correct. Right, right, right, right. So it functions a lot of the same way, but because of our system of housing, it's different. But no, I mean, clearly Adam had a federal position. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Jesus is the second federal head. But you guys believe he kept the law, because I don't know, I don't come from those backgrounds. Do some dispensationalists believe that Jesus kept the law for us? That's probably past where I would want to speak for other people. I don't know it well enough to really speak for them. I think MacArthur has just recently come to that position. He said, and he's the only one I've heard anything about that Horton, Mike Horton helped him to really get to that. He said he took him to the woodshed. But I mean, MacArthur is, you know, much more probably a progressive. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting though. Y'all would emphasize federal headship. Yes. Of Adam and Christ, yeah. That's great. Again, I would differ from some people in Normandy, but I would also differ from progressive on some issues. I don't know them all well enough to speak to this. Yeah. I love this. I love having... One of the things we were talking about, Edwards, I haven't read much of him, but every time he used the word condescension, I once read Edwards, because I don't use the word condescend in the negative. Are you choosing it positively? Voluntary condescension comes down. Right, right, right. But it reminded me of one of the things which, when you're talking about why we're all here, it's one of his favorite quotes, my favorite quotes from him, which I'll just read quickly. The creation of the world seems to have been, especially for this end, that the eternal Son of God might obtain a spouse, toward whom he might fully exercise the infinite benevolence of his nature, and to whom he might, as it were, open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace that was in his heart, and that in this way God might be glorified. That's awesome. What is that from the end for which God created the world? I have to look it up. Miscellaneous, maybe. I've actually read the entire thing around it. That's awesome. I heard that one song was like, You wrote that? That is awesome. How could you possibly write something like that? You were Jonathan Edwards. Yeah, I mean, I wrote the book. So, you know, that's why it's all created, because we are God's spouse. We are ultimately something that he could open forth and pour out love. It's beautiful. And then ultimately, to the end, it's obviously for God's glory. It's beautiful. Yeah, two things real quick. Interesting that you brought up the spouse issue. The Bible opens, the first thing God does after creation is there's a wedding. First thing that Jesus does at the beginning of his ministry is first miracles at a wedding and the Bible ends with a wedding, the bride in the garden at its bookend. Also interesting about the trees in biblical theology. God says to Adam, you can eat of every tree of the garden except one. He says to his son, the second Adam, there's only one tree you can take from. And he has to keep his eyes fixed on that one tree. And interesting that Adam and Eve, the serpent tempts them to take and eat, God says, you know, the day you eat of it. The serpent says, take and eat, you know, or Eve says, take and eat, but Jesus in the Lord's Supper says, take all of you and eat from it. Eat from this tree. that the Lord's Supper sacramentally points to the eating of the fruit of the cross. Now that's a bit spiritualizing, but I think that's very helpful. Peter does call it a tree. He says, you know, he bore our sins in his body on the tree. And it is interesting even how the tree becomes the sign of cursing, but then it becomes the instrument of blessing through the death of Jesus, whereas it became So a lot of guys do that. Irenaeus does that and some of the early church fathers and then Sinclair Ferguson of her do that.