A Covenant in the Garden?
Anyone who reads Genesis 2 beside Romans 5 has to ask how one man's sin in a garden reached the whole human race. Reformed covenant theology answers with the covenant of works. Before the fall, it teaches, God made a covenant with Adam: eternal life for perfect obedience, death for disobedience, with Adam standing for all his descendants.
In Reformed covenant theology, the covenant God is said to have made with Adam before the fall, promising eternal life to him and to his descendants on condition of perfect obedience, and threatening death for disobedience. It is the second of the three theological covenants, after the covenant of redemption and before the covenant of grace.
This study states the doctrine from its own sources, looks at the Scriptures its teachers use, and then gives our answer. The short version is this. Nearly everything the doctrine is built to protect is true: Adam's probation was real, his headship was real, his fall reached us all, and Christ, the last Adam, obeyed where Adam failed. What we question is the covenant itself. Genesis never calls God's command in Eden a covenant, and the covenant of works is inferred rather than stated in Scripture.
For covenant theologians a great deal rests on this doctrine. It explains how Adam's sin reaches us. It sets law and grace in sharp contrast. And it frames Christ as the second Adam, who rendered the obedience Adam failed to give. These are serious concerns held by careful brothers, and they deserve a careful answer.
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For Deeper Study
- The Economy of the Covenants Between God and ManAmazon Herman WitsiusThe classic Reformed defense of the covenants (1677). Its first book argues for the covenant of works at length. Reformed; read it to hear the doctrine from one of its great teachers.
- The Christ of the CovenantsAmazon O. Palmer RobertsonA Presbyterian survey of the biblical covenants (1980) that calls God's arrangement with Adam the covenant of creation. Reformed, not dispensational.
- Introducing Covenant TheologyAmazon Michael HortonA readable modern introduction to Reformed covenant theology (2006), including its case for a covenant with Adam. Reformed.
- There Really Is a Difference! A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational TheologyAmazon Renald E. ShowersA dispensational teacher compares the two systems, including the theological covenants of works and grace.
- DispensationalismAmazon Charles C. RyrieThe standard explanation of dispensational theology (revised and expanded 2007), with a chapter answering covenant theology.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Is Covenant Theology?
Covenant theology is the Reformed framework that reads the whole Bible as God's work of redeeming one people, organized under three theological covenants it believes Scripture implies: a covenant of redemption, a covenant of works, and a covenant of grace.
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