Basic Covenant Theology (#11)
Michael Brown
6 Comments
Covenant of Works (con’t)
We are continuing our consideration of the CW and the fact that glorious, eschatological life was promised to Adam on the condition of his obedience.
We read in Gen 2.7: “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
Adam became a living creature. He was completely free from sin. God did not make his creatures with any flaw. To be human is not bad or evil. God’s creation is good, just as he announced. Nevertheless, the life that Adam had in the beginning was life that could be lost. Adam had a true, pure, free will. He had the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. He was both posse peccare and posse non peccare, as Augustine so ably argued in the fifth century against Pelagius.
Compare Gen 2.7 with Gen 3.22: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever…”
What this shows us is that something greater than his original life was held out to Adam as a promise. His original life was good, but there was something more, namely, glorified, eschatological life. His fall, however, precluded his advancement to that glorified life. He broke the conditions of the covenant of works and therefore received the curse of the covenant (death) instead of the blessing of the covenant (life), not for himself only but also for all those whom he represented (i.e. the human race).
Christ, however, came as the Second Adam and completed the work that Adam failed to do. His covenant with the Father (the CR) was for him a covenant of works. Having accomplished the work that the Father gave him to do, he thereby entered in to that greater life promised from the beginning.
This is precisely Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 15.44-46: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.”
Notice carefully what Paul does here. He quotes Gen 2.7, which describes Adam pre-fall, and then adds, “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” He is not pointing out to his readers that the first Adam became a sinner, and the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. He certainly could have said that; but that is not the point that he wants to make. The point that he wants to make is that there was something more for Adam to move on to from the beginning. There was a goal, a telos. Human beings were made for the ToL and all that it represents. The goal for Adam was not to live in the Garden forever, status quo, on perpetual covenant probation. The goal was to bring the whole creation to its glorified existence, the goal for which God created us.
Christ, of course, is the One who accomplished that on our behalf. He is the one who came as the eskatos Adam, the “last Adam,” our probation passer and (due to the fall) penalty payer. His resurrection is the testimony and evidence that a glorified body was the goal for mankind from the beginning. There was an order designed in creation: the “soulish” or “natural” body first, then the “spiritual” body. These are the two great acts of God: creation and re-creation. It was because of sin that we could not advance from one to the other. But that is the great problem which Christ's work solved!
Paul’s point to the Corinthians was that to deny the bodily resurrection for believers (which some of them were doing) was just plain crazy since a glorified body was God’s design from the beginning. Christ did not come to redeem us from creation or from being human, as many of the Corinthians and many people today wrongly assume. Rather, Christ came to redeem us from sin and bring us to the promised and glorious state of the new creation, in which this physical body will not be abandoned, but will be given a new animation by the Creator’s own Spirit.
More to come...
MGB
Reader Comments (6)
Am I correct to assume that those who deny the covenant of works at best implicitly deny Christ the title of the second adam and at worst imply that Adam was created imperfect and effected by sin? I have seen FV people attempt to describe adam as existing in a covenant of grace with God in the Garden in an attempt to justify their position, but it seems to make God the author of evil.
Adam,
It really depends on how and in what way the person is denying the CW. Denying the CW is NEVER good; it always runs the risk undermining Xp's role as the Second Federal Head as well as confusing Law and Gospel. But different people deny different things about the CW, or at least formulate the doctrine differently. For those who flatly deny that God entered into a pre-Fall covenant with Adam which promised blessing upon condition of his obedience w/o the help of a mediator, I would say yes, in light of Rom 5.12-21 and 1 Cor 15, they are at best implicitly denying Xp's role as the Second Adam.
Michael, I ran across your blog from Kevin Efflandt's blog. I really like what I see, and so I will link to your blog from mine.
What do you think of translating Genesis 3:22 this way: "Behold, man *had been* like one of us..."
Hi Lane,
That's an interesting translation. I will take a look at tomorrow morning when I get back to my study, and then I will get back to you.
Thank you for attaching Pilgrim People to your blog. (With a name like Green Baggins, you must be a "ringer" as am I!)
For my full rationale in translating it that way, see this post:
http://accenttranslation.blogspot.com/2006/03/genesis-3.html
This is an interesting translation, but I am wondering about two things:
1) Can we translate the Qal Pft of hayah in that way? Are there any particular commentators or journal articles that have tried to make that case?
2) While I think I understand your theological rationale for translating it this way, I am not so sure that the traditional translation indicates any type of "paranoia" on God's part.
Have you read Kline's Kingdom Prologue, especially his treatment of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and its relation to the Imago Dei? He makes a very good case for probation tree being instrumental in man's participation in the Imago Dei.
(See KP, pp.43ff, 93ff, 103ff, 122ff)