COVENANT OF WORKS

Transcript:

0:00 Intro

There's no reason at all for Adam to have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good evil he had everything going for him. 

Today's video is on the covenant of works. Looking for some answers Kyle and I went to Trinity reformed Church to get pastor van Eyk's thoughts on the subject. This is Faith to Film. 

So, in the context of lavish love and goodness, God establishes what has been called the covenant of works with Adam as the head and representative of all humanity. In this covenant, God issues a special command and obligates Adam to obey the command. The command was "ye shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is in the middle of the garden." The threat was "if you eat, that is, if you disobey My command, you will surely die" and implicit in that is the promise "if you do not eat that is if you obey me then you shall live." 

0:58 What was the purpose of the covenant of works? 

So, the first words that God spoke to our parents in the garden were words of blessing and Adam and Eve were created and placed in a garden where they experienced the immeasurable kindness of God. For instance the fact that they were created on the sixth day is significant as the last of all creation because everything was prepared for them already. Everything they could need, everything they could enjoy. It was hospitality at its best and the garden wasn't just utilitarian. The trees were good for food but they were also pleasant to look at which is an added bonus. God was concerned about Adam he said it's not good that man should be alone and looked for a suitable helper for him. So, the whole context of the covenant of works is a context of blessing, of lavish love, of unmerited kindness. God was good to them and generous to his creatures and that's crucial. There's no reason at all for Adam to have eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He had everything going for him and God was kind to him. Because once you talk about law you think about Adam having the same problem with law that we would have with law, you know, resistance to it. But he didn't because his nature was still good and the Father had been kind to him. 

2:24 How was the covenant broken? 

So, so the bible tells us how this all unfolded. Adam and Eve, instead of trusting their Father accepting His word, they disobeyed God. There was no reason for them to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil except that God had forbidden it. It wasn't that the branches were gnarled, it wasn't that the fruit of the tree stunk so that they would avoid it, it was like the other trees pleasant to look at good for food. But, God their Father had said "do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Well they chose to disobey him and they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and as a result they brought upon themselves the condemnation of the covenant. The threat they would surely die. And so spiritual death, eternal death, and physical death. These are all the out workings of a broken covenant of works. 

3:26 How was the covenant restored? 

Because of Adam's special relationship as the first father, the first Adam, the parent of all humanity and because of Adam's sin, all humanity now enters the world under the condemnation of a broken covenant of works. Thankfully, that's not God's final covenant with humanity. He establishes a covenant of grace. There's a new Adam who comes, the last Adam, Jesus Christ. And Christ undoes, by his obedience to God's command, what Adam did by his disobedience to God's command. And so the new testament highlights that Christ was obedient to his heavenly Father, obedient even to death on the cross and by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and through faith in Jesus Christ because Christ takes the curse of the broken covenant of works those who believe in Jesus Christ will know the blessing of the covenant of grace.