The idea of a probationary period for Adam in which he was to obey God in order to achieve eternal life has always been a concept that was obvious to me in the Scriptures as far back as I can remember reading the Bible. While I did not know the term, “Covenant of Works”, I have virtually always believed in this arrangement. My purpose in this post will be to appeal to dispensationalists who reject the idea of this Adamic covenant. I hope that I can sufficiently demonstrate the truthfulness of this concept in Scripture and hopefully, therefore, be able to persuade the MacArthurian camp of dispensationalists, whom I deeply respect, to accept the doctrine.
At the start of 2021, I entered into a deep study centered around justification. It began simply to try to understand the imputation of Adam’s sin, and thus I looked to Romans 5 for answers. It, however, turned into a near theological crisis, as I encountered N.T. Wright and his views on justification, which denied the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. I then also encountered Robert Gundry who did the same and realized that I could not personally name verses that pertained to the lived-out active obedience of Christ being imputed to us as righteousness. Luckily, this eventually changed and Romans 5 became essential to this. I now know this chapter better than I know any part of the Bible. I read, re-read, listened, and re-listened to this chapter over and over again. I know more of this chapter than I do most of the things I write. That spiritual and intellectual battle I fought and which God brought me through deserves to be told at another time, but one thing’s for sure, the Covenant of Works emerged as a doctrine I saw as absolutely central to Protestant soteriology. Once I grasped what was underlying the necessity of Christ’s active obedience, I could not, and still cannot understand justification apart from the Covenant of Works. Indeed, I believe there is simply no context for it apart from it. There are many today who deny that the Covenant of Works is Scriptural, among them, dispensationalists. However, the logic of the Covenant of Works is inseparable from Reformed soteriology, so even those who deny it cannot escape subtly affirming it. For example, MacArthur and Mayhue, who will be representative of the school of dispensational thought that I am appealing to, write on the necessity of Christ’s active obedience, on if He hypothetically only bore our penalty without fulfilling the law,
“But if this was the end of our substitute’s work, we could never be saved. In that case, the penal sanctions of the law would be met, and our guilt would be removed, but we would still lack the positive righteousness that the law required of us. We would be left in the state Adam was in before the fall-innocent but without the positive righteousness God required for fellowship with him” (MacArthur and Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine, 521).
Before I discovered the doctrine of the CoW, I was perplexed at this statement. What exactly was meant by “postivie righteousness” here? I was confused and thought, “was not Adam created as a righteous man?”, what righteousness was he lacking that prevented fellowship with God? The problem here is that the logic of the Covenant of Works is what undergirds MacArthur and Mayhue’s statement here. Adam was in need of covenantal merit; covenantal righteousness. As the 1689 Confession of Faith says,
The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to Him as their creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which He hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.
But MacArthur and Mayhue do not recognize a Covenant of Works made with Adam and thus what they mean by “positive righteousness” cannot be understood in a covenantal sense. It is therefore difficult then to understand what this could even mean on their understanding apart from an ontological righteousness, but if this is the case, then they are denying that Adam was created upright and good with original righteousness, which they surely don’t wish to deny.
With that introduction, I am writing this to appeal to dispensationalists (and, really, all those who deny the Covenant of Works) to accept the doctrine. I believe that not only is the Covenant of Works biblical, but it is clearly so, as I hope to successfully argue. And more than that, I am persuaded that the doctrine is essential to a proper understanding of justification. I was recently encouraged a few months back after listening to this podcast with Mike Riccardi, where he sounded more open to the Reformed doctrines of the Covenant of Works as well as the Covenant of Redemption. Historically, many dispensationalists who have denied the Covenant of Works ended up denying the necessity of Christ’s active obedience and therefore his imputed righteousness altogether. While the MacArthurian version of dispensationalism which I came out of and have been surrounded by all my life has never embraced this error, I do believe they are in error to reject the doctrine of the Covenant of Works that serves as the undergirding context for the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. I am encouraged by the progress of dispensationalism throughout the decades; I think they seem to be looking more and more like covenentalists, and I hope more come to embrace Riccardi’s version of it (though I’d prefer they just become progressive covenentalists!). That said, my goal here will not be to explain the Covenant of Works. If you would like to learn more about it, there are many modern works on it that I will mention later, but the sources I prefer the most are all older, such as “Human Nature in Its Fourfold State” by Thomas Boston, “The Marrow of Modern Divinity” by Edward Fisher, and pretty much anything you can find in John Owen (I believe his work on the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness might mention it). I simply wish here to provide a brief defense of the scripturalness of the doctrine.
First, let’s see what progressive dispensationalists have to say about the Covenant of Works.
“Some theologians assert that the biblical covenants should be understood through theologically derived covenants. Covenant theology affirms three such covenants: (1) the covenant of works, (2) the covenant of grace, and (3) the covenant of redemption. While there may be certain truths associated with these theological covenants, such as God having a salvation plan from eternity and God working with his people on the basis of grace after the fall of Adam, these are not actual covenants found in the Bible. Their inclusion in discussions of God’s covenant program involves saying more than Scripture has explicitly said and can lead to confusion and wrong views".
(MacArthur and Mayhue, “Biblical Doctrine” pg. 870).
I, first of all, want to make a hermeneutical point and say that “saying more than Scripture has explicitly said” should actually always be involved in good interpretation in the sense that good and proper exegesis doesn’t limit itself to the surface-level meaning of words, but instead seeks to “implicate itself”, as I call it, into the mind of the author. We need to take into account what the author is implicitly telling us as well as what he is obviously and explicitly telling us.
Next, while I’ll be focusing on the Covenant of Works here (and I would argue that the Covenant of Grace just is the New Covenant), I do want to at least note that even before I started studying it, the Covenant of Redemption was at least clearly seen to me in Ephesians 1:4 so that I knew there was a covenant there but did not know what to call it. I could write more on this another time, but I would ask those who deny the CoR to at least consider that in doing so, there may be dangerous consequences involved that you may not have thought of.
Furthermore, the statement that the Covenant of Works is “not [an] actual covenant found in the Bible”, might as well be applied to the Davidic covenant as well if the standard here is simply that the term “covenant” is not used in Genesis. I am sure everyone would agree that the Davidic Covenant is made in 2 Samuel 7, however, nowhere does the term appear there. However, we know the Davidic Covenant is in fact a covenant because of elements in 2 Samuel 7 that tell us this, as well as the fact that the Bible later refers back to God’s covenant with David. As I hope to show, both of these factors also apply to God’s covenant with Adam.
“The representative view was promoted by Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669) and became popular among many in the tradition of covenant theology, who connect this perspective with an alleged “covenant of works,” in which Adam as the head of the human race was tasked with perfect obedience for the goal of obtaining eternal life. When Adam violated this so-called covenant of works, he failed on behalf of all mankind, so that his sin was counted as the failure of all his descendants. Nonetheless, not all covenantalists who affirm federal headship tie it to a covenant of works. For example, Anthony Hoekema declared, “Although . . . I reject the doctrine of the covenant of works, this does not imply the rejection of direct imputation, as long as we maintain that Adam was indeed the head and representative of the human race”. Hoekema was right to reject a covenant of works as the orienting principle for federal headship, since Scripture makes no mention of a covenant of works.
Though historically referred to as federal headship, the label representative headship is preferable since it better conveys the fact that both Adam and Christ act as the legal representatives for those who are reckoned to be in them".
(MacArthur and Mayhue, “Biblical Doctrine”, 465-466).
Here it would perhaps be most beneficial to press a few questions. On what basis is Adam the representative head of humanity? On what basis does Adam act as the legal representative for humanity? Does Adam being the first man somehow automatically make it so that his first sin (rather arbitrarily) is imputed to all men? Does Adam stand in legal representation of all of his descendants by mere virtue of his creation? Furthermore, on what basis is Christ our legal representative? What is the nature of Christ’s headship over us? Is it not on the basis of the New Covenant? Is not Christ’s headship over us a covenantal one (which, I would argue, is the only basis for any legal relationship)? How does the fact that Christ’s headship over us is a covenantal bear on the nature of Adam’s parallel headship?
The problem here is that you cannot affirm the logic of legal, representational headship without affirming federal (covenantal headship). A federal (covenant) head presupposes a federal (covenantal) relationship. The basis of our representation in Christ and in Adam is a legal one. Imputation is an inherently legal concept. Sadly, even brilliant men like Hoekema and Murray have missed this. It is not on the basis of some vague notion of “representation” that apparently just happens to be that Christ represents us (and by parallelism, that Adam represents man), and by which His obedience and Adam’s disobedience is reckoned to us, but it is on an inherently legal (and therefore federal) one.
“The couple is allowed to eat from any tree in the garden, but they were to avoid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To eat from it meant death. Chung calls this command “the constitution of the kingdom in Eden” in which “the core values of the Edenic kingdom are to be freedom within the context of obedience.” This command did not function as a call for Adam and Eve to merit or work for their salvation. Adam was created as a son and king in fellowship with God. Instead, this was an opportunity for these volitional beings to willingly express obedience to their Creator with their hearts. Avoiding the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” was to be an expression of worship".
(Michael Vlach, “He Will Reign Forever”, 65).
Apart from being directly contradicted by Genesis 3:22, I’ll make some comments on what Vlach says here.
The great insight of Geerhardus Vos was that “eschatology precedes soteriology”. He recognized that the original Adam was created to advance into a glorified state and achieve life everlasting were he to render obedience to God. Adam fell, rendering him incapable of obeying God. However, through regeneration, Adam’s nature is not only restored but restored unto its eschatological goal (the great insight of Herman Bavinck). The telos of what Adam was supposed to achieve has been achieved for us by Jesus Christ. Adam was to elevate creation through his obedience, to bring in the New Creation; Jesus Christ did.
Consider that though Adam was working towards Glory in his prelapsarian state, the irony is that it is only when he hears the protoevangelium after his fall and embraces it by faith that he becomes a new creation and achieves Glory in its inaugurated form. The parallel to Eden is not the New Creation, but the New Creation is what the consummated Eden was intended to be. Because of this, we must conclude in a strange and counterintuitive way that the redeemed, though still sinful, man is in a better state than the prelapsarian one. For the believer, this can only be said because the Last Adam has completed His work and His Glory-achieving merit is immediately applied to all who are in Him, and so the New Creation is already present. The old has passed away, and the new has come.
Furthermore, in response to Vlach’s statement that Adam was not working for his salvation: what then is meant in Genesis 2:15 when it is said, “The LORD God took the man and put him (caused to rest) in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it”, if not to indicate that the goal, the telos, of his work in the garden was eschatological rest (though there is an argument against this on linguistic grounds to consider. See "Kingdom Through Covenant", 382)? Thus God rested on the seventh day, the only day where it is not said there was evening and morning, to indicate the telos and goal of creation was eternal rest which was to be achieved after works. Indeed, this is the very logic of the author of Hebrews,
Therefore, let us fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have fallen short of it.
For indeed we have had good news proclaimed to us, just as they also; but the word that was heard did not profit those who were not united with faith among those who heard.
For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said,
“As I swore in My wrath,
They shall not enter My rest,”
although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.
For He has spoken somewhere in this way concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”;
and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.”
Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news proclaimed to them failed to enter because of disobedience,
He again determines a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”
For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.
So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.
We see then the logic of the principle of the Covenant of Works; that those who enter into the Sabbath rest that has been inaugurated in Christ Jesus have been set free from the law of works, so as to cease from this striving that Adam was originally to complete, and thus they enter into eschatological rest (for vindication of this interpretation, see “From Sabbath to Lord’s Day” pg. 212-213; NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible (Albert Mohler), the ESV Study Bible (David Chapman) also appears to go in this direction) [*]. They need no longer work for eternal life, because it has been inaugurated. Those in Christ Jesus are in the New Covenant and as such cannot be justified by their works because they have been set free from the law of works and given justification and eternal rest in Christ, received by faith. The principles of works and grace, of law and gospel, of merit and gift are completely opposed to one another. This exact same biblical-theological theme can also be seen at the very end of Matthew 11, when Jesus proclaims, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (see the ESV and Reformation Study Bibles, though this needs more defense), which is then immediately followed by conflict with the Pharisees over the Sabbath (whether 4:10 refers to Christ entering His rest or not makes no difference to my interpretation here. If so, the verse is teaching that Christ, having rested from His works in the Covenant of Redemption, has entered the eschatological rest of God even as we may rest from our attempted works of righteousness and enter the rest that He has entered into through and in Him).
[*] I take "dead works" in Hebrews 6:1 and 9:14 to refer to any sort of work, in the Pauline sense, which cannot save due to sin, again following the law/gospel principle I believe biblical-theologically present in Hebrews regarding the Sabbath. Christ has inaugurated the Sabbath rest that Adam was to achieve through his works, so believers cannot and need not merit this rest, since it has been merited for them. Consider William L. Lane's comments in Word Biblical Commentary:
The call to repentance from dead works and faith in God is reviewed in 9:14 from the standpoint of the redemptive accomplishment of Jesus. There the “dead works” are defined as the external regulations associated with the Levitical priesthood in the earthly sanctuary (9:10). The discrimination between useless washings on the one hand and purification by the blood of Christ on the other (9:9–10, 19; 10:22), or between priests appointed by the imposition of hands according to the law, which in its weakness could not achieve the perfection of the people of God, and the high priest appointed by the oath of God and the power of an indestructible life (5:1–6, 7:5, 15–28) demonstrates the relationship between the foundational teaching and the advanced instruction provided in 7:1—10:18.
The ESV Study Bible follows.
I would direct anyone to the beginning chapters of Greg Beale’s “A New Testament Biblical Theology” for more on this matter in contrast to Vlach’s statement here.
Also, let us quickly note that the very notion of Adam as “king” presupposes a covenant in the Bible’s storyline, because kings rule over their kingdoms through covenant (thus Adam begins the pattern of covenants throughout the Bible and their federal representatives). If Adam is a king without a covenant, he is the only one in Scripture and this is completely unthinkable given that all other kings are modeled after him. (Samuel Renihan’s book is helpful here. To quote a few points, “God has used covenants to establish particular kingdoms on earth...Covenants function as the legal basis upon which God interacts with man in a given kingdom. Covenants establish the boundaries of a kingdom, appoint federal heads, grant promises, impose laws, define the offspring of the federal head, and specify all other pertinent and necessary details of how God will exercise His dominion through the federal head and his offspring” (Renihan, The Mystery of Christ, 54).). Adam and the Adamic Covenant, Noah and the Noahic Covenant, Moses and the Mosaic Covenant[**], Abraham, and the Abrahamic Covenant, David and the Davidic Covenant, Jesus and the New Covenant. Another way to make the argument is that each covenant has an associated Temple (Eden/Ark/Moriah-Bethel/Sinai-Tabernacle/Jerusalem Temple/Christ-Christians-Heaven), so the presence of a Temple (Eden; see Beale and Wenham’s works on this), strongly suggests the presence of a covenant.
[**]Formally, the Mosaic/Sinaitic Covenant is between God and Israel, who operates as a corporate Adam, however, I think it clear that Moses is set up as a synecdoche for Israel and in that respect operates as a type of king. Indeed, he is already portrayed as a New Noah (Exodus 2:3), who is the New Adam, and though the theme of Yahweh as King over Israel is prominent in the Pentateuch, Moses is given a close association with Him (Exodus 7:1), which I believe later sets the stage for the office of the Davidic king to be called the "son of God", harkening back to Adam, the ultimate and final Davidic King, literally being so (Is. 9:6). So Moses acts as a kind of stand-in federal head, and even we use the term "Mosaic Covenant" we implicitly recognize this. Technically, the federal head of the Mosaic Covenant is later the Davidic King, but I am suggesting that Moses is “like a federal head” though technically simply a mediator.
Indeed, the commonly occuring biblical metaphor of an ever-growing and expanding tree which grows so big that the “birds of the heavens come and nest in its branches, and under its branches, all the beasts of the field find shade” refers to a kingdom (such as Babylon, or for example in Ezekiel, to Assyria) and finds it’s ultimate fulfillment in the Kingdom of God (Matthew 13:31-32) inaugurated through the New Covenant, finds its roots in the original command to Adam to expand the garden of Eden to the ends of the world. Thus Adam was the original king of Eden, the original kingdom of God; and once again all kingdoms presuppose a covenant. If each Adamic-figure (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel/Moses, David, Christ) has an associated kingdom, even as they each have an associated mountain and temple, they each must also have an associated covenant which defines and regulates that kingdom. Indeed, Adam is actually the prototype for all kings and covenants to follow him, making it absolutely unthinkable that he did not have his own covenant.
I will now begin my defense with letting Beeke’s “Reformed Systematic Theology Vol. 2” introduce the most basic evidence for a Covenant of Works with Adam:
Moving on to another piece of evidence real quickly, as I was saying, at the start of 2021, I went into a deep study of Romans 5 and the imputed righteousness of Christ. By God’s providence, towards the end of my study, the Master’s Seminary Journal came out and the theme just so happened to be the imputed righteousness of Christ. The article in the journal by Peter Sammons is the best treatment of Romans 5 I have read (and that’s really saying something considering how much I read on that chapter); in fact, it is one of the best treatments of any passage of the Bible I have ever read and those seeking to defend the imputation of Christ’s lived-out righteousness need to read it. Romans 5 is an essential passage to understanding the Covenant of Works, and a quick comment from Sammons’ paper deserves to be cited,
“First, it must be noted that Paul has isolated Adam and Christ. He chooses these two individuals because they are the only two to hold the respective position of federal head. While there have been men in biblical history whom God appointed to represent their people, such that their actions had consequences affecting many (e.g., Noah, Moses, David, etc.), none represented their people as Adam and Christ did. The difference lies in that only the actions of these two men have a one-to-one correspondence with an immediate consequence upon those whom they represent. Their federal headship, moreover, extends beyond the temporal and physical realm to the spiritual and eternal. Moreover, Adam and Christ are the only men who have been in a uniquely sinless relationship to God as representative heads”.
This logic is what we see expressed in the doctrine of the Covenant of Works; Adam and Christ stand as the federal heads of soteriological covenants, and both of these covenants are based on the same works principle, “do this and achieve eternal life”. The obedience of Christ led to eternal life for those in Him, yet the disobedience of Adam led to death for all in him.
Next, we have G.K. Beale’s observations on Genesis:
In light of these observations, we can speak of the prefall conditions as a “beginning first creation” and the yet-to-come escalated creation conditions to be a consummate “eschatologically” enhanced stage of final blessedness. The period leading up to the reception of these escalated conditions is the time when it would be decided whether Adam would obey or disobey. These escalated conditions indicate that Adam was in a covenant relationship with God. Although the word “covenant” is not used to describe the relationship between God and Adam, the concept of covenant is there. God chooses to initiate a relationship with Adam by imposing an obligation on him (Gen. 2:16-17). This obligation was part of the larger task with which Adam had been commissioned in Gen 1.:28: to “rule” and “subdue” creation and in the process to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Adam’s “ruling and subduing” commission included guarding the garden from any threat to its peaceful maintenance. In light of Gen. 2:16-17 and 3:22, Adam would receive irreversible blessings of eternal life on the condition of perfect faith and obedience, and he would receive the decisive curse of death if he was unfaithful and disobedient. Thus, the discernment of irreversible escalated creation conditions discussed above is the best argument for such a covenant notion.
Consequently, the argument that the word “covenant” is not used in Gen. 2-3 does not provide proof that there is not covenant relationship, just as Adam and Eve’s marriage relationship is not termed a “covenant” in Gen. 2:21-24 but expresses covenantal concepts and, in fact, is identified as a covenant elsewhere. Likewise, it is profitable that God’s covenant with Adam is referred to as a covenant elsewhere in the OT. The essential elements of a covenant are found in the Gen. 1-3 narrative: (1) two parties are named; (2) a condition of obedience is set forth; (3) a curse for transgression is threatened; (4) a clear implication of a blessing is promised for obedience. It could be objected that there is no reference to either party reaching a clear agreement or, especially, to Adam accepting the terms set forth in this so-called covenant. However, neither is this the case with Noah and Abraham, with whom God made explicit covenants.
(Pulled from https://derekzrishmawy.com/2012/10/23/g-k-beale-on-the-presence-of-a-covenant-in-gen-1-3/)
Furthermore, we have Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum putting forth an old argument for the presence of a covenant in Genesis, namely, the use of the covenant name, “Yahweh”
“Before beginning exegesis of these two texts, let us note an argument that is difficult to refute. In Genesis 1:1-2:3, the first creation narrative, the name for God is always Elohim. In 2:4-3:24, the second creation narrative, the name for God is always the double name Yahweh Elohim except when Satan is speaking-and then only Elohim. . . The double name Yahweh Elohim occurs twenty times in Genesis 2:4-3:24 and only seventeen instances in the rest of the Old Testament. So the double name Yahweh Elohim is being employed by the author for a particular reason. Since Yahweh emphasizes God in covenant relationship to his people, it should be obvious that the author’s purpose is to show that the transcendent Creator of the first account is also the God in covenant relationship with his people in the second account. These are the twin pillars of all theology in the Old Testament. If there is no covenant at creation, how can one explain the special use of the double name in Genesis 2:4-3:24?” (Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom Through Covenant 2nd Edition, 215-216).
They then come to Hosea 6:7, which reads, “But like Adam they (Israel) transgressed the covenant”. Attempts have been made to avoid reference to a covenant with Adam in this verse by positing that “Adam” refers to the city in Joshua. Gentry and Wellum address this at length, arguing Hosea has Exodus 19:6 in mind, but I’ll quote the important sections:
“If Hosea has a part of his shared presupposition pool with his readers the story of Genesis 2, with Adam as the idyllic priest-king (cf. Ezek. 28.12-15; Jub. 4.23-26), together with the notion that Israel at Sinai was constituted as the new humanity, the true successors of Adam (cf. 4 Ezra 3.3-36; 6.53-59; 2 Bar. 14.17-19), then it makes sense to compare the breach of the Sinai covenant (e.g., Hos. 4.1, 2) with the rebellion in the garden. . . why the notion of “covenant” should be introduced in connection with the place Adam (RSV, JB, NRSV) or Admah (NEB) is unclear” (Williamson, Sealed with an Oath, 55).
“The royal priesthood of Israel is an Adamic role assigned to her at the exodus, as indicated by Israel being addressed as the “son of God” (Ex. 4:22), a fact to which Hosea directly refers in 11:1. By violating the Mosaic covenant, Israel has forfeited this role. The connection with Genesis 2 is natural and suitable. . . The phrase “like Adam” in Hosea 6:7 indicates sin in a place, the garden in Eden. The “there: can refer back to these circumstances. If the Masoretic Text of Hosea 6:7 is taken at face value, it seems to imply the failure of Israel’s role as another Adam was doomed from the garden in Eden because all are somehow involved in Adam’s covenant breaking. . . Hosea is a book with many geographical allusions, but nowhere does the Old Testament clearly speak of covenant breaking at the location known as Adam (Josh. 3:16). Such a reference would be more than obscurantist” (Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom Through Covenant 2nd Edition, 256-257).
I do not have the space to go into detail here, however, the universal eccumenical nature of the doctrine of a covenant with Adam (found for example in Irenaeus, Cyril, Jerome, and Augustine) that can be seen going all the way back to Second Temple literature is expounded on in this podcast with J.V. Fesko: https://www.spreaker.com/user/renewalcast/the-covenant-of-works-with-j-v-fesko and while I’m on the subject of podcasts, Richard Barcellos explains some of the argumentation behind the covenant of works here, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrLjzvbycJU
So, while my desire has not been to reinvent the wheel here, I did want to set out some basic exegetical considerations for the covenant of works. If you want to go deeper, I’m sure Fesko and Barcellos’ books are great (I don’t currently own them). G.K. Beale’s New Testament Biblical Theology probably has the best overall look at Adam and Eden in general. Sam Renihan’s book The Mystery of Christ is extremely clear and easy to follow, his third chapter on Covenant and Kingdom, and his fourth chapter on the Covenant of Works itself are the two most relevant here and I could have quoted most of those sections in response to MacArthur and Mayhue.
With that said, I’ll now move on to the part of this post where I do the most work: demonstrating that the Covenant of Works can be proven typologically by tracing the Bible’s storyline. A couple of months ago, I used the following line of Scripture verses in order to demonstrate this to some of my friends. I will try this again here with comments in between in order to explain everything. I think Gentry and Wellum take a similar approach in trying to prove Christ’s active obedience if I remember correctly, but this is my version of it.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
Genesis 1:26-28
The important thing to note here so far is simply that man is given a positive commandment. He must “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it”. This is the original covenant of works which we will see is given in typological form throughout the rest of the Bible’s storyline.
“Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and 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.””
Genesis 2:15-17
Here, Adam is given another positive command (though not altogether separate from the original one, as his task was to expand the garden to the ends of the world) as a part of the covenant and is also given a covenant stipulation, a penalty if he does not obey (namely, death). He must perform his task of obedience to live, or else, he will die.
“Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—”
Genesis 3:22
This indicates that the goal of Adam’s obedience was eternal life. Had he completed the covenant of works, he would have earned life everlasting. This is important for later in light of Christ’s completion of His own covenant of works.
“And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.””
Genesis 9:1, 7
Here, we have the original command given to Adam now given unto Noah. He is the new Adam, and thus this begins the start of the typology of the covenant of works. Remember, these types are not the actual Covenant of Works; they are not for eternal life, but they are typological in their own respects.
“So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord.”
Leviticus 18:5
Note here, Israel, as a corporate Adam, is given a command as a typological covenant of works; if they obey, they will live peacefully in the land, if they do not, they will be punished. The typological works principle is taken up by each New Adam. For example, this can be seen in the disciplining of the Davidic King (2 Samuel 7:14) for failure to obey the law of the Lord (the antithesis of Psalm 1). The chastening curse for disobedience of the Davidic King (which typifies Adam’s original curse of death) is ultimately fulfilled in the Ultimate and Final Davidic King taking the original Adamic curse for those He represents (Galatians 3:13) (the same word for “discipline” in 2 Samuel 7:14 is used in Isaiah 53, or so I have been told by Dr. Abner Chou)
This verse is pertinent to our next one:
“And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.””
Luke 10:25-28
And Abner Chou in his “Hermeneutics” book captures the logic here well:
He does not, of course, connect this to the Covenant of Works, but this is precisely the logic behind what Chou recognizes here. Jesus knows that Leviticus 18:5 is expounding upon the nature of the typological covenant given the corporate Adam of Israel: “do this and live”, if they obey, they will gain reward, typifying the original eternal life that Adam was originally supposed to achieve through his obedience, and if they disobey, they will be punished, just like Adam.
To quote another work from The Master’s Seminary,
“Paul’s defense of the goodness of the Mosaic Law in Romans 7 refers his readers back to Adam’s temptation and sin in the Garden. This first-person story of the commandment producing sin and death brings Genesis 2-3 to mind. Paul operated with a foundational premise from the Old Testament that Israel replaced Adam in God’s purpose. Consequently, the law’s effect on Israel was comparable to the effect of God’s command to Adam in Eden” (Paul Thorsell in “What Happened in the Garden” edited by Abner Chou, pg. 133).
Thorsell goes on to talk about how Adam’s disobedience brought death and how Paul in Romans 8 then goes on to “look toward future liberation, not just for believers (vv. 23-25) but also for all of creation”. The implication here is that Adam’s disobedience brought the curse of death, whereas, this obedience would have brought in the glorified creation.
Back to the bolded section. Note that Christ later replaces Israel (Is. 49:3, see my “Christ and Christians” post) and takes up their role with the goal of blessing the world (Gen. 22:18), as Adam was supposed to do with bringing in the glorified state through his obedience. Christ’s body, the Church, are the firstfruits of the eternal state, and with Christ as their corporate head (again my "Christ and Christians” post is helpful), they have been implicated in his task (Acts 13:47, see Beale’s “The Temple and the Church’s Mission”)
“Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “The righteous man shall live by faith.” However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “He who practices them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
Galatians 3:11-14
Here, Paul again appeals back to Leviticus in order to prove the principle of works. The law, as expressed originally in the Covenant of Works given to Adam is “do this and live”. Since the fall of Adam, all men stand condemned in him and are therefore unable to perform the works of the law. Since fallen man cannot earn salvation through works, it, therefore, must be of faith.
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
Romans 5:12, 14-19
There has been much written on this verse in connection to the Covenant of Works, so I will not address it too much here, but I will recommend trying to find any works that help spell this out. Even just reading Sammons’ article and paying close attention to the status of federal headship that is brought out by Paul regarding Adam and Jesus and the asymmetry of their obedience/disobedience and the results should help.
“But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”
1 Corinthians 15:20-22
I had this in my original set of verses that I showed to my friends which included more because it was a presentation on justification, but I wanted to keep this here too because it shows the covenantal connection of Adam and Christ and those represented in them and the results of each of their covenants of works. By Adam’s failed covenantal obedience, there results death to all of those “in Adam” (again, an inherently covenantal term), and by contrast, the obedience of Christ to his covenant of works, results in life to those “in Christ”.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Remember that the goal of Adam’s covenant was to bring in the glorified state, the New Creation. As a result of Christ’s completion of his covenant of works, he has achieved and inaugurated the new creation. It is found whenever a man is regenerated and believes on Him. This is the meaning of “eschatology precedes soteriology”. This is the grace that perfects nature, bringing it to its eschatological goal in all men who are participants in the New Covenant. Notice too, that “having been reconciled to Christ”, he has “committed to us the word of reconciliation”, that we may be implicated in His work of blessing the world. Remember the original command given to Adam? To “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it”? Now that Christ has won the “children you have given me” (Hebrews 2:13), through His declaration to be the Son of God in power (Romans 1:4), all those in Him become sons of God and are tasked to continue His work to “be fruitful and multiply” in the task of evangelism (Acts 13:47 again)
“Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.”
Revelation 22:1-5
Thus, we see that with the completion of His covenant of works, Christ has gained us access to what Adam was supposed to, “the tree of life”, which symbolizes life eternal. We have already become partakers of this life in its inaugural form, for this is eternal life, to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. The Last Adam has accomplished what the first Adam was supposed to do. By his obedience, he “fulfilled all righteousness”, completing all that the law required of Him to do. Indeed he was, “born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons”, which, as John Owen said,
"It is excepted, with more colour of sobriety, that he was made under he law only as to the curse of it. But it is plain in the text that Christ was made under the law as we are under it. He was “made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” And if he was not made so as we are, there is no consequence from his being made under it unto our redemption from it. But we were so under the law, as not only to be obnoxious unto the curse, but so as to be obliged unto all the obedience that it required; as hath been proved. And if the Lord Christ hath redeemed us only from the curse of it by undergoing it, leaving us in ourselves to answer its obligation unto obedience, we are not freed nor delivered. And the expression of “under the law” doth in the first place, and properly, signify being under the obligation of it unto obedience, and consequentially only with a respect unto the curse. Gal. iv. 21, “Tell me, ye that desire to be “under the law.” They did not desire to be under the curse of the law, but only its obligation unto obedience; which, in all usage of speech, is the first proper sense of that expression. Wherefore, the Lord Christ being made under the law for us, he yielded perfect obedience unto it for us; which is therefore imputed unto us. For that what he did was done for us, depends solely on imputation"
I am terrible at writing conclusions. If nothing else, be sure to check out the sources I have listed if I am a poor and sorry defender of this great doctrine. For those who accept it, then let it be known that by the same means we were condemned, we have been justified. All men are ultimately saved by works; but they are the works of the Last Adam, who completed the covenant of works that Man could not.
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