Genesis 2: The Covenant of Works
Notes
Transcript
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The Dominion Mandate
The Covenant of Works
The Marriage Sign
Intro
Intro
This week we are zooming on the creation of Adam:
his mandate of dominion over God’s creation,
God’s covenant with Adam in the garden,
and the covenant sign of marriage between Adam and Eve
1. The Dominion Mandate
1. The Dominion Mandate
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
Genesis divides into sections that start with “These are the generations
Introduces major new developments
2:4 - The heavens and the earth
5:1 - Adam
6:9 - Noah
10:1 - Shem, Ham and Japheth
11:10 - Shem
11:27 - Terah (Abram)
25:12 - Ishmael
25:19 - Isaac
36:1 - Esau
37:2 - Jacob
Seeing this here tells us Moses is beginning a new section with a new major development
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 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.
This section has caused some confusion
There is an apparent contradiction with ch1
God created vegetation and plants and trees on day 3, man on day 6
But now Moses is saying God formed Adam before there was any bush or plants in the land.
Those who try to discredit the Bible point this out as a contradiction
Others who try to find a compromise between evolution and the Bible use this to argue that ch2 is a second creation
This is neither a contradiction, nor is it a second creation.
Moses is zooming in - this is the beginning of a new section
He is zooming in now on day 6, on Adam and his immediate surroundings
The focus is on Adam and the events that are going to take place in the garden
God had indeed created plants and vegetation already on day 3
But here Moses is most likely talking only of the specific place where Adam was formed.
Moses says: “When no bush of the field was yet in the land...” - not on the earth, but in this land, this area…
Moses gives two reasons that no bushes or small plants had yet sprung up in this land :
The LORD God had not yet caused it to rain on that land
There was no man yet to work the ground - to farm and cultivate the ground.
This makes at least two things clear for us about the way God made the earth:
The natural cycles were now already in effect
God had already performed the supernatural wonder of creating
the realms of light and darkness
The land and seas
Plants and vegetation
The sun, moon, stars, and seasons,
The birds, fish and land animals and insects
But that initial work of creation ex nihilo is now complete, and now the natural order and cycles were in effect
For more plants to grow, they needed water. For them to get water, they needed rain.
And when the area had very little rain - maybe like this particular area of land which had not yet received rain - they need some cultivation...
For God’s creation to flourish and grow, man must exercise his dominion mandate to govern and rule God’s creation
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God’s creation of the world was complete and perfect (Gen 1:31 - “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good....”
Part of that perfect design is for everything to work in their natural cycles and seasons, and to flourish under the dominion and nurture of man
The plants need seeds to grow new small plants
Those seeds need rich soil and rain and water to grow
Sometimes, man needs to dig channels and use rich soil to give the seeds the best chance to grow, or to divert rivers and channel them to provide water when the rains haven’t yet come
So two reasons that vegetation was not yet growing in this region:
No rain there yet
No man to work the ground and cultivate and nurture it.
Then God formed man out of the dust:
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.
This is the crowning glory of God’s creation - man, uniquely created by God to be His representative on earth, to rule over God’s creation, nurture it and protect it
To have dominion over the earth and everything in it as God’s stewards.
Any Lord of the Rings fans?
There is a kingdom called Gondor whose rightful king was away
While he was away, Denethor and his line of descendants were given authority to rule, and Denethor ruled Gondor as a steward.
His mandate as a steward was to rule in the king’s place; to make laws, to make decisions for the good of the kingdom, to protect it and care for it.
Ultimately though, he still only ruled as a steward under the king, and the king still had all authority.
This is like man’s dominion mandate - we are like stewards, governing and taking responsibility for earth’s prosperity as stewards under God.
Of course, it turned out Denethor wasn’t a very good steward.
He was reckless, negligent and selfish, and the kingdom suffered under his stewardship and he was later destroyed in fire at the return of the true king.
And there’s a biblical lesson in there somewhere but for now we will keep our focus on the text at hand!
The point is that God created man as the crowning glory of His creation, to rule as stewards over all that He had made.
And of course, man had to be unique in all of God’s creation in order for him to fulfill this dominion mandate:
Man was created in God’s image...
with the capacity for intelligent thought,
the ability to reason,
the capacity for benevolence - to love and do what is good
And something else: the breath of LIFE
Man is no ordinary creature; Man has the breath of God in his nostrils.
You might ask “but don’t the animals also have life?” and the answer is yes they do, but man has been given something unique
The breath here is not just the ability to breathe - the breathe here represents the work of the Holy Spirit
The same word for breath is used in Eze 37 which is a picture of salvation and regeneration to eternal life
9 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”
22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
So Adam was given the breath of life by God and given dominion over everything, and charged with the responsibility to care for it all.
This is man’s dominion mandate.
We are further told that God planted a garden - a literal paradise - and in verse 15 God says:
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
There’s your paradise, Adam!
Now, work in it, cultivate it, nurture it, help it to grow and flourish and prosper
And keep it - protect it - that word is the same word used later when God takes Adam and Eve out of the garden and stations a cherub there to guard it - to keep it, to protect it.
I can imagine that the first thing Adam would have had to figure out is to build a shelter to sleep in and to protect himself from the rain.
Men, you were created to work and to protect.
Work is not a product of the Fall. Work is a product of creation.
Work is not a punishment - work is something that was given to us as a gift to be enjoyed and is part and parcel of how God made us
Why else do you guys think God gave you those muscles and that manly physique that you admire every night in the bathroom mirror?
God gave arms and legs and hands and feet, and brains and mouths to figure stuff out and communicate, to be productive
The difficulty of work is a product of the Fall
Our attitude to work (laziness) is a product of the Fall
But work is not a product of the Fall - we were created for work.
Its amazing that one of the things we hear all the time is this question “what is the meaning of life?”
And so many people are depressed and struggling to find any meaning or purpose in life
But at the same time most, if not all of us spend our lives avoiding the very thing that gives our lives in this world meaning and purpose - work.
We want to hire other people to do the work.
We want to find shortcuts and ways around doing work.
We want to retire early so that we don’t have to work.
We imagine our ideal future as one where we laze around all day with no work to do.
Well I’ve got news for you: work is not a punishment of the Fall, it is a gift of the creation - and, we will be working in the new creation.
You wonder why some of the manliest macho men don’t find the idea of heaven so appealing… but we’ve painted a picture of heaven as being a place where we all lay around all day on grassy fields playing harps.
Hardly exciting for a man.
Believe it or not, we are created to work, and we will even be working in heaven.
Now of course there is a danger that we will take this dominion mandate to an extreme, and many do
Some make this mandate the main thing - as if our primary reason for living is to care for the planet
Or, they shift focus a little and make our main mandate a cultural mandate - one where our main goal is to take care of cultural issues like social justice, addressing poverty, or having Christians in civil government and so on.
Now just like caring for our planet is important, so also is fighting racism and poverty and seeking justice in civil society, but these are not our primary calling.
They come as a fruit of the fulfillment our primary calling
2. The Covenant of Works
2. The Covenant of Works
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
.Let’s step back and look again at the bigger picture
What is Moses doing? He’s just talked about God having created the world in 6 days and then entering into His rest on the 7th day.
And here in ch2 he is zooming in on Adam to show that he must follow God’s example.
Remember, Adam’s goal is also to enter into the Sabbath Rest, as we discussed in the last sermon on Ch 2:1-4
To do that, Adam must also complete his work, just as God completed His work.
How does Adam complete his work?
Not just by fulfilling his mandate to govern and nurture and protect God’s creation as His representative (even atheists can fulfill this mandate)...
But by doing so under the authority of and in submission and obedience to God’s will.
So what does God say to Adam next?
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Those are the conditions under which Adam is to fulfill his mandate.
What we see here is the first covenant between God and man
God is a covenant making and a covenant keeping God
Moses is even making this point clear in the way he refers to God:
v4 - the LORD God
v5 - the LORD God
v7 - the LORD God
v8 - the LORD God
v9 - the LORD God
v15 - the LORD God
v16 - the LORD God
These two words both refer to God but carry different emphasis:
The word translated God refers to God as sovereign Creator
The word translated LORD refers to the covenant God of Israel
He is not just God - He is OUR God - He has covenanted with us
What is a covenant?
Its a promise, or a contract, between two parties
Both sides agree to fulfill certain commitments or conditions
There are rewards for keeping the covenant, and consequences for breaking the covenant
For example, two kings might enter into a covenant, with conditions like king A will provide protection against enemy A and king B will pay a tax, with the reward being a peaceful existence and consequences being war.
A covenant is a mutual agreement between two parties with certain conditions, with benefits assured for meeting these conditions.
What we are seeing here in 2:16-17 is the first covenant between God and man - The Covenant of Works
“You may eat of every tree in the garden (v9 - ‘every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food’)...
but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.”
So Adam, for you to enter into your final rest, your Sabbath rest, you must fulfill your mandate in obedience to God and not eat the forbidden fruit - Those are the conditions, that is the benefit for fulfulling his side of the covenant.
Here are the consequences for breaking the covenant:
“for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
No Sabbath rest. Adam would be cut off from the sabbath rest (eternal life), and die, excluded from the covenant promise, separated from God.
And this is the foundational covenant between God and man - The Covenant of Works.
In order for man to remain in covenant with God and enter into our Sabbath Rest, man must live in full submission to God’s sovereign will and obey His commandments
Now of course, we all know how the story ends.
Adam failed to keep the covenant. He disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit.
Just in case you’re wondering where I am getting the word covenant from, because it’s not seen here in ch2, take a look at Hosea 6:7
7 But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.
Adam’s primary failure was faithlessness. He failed to trust God and believe His promise of eternal rest.
He went instead for the shortcut and tried to get around God.
He found out the hard way that God’s word is true, His promises are real and so are the consequences for breaking covenant with Him
Now I don’t want us to get too far ahead of ourselves so we will park that for now.
But, it is clear that God knew that Adam would not be able to keep the covenant, and already had a plan in place for his redemption
Because now God institutes another covenant - this one between a man and a woman
And it is to be a sign covenant that points forward to a new covenant that is to come
3. The Marriage Sign
3. The Marriage Sign
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
In Genesis 1:26-27, Moses has already shown us that God created Adam and Eve, and that He created them male and female
There the focus was on us being made in God’s image, and on the gender distinctions of male and female
But here Moses is zooming in, and here the focus is on their relationship together as husband and wife.
v24 - “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Now how do I know that this relationship between Adam and Eve is a sign covenant that points to something greater?
Because Paul expounded this text for us in Ephesians 5
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
So God gives Adam a commandment and enters into a covenant with man - you can enjoy my beautiful creation but fulfill your mandate in obedience to me
But God knows Adam will not be able to fulfill his side of the covenant and will fail to enter into his Sabbath Rest
So the next thing God does is give Adam a wife and He institutes a special covenant relationship between husband and wife as a sign that refers to another covenant relationship that is to come...
The covenant relationship between Jesus and the Church.
How?
Paul explains this as he explains man’s role in the marriage covenant:
25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Adam could not keep the Covenant of Works, and neither could Noah after him, or Moses, or Abraham, or David, or any other man in history.
But one man could. The man Jesus Christ.
By coming to earth as a man, Jesus lived in perfect obedience and submission to the Father’s will, and in dying on the cross, He fulfilled this covenant as a man on our behalf.
The Covenant of Works is fulfilled through Jesus Christ.
As a man - as our representative - Jesus suffered and died to pay the price of our disobedience and breaking the Covenant.
Through His death and resurrection then, our forgiveness and redemption has been purchased.
Through His blood, Jesus has washed us, His church - His covenant people, His bride, clean as with water, and presents the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
Through His blood we enter back into Covenant with God through faith and receive the full benefits of the Covenant fulfilled.
This is the story of the Bible. It is all about Jesus, and His fulfillment of the covenant on our behalf so that we can enter into rest and enjoy perfect communion with God as His covenant people.
So that we can be presented to God in splendour, holy and without blemish.
As the rest of the Bible unfolds and more is revealed, we will see God make more covenants such as the one with Abraham,
all of which serve to reveal with more clarity the glory of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ.
And in Jeremiah 31 we see the first promise of a New Covenant - one which is fulfilled on our behalf by Jesus
In fact, to end off, I am just going to read parts of that chapter to you:
1 “At that time, declares the Lord, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.” 2 Thus says the Lord: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, 3 the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. 4 Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. 5 Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit. 6 For there shall be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim: ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.’ ” 7 For thus says the Lord: “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’ 8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. 9 With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. 10 “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’ 11 For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. 12 They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall languish no more. 13 Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. 14 I will feast the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, declares the Lord.”
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
