God's Covenants: A Biblical Perspective

12 Pages 2876 Words

e authority of God. It was He that chose who and when to make a covenant with, and what it would include and involve, and one covenant never nullified the previous one. Always revealing more of the Creator, each subsequent covenant implied a new revelation of God and offered a clearer picture of Him. As He revealed more of Himself, God put more demands and responsibility on His people, requiring them to reflect His character both in worship and in behavior; as He was holy, they were to strive to be holy. The covenants traditionally came at a time of crisis, promising blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.
The Adamic Covenant
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19), is a profound illustration of how we are counted as sinners, not for what we have personally done, but because of the actions of one single man acting on our part before God.
Adam was given the opportunity by God to eat of any fruit of the garden, including that of the tree of life, which would provide for him eternal life. “But God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die’” (Genesis 3:3). The simple covenant was made–obey and have an open and pleasing relationship with the Father, know happiness, and have eternal life–disobey and accept the consequence of death. By breaking the covenant, Adam and Eve experienced death, not only physically years later when their once-perfect bodies aged and failed them, but spiritually as well. Prior to their fall, the couple had enjoyed a personal and intimate relationship with God; they walked with Him, they talked with Him, they physically leaned on Him. Their disobedience separated them from the peace of God. According to Emptage, “this act of God demonstrates that man must pay for his sin and failure to live according to the divine covenant” (n/d).
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