Covenant of Creation/Works

At the beginning of the world, God’s act of creation takes a covenantal shape. The term covenant is not used; however, Hosea 6:7 refers to Adam’s arrangement with God as a covenant.¹ Regardless, in Genesis 1:1 – 2:3, we have a clear recounting of God’s great works tantamount to a preamble and historical prologue. We certainly find stipulations and sanctions in 2:16-17 as well. Additionally, Adam receives dominion over the creation (1:28-30; 2:19-20) like a vassal to his suzerain.²

Perhaps most importantly, in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:20-22,45-49, the apostle Paul tells us that Christ has taken the place of Adam – accomplishing what he should have accomplished. Therefore, since (as we will see below) Christ’s work certainly takes covenantal shape (as we will see in the fifth part of this series), God’s relationship with Adam is certainly a covenant. So then the act of creation was covenantal: “We were not just created and then given a covenant; we were created as covenant creatures…”³

The covenant with Adam was a covenant of life, as well as a covenant of works – life being the promised blessing for perfect obedience. Adam’s covenantal relationship with God should have been consummated (had he kept God’s law) after a time;⁴ but when he failed, all of creation was marred – bringing death upon all of humanity, cursing even our relationships and the earth itself (3:14-20). So it is with the creation covenant with Adam that all of the trouble starts. It will take the rest of the Bible (and the rest of history) to resolve the problem. For now, it is important that we note the role of obedience in this covenantal arrangement and the consequent spoiling of the whole created order when it failed. It is little wonder then that Isaiah refers to the state of humanity since the Fall as in a covenant with death (28:15,18).

1. Readers familiar with the Hebrew text will probably know that there is some scholarly disagreement about whether this text refers to (1) the individual Adam, (2) to humanity in general, or even (3) to a place. There is no convincing evidence to suggest the third option. The first two options lead to the same conclusion. Even if humanity in general is in mind, then the point is that the whole of humanity broke a covenant with God; and so it leads us back to the creation story. For a helpful discussion, see O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 1980), 22-25.
2. Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven, and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 68-69 points out: “But man’s immediate challenge was to answer the call…to guard the gates of heaven as God’s viceregent and to vanquish the archenemy…”
3. Michael Horton, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 10.
4. Cf. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eerdmans, 1948; repr., Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 31-33.