Genesis 2:15-17- God's First Covenant with Mankind

Genesis 2:15-17
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 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.”

Message: God's First Covenant with Mankind

Time: Genesis is the first book and Moses is credited as authoring. The book spans 2400 years of time. It was originally written in Hebrew.

What the Lord is Saying:

The grace of God is God's unmerited favor that He shows to His elect and His initiative to save people from His Sin. When sharing with someone about grace, one way to illustrate it is to say that when a homeless man or a beggar comes up to you and asks for money, beggar can do nothing to repay you for any gift you give and when you hand him money you are being gracious. This is the picture of grace - receiving something and not being able to repay it. As Ephesians 2:8 states, "It is by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God."

In the opening book of the bible, Genesis, God records the interaction between himself and his created beings - Adam and Eve. As they are in the garden God gave man a mission: to cultivate it (the garden) and keep it. Man had a responsibility within the garden, a task or work to do. As they lived in the garden, they were to only know what God had commanded them to do and they were only to do that which He commanded. He said to cultivate the garden and keep it. God also mentioned a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the command was simply, do not eat from the tree.

Thus, this first covenant of the Bible between God and man marked the idea that man's obedience or man's works would inherit eternal life. The good deeds of obedience in being fruitful, taking dominion of the earth, and abstaining from the forbidden tree would have merited eternal life for Adam and his descendants. Any departure from this meant death. The first covenant given to man is  man is supposed to do what God commands.

By eating of the tree, the result was man now knows death and now man has not followed the covenant and it is not fulfilled.

Without the tree they were free and could do as they wish -- all was equally the same. But, the tree represented a paradigm shift - a knowledge of good and a knowledge of evil. Without partaking of the tree, they would have been obedient to the words of God and thus would have been declared righteous. Adam and Eve would have been righteous before the Lord and inherited eternal life.

Promise: Because of Adam's sin, we are corrupt and cannot please God apart from grace.

Prayer: Lord, as I think back to this first covenant you had with mankind, with Adam, I see that your intent was for us to cultivate the creation and keep it. Thus, I have a responsibility to what you have created. At one time, all that was needed to be known was righteous living. Lord, as I study this simple message, I am baffled as to how we make this simple message complicated and how so many are engulfed in the idea that man can ever make up on his own for that which you have commanded. Our own doing resulted in us being lost, but on our own we cannot merit your favor. Thank you for the truth of Your Word.


Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines with April being about salvation by grace alone and how the Lord never fails to save the one whom He has purposed to save.