Adamic CovenantYahweh expressed His desire to have a unique and intimate relationship with humanity by establishing a covenant relationship with them. Through the Adamic Covenant Yahweh reveals the kind of kingdom that He wants. This kingdom would be a relational one. By endowing Adam and Eve with His image He demonstrated His desire to be humanities Father and give them responsibilities over His creation. In this covenant relationship were expectations for both sides to fulfill. The fact that this covenant could be broken if one of the parties did not meet the requirements made the covenant a conditional covenant. There were both requirements and blessings for Adam and Eve. The Requirements
The Blessings
By commanding Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, Yahweh was commanding them to fill the earth with His image. This is the purpose of being made in the image of God. The sign of this covenant was the Tree of Life. Every time they partook of the Tree of Life, they would be reminded of their covenant relationship with Yahweh, which brought the blessings of eternal life in His presence. However, if they disobeyed Yahweh and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, then they would surely die (Gen. 2:17). The idea here of death is not of the end of something, rather of separation. The covenant was a relational covenant, and so the consequence for breaking it was a relational consequence. Death1 here meant to be separated from Yahweh.
1 There are three kinds of death in the Bible. The first is physical death, which is the separation of body and soul at the time of a human’s death. The second is spiritual death, which is humanity’s separation from Yahweh. This is what Adam and Eve experienced immediately after they ate from the tree of knowledge, and all humans are born into it. The third is eternal death, which is spiritual death for all eternity. This happens when someone is still spiritually dead when they die physically. In other words, they have not received the Holy Spirit. |
