The Edenic Covenant

STATEMENT OF USE: This blog contains condensed material from manuscripts owned and copyrighted by Ariel Ministries USA and is used with permission. The material referenced within is from Ariel’s Come and See series, and is available, along with fifty other texts, free of charge to anyone who desires to use them. If you haven’t already, please check them out here:

https://www.ariel.org/resources/come-and-see/studies?navid=2390956

It is my fervent hope that you will not stop with my blog but that you will take full advantage of the wealth of wisdom offered through the faithfulness of Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum, who is a teacher to the best of Biblical teachers! Please go to ariel.org for the complete and full teaching on The 8 Covenants of God.

As we last examined, a conditional covenant is a bilateral covenant, which in essence means that God provided a promise but the fulfillment of the promise was dependent upon the other party(s) agreement to and obedience with the terms of the agreement.  As Dr. Fruchtenbaum noted, it is characterized by the formula: “If you will, then I will”.  God promises to grant special blessings to man providing man fulfills certain conditions contained in the covenant. Man's failure to do so often results in punishment. The blessings are secured by obedience and man must meet his conditions before God will meet His.

Two of the eight covenants of the Bible are conditional: the Edenic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant. Of the two conditional covenants, the first was made with Adam in Eden. The other exclusively with Israel. Let’s take a look at the first of two Conditional Covenants of the Bible-The Edenic Covenant.

Scripture Reference: Genesis 1:28-38

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.”

WHO WERE THE PARTICIPANTS? 

God and Adam. Adam represented the human race, thus his choices impacted all of humanity.

WHAT WERE THE PROVISIONS OF THE COVENANT?

1. The earth was created as a habitation of man. Man was told to populate the earth.
2. Man was told to subdue the earth (Gen. l:28b). Previously, authority over the earth had been given to Satan (Ezek. 28: ll-19). But when Satan fell, he lost his authority over this earth. That is the reason Genesis 1:2 describes the earth as being covered by water and darkness being over the face of the deep. Hence, God began to form and fashion the earth to make it habitable for man, and this time He would give man the authority over the earth. Man was to subdue it; he was to use the natural resources and energies of the earth that God had provided for him.
3. Man was given dominion over all living things (Gen.1:28c). The earlier provision gave man authority over the earth as far as non-living things were concerned. This provision extended man's authority over all living creatures. The entire animal kingdom on the earth, in the air, and in the sea was put under the authority of man. The first exercise of this authority was man's naming of the animals (Gen. 2:19-20).
4. The fourth provision concerned man's diet (Gen. 1:29-30; 2: 16). At this point man was to be a vegetarian. There is nothing in this covenant that allowed him to eat of the animal kingdom although he was to exercise authority over it. No blood of any kind was to be shed.
5. Man was to care for and to keep the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15). Even in his unfallen state, work was part of the human plan. However, labor was easy and the land would produce easily; it was not toilsome.
6. Man was forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17a). This was the only commandment that said “no” in the Edenic Covenant. This was the one test to see how man would respond to the will of God; it was a test of the recognition of and the submission to the will of God.
7. The seventh provision contained a penalty for disobedience: spiritual death (Gen. 2:17b). This cannot refer to physical death because man did not die on the very day that he disobeyed the commandment.

WHAT IS A DISPENSATION?

In order to be valid, any attempt to depict or describe the Bible’s philosophy of history must contain the following six necessary elements:

• An ultimate purpose or goal for history toward the fulfillment of which all history moves
• The recognition of distinctions or things that differ in history
• A proper concept of the progress of revelation
• A unifying principle which ties the distinctions and progressive stages of revelation together and directs then toward the fulfillment of the purpose of history
• A valid explanation of why things have happened the way they have in the past, why things are the way they are today, and where things are going in the future, and
• Appropriate answers to mankind’s three basic questions: Where have we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?

Simply put, a very significant attempt to explain or set forth the Bible’s philosophy of history is known as Dispensationalism or Dispensational Theology, which can be defined as a system of theology which attempts to develop the Bible’s philosophy of history on the basis of the sovereign rule of God. It represents the entirety of Scripture as being covered by several dispensations of God’s rule.

In his teaching on the Covenants, Dr. Fruchtenbaum looks at the Covenants of God from a “Dispensational” view. In my years of Bible study, I heartily agree.

THE COVENANTS STATUS

From a dispensational view, the Edenic Covenant also describes an age or time on God’s sovereign plan of history known as The Dispensation or Age of Innocence.

Satan appeared in the Garden of Eden as a fallen creature, showing that man was not created in a perfect universe, for sin was already in existence. Although not yet existent in man, it was already present in Satan. The devil did his work of tempting man in the same three areas as set forth in I John 2:16.

The first phrase of Genesis 3:6: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, corresponds to the first phrase of I John 2:16: the lust of the flesh .The second phrase of Genesis 3:6 and that it was a delight to the eyes, corresponds to the second phrase of I John 2: 16 “the lust of the eyes”. And the third phrase of Genesis 3:6: to be desired to make one wise, corresponds to the third phrase of I John 2: 1 and the “vainglory” [pride] of life.

Eve gave in to the temptation and disobeyed the one negative commandment. Adam recognized what had happened, but he still chose to join his wife in disobedience. Their first reaction was an attempt to hide from the presence of God, which only illustrated the truth of Genesis 2: 17. Man at that very moment died spiritually and could no longer share the same communion with God he had experienced before his disobedience. With that act, the Edenic Covenant, being conditional, came to an end.

In our next offering, we will look at the Mosaic Covenant, also known as the Age or Dispensation of Law.

The Covenants of God

More and more, I see the apostasy that has embraced the church today.  Sadly, my friends the roots of believers today overall are sadly lacking in Biblical knowledge. Does it surprise me? No. The Apostle Paul talked of the apostasy that would come in 2 Thessalonians 2.  But with that said, I am keenly observant of what is being taught in the churches today and how those things align with the full counsel of God.  

Dr. Arnold Fruchentenbaum is one of the premier teachers of solid Biblical truth and the foundations of our faith today. I cannot even begin to say how much I've gleaned from this great man. In my next few entries, I am going to be condensing some of Dr. Fruchtenbaum's commentary on the 8 Covenants of the Bible. Please note I will be condensing.  I have asked and received permission to use from Ariel Ministries, owners of the Manuscripts.  I also urge you not to stop here, but to glean from all the teachings available (Including the Full Texts of the Covenant teachings) that can be accessed free of charge at https:www.ariel.org/resources/come-and-see/studies?navid=2390956 
 

You already know that I am expecting my Lord to come soon.  Because of that, the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18 pursues my heart. It is for this reason, I try to share as much as I can with others what the Lord has brought freely to me.

Can we really know the Bible without understanding "Covenant"? I don't think so. Let’s talk about “covenant”. We hear the words "heirs" according to promise, but what is that we inherit? Who am Let’s begin by examining the basics…

A covenant is a legal agreement, a contract between two or more parties. God in all of history has Covenant with only two nations:  1) The nation of Israel and 2) The new nation that would be birthed as the Church -- Neither Jew nor Gentile, but one new man in Christ.  

In common with most business or personal contracts the Covenants of God contain the following:

1. Parties to the covenant.
2. Specified territories and areas of concern.
3. A reason for its existence, an outcome.
4. Rules, provisions and conditions.
5. Results, benefits and penalties. In spiritual language these are called blessings and cursings.
6. Signatures, Witnesses and a Seal.
7. Implementation Procedures: ratification, registration, publication and a starting date etc. 

 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family and from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. ² I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Genesis 12:1-3

Dr. Fruchtenbaum teaches us that since much of God's relationship to man is based upon covenantal relationships, a study of the eight covenants is a very important aspect of correctly understanding Scripture.  The most common way to divide the Bible is by dispensations.  The dispensations, however, are based upon specific covenants, and understanding these covenants will help Bible readers to "rightly divide the word of truth" (II Tim. 2:15). Although the dispensations may come to an end, the covenants themselves continue.

There are two types of covenants in the Bible: conditional and unconditional. It is important to distinguish between these two types of covenants in order to have a clear picture of what the Bible teaches.

Dr. Fruchtenbaum notes that a conditional covenant is a bilateral covenant in which a proposal of God to man is characterized by the formula: if you will, then I will whereby God promises to grant special blessings to man providing man fulfills certain conditions contained in the covenant. Man's failure to do so often results in punishment. Thus one's response to the covenant agreement brings either blessings or cursings. The blessings are secured by obedience and man must meet his conditions before God will meet His.

Two of the eight covenants of the Bible are conditional: the Edenic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant.

An unconditional covenant is a unilateral covenant and is a sovereign act of God whereby He unconditionally obligates Himself to bring to pass definite blessings and conditions for the covenanted people. This covenant is characterized by the formula: I will which declares God's determination to do as He promises. Blessings are secured by the grace of God. There may be conditions in the covenant by which God requests the covenanted one to fulfill out of gratitude, but they are not themselves the basis of God's fulfilling His promises.

Six of the eight covenants are unconditional: the Adamic Covenant, the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Land Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant.

In the next few postings, primarily borrowing from Dr. Fruchtenbaum's work, we will be examining both the conditional and the unconditional covenants of the Bible.