Glimpses 03

Adamic Covenant

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G'day and welcome to Partake! We are now on day 3 of our series "Glimpses", looking at the story of the Bible in 30 days, from the time of creation through to the time of the fullness of redemption!

Reading from Genesis 3v14-21 Then the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel." Then he said to the woman, "I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you." And to the man he said, "Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return." Then the man-Adam-named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.

Disaster and Curse!

After the blessing of the Edenic Covenant between God and humanity, disaster and curse strike! God walked with Adam and Eve and enjoyed fellowship together.  However as we read in Genesis 3v1-13, humanity broke their part of the covenant made with God!  What was once idyllic is now chaos! They failed to trust God at His word and actively disobeyed Him. Under the terms of the Edenic Covenant, they had to be punished. Where they once trusted God implicitly and explicitly, now was guilt to be found and this is evidenced in that they endeavoured to hide from God. Irenaeus, writes: When Adam fell, he lost the likeness, but the image remained fully intact. Humanity as humanity was still complete, but the good and holy being was spoiled. Augustine, another of the early Church Fathers developed this further: Human nature was certainly originally created blameless and without any fault; but the human nature by which each one of us is now born of Adam requires a physician, because it is not healthy. All the good things, which it has by its conception, life, senses, and mind, it has from God... But the weakness which darkens and disables these good natural qualities, as a result of which that nature needs enlightenment and healing, did not come from the blameless maker but from original sin, which was committed by free will. For this reason our guilty nature is liable to a just penalty.

Adamic Covenant

This second covenant between God and humanity, is also titled the covenant with all of mankind, as it lays down the terms and conditions which hold until sin's curse is lifted (Isaiah 11v6-10; Romans 8v18-23).  As elucidated by Irenaeus and Augustine, because of Adam's sin, we are all born under the curse of sin. The terms and conditions of this covenant include:

• The snake, or Satan, although enjoying limited & temporal success (Genesis 3v15), will ultimately be judged (Genesis 3v15).
• The first hint or notion of a saviour or messiah is given in Genesis 3v15
• Childbirth now involves pain and the woman is made subject to her husband (Genesis 3v16)
• The ground is cursed and weeds will grow amongst the food (Genesis 3vv17 - 19)
• Physical changes occur and now people sweat when they work (Genesis 3v19)
• Because of their sin and disobedience, people die spiritually and inevitably physically.  (Genesis 3v19).

So the Edenic Covenant was broken by humanity, and God puts in place a new covenant!  But this Adamic covenant, with the hint of a promise attached that one day true fellowship between God and humanity will be restored in full and out of death, new life will come. So the story continues! Tomorrow we look at another step in the story.

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