GOD'S DEALING WITH MAN

THE EDENIC COVENANT

Gen. 1:28-30

            Some of you who read this will immediately dismiss it calling me a dispensationalist.  That’s all right; I have been called worse.  The point here, however, is not to push a doctrine of dispensationalism but to acquaint ourselves with God’s program.  You may call it a dispensation, or a section of God’s Sovereign Kingdom, or what ever you choose.  The question is just what did God say?  There were only two humans; Adam and Eve.  God told them to be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth.  I have heard it proclaimed that the sexual act was the forbidden fruit.  How foolish can one be!  If the sexual act between a man and his wife was sinful, why then would God tell them to enter into it and fill the earth with their kind?  It may be that they sinned in not doing so depending on how much time had elapsed since the command, because there were no children.

            A second command was that they should be king over all the earth.  They were to have dominion over all the earth.

            Their diet was to be made up of all the herbs and fruits that the Garden of Eden was producing.

            They were to keep the garden.  They were to dress it and keep it.  We know not what the dressing of an uncorrupted garden would be like.  Keep in the Bible also means guard.  It was their responsibility to guard that garden from all evil.  With these two first humans God began to teach human responsibility.  Thank God for His Sovereign Grace Salvation, but also remember that man is responsible.

            Man was made responsible to obey God.  He was gracious and gave them permission to eat of every tree in the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  Gen. 2:17.  They were to obey God and not eat of that particular tree.  He taught them the consequences of sin with the penalty of death.  In the day that they would eat of that forbidden tree, they would surely die.

            Eve was tempted of the devil, and she ate.  Then she gave of it to Adam, and he did eat.  They did not die physically that day, but they did die spiritually and the seed of physical death was planted in them.  Every descendant of these two is born to a fallen or corrupted progenitor.

            That principle of responsibility to obey God, and the penalty of sin being death still stands and declares that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  The principle also remains that the soul that sinneth; it shall die.

            Again, whether you believe in the dispensational system or not, you must admit that these things did actually take place, and do affect man today.  What say ye?  Feel free to leave your comment.