I will our view into Genesis 2:16-17 with the words of Chapter 7, Article 2 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which refers specifically to this text. There the Confession says this,

“the first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.”

Note that label: the COVENANT OF WORKS. Not all Reformed theologians have agreed on that title.1 There have been other candidates. It has also been called the Adamic covenant (since that speaks of the party), or else the Edenic covenant (since that speaks of the place),2 or else the covenant of creation (speaking of the origin), or even the covenant of nature (speaking of its abiding quality). Whatever labels this or that theologian has opted for, there can be no disagreement that God put this first man in our place. Matthew Henry described Adam here as “a public person, the father and representative of all mankind.”3

We will see four pairs.

• Two Paths — Obey or Disobey

• Two Principles — Grace or Works

• Two Trees — Life or Autonomy

• Two Deaths — Spiritual and Physical

Doctrine. God put the First Man to a test and put the whole human race in that First Man.    

Two Paths

Perhaps the easiest thing to get from this passage—the thing that most parties would agree is taught here—is that God placed Adam, in a sense, between life and death, and that He did so by the pathways of obedience (unto life) or else disobedience (unto death). The simple contrasting words are ‘You may’ (v. 16) and ‘you shall not’ (v. 17). Before we even get to what kind of covenant this is, you should know that many object to the idea that this is a covenant at all. Where is the word COVENANT in this text? Of course we hear the same about the word TRINITY and all sorts of other words. Richard Belcher responds:

“The key is not whether the term ‘covenant’ occurs in Genesis 1-3 but whether the elements of a covenant are present.”4

So naturally, our next thought should be: Very well, what are those elements? Reformed theologians will typically point to five, and I will use Belcher’s list:

“First, the two parties to the covenant are clearly identified … Second, covenants have conditions … Third, covenants have blessings and curses … Fourth, covenants operate on the basis of a representative principle … Fifth, covenants have signs that point to the blessings of the covenant relationship.”5

There is something here that is the same as that covenant that God would later make with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai; and yet there is also something that is not the same. Take what is similar first: “if a person does [the commandments], he shall live by them” (Lev. 18:5). Simply read the whole of Deuteronomy 28 and you will see this same arrangement for Israel at the threshold of the Promised Land—blessing for obedience, and the curse for disobedience.

But then notice what is different in those words, ‘for in the day that you eat of it’ (v. 17). Do you see that? It is a one-and-done. So the Confession says, “upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” Not so with Israel.

“From the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel; there they have continued … When I please, I will discipline them, and nations shall be gathered against them when they are bound up for their double iniquity” (Hos. 10:9, 10).

So, with Israel, they had sinned innumerable times each day, and year after year, and yet the judgment of God stretched itself like the bending back of a archer’s bow over time. With Adam, the path of disobedience should have been seen as an immediate abyss that would instantly open up. The arrow would strike all at once to inflict that mortal wound.

Two Principles

Those words of the Confession are crucial here. I said at the beginning that the Reformed tradition has called this a covenant of works. The operative words of our text are the very first—‘And the LORD God commanded the man’ (v. 16). A command implies works for the simple reason that a command is a summons to do something. To anyone who says that the words “covenant” and “works” are not here in this text, I would also bring in the witness of the prophet who said, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me” (Hos. 6:7).

Much more controversial than the name that is used is the nature of the covenant. Is it by works or by grace? If it is a covenant of grace, then there are either two or one covenants of grace. If two, then that’s confusing to say the least, and this first gracious covenant does not sustain its members. If one, then everyone in Adam is also in Christ, and so everyone will be saved. So neither of those work. So to say that this is a gracious arrangement can only refer not to the method of securing its members for salvation, but only to say that everything good from God is undeserved. But then what about works? Paul says, “if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom. 11:6).6 True—but he said that about the inheritance of the covenant announced to Abraham and guaranteed to those offspring (Rom. 4:16).

By this original grace, Adam possessed what the Confession calls “endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image.” So we have even more of what is meant by the image of God to unpack here in this second chapter. KNOWLEDGE, RIGHTEOUSNESS, HOLINESS. There are two places in Paul’s letters which back this up. We are told, on the one hand, to “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10); and this renewed person is “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). Between those two verses, the Apostle shows us the reconstruction of what Adam was designed to be.

The “works” element—contrary to what critics of the covenant of works may say—does not imply that Adam would have merited from God apart from grace.7 That assumes that all reward is absolutely intrinsic, or that God would owe the creature, as an employee owes the laborer his due, to use Paul’s analogy in Romans 4:4. But, again—context, context, context. Just as Paul’s dichotomy between grace and works in Romans 11:6 was in the context of the inheritance of Abraham, so his metaphor of the laborer collecting his due in Romans 4:4 was in the context of the justification of believing sinners.

Two Trees

The TREE OF LIFE was mentioned in verse … The gracious principle is only unpacked here further by the allowance, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden’ (v. 16). The fact that this is a life source, or symbol of God as their life, suggests that it is not so speculative, after all, to suggest that Adam’s reward for obedience would have resulted in some kind of increased plateau of spiritual blessing. Glorified life? Irreversible immortality? Henry said, “immortal life, upon his obedience.”8 That is certainly supported by the reason given for the precaution of angels guarding that tree—“lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (3:22). In any case, there is a unity from cover to cover in that this is the name of the final tree: “I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7; cf. 22:2, 14, 19). And certainly that will sustain the saints in everlasting life.

The TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL is admittedly more mysterious. The one thing that is as plain as day is that it was forbidden: ‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’ (v. 17). Note the exceedingly reasonable contrast here: every tree versus one tree. Adam was given all things—but one thing was withheld.

Furthermore we must conclude that this tree is wholly good. It belonged to that “everything that he had made” where He said, “it was very good” (1:31). It is not the tree that was good and also evil—but of the knowledge of good and evil. This was no poison apple. This was no divine trap.

Adam already had the knowledge that he needed. Thomas Boston speaks of Adam’s “perfect knowledge of the law,” so that he “could not want knowledge.”9 How so? Well, this perfection of creaturely knowledge is never omniscience. Of course, we can never possess the totality of knowledge in itself, but rather the comprehension sufficient to be and to do as God requires. Adam was made a covenantal being—that is, his whole reason for being was to be pleasing and honoring to his Maker.

This teaches us a very important point: God always gives us knowledge on a “need-to-know” basis. We can trust God that He is both supremely good and supremely wise in the giving of knowledge, even in giving each of us different amounts of knowledge than He may give to other people. It may be that the whole point of the tree is what we do not know.10 This is Kidner’s view:

“In the context, however, the emphasis falls on the prohibition rather than the properties of the tree. It is shown to us as forbidden. It is idle to ask what it might mean in itself; this was Eve’s error. As it stood, it presented the alternative to discipleship: to be self-made, wresting one’s knowledge, satisfactions and values from the created world in defiance of the Creator (cf. 3:6).”11

Waltke adds emphasis to the same in saying, “The creature must live by faith in God’s word, not by a professed self-sufficiency of knowledge.”12

This is another parallel between Adam in the Garden and Israel in the Promised Land—faith in what God says versus our striving for autonomy.13 It is “a test of Adam and Eve’s loyalty to God.”14 And the faith element is further evidence that a “works” element does nullify grace—faith is fundamentally in the goodness of God to bless unconditionally. To a perfectly good soul, the condition is never a toil at all: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn. 5:3).

Two Deaths

The threat of death is clear enough here on the surface, and you will want to remember this because the serpent gaslights Eve about this very threat: ‘for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die’ (v. 17). But that’s not the only illusion that might be played upon us. Later on we read that,

“Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died” (Gen. 5:5).

So, it would seem, on the surface, that Adam did not die “in the day” that he ate of it. Or did he? Calvin calls this question “superfluous,” because at this point, Adam was “consigned to death, and death began its reign in him.”15 But I think we can be even more specific with the language used here.

What is not on the surface of our English translation is the unique Hebrew construction—unique as Hebrew, not “unique” in all of Scripture, because there are other instances of this in the Hebrew canon—but here it is. What we have in the KJV as “thou shalt surely die,” or in the NIV and NASB, “you will certainly die,” or in the NLT, “you are sure to die.” In the Hebrew the sentence ends with two consecutive uses of the word מוּת — the first in the infinitive absolute (מֹ֥ות), and the second in the imperfect with a future sense (תָּמֽוּת).16 The sense is specifically, ‘dying you shall die’. In other words, the first word isn’t for emphasis. The first word is describing a first death and the second a second death. Or, as I prefer to say it—not just first and second, but a root death and a fruit death. And think exactly of a plant, which being severed at the root and entirely separated from its source of life, gradually withers in that part of the plant that one can see at the surface.

Last time, I mentioned that when God breathed the breath of life into Adam, the word nephesh was used, which is also used about the form of animal life; yet the other word that is used I wanted to wait for here—the word for “living (חַיָּֽה) being.” There it shows up in the plural form: “breath of life” (חַיִּ֑ים). So why is that not translated as “lives”? And what would that even mean? There are at least four ways to interpret this: (1) it’s plural because it applies to Adam and Eve as mankind again; (2) it’s plural because the souls of all human beings are treated as being “in” Adam; (3) it’s plural because of the spiritual and physical dimensions of life which are mirrored here in the threat of death; or (4) this is another Hebrew word that takes the plural form but is still treated as a special kind of singular—as with the “royal we” (אֱלהִים) or the diverse connotation to “heaven” (שָׁמַיִם). The third option has a distinct advantage because of its closeness to the threat in verse 17 here.

That threat—DYING, YOU SHALL DIE—viewed as a plant, uprooted so that the severing is instant and the withering gradual, is confirmed elsewhere. Think of where Paul tells us that,

“you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:1-3).

Did you catch that language. DEAD, and then follows that string of action words: WALKED, FOLLOWING (2X), CARRYING. How can dead mean walk and follow and carry? The answer is that they are spiritually dead. It would be like asking how tumbleweed can tumble. The dead sinner is carried about by the winds of this world. He is as free as the tumbleweed and as fit to be burned. Again, Henry captures this in paraphrasing to Adam, “thy life … shall be a dying life.”17

How does this passage move us in our lives?

PRACTICAL

Use 1. Correction. At the heart of so many criticisms against the covenant of works and the doctrine of imputation is this very warm-sounding complaint that this ought to be viewed as a personal relationship, not an “abstract” or “legal” relationship. Well, I must disagree with those who wear the label ‘Reformed,’ but who use such plausible sounding arguments to convince others that Adam did not in fact represent the whole human race as their legal representative in this covenant—and that, what follows, deny that his act of disobedience God counted against us for guilt. But Paul expressly teaches this in Romans 5. Now of course, you may think it odd why I should want such a thing to be true! One answer I could give is to read that whole section (Romans 5:12-21) and ask yourself: If I think it so unfair that God should consider me to bear the guilt that Adam earned, why not be consistent and say it is unfair that God should consider me to bear the innocence and righteous performance that Christ earned? Because both are true. It is called IMPUTATION. We have imputed righteousness because we first had imputed unrighteousness. The two sides of the story are inseparable.

And those who pretend to give us a kinder, gentler Christianity by replacing all this “legal talk” for their more “personal talk,” by getting rid of Adam and Christ representing us in a test or in a courtroom, ironically, leave us on our own. Take a peak back into Eden and ask yourself: What do those in the Reformed house (especially those who go under the banner “Federal Vision”18)—what do they tend to make most of? Fatherhood, motherhood, homemaking, childbearing, and so forth. We ought to be all for it, because the Bible is. But we ought not be for doing those things on our own legal ground, because the Bible isn’t. And because I think we would fail as badly as we have surely failed already. Now the superhuman among us may recreate their Eden on their own steam; and, at the other extreme, others may throw away the cultural mandate because “it’s legalistic.” No, it’s not. Let us sail between and beyond both of these extremes. The legalism of home-boasting on the performance of some other federal head than Christ, on the one hand, and the home-fleeing liberalism that blames the wrong thing, on the other.

Use 2. Admonition. We ought to have all the more dread of spiritual death than for physical death—and that for two reasons: He who is the avenger of life and He who is the giver of life. Of that vengeance of life, Jesus tells us,

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mat. 10:28).

So spiritual death takes all where physical death, by itself, cannot. Then, of that Giver of life, Jesus also says,

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).

In these two ways, we must grow to dread spiritual death so that the fear of physical death melts away by comparison.

Use 3. Consolation. As we asked about Adam: How can one die in that day who lives on in the body? So about Lazarus, we must ask: How can someone live his last breath and yet never die? Clearly the life of the spiritual man must reign supreme over death. And so Paul tells us,

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47-49).

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1. John Murray spoke of the “Adamic Administration,” objecting to “the language of a covenant of works, not only in that it militated against the gracious character of God’s covenanting with man, but also that it speaks of a prefall ‘covenant,’ whereas the Scriptures reserve the language of covenant to God’s postfall dealings with the sinful creature” — Cornelis P. Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology: Essays on Election, Republication, and the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2017), 18; O. Palmer Robertson opted for “the covenant of creation,” for one because, “By thinking too narrowly,” the Reformed “have come to cultivate a deficiency in [our] entire world-and-life view” — The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 1980), 68.

2. It is often argued by those who hold to a mono-covenantal framework, that Calvin himself “only knew a covenant of grace” — (Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 6).

3. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 9.

4. Belcher, “The Covenant of Works in the Old Testament,” in Covenant Theology: Biblical, Theological, and Historical Perspectives, Guy Prentiss Waters, J. Nicholas Reid, and John R. Meuther, ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 64.

5. Belcher, “The Covenant of Works in the Old Testament,” 64, 65, 66.

6. As to non-Barthian arguments that “works” implies merit, Holmes Rolston III, John Calvin versus the Westminster Confession (Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1972), was a leading proponent.

7. The Barthian rationale for this misgiving is a bit different than the standard Reformed resistance to merit. Venema explains that, “consistent with his view of the covenant of grace as the internal basis of creation, Barth rejects any ordering of law and gospel in which the gospel does not have the first (as well as the last) word” (Christ and Covenant Theology, 8).

8. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 9.

9. Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, ????), 40.

10. Calvin’s comments, very much like Kidner’s, points to the fact that this may have been the first (excepting perhaps the nature of the Sabbath day) occasion in the Bible for the debate concerning natural law and positive law. So Calvin wrote, “for it would have made no difference to God, if he had eaten indiscriminately of any fruit he pleased. Therefore, the prohibition of one tree was a test of obedience” (Commentaries, I:125-26). In other words, in this view, there was nothing in the nature of the tree that made it so. Even if meaning is to be assigned to the relationship of good and evil, this would be extrinsic to the point that nothing but speculation remains to be thought about the tree itself.

11. Kidner, Genesis, 68.

12. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 87.

13. This is also the view of Hughes, calling it “moral autonomy — deciding what is right without reference to God’s revealed will” (Genesis, 55).

14. Belcher, Genesis, 67.

15. Calvin, Commentaries, I:127, 128.

16. Hamilton takes issue with this position, citing the “occasional use as an idiom meaning ‘for certain,’” yet he only cites one such occasion—1 Kings 2:37, 42; though Geerhardus Vos also took this view in Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 48-49.

17. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 9.

18. cf. Waters, The Federal Vision and Covenant Theology: A Comparative Analysis (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2006).