If you’re married, you understand a bit about covenants. Most likely, you stood as a couple before a pastor or another licensed official and repeated marriage vows (a similar word for covenant) to love and obey your spouse. Often, an elaborate certificate is written, titled “Our Marriage Covenant.” However, a covenant and a vow are markedly different in the Bible. A vow is a stated promise between people who may or may not reciprocate. God institutes His covenants, and they may be conditional (“I will, if you…”), or unconditional (“I will…”).
We will investigate a particular biblical covenant, the Adamic covenant, which contains two parts.
Where Does the Bible Mention the Adamic Covenant?
The two-part covenant is spelled out in Genesis 2-3 (the conditional covenant of works) and Genesis 3:16-19 (the Protoevangelium). Part of Genesis 2-3 records what happened in Creation pre-Fall. God finished His work, then established the seventh day of rest (the Sabbath) and proclaimed it holy. God formed Adam and “put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).
The Protoevangelium is the covenant God instituted with Adam and Eve after they sinned and broke fellowship with God. The fall affected all of humanity from that moment on, but God… This portion of the Adamic covenant includes curses. The first curse is addressed to the serpent, Satan’s instrument, whom God said would crawl on his belly and eat dust. Eve would bear much pain in childbearing and desire to rule her husband. The Lord cursed the ground and not Adam directly. But he would be affected by his hard work with the ground because the ground would produce thorns and thistles.
But God included a future and irrevocable blessing (the covenant) when He said, “I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15). This is the first promise of redemption spoken directly to humanity from God. It promises Jesus Christ, Eve’s offspring, will come to make things right.
An interesting aside: Genesis 3 employs a classic Hebrew literary structure (chiasmus) where verses correspond to each other in descending and ascending order.
What Was Adam Expected to Do Under the Adamic Covenant?
Adam was required to obey God to receive God’s blessing. The works covenant had Adam work the garden of Eden and name the birds of the air and animals of the ground God brought to him (Genesis 2:19). In addition, Adam and Eve were to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue to and have dominion over the birds and land-moving animals (Genesis 1:22, 26).
The negative part of the covenant, where God told them not to do something, was His command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God clearly spelled out the consequences if Adam did eat the fruit—death (Genesis 2:16-17).
Did Adam’s Sin Break the Adamic Covenant?
When Adam took the fruit from Eve and ate it, he broke the Adamic covenant and brought sin and death to all humanity (Romans 5:12-14). By God’s grace, His plan of redemption is unthwarted. God does not have a “plan B.”
Hosea 6:7 gives us some insight into later generations. God is speaking to Israel, namely their disobedience and corruption. Through Hosea, He tells them that, like Adam, they have disobeyed the covenant.
Do We Have to Follow the Adamic Covenant?
The Adamic covenant was for Adam and all the covenants that came before Jesus Christ, the new covenant. As the Bible tells us, all the past covenants are fulfilled in Jesus.
What Other Covenants Do We See in the Bible?
The biblical covenants develop a unified cord of God’s redemptive work throughout the Bible. Skip Heitzig and others have called this the scarlet thread running through the Bible. Jesus is the focus of the Bible God handed down to us, and all of history changed when He died on the cross at Calvary and was resurrected. As Heitzig notes in the article linked above, “The great Bible teacher of yesteryear, William Evans, noted, ‘Cut the Bible anywhere and it bleeds.’ The blood of Jesus stains every page, every book, in both testaments. Evans observed that ‘the atonement is the scarlet cord running through every page in the entire Bible’; it ‘is red with redemption truth.’”
Different theological systems emphasize covenants in different ways. For example, the Reformed Theology Covenant view of Scripture looks at history as a series of covenants between God and humanity, all leading to their climax in the new covenant of grace (Jesus Christ). Although the word “covenant” does not appear in Scripture until Genesis 6:18, the Bible includes four explicit and three implicit covenants. In order of their appearance in Scripture, they are:
1. The eternal covenant of redemption (implicit). This was the covenant between the three members of the Trinity before Creation (John 17:1-5, Philippians 2:5-11).
2. The Adamic covenant—containing the conditional covenant of works (explicit) and the Protoevangelium (implicit). First, God established this covenant of works with Adam before the fall (Genesis 2-3). Second, He established the post-fall Adamic curses to the serpent, Eve, and Adam’s work, and also the promise of a Savior (Protoevangelium) and the devil’s demise.
3. The Noahic covenant (explicit). So much changed after the flood. From a multitude of people to the eight who walked off the ark. Animals, both land and birds, now had a dreadful fear of humanity. Before the flood, humans had a vegetarian diet. Post-flood, God allowed men to eat animals (Genesis 9:1-8). In Genesis 9:9, God establishes His covenant with Noah, his family, and all living creatures. He would never again destroy the earth or cut them off by a flood. In Genesis 9:12-13, God proclaims He will set His ”bow” over the earth as a sign of the covenant. Every rainbow sighting should give a Christian pause to praise God for His faithfulness.
4. The Abrahamic covenant (explicit). The covenant is instituted in Genesis 12 and confirmed in Genesis 17. In it, God promised to make Abraham a great nation and bless him. All people of the earth would be blessed through Abraham. God also set the boundaries of the Promised Land He would give to Abraham’s direct descendants. One more proviso was God would make Abraham the father of many nations. The sign of the Abrahamic covenant was circumcision, which is the perpetual mark of this eternal covenant with Abraham and his male progenies.
5. The Mosaic covenant (explicit). God created four main components to the Mosaic covenant: the exodus, the confirming of the old covenant, the institution of the Law, and the practices of the old covenant. The old covenant law attested to God’s mandate for unflawed holiness and focused Israel on their search for a Savior.
6. The Davidic covenant (explicit). Psalm 89:28-29 states the covenant God made with David and his line was everlasting; He promised never to forsake His love from David’s line. God would be Israel’s King forever, and One of David’s line (Jesus Christ) would reign forever.
7. The new covenant (explicit). Jeremiah 31:31 is the only explicit mention of this covenant, though other passages imply it (Ezekiel 36:26-27, Isaiah 54:10, Isaiah 55:3, Isaiah 61:8). John 3:16 encapsulates this covenant. God promised all humans He would forgive their sins and restore a right relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Intercessor, and His death on the cross founds the covenant. His resurrection gained victory over death for those who surrender to Him as Lord and Savior.
Why Do Covenants Matter So Much?
Covenants are paramount in the Bible because God initiated and instituted each one (as mentioned above). Because of Who He is, we can be sure His covenants are true and will come to fruition, whether conditioned by humanity’s obedience or as an unconditional promise.
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Andreus
This article is part of our Christian Terms catalog, exploring words and phrases of Christian theology and history. Here are some of our most popular articles covering Christian terms to help your journey of knowledge and faith:
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