An Article of Faith

God’s Word contains several different covenants. A covenant is an agreement between two people or two groups that involves promises on the part of each to the other. Human covenants were either between equals or between a superior and an inferior. Divine covenants, however, are always of the latter type, and the concept of covenant between God and His people is one of the most important theological truths of the Bible.
Indeed, the word itself has come to denote the two main divisions of Christian Scripture: Old Covenant and New Covenant (traditionally, Old Testament and New Testament).
The very first covenant God established was the covenant in the Garden of Eden: “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).
The Garden of Eden was the first home of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman God created (Genesis 2:4-3:24). Eden is a translation of a Hebrew word which means “Delight,” suggesting a “Garden of Delight.” The garden contained many beautiful and fruitbearing trees, including the “tree of life” and “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9).
The covenant in Eden (or the Edenic Covenant) is the first of the general or universal covenants. In it: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:27-28).
The covenant in Eden was terminated by man’s disobedience. God warned, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16b-17). When Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, they fell from their original state of innocence. Satan approached Eve through the serpent and tempted her to eat of the forbidden fruit (Gen. 3:1-5). She ate the fruit and also gave it to Adam, her husband, and he ate (Gen. 3:6). Their disobedience plunged them and all of the human race into a state of sin and corruption.
Because of their unbelief and rebellion they were driven from the garden: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ – therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:22-24).
Christ is the “Last Adam” who would save the old sinful Adam through His plan of redemption and salvation: “The Scriptures tell us, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living person.’ But the last Adam – that is, Christ – is a life-giving Spirit. ... So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another Man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life” (1 Corinthians 15:45, 21-22 NLT)
Jessie J. Charpentier Sr. is pastor of Jenkins Memorial Baptist Church in St. Martinville.