The Covenant of Works with Adam
Covenant Theology 101 (#4)
Covenant Breakers and the Covenant Keeper.
A young knight was newly sworn to the Round Table. At a Christmas feast, a green warrior entered King Arthur’s hall with a challenge: strike him down, then receive the same blow in one year and a day. Gawain accepted and struck off his head. One year later, he sought the Green Knight to fulfill his oath. At a lonely castle he faced tests of loyalty, yet accepted a green sash for protection.
When he finally faced the Knight, the return blow barely scratched him. The Knight revealed the test was not about strength, but trust. Gawain failed—the test exposed him. Ashamed, he wore the sash in failure. Yet his honesty restored his honor.
The old tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight echoes something far older. Long before Camelot, another man faced a divine test. Adam was called to trust his Lord’s word, but failed, trusting the deceiver’s lie instead. Yet that failure reveals a deeper story: the covenant God made with Adam.
Let’s consider the covenant relationship between God and Adam. This covenant is called the covenant of nature, creation,or law. With the Westminster Confession, we especially call it the covenant of works (7.2) because the LORD’s relationship with Adam threatened death and promised life on the basis of obedience.
Continuing Covenant Theology 101, let’s explore the essence of the covenant of works with Adam.
Was There a Covenant with Adam?
Some object because Genesis 2 never uses “covenant.” Yet the elements are present. Here are five reasons to believe there was a covenant with Adam:
Absence of the word doesn’t mean absence of its reality. The Davidic “covenant” (2 Sam. 7) isn’t called that until Psalm 89.
After God “cut” a covenant with Abram (Gen. 15), he “established” it (Gen. 17). The first use of “covenant,” God “establishes” it (Gen. 6:18)—assuming a covenant already existed.
In creation (Gen. 1:1–2:3), God is called elohim; in Adam’s story (2:4–25), he’s called Lord God (Yahweh elohim)—including his personal covenant name.
Hosea called Judah to repentance because, “like Adam” (ki’adam) they transgressed the covenant” (6:7)—the plain reading is as Adam broke covenant in the garden, Israel did.
Genesis 2 contains all the elements of a covenant:
Parties: the Lord God and Adam (vv. 5–16).
Law: “the Lord God commanded the man…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat”(vv. 16, 17).
Threat: “in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (v. 17).
Promise (implied from the threat): “do this and live.”
Signs: the trees—knowledge of good and evil as test of obedience (v. 17) and the tree of life as sign of eternal fellowship (v. 9).
What Kind of Covenant was Made with Adam?
The covenant of works means “life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience” (7.2).
God commanded humanity to “be fruitful and multiply…fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). He “put [Adam] in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15) and “commanded” (2:16): “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17). Adam was free with one restriction. Obedience would bring life; disobedience, death.
This obedience was central. Paul calls Adam “a type of the one who was to come” (Rom. 5:14), paralleling Adam and Christ: Adam’s disobedience brought condemnation and death; Jesus’ obedience brought justification and life. Both were representatives. What we say of Christ’s obedience, we may say of Adam’s potential obedience. Christ obeyed; Adam could have.
But how can we say this of a mere creature who couldn’t have any blessedness from God unless he voluntarily condescended (WCF 7.1), that his obedience would bring life? Adam, created upright and able to obey, existed “at the beginning of his ‘career,’ not the end” (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics). His obedience wouldn’t have earned eternal life by merit. It was the Creator who stooped to covenant, binding himself by promise of eternal life for obedience. Augustine said, “God became our debtor, not by receiving any thing, but by promising what he pleased. For, it was of his own bounty that he vouchsafed to make himself a debtor” (Cited in Witsius). Eternal life was disproportionate to the temporal and creaturely obedience of Adam.
What Was the Goal of this Covenant?
The goal was fellowship with God. The tree of life signified this (Gen. 2:9). The Lord generously filled the Garden with trees for refreshment—shade, fruit, and water (Gen. 2:9, 16). The tree of knowledge tested Adam’s obedience; the tree of life signified life “glorifying God and enjoying him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 1). Turretin said, “As often as he tasted its fruit, he…recollect[ed] that he had life not from himself, but from God” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology); Augustine called this tree a “sacrament” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis).
Covenant Breakers and the Covenant Keeper
But Adam failed. In him, we became covenant breakers.
Yet the story doesn’t end there. A second Adam came—the Covenant Keeper. Where the first Adam failed his test, Jesus fulfilled it. Adam hid behind a tree; Jesus hung upon one.
When you trust in him, you no longer wear a sash of shame, but Christ’s white robe of righteousness. The second Adam has restored what the first lost: eternal life. In him, the promise is ours: “to the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Rev. 2:7) and to partake of its healing “leaves” (Rev. 22:2).