COVENANT OF CREATION & ADAMIC COVENANT 

by Steve and Terri White

Genesis 1 - 5; Ephesians 1

PART ONE: COVENANT OF CREATION

Before the foundation of the world, God had a plan (Eph. 1:4). To implement His plan, He began with the Covenant of Creation as the foundation of the universe, and of the entire human race before sin entered the world. While it describes the purpose of man’s creation and the meaning of his existence on the planet, it is only the seed-bed of God’s fullest intentions – the place of beginnings. In this covenant, God committed Himself to the wise ordering and continuance of the universe until His purposes are fulfilled. Even though the word covenant is not found in the account of creation, Jeremiah 33:20, 25 refers back to God’s covenant of creation : "Thus says the LORD: ‘If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with night, so that there will not be day and night in their season . . . If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth . . . ’ " (Jeremiah 33:20,25)

Before the book of Genesis unfolds God's creative acts, it   starts with an amazing declaration: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).  "The Hebrew word translated 'beginning,' however, also means 'first-fruits'.  Understanding this, we then find in Genesis 1:1 that the heavens and the earth were created in Christ, our first-fruits.  An alternate translation might be: "In Christ, God created the heavens and the earth." Before creation, there was only God, and it is from out of Himself that He created the heavens and the earth.  In Romans 11:36 we read that "Because, from out of the midst of Him, and through the midst of Him, and into the midst of Him is the whole [the 'whole' meaning everything God created, including mankind]."  [In other words, God did not create the heavens and the earth out of nothing, since there was no such thing as nothing because there was only God Who filled all.] (Excerpted from "In Adam/In Christ," by John Gavazzoni.)2. Covenant of Creation

The Covenant of Creation is two-fold: (1) The ordering of the universe; (2) Man’s purpose. As referred to in Lesson One, God as a 'greater ruler' has authority to impose a covenant on His creation. Since the other party is not an equal, there is nothing they can offer to the covenant except obedience. God’s creation --  the stars, sun, earth, etc. -- continue to work in harmony according to their design; in other words, they cannot choose to co-operate. Man, on the other hand, was given the ability to choose: he can choose to obey God’s covenant or disobey. God desires mankind to love Him by his own choice.

In the Covenant of Creation, God provided life, food, and fellowship for man. As in #9 in the model covenant (Lesson One), He pronounced death as the penalty for breaking the limit that He placed on their dominion.

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.’ " (Genesis 2:16,17)

Man was created in God’s image.  "He (the Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (Col. 1:15). "This means that the first man Adam was created in Christ, who is the image of God.  Whatever Adam possessed from God, he possessed by virtue of being in God's image.  Whatever his humanity possessed, it possessed IN the image of God.  All that he was and possessed accrued to him IN Christ, for the scripture states that the image of God is not someTHING, but the image of God IS Christ." (--John Gavazzoni) 

When God created mankind out of the dust of the earth, He created one man, Adam. The woman, as a separate being, did not yet exist. Later, God removed the woman from Adam’s side, taking out Adam’s feminine characteristics. In other words, Adam, created in God’s likeness, originally had both sets of attributes that today we call feminine and masculine.

This has nothing to do with physical appearance -- Adam did not look partly masculine and partly feminine. It only has to do with his nature. While we are more familiar with God as a "father/creator" figure, it is not pagan or improper to examine the interesting and touching feminine side of His nature indicated by His name, El Shaddai (Genesis 17:1). El, meaning Strong One or Eternal One, is the basic Hebrew term for God; Shaddai is formed from the Hebrew root shad, which means a woman’s breast. This is God expressing Himself as our nourisher, strength-giver, and satisfier, who pours Himself into our lives -- the "feminine" side of God. El Shaddai reveals God’s all-sufficiency. Before Adam’s feminine attributes were removed, Adam, as God’s image-bearer, was complete or sufficient, being both male and female. However, Adam was alone. He recognized that he did not have another "like him" when he named the animals. When He separated Adam’s two natures, God not only met Adam’s need for fellowship, but also enabled the fruitfulness attribute of El Shaddai to be fulfilled.

The Hebrew for Adam is Ish. When Adam first saw the woman, he named her Isha, meaning one like me, but different -- his counterpart. Separately, Ish and Isha were not whole, but together as husband and wife they were one (Genesis 2:24) as Ish was one before Isha was removed from his side. Together their purpose on earth was to have dominion and to be fruitful. As image-bearers of God, they were "vice-regents" over the earth (Psalm 8:4-8), and it was God’s intention that this couple fill and rule the earth with God’s love (I John 4:16).  In their relationship with God, they had a consciousness of their oneness or union with Him; there was no sin, no sickness, no disease, and no death. In this environment mankind would live in perfect harmony and would be the beginning -- not the fullness -- of God’s original intentions for ‘His family’ (see Ephesians 1). 

Ish and Isha were created in innocence -- not knowing good or evil --  and had yet to be tested.  In the middle of the garden was their place of choice (testing): the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life.  Thus, there were two ways set before mankind -- the way of life in the spirit by living in union with God through the tree of life, or the way of death by walking after the flesh in union with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  By trusting and obeying God, Ish and Isha would  remain innocent. It was God’s desire that mankind simply enjoy an intimate, love relationship with Him, allowing their love for God to determine their choices. Because of this, God took the initiative and met with Ish and Isha daily for fellowship.

After a time, the crafty serpent (The Lie) presented Isha with an attractive alternative to God’s directives, leading her to doubt both God’s truthfulness (You shall not surely die) and His motives (God knows that in the day you eat . . . you shall be as gods). As Isha, and in turn her husband, ate of the fruit, they sealed their choice to believe beguiling half-truths and to disobey God.  Indeed, God Himself acknowledged that they had become "as one of us, to know good and evil" (Gen. 3:22).  The only problem was that it was a godhood  based on the lie -  separation from God.  Man became a self-created god, a self-centered god, truly the god of this world, but not the expression of the divine nature.      

Thus the glory of God, which had been their covering (Ps. 8:5), departed, leaving them naked and afraid.   They hid from God and made excuses when He came to seek them out.

In order to properly deal with mankind’s sin, God imposed a different covenant with the following terms: