Divine Covenants
Covenant of Innocence - Garden of Eden
Bible scholars have divided the entire span of time from creation to the
final judgment (Genesis to Revelation) into seven distinct eras or covenants:
Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Grace, and the Millennial
Kingdom. In each covenant, God reveals more about Himself and how to please Him
by making a covenant (contract) with man. In each covenant, God specifies His
own contractual obligations as well as man's contractual obligations. Throughout
the Bible, God has consistently honored his covenant obligations while man has
repeatedly failed to comply with his. Man's failure ends in divine judgment,
after which God enters into a new covenant with man. Tracing God's activity
through each covenant and having an understanding of the provisions of each
covenant, is a valuable tool in "rightly dividing the word of God."
When God first created Adam and Eve, they were without sin and enjoyed direct
fellowship with Him. Man's responsibilities under God's first covenant was to
maintain their fellowship with Him, tend the garden, have many children and fill
the earth, and obey God's command not to touch or eat the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil. Man's failure led to judgment: men would now have to
work hard tilling the ground to make a living, women would have to suffer during
childbirth, and their sin caused death to enter the world and forced a
separation from God.
Covenant Obligations:
!Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, have many children and rule over God's creation.
!Genesis 2:15 Take care of the Garden of Eden.
!Genesis 2:16-17 Do not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Man's failure ends in judgment:
!Genesis 3:14 Judgment on the Serpent.
!Genesis 3:15 Judgment on Satan and the Promise of the Messiah.
!Genesis 3:16 Judgment on the Woman.
!Genesis 3:17 Judgment on the Man.
Conscience | Human Government | Promise | Law | Grace | Millennial Kingdom