Written by Paul J Bucknell on February, 16, 2024

CCW04 Five Alternate Biblical Themes for Genesis 2:15-17

Section 1 introduced the Covenant of Works, while Section 2 presented evidence against the Covenant of Works. This last section explores alternative biblical themes that provide deeper insights into Genesis 1-3, especially 2:15-17. These models better highlight the dangers and benefits of theological frameworks.

A Critique of the Covenant of Works (Part 4/5)

A theological and biblical analysis of the Covenant of Works and Genesis 2:16-17

The Covenant of Works imposes an incorrect theological framework on Genesis, hampering an open exploration of the passage’s rich meaning. While the idea of covenantal continuity is correct, it only starts after the presence of sin, not before.

Other biblical themes are preferable because they relate the passage to a Bible theme. Biblical themes unfold a theological viewpoint throughout the Scriptures. These themes enhance our interpretation of the Bible by identifying how each verse fits into the grand redemptive scheme. These beginnings are not fully developed in Genesis but are powerful seeds bringing rich hope, finding their ultimate fulfillment in eternity’s new Garden.

I suggest five overarching themes in the Old and New Testaments to help provide a cohesive framework for understanding Genesis 2:15-17.

1) God’s goodness and mercy

God first reveals His goodness in Genesis 1. This age of goodness encloses the age of mercy, beginning with God’s promise of salvation in Genesis 3 after man sinned.

The Age of God’s Goodness

God’s words and actions reveal His nature. Since His works were excellent, we conclude God is good. The word “good” is used seven times in Genesis 1 and continues throughout the Scriptures!

Genesis 1-3, like a magnifying glass, displays various aspects of God’s marvelous goodness. I like to use the associated word ‘grace’ to describe His goodness, perhaps because it speaks of the underserved, magnanimous goodness bestowed on mankind by the Lord. Though made from dust, God made mankind in His image, crowned him as creation’s apex, and provided a beautifully equipped garden—all wonderfully heightened by fellowship with Himself.

God marvelously created and treated Adam by kindly breathing into his soul and graciously giving him life. Grace expounds God’s abounding goodness like spectacular fireworks. He further manifested His goodness once mercy joined the parade with God’s redemptive promise in Genesis 3:15 due to man’s sin.

The Age of God’s Mercy

The age of mercy starts with Adam’s disobedience and further describes God’s goodness. The desperate need for God’s mercy can be seen in five early Genesis scenes: Adam and Eve’s transgression, the exposure of their nakedness, being cast from the Garden, God’s enumerated curses, and death’s grip. God displays His initial mercy by confronting Adam, holding off physical death and the destruction of the human race, offering skins, and committing Himself to the promise of a deliverer, later seen in Christ (Gen 3:15).

This goodness-mercy theological overlay helps us understand the pivotal change that occurred in the fall. While God’s abounding goodness toward mankind starts from His good works in Genesis 1, God’s mercy, one aspect of God’s goodness, starts at the fall and depicts the sheer depth of God’s fantastic love.

God’s mercy amplifies the fullness of God’s goodness.

2) A Unique Word of Fatherhood from God

God the Creator also reveals Himself as mankind’s Father starting in Genesis 1-3. God created Adam in His image (Gen 1:27—not biologically generated), forming a son and family. He wonderfully outfitted the best of all gardens for him and hoped the best. He even verbally warned Adam to protect his welfare (Gen 2:16-17). This fatherly treatment (i.e., creating life, providing a garden) and words (i.e., instruction, warnings) help us understand the Creator God with the traits of a Father, our good Provider.

By highlighting God’s message to Adam in Genesis 2, we discover unique features describing God’s expectations, warnings, and general hopes for Adam and his descendants.

God’s intimacy, co-working, mentoring, and fathering are all displayed, vibrantly continuing into the New Covenant age and eternity. God is the vinedresser—“my Father is the gardener” (John 15:1), working in His people the way he chooses so that they bear much fruit (John 15:5).

While the terminology describing God as Father is only suggested later, this thought is inadvertently inferred when Adam is said to be created in God’s likeness. The chronology of Genesis 5 reveals man’s state: “He made him in the likeness of God” (Gen 5:1) and then, using the same Hebrew word for image, says, “He became the father of a son in his own likeness” (Gen 5:3). The son shares the same image as the Father. His sonship is affirmed in Luke 3:38, “the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”

Only in the New Testament does the calling of God as Father become common. The Old Testament only affirms God’s rule over the Israelites’ fathers. God is called father in only two places in the Old Testament (Psalm 89:26 and Isaiah 9:6).

The everyday use of Father in the New Testament corresponds to how God makes us His children and rebuilds His image through faith in Jesus Christ when reborn by His Spirit. God’s glorious nature magnificently unfolds with His redemptive plan in Christ.

God acts as a faithful Father, taking a vested interest in and committing to mankind’s welfare even when they go astray (Luke 15:20). God’s mission to impart His fabulous grace to mankind continues upon His adopted children, the church of God.

Though Old Testament events portray God’s mercy, such as in the mercy seat and sacrifices, they are more marvelously seen later through how God offers His only Son (John 3:16). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, willingly died for His people’s sins. Mercy is an extension of God’s grace, depicting the Father’s grand show of mercy.

This Father-Son relationship is seen through Christ and God’s family broadened through Jesus’ suffering. Jesus repeatedly called God His Father and proudly declared Himself His Son.

“All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Mat 11:27).

While the Scriptures support God as ‘Father,’ we acknowledge this theme is not openly stated in Genesis 2, which instead displays concrete examples of how his ‘Father’ cared for him.