III. However, the received opinion among the orthodox is that the promise given to Adam was not only of a happy life to be continued in paradise, but of a heavenly and eternal life (to which he was to be carried after the course of perfect obedience and perseverance had been run and which God had prescribed to him as a trial of his faith). Hence it is evident that the question is not whether Adam had the privilege of immortality in his upright state (which we have proved before against Socinus). The question is not whether the promise was given to him of happiness and life perpetually to endure, if he had persisted in integrity (which the learned men, with whom we here dispute, do not deny). Rather the question is whether that happiness and life were to be passed in heaven or only upon the earth and in paradise. The latter, they affirm; we the former.

IV. The reasons are: (1) The law of works had the promise of heavenly and eternal life; therefore also the law prescribed to Adam. In each instance, it is the same law as to substance. The former is evident from “who doeth these things, shall live by them” (Lev. 18:5); “if thou wilt enter into life” (namely, the heavenly) “keep the commandments” (Mt. 19:16, 17); and “the commandment was ordained to life” (Rom. 7:10) assuredly, not earthly, but heavenly. Since however, after the fall, the law can justify no one, this promise must necessarily have had place in upright Adam.

Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–97), 8.6.3–4 [p. 583].

Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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