Editor’s Note: The following is the complete chapter as it appeared in R. Scott Clark, ed., Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007), 89-135. In 2021, the publisher returned the publication rights to the copyright holder and the chapter is presented here as a service to the public by the Heidelberg Reformation Association. The material is copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to link to this chapter but you are not entitled to reproduce it in any way without permission of the copyright holder.

§

Power as such is a relational concept and requires relation.
—Hans Jonas

A writer who neglects the work of his predecessors and contemporaries is wasting his time and the time of his readers.
—E. H. Sturtevant

Introduction

Novelist Frederick Buechner,¹ hardly known for his strident orthodoxy, expressed the tremendous significance of the Eden narrative:

Most references to the secondary literature on Genesis, Romans, and Galatians are representative, since the literature is vast. Sometimes I cite both German and English versions of commentaries; however, the reader is reassured that the latest English versions are always cited since most will be referring to those works. Hebrew Bible text is quoted from Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Hebrew quotations from the Hebrew Bible and Mishnah are pointed; Qumran Hebrew quotations are unpointed.

1. See Maire-Hélène Davies, Laughter in a Genevan Gown: The Works of Frederick Buechner, 1970–1980 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983). Buechner was influenced by Barth, Tillich, and others.

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The old covenant of law grows out of God’s telling Adam and Eve that all Eden is theirs if only they will not eat of that one fatal tree; and the whole tragic history of Israel, not to mention of the rest of us, stems from their eating it anyway; and out of those garments of skins as emblematic of the love that will not let them go grows the new covenant of grace where nothing is asked of them except that they allow themselves to be clothed. As Saint Paul understood it, in the face of Adam, who went wrong, are already faintly visible the features of Jesus, who went right, was right, lived and died to make all things finally right and whole.²

Those words allude indirectly to a doctrine that has often received an esteemed pride of place in Reformed theology but is increasingly coming under criticism: the doctrine of the covenant of works.

So we begin by asking: Was there a prelapsarian covenant of works? Could Adam have merited something from God and been placed in a state of permanent confirmed righteousness? Was this covenant arrangement a matter of grace or justice?³ Was the covenant legal or relational?⁴ Are there differences and distinctions that must be

2. Frederick Buechner, “The Bible as Literature,” in A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible (ed. Leland Ryken and Tremper Longman III; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 42.

3. See, e.g., Rich Lusk, “A Response to ‘the Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 118–48. Lusk comments in response to those who argue in favor of a meritorious covenant claim: “As Aquinas pointed out, strict justice can only exist between equals. The creature is indebted to the Creator for his very existence; the creature can never indebt the Creator, no matter how much he serves or obeys. Unless we are going to exalt man to the same level as God, we must maintain a basic asymmetry” (121–22). I agree with Lusk’s statement that “we must maintain a basic asymmetry”; nevertheless, it is clear that Lusk is unfamiliar with Aquinas and should have noted, so as not to prejudice the issue, that this is not all that Aquinas says about justice and merit. For example, in Summa theologiae I-II Q.114 Aquinas also states: “And so man can only merit before God on the presupposition of a divine ordination, of such a kind that by his work and action man is to obtain from God as a sort of reward that for which God has allotted him a power of action. . . . Since our actions have a meritorious character only on the presupposition of a divine ordination, it does not follow that God becomes simply obliged by debt to us but to himself, in the sense that an obligation of debt holds that his ordination should be fulfilled”; see Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (ed. Thomas Gilby; New York/London: Blackfriars, 1972), 30.203. This statement would comfortably fit within a conception of merit from a covenantal perspective.

4. For example, see C. G. Berkouwer, Sin (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1971), 208: “If we drive a wedge between these concepts of works and grace [in the Edenic narrative] we interpose the notion of an impersonal legalism within the original relation of God and man” (emphasis original).

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maintained between the prefall covenant and the postfall covenant? What is the relationship between these covenants?

The classic Reformed view of the covenant of works is not a weak doctrine needing to be revised; rather, its classical expression as found in the Westminster Confession of Faith and elsewhere is the teaching of Scripture, and this position is only strengthened when carefully examined in light of modern biblical studies and linguistics. Indeed, good descriptions of the covenant of works may be found elsewhere.⁵ Oswald T. Allis gives a brief and simple description of the covenant of works: “God Commanded; Adam and Eve disobeyed; the penalty of sanction attached to the command was invoked; and the guilty pair, under sentence of death, were driven from the presence of God.”⁶

My presentation, however, is unique in some respects: it incorporates modern research in biblical studies in order to supplement the traditional presentation of the doctrine; it is concerned with the exegesis of some of the ideal biblical passages (sedes materiae); it describes the doctrine with current objections and objectors in view; it includes exegetical theology, biblical theology, and systematic theology

5. See, e.g., J. Gresham Machen, The Christian View of Man (London: Banner of Truth, 1965), 149–60; Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), 27–44; Oswald T. Allis, “The Covenant of Works,” in Basic Christian Doctrines (ed. Carl F. H. Henry; New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1962), 96–102; E. J. Young, In the Beginning: Genesis Chapters 1 to 3 and the Authority of Scripture (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976), 111–17; Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000), 91–117; O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 55–57, 67–87 (although Robertson has exceptions to the nomenclature works because of his view of the role of grace in both the covenant of works and grace); Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 211–18; Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1873; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 2.117–22; A. A. Hodge, The Confession of Faith: A Handbook of Christian Doctrine Expounding the Westminster Confession of Faith (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1983), 120–24; Robert L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 302–5; William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1950), 2.152–67; Turretin, Institutes 1.574–89 §8.3–7. Very instructive as well is Institutes 2.189–92 §12.4, where Turretin discusses the distinctions between the covenant of works and grace. In response to the adherents of the federal vision, see Morton H. Smith, “The Biblical Plan of Salvation, with Reference to the Covenant of Works, Imputation, and Justification by Faith,” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 96–117.

6. Allis, “Covenant of Works,” 97.

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in its methodology; and it supplements the traditional disciplines of biblical interpretation with modern linguistics.

Various theologians, some Reformed, have criticized the covenant of works in the past.⁷ In the present day, it is asserted that the doctrine is both a novelty and an abstraction in the history of the Reformed church that “deviated considerably from Calvin’s more pastoral, organic approach to biblical theology.”⁸ I will not take up the historical question,⁹ nor will I comment in any significant way upon the Mosaic covenant.¹⁰ I am concerned with criticisms that

7. Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1966), 214–26; Berkouwer, Sin, 207–8; John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976–82), 2.49; Klaas Schilder’s and S. G. DeGraaf’s views are easily accessible in Clarence Stam, The Covenant of Love: Exploring Our Relationship with God (Winnipeg: Premier, 1999), 40–54. On Schilder’s views, see also S. A. Strauss, “Schilder on the Covenant,” in Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Dr. Klaas Schilder (ed. J. Geertsema; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1995), 19–34, esp. 23–25; and C. Van Der Waal, The Covenantal Gospel (Neerlandia, AB: Inheritance Publications, 1990), 47–64. In consideration of whether the “inborn law of nature [was] repeated at Sinai,” Van Der Waal writes: “The doctrine of a covenant of works, despite the fact that it has been adhered to for ages, must yield to the glad tidings. The idea of contrasting covenant of works and covenant of grace, law and gospel, Old and New Testament, is to be rejected. There is but one history of grace, and one covenant” (59, emphasis original). See also Daniel P. Fuller, The Unity of the Bible: Unfolding God’s Plan for Humanity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 179–84; Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 119–21; W. J. Dumbrell, Covenant and Creation: An Old Testament Covenantal Theology (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1984), 43–46; and Gerard Van Groningen, From Creation to Consummation (Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 1996), 65–71. Van Groningen, who denies that the covenant with Adam was one of works and probation and who denies the possibility of eschatological reward, says: “They [Adam and Eve] had nothing to merit. No reward was given” (68; see also 98).

8. Lusk, “Response to ‘the Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” 119. Lusk reaches the pinnacle of his vitriolic criticism of the covenant of works when he says: “In short, the doctrine of a meritorious covenant of works has a dangerous Gnosticizing tendency on theology as a whole” (148).

9. This criticism suffers from many weaknesses that are beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say, however, that Geerhardus Vos attributes an ancient pedigree to the doctrine at least in its seminal form; see “Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vosz (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 234–67. Vos does not fail to upbraid those who would assert that the doctrine is merely a relatively recent doctrine: “Whoever has the historical sense to be able to separate the mature development of a thought from its original sprouting and does not insist that a doctrine be mature at birth, will have no difficulty in recognizing the covenant of works as an old Reformed doctrine” (237).

10. Indeed, a responsible serious and sustained study of the Mosaic covenant with respect to the possibility of the principle of republication of the covenant of works in some manner, apparent in many Reformed luminaries in the past, is still a desideratum for both exegetical and historical theology. As is well known, Murray rejects such a notion: “The first or old covenant is the Sinaitic. And not only must this confusion in denotation be avoided,

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touch most closely on the covenant of works in the Scriptures and in Westminster Confession of Faith 19.1 and 7.2–3, which are described by some as unclear or “at best confusing and at worse misleading.”¹¹ Such statements are themselves open to criticism.

What is wanted from all sides in the current debates is a serious investigation of the very words of the text themselves, in their cultural and canonical context.¹² This leads me to another concern: an understanding of speech utterances and narrative in the Bible that attempts to minimize legal description in favor of familial and relational categories.

but also any attempt to interpret the Mosaic covenant in terms of the Adamic institution. The latter could apply only to the state of innocence, and to Adam alone as representative head. The view that in the Mosaic covenant there was a repetition of the so-called covenant of works, current among covenant theologians, is a grave misconception and involves an erroneous construction of the Mosaic covenant, as well as fails to assess the uniqueness of the Adamic administration” (Collected Writings, 2.50). Nevertheless, the significant parallel between the Eden narrative and the potential gift of rest in Eden in connection with obedience to God’s commands and the land of Canaan in connection with the Israelites’ obedience later in the Pentateuch has not gone unnoticed by modern scholars in addition to many Reformed luminaries in the past. Cf. Eckart Otto, “Die Paradieserzählung Genesis 2–3: Eine nachpriesterschriftliche Lehrerzählung in ihrem religionshistorischen Kontext,” in “Jedes Ding hat seine Zeit . . .”: Studien zur israelitischen und altorientalischen Weisheit: Diethelm Miche zum 65. Geburtstag (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 241; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), 167–92, esp. 182. Whether the principle of works was merely hypothetical or actually operative in some manner during the Mosaic economy is the main question I have in mind, and the answer to that issue has systemic ramifications for covenant theology as a whole.

11. James Jordan, “Merit versus Maturity: What Did Jesus Do for Us?” in The Federal Vision (ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner; Monroe, LA: Athanasius, 2004), 154. Jordan sees himself as taking up Murray’s call for continued reformation of covenant theology: “The purpose of this paper is to take up Murray’s challenge, and provide a better systematic construction of the nature of the Adamic Covenant and of how Jesus fulfilled it for us” (155). Jordan seems to have ignored Gerhard von Rad’s comments, Genesis: A Commentary (trans. J. H. Marks; rev. ed.; Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972), 81: “Nothing [in Gen 2:15] is said to indicate that God combined pedagogical intentions with this prohibition (in the sense of a ‘moral’ development of man). On the contrary, one destroys the essential part of the story with such rationalistic explanations. Man in his original state was completely subject to God’s command, and the question, ‘Who will say to him, What doest thou?’ (Job 9:12; Dan 4:35b) was equally out of place in Paradise” (emphasis original).

12. See, e.g., Steve Schlissel’s appeal for systematicians to return to the text of Scripture in its original context in “Justification and the Gentiles,” in The Federal Vision (ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner; Monroe, LA: Athanasius, 2004), 237–61. The fact of the matter is, as Moisés Silva says, that “all interpreters recognize the crucial importance of context for exegesis. The meaning of every utterance depends, to a greater or lesser degree, on the setting of which it is a part”; see Interpreting Galatians: Explorations in Exegetical Method (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 103.

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I will challenge the widely received notion that financial, legal, or forensic metaphors often used in descriptions of the covenant of works and justification must now be transcended and replaced in theological, philosophical, and pastoral discourse. Indeed, in the current ecclesiastical and academic climate, one gains the impression that legal language has little explanatory power for such crucial topics as the doctrine of God, atonement, forgiveness, or justification any longer “after the philosophical ‘turn to relationality.’”¹³ I contend, however, that we must be rigorously fair with the full panoply of linguistic categories presented in Scripture. Otherwise, our potentially thick descriptions of the biblical content will be reduced to thin descriptions.¹⁴

Related to these methodological questions, but not exactly tantamount to them, is the antipathy for abstract theological frameworks and systematic theology in both the new perspective on Paul and the so-called federal-vision adherents and others.¹⁵ The contention often

13. Quoting F. LeRon Shults in Shults and Steven J. Sandage, The Faces of Forgiveness: Searching for Wholeness and Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 105. One can appreciate Shults and Sandage’s sophistication in and appreciation for understanding the fascinating play of individuals in the systemic dynamics of relational intersubjectivity. It seems, nevertheless, that their opinion that legal and financial metaphors are insufficient for describing the Christian doctrine of salvation in the practice of forgiveness is overworked as a theme in their book (cf. 12, 72, 123, 125, 133, 136, 139, 147, 148, 158, 172). For another example in systematic theology from a German theologian at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, see Christian Link, “Providence: An Unsolved Problem of the Doctrine of Creation,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 266–76. Link proposes adopting a model of God as king along relational lines as developed in process theology rather than the model of an almighty God with its similes and metaphors of absolute king or victorious general or “perhaps even that of good shepherd.” For Link, this shift provides the solution for overcoming the problems of causality associated with our traditional categories of providence. Kevin J. Vanhoozer, First Theology: God, Scriptures, and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002), questions the viability of the more “populist” metaphor, that is, “God is not over his people but among them” (although here he is polemicizing against Farley, Kelsey, and Barr). Vanhoozer states: “This personal-relational model of conceiving God’s presence and activity is not, however, without its problems” (149).

14. See Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), 328–31.

15. See, e.g., N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said: Was Paul of Tarsus the Real Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 79–80. Cf. Steve M. Schlissel, “A New Way of Seeing?” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 18–39. Schlissel sets up a false dichotomy between “story” and the doctrine of justification by faith (see esp. 22, 25, 27, 33). Also see Peter Leithart, “Trinitarian Anthropology: Toward a Trinitarian Re-Casting of Reformed Theology,” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal

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made in the current discussions is that the methods and practice of biblical theology entail demurring from the findings of systematic theology. I reassert, however, in the most emphatic terms that the proper use and application of the science of biblical theology, rather than supplanting systematic theology, will actually support and serve its purposes. In short, a wise use of biblical theology will usually not lead a scholar to the implication that the church has, all this time, “been chasing her own shadow.”¹⁶

This essay is divided into two unequal parts. More discussion is devoted to an exposition of the doctrine of the covenant of works from the Hebrew Bible¹⁷ (with primary reference to Gen 2–3) than to its

Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 58–71, at 65: “All this has one main implication for the current debate: Insofar as the Auburn Avenue conferences have proposed refinements of Reformed theology, we have done so in order to purge Reformed theology of pagan impersonalism and to replace it with more thoroughly Trinitarian and more thoroughly Calvinistic formulations. Abstraction, especially Enlightenment abstraction, is the great bogeyman of the Auburn Avenue speakers. The claim that Reformed theology has compromised with the Enlightenment is controversial (I believe it is true in many respects), but if it is true, then I trust all Christians will agree it is imperative to continue the process of purgation.” See also Steve Schlissel, “Justification and the Gentiles,” in The Federal Vision (ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner; Monroe, LA: Athanasius, 2004), 237–61, esp. 239–44. For an example of polemicizing against “bare law” abstraction and the law/gospel contrast, see Joseph P. Braswell, “Covenant Salvation: Covenant Religion vs. Legalism,” Journal of Christian Reconstruction 16 (1994): 204.

16. Geerhardus Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 3–24, esp. 23. An insightful article and comments on “bottom-up relationships” and “top-down relationships” by Al Wolters is germane: “Confessional Criticism and the Night Visions of Zechariah,” in Renewing Biblical Interpretation: Scripture and Hermeneutics Series (ed. Craig Bartholomew, Colin Green, and Karl Möller; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 1.90–117. For a simple and clear description of the necessity of relating systematic theology to exegesis and the problems entailed in the process, see Silva, Interpreting Galatians, 204–10.

17. The Old Testament has always been open to significant criticism throughout the history of the church. At times, there have even been attempts at wholesale rejection. Beginning with Marcion, who renounced so much of the Old Testament, and continuing to famous German scholar Adolf von Harnack, who challenged Christians to admit the irrelevance of the Old Testament, the function of the Old Testament for Christian theology has been challenged. See, e.g., Bernhard W. Anderson’s introduction to The Old Testament and Christian Faith: Essays by Rudolph Bultmann and Others (ed. Bernhard W. Anderson; London: SCM, 1964). To understand the significance of the Old Testament for a proper understanding of the New is not simply one theological problem among many; it may be argued that it is the problem of Christian theology. Anderson, for example, says with respect to the relationship between the Old Testament and the New that it is no exaggeration to say that “on this question hangs the meaning of the Christian faith.” See also A. H. J. Gunneweg,

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exposition from the Greek Bible. In the New Testament, I give primary attention to Paul’s letters to the Romans (especially Rom 5) and Galatians (especially 3:10). I take great pains to describe the setting of the Eden narrative before discussing one of the crucial texts (Gen 2:15–17) for the covenant of works. My premise is that if one understands the Edenic scenario and Adam’s role in it for what it is, then the gravity of that first sin and its entailments for the human race and Christ’s mission on earth become more vividly clear and dramatically weighty.

Covenant of Works in Moses

Terminology

We begin with the definition of “covenant.” Surveying the recent definitions of several scholars will help clarify the issues before us. The venerable John Murray (1898–1975) saw a need to revise traditional Reformed ideas about the covenants, especially with respect to the covenant of works.¹⁸ He protested against the nomenclature covenant of works because it “is not designated a covenant in Scripture.”¹⁹ For Murray, therefore, a covenant was “a sovereign administration of promise and grace.”²⁰ Murray saw God’s interactions expressed within

Understanding the Old Testament (trans. John Bowden; Old Testament Library; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 2.

18. Cf. John Murray, “The Theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith,” in Scripture and Confession: A Book about Confessions Old and New (ed. J. H. Skilton; Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1973), 146: “The term ‘covenant of works’ to designate the Adamaic administration [WCF 7.2] is not an accurate designation. If the term ‘covenant’ is used, the designation in the Shorter Catechism ‘covenant of life’ is preferable”; idem, “Covenant Theology,” in The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Marshalton: National Foundation for Christian Education, 1972), 199–216; idem, “The Adamic Administration,” in Collected Works, 2.47–59; idem, “Covenant Theology,” in Collected Works, 4.216–40; and especially idem, The Covenant of Grace: A Biblio-Theological Study (1953; repr. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1988), 5: “However architectonic may be the systematic constructions of any one generation or group of generations, there always remains the need for correction and reconstruction so that the structure may be brought into closer approximation to the Scripture and the reproduction be a more faithful transcript or reflection of the heavenly exemplar. It appears to me that covenant theology, notwithstanding the finesse of analysis with which it has been worked out and the grandeur of its articulated systematization, needs recasting.”

19. Murray, “Adamic Administration,” 2.49.

20. See Murray, Covenant of Grace, 29. Murray comments earlier in this work: “As we study the biblical evidence bearing upon the nature of divine covenant we shall discover that

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biblical covenants as always redemptive in design.²¹ The first part of Murray’s definition is satisfactory but the latter part is wanting since it is too restrictive. Murray’s definition, simply stated, does not fit all the administrations of covenant in the Bible.

O. Palmer Robertson defines covenant as a “bond-in-blood sovereignly administered.”²² For Robertson, the relational bond is the crucial factor, but this definition does not adequately cover all covenants described in the Bible either. For example, in Genesis 9, the Noahic covenant is described as a common-grace covenant. It is made with believers and unbelievers alike and with all of creation for that matter (cf. 9:9–10).²³ This common-grace covenant does not fit well with Robertson’s definition. Moreover, biblical covenants were bonds in the sense of being obligatory rather than merely religious community bonds.

A final definition of covenant, a very simple and yet comprehensive one, is a “commitment with divine sanctions.”²⁴ This definition has the advantage of being general enough to incorporate various biblical covenants. Its strength also lies in emphasizing the sanction, that is, the oath, that gives the covenant its binding force. The “swearing of an oath” is the sine qua non of covenants, in which the “relational”

the emphasis in these theologians upon God’s grace and promise is one thoroughly in accord with the relevant biblical data” (8, emphasis original).

21. Murray, “Adamic Administration,” 2.49: “Scripture always uses the term covenant, when applied to God’s administration to men, in reference to a provision that is redemptive or closely related to redemptive design. Covenant in Scripture denotes the oath-bound confirmation of promise and involves a security that the Adamic economy did not bestow.”

22. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 15. A cursory search of Palmer’s most recent release, The Christ of the Prophets (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004), does not give any indication that he has significantly altered his definition.

23. See Claus Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Commentary (trans. John J. Scullion; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 471: “The assurance is extended expressly and in detail to all species of animals which are once more bracketed with humans in the concluding words: ‘all that have come out of the ark.’ . . . It is this very verse, which extends the ‘covenant’ to all species of animals.” Cf. the striking comment of Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (trans. Mark E. Biddle; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 150: “God gives this promise to all those who were impacted by the Flood, that is, humans and animals. This idea that God’s covenant also applies to animals sounds amazingly profane for P, who otherwise thinks of a ‘history of salvation’ in relation to covenants.” An appreciation for common grace would have rescued Gunkel from his bewilderment. Finally, Umberto Cassuto’s philological comments in A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, vol. 2: From Noah to Abraham (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1964), 131–32, drive the point home further.

24. Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 1–7.

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aspect is already assumed, or, more precisely, a covenant provides the context, or arrangement, in which a relationship may proceed.

True, the lexical term for covenant (בְּרִית) does not occur in the biblical text until Genesis 6:18.²⁵ When doing biblical studies, however, one needs to discriminate between a term and the idea behind a term. If there is no explicit term, a historical covenant may still be assumed even without explicit lexical references (i.e., בְּרִית) to that covenant.²⁶ This touches on an axiom (i.e., a principle that does not need to be proven) of both theology and linguistics: a term or word does not necessarily have to be present in order for the substance of a concept to be present.²⁷ This is crucial to our discussion and the current debate.²⁸

25. This can sometimes be an obstacle to those wrestling with the constructions of Reformed theology. For example, before he became Reformed, Bruce Waltke concluded in “An Evangelical Christian View of the Hebrew Scriptures,” in Evangelicals and Jews in an Age of Pluralism (ed. Marc H. Tanenbaum, Marvin R. Wilson, and A. James Rudin; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 105–39 at 131 that “we should reckon only with the historic covenants of the Old Testament and not construct abstract, theological covenants such as the covenant of grace or redemption and confound them with the historic covenants (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New).” A similar principle (although applied to a discussion about the covenant of redemption and not the covenant of works) can be observed operating in Murray’s writing as well: “It is not strictly proper to use a biblical term to designate something to which it is not applied in Scripture itself” (Collected Writings, 2.130). See also John H. Stek, “‘Covenant’ Overload in Reformed Theology,” Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994): 12–41. Stek suggests that Reformed theology needs a radical reassessment of its emphasis on covenant as an organizing principle in Scripture. For a rejoinder (which starts down the right track but doesn’t go far enough) to Stek’s challenge to the covenant tradition in Reformed theology, see Craig G. Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation: Covenant Overload or Covenantal Deconstruction,” Calvin Theological Journal 30 (1995): 11–33.

26. See, e.g., Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 213: “It must be admitted that the term ‘covenant’ is not found in the first three chapters of Genesis, but this is not tantamount to saying that they do not contain the necessary data for the construction of a doctrine of the covenant. . . . All the elements of a covenant are indicated in Scripture, and if the elements are present, we are not only warranted but, in a systematic study of the doctrine, also in duty bound to relate them to one another, and to give the doctrine so construed an appropriate name.”

27. See Bartholomew, “Covenant and Creation,” 28, who correctly says: “The absence of the word covenant does not necessarily indicate its absence.”

28. It is not an illegitimate endeavor to talk in the realm of concepts; one needs to be careful, however, not to do injustice to the linguistic facts in such a process. Cf. James Barr, Biblical Words for Time (2nd ed.; Studies in Biblical Theology 33; Edinburgh: SCM, 1969), 54. For an accessible treatment of possible errors stemming from the confusion over the relationship of words and concepts and an introduction to the foundation-shaking work of Barr’s linguistics in biblical studies, see Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1989), 109–28. See also Moisés Silva’s review of Cotterell

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Genesis 2–3

The Edenic scenario is the proper place to begin.²⁹ Both the setting of Eden and the role of the humans placed in that garden have been discussed at length. Describing accurately the scene itself is all important to our exegesis. We could turn to Genesis 1 itself to prove our upcoming point;³⁰ first, however, we will take up the setting of the garden of Eden and discuss it at length, since proper understanding of the context illumines the key texts, before proceeding to man’s role in that garden.

and Turner’s book in Westminster Theological Journal 51 (1989): 389–90, who considers it “a great success.”

29. Vos, Biblical Theology, 16, in his discussion of the method of biblical theology, recognizes the benefits of a proper starting place: “The main problem will be how to do justice to the individual peculiarities of the agents in revelation. These individual traits subserve the historical plan. Some propose that we discuss each book separately. But this leads to unnecessary repetition, because there is so much that all have in common. A better plan is to apply the collective treatment in the earlier stages of revelation, where the truth is not as yet much differentiated, and then to individualize in the later periods where greater diversity is reached.”

30. See, e.g., Jon Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 142–43 (a section entitled “Sacred Space and Sacred Time”): “If the Temple is a form of the world, then the construction of the Temple, and of its predecessor, the Tabernacle, should mirror the creation of the world. In fact, exactly such a parallelism can be seen from a comparison of the language describing the two building programs.” Levenson’s comparison of biblical passages is illustrative:

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Sanctuary Symbolism

The garden was first and foremost a place of fellowship with God.³¹ Moreover, the garden of Eden is to be viewed as a prototypical sanctuary.³² Significant data supports this contention. First are various verbal hints that suggest sanctuary imagery.³³ For example, the verb מִתְהַלֵּךְ in Genesis 3:8 (traditionally translated “walking”) is used in similar forms in other sanctuary contexts as well (Lev 26:12; Deut 23:14 [MT 23:15]; 2 Sam 7:6–7)³⁴ and is often used in connection with righteousness (e.g., with Enoch, Noah, and Abraham).³⁵

Second, references to cherubim (כְּרֻבִים) are significant since these creatures are the guardians of the divine sanctuary.³⁶ The “cheru-

31. Vos, Biblical Theology, 27–28, writes: “The garden is ‘the garden of God,’ not in the first instance an abode for man as such, but specifically a place of reception of man into fellowship with God in God’s own dwelling place. The God-centred character of religion finds its first, but already fundamental, expression in this arrangement.”

32. Gordon J. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” in I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood (ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsummra; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 399–404. Wenham actually uses the word archetypal, but because in theological discourse this term often means “known only to God,” I avoid it to prevent confusion. See also Gary A. Anderson, “The Cosmic Mountain: Eden and Its Early Interpreters in Syriac Christianity,” in Genesis 1–3 in the History of Exegesis: Intrigue in the Garden (ed. Gregory Allen Robbins; Lewiston: Mellen, 1988), 187–224 at 199: “Eden, as a luxuriant cosmic mountain becomes an archetype or symbol for the earthly temple.”

33. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 400–401.

34. The allusion to 2 Sam 7:6–7 is evident enough; the references to the other two passages may, however, need further explanation. Lev 26:12 is clearly in the context of sanctuary, as indicated in Carl F. Keil, The Pentateuch (trans. James Martin; repr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2.471, commenting on 26:11: “‘I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not despise you.’ מִשְׁכָּן [is] applied to the dwelling of God among His people in the sanctuary.” Likewise, a superficial reading Deut 23:14 may not immediately seem as though it is in the context of sanctuary or the presence of the ark; when, however, Deuteronomy says that Yahweh is walking in the “midst of your camp,” the connotation is that God is present sometimes explicitly through the presence of the ark. The exact expression is found only here, Num 14:44, and Deut 2:14–16. See William L. Moran, “The End of the Unholy War and the Anti-Exodus,” in A Song of Power and the Power of the Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane Christensen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 149.

35. Ithamar Gruenwald, “The Creation of the World and the Shaping of Ethos and Religion in Ancient Israel,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 179–218 at 217: “The verb הִתְהַלֵּךְ really deserves a full-scale semantic study.”

36. Umberto Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (trans. Israel Abrahams; Jeru- salem: Magnes, 1961), 1.174, notes that the garden was entered from the east and that is why the guardian cherubs were stationed on that side. Also see Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 401, who notes that “the tabernacle and Jerusalem temple were also entered from the east. That the entrance of the garden was guarded by kĕrûbîm is another indication that it is viewed

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bim denote God’s physical presence throughout the Hebrew Bible. Wherever one finds a cherub (whether as a decorative feature or a mythical creature), one finds divine presence.”³⁷ Ronald Hendel draws attention to the flame of the whirling sword, which, although less recognized, is also significant based on comparative data from the ancient Near East.³⁸

Additionally, the compound name יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים which is predominately used in a cultic context, occurs frequently in Genesis 2.³⁹ The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil also indicate that the garden is to be viewed as a prototypical sanctuary. Adam’s function in the garden, however, is of the greatest significance.

The correct understanding of the phrase לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ in Genesis 2:15 is of paramount importance. The passage intends to say that God took the man and placed him in the garden “to tend it and guard it.” This meaning (especially “guard it”) is lost in most English translations. It is important, however, that the only places in the Pentateuch where these two verbs occur together are in contexts where the Levites’ duties include guarding and protecting the sanctuary.⁴⁰

as a sanctuary, for kĕrûbîm, Akkadian kuribu, were the traditional guardians of holy places in the ancient Near East.” Cf. 1 Kgs 6:23–38; Exod 25:18–22; 26:31.

37. Benjamin D. Sommer, “Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle,” Biblical Interpretation 9.1 (2001): 41–63, esp. 49. Cf. the discussion by T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2–3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 25; Louvain: Peeters, 2000), 458–59, who cites many other passages where “cherubs are almost exclusively connected to cultic entities.”

38. Ronald Hendel, “‘The Flame of the Whirling Sword’: A Note on Genesis 3:24,” Journal of Biblical Literature 104 (1985): 671–74. I am unsure, however, that his argument that the flame of the whirling sword is an independent fiery being in the service of Yahweh is successful.

39. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 287 (see footnotes for numerous biblical justifications) and 458–59, where he demonstrates that in the history of Chronicles the compound name is almost exclusively associated with cultic situations.

40. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 401, draws attention to Num 3:7–8; 8:26; 18:5–6 and concludes: “If Eden is seen then as an ideal sanctuary, then perhaps Adam should be described as an archetypal Levite.” Noteworthy on this point is the book of Jubilees, one of the oldest and most important Jewish texts in the Pseudepigrapha (a group of writings from approximately 250 BC to AD 200 that help students understand early Judaism). James VanderKam dates Jubilees between 170 and 140 BC. Although the text was probably originally written in Hebrew and translated into Greek and possibly Syriac, the only entire extant version is the Ethiopic rendition. The text is heavy with sacerdotalism. Although this might be because the author himself was a priest, significantly, Jubilees has Adam and Eve observing certain levitical laws in the garden (cf. 3.8–14) “because it is the holiest [sanctuary] in the entire earth, and every tree which is planted in it is holy.” See James C. Vanderkam, ed., The Book of Jubilees: A Critical Text (Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium 510–11; Scriptores aethiopici 87–88; Louvain:

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Thus, the cherubim are stationed east of the garden (following the fall of mankind) “to guard” (לִשְׁמֹר) the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24).

Other evidence demonstrates that the garden was a holy sanctuary, one to be guarded by the priest placed in the garden, namely Adam. Gordon Wenham, for example, brings attention to the tunics in Genesis 3:21 and the ordination clothing of priests (Exod 28:41; 29:8; 40:14; Lev 8:13). Additionally, the geography of the garden, especially with its description of rivers (Gen 2:10–14) and its precious jewels (2:12), demonstrates that the garden was conceived after a sanctuary design.⁴¹ Not only was the garden a sanctuary and Adam primarily a priest who had the duty to maintain the purity of the garden, but Adam was also a king who fulfilled a royal function.⁴²

Royal Ideology

The garden scene is imbued with themes of royal ideology. The idea of God as sovereign ruler and king over all his kingdom of creation is, unarguably, “totally unreasonable to the modern consciousness.”⁴³ Moreover, whether the text emphasizes that mankind is the possessor of kingship or whether Yahweh himself is king is the topic of debate. The answer to this apparent dilemma lies not in putting the two options on the horns of a false dilemma; rather, the key is the middle way. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, God is portrayed as the

Peeters, 1989), 17–18. Cf. also Stephen N. Lambdin, “From Fig Leaves to Fingernails: Some Notes on the Garments of Adam and Eve in the Hebrew Bible and Select Early Postbiblical Jewish Writings,” in A Walk in the Garden: Biblical, Iconographical, and Literary Images of Eden (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 136; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 74–90. Lambdin catalogues the numerous postbiblical Jewish writings, targumim, Samaritan, and rabbinic literatures that develop Adam’s exalted primordial priesthood and the significance of his garments and the coverings provided by God following the fall.

41. Wenham, “Sanctuary Symbolism,” 401–3. On Eden and the cosmography of Gen 2:10–14, see Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 270–86. By the term cosmography Stordalen means a mixture of topography and cosmology that was common in the way the ancient Near Eastern cultures conceived of their geography and the way they perceived space, which was different from the modern interpreter’s view of topographic apprehension.

42. Which takes precedence—the priestly or the kingly—will have tremendous ramifica- tions for one’s overall system of theology and one’s view of the relationship of cult to culture; but this is not an issue immediately in view in this essay.

43. Link, “Providence,” 272.

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king of creation and history.⁴⁴ Although dominion belongs ultimately and solely to God, the concept of kingship belongs also to mankind, to whom God commands and delegates responsibility.⁴⁵

Even if the accent is on man’s kingship in the early chapters of Genesis (which it probably is given the portrayal of Ezekiel discussed below), the text clearly takes pains to demonstrate that Yahweh owns the garden.⁴⁶ Additionally, this becomes even more conspicuous when Psalm 8, which is clearly commenting on Genesis, is brought into the discussion. As Randall Garr states in his recent tour de force on Genesis 1:26: “Created ‘in our image’ and ‘in the image of God’ represents both levels of divine authority that governs the cosmos. Humankind represents God’s community of co-rulers, responsible for performing the justice and enacting the sovereign will of God.”⁴⁷ These themes are familiar to those who are familiar with Reformed theology and modern scholarship, since they are discussed in numerous places in the secondary literature.⁴⁸

Much has been written about the prominent idea in Mesopotamian cosmogonies that human beings were created to do the work of the gods.⁴⁹ This is probably a distinct difference between the Hebrew

44. See, e.g., Charles H. H. Scobie, The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 106–8.

45. Ibid., 156–59.

46. As demonstrated by Alan Jon Hauser, “Genesis 2–3: The Theme of Intimacy and Alienation,” in I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood (ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsummra; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 383–98. Significantly, Hauser demonstrates that numerous stylistic devices are used by the author to convey the theme of intimacy in Gen 2. This seems to contradict the facile interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis that sets the relational against the forensic.

47. W. Randall Garr, In His Own Image and Likeness: Humanity, Divinity, and Monotheism (Culture and History of Ancient Near East 15; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 219. Garr adds: “Like Gen 1, this psalm ascribes ‘image’ to human beings. God ensures that they dominate terrestrial, aviary, and marine life (vv. 8–9; see Gen 1:26b.28b). They collaterally hold the power to place everything under their control (v. 7b; see Gen 1:26babβ.28aβb). God even assigns royal status and royal rule comparable to his own (e.g., v. 6b)” (220–21).

48. For further bibliography in Reformed scholarship, see Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 78–80. For bibliography on royal ideology from modern scholarship, see David P. Wright, “Holiness, Sex, and Death in the Garden of Eden,” Biblica 77 (1996): 305–29, esp. 310.

49. The Atrahasis Epic (and not Enuma Elish, as usually imagined) contains the standard account of man’s creation from the Babylonian sources. See W. G. Lambert, “A New Look at the Babylonian Background of Genesis,” in I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood (ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsummra; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 107. See also W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atra-Ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood (repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999).

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conception and the surrounding cultures.⁵⁰ The Genesis account, very frankly, stands in glaring contrast to the Sumerian and Babylonian counterparts with respect to whether God needed any assistance in his sovereign fiat creation.⁵¹ This emphasis on man as surrogate worker for the gods is said to be absent from the Egyptian conception.⁵² In contrast to these nearest creation accounts, in the biblical narrative God portrays man as the priestly, guardian, vassal-king who watches over the sanctuary of Eden entrusted to him. In fact, as Walter Brueggemann argues, “creation of man is in fact enthronement of man.”⁵³

Eden: The Cosmic Mountain of God in Ezekiel’s Vision

As emphasized above, Eden was a sacred place because God revealed himself there: Eden was holy space. God’s presence sanctified Eden. This external reign of God over Eden constituted the garden as a theocracy.⁵⁴ Eden, however, according to later biblical passages was also understood as a cosmic mountain. Although it may not be immediately evident from a superficial reading of Genesis, it is clear that it was understood in this manner, especially in Ezekiel 28:11–19. The literary typological similarities between Ezekiel 28 and Genesis 2 are striking indeed. Not only is there the overlap of the precious stones and cherubim but the allusion to Eden,⁵⁵ with its attendant rivers, is

50. The notion of a distinct difference is challenged, however, by Edward L. Greenstein, “God’s Golem: The Creation of the Human in Genesis 2,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 219–39. I do not think that Greenstein’s argument is successful, although it is very illuminating with regards to the history of understanding Gen 2.

51. See, e.g., G. Castellino, “The Origins of Civilization according to Biblical and Cuneiform Texts,” in I Studied Inscriptions from before the Flood (ed. Richard S. Hess and David Toshio Tsummra; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 75–95 at 91: “The spiritual and monotheistic conception of God (the anthropomorphism should not deceive us) could not permit the notion that God had need of material help from humanity.”

52. John D. Currid, Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 72. See also Hans-Peter Hasenfratz, “Patterns of Creation in Ancient Egypt,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 174–78.

53. Walter Brueggeman, “From Dust to Kingship,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 84 (1972): 1–18, esp. 12.

54. Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 49.

55. Both the Septuagint and the Ezekiel Targum (containing in all probability tannaitic traditions) saw the jewels as referring to a jeweled garment worn by the Edenic figure. See Lambdin, “From Fig Leaves to Fingernails,” 79.

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highly significant as well.⁵⁶ Although this passage’s immediate point of reference is a dirge for the king of Tyre, whose pretensions have led to him setting himself up “as the first (and therefore foremost) of all men, an Urmensch become Übermensch (original man become superman)”;⁵⁷ nevertheless, Ezekiel’s allusion views Eden as the central (indeed, cosmic) mountain of God, the place where his name—and hence his presence—dwells upon the throne, exalted and lifted up.⁵⁸ Furthermore, the early church was sensitive to these themes and developed them extensively.⁵⁹

The Trees

Two trees in the garden warrant special comment: the tree of the knowledge of good and bad and the tree of life. Although they contain great mystery, in their quintessential double signification are the seminal teachings of law and gospel (Turretin, Institutes 1.582 §8.5.6).⁶⁰ What is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and why did God insist that mankind not eat from it? Essentially, the tree

56. See Levenson, Sinai and Zion, 111–35, esp. 129–31.

57. Iain Duguid, Ezekiel (NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 346.

58. For a full review of the scholarly treatment on this passage, see Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 332–63.

59. See, e.g., Anderson, “Cosmic Mountain,” 202–3, who demonstrates this based on “Hymns on Paradise” and “Cave of Treasures” (mistakenly attributed to Ephraim the Syrian but in fact anonymous): “The holiness of Eden becomes a very important factor in the interpretation of the Bible. Eden, as cosmic mountain, becomes a hermeneutical tool . . . on the largest possible scale, that of the entire Bible, Eden is both the image of the ideal first time, and the eschatological goal of the end-time. . . . The identification of the temple in Jerusalem with Eden is as old as the Bible itself. The important new development for these writers is the equation of Eden with the church.” A question that has exercised scholars recently is whether Gen 2 (esp. 2:4b–14) fits the cosmic mountain model found in Ezek 28 and in the Ugaritic literature (i.e., Northwest Semitic). Some scholars argue that Northwest Semitic material should not be considered because of the likelihood of Mesopotamian influence in this section of Genesis; see Richard J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), 98–103. Clifford’s conclusion is that “the joining of the theme of the Garden of Eden and of the holy mountain in Ezekiel 28 appears to be late and peculiar to the Ezekielian passage” (103). See, however, Jon D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48 (Harvard Semitic Monograph 10; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1976), 25–36, who demolishes Clifford’s arguments.

60. Bolton reminds us with great felicity that, in the postlapsarian period, with the advent of the covenant of grace, the function of law and gospel shifts so that “the law sends us to the gospel for our justification; the gospel sends us to the law to frame our way of life”; cf. S. Bolton, The True Bounds of Christian Freedom (London: Banner of Truth, 1964), 11.

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of the knowledge of good and evil shows that God takes a tree out of the plant kingdom where he had designated those things for our good (Gen 1:29–30) and then assigns a particular meaning to that that tree in order to sharpen the test.⁶¹

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil would become the quintessential testing tree wherein mankind would be faced with the absolute lordship of his God. Good and evil would become the opposites between which a choice must be made and a right judgment would become evident (cf. 1 Kgs 3:9, 28; Mic 3:1–2).⁶² Would Adam, the federal (representative) head of the human race, listen to the apocryphal word (mediated through his soul mate!) of the unholy intruder, that is, the snake, thus betraying his allegiance to another, or would he maintain fealty to his Lord and king and yield his will, his love, and his veneration to only his Creator?⁶³

The Qumran writings, some of the clearest examples of how the biblical text was studied and interpreted in the ancient world, provide early corroboration for this interpretation.⁶⁴ Only certain significant

61. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 154, states: “The tree thus became ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,’ not because it was a particular species of tree, but because it had been selected as the tree whereby to test the implicit obedience of Adam.” See Herbert Chanan Brichto, The Names of God: Poetic Readings in Biblical Beginnings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). If erudite modern Jewish exegetes are able to answer the question “why did God make this tree available in the first place?”—without equivocation—namely, “as a test of man; clearly as of his obedience” (74), then perhaps the Westminster Divines and their frequently maligned heirs of classic covenant theology were not so ignorant after all.

62. Significant to our discussion, especially the relationship between 1 Kgs 3:9 and Gen 2, is the point made by Meir Malul, Knowledge, Control, and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture, and Worldview (Tel Aviv/Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2002), 196, that Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings is clearly in a “forensic context.” Ranier Albertz draws attention to the expression וְהָרָע לִשְׁמֹעַ הַטּוֹב (to discern between good and evil) in 2 Sam 14:17, where the wise discerning choice contemplated by the king is likened in 14:20 and 19:27 (MT 19:28) to the angel of God כְּמַלְאַךְ הָאֱלֹהִים; see “‘Ihr werdet sein wie Gott . . .’: Gen 3,1–7 auf dem Hintergrund des alttestamentlichen und des sumerisch-babylonischen Menschenbildes,” Welt des Orients 24 (1993): 95. Not without significance, additionally, is the learned S. R. Driver comparing 2 Sam 14:17 with the phrase for a discerning heart (לֵב שֹׁמֵעַ) in 1 Kgs 3:9! Cf. Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel (2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1913), 309.

63. Murray, Collected Writings, 2.49, states: “We know that Adam acted in a public capacity. Not only his destiny but that of the whole human race was bound up with his conduct for good or for evil (Rom 5:12–19; 1 Cor 15:22, 45, 46).”

64. See, e.g., John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 39: “Our clearest illustrations of the use of scripture in this period are found in the Qumran writings, which reflect the constant study of the sacred

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biblical themes stemming from the biblical creation account are evident at Qumran: “insight of good and evil” is related to Genesis 2:17 and at Qumran, the notion being that “the ability given to man to distinguish between good and evil made man himself responsible for choosing the path of good rather than evil.”⁶⁵

The other tree, the tree of life, stood in the midst of the garden. There, in the garden of Eden, was God’s presence, and consequently

writings that was practiced by the members of the community.” See Bilha Nitzan, “The Idea of Creation and Its Implications in Qumran Literature,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 240–64, esp. 241. A wisdom text, “Meditation on Creation” (4Q303), is instructive for Gen 2:15–17. The editio princeps was published by Timothy Lim, “4Q Meditation on Creation A,” in Qumran Cave 4.XV: Sapiential Tests, Part 1 (ed. T. Elgvin et al.; Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 20; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 151–53. See also H. Jacobson, “Notes on 4Q303,” Dead Sea Discoveries 6.1 (1999): 78–80. The following translation from Nitzan integrates readings suggested by Jacobson:

65. Nitzan, “Idea of Creation,” 254. Also interesting in this respect is the meaning given to the notion of choosing the path of good rather than evil by 2 Enoch, a pseudepigraphal apocalypse whose only extant version is attested in Slavonic; see Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1982). Albeit extrabiblical, 2 Enoch suggests the answers to many issues that early Christians were interested in discussing and debating (e.g., the creation of angels, Adam’s role in paradise and the fall). Rowland says that according to Slavonic Enoch “Adam from the very start has the ability to distinguish between good and evil (Slav. Enoch 30:15, cf. Gen 2:16f.) The reason for God giving man the ability to distinguish between good and evil is itself explained. God did not create man simply as a being who would do only that which was acceptable to him. The reason for this is that God wished to ascertain whether the man whom he had created did in fact have love and obedience toward himself. Thus the responsibility for the human plight is placed fairly and squarely on man, and God is in no way held responsible. The opportunity for obedience and disobedience was given to man by God, and there was no reason why man should not choose to follow the ways of God of his own volition” (Open Heaven, 150). In other words, he was up to the task to obey. This suggests that early readers of the Genesis account interpreted the testing dimension of the tree of knowledge of good and evil as not demonstrating a new acquisition of knowledge; rather, it was a matter of putting into practice what Adam knew. Although it could prove profitable, we are not venturing into a detailed discussion here of the issue of Adam’s potential maturation with respect to attaining knowledge of good and evil. For a discussion on that subject, which is very different from Jordan’s discussion on maturation, see Vos, Biblical Theology, 31–33.

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fellowship, or relationship, with God existed—both actual fellowship and potential fellowship. It was potential because “man was created in a state of relative perfection, a state of righteousness and holiness.”⁶⁶ The tree of life pointed beyond the immediate life that Adam and Eve presently had to a consummated period: eternal life. What did it signify? It signified life consummated through eschatological blessing.⁶⁷ It did not merely signify endless existence, for that could be a curse as well as blessing.⁶⁸ Indeed, had man passed the probation, he would have received the approbation of God and no longer been

66. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 209 (emphasis added). Relative perfection, Berkhof explains, “does not mean that he had already reached the highest state of excellence of which he was susceptible. It is generally assumed that he was destined to reach a higher degree of perfection in the way of obedience. He was, something like a child, perfect in parts, but not yet in degree. His condition was a preliminary and temporary one, which would either lead on to greater perfection and glory or terminate in a fall.” H. Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man (trans. William Crookshank; 1803; repr. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1990), 75 §1.4.7 states: “Now Adam enjoyed in paradise all imaginable, natural, and animal happiness, as it is called. A greater, therefore, and a more exalted felicity still awaited him.” Eschatology, therefore, clearly is present from the beginning and consequently precedes soteriology. Thus, Vos writes: “In so far as the covenant of works posited for mankind an absolute goal and unchangeable future, the eschatological may be even said to have preceded the soteric religion”; The Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1979), 325n1. See also idem, Biblical Theology, 22: “Man had been created perfectly good in a moral sense. And yet there was a sense in which he could be raised to a still higher level of perfection.”

67. This is implied in the prohibition as well as in the signification of the tree. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 213, states: “Some deny that there is any Scripture evidence for such a promise. Now it is perfectly true that no such promise is explicitly recorded, but it is clearly implied in the alternative of death as a result of disobedience.” Cf. Machen, Christian View of Man, 154: “But although the covenant [Gen 2:16–17] is directly put only in a negative form, the positive implications are perfectly clear. When God established death as the penalty of disobedience, that plainly meant that if man did not disobey he would have life. Underlying the establishment of the penalty there is clearly a promise.” Turretin says with respect to the promise: “The covenant of works promises life only to the man perfectly just and deserving; but the covenant of grace promises not only life, but also salvation to the man altogether undeserving and unworthy (namely to the sinner)” (Institutes 1.585 §8.6.13). Dabney states that the “promise of life was clearly implied . . . for the soul not to live, is to die; not to die, is to live” (Lectures in Systematic Theology, 303). After marshalling numerous arguments concerning the implied promise, Witsius, Economy of the Covenants, 75 §1.4.7 states: “I therefore conclude, that to Adam, in the covenant of works, was promised the same eternal life, to be obtained by the righteousness which is of the law, of which believers are made partakers through Christ.”

68. Turretin says: “Far better [than those who maintain it had in itself some kind of vivifying power] therefore is the opinion of others that the tree obtained this name [i.e., the tree of life] principally by reason of signification. It was a sacrament and symbol of the immortality which would have been bestowed upon Adam if he had persevered in his first state. . . . Therefore the life which this tree signified and sealed was not properly either the longevity or the immortality of the body alone; rather it was the eternal happiness to be obtained at length in heaven” (Institutes 1.581 §8.5.3–4).

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under the probation of God. Mankind would have been established in righteousness and holiness. Faith and works function quite differently before the fall than after it.⁶⁹

Interestingly, the tree of life in John’s Apocalypse functionally serves an illuminating role for the interpretation of the tree in the primeval garden: only the eschatological community may partake.⁷⁰ This, together with other evidence, seems to support the notion that Adam and Eve had not eaten of the tree of life prior to the fall.⁷¹ With this setting and Adam’s role in it clearly described, we are now prepared to talk about the crucial text.

Genesis 2:15–17: A Seminal Text

Careful examination of Genesis 2:15–17 demonstrates that a superior (the Lord God) gave a specific prohibition to an inferior addressee (Adam), with an implied promise. Understanding the nature of the communication in the garden enables the reader to evaluate the claims

69. Turretin felicitously comments: “Nor can it be objected here that faith was required also in the first covenant and works are not excluded in the second. . . . They stand in a far different relation. For in the first covenant [i.e., the covenant of works], faith was required as a work and a part of the inherent righteousness to which life was promised. But in the second [i.e., the covenant of grace], it is demanded—not as a work on account of which life is given, but as a mere instrument apprehending the righteousness of Christ (on account of which alone salvation is granted to us). In the one, faith was a theological virtue from the strength of nature, terminating on God, the Creator; in the other, faith is an evangelical condition after the manner of supernatural grace, terminating on God, the Redeemer. As to works, they were required in the first as an antecedent condition by way of a cause for acquiring life; but in the second, they are only the subsequent condition as the fruit and effect of the life already acquired. In the first, they ought to precede the act of justification; in the second, they follow it” (Institutes 2.190–91 §12.4.7, emphasis added).

70. Elke Toenges, “‘See, I Am Making All Things New’: New Creation in the Book of Revelation,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 138–52.

71. Vos, Biblical Theology, 28; W. H. Propp, “Eden Sketches,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters (ed. W. H. Propp, B. Halpern, and D. N. Freedman; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 189–203, esp. 192. Also see the classic work by Paul Humbert, Études sur le récit du paradis et de la chute dans la genèse (Mémoires de l’université de Neuchâtel 14; Neuchâtel: Secrétariat de l’Université, 1940), 131. After studying all 131 cases of פֶּן in the Hebrew Bible, he concludes that it never means implementing a measure to prevent the continuation of an action, contra, for example, Augustine, who saw nourishment supplied from the tree of life for Adam. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 303, sees Adam in his rectitude enjoying the use of the tree of life, as does Stewart E. Lauer, “Was the Tree of Life Always Off-Limits? A Critique of Vos’s Answer,” Kerux 16 (2001): 42–50.

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of those who support the traditional Reformed exposition of the covenant of works with respect to those who are challenging the traditional understanding of the doctrine.⁷²

The first significant point in this text is the question of the nature of the command in 2:16–17,⁷³ for it is more than a “preemptive warning”:⁷⁴

The command, in terms of speech-act theory, is an exercitive, a wide class of speech acts made use of especially by judges.⁷⁷ Genesis

72. Jordan, “Merit versus Maturity,” 158: “I believe that part of the failure of traditional Reformed theology lies right at this point [i.e., Gen 2–3].”

73. Discerning how speech is being used in any given utterance is essential to interpretation. J. L. Austin, whose influence on the philosophy of language has been enormous, states: “It makes a great difference whether we were advising, or merely suggesting, or actually ordering, whether we were strictly promising or only announcing a vague intention, and so forth”; “How to Do Things with Words,” in Pragmatics: Critical Concepts (ed. Asa Kasher; London: Routledge, 1998), 2.7–28 at 10.

74. Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26 (New American Commentary 1A; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 211. Also, D. R. G. Beattie, “Peshat and derash in the Garden of Eden,” Irish Biblical Studies (1985): 62–75, esp. 71, following Westermann.

75. The use of the infinitive absolute in this text contributes force and emphasis to the liberty of action expressed in the modal imperfect: “you may eat freely”; see Paul Joüon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (trans. and rev. Takamitsu Muraoka; Subsidia biblica 14; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1991), 370 §113l and 423 §123h.

76. Following Albert Soggin, “Philological-Linguistic Notes on the Second Chapter of Genesis,” in Old Testament and Oriental Studies (Biblica et orientalia 29; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1980), 169–78, esp. 175.

77. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (ed. J. O. Urmson and Marina Sbisà; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 155–56. See Vanhoozer, First Theology, 159–203, for a discussion that factors theology, specifically the covenant, into the equation of speech-act philosophy and theories, including in a limited manner relevance theory, the influential new paradigm of Sperber and Wilson that addresses the obvious deficiencies of the widely held “message model” of linguistic communication. For a good brief introduction to relevance theory, see Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson, “Précis of Relevance: Communication and Cognition,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10 (1987): 697–754; Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, “An Outline of Relevance Theory,” Notes on Linguistics 39 (1987): 5–24; Ernst-August Gutt, Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991). For more on the importance of relevance theory, see the discussion below on Galatians. For an excellent introductory treat-

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2:16 is a command, but it is not the technical expression for the issuing of a law. That would have been expressed by a different arrangement: צִוָּה אֶת ⁷⁸ Nevertheless, the expression used here, צִוָּה עַלֹ typically denotes “a provisional instruction from a ruler (or father) concerning subordinates.”⁷⁹

Stating it this way does not remove the obligatory and legal character of the discourse.⁸⁰ Indeed, the attached motive clause is a common characteristic of later Israelite law.⁸¹ Additionally, תָּמוּת מוֹת in 2:17 is not a motivation separated from the legal death sanction proclaimed;⁸² it is “in clear relation to the divine command.”⁸³ What is more, the constellation of terms used here in the Eden narrative reflects a command (צִוָּה)i that often occurs with the collocation בְּקוֹל שָׁמַע mean-

ment of the message model and its limitations together with a fine introduction to pragmatics and speech-act theories, see Adrian Akmajian et al., Lingusitics: An Introduction to Language and Communication (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995), 346–93. For a global review of recent work in biblical interpretation and theology using speech-act theory, see Richard S. Briggs, “The Uses of Speech-Act Theory in Biblical Interpretation,” Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 9 (2001): 229–76. Along similar lines to Vanhoozer, see Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Eschatology: The Divine Drama (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002).

78. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 226, states that צִוָּה אֶת would be used as the “technical term for YHWH’s issuing laws . . . used with Moses some 85 times, see for instance Exod 35:1; 38:22; 39:1; 40:21.” See Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann Jakob Stamm, et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (trans. M. E. J. Richardson et al.; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 3.1010–11, for various collocations used when an order or command is addressed to humans.

79. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 226. Cf. Gen 12:20; 44:1; 2 Sam 14:8; 1 Kgs 2:43; Jer 39:11; Esth 2:10, 20. See also F. Zorell, Lexicon hebraicum et aramaicum veteris testamenti (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1963), 685–86, who lists biblical references under צִוָּה עַלֹ, with particular nuances.

80. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 226, states interestingly (and most likely correctly, at least in some instances) that “in the book of Esther, צִוָּה is used as a test of being faithful while not perceiving (fully) the reason behind an instruction.” Cf. Vanhoozer, First Theology, 181, on the covenantal responsibility entailed for communicants in any given speech act, whether the participant be the addressee (i.e., the recipient) or the one issuing the utterance.

81. So B. Gemser, “The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law,” in Congress Volume: Copenhagen 1953 (Vetus Testamentum Supplement 1; Leiden: Brill, 1953), 50–66. Gemser demonstrates that not all motive clauses are the same; however, the most frequent kind do begin with כִּי (because), as in the passage under consideration. Gemser is followed by Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 (Word Biblical Commentary 1; Waco: Word, 1987), 67.

82. Otto, “Die Paradieserzählung Genesis 2–3,” 181.

83. Cf. Soggin, “Philological-Linguistic Notes,” 174, who writes, after his exhaustive search of Mandelkern’s concordance, that “in the majority of cases, there is a context of strong juridical tenor, while the crime tends to have certain typical theologico-religious configurations. . . . Here [Gen 2:17] the expression clearly establishes the sanction to which the culprit is liable.”

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ing “obey, be in subjection to, or comply with.”⁸⁴ When the reason is stated for the banishment from the garden (3:17), therefore, we hear divine judgment: “Because you listened to the voice [שָׁמַעְתָּ לְקוֹל]⁸⁵ of your wife, and you ate from the tree I had commanded you [צִוִּיתִיךָ].” In short, the underlying social-legal significance of the verb שָׁמַע in Biblical Hebrew is conspicuous here as it is elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.⁸⁶

Consequently, what we have in these verses, stated succinctly, is צִוָּה עַלֹ introducing “a provisional instruction, headed with a positive allowance which is followed by one specific prohibition.”⁸⁷ This explanation comports well with a traditional reading of the covenant of works. If Adam, as the federal head of the human race, had passed his temporary probation, he would have justly merited God’s approval and moved on to a higher state, contrary to Daniel Fuller, who wants to redefine merit.⁸⁸ In other words, something potentially greater—

84. Luis Alonso Schökel et al., Diccionario bíblico hebreo-español (Madrid: Trotta, 1994), 776. The syntagmatic options for שָׁמַע קוֹל include use with or without a particle, meaning “hear, listen, obey” (775). The use of this phrase with בְּ(i.e.,שָׁמַע בְּקוֹל) clearly means “obey,” and some form of צִוָּה also occurs in the same context; see Gen 27:8; Deut 30:2; Josh 22:2; Jer 35:8. I am indebted to Otto, “Die Paradieserzählung Genesis 2–3,” for this particular insight.

85. The use of שָׁמַע לְקוֹל instead of שָׁמַע בְּקוֹל in Gen 3:17 is no problem since the use of לְ instead of בְּ can mean “obey” as well; see Exod 3:18; Judg 2:20; Ps 81:11 (MT 81:12); Koehler et al., Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 4.1572.

86. See Malul, Knowledge, Control, and Sex, 194–97. One of the clearest contexts among many listed by Malul is Deut 21:18–21, where the rebellious son does not “hear the voice of” (שָׁמַע בְּקוֹל) his parents, and therefore, Malul says, the phrase has the “meaning of to obey and abide by the rules of law or of custom. . . . The son who does not ‘hear the voice of his parents’ is an unruly son who challenges their accepted authority, and in a way strikes at the foundations of society” (194). Clear uses of שָׁמַע (with or without קוֹל) in a legal-technical sense occur in Exod 15:26; Deut 4:1; 5:1; 1 Kgs 22:19; Isa 30:9. Malul also draws attention to Isa 48:8, where not hearing means to rebel.

87. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden, 226. This conclusion drawn from the philological evidence supports the important theological claim that the probation had to have temporal limits. Testing, by very definition, had to be temporally defined and limited. Furthermore, the principles of federal representation (i.e., that mankind, represented by Adam, underwent probation) kept the probation short. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 305, says: “Such a covenant, with an indefinite probation, would have been no covenant at all.” The reductio ad absurdum arguments he applies to the notion of an indefinite probation are forceful.

88. In his critique of classical covenant theology and dispensationalism, Daniel Fuller, Law and Gospel: Contrast or Continuum? The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 113, states: “Legalism, then, is no longer defined, as it has been in these two systems [dispensationalism and covenant theology], as doing things ‘in order to . . .’ gain a blessing from God.” Fuller asserts that God never uses a works principle

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namely, the state of permanent, confirmed righteousness—was waiting for him if he passed this probation.⁸⁹

Even so, in light of the current debates, in which there has often been more fuzziness than clarity, something still further needs to be said in the light of the above exegesis. Whenever an utterance is analyzed, the question of social status is significant.⁹⁰ Sociolinguistics can be a helpful supplement to traditional exegesis in this regard.⁹¹ Most people understand “status” as an element of power having something to do with “roles” and “role-sets.”⁹² Applicable to the analysis of our crucial text (Gen 2:15–17), E. J. Revell defines status as “the combination of factors which determine the treatment of one individual as the superior or subordinate of another, or as neither, and so as equal.”⁹³ This definition is inclusive of power but not limited to that important indicator.⁹⁴ What is the significance of these insights

in Scripture; however, as will be shown below, God does use a works principle (cf. Rom 5:18), and it matters greatly that there was something meritorious about the Last Adam’s work.

89. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 209, and many others along similar lines.

90. See, e.g., Ahouva Shulman, “The Particle נָא in Biblical Hebrew Prose,” Hebrew Studies 40 (1999): 57–82 at 59: “The relative status of speaker and addressee is a major consideration in the analyses of utterances, since the intention of the speaker and the understanding of the utterance by the addressee involve their recognition of the role relationship that exists between them, and of the rights and obligations that they have toward each other at any particular time.” See further the influential article by Roger Brown and Albert Gilman, “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity,” in Style in Language (ed. Thomas A. Sebeok; Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960), 253–76.

91. See, e.g., Roger Fowler, “Power and Language,” in International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (ed. William Bright; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3.257–59. For a helpful survey of contributions that sociolinguistics and related disciplines can make to biblical exegesis, see M. O’Connor, “Discourse Linguistics and the Study of Biblical Hebrew,” in Congress Volume: Basel 2001 (Vetus Testamentum Supplement 92; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 17–42. For a linguistic analysis of deference, see Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 4; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). The most important studies for Hebrew Bible are E. J. Revell, The Designation of the Individual: Expressive Usage in Biblical Narrative (Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 14; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996); Cynthia L. Miller, The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis (Harvard Semitic Monograph 55; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). Noteworthy is Vanhoozer’s recognition of the social dimension of his view of covenantal discourse; see First Theology, 182.

92. See Brown and Levinson, Politeness, 74–84 at 78–79.

93. Revell, Designation of the Individual, 43.

94. Peter Mülhläusler and Rom Harré, Pronouns and People: The Linguistic Construction of Social and Personal Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 19, recognize the profound implications of Roger Brown and Albert Gilman’s famous 1964 paper; nevertheless, they propose an even more nuanced way of approaching the issues: “The idea of a system or rights, duties and obligations can be taken further [than Brown and Gilman take it]. It is usual to call such a system a ‘moral order.’ A convenient way of expressing the details of a moral

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from sociolinguistic analysis for our interpretation of 2:15–17 and the covenant of works?

Recognizing the status of participants in this speech utterance enables a reader to understand the significance of social interactions encoded in a piece of language.⁹⁵ In 2:15–17, God is portrayed as the owner and king of the garden who delivers a provisional command to his vassal-king, that is, Adam. Because God spoke as the king, there were consequences to violating his spoken word. The language is command, legal, and judicial: the language is simultaneously relational because the king, that is, the Lord, delivers it.⁹⁶

In short, the two—the language and the Lord who pronounces it—cannot be severed without destroying the story. The Lord God is superior, and it is entirely fitting that he should speak in commands. Adam, the inferior in relation, is not in a position to tell the superior what to do. God, the royal superior, is entitled and expected to give commands in such a situation.⁹⁷ Such a construal of the status structures with appropriate recognition of expected speech utterances in the given situation does not undermine the relational character of the passage; it actually establishes and upholds the communication intent

order is to assign people to roles. A role is a coherent set of conventions of speech and action by reference to which a person can be seen as behaving in an orderly fashion, in particular with respect to the activities of another. One needs to express the role idea in the cautious fashion to avoid facile assumptions about the kind of causality that explains role performances” (29, emphasis added).

95. With O’Connor, I am not saying that social structures can always be read off the page of the biblical text, but I am saying that “social structure is reflected there”; cf. O’Connor, “Discourse Linguistics,” 24.

96. These particular exegetical conclusions, arrived at independently of Vanhoozer’s work assuming that language itself is a covenantal affair, nevertheless correlate with his notion of the “presumption of covenantal relation”; cf. Vanhoozer, First Theology, 200–203. Germane to our present discussion and the alleged dichotomy between “relational” vis-à-vis “abstract/forensic” categorization are Vanhoozer’s comments: “This goes beyond the presumption of relevance. The latter states that implied in every speech act is the claim that it is relevant. The covenantal presumption states that implied in every speech act is a certain covenantal relation—a tacit plea, or demand, to understand. Language itself cannot make this demand on us. Language, considered in the abstract, holds no rights. No, the presumption of covenantal relation stems from the fact that we are obliged to do justice to the words of a communicative agent in order to do that person justice” (201, emphasis original).

97. Therefore, it is not just a grasp of “bare” language or culture that is necessary for a keen understanding of a discourse, but whether a speech utterance occurs in the realm of the king (e.g., in a king’s court). See, e.g., the conclusions of University of Munich Assyriologist Walther Sallaberger, “Wenn Du mein Bruder bist . . . ”: Interaktion and Textgestaltung in altababylonischen Alltagsbriefen (Cuneiform Monographs 16; Groningen: Styx, 1999), esp. 210–11.

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of the passage. Understanding these discourse-pragmatic functions of the language,⁹⁸ therefore, may help readers and writers avoid fruitless discussions regarding the relational and legal aspects of the language used here in Genesis.⁹⁹

Theophany, Death, and the Protevangelium

It should now be clear how great the heights were from which Adam, our federal head, fell. This first sin, indeed, was “willful and wanton in a high degree.”¹⁰⁰ Violation of, breach of, and disregard for the covenant brought theophany, particularly in the form of a storm,¹⁰¹ judgment, common curse, and expulsion from God’s Eden sanctuary, but mercy and grace—in a word, redemption—were the corollary of the curse.

Since the terrible fall of mankind, the mission of Christ became necessary (WCF 6.2). The gospel, therefore, was given in the protevangelium, in Genesis 3:14–20. Calvin himself clearly recognized it as such.¹⁰² In fact, when Adam declares in 3:20 that Eve (חַוָּה) is “mother of all that lives” (אֵם כָּל־חָי), this means much more than mere life or sexual fecundity.¹⁰³ It was indeed, Adam’s “confessional

98. This is not to exaggerate the help of linguistics for traditional biblical exegesis; it is merely to understand such a perspective from the field of language study as a helpful supple- ment. Cf. Silva’s comments in Interpreting Galatians, 110–11.

99. See, e.g., John Barach, “Covenant and Election,” in The Federal Vision (ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner; Monroe, LA: Athanasius, 2004), 15–46 at 36: “Covenant membership is not just a bare legal relationship.” Noteworthy also is Richard B. Gaffin, “Paul the Theologian,” Westminster Theological Journal 62 (2000): 121–41, who helpfully describes and catalogues how some of the scholars in the new perspective eschew the use of judicial metaphors (esp. 137).

100. See Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 2.154–58.

101. See, e.g., Jeffrey Niehaus, “In the Wind of the Storm: Another Look at Genesis 3.8,” Vetus Testamentum 44 (1994): 263–67. Also note Christopher Grundke, “A Tempest in a Teapot: Genesis 3.8 Again,” Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001): 548–51, who offers counterarguments to Niehaus’s article based on text-critical, semantic, and literary grounds, but his rebuttal does not succeed. Strengthening the awareness of storm theophanies in the Bible through meteorological analysis is the important work by Aloysius Fitzgerald, The Lord of the East Wind (Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph 34; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2002). Also instructive is M. G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 97–131.

102. Calvin states: “The Lord held to this orderly plan in administering the covenant of his mercy: as the day of full revelation approached with the passing of time, the more he increased each day the brightness of its manifestation. Accordingly, at the beginning when the first promise of salvation was given to Adam [Gen 3:15] it glowed like a feeble spark. Then, as it was added to, the light grew in fullness, breaking forth increasingly and shedding its radiance more widely. At last—when all the clouds were dispersed—Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, fully illumined the whole earth [cf. Mal., ch. 4]” (Institutes 2.10.20).

103. Wright, “Holiness, Sex, and Death,” 316.

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‘Amen’ to the Genesis 3:15 promise of restoration from death to life through the woman’s seed.”¹⁰⁴ That seed is Christ, as is demonstrated when we turn to Paul’s letter to the Romans.

Covenant of Works in Paul

The Adam-Christ Typology and the Law’s Continuing Requirement for Perfect Obedience

The apostle Paul makes only selective use of Genesis 1–3: he “does not cite extensively passages of the biblical story of the creation of the world in Genesis 1–3. . . . He only gives single aspects and central points.”¹⁰⁵ Even so, Paul’s use of creation themes in Romans 1–8 provides an important frame that integrates various creation themes highlighting a great reversal of the consequences brought about by Adam’s autonomy and rebellion.¹⁰⁶ In the important connection between 5:1–11 and 5:12–21 Christ reverses the damage and death wrought by Adam and changes our legal status before God, thereby reintroducing us into fellowship and communion with God.¹⁰⁷

104. Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 150.

105. Gottfried Nebe, “Creation in Paul’s Theology,” in Creation in Jewish and Christian Tradition (ed. Henning Graf Reventlow and Yair Hoffman; Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 319; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 115.

106. Steve Kraftchick, “Paul’s Use of Creation Themes: A Test of Romans 1–8,” Ex auditu 3 (1987): 72–87 at 84–85: “This frame, created by chaps. 1 and 8, involves the relationship between the creation and the Creator as it is manifested in the human response to its created status. It is especially the case that the idea of rebellion can be seen in chap. 1. As a result of the human refusal to recognize the creation as God’s, and itself as part of the created order, the human removes itself from proper relationship to God and the created order. It is in this state of rebellion where the Christ encounters us (chap. 5), and it is from this state of rebellion from which we will ultimately be redeemed (chap. 8). . . . The argument of Rom 1–8 suggests that for Paul the history and state of the creation and the human are intertwined in such a way that redemption necessarily includes both. . . . Of the above mentioned themes the controlling theme is that of reversal . . . the verdict against the humanity is reversed, for it will gain the glory to come, and the state of creation is reversed, for it will regain freedom, a freedom which is the product of the coming glory” (emphasis added).

107. See Neil B. MacDonald, “The Philosophy of Language and the Renewal of Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Renewing Biblical Interpretation: Scripture and Hermeneutics Series (ed. Craig Bartholomew, Colin Green, and Karl Möller; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 123–40. Although typological interpretation fell on hard times after the Enlightenment, typology as a method of biblical interpretation has a time-honored pedigree practiced by many churchmen and scholars in the past. MacDonald demonstrates how recent studies in the philosophy of language have confirmed its validity as a method for understanding bibli-

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Romans 5:12–21 and Its Context

Paul is the undisputed author of the letter to the Romans, and although he himself had not visited Rome yet, he is particularly well suited to explain its theme of grace (Rom 1:1, 16–17; 15:25–29).¹⁰⁸ Although little exegesis hinges on the date and place of origin, most authorities agree that it was written toward the end of the apostle’s third missionary journey in or around Corinth around 57.¹⁰⁹

Perhaps no passage in the Bible is clearer in its reference and understanding of Adam’s function in the Edenic situation as is Romans 5:12–21.¹¹⁰ Even so, before discussing the Adam-Christ typology described in this passage, we must situate it in the context of Paul’s argument. The text of 5:1–11 is perhaps one of the most pristine statements on justification.¹¹¹ Therefore, we begin here.

A preliminary survey of 5:1–11 shows that 5:1–2 is the conclusion and natural consequence to what the apostle had just summed up, signaled by the postpositive inferential conjunction οὖν. This connects the text back to the conclusion reached in 4:23–25. The apostle is gathering up his thoughts with respect to justification, but not to the

cal literature. He uses the Adam-Christ typology as an example of how recent philosophy language—“in conjunction with the right kinds of ontological Christian truth-claims—may well provide one particular rational means of affirming one particular example of typological interpretation” (137).

108. First, Paul knew as well as anyone Roman’s theme after his Damascus road encounter. When Paul is wrestling with these doctrines, therefore, we need to remember that he is engaged personally in its expression. Second, Paul was a well-educated, Greek-speaking Jew, a yeshiva boy and a gymnasium boy, so to speak. He was therefore notably qualified to write to a church consisting of both Jews and Gentiles (cf. Rom 2:17–29 and 11:13).

109. With respect to the purpose of the letter, James Dunn warns against overemphasizing one purpose to the neglect of one or more others. He points out three purposes that hang together: missional (15:18–24, 28); apologetic, since Paul seems concerned to set out for the believers a specific statement of the gospel (1:16–17); and pastoral, assuming that the names mentioned in Rom 16 are indeed a part of the original letter. Cf. James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8 (Word Biblical Commentary 38A; Dallas: Word, 1988), lv–lviii.

110. See John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1959).

111. The text of Rom 5:1–11 has for some time been respected as the consummate, climactic conclusion to the discussion of doctrine that has preceded this section in 3:21–4:25. Although this rich passage does in fact give a summary statement on justification by faith, it also addresses at length or in part such themes as peace, hope, suffering, death, and reconciliation. This passage is related not only to Paul’s discussion in the previous sections but also to and moreover pointing toward the arguments that follow in Romans.

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neglect of passing over the vital expression about resurrection.¹¹² In 5:1, the apostle asserts that we are justified.¹¹³ We have peace with God, the theme of the immediate context.¹¹⁴ Of course, “peace” derives its evocation from the rich Old Testament background.¹¹⁵

Ralph Martin notes that the preposition πρός emphasizes the relational nature of the gift of grace and is reiterated in the noun

112. Vos, Pauline Eschatology, 151: “Resurrection thus comes out of justification, and justification comes, after a manner most carefully to be defined, out of the resurrection; not, be it noted out of the spiritual resurrection of the believer himself, but out of the resurrection of Christ. On the basis of merit this is so. Christ’s resurrection was the de facto declaration of God in regard to his being just. His quickening bears in itself the testimony of his justification. God, through suspending the forces of death operating on Him, declared that the ultimate, the supreme consequence of sin had reached its termination.” See also Richard B. Gaffin Jr., Resurrection and Redemption: A Study in Paul’s Soteriology (2nd ed.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1987), 122–24. Cf. B. McNeil, “Raised for Our Justification,” Irish Theological Quarterly 42 (1975): 97–105. The cross and the resurrection are intimately connected, so much so that McNeil writes: “We may indeed say that the death of Jesus means life” (105).

113. It is not insignificant that the apostle uses the aorist passive participle because it states facticity.

114. Although the external evidence on this much debated verse is stronger for the subjunctive—and therefore hortatory—ἔχωμεν at this juncture, most opt for the indicative ἔχομεν on the grounds of internal evidence, namely, that Paul is describing and not exhorting at this point. Such a move is not necessary, however. One may follow the indicative since reasonable explanations can be made on other grounds. See Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament (trans. E. F. Rhodes; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 281: “With regard to ἔχομεν and ἔχωμεν the evidence of the Greek manuscripts (and therefore also of the versions based on them) remain ambiguous: ω can stand for ο, as well as ο for ω.” There is significant internal evidence for the indicative in Rom 5:1, since Paul significantly uses the perfect two times in 5:2, ἐσχήκαμεν and ἐστήκαμεν, emphasizing that the access won in the past is still valid.

115. H. Beck and C. Brown, “Peace,” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (ed. Colin Brown; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 2.778–79. The peace of God in this context is not the subjective state of peaceful feelings but rather the resultant state of no longer being enemies of God, now having been justified. In the rabbinic literature, peace becomes the very essence of salvation. Moreover, the Jews were to pursue it with others. See, e.g., Hillel’s statement in Mishnah, tractate Avot 1.12: “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving human beings, and bringing them near to Torah” (trans. Estelle). For a general introduction to this important tractate, see Jacob Neusner, Introduction to Rabbinic Literature (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 572: “The document serves as the Mishnah’s first and most important documentary apologetic, stating in abstract and general terms the ideals for the virtuous life that are set forth by the Mishnah’s sages and animate its laws.” Throughout this essay, Avot (Fathers) is cited from the most reliable manuscript: manuscript Kaufmann. See Moshe Bar-Asher, “The Study of Mishnaic Hebrew Grammar Based on Written Sources: Achievements, Problems, and Tasks,” in Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew (Scripta Hierosolymitana 37; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1998), 9–42 at 30: “Research into Mishnaic Hebrew that is based on excellent manuscripts differs from that based on printed editions.”

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προσαγωγήν, which essentially means “access” or a privileged introduction to a VIP.¹¹⁶ Paul now makes his first positive use of καυχώμεθα in Romans: “we boast/exult.” In what are we to exult? In the “hope of the glory of God.” Here is the first major introduction of the eschatological theme in this section of Paul’s letter.

The eschatological theme of hope has provided a bridge to the causal chain in 5:2b–5. Having emphasized this glorious future, Paul the realist now affirms that the Christians are to rejoice in their tribulations. Paul proceeds through this “chain syllogism” and then comes back full circle to hope, which does not disappoint.¹¹⁷ The next clause is introduced by ὅτι, which is causal in this case: “Because [ὅτι] the love of God has been poured out into our hearts.”¹¹⁸

The basic structure of 5:6–8 is that 5:6 begins with a statement regarding Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross; 5:8 is Paul’s interpretation of that death; and 5:7 is a strange and difficult statement sandwiched in between.¹¹⁹ Paul begins his thesis with a qualifying statement: “While we were weak.”¹²⁰ Then comes the punch line: “Christ died for the ungodly.”¹²¹ This is a repetition of the main themes

116. Ralph P. Martin, Reconciliation: A Study in Paul’s Theology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 140. This relational aspect of the gift of peace is significant and will be discussed further below. Two other passages are significant for this expression of “access”: 1 Pet 3:18, where the purpose of Christ’s death is said to bring us “access” (ποσαγάγῃ) to God; and Eph 2:18.

117. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (Anchor Bible 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 397, sees allusions to Ps 22:5 (MT 22:6) and 25:20.

118. This is clearly a subjective genitive, not an objective genitive. In other words, it is God’s love to us (contra Augustine and many following), not ours to God, which is being discussed here. Rom 5:8 makes this clear as well.

119. The main purpose of Rom 5:7 is to illustrate the superlative nature of Christ’s sacrificial death. On the hand, it is stated that someone might die for a righteous (δικαίου) man although this is hardly necessary. On the other hand, some admirable person might gather the courage to die on behalf of a good man (or possibly good cause, since ἀγαθοῦ may be neuter). Even so, the really astonishing thing is that no one would dare to die for a helpless man, let alone their enemy!

120. The genitive absolute clause ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν reiterates what Paul has been emphasizing throughout the book—that mankind is helpless when left to himself to effect any remedy for sin.

121. The term ἀσεβῶν (lit. without reverence) is to be linked with ἐχθροί (enemies) in 5:10, as C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (International Critical Commentary; Ed- inburgh: Clark, 1975), 1.264 notes: “In dying for us, Christ died for those who were helpless, ungodly, sinners, enemies. What Paul is here concerned to bring out is the fact that the divine love is love for the undeserving, love that is not the result of any worth in its objects but is self-caused and in its freedom itself confers worth upon them.” The phrase ἀποθανεῖν ὑπέρ was

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in the epistle so far.¹²² Then, after marshalling one point after another, the apostle drives home his main point in 5:8:¹²³ “Christ died for us” (Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν).

Even so, 5:8 begins with the present tense verb συνίστησιν: but God demonstrates his love, which seems to be Paul’s way of emphasizing the continuing emphasis of the past event of the cross. Then, another genitive absolute clause, “while we were sinners” (ἁμαρτλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν), which echoes the previous genitive absolute in 5:6 (“while we were weak”).

The next three verses form a confluence of much of what has gone before in our passage. Immediately, in 5:9, we are introduced to the verb δικαιωθέντες (having been justified) with the phrase ἐν τῷ αἵματι (by his blood). This hearkens back both to 5:1, where the same verb introduced this section, and also to 3:25, where reference was also made to the same essential components of the atonement.¹²⁴

Romans 5:9 and 5:10 are obviously parallel. Both use a form of a minori ad maius argument or a fortiori argument.¹²⁵ Both verses establish their argument with an aorist passive participle and are connected to the next verb, σωθησόμεθα, with the phrase πολλῷ μᾶλλον (how much more), which expresses the confident assertion: “Having been reconciled we will be saved in his life.”

already well established as martyr terminology and would have had a very moving affect upon the listeners; see Dunn, Romans 1–8, 255.

122. The concept was introduced previously in Rom 3:25 and 4:25.

123. Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 137.

124. Analysis of chiastic arrangement is an often overworked method in biblical studies. Nevertheless, prominent motifs of Rom 5:1–2 are “taken up again chiastically in the final verse [5:11],” as recognized by Käsemann, Romans, 132. Charles Davison Myers, “The Place of Romans 5:1–11 with the Argument of the Epistle” (PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1985), 183, sketches the chiastic relationship between 5:1–2 and 5:11.

125. The phrase קַל וָתוֹמֶר (lit. light and heavy) was common in rabbinic literature as a rule for interpretation of Scripture. For example, it is the first of Hillel’s rules for the interpretation of Scripture. It sets up a parallelism, or actually an antiparallelism, between things being compared. See Miguel Pérez Fernández, An Introductory Grammar of Rabbinic Hebrew (trans. John Elwolde; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 201, 30. Although the argument here in Paul’s transition may proceed from the major to the minor—in contrast to proceeding from the minor to the major—both directions of argument are subsumed in the rabbinic קַל וָתוֹמֶר. See Douglas Moo, Romans 1–8 (Wycliffe Exegetical Commentary; Chicago: Moody, 1991), 317–18.

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In 5:10–11, therefore, we are introduced to the new theme of reconciliation, and several points are brought together again. The noun καταλλαγήν (reconciliation) brings the reader back to εῖρήνην (peace) in 5:1.¹²⁶ The English word reconciliation, however, may obscure the truths of the Greek: that reconciliation is objective in character and God initiates it.¹²⁷ It is difficult for English to render the one-sidedness of the Greek terms here since, to our minds, reconciliation connotes a mutual resolution of terms on the part of both parties involved. Nevertheless, Paul says that while we were enemies, we have received (ἐλάβομεν) the reconciliation.

The description of our status prior to being justified and reconciled in 5:10 as ἐχθροί (enemies) amplifies and echoes humanity’s plight while being at enmity with God and under his wrath. Reconciliation, therefore, here means to be restored to the favor of God with whom we were formerly in a state of enmity, by means of “the removal of objective legal obstacles.”¹²⁸

The apostle now begins his section in 5:12 with διὰ τοῦτο (therefore). What is the apostle doing at this point? Is it a transition to a new

126. See Cranfield, Romans, 1.256–57: “The reconciliation Paul is speaking of is not to be understood as simply identical with justification . . . nor yet as a consequence of justification, a result following afterwards. The thought is rather that—in the case of the divine justification of sinners—justification necessarily involves reconciliation. Whereas between a human judge and an accused person there may be no really deep personal relationship at all, the relation between God and the sinner is altogether personal, both because God is the God He is and also because it is against God Himself that the sinner has sinned. So God’s justification of sinners of necessity involves their reconciliation, the removal of enmity, the establishment of peace.” Cf. the role of peace and reconciliation in Eph 2:15–22 and Col 1:19–22.

127. See Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 186–223 at 198: “There is an aspect of reconciliation which is outside of man, an objective element; for we are said to have received the reconciliation, which therefore is in some sense independent of us. . . . There is a sense in which a reconciliation can be said to be proffered to us.”

128. See Geerhardus Vos, “The Pauline Conception of Reconciliation,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 361–66 at 364: “The two passages discussed [2 Cor 5 5:18–19 and Rom 5:9–11] not merely prove the objective character of the reconciliation, they also determine its essence. It consisted in the removal of objective legal obstacles, which not withstanding God’s love for sinners yet compelled Him to treat them on the basis of enmity” (emphasis added). Interestingly, Calvin comments on reconciliation in the following manner: “Now let us examine how true that statement is which is spoken in the definition, that the righteousness of faith is reconciliation with God, which consists solely in the forgiveness of sins” (Institutes 3.11.21).

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thought¹²⁹ or concluding a previous argument such as 5:11, 5:1–11, 1:16–5:11, or something else? Here, διὰ τοῦτο is not a transitional particle, but rather introducing the new reasoning as the conclusion to what had gone before.¹³⁰

In 5:1–11, the instrumentality of Christ had been emphasized time and time again (5:1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 10 [twice], 11 [twice]). Specifically, therefore, what the apostle is doing in 5:12–21 is explaining the instrumentality of Christ’s work, which is stressing the righteousness of Christ “over against the instrumentality of Adam with respect to sin and death.”¹³¹

Having the exegesis of 5:1–11 present before our minds, now the theme of the great reversal emerges. In short, mankind’s alienated state before God, brought about by the high-handed sin of the First Adam is reversed by means of the righteous work of the Last Adam.¹³²

Murray argues that 5:12–19 must be treated as a complete unit. In other words, when the apostle says in 5:12 that “death came to all men because all sinned,” is this sin to be understood as referring to the same sin that Paul alludes to later in 5:15: “By the sin of the one the many died” (εἰ γὰρ τῷ τοῦ ἑνὸς παραπτώματι οἱ πολλοὶ ἀπέθανον), and similarly also in 5:16–18? The answer is yes.¹³³

Paul leaves his unfinished comparison in 5:12 and then returns to it later in the same section. Reformed exegetes have rightly inter-

129. Cf. Myers, “Place of Romans 5:1–11,” who by dint of his chiastic analysis sees 5:12 not as logically consecutive to 5:1–11; rather, he sees 5:12 as beginning a new phase in the apostle’s argument and picking up his earlier arguments in 3:9b–20, whereas 5:1–11 restates important ideas in 3:21–28. I am not sure that Myer’s arguments are successful. Cranfield and others seem to be on point.

130. See Ulrich Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar 6; Einsiedeln: Benziger/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978–82), 1.314. Dunn, Romans 1–8, 272, understands the function of διὰ τοῦτο “to indicate that vv. 12–21 serve as a conclusion to the compete argument from 1:18–5:11.” Moo, Romans 1–8, 328, says: “Most commentators agree, then, that the phrase functions to introduce 5:12–21 as a conclusion or inference drawn from something in the preceding context.” See also Cranfield, Romans, 1.271, followed by Fitzmyer, Romans, 411.

131. Brendan Byrne, Romans (Sacra Pagina 6; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 173.

132. Moo, Romans 1–8, 327, states that 5:12–21 shows why those who have been justified and reconciled can be so certain that they will be saved from wrath and share in “the glory of God”: it is because Christ’s act of obedience ensures eternal life for all those who are “in Christ.”

133. Murray, Imputation of Adam’s Sin, 19–21.

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preted 5:12 as representing the federal headship of Adam.¹³⁴ Romans 5:13–14 has been understood as a parenthesis, at the end of which Adam is identified as a type of the coming Christ (lit. who is a type of the one coming). In 5:15–21, this typological relationship between Adam and Christ is explained further. The acts of Adam and Christ are “considered to have determinative significance for those who belong to each.”¹³⁵

The description of the work of Christ is put into striking grammatical parallelism with the destructive act of Adam. There is parallelism, but there is contrast. These contrasts may be summed up in two basic ways: degree and consequence, with each one introduced by οὐχ ὡς (not as).¹³⁶ Paul’s first contrast, one of degree, is set forth in 5:15a: “not as the trespass, so also is the free gift,” which he then explains in the subsequent verses, with the climax coming in 5:19. In other words, “the work of Christ, being a manifestation of grace, is far more powerful than that of Adam.”¹³⁷

The second contrast is one of consequence. Although death reigned by dint of the transgression of one, that is, Adam (ὁ θάνατος ἐβασίλευσεν διὰ τοῦ ἑνός) (5:17a), Paul uses another a minori ad maius argument to drive home his point of the great reversal in 5:17b: “Much more” will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness (τῆς δωρεᾶς τῆς δικαιοσύνης λαμβάνοντες). In other words, this contrast is one of consequence: it is a gift of righteousness, a free gift, being received or bestowed.

134. But see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, “The Consecutive Meaning of ἐφ ̓ ᾧ in Romans 5:12,” in To Advance the Gospel: New Testament Studies (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 349–68. Based on an exhaustive study of the phrase in contemporary Greek, Fitzmyer’s study may have advanced our understanding of the phrase: it is to be taken in a consecutive sense, introducing a result clause: “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and so death spread to all human beings, with the result that all have sinned.” Even if this interpretation is correct, it does not vitiate the point that Reformed interpreters drove home, as Fitzmyer himself makes clear: “Thus Paul in v. 12 would be ascribing death and human sinfulness to two causes, not unrelated: to Adam and to the conduct of all human beings. The fate of sinful humanity ultimately rests on what its head, Adam, has done to it; the primary causality for its sinful and mortal condition is ascribed to him, but a secondary resultant causality is attributed to the sinful conduct of all human beings. . . . Yet no matter how one understands 5:12d, the universal causality of Adam’s sin is presupposed in 5:15a, 16a, 17a, 18a, and 19a” (362).

135. Moo, Romans 1–8, 347.

136. For details, see ibid.

137. Ibid.

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Although Adam existed in a state of demerit and death reigned through the one and the result was condemnation to all persons, the necessary work for restored communion with God was achieved by another Adam—Christ himself. Through the Last Adam, there results justification to those whom he represents: “Now, therefore [so then], just as through the trespass of the one man, condemnation came to all mankind, so also through the righteous deed of the one man did justification and life come to all mankind.” It is here at 5:18, with some foreshadowing in 5:17, that “the full, balanced statement of the comparison [between the figures of Adam and Christ] emerge[s].”¹³⁸

In 5:18, the apostle affirms that the one man Jesus Christ has secured, through his obedience, the promises of God talked about in 5:1–11. In 5:19, the apostle elaborates further. After describing Adam’s transgression as “disobedience” (παρακοή) resulting in “many made sinners,” the apostle characterizes Christ’s act as “obedience” (ὑπακοή) resulting in “many made righteous.” In another epistle, the apostle makes it clear that we become righteous by virtue of our union with Christ (2 Cor 5:21).¹³⁹

In the final two verses of Romans 5, the apostle deals with a clarification about the role of the law of Moses (5:20) and then concludes with a summary about the comparison between Adam and Christ (5:21). Christ, by reversing the consequences brought about by Adam’s disobedience, has triumphed over sin by his obedience. We are justified and have “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:1).

The Riddle of Galatians 3:10 Revisited Again

A final question remains in our discussion of the covenant of works: Did the apostle Paul understand the law as requiring perfect obedience? Traditional readings of Galatians 3:10 understood it to teach man’s inability to keep the law:¹⁴⁰

138. Byrne, Romans, 174.

139. See Murray, Collected Writings, 2.212–15.

140. Other New Testament passages teaching the necessity of perfect obedience could have been examined as well. For a recent treatment of issues of special introduction (i.e., history, date, relationship to the book of Acts), see Silva, Interpreting Galatians, 101–39. Silva’s more recent work, “Faith versus Works of Law in Galatians,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism (ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001–4), 2.217–48,

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My interest at this point is only the narrow question of the demand for legal perfection.¹⁴¹ Generally it is agreed that Paul never comes closer elsewhere to expressing the law’s requirement for perfect obedience than he does in Galatians 3:10.¹⁴² My thesis is that this verse teaches the necessity of perfect obedience to the law, albeit only hypothetical, since all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation is under its curse and unable to keep the law.¹⁴³

appeared too late for consideration in this essay. For bibliographies of older commentators and recent scholarship taking this position and recent responses to it, see the footnotes in Thomas R. Schreiner, “Is Perfect Obedience to the Law Possible? A Re-examination of Galatians 3:10,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27 (1984): 151–60; and Michael Cranford, “The Possibility of Perfect Obedience: Paul and an Implied Premise in Galatians 3:10 and 5:3,” Novum Testamentum 36 (1994): 242–58.

141. For a clear introduction to the larger issues at stake in this passage and its context, see Silva, Interpreting Galatians, 217–35; or J. Gresham Machen, Machen’s Notes on Galatians, and Other Aids to the Interpretation of the Epistle to the Galatians from the Writings of J. Gresham Machen (ed. John H. Skilton; Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1972), 176–81. A more satisfactory exegesis of this section, especially as it relates to the works principle contrasted with the promise-grace-faith principle in the Mosaic economy in particular, would require a much more complete treatment than is possible here (see note 10 above).

142. Cranford, “Possibility of Perfect Obedience,” 244. Other New Testament passages could have been examined as well, however, my focus in this essay will be on Gal 3:10 alone and not even the following verses. Gal 3:10 may be treated as a single argument (as will become clear below), with 3:11–14 presenting a separate but related argument.

143. This assumes that certain aspects of the covenant of works are still in force, that man always owes God perfect obedience, in spite of no person, save Christ, being able keep the law perfectly. That it is only hypothetical in the postlapsarian period (with respect to being impossible for persons to keep the law perfectly, although not touching on the issue of the law’s function in the Mosaic economy) does not indict the system. Vos says: “These [i.e., several Pauline passages that demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the law method of justification] are commonplaces of the Pauline theology. But it is plain that judgments of this class imply nothing derogatory to the law method of securing eternal life in the abstract. The disability under which the legal system labors is not inherent in the system itself, but arises wholly from the fact that men attempt to put it in operation in a state of sin”; see Geerhardus Vos, “‘Legalism’ in Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 383–99 at 388 (emphasis added). See also Stephen Westerholm, in Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The “Lutheran” Paul and His Critics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 380–81: “Judaism in Galatians is life lived under the Sinaitic law. As a present manifestation of that life, it is in error, Paul implies, in fostering the belief that people can

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This is Paul’s “anthropological pessimism” stated most baldly.¹⁴⁴ And according to Stephen Westerholm, at least one antecedent of this is Genesis 3.¹⁴⁵

Even so, different opinions with respect to Paul’s attitude toward the law began with E. P. Sanders’s paradigm-breaking book.¹⁴⁶ Andrew Wakefield writes: “It is evident that Sanders has changed the landscape of Pauline scholarship.”¹⁴⁷ And N. T. Wright speaks of “the Sanders revolution.”¹⁴⁸ Sanders writes that the rabbis taught that human perfection was not achievable and that there was no hint of Paul’s view of human inability with respect to fulfilling the law’s requirements as expressed in Galatians 3:10 in rabbinic literature.¹⁴⁹ Indeed, since 1977 scholars have begun to reinterpret this verse—which has been the subject of much attention¹⁵⁰—and other passages along nontraditional lines.¹⁵¹

be declared righteous on the basis of their faithfulness to the Sinaitic law; moreover, though Paul voices no criticism of Jews on this score, one may wonder what point he would see in continuing to observe the distinctively Jewish practices prescribed by the Sinaitic law now that its mission has been accomplished, its validity ended. But he does not fault the Sinaitic law per se. Its operative principle—that life is theirs who do what it commands—is found articulated in Scripture itself. And though that principle is different from that of faith, it is not wrong for that reason (or any other). After all, that God places demands for righteous behavior on his moral creatures is presupposed in everything Paul writes; the law, in spelling them out, performs a divine function” (emphasis original).

144. Therefore, the Westminster Shorter Catechism 19 says: “All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse” (emphasis added).

145. Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul, 420.

146. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977). It goes without saying that Sanders’s book is an impressive engagement of primary and secondary sources of Judaism. Through his serious and sustained engagement of the sources, Sanders raises a whole host of issues with which New Testament scholars and scholars in related fields must now grapple and perhaps even nuance or adjust previously held opinions.

147. Andrew Wakefield, Where to Live: The Hermeneutical Significance of Paul’s Citations from Scripture in Galatians 3:1–14 (Academia biblica 14; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 39. Wakefield is referring to the seismic changes that have come in the wake of Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism.

148. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, 114.

149. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 137. E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 17–29, has demurred from his earlier position (that the law cannot be fulfilled), treating Gal 3:10–13 as subordinate to 3:8 in the totality of the apostle’s argument.

150. Silva, Interpreting Galatians, 217: “Few passages in the Pauline literature have received as much attention as Gal 3:10–14.”

151. For a quick global survey of how Wright, Dunn, Fuller, and others understand Gal 3:10 as not teaching the necessity of perfect obedience, see A. Andrew Das, Paul, the Law, and the Covenant (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001), 145–70.

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Several issues need to be addressed in examining the exegesis of Galatians 3:10: whether there is an (intentionally) omitted premise link in the argument of the apostle; whether the meaning of the quotation from Deuteronomy implies that the potential curse in Galatians 3:10 applies to corporate or individual obligation; and whether Sanders’s thesis about rabbinic Judaism and the traditional interpretation of Galatians 3:10 is correct.

First, is a premise omitted from Paul’s argument? In other words, is Paul’s argument here an abbreviated syllogism? Or, more precisely, is Paul’s argument in Galatians 3:10 an example of what is called a rhetorical enthymeme as opposed to a strict logical syllogism?¹⁵² It was common practice in the ancient world to supply only one premise in an enthymeme, leaving out a minor premise. Paul’s argument looks like this:¹⁵³ “Premise: Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law. Conclusion: All who rely on the works of the law are under a curse.”

According to Andrew Das, the implied reconstructed minor premise would possibly look like this: “All who rely on the works of the law do not observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law.”¹⁵⁴ Calvin puts it succinctly: “Either Paul reasons badly or it is impossible for men to fulfil the law.”¹⁵⁵ In other words, Paul is

152. This Aristotelian distinction between logical and rhetorical enthymemes is discussed at length by Kjell Arne Morland, The Rhetoric of Curse in Galatians (Emory Studies in Early Christianity 5; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 117–19, 201–12. Also see Das, Paul, 145–48.

153. The following reconstruction of Paul’s argument is adopted from Das, Paul, 146.

154. Although Morland, Rhetoric of Curse, 203–4, says that it is difficult to identify exactly the omitted premise (and gives a nice summary of the way recent scholars have construed the missing premise), his reconstruction is very similar to Das’s reconstruction of the missing specific premise at this point: “All who rely on the works of the law do not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.” The argument has been made by many scholars, not least among them Machen, Notes on Galatians, 177–78: “It is evident that one link is here omitted from the argument . . . the argument depends, of course, altogether upon the assumption that no one has obeyed the law. If anyone had obeyed the law, then the curse which the law pronounces upon disobedience would not apply to him . . . the argument in verse 10 is complete in itself and that that argument depends on the expressed but obviously valid assumption that no one has really kept the law. The law pronounces a curse upon disobedience; no one has really obeyed; therefore all are under the curse.”

155. John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians (trans. T. H. L. Parker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 53. Calvin fills in the

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expressing himself in a common rhetorical practice of the day. It was not uncommon for Paul to use this technique in other places, even in the immediate context.¹⁵⁶ In short, all, according to Paul, are under a curse because they have not kept the law.¹⁵⁷ This verse, along with many others in Paul, teaches the necessity of perfect obedience, albeit hypothetical this side of the fall.¹⁵⁸

Perhaps one might ask why the apostle would express it this way. Das may indeed be on the right path when he states that Paul “leaves it to the Galatians to figure out for themselves . . . all who rely on the works of the law (Israel and anyone else who would try) fail (and failed) to observe and obey all that is written in the book of the law.”¹⁵⁹ Paul is not trying to obfuscate here.¹⁶⁰ He knew what he is doing, and he is actually being quite clear, though not as easy as

syllogism in the following manner: Whoever has come short in any part of the law is cursed. All are held chargeable of this guilt. Therefore all are cursed.

156. See Morland, Rhetoric of Curse, 198–201.

157. Contra Fuller, Law and Gospel, 99, who indicts Calvin for “inserting a proposition into the middle of verse 10 which does not render this passage ‘most clear.’” This misses the point of the communication intention of the Galatians’ passage.

158. Even though this obedience is hypothetical, it is not without significance, as will be discussed below. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 2.375, states felicitously: “It is as true now as in the days of Adam, it always has been and always must be true, that rational creatures who perfectly obey the law of God are blessed in the enjoyment of his favour; and that those who sin are subject to his wrath and curse. Our Lord assured the young man who came to Him for instruction that if he kept the commandments he should live. And Paul says (Rom. ii.6) that God will render to every man according to his deeds; tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil; but glory, honour, and peace to every man who worketh good. This arises from the relation of intelligent creatures to God. It is in fact nothing but a declaration of the eternal and immutable principles of justice. If a man rejects or neglects the gospel, these are the principles, as Paul teaches in the opening chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, according to which he will be judged. If he will not be under grace, if he will not accede to the method of salvation by grace, he is of necessity under the law.” See also Machen, Notes on Galatians, 178: “So when the Scripture says that a man is justified by faith, that involves saying that he is not justified by anything that he does. There are two conceivable ways of salvation. One way is to keep the law perfectly, to do the things which the law requires. No mere man since the fall has accomplished that. The other way is to receive something, to receive something that is freely given by God’s grace. That way is followed when a man has faith. But you cannot possibly mingle the two. You might conceivably be saved by works or you might be saved by faith; but you cannot be saved by both. It is ‘either or’ here not ‘both and.’ But which shall it be, works or faith? The Scripture gives the answer. The Scripture says it is faith. Therefore, it is not works” (emphasis original).

159. Das, Paul, 54–55.

160. Cf. Daniel P. Fuller, “Paul and ‘the Works of the Law,’” Westminster Theological Journal 38 (1975–76): 28–42, esp. 32, who says that Paul could have stated more clearly what he

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possible.¹⁶¹ Paul is engaging his readers in a mental exercise that has their best interest at heart. Whatever difficulties are left in Paul’s writing in Galatians 3:10 actually enhances the communication since the reader would have to consider what Paul is actually saying, a mental and psychological process.¹⁶²

This position may now be supported from modern linguistic theories of communication. And this modern communication theory, relevance theory, and what it teaches us about communicative intentions, is very helpful at this point in Scripture.¹⁶³ Dan Sperber and Deidre Wilson distinguish between two types of implicatures, which in linguistic terms may be defined generally as “inductive inferences which the hearer draws.”¹⁶⁴ For Sperber and Wilson, there is a distinction between implicated premises and implicated conclusions. The present example from Galatians 3:10 fits clearly under the former category.¹⁶⁵

intended. This misses the point, however: what would the potential response of the Galatians be? Cf. Das, Paul, 155.

161. Much of the argumentation back and forth between scholars on this verse, especially considering the likelihood of an omitted premise, misses the whole point of Paul’s argument because they are searching for the allegedly easiest reading.

162. See, e.g., Sperber and Wilson, “Précis of Relevance,” 701: “Often in human interaction weak communication is found sufficient or even preferable to the stronger forms.”

163. Relevance theory is rooted in Gricean pragmatics; however, it also addresses certain deficiencies in Grice’s theories. Paul Grice (1913–90), a British-American linguistic philosopher who taught at Oxford, Harvard, Berkeley, and elsewhere, was extremely influential in his teaching and lectures, especially in America. Over against the simplistic “message model” of communication, Grice emphasized the inferential nature of communication. Sperber and Wilson and others focussed on the psychological processing side of communication and therefore addressed certain weaknesses in the “message model” as well. In other words, their theory is based on human cognition. Building on the work of pragmatics, psycholinguistics, and the philosophy of language, they explain the importance of understanding the inferential process, which includes ostension and inference. Basically, they contend that the more complex a speech utterance is, then the more necessary and complex the psychological processing (through inference) in order to understand the intentions of the speaker. In other words, a complex statement with fewer contextual implications renders a statement less relevant and therefore more mental energy is needed to process the communication. In Gal 3:10, the audience must expend mental energy to consider what the extra-communication implications are (i.e., the omitted minor premise). My argument is that this was intentional on Paul’s part in this communication context.

164. Peter Gundry, Doing Pragmatics (London: Arnold, 1995), 44.

165. Sperber and Wilson, “Précis of Relevance,” 705: “Implicated conclusions are deduced from the explicit content of an utterance and its context. What makes it possible to identify such conclusions as implicatures is that the speaker must have expected the hearer to derive them, or some of them, given that she intended her utterance to be manifestly relevant to the

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The reader, a sinner, whether an individual or group, must understand and contemplate Paul’s saying in both its explicitness and its implicitness. In short, their inability to keep the law is what is at stake. Far from making the “whole question of perfect obedience irrelevant,”¹⁶⁶ this fact contributes significantly to Paul’s argument about the necessity of faith.

Second, with regard to whether the curse cited from Deuteronomy applies to the individual or corporate Israel, the issue is whether Israel as a whole has kept the law or whether the expectation of Galatians 3:10 is about individual obedience. Paul’s quotation is not verbatim but reflects the broader context of Deuteronomy 27–30.¹⁶⁷ Paul’s wording may have been for the purposes of improving the rhetorical parallelism in Galatians 3:10–13.¹⁶⁸

Wright and others argue that Galatians 3:10 is not about individual obedience but rather Israel as a whole. When the context of the quotation from Deuteronomy is considered closely, however, recent scholarship shows that the sins and retribution for those sins listed in Deuteronomy are actually mixed between corporate and individual. Deuteronomy 27:26, for example, occurs in a series of sins and retributive curses, some of which are related to sins that are clearly individual, not corporate.¹⁶⁹ Moreover, Joel Kaminsky demonstrates that the common tendency of scholarship to view indi-

hearer. Implicated premises are added to the context by the hearer, who either retrieves them from memory or constructs them ad hoc. What makes it possible to identify such premises as implicatures is that the speaker must have expected the hearer to supply them, or some of them, in order to be able to deduce the implicated conclusions and thereby arrive at an interpretation consistent with the principle of relevance” (emphasis added). See also Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition (2nd ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 172–202, for a discussion with many examples and full argumentation.

166. Cranford, “Possibility of Perfect Obedience,” 252.

167. Morland, Rhetoric of Curse, 208.

168. Christopher Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 239. In addition to Stanley’s thorough treatment of Gal 3:10, see Morland, Rhetoric of Curse, 206–10, for a description and analysis of Paul’s quotation from Deuteronomy.

169. See Elizabeth Bellefontaine, “The Curses of Deuteronomy 27: Their Relationship to the Prohibitives,” in A Song of Power and the Power of Song: Essays on the Book of Deuteronomy (ed. Duane L. Christensen; Sources for Biblical and Theological Study 3; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 256–68, who demonstrates that many of the sins listed in the context of Deuteronomy were committed secretly and therefore must have been individual.

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vidualizing retribution as more superior and late in the history of Israel is probably not an accurate reflection of Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history.¹⁷⁰ Therefore, interpreting Galatians 3:10 as concerned only with corporate Israel over against the individual is an oversimplification.

The third issue is Sanders’s assessment of rabbinic Judaism with respect to expressions of the divine standard of justice and the possibility of rabbinic Judaism’s views mirrored in Galatians 3:10 along the lines of the traditional interpretation. Sanders says, for example, “Human perfection was not considered realistically achievable by the rabbis, nor was it required.”¹⁷¹

Sanders’s views, however, have not gone unchallenged. One of the focal points of discussion is Mishnah tractate Avot, cited earlier. Arguing that Sanders cannot be so dismissive of Akiba’s words, Charles Quarles demonstrates that the statement in question in Avot “is probably the most systematic soteriological explanation in the Mishnah.”¹⁷² Moreover, Quarles concludes that “older rabbis such as Gamaliel II clearly held the views of the divine standard of justice expressed by Paul in Gal 3.10.”¹⁷³ At stake in this disagreement is the correct interpretation of Avot 3.15–16:¹⁷⁴

170. Joel S. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 196; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 116–38. That there may have been a growing movement toward a more individualistic model of retribution in the history of Israel and especially in the prophets does not negate, according to Kaminsky, that some concepts of divine retribution against individuals were very ancient. The problem, as Kaminsky demonstrates, is more complicated than the standard communal view portrayed in much modern scholarship. According to Kaminsky, we see evidence in Deuteronomy of divine retribution individualized and the principle of corporate responsibility side by side, even at an early date in Israel’s history.

171. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 136–47.

172. Charles L. Quarles, “The Soteriology of R. Akiba and E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism,” New Testament Studies 42 (1996): 185–95.

173. Ibid., 195.

174. There are many slight differences in manuscript Kaufmann and later critical editions of Avot 3.15–16. The most interesting one is Kaufmann’s לִסְעוֹדָה as the final word in these two verses. Could this be translated “visitation,” under either Aramaic (סעורא) or Modern Hebrew (סְעוֹרָא); influence? If so, the final phrase may not be talking about the eschatological banquet: “Everything is set for the final accounting visitation.”

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Quarles argues that careful exegesis of Avot 3.15 in its immediate context (especially 3.16) and the wider context of this tractate and rabbinic Judaism demonstrate that Sanders “went too far in his assertion that no one in the early Rabbinical context held to the view of Paul.”¹⁷⁸ Still others approaching the question from a more global appraisal of the evidence in rabbinic Judaism have also questioned Sanders’s conclusions.¹⁷⁹

In summary, Galatians 3:10 has been interpreted by Calvin and a whole entourage of Reformed luminaries as stating that the law of God

175. I translate טוֹב “righteousness,” following Quarles’s argumentation that “grace” or something similar is unsupported when read in the context of the entire Avot tractate.

176. Meaning that none can escape judgment.

177. Quarles, “Soteriology of R. Akiba,” 191, states: “The illustration [of this verse following the previous one] offered an analogy by which one may understand judgment according to the majority of works. Like a shopkeeper, God maintains a careful record of a person’s moral debits and credits. Sins, for which there are no corresponding good works, create a debit on a person’s eternal count. Payment will be exacted in the day of judgment.”

178. Quarles, “Soteriology of R. Akiba,” 195. Quarles expresses his bewilderment: “It is puzzling that Sanders completely ignored Akiba’s own explanation of this theological maxim in m. Aboth [3.16]” (191). Those demanding a more accurate portrayal of the complexities of rabbinic Judaism are lining up behind Quarles as well. For the possibility of optional systems of soteriology (election/membership vis-à-vis reward/retribution) in rabbinic Judaism, see Friedrich Avemarie, “Erwählung und Wergeltung: Zur Optionalen Struktur rabbinischer Soteriologie,” New Testament Studies 45 (1999): 108–26.

179. Guy Prentiss Waters, Justification and the New Perspective on Paul: A Review and Response (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2004), 43–46, 152.

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is a curse only to its transgressors since all human beings are subject to its curse and unable to perform its requirement. The solution to this plight,¹⁸⁰ as stated in Galatians and elsewhere by the apostle, is faith in Jesus Christ, who has “ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal 3:13).¹⁸¹

Conclusion

By way of synthesis, I ask what the preceding treatment can do for us with regard to the question asked at the beginning of this essay: Was there a prelapsarian covenant of works?¹⁸² As a reply to that question, the evidence offered above suggests an unequivocal yes.¹⁸³

The choice of the word works by the Westminster Divines and the older classical Reformed theologians is indeed felicitous for at least two reasons. First, by designating the prelapsarian covenant as one of “works,” the divines helped to highlight that which is particularly important in the covenant: namely, that certain probationary conditions were placed upon Adam if he was to remain in good favor and covenantal communion with his Lord.

Second, such language helps maintain the vital distinctions and the necessary differences between the prefall covenant and the subsequent postfall covenant of grace. Many recent writers make it their custom

180. Based upon the evidence presented by Quarles, it seems to be more than an anachronistically designed etiology to explain the relevance of the Christ event in the apostle’s life.

181. Even though “us” in this passage probably refers to the Jewish Christians, this does not mitigate this text’s application to Jews and Gentiles alike; cf. Machen, Notes on Galatians, 179. This is true even if Paul had the Judaizers primarily in mind regarding the reference ὅσοι ἐξ ἔργων νόμου, as Silva argues in Interpreting Galatians, 232; nevertheless, this does not do away with its wider application. Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul, 442–43, summarizes Paul’s view succinctly: “It was, however, when his Galatian converts were told to get circumcised and submit to the Mosaic law that Paul first clarified the relationship between Israel’s law and the church’s faith. All human beings, Paul insisted, are the subjects of sin (Gal 3:22). The law God gave to Israel, though offering life to its doers (3:12), can only curse its transgressors (3:10) and consign sinners to their doom (3:21–23). But Christ bore the curse of the law (3:13). Now God will declare righteous those who put their faith in him (2:16; 3:24).”

182. Some of the statements in this section of the essay occurred previously in Evangelium 3.1 (Jan./Feb. 2005), a bimonthly publication of Westminster Seminary California.

183. WCF 7.2: “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal
obedience.”

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to flatten out the necessary distinctions between the prelapsarian and postlapsarian covenants. Such leveling tendencies make opaque the biblical portrayal of original mankind created in upright sinless integrity, now alienated from God by means of his own fall into sin and disobedience and, consequently, left in a condition of desperate and helpless need for reintroduction into communion with God.

If Adam as the federal representative head of the human race had passed his temporary probationary testing, he would then have justly merited God’s approbation and moved on to Sabbath consummation and a new state: had he fulfilled his probation with obedience, Adam would have been confirmed in righteousness. As it was, he failed the test. Since God’s claim for obedience on his creatures has not ceased since the fall and since man’s inability to now keep the law is universally evident (as exegesis of Gal 3:10 makes clear), the curse of the law rests on mankind.

Consequently, now existing in a state of demerit and deserving of God’s just wrath, Adam’s sin and failure (imputed to all his posterity) rendered the promises of God inaccessible except for the provision of the meritorious achievement of another Adam—Christ himself, the Last Adam. Paul clearly states in Romans 5:15–21 that the work of the Last Adam (i.e., Christ) undoes the damage, death, and destruction wrought by the First Adam. The cornucopia of justification for those in Christ, described in 5:1–11, is brought about by the instrumentality of Christ’s work.

Christ is the federal head of the covenant of grace just as Adam was the federal head of the covenant of works. Christ has rendered a passive and active obedience that is full of perfect merit. The sins of the people of God have been imputed to their redeemer. The satisfaction of Christ meets the demands of justice. Christ has paid the penalty for the sins of the people. Moreover, he has earned the reward. God has graciously supplied the mediator. All demands and obligations have been met and fulfilled completely in the Savior, and now the righteousness of Christ is imputed to his people. Those who are in Christ have been brought into fellowship and communion with God.

The righteous obedience of Christ alone, the substitutionary atonement of Christ alone, is the ground of our justification and our kingdom inheritance. Such alien righteousness (i.e., belonging

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to another), moreover, necessitates and maintains the extraspective (looking outward) character of biblical faith, “the alone instrument of justification” (WCF 11.2).

The history of redemption is “an astonishing drama indeed.”¹⁸⁴ Valiant for truth, it is crucial to the advance of theology that innovations should be suggested (with due propriety) where previous conclusions about doctrine need recasting. This essay demonstrates, however, that the innovators and innovations suggesting revision to the covenant of works have been weighed in the scales of classic Reformed orthodoxy, modern biblical scholarship, and modern linguistics and have been found wanting.

In conclusion, the biblical evidence supports the covenant of works. Consequently, the covenant of works, as described by the Westminster Divines, will not fall on its own sword in order to die an honorable death as some critics and distinguished professors have proposed and as their epigones would also currently wish. From its ancient inception and down to the present day, the covenant of works has displayed the penalty-paying substitution and probation keeping of the Last Adam in the wake of the failures of the First Adam. With the queen of essayists we say, “Let us, in Heaven’s name, drag out the Divine Drama from under the dreadful accumulation of slipshod thinking and trashy sentiment heaped upon it, and set it on an open stage to startle the world into some sort of vigorous reaction.”¹⁸⁵

184. Dorothy L. Sayers, Creed or Chaos? (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949), 7.

185. Ibid., 24.

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Note: A special thanks to Courtney Litts for her efforts in helping us to get this chapter formatted to publish here.

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Post authored by:

• Bryan D. Estelle

  

  Dr. Estelle has been an Old Testament professor at Westminster Seminary California since 2000, and is also an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

  More by Bryan D. Estelle ›