The Covenant Of Grace In Eden

"The Lord God said to the serpent: - - I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." (1)

The covenant of grace was first made with Adam and Eve in Eden when after the fall there was given a divine promise that the Seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head. To all mankind, this covenant offered pardon, and the assisting grace of God to all who would trust Him through faith in "her Seed". Thus the patriarchs received the hope of salvation through the symbol of a lamb to be slain for their sins, prefiguring the "Lamb of God" (2), to be slain for the sins of all who would accept God's values and His provision for their redemption and salvation.

God's law, His values, existed before man was created. After Adam and Eve chose to listen to and accept the words of Lucifer, through the medium of the serpent, rather than the word and warnings of their Creator, they forfeited their special connection with their Creator and became subjects of the one they chose to believe. God's law and His values do not change. They have existed from the beginning and will continue to exist throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.

After the transgression of Adam and Eve, the principles of the law were expressed to meet man in his fallen condition. Jesus - the Son of God, and the Father, instituted a system of sacrificial offerings that death, instead of being immediately visited upon the transgressors, should be transferred to a victim which would prefigure the offering of the One who would perfectly live out the values and principles of the law of God and become the Redeemer of the race, of those who love and value what God has to offer. Through the blood of this victim (a lamb), man could look forward by faith to the blood of the Redeemer, the Seed of the woman, which would atone for the sins of the world. "For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (3)

The mission of Jesus on earth was not to destroy the law, but by His grace to bring man back to obedience to its principles. By His own obedience to the law, Jesus testified to its value and immutable character. He came to "fulfill" the law (4) for you and me, and place its values in our hearts to live by (5). Adam and Eve had this promise from the beginning.

Adapted from "God's Amazing Grace" p. 131.

1. Genesis 3:15.
2. John 1:29 & 35.
3. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
4. Matthew 5:17, 18.
5. Ezekiel 36:26; 18:31, 32.