Adam and the New Plan (Genesis 1-3)
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The Bible emphasizes that God’s creation of the first man and woman was unlike anything else he made.
God said,
“Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in his image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 God said, “Behold,I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so (Genesis 1:26-30).
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What did it mean to be made “in the image” of God? Bible teachers describe it in various ways but for purposes of His Story I want to focus particularly on the implications in the covenant relationship.
Recall that in the ancient structure, the second historical section told the stories of the king’s rule. Specifically, it often told the stories by chronicling the acts of the king’s representatives. As representatives of the king they embodied the king himself. What I mean is that even though they were not sovereign like the king they were given authority from the king to represent his interests. They were also mediators. The word means in the exercise of kingly authority they stood between the king and his subjects. For example, they communicated messages from the king to the people. And in their mediatorial role, they could also communicate messages from the people to the king.
Adam was a covenant mediator that way. Theologians often suggest three specific ways he did this: as a prophet (proclaiming truth of the king), priest (interceding between king and his subjects) and king (carrying out the king’s commands). There’s a helpful study of the biblical terms and how they all pointed to Jesus himself, by Richard Belcher, Prophets, Priests and Kings: The Roles of Christ in the Bible and Our Roles Today.
In God’s original command to his covenant representative, Adam was to “have dominion”, to “be fruitful and multiply” and to eat from every fruit in the garden but one. This obedience was the condition for confirming him and his descendants in a state of eternal, unchangeable righteousness, granting eternal life and peace. This was to be his destiny and indeed the destiny of his descendents as well.
If Adam perfectly obeyed his covenant duties (fulfilling the covenant of creation), his obedience would have increasingly produced in him “glory” and be experienced as deeper and richer participation in the trinitarian fellowship. This was to be his destiny and indeed the destiny of his descendents as well.
But as we know, Adam failed to fulfill the threefold office. The covenant sanction was death. Though it eventually meant the cessation of his earthly life, the process of death began immediately and touched every area of his life and relationships.
Death and the Heart (Disordered Desires)
From the moment Adam and Eve saw the forbidden fruit and desired it more than obedience to God, the hearts and desires of God’s representatives have been “disordered.” This means our desires and emotions are out of order. God made these desires along with what I call the Heart Brain, to process our emotions and feelings in a way that fulfilled his creative design. Now, because of Adam, our emotional processing is disordered. We want things we are not supposed to. We don’t want what we should. In terms of his covenant offices, as a priest, Adam’s heart desires were to equip him to “bear one another’s burdens” as a mediator. His ability to be a priest would be corrupted.
Death and the Mind (Distorted Beliefs)
The particular strategy used by the serpent to tempt Adam and Eve shows us what happened to their minds after their sin. The serpent tempted them to doubt God’s authority, introducing false beliefs in their minds they would rely on to violate the command. Theologians today talk about the “noetic effect” of sin. In other words, the effect of sin on how we think.
As a prophet, Adam was supposed to be fully submitted to the authority of God’s word. To the extent he was he would be a faithful messenger of the covenant and others would know God’s commands so they could obey them. Now, rejecting God’s authority, Adam’s prophetic office was corrupted.
Death and the Strength (Distressed Habits)
Adam was also called to be an administrator of God’s kingdom. This is the kingly office. God said, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Though Adam did not completely forfeit his kingly office, it was profoundly impacted. In his innocence, he would have exercised dominion without self-interest. But now, Adam and his descendents would forever try to use their strength for personal benefit more than the benefit of others. This would produce what I call “distressed habits.”
The New Plan
Even so, God was not caught off guard. It was all part of his plan. We call it the covenant of grace. No sooner had Adam disobeyed God but God announced a “new” plan for creation. In his judgment on the serpent, God said,
I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” (3:15).
The new plan and promise of the covenant of grace was that what Adam failed to do, the seed of the woman would one day accomplish. Specifically, God had already made the covenant of creation (works) with Adam. He was unable to fulfill it. But in the promise of a child who would crush the head of the serpent was implicit the truth that the coming deliverer would himself fulfill the covenant of creation through his perfect obedience.
There was also a profound mystery in the simple promise of a deliverer: though he would crush the serpent’s head his heel would be bruised. In other words, in the process of conquering evil, the chosen one would himself suffer a crippling blow. To impress upon them this truth, the Bible goes on to tell us that Yahweh God made garments of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them (Genesis 3:21).
From our vantage point in history we can understand the profound significance of these garments of animal skin. We can see how God shed blood to make the clothing. We can also appreciate more fully how the blood of the animal (perhaps a lamb) was directly connected to the promise of a deliverer. Later, Moses would say, “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin” (Leviticus 17:11). Without this deep truth there could be no grace. Now, however, God said a child would one day crush the serpent though his heel would be bruised. In other words, the penalty for disobedience had a remedy. It would become evident over time that the deliverer could shed his own blood, like the lamb. As the New Testament tells us, God’s son was the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
Though Adam and his descendants all failed to fulfil the covenant of creation, all was not lost. Blood became an “atonement” or “covering” for sin. If God were to simply ignore the disobedience he would be unjust. Covenant violations must always be punished. However, atonement meant that God could himself be just and the justifier of those who put their faith in him (Romans 3:26).
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Our first parents had no idea how long it would take for the chosen seed to arrive and complete what Adam failed to do. We know it would be thousands of years. This single Covenant of Grace, revealed in these successive administrations to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, always pointed to and was founded upon the future work of the coming Christ.
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