God As Our Debtor
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:15-17)
Genesis 2 teaches us many things – the creation of man, the institution of marriage, and some of the finer details of the sixth day. Of all these, none mark God’s goodness more than the beginning of the Covenant of Works (cf. Hos. 6:7; Rom. 5:12-21). A covenant is an agreement between two parties with certain obligations and promises. Many of us have entered into a covenant called marriage. When a man and woman say “I do,” they make themselves debtors to one another with vows of great magnitude. How do we see this in our passage?
For one, God enters into a covenant with dirt. God takes a lump of dirt, forms and fashions him, bringing into Him the breath of life. God formed man to be in covenant with Him – to live for Him and wholly dependent upon Him. This covenant is not between two equals, but between two who are worlds apart. The God of heaven and earth has entered into a covenant with the very dirt on which the animals had trod. He could have sent us out to pasture as he did the birds and buffalos, or He could have kept us in a well regimented relationship as He did the angels, but He instead entered into this most near, most binding covenant with us. Oh, do we not see His goodness, His kindness?
Two, God enters into a covenant and makes Himself our debtor. He threatens death of every kind upon the breaking of the commandment – spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death. But He also promises to reward us with a better life if we had kept it (cf. Lev. 18:5; Romans 10:5). But why did He make the promise? Could He not have given us a shovel and said, “Get to work”? He didn’t have to provide us with such rich foods nor taste buds to enjoy them, much less to receive them from His loving hand. We could have toiled alone, but He provided us a helpmate. Do we not see His goodness? Or better yet, is there any proportion between the command and the promise? We work and keep a garden, but God crowns us with glory. Imagine mowing your neighbor’s yard and being minted a million dollars. It would make no sense! But that example does not begin to compare to how God made Himself a debtor to us.
Three, who was this promise for? It was for Adam, but it was also for us. Adam was our representative; he entered into covenant with God for us. As Christ died on the cross as our representative, with His one death serving in the place of millions, even so with Adam and his obedience (Rom. 5:12-21). For Adam in the splendor of his youth and the might of his powers to obey God in this one point would have earned heavenly bliss for all his children. So little demanded, so much promised. My friends, do not leave Genesis 2 without seeing the goodness of God! Let the goodness of God be the foil to the dark turn which awaits us next week.
