Creation and the Will of God
The preceding chapter asserted that the eternal will has as its object the salvation of the church. As biblical theology is progressive, the event of creation follows, in logical succession, the decree of God unto its fruition. The first act of God in accomplishment of the salvation of the church is explained in the words of God, "let there be light and there was light (Gen 1: 3)." In this statement there is a distinct purpose and exercise of power. Theology inquires, "To what end is God speaking?" God brings forth from mere decretive fact to existence the first fruits of his will. All the glorifying works of God in salvation and reprobation are in seed form in the first utterance of God. Yet let the reader understand, if I say, "Meet me at a plot of ground at dawn where a house shall be constructed," this in no way builds the house. Arrival at the plot of ground is but the first step toward the house's construction. Equally, the statement of God, "let there be light" is but the first act toward the revelation of God’s salvific will in Jesus Christ to save his church.
Every salvific act of God from that first utterance would mimic the exercise of godly power. When God would bring forth Israel from Egypt, from the very plague of death itself, plunged into utter darkness, he would mimic creation’s decree. When, upon a dark night in Bethlehem, the angel would appear unto Shepherds, again would echo creation’s decree, declaring a new day is come. "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1: 5). When Christ would stand before Lazarus’s tomb and cry, "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11: 43), the divine will would again be demonstrated in bringing forth light and life into death’s enveloping darkness. Again, on resurrection morn, when the stone was rolled away, there would be an utterance from heaven, "let there be light." At Pentecost, when "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2: 4), again, light shined forth in darkness, as fire falling from heaven. And finally, at the close of the divine word we are told, "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 22: 5). From the beginning to the end of God’s special revelation we see the exercise of the divine eternal will.
Yet, when theology inquires of the object of the divine will in creation, its answer is found within its manifested object; herein it is best identified. In other words, if an inquiry into the cause for the phrase "let there be light" is conducted, the answer is found in the result of the phrase "let there be light." What did God accomplish with the utterance "let there be light"? In accordance with the previous references mentioned, his accomplishment was to manifest his divine will of salvation and reprobation. The divine will manifests itself in these two veins as saving and damning. In Adam both are found as they are in Christ. There is reprobation for sin that shall bring eternal damnation upon all those destined for damnation. There is salvation bound up in a (or "the") promise of a seed. The result of the utterance of God, "let there be light" was that his will was accomplished as a first act of the divine volition. We might then declare his will as determined in reprobation and salvation. Was this actualized then in Adam? In no way, but rather, it was to be a recurring image played out time and again through creation. The first actof God, in the exercise of his will, was both salvific and reprobative. The last act of God will be the same. Some will be cast into outer darkness, some unto eternal light. Each successive event of revelation plays out this pattern more fully, until the final act is completed. The final act is the consummate salvation of the church and the damnation of reprobate.
Creation then might be compared to the first act of divinity, outside of foreordination and predestination, in which God begins the actual process of salvation and reprobation. In creation we do not have the terminus of the divine will. Adam is not an end in himself; rather, he is only the beginning. When theology seeks to elevate the place of Adam beyond a starting point and base demonstration of divine glory, it prematurely robs God of his greater glory. In other words, when Adam is given a predominant place in the divine plan of salvation and reprobation, Christ in his effulgence is eclipsed. Just as Jesus shall not be equivalent or subordinate to Moses, neither shall Adam receive greater emphasis beyond biblical designation. Try as theologians may in all their wrangling, Adam was a man, a forefather of a race, who simply transgressed a single command, plunging his posterity into an impenetrable darkness. Consider the brevity of attention God’s word gives to Eden and Adam. The emphasis in scripture is not upon the dawn of creation, not upon a presumed covenant never mentioned, nor upon the holiness of God yet shrouded in a simple command. The emphasis of scripture is theologically christocentric, where covenant, law, and Adam, all take subservient importance to the Son of God.
Covenant and its relation to the garden of Eden
Try as theologians may to identify a covenant between God and Adam, they have only their system of theology to affirm such a proof. John Calvin himself did not go so far as to construct an Adamic covenant; neither does the design of new covenant theology. This is not to say that covenant theologians have implicit proof and visible rudiments that hint at later biblical developments. The typical nature of the Garden of Eden can foreshadow a covenant without actually affirming one. In the Garden of Eden there are rudiments of a covenant. There are allusions to divine law, hints at sacrifice, and implied blessing contra to cursing. Yet in all actuality, an Adamic covenant is not a necessary component in biblical theology. Eden serves as a breaking ray of sunlight over the horizon. Just as the phrase "let there be light" held within it the divine nature (God is light), divine holiness (light contrary to darkness), divine volition (let there be light), divine salvific will (light shone in the darkness) and judicious will (utter darkness of hell), so does Eden serve as a prism into the divine being. In Eden we see a man, representative of all men, in whose loins are found both blessing (the seed) and cursing (the curse), typical of its antitypical hope found in Christ and his anticipated covenant.
All God’s promises of salvation in the God-man are found in Adam, a mere man. In him justice finds its solace in knowing that God will be glorified, sin vindicated, and man humbled. In the Garden of Eden there was a man, a tree, and a divine command. "And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed" (Gen. 2: 8). Israel is but a gleam in the divine eye of election and effulgent glory. The church stands afar off, hidden in Eden. Judgment is barely seen upon the horizon in the day God placed the man in the garden. God’s glory is in its veiled form in creation. If one were to ask, "Where is the glory of God in Eden?" the answer would not be found in a law, or a presumed covenant, or even a tree; instead, it was wrapped in a shroud of darkness, in the loins of a frail man, in the allusion of a tree called ‘life,’ and in the promise of a woman’s seed. There is no covenant in Eden; there is simply a man, a tree, a serpent, and a transgression and a curse hedged in by a promise. Look with strained eyes; there are no tablets of stone in Eden. Mt. Sinai is not seen in the mountains of the west. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are not yet born. All that is found are a tree and a command and a man of foolish heart. Theology’s attempt to find in Eden what is existent only in the mind and decree of God is both premature and indiscreet. The cart is precariously put before the horse; shadows become reality. Such theology constructs a façade for the reader, and the theological and practical consequences of such theological impropriety are, in all actuality, contrary to their own assertions that soli deo gloria sitsat the forefront of their catechism. Let the cautious theologian learn patience in his theology. Let God determine the pinnacle of his own glory. Let Adam remain a mediate part in our need for Christ and the means to God’s glory. Our soteriological theology should not lay a foundation in Eden; only a hole should be dug. Then let it be filled as a foundation of promise. Let God build the walls of glory.
Law and its relation to the Garden of Eden
Distinctly, there is but one command found in the narrative of Eden.God commanded Adam, "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2: 16, 17). This is the only law of Eden. The other words of God, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen 1:28), are called a blessing of God. This is Adam’s exercise of liberty, a reasonable service, and God-granted prerogative.
The Ten Commandments were not written in the Garden of Eden. Search as we may for the Decalogue in the Garden of Eden, it is not to be found. This is affirmed by two facts. First, the law historically serves to magnify transgression, "Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator" (Gal. 3: 19). It does not serve as a means toward life: "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. (Gal. 3: 21). What purpose would the Decalogue serve in Eden before the fall? Some might vie for its existence in pre-fallen Adam’s heart, but this presumes the existence of impurity. Where sin is not found, law has no punitive worth. Within Adam was a principle of righteousness and holiness. He was apart from sin;he knew God. If we search for the Decalogue in Eden, it is not to be found. We have this proof, as the most demonstrative evidence against any inference placing the ten commandments in Eden, in Paul’s own words:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. (Rom 5: 12, 13)
Equally, Paul affirms,
For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. (Rom 4: 13 -15)
Law enters to further elucidate the need for Christ. It does not precede faith and Abraham, else law can be said to be the foundation of faith.
Again, as with all other aspects of revelation, new covenant theology does not deny that God is holy and right. It does not deny that God’s justice and holiness are immutable. It does not deny that murder is, in Cain and Abel’s day, as damnable a sin as in Paul’s day. However, it does deny that, in the days of Cain and Abel, there was a codified law. Again, the mere existence of the immutable holy character of God, visibly evident even before Sinai, does in no way necessarily presuppose a binding relationship of the law and covenant made with Israel at Mt Sinai. Again, we have simply the vestiges of the components of that covenant found before its institution. But just as Abraham is not called Jacob, neither is murder in his day declared to be transgression. It is sin; it is unholy; it is against God; men are conscious of its heinous nature, but it is not yet revealed to be transgression. What need would there be for the tablets of stone if it was sufficiently known, manifest, and binding before that day? Again theology seeks to unwrap that horrid portrait of thunder and lightning, of which it is written:
For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more: For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake. (Heb 12: 18 – 21)
No such mountain is found in Eden or preceding the gathering of Israel at Sinai. There is a trembling in the soul of Adam, evidence of his crimes, yet sin was not manifest as transgression. Otherwise the law’s coming in at Sinai would have failed to accomplish what Paul says of its increasing and manifesting sin as transgression. Again, if it is already known, what need is there of its reaffirmation? Just as Christ and salvation are gradually manifest from promise to fruition, so is sin and unholiness gradually manifest in its expanse. There is an equal development of law in biblical theology, where revelation is again gradual and illuminating. The law had its day at Sinai, served its purpose in its day, and now has given way to faith, not to lawlessness, but to lawfulness in Christ that is of faith.