This is the eighth in a series of articles on Reformed Doctrine, under the heading, What We Believe. The familiar question-and-answer method is being followed. Rev. Elco H. Oostendorp of Hudsonville, Michigan, deals with “The Fall” in this article.

What is meant by the probationary command given to Adam?

When God created Adam He placed him in the garden of Eden. He permitted him 10 eat of all the trees of the garden, but commanded him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:15–17). This was not the only commandment given to men. At the time of creation according to Genesis 1:28, God gave man and woman the command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over all other creatures. Adam was to till and keep the garden of Eden. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:8). On the basis of such facts many maintain that by virtue of creation in the image of God, as God’s sons and daughters, men are in covenental relationship to God. This is, in a very important sense true because redemption restores creation to its original purpose. However, the test or probation which Goo placed before Adam in forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil set up a relationship in addition to that in which Adam and God stood by virtue of creation. This is well stated in the Westminster Confession, Chapter VII, Sections 1 and 2: “The distance between God and creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of Him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which He hath been pleased to express by way of covenant. The 6rst 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.”

Why is this covenant also called the Covenant of Life? There are three elements in this arrangement that

God made with Adam as the father and head of the human race. God required absolute obedience to His command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and eviL That the purpose of this test was not to cause man to fall, but rather to confirm him in holiness and life is evident from the presence of the tree of life also in the midst of the garden (Gen. 2:9 and 3:22–24). The reference to this tree in Genesis 3:22, 23 clearly implies that the opposite of the death threatened for disobedience, was eternal life. Although we know very little about the fall of some of the angels, it would seem that among them too there was a permanent confirming of the “elect angels” in holiness. Thus the tree of life was in a sense the sacrament of this covenant and symbol of God’s gracious purpose with mankind. Enjoyment of eternal life was conditioned on obedience to the commandment not to eat of the forbidden fruit. The penalty for disobedience was plainly stated, “in the day that you cat of it you shall die” (Gen. 2:17). Objection has been made to the name “Covenant of Works” on the ground that even Adam and Eve could not merit anything by obedience and life would have been a gift of grace. However, it would seem that this would involve as a logical consequence that the second Adam, the man Jesus, could not merit anything either, which is obviously contradicted by many scriptural passages. On this score we confess with the Heidelberg Catechism in Answer 9, “God created man with the ability to keep the law.”

How did our first parents break the Covenant of Works?

They yielded to the temptation of Satan, and ate of the forbidden tree. The story of this greatest of all tragedies is found in Genesis 3. We believe that this is the record of an actual event and not a story that must be understood symbolically. This is not to say that there are no symbolical elements in the account. Such an element appears in the way the tree of life is referred to in the Book of Revelation. Clearly the snake or serpent, though a real animal that talked, was not acting by its own ability, but was the instrument of the devil. This is evident from several New Testament passages referring to the fall. But we believe it is absolutely essential to accept the record as it stands. This is done by our confessions. The Bible record of the fall does not explain the origin of sin, but it does tell us the historical facts to which Paul refers when he says in Romans 5:12ff that as judgment followed one man‘s trespass and brought condemnation, so the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.

What is the effect of Adam’s fall for all men?

Adam was not only the father of the whole human race, but in the covenant of works he also acted as our representative. When our first parents sinned they experienced separation from God and a sense of guilt. They became sinners and as such were spiritually dead. “To live apart from God is death.” As Paul teaches in Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15:22, when sin came into the world death came by sin as God‘s judgment. In the words of the Catechism, “God created man with the ability to keep the law. Man, however, tempted by the devil, in reckless disobedience, robbed himself and his descendants of these gifts” (Answer 9). In opposition to the teaching of Pelagianism that sin proceeds from imitation, we believe that the sin of Adam resulted in guilt and corruption for all his descendants. The New England Primer long ago stated it simply: “In Adam‘s fall we sinned all.”

Why is it import. nt to accept the biblical account of the fall?

As the Heidelberg Catechism points out, any other explanation makes Cod responsible for our sinful condition. In Question 6 the Catechism asks, “Did God create man so wicked and perverse?” and the answer is, “No. God created man good.” The story of the faU is denied or explained in a symbolical way by many who accept an evolutionistic theory of the origin of man. Then it becomes a way of expressing the fact that at a certain stage in his development man stopped being an amoral animal and became aware of right and wrong and his relationship to God and fellow men in a spiritual and moral way. Thus sin is due to the remains of man‘s “lower” or animal nature, and in so far as God used the evolutionary process to “create” human beings He is responsible for our condition. The same can be said of the idea that Adam fell only as an individual, even though as a result he did bring God’s curse on the environment in which his descendants now live. In such an interpretation, God is dealing with each of us individually, and demanding of us what we in our weakened condition and surrounded by bad examples and a hostile environment, cannot do. Above all, the covenant of works is the basis for the covenant of grace. As God deals with us through our representative Adam, so He saves us through our Mediator, Jesus Christ.

Wasn‘t Adam‘s sin too trivial to “ave such far-reac”ing consequences?

Although the test seems very simple, the issue at stake was the very essence of sin its disobedience of the law of God. As Dr. Herman Bavinck says in his article in ISBE, “There is a great deal of truth in the often-expressed thought that we can give no account of the origin of sin, because it is not logical, and does not result as a conclusion drawn from two premises. But facts are brutal. What seems logically impossible often exists in reality. The laws of moral life are different from those of thought and from those also of mechanical nature. The narrative of Genesis 3, in any case, is psychologically faithful in the highest degree. For in the same way as it appears there in the first man, it repeatedly takes place among ourselves (James 1;14, 15). Furthermore, we ought to allow God to justify Himself. The course of revelation discovers to faith how, through all the ages, He holds sin in its entire development in His own almighty hands, and works through grace for a consummation in which, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, “He will gather together in one all things in Christ” (Eph. 1:10).