GOD'S COVENANT RELATIONSHIP WITH ADAM

In Genesis chapter 1, God formed humanity in His very own image and then gave us a gift…an unhindered relationship with Himself. We are given a glimpse into this special covenant relationship God has with Adam and Eve, which is part of what distinguishes humankind from the rest of creation. As God’s image bearers, humanity was given a three-fold mandate (Gen. 1:28): get married and have children, fill the world with order and beauty and culture, and care for God’s world as He would. While this sets the stage for an incredible story, sin enters the garden and distorts and further destroys God’s original purpose in the created order. What began as a story of our covenant relationship with God became a story of God’s mission to redeem and restore all people (and all creation) to Himself. 

The tragic story of Adam’s rebellion against God is the platform of God’s great victory over sin and death through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. As Romans 5:17 says, “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!” The old, broken humanity perpetuated from the first Adam, has now been given a means of being reconciled to God by the last Adam–Jesus. As Paul says in Ephesians 2, Jesus is starting a “new humanity,” one that is reunited to the Father and working towards His Kingdom ends.