Msg#2532 God’s First Covenants with Man
What The Bible Says
Good Samaritan’s Penny Pulpit by Pastor Ed Rice
A student of the Bible can readily discern seven stewardship tests which God gives to mankind, and eight principle covenants that he makes to enact them. The most familiar and obvious was made in the Garden of Eden where man, in innocence, was commissioned to replenish, subdue, and have dominion over God’s creation, eat its herbs, till its garden, and abstain from eating of the tree of good and evil. The penalty for disobedience, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen.1:26-28,2:15-17). When he ate he died in spirit immediately, his soul died gradually, and his body died eventually. Incidentally, when you are born-again-saved according to Jesus’s instruction in John 3, your spirit is made alive immediately, your soul gradually, and your body eventually.
With the first covenant broken God sets up a new one. The serpent, Satan’s tool of choice, is cursed, changing it from the most beautiful and subtle of creatures to a loathsome reptile. This is God’s illustration in nature of the effect of sin. There is a promise of a Redeemer to come from the “seed of woman” who will conquer death. Under the covenant the woman’s state is changed, the earth is cursed to bring inevitable sorrow of life and burdensome labor, and for the first time in the universe, physical death is brought to bear on man and beast. This covenant for mankind’s occupation of the world has been called the Adamic covenant, and it is in place right up to this day. Under this covenant man is condemned to death, but Jesus explained to Nicodemus, “God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (John.3:17). Calling on him gets one saved from condemnation. It’s that simple.
An Essay for week #32, Aug 10, 25
Read some Anthropology www.GSBaptistChurch.com/theology/
Read previous Penny Pulpits at www.gsbcpastorrice.wordpress.com
Msg in audio at www.GSBaptistChurch.com/audio/gs250810.mp3
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A weekly 300 word essay- The Penny Pulpit
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