Gen 3:20–24 — Exiled in Hope: The Covenant of Grace

This is the climactic section of Genesis one to three. The opening chapters of Genesis have been wonderful in presenting to us God’s purposes for creation, the establishment of man as the covenant head, as the kingly ruler and priestly guardian of the sanctuary. We have also learned about the covenant of works that God made with Adam in the garden, in which he commanded the man not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And in which he promised two men that if he passed the test, he would be able to eat of the tree of life and live forever.

But of course we know that the serpent came into the garden. There is this ominous statement there at the beginning of chapter three. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Adam and Eve sinned. They listened to the serpent’s deception and lies, and they broke that covenant relationship with God. They failed to be obedient to God, and they became in covenant with the devil. They became friends of the devil rather than friends of God. The covenant was broken. The covenant relationship was shattered because of this sin that took place at the instigation of the devil.

But the Lord, when he came in judgment, did not come merely to judge them. This could have been the end of the story right there. Adam and Eve could have been cast into hell itself at that moment, but God had a plan before the foundation of the world. Within the triune God, God had decreed that he would make a way to restore man and to save man from his sin. And so because of that eternal covenant of redemption, the covenant between the father and the son concerning the incarnation of the son who would come as the offspring of the woman and crush the serpent’s head. Because of that preordained decree and plan of God, God, when he came in judgment to Adam and Eve, he revealed to them not only that he would judge Satan, but that he would have mercy upon Adam and Eve and upon the offspring of the woman. And that there would be, then, a delay in judgment. The judgment was not going to come right away. Yes, there would be a final judgment at the end, but there is going to be a delay. And that delay is going to set up the possibility of a history in which God is going to deal with his people in order to prepare for the coming of that offspring. And because of that delay, God describes in Genesis 3, verses 16 through 19, he describes the nature of this curse that he is placing upon mankind. And it is a very interesting thing, because it is not a complete curse, it is not as if there is going to be no society at all, there is going to be nothing good at all, there is still going to be families, marriage, procreation, Even man is going to continue to go about working the ground and the ground is going to produce fruit. There will be some benefits of life that will continue. There is going to be some reality of the human race being able to continue being the human race and having society and having the good benefits of God’s common grace upon mankind.

And yet, there is also a dark side to this. The curse that God places upon man has a positive side, that life will continue. The day of judgment is not yet. But there is also some negative things as well. God talks about how the one aspect of what it means to be a woman, which is the main focus of that is to produce children, is going to be characterized by Pain and difficulty. He says, surely I will multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. It is that not there will not be any children at all. It is that not this is the end of history and there is not going to be any procreation. There is not going to be any possibility of a human race flowing from Adam and Eve. No, there will be, but it is going to be characterized by difficulty and by pain. It is not going to be easy.

Even the marriage relationship itself, which before the fall, was this beautiful, wonderful relationship between Adam and his wife. Her name was not yet Eve. She becomes Eve in our text today. But the man and the woman together even before the fall had this loving relationship in which the man was the leader and the woman was the helper to the man. But that relationship that was beautiful is now soiled by sin and now there is going to be a distortion that is going to enter into that marriage relationship. God says to the woman, your desire shall be for your husband, but he shall rule over you. There is going to be something wrong in that relationship. The woman’s relationship to the man is going to be characterized by some kind of inordinate or excessive desire, perhaps even a desire to control the husband. And on the other hand, the husband’s relationship to the wife is going to be characterized by distortion. So that instead of a loving leadership, it is going to become a ruling dominion that is going to be oppressive and difficult. This is all because of sin, because sin has now come into the world, and so the beautiful order that God had established at creation, not only in marriage, but also in all of creation itself, that beautiful order and structure and loving hierarchy that was good and beneficial and honoring to God and full of joy and happiness is now distorted by sin.

Same thing with Adam. The curse that is given to the man is that yes, you are going to continue to work. You were called at the beginning to cultivate the earth and to bring forth the results of that and to produce good fruit from the earth. You are still going to do that, but now this wonderful thing of laboring and working and cultivating the earth and bringing out all the riches and all of the implications that are found within creation All of that is now going to be characterized by frustration. You will work hard, but the earth is now going to bring forth thorns and thistles. And by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread until you return to the ground. You are going to work hard your whole life, and then you are going to die. You are not going to have this glorious consummation and eschatological hope that God had set before men before the fall.

Before the fall, if Adam and Eve had not sinned, there was this hope that they would work and it would produce something. It would lead to a glorious consummation. That is what is symbolized by the idea of the Sabbath rest. The Sabbath rest in Genesis chapter two, verses one through three, is that just as God worked for six days and then rested on the seventh, So also man was supposed to go about his labors, cultivating the earth, producing children, doing all of this cultural work, being fruitful, multiplying and filling the earth and subduing it, in order to enter eventually into God’s eternal Sabbath rest.

That is an eschatological consummation of creation, where there would be this glorious fulfillment, where the human race ideally, if there had not been sin, would have filled the earth, and the whole earth would have been filled with the glory of God, and enter into that eternal Sabbath rest. That is what God had intended, but now, in the curse, there is still work, but no Sabbath consummation, no eschatological hope. Instead, death. Instead, you are going to work hard, hard, hard, and it is going to be very painful, and you are going to sweat, and you are not going to get that much for it, and at the end of it, you are going to die anyway.

Death is the wages of sin. Death is part of this curse that is now hanging upon everything we do. That is why this world is so frustrating for us. And that is why this world contains this amazing blend of good and evil. We see so much goodness in this world. We see so much potential for good things to happen in this world. But then we also are continually bumping up against this frustration. Everything that we do tends to deteriorate. There is a decay. Everything is under the shadow of death.

Even when we think about like the wonderful beauty and glory of the human mind. The human mind is an amazing thing. When you just think about all the amazing accomplishments that have happened in history with intelligent, the intelligence that still is, like the spark that is retained within the human nature and the human race, even after the fall. Man has accomplished amazing things, building incredible civilizations, incredible art and beauty. Incredible accomplishments in terms of technology and taking dominion over creation and bringing out all the implications that are within creation that God had created this world to be capable of. Man has done so much in this world. It is so amazing what man can accomplish.

And yet, we also see all of those wonderful things crumbling. Great civilizations that used to exist are no more. All these wonderful technological advances that seem so brilliant and so glorifying to God can be turned into evil and can cause so much pain and suffering in this world. This world is a paradox. This world is a mix of good and evil. This world is a mix of longing for the greatness that is potentially there, but then also continually running up against the frustration of the curse. And ultimately, it is focused upon death. Death is the ultimate frustrator of all of human ambition and all of human culture. Just think about it. If God has given you the opportunity through his own providence and the gifts he has put within you to have an amazing, stellar career in which you are accomplishing amazing things and producing amazing contributions to this world, you are still going to die. Even the most successful and accomplished person is still going to be faced with this reality that they are going to die. And so all that greatness and all that accomplishment and all that success is tainted. It is under the shadow of death. It is under the shadow of this curse that is upon the world.

Common Grace and Common Curse

This is what we call common grace and common curse. It is common because it affects both believers and unbelievers alike. It is not as though the unbelievers are the only ones that get the bad parts of it and the believers only get the good parts. No, we both experience both. There are unbelievers that are totally rejecting God and yet God allows them in his mercy to be somewhat successful in this life. There are many ungodly people who are incredibly wealthy and successful. That is part of God’s common grace, even to the unbeliever. He lets his reign and his son come upon even the wicked and the righteous alike, as Jesus said.

But there is also common curse. Believers are not exempt from the nature of this fallen world, this sin-cursed world that we live in. Believers who love the Lord, who are godly, who are trusting in Christ and seeking to live a godly life, they still face difficulty in this world. That is one of the difficulties that Christians face is whenever we are face-to-face with our mortality and all of the ripple effects of that even before we die. Because everything that you experience in this life that is bad, whether it is illness or financial hardship or whatever it is that you experience in this life that is bad, it is really just death itself. The fingers of death are already coming into your life. You are already experiencing death and mortality even now.

And so one of the things that believers struggle with is why is it that I, even though I love the Lord and I want to be a good Christian and serve Him, why is it that I struggle? Why is it that God is allowing me to suffer with cancer? Why is it that this terrible tragedy is happening in my life? Should not we be, if we are with the Lord, if we trust God, if we are Christians, should not we be happy and should not God bless us with the things of this life?

The Lord has placed all of us, whether we are believers and unbelievers, into this situation of being under this curse, of being under the shadow of death. Now the thing that believers have that is different, that sets us apart from the unbeliever, is not in the outward circumstances. The outward circumstances are, on average, the same. And ultimately death is the same for all of us. The thing that sets the believer apart is what we see here in our text. That after God pronounces this curse upon the woman and upon the man and says that at the very end of it in verse 19, for you are dust and to dust you shall return, which is death itself. That is like the final capstone of this whole curse is you are going to die. You are going to return to the dust. At that very moment, When you would expect that Adam would look up to God and say, why are you doing this to me God? At that very moment Adam responded in faith. In the midst of hearing this terrible calamity that death has come into the world and the curse is going to affect all of us. It says in verse 20, this is incredible, right after being told, you are dust, and to dust you will return. What does Adam do? Does he shake his fist at God and say, why God, why are you doing this to me? No, he humbles himself before the Lord and he says, verse 20, the man called his wife’s name Eve.

The Confession of Faith by Adam

The man called his wife’s name Eve. And in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, it says, the man called his wife’s name Zoe. You know that name Zoe? We have a Zoe in our church. Zoe is the Greek word for life. The man called his wife’s name Life. Why? Because she was the mother of all life. The Hebrew word for Eve, Chava, sounds like life. And so, this is a word play. This happens a lot in the Bible where somebody will say, God called his name so and so because. God called Abraham, he changed his name from Abram to Abraham because Av Raham means father of Raham, father of many, father of a multitude. So also here in our text, the man called his wife’s name Life, because she is the mother of life.

Now, where in the world did Adam get this idea that she is the mother of life, that she is life? Right after God had just said, you are going to go to the dust. Where did he get this idea from? Well, he is still remembering the earlier promise back in verse 15, before God launched into this long discussion of the curse. God had said, I will put enmity between you and the woman. Between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” Adam remembered that part of the promise. He remembered that although he has been listening in the past few minutes to this terrible curse that is placed upon mankind, he did not forget the prior promise that God said that the woman would be the one who would be the offspring. And that this offspring, that she would be the mother of the offspring. And that this offspring is the one who is going to fix this terrible plight that we are now in. Because of the serpent’s deception. He is going to bruise the serpent’s head. He is going to crush the serpent’s head. He is going to enter into combat with the devil. He is going to do that combat and that warrior priestly guardian task that he failed to do.

Adam was supposed to do that. He was supposed to be that priestly guardian of the sanctuary and he was supposed to not allow the serpent to come in and cause this terrible destruction. He failed. He dropped the ball. He completely fell flat on his face. And as a result, the curse has now come into the world.

But God said he would use Eve, that she would be the one who would be the offspring of, the mother of the offspring to come, who would crush the serpent’s head, although he would do so through his own suffering, because the serpent shall bruise his heel.

Adam was patiently listening to all of the outworking of the curse and all of the pain and the struggle and the frustration of the curse and even this final judgment of death that is going to be placed upon him, but he did not forget about the prior promise. And so in the face of this statement of God’s curse upon mankind, man exercised faith in the promise of God. By calling his wife’s name Life.

Because he believed the promise that she would indeed be the mother of the offspring who would be Life. Now it does say there she is the mother of all living, not just the mother of Life. So it is not just saying she is the mother of the Messiah. It is also that she is the mother of all the living ones, that is all of the believers, all of the offspring of the woman in the collective sense, who believe in this coming Messiah.

So it is both. She is the mother of life, because she is the mother of Christ, but she is the mother of all of those that are part of the covenant family.

The godly line that we will see as we read in chapter four and five, not the line that came from Cain, because they are the offspring of the serpent, but the line that came through Seth. And that genealogy in chapter five that narrates the flow of the story from Seth all the way down to Noah. And so she is the mother of both the Messiah and all those who are united to the Messiah. She is the mother of all living because of her faith in Christ, her faith in the Messiah to come.

Both the man and the woman then. The man by naming her Eve and the woman by accepting that name are exercising faith in the promise of Genesis 3:15. The gospel promise. That is what a promise is calling for. When a promise is given, whenever God gives a promise, the thing it is calling for is for a response of faith. That is what God wants us to do when we hear a promise. It is to say, okay Lord, I believe you. Even though From my point of view, it seems impossible, even though I know I do not have the resources. I am trusting in you, Lord, that you will be faithful to keep your word and that you will do what you promised.

Remember, it was the same with Abraham. We will read when we get later on into the story. In Genesis 12 and 15, God came to Abraham and he said, I am going to do something. It was not Abraham planning to do something. It was God saying, I am going to do it. I am going to make you into a great nation. He says, look to the stars and see if you can count them. Look to the sand on the seashore. Can you count the sand on the seashore? No, it is innumerable. And Abraham is like, I cannot do this. My wife is too old. She is not even able to have children. I am too old. But he simply believed the promise of God and it was counted to him for righteousness. He was justified and forgiven because he believed in the promise of God.

When the man called his wife’s name Eve, he is saying, yes, Lord, I believe your promise. God said it. She is going to be the mother of the offspring, who is going to crush the serpent’s head and bring us back to the garden to eat of the tree of life. I believe you, God. He is saying amen in response to God’s promise. That is what the word amen means. That is why we say amen. It means, yes, Lord, I believe, I agree. So let it be. This is indeed the case. You said it. God gave his initiative and gave the promise, and so we respond by saying, amen, just like we do when we hear the assurance of pardon in the worship service, we hear God declaring to us his grace and his promise, then we respond, amen, it is indeed true. This is Adam’s amen to the promise of God when he calls his wife’s name, Life, because she will be the mother of life itself.

Clothing as a Covenant Sign

Then in verse 21 we read, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Now here we have a most amazing transaction that takes place. First we have God’s promise in verse 15, I will do this, I will send the offspring who will crush the serpent. Then we have the declaration of there is going to be a history here. There is going to be some time that is going to happen and I am going to put this common grace and common curse upon all mankind until that day. And then we have Adam saying his amen to the promise in spite of the temporary curse that is going to lead up to that promise. And then we have God The Lord God making for Adam and for his wife garments of skins to clothe them. This right here, this moment, is the moment of the establishment of the covenant of grace.

In the Bible, the language of clothing someone is frequently used in reference to making a covenant. In particular, a marriage covenant. Remember in the story of Ruth? When Ruth went in to almost like invite the opportunity for her to be redeemed by the kinsmen redeemer. And it says that she asked Boaz to spread his wings to cover her. And there was even a garment that was placed upon him to cover his feet. This idea of the garment is a language that is used in Bible for the marriage covenant. The marriage covenant that is establishing the covenant between God and his people. It is also used in Ezekiel. When God made his marriage covenant with Israel, he clothed his bride and he entered into a marriage covenant with Israel.

Here, in this case though, this is a covenant after the covenant has been broken. The covenant of works that was made in Genesis chapter 2 has been violated. Adam and Eve were in covenant with God at the beginning, but then they broke that covenant and they entered into a false covenant with the devil. But now the Lord is restoring that broken covenant. He is making a new covenant with his sinful people. The Lord is providing the garments of skins to clothe them and to cover them and to restore them back into a covenant relationship with Himself. This is the beginning of the covenant of grace that will continue from this point on all the way into the New Testament. The New Covenant is simply the fulfillment of the covenant of grace that was established here.

There is also a physical sign like a sacrament that is given to assure them that they are indeed God’s people. Remember that before when they sinned against God, what happened to them? It says that they suddenly realized that they were naked. And the realization of their nakedness was a symbol of the fact that their covenant relationship with God was broken. They now feel ashamed. They are now trying to hide from God. Hiding in the trees and making their own fig leaves to cover themselves. To make their own way of trying to patch things up with God. Of course, man cannot do that. God has to be the one. That is the whole point of the covenant of grace is that you cannot clothe yourself. God must do it in his grace. He must take the initiative to clothe his people and to undo that sense of shame and to undo that sense of alienation and separation from God and to bring us back into a right relationship with him.

This idea of the covering of the garments of skins is very significant theologically. It points ahead to the work of Christ. We have already seen in our text that this offspring who is going to come is going to crush the serpent’s head, but he is going to do so, how? He is going to do so through his own suffering. Because the way in which he will crush the serpent’s head is by having his own heel bruised by the serpent. And so we see that same thought then injected here in this statement that God made garments of skins for Adam and Eve. Where do you get garments of skins from? You have to take an animal and you have to sacrifice it. A life has to be offered up in order to obtain those garments of skins to be placed upon the man and the woman. And so this is already a foreshadowing of the death of Christ to come.

But not only His death in which He is slain as a sacrifice, as the Lamb of God who will take away our sins, but also the righteousness robes that He will give to His people. Because of his perfect obedience to the point of death on the cross. This is the gospel itself. It is given only in these pictures. It is only given us in this hinted form.

But here, as God is making this covenant, and remember in the Bible, whenever a covenant is made after the fall, it involves sacrifice. When God made the covenant with Abraham, there was sacrifice when God made the covenant with Israel. There was the blood of the covenant. Sacrifice has to be made to inaugurate a covenant. So here, there had to be a sacrifice in order for God to make these skins to clothe them.

And the wonderful news of the gospel is that God not only deals with our negative debt, that is, He does not just simply take away our guilt, and say, I will pay the debt that you owe because of your sin. But he also gives us the positive righteousness by which we are now accepted before God, by which we are now given the right to eat of the tree of life and to have restoration, not only to have the sins taken away, but now being restored to the presence of God.

God is clothing Adam and Eve with garments of skins and giving them this assurance that they are accepted before him, that they are righteous in his sight. In spite of their alienation, in spite of their sin, in spite of turning away from him, they are now welcomed and embraced by him.

And this same thought that there is going to be the necessity of suffering, the necessity of judgment, that is going to happen to the offspring. It is hinted at in verse 15. He shall bruise your heel. It is hinted at here in the garments of skins that require animal sacrifice. But it is hinted at again in the next part.

Faith Sealed before Exile

Then the Lord God said, “’Behold, the man has become like one of us “’in knowing good and evil. “’Now lest he reach out his hand “’and take also the tree of life and eat and live forever, “’therefore the Lord God sent him out “’from the garden of Eden to work the ground “’from which he was taken. “’And he drove out the man, “’and at the east of the garden of Eden, “’he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword “’that turned every way to guard the way “‘to the tree of life.’”

Now this is remarkable because it sounds like it is just pure judgment. It just sounds like, okay, you are out. Get out of the garden. You do not belong here. Just being simply exiled and sent away. But why then would God place this cherubim to guard the way to the Tree of Life? To guard the way? You mean there is a way back? It is possible for us to go back? So even though they are being exiled, that exile contains within it this note of hope. That they are going to be able to find a way back to the garden and to eat of the tree of life and live forever.

But only if the offspring comes. And the offspring, he is the one who will make the way back. But in order to do that, he is going to have to deal with that sword that stands in the way. That sword of judgment. And he will indeed take that sword upon himself when he goes to the cross. Thousands of years later, in the future, when He comes, when the offspring of the woman is born, He will endure that sword of judgment in order to make a way for us to return back to the garden and to eat of the tree of life. Not just to return back to the garden to be on the test again, where we could fall again, but to return to the garden and to eat of the tree of life and live forever and have that eschatological goal that was set out for man at the beginning.

It is so amazing here, is it not, that Even before they are expelled, even before they are exiled out of the garden, God is already comforting them and encouraging them. It is as if He is like hugging them. He is saying, I have a sacrifice for you. I have these skins of garments to clothe you, to deal with your shame and your guilt. You are mine. You are my people. You belong to me. But yet, he is about to send them out. He is about to send them into exile. But he does so with hope. He does so with a sense of, you belong to me. You are my people. Yes, you are going to have to live east of Eden. Yes, you are going to have to live in this fallen world and the curse is still there and death is going to happen. But Be encouraged, my dear people, because you are mine, you are in covenant with me, and one day the offspring will come, and one day he will deal with that sort of judgment, taking it upon himself, and he will give you the right to eat of the tree of life.

This reminds me of something very significant in the Bible itself. Remember in the Bible that the whole story of the Bible is about Israel. God makes his covenant with Israel. They are supposed to be a holy nation. They are supposed to be like Adam. They are supposed to be this holy people that are guarding the sanctuary. They are doing all the right things. God is using them to be the instruments of his judgment upon the Canaanites, just like Adam was supposed to judge Satan. They are supposed to be this holy nation living in the garden, living in the holy land. But we know the whole story is that they fail. The whole story of the Bible is that Israel disobeys, just like Adam and Eve. And so the movement of the Old Testament is towards this judgment that is coming upon them.

When you get deeper and deeper into the Old Testament, to the last part of the Old Testament, to the part called the prophets, the prophetical books, You have these long passages, sometimes it is a little bit tedious to be honest. Reading those passages where it is just judgment, judgment, judgment. God’s going to judge you for your sin, your idolatry. God cannot stand it. God is like, He is totally displeased with His people. And He is going to pour out His wrath upon them. In fact, He is going to even destroy the temple. This holy temple that was supposed to be this beautiful, glorious symbol of God dwelling with his people, God is going to desecrate it. He is going to raise up the Babylonians to burn it to the ground. And right in the midst of that, what is amazing is, just like with Adam and Eve, right in the midst of hearing these words of wrath and judgment, even before they go into exile, God, just like he did with Adam and Eve here, says, but I am going to be with you through that exile. Though you go through the fire, it will not harm you. He is speaking here to the remnant, the godly remnant. Of course, the majority of the people, and especially the kings, they are wicked because they have indeed totally broken God’s law and God’s commandments, and they are worthy of judgment, and they will be judged. But he is speaking to the godly remnant, to those like Isaiah, or to Jeremiah, or to Daniel. Remember Daniel, who actually was in exile in Babylon.

But he is speaking to the godly ones who are about to go into the fire of judgment, and he is saying, although in terms of what God is doing in the big picture, this is judgment upon Israel, for you who are my people, do not fear. You are mine, you belong to me. And he clothes them with the garments as they go into this point of total destruction and total wrath and seemingly, it almost seems as if God is so angry with his people that he is saying to them, you are not even my people anymore. He in fact says that. You are not my people anymore. It is called a covenant divorce. Yahweh is the husband and his people Israel are the bride and they have been unfaithful And so he is divorcing them. He is sending them into exile.

But in the midst of that, and even before it, God says to the godly remnant, do not worry, you are my people. I am going to make a new covenant with you. There is a wonderful passage in Isaiah, in Isaiah 61 and 62. And this was before they went into exile. But they have heard all the warnings of judgment that are coming. And they know something bad is about to unfold in the next few generations. But even then, God says, you are my people. I am going to marry you again. You who were considered forsaken, now you are now married. You are now going to be restored into a proper relationship with me.

And right there, he also uses Isaiah 61:10. It is in the meditation verse here in our bulletin. God says, that he is going to clothe his people and cover them with a robe of righteousness, like a bridegroom. Remember this idea of the clothing ceremony? It is marital symbolism. God’s going to remarry his people back to himself. He is referring, of course, to the new covenant that will be established when Christ comes. So even before they are exiled, the new covenant is being at least hinted at, it is being promised.

Just like with Adam and Eve here, with Adam and Eve after they sinned, and even before they are literally expelled from the garden, God does not leave them hopeless. God makes a new covenant with them, a covenant that embraces them, a covenant that covers them, a covenant that gives them strength to persevere during their exile as they wait for the coming of the offspring.

The Gospel in All Its Fullness

The entire gospel in all of its fullness, this is incredible, the entire gospel in all of its fullness is presented here in our text. Some of the key things. The priority of God’s promise. He is the one that takes the initiative and says, I am going to do this, this thing that you could not do. I am going to send the offspring. Secondly, the fact that man’s response to God’s promise is always a response of faith. It is saying amen to God’s promise, just as Adam calls his wife’s name Eve.

We also see here the fullness of the work of Christ, the offspring to come. We see that He is going to accomplish this wonderful salvation for His people in the form of combat with Satan. That is His fundamental job. He is the warrior of God who is coming into this world as the offspring to engage in conflict and combat with Satan. And that is going to involve His own suffering. But it will not end there with his suffering because it will be followed by his victory and resurrection life.

We also see here the idea of the active and passive obedience of Christ. The passive obedience in the fact that he has to suffer. His heel must be bruised. He must pass under that sword of judgment in order to make a way open for us. We see his active obedience because through doing that work, he accomplishes the defeat of the serpent by his obedience, which was the obedience that Adam failed to render. And so as a result, he obeys God in our place and gives us the righteousness robes that are clothed upon us.

We also see this idea. Do we not? I think this is amazing. There is also a familial context to the gospel. Did you notice that it does not say specifically that Eve also believed. It just says Adam confessed his faith. But the implication is that she, following his spiritual leadership, also believed. And we also see the importance of the man and the woman being restored to one another in order that they might be a godly family. And of course, we know that the story will continue on with their children, with Cain and Abel and Seth. Some are part of the offspring of the serpent, to be sure. But there is also this hope that from their own family will come the offspring of the woman, leading ultimately to Christ.

The familial context of faith, including marriage and procreation, which was originally intended at the beginning to be the key way that God would populate the world and bring about this glorious eschatological hope. Now, because of the curse and because of sin and death, it is tarnished and it is not going to be realized perfectly, but yet God is still going to use those creation structures, the organic structure of the family, The man and the woman and their children to be the means through which he would accomplish his electing purposes.

All of the aspects of the gospel are seen here. Everything is taught. Even the law gospel contrast is taught. The law gospel contrast. The gospel is a new covenant after the breaking of the former covenant which was a covenant of works. That covenant of works has been broken. And so now God makes a new covenant with his people. The law gospel contrast is clearly seen. The law demands perfect obedience. Adam failed to do that, but the gospel demands faith. Faith is the response that we are called to in response to the promises of God. And then ultimately, the whole eschatological purpose of everything, which is what? It is to undo the effects of the fall and to return to the garden and eat of the tree of life and bring about the full fulfillment of God’s initial purpose for creation.

This is an incredible thing and the most amazing thing of all is that it is not just simply that God is teaching us these gospel truths in the types and shadows and the various things that took place in the text. It is that Adam and Eve themselves had some degree of understanding of it. Now, it may not be the same degree of with our full understanding of we can look back now upon the whole revelation of God through the whole Bible and see the whole system of theology. It is that not yet. It is only in seed form. But we see their faith. We see that they believed. They submitted to the curse and to the fact that things are going to be hard, but they did so in faith, trusting God that in spite of the things being hard, He is got a purpose that is leading to this goal and that Christ will come.

It is incredible to think that although Christ actually accomplished redemption in history, way in the future, when He comes, in the first century, many, many years after all of this, although Christ actually accomplishes redemption in history after His incarnation, 2,000 years ago, but from the point of view of Adam and Eve, thousands of years in the future, yet, because it was already decreed in the mind of God, and also revealed to Adam and Eve, to some degree revealed in, Only seed form, it is not fully fleshed out, but it is revealed to them through that promise that God made.

So that although Christ actually accomplishes redemption in history after his incarnation, yet because it was planned by God and also revealed through these promises that God made to his people before Christ came, The result is that the saving power of the redemptive work of Christ was truly and effectively communicated to the elect even before Christ came.

And how did he do that? He communicated it to the elect through his revelation, through his words, I will send the offspring, and through working faith in the hearts of his people to respond to those words and to trust God. That He would fulfill it.

The work of Christ is powerful. It is so powerful that it does not have to wait until Christ actually comes. And so all throughout the Old Testament, beginning right here in our text, With Adam and Eve first believing in the promise of the gospel, all throughout the Old Testament, we see examples of believers. We see examples of people like Abraham, and Daniel, and Noah, and all of these, the patriarchs, the godly within the Old Testament story, who are effectively redeemed by Christ to come, even though his coming is still future.

That is why the Bible says in Revelation 13, 8 that He is the Lamb of God. Christ is the Lamb of God who was slain before the foundation of the world. Now, not literally. Literally, that happened in history about 2,000 years ago. But he was slain before the foundation of the world in the sense that God had this plan and purpose, and he even revealed it to his people bit by bit.

Yes, there is going to be more revelation to come, and the people of God have much to learn about this work of Christ. But because God did reveal it in types, in shadows, in these promises, the people of God, those that were elect within the people of God, were able to believe and trust in the Messiah to come. And they were saved, just like we are. They were declared righteous, just like we are. They were forgiven. They had hope. They were able to go about their daily lives and endure the curse and suffer and obey the Lord and fulfill their callings in hope.

Even though, yes, it was mixed with difficulty, just like we have today. Even though, yes, it was mixed with maybe even having some of their offspring that did not believe, just like with Cain. But yet they were able to persevere in hope and trust in God that he was fulfilling his purposes because it is up to God. God is the savior. God is the one who makes the promise. God is the one who makes the covenant. God is the one who fulfills the work. And so we live in hope. And that is just like us today because although Christ has already come for us and we can look back upon the finished work of Christ in his death and resurrection, yet we are still looking forward to the second coming of Christ. We still have that forward hope, that forward way of living our lives as we live as pilgrims in this passing evil age, looking forward to that coming day when Christ will come at the end of history and he will take us to be with himself forever, and he will fulfill all of these great and glorious promises.