There was a covenant before the law, but it wasn't nullified by the law.
Galatians 3:17 What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.
This Scripture speaks to the Abrahamic Covenant, which contained the Gospel of Grace, that came before the Mosaic Covenant which reiterated Law.
You are calling something a Covenant of Works (Law), but I don't know how the idea is formulated.
The idea is formulated around human responsiblity and human moral accountability before God. Adam was created a moral agent, responsible and accountable to live according to God's commands and moral demands. This was a "covenant" established in the garden, and it is defined as a covenant of "works" because Adam was responsible and accountable
to act according to God's commands, lest he die. Adam's
actions (works) were the cause of his being consigned to a death sentence.
What are my thoughts on Adam? All have sinned, and it began with Adam. Through his sin came death to mankind. I don't see a Covenant of Works in that at all. It's simple and plain the rewards of disobedience. You seem to be saying death, a consequence, is some kind of perpetual works or something.
No, death is not a perpetual work. Death is the result of Adam's disobedient works. A guilty death sentence was imposed upon Adam, because Adam committed the crime of disobedience. And that disobedience was defined by God's Law.
If there had been no Law, and Adam had not acted against any Law given, there would have been no legal basis for God to declare Adam guilty and deserving of death.
". . . Sin is not imputed when there is no law." Romans 5:13
Since Adam is held guilty and responsible for death (Romans 5:12), then we must conclude Adam sinned, and since Adam's sin brought a legal death penalty, we must conclude according to Scripture, that Adam indeed acted to break God's commands and Law. And since God's commands included a provision of life if the commands were met ("tree of life"), then the reader of Holy Scripture can conclude there was all the elements of a covenant between God and man in place in the garden.
The "law" (or rule) of sin and of death is that death comes along with sin. It is the natural consequence.
The death sentence imposed by God upon Adam was a
legal consequence, according to Law.
This is not the Law (Moses), but was apparent even before the law came into existence (from the very beginning).
This was the Law of creation that was formalized by God through the agency of Moses. It is defined as the Mosaic Covenant, which is no different than the Covenant of Works except it is more detailed to further reveal the extent of human sins to mankind, and purposed to draw men to their need of a Savior.
I don't call it a covenant of works though. For the law, as the verse says, came later.
Yes, the formal and more detailed Decalogue came later, but when there are Godly commands, there is Law. And Adam was given commands (Law) and moral agency to obey those commands in order to live and avoid death, in the garden of Eden.
It was a contract between God and man, based upon Divine Law, that the man failed to keep, resulting in his death and the death of all mankind. Hosea 6:7
"Covenant of Works" is the terminology used by all sound theologians to describe the establishment of Law and subsequent events in the garden, just as "Trinity" is used by sound theologians to define Infinite God in heaven.
Nang
