God who made the world and all that is in it desires to be known. But not just known in some abstract or non-personal sense; rather, he wants to be personally known by self-aware and reasoning creatures by his holy Name and character in his glorious being, and this knowledge of God comes covenantally.
As God covenanted to fulfill his promise to be known, comprising the Missio Dei, that his glory and name would be known in all the earth (“the whole earth be filled with his glory,” Ps 72:19), he purposed from before the foundation of the world to be known by creatures, like him, as made in his glorious image and likeness. The story of this relationship can be understood as the history of the covenant of creation and the covenant of redemption.
I propose that there is a simple beauty to the structure of that story, one in which we can see two overarching, unified covenants in biblical history: the creation covenant (Gen 1-2) and the redemption covenant (beginning in Gen 3 and continuing to the present). Although the creation covenant in Eden does not include a formalized covenant ceremony, this does not preclude a paradisal covenantal relationship. In its form and content, the narrative of Eden reflects a covenantal relationship with features common to Ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal covenant treaties of the peoples of the OT world identification of suzerains and participants (Gen 1:1, 26), historical prologue (1:2-29), stipulations (1:28; 2:16-17), deposit, witnesses (1:31; 2:1), curses/sanctions (2:17; 3:8-19), conditional blessings (1:28; 2:3). Ancient treaty relationships between representative parties (kings, sovereigns, vassals), involved legal transactions and contingencies: boundaries of land and actions, solemn loyalty oaths with penalties, and transferal of something (property or land).
Continuing the creational covenant — and its creational and vocational commissions — the redemption-covenant is expressed in five subsequent covenants given as signs and seals that each work together in a unified and complementary fashion to reaffirm and expand on the covenant of creation — and its creational and vocational commissions for God’s people in every age — and which are ultimately fulfilled in the Messiah.
The redemption covenant includes these complimentary signs and seals:
◼ The sign and seal of the covenant-promise to Adam and Eve was a seed (line of Seth), a Son.
◼ The sign and seal of the covenant-promise to Noah (line of Shem) was a rainbow.
◼ The sign and seal of the covenant-promise to Abraham (line of Shem) was circumcision.
◼ The sign and seal of the covenant-promise to Moses on Sinai was the Sabbath.
◼ The sign and seal of the covenant-promise to Israel (line of Shem) of atonement for sin was the Passover.
◼ The sign and seal of the covenant-promise to David (line of Judah) was an eternal throne.
◼ The signs and seals of the covenant-promise to the church are the sacraments (ordinances) of water baptism and the Lord’s Table of
Passover remembrance that continue the OT circumcision and Passover signs, respectively.