Shorter Catechism Q. 12. What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created? A. When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.
Commentary: A covenant is a legal relationship involving promises, conditions and sanctions. It binds two parties together and each party is required to fulfill their obligations. Failure to fulfill the obligations will result in sanctions. Marriage is a type of covenant. The man and the woman are bound together legally and are required to fulfill their marital obligations, including to love one another until death separates them. Failure to be faithful may result in divorce.
God made a covenant with man in the garden of Eden. Although the word covenant is not used in the opening chapters of Genesis, it is clear from what is said there and from the rest of Scripture that that is what occurred. God didn’t have to make this covenant, and it wasn’t a natural part of his preserving and governing his creatures. God voluntarily condescended (see WCF 7.1) to make this covenant. It was a “special act of providence.”
God promised to give Adam and all his posterity eternal life. Adam already had life physically and spiritually. He was alive as an embodied soul, and he had a loving and healthy relationship with God. However, Adam was made in such a way that he could sin against God and thus fall from his created state. In other words, he could die. Moreover, Adam could experience a higher and greater relationship with God, a fuller and greater glory than he had at present. It is this greater end, along with confirmation in holiness (so that he could not sin and thus never die) that God promised to give Adam and all his posterity. This promise is encapsulated in the word “eternal life,” which is why the catechism refers to the covenant as the “covenant of life.”
God’s promise was conditioned upon Adam obeying God perfectly, something he was already expected and required to do. To test him and provide a way for Adam to fulfill the condition, God gave him a specific command, namely, “forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” If Adam refused to eat the fruit of this one tree, and remained obedient to God then God would grant him and his posterity eternal life in accord with his covenantal promise.
But if Adam disobeyed, then he and his posterity would die: “you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die (Gen. 2:17).” There are consequences to rebelling against God. Sin deserves to be punished. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). The covenant includes sanctions. This is why the catechism says that God forbade Adam from eating the fruit of that one tree “upon the pain of death.”