Covenant 1: Adamic

What is a covenant?

1. Formal Cause of Covenants

Definition: The essence or "blueprint" of the covenant, defining its nature and structure.

• Covenant Mediators and Roles: The mediator's role defines the essence of the covenant. For instance:

  • Adam: As a husband, his covenantal role was to represent humanity in a marital bond with God, establishing creation's familial nature.

  • Moses: As a judge and liberator, he mediated the covenant for the nation of Israel, formalizing laws and worship practices to guide them.

  • Christ: As the eternal High Priest and Savior, He mediates the new and eternal covenant, embodying its fulfillment through His sacrifice.

• Covenant Form: The formal cause determines the relationship with each bound by the covenant:

  • Adam's Covenant: Marriage between Adam, Eve, and God.

  • Noah's Covenant: A family structure bound by God’s promise.

  • David's Covenant: A national kingdom.

  • Christ's Covenant: A universal and eternal Church.

• Rituals of Ratification: The formal structure of each covenant involves a solemn external act:

  • Circumcision for Abraham.

  • Passover sacrifice for Moses.

  • The Eucharist for Christ.

• Change and Reward: Covenants effect tangible changes:

  • Old Testament covenants: Physical marks (circumcision), laws (tablets).

  • New Testament: Grace and eternal life (John 3:16). 

• Curse: Breaking the covenant invokes a curse:

  • Adam’s sin brought death.

  • Christ bore the curse for humanity's sins (Galatians 3:13). 

2. Material Cause of Covenants

Definition: The "stuff" or matter from which the covenant is made, including the physical signs and participants.

• Mandated Signs (and Efficacious Signs when applicable) overlapping with Rituals of Ratification from the Form:

  • Adam: The Sabbath (Genesis 2:2-3). 

  • Christ: The Eucharist (Luke 22:20). 

• Consequential Signs: Covenants are testified through enduring signs or effects of the covenant.

  • Noah: The rainbow (Genesis 9:13). 

  • Abraham: Circumcision and descendants were a tangible sign of God’s faithfulness (Genesis 17:10). 

  • Moses: the Law via tablets serves as enduring testimony and the lives of those who follow the Law.

  • Christ: the Church (and Her history (including that contained in the Bible), is both witness and participant), the Shroud of Turin, Apostolic Succession, Saints, Martyrs, etc.

  • Participants and witnesses: Each covenant binds God and humanity (the mediated parties) through mediators, who bring blessings or curses based on fidelity

    • Adam binds humanity to God through creation.

    • Noah binds his family to God as a remnant of creation.

    • Christ binds all humanity to God through His body, the Church, transcending creation and yet participating in it according to the nature of the Incarnation.

3. Final Cause of Covenants

Definition: The ultimate purpose or goal of the covenant.

• General:

  • The restoration of communion with God disrupted by sin.

  • Salvation of humanity through adherence to God’s laws and grace.

  • Bringing about the kingdom of God.

  • Preparation for that which culminated in Christ i.e. those above.

  • Blessings for fidelity and curses for disobedience/infidelity signal  

    • For instance, Deuteronomy 28 outlines blessings and curses tied to covenantal obedience and disobedience under Moses.

• Particular:

  • Adam: Establishing human dominion and harmony in creation.

  • Noah: Preserving humanity and creation after the flood.

  • Abraham: Forming a chosen people to inherit the promised land.

  • Moses: Establishing a nation under God’s law.

  • Christ: Universal salvation through the Church.

4. Efficient Cause of Covenants

Definition: The agent or action that brings the covenant into being.

• God as the Efficient Cause: Each covenant is initiated by God, with humanity responding:

  • Adam: God’s act of creation and the command to be fruitful (Genesis 1:28). 

  • Noah: God’s promise after the flood (Genesis 9:9-17). 

  • Moses: God’s revelation on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:3-6). 

  • Christ: God’s act of redemption through the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection.

• Oath often Accompanied by Sacrifice or Labor:
  The covenant involves a solemn promise:

  • Adam’s implicit oath of fidelity to God in the garden.

  • Christ’s explicit institution of the Eucharist as the new covenant.

  • Human Response:

    1. Adam failed in obedience.

    2. Noah and Abraham showed fidelity through signs (ark, circumcision).

    3. Christ fulfilled all righteousness through perfect obedience.

God's Intent and Command

Genesis 1:26-29

So we are made to be "like" and in the "image of" God but what does that mean? Who is God (what is He like)?

• God makes man in his image describing man's Divine Sonship as we learned last session

 How does this happen?

CCC 31 Created in God's image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him...

This question intertwines itself with the question of whether God exists. We must first exist in a way to detect Him. But most of all we get to know Him

1. What we know of Who God is in our day comes from Jesus empirically

   1. We can know what God is like By listening to His words

      1. Jesus is the Word (John 1)

   2. We can know Who He is by what He does

      1. Heals us even where it means death (Matthew 8:1-4)

      2. Forgives relating to healing (John 8)

      3. Weeps/Commiserates with us (John 11:35)

      4. Prays and gives us a model (Luke 11:1-13)

      5. Invites us into His life, responding to what keeps us from Him (Matthew 4:19, Mark 10:17-31)

      6. He cares for us in every way (Matthew 10:29-31)

2. We can also conceptually and impersonally know God but not insignificant

   1. "God is Love" (1 John 4:8)

   2. He cannot be a member of any finite category in fact He is Existence Itself

   3. CCC 32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

What is likeness?

 When we talk about Imago dei that correlates to the structure of our being. But what is likeness?

• Our likeness to God was "disfigured in man by the first sin" (CCC 1701)

• In loose terms, it is our holiness because likeness to God for a finite being is only obtained by participation in the mystery of God, in His "divineness". Thus, we can only become like God if we become divinized in every aspect of our being.

• He created us in this, and sin besmirched this, but God also intends to restore it to makes us gods toward which we were first tempted (Genesis 1:26).

Genesis 2:15-17

• We recall from our last session that God placed man where He would flourish

Man's Response - Genesis 3:1-7

• Man, not receiving the fullness of his freedom traded it for what seemed better to him

• The results of breaking the covenant were realized 

  • Genesis 3:8-19

This covenant image beginning with the unity of two entities is important.

The Covenant with Adam - Genesis 2:1-4

• God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.