I’ve been taking a course through DTS on covenants & dispensation, Dr. Svigel has used Hosea 6:7 as a proof text toward an Adamic covenant H.6:7 But they like men (כאדם) have transgressed the covenant(ברית): there have they dealt treacherously against me. He uses “like Adam” (כאדם) here not as mankind but as the original Adam, thereby proving he broke the covenant he had with God. Interestingly both the KJV and the JPS use the English word men in their translations, now personally I am unsure whether or not Adam (as in Gen 1:28 And God blessed (יברך) them,) had a covenant with God or original blessings, and so as I was studying Genesis 17; this morning which is about, Abram/Abraham’s meeting with God, the promise of Isaac, by Sarai/Sarah, Abraham begs in vs 18 that Ishmael might live before him, God reiterates that through Isaac the covenant (ברית) will be established for ever, but that he would bless (ברכתי) Ishmael, it’s very clear that the covenant is established in Isaac, not Ishmael, there seems to be a clearness between blessing and covenant, therefore could one make a case using Gen 17 that there is not an Adamic covenant, only original blessing on mankind? What are your thoughts?
As I understand it from a non-Dispensationalist point of view, it was a blessing and not a separate covenant as its understood by Dispensationalism. The blessing is the blessing to be in relationship with YWHW and to be in His presence in the Garden. If a covenant was to be made; then the covenant was something to take care of the Garden, take care of the animals within it, expand the Garden and act as a type of priest in officiating it. There was also the command to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; thus acting as a “stamp/seal” of the covenant and this was broken when Eve and Adam listened to the lies of the serpent and tried to by God themselves and grasp power for power outside of themselves, thus violating both the covenant with God and revoking the blessing they had with the LORD. The verse before H. 6:7 gives a hint to what is going on as is told in H. 6:6 (I use the NASB), “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Thus the issue that has them transgress like Adam is that like Adam, they have divided loyalty, they claim to be for God and yet they rebel against Him. H.6;7 says “But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt treacherously against Me.” So, while I say there was a blessing given to Adam, a covenant of some type but not type of traditional idea of a covenant was made between Adam and God, I have already given my theory of what this “Adamic covenant” might have been but in truth it is unknown, that if again if one was ever even given at all.