What is the value of the prohibition of Genesis 2:17 that Adam not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

It is insufficient only to deny the prohibition as a ground for the error of a covenant of works. The prohibition also has a positive purpose, that is, to establish the truth of the covenant as a bond of fellowship and friendship between the creator and the rational, moral creature that is man. When this positive purpose is well understood, the contribution of Genesis 2:17 to the truth of the covenant is powerful.

How was covenant life already possessed and enjoyed in paradise? What was its fellowship and friendship? What was its bond of communion and fellowship? It was a bond of love, knowledge, and delight. It was the bond possessed between the living God and the bearer of the image of God. But it was that bond enjoyed and exercised. It was that bond as both known and lived in. The covenant was God and man in friendship, each regarding the other with love, each having respect to the other in constant communion. The covenant is life with God.

This exercise of friendship and fellowship with God must also have respect to the great difference between God and man. They were indeed covenant friends. In that friendship was their communion. But one was the creator. The other was the creature. One was the sovereign. The other was the servant. Together they walked, and together they lived, as sovereign and servant.

The glory of this covenant fellowship for both God the friend-sovereign and man the friend-servant was exactly that God was sovereign and man was servant. The glory was that the servant was completely dependent on his sovereign. It was the glory of the creature to be dependent on his creator, of man to be dependent on God. Man’s glory was to need God. So true was it, that the converse was also true. It was to be the deepest shame for man to be independent of God, as was indeed so shamefully proved.

The prohibition of Genesis 2:17 serves two points for the display of the covenant glory of man as the servant of his sovereign God.

The first point is that the word of God in Genesis 2:17 involved a tree that God’s sovereign word distinguished from all the other trees in the garden. That distinction was made clear in contrast to verse 16: “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.” This word of the Lord God is itself important. It means, essentially, that man was meant to live by the word of the Lord. The word of God spoken on the third day gave existence to the trees that the Lord planted eastward in Eden. But God did not leave it to man to discover by himself the trees or to find their fruit nourishing. By his word, man’s sovereign friend gave Adam the trees of the garden with their fruit for him to eat. By that word, man might so take and eat of all the trees of the garden in the blessed knowledge that he was eating from the hand of his God, who would always care for his needs.

The second and more significant point is that God by his word distinguished the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the other trees in the garden. His word distinguished that tree regarding the eating of its fruit. Of all the other trees man might freely eat, but he might not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And man might not eat of it according to the word of God. God by his word distinguished that tree also regarding the consequence of eating its fruit. By the word of God, that tree must become a tree of death: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

What a distinguishing word of God that was! The natural, increated manner of the trees of the garden was so obvious that it is easy to overlook. Trees were created by the word of God for fruit for man to eat, by which eating he might live. Still there is, and must be, the word of God spoken and declared. Thus, God’s word of Genesis 1:29: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” The trees of the garden held out their fruit for man to pick and eat. Man might freely eat of all the trees in the garden. But the word of God also clearly distinguished one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from the other trees in the garden. The divine word threatened death upon the eating of that tree.

Such was the word of God that the sovereign friend spoke to his servant-friend. This word was from friend to friend and from sovereign to servant, determining the nature of their life together. Man’s life was to trust the word of his sovereign friend. Man’s life was to live under the word of his sovereign friend. The servant’s life was to live near to his sovereign. It was the servant’s life to live under his sovereign.

Man’s life was to be antithetical. His life was to be in antithetical obedience to the antithetical word of his sovereign Lord. Where the word of his Lord said yes, man was free to go and free to do. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.” Where the word of his Lord said no, man was not free to go and free to do. Under the word of his Lord, he must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The antithesis was between life and death, between obedience and disobedience, between eating of all in obedience, and eating of the one in disobedience.

In light of the above, the statement of the Belgic Confession in article 14 becomes clear: “The commandment of life which he [Adam] had received he transgressed; and by sin separated himself from God, who was his true life.” Two critical, related words in this line are most significant. The first is the word “transgressed,” which signifies the action of crossing over the boundary between right and wrong. What lay on one side of that boundary was man in the life he received from God and in fellowship with his God, obeying God’s commands of Genesis 2:16–17. His life was eating and not eating according to the word of God. On the other side of that boundary was eating what God had by his word prohibited, and prohibited upon the spoken penalty of death. “The commandment of life…he transgressed.”

The second critical, related word in article 14 is “separated.” This word touches on the union between the friend-sovereign and the friend-servant. According to this article, the “life” of the friend-servant was God. Accordingly, man’s death was that he separated himself from God, his life. In and by man’s disobedience, he revolted from his fellowship of obedience. Departing from God in transgressing his sovereign friend’s commandment of life, man departed from his life. In that departure from God was man’s death.

An important phrase in article 14 is “the commandment of life.” “Commandment of life” refers to the word of God, the expression of the will of the friend-sovereign to his friend-servant. For this point we go beyond the content of that speech, the commandment of life that man transgressed, and consider the aspect of the covenant that is speech, the communication of words from friend to friend, from sovereign to servant.

As noted before, the covenant word, or speech, does not make or establish a covenant relationship. The covenant relationship as a bond of fellowship and friendship was part of man’s creation in the image of God. In that fellowship, however, the covenant word occupies an important place. It is the exercise of the sovereignty of God in friendship toward his servant. The word is the exercise of that bond, the revelation of the will of the sovereign Lord toward his beloved servant. The word is also the gift of opportunity to the Lord’s servant. The word distinguishes the way of service, how the servant lives to walk with his Lord, doing always and only what is pleasing to his Lord. The word distinguishes that way antithetically. It sets out what is pleasing over against what is displeasing. It explains the way to keep, as well as the way to keep away from.

Another important point regarding the covenant word is its solid relationship of prohibition to judgment pronounced: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” To be sure, this is a negative word. But it is a negative word of covenant that describes what lies outside the scope of proper covenant fellowship. The word establishes the relationship between disobedience and death, what must happen when the commandment of life is transgressed. The importance of this negative covenant word is that it divinely establishes the word of God as a covenant word that is solid and sure. Though indeed negative, it is still a sure and everlasting word from the mouth of the covenant God, whose name is Jehovah.

From the very beginning, then, even before the fall, we are meant to understand something of the immutable word of the covenant God. Just as the prohibition with its threat was a sure word, so will be the divine word of covenant promise, namely, that God in Christ will forever be the covenant God of his elect people.

The importance of the word of God in Genesis 2:16–17 as a covenant word is made clear in the New Testament commentary given in the words of Jesus Christ. His answer to Satan in the first temptation—“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”—was indeed a reference to Deuteronomy 8:3 and the manna in the wilderness that Israel received day after day. However, there are good, biblical reasons for understanding Jesus’ words as referring also to Genesis 2:16–17. Chief among these reasons is that exactly where the first Adam miserably fell, there the second Adam stood gloriously. The word of God that man transgressed, the Son of man kept perfectly.

Another reason is Jesus’ reference to the “mouth of God,” or the word of God. In the case of Christ, yes, stones can be turned by a divine word of command into bread. But it is the will of God’s word that must be obeyed, though obedience means certain, deep, gnawing hunger. Man must live by the word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, not by bread only.

Integral to the life of man is the word of God to him. By that word, man is to walk in covenant fellowship with his God. His walk must have respect to that word as a word of his sovereign friend. It is not only a divine word of friendship but also a divine word of service. Man’s life is a life of a servant-friend. His friendship is to live in service to his God by the word that proceeded out of the mouth of the sovereign. By the word that directs man and governs him, he must live in humble obedience to his God. Man’s glory as servant is to obey, to live out his yes to the yes of his sovereign friend and to live out his no to the no of his sovereign friend. Together they must walk in life, the servant following in his heart and way the word of his sovereign.

At this point it is helpful to see the great significance of the covenant word in distinct relationship to the covenant life of man that he already possessed by virtue of his creation. The covenant word was not a means for attaining, according to the erroneous covenant of works. But the covenant word was a means for man to exercise and enjoy covenant fellowship with his God as man already possessed it. Genesis 2:16–17 was the word of God for man to live by, in both its positive and negative parts.

It is an easy matter to think about the negative part of this word: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” It is easy because it was by that word that man did die. That word of God, his sovereign friend, man disobeyed—an act of enmity. By that word of his sovereign friend, certain and sure, man brought upon himself the judgment declared. He ate and he died. That negative side determined the subsequent history of the world, including the necessity of the death of the Son of God, the second Adam. The second Adam must come to bring covenant salvation, restoring and exalting to heavenly fellowship the elect, fallen into sin by the sin of the first Adam.

However, the first, positive word—“of every tree of the garden thou mayest feely eat”—must be given its proper place of consideration. As stated earlier, this word of the sovereign creator-friend was a clear, providing word. By that word of provision, man was to eat. The word of God, the sovereign friend, provided man, the servant-friend, his food to eat. That word was for the servant to hear. In its light, man was to see all the trees of the garden as food given him by his sovereign friend. That word man was to remember as he worked in the garden to dress it and to keep it. By that word, he was to know that the bodily strength he used to carry out the directive of his sovereign would be replenished by the same word of his God. By that word, man was to approach the trees of the garden when he was hungry. By that word, he was to reach forth his hand to pick and to put in his mouth to eat. By that word, he was to feel in his body his strength renewed and his life sustained. By that word, he was led to give thanks to his sovereign friend for the faithful supply of his need. Indeed, man lived, and must continue to live, by the word of his God, his sovereign friend.

In the blessed way of the word of God was man to live, departure being death itself. “For the commandment of life which he had received he transgressed; and by sin separated himself from God, who was his true life” (Belgic Confession 14).

Another matter in scripture highlights the importance of the speech of God in relation to the bond of the covenant. That is the presence of God, which is described in these words: “They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8).

As our first parents knew the meaning and significance of what they heard, they went into action: “Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden” (v. 8). The voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day was his presence, his personal presence with the two creatures he had created in his image.

The presence and voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day cannot be considered the first encounter between the creator and the rational, moral creatures he had made in his image. They hid because they knew what God’s voice meant. As before his voice made their hearts rejoice and brought them forward in delight to meet with their God, so after their sin God’s voice caused them to hide among the trees. That voice, as the word of God, was his fellowship and friendship with his servants.