When God created Adam, He did far more than place the first man in a garden and task him with naming the animals. He entered into a covenant relationship with him—and with all humanity in him. As God’s royal image-bearer, Adam stood as God’s son and representative king, called to trust God's fatherly word, obey His good commands, and reflect His righteous rule so that the earth would be filled with the life-giving knowledge of His glory. From the beginning, God purposed to advance His kingdom through covenant.

Though the word covenant does not appear in Genesis 1–3, all its key elements are present—God’s command, Adam’s obligation, implied blessing for obedience, and severe consequences for disobedience. The word itself does not need to appear for us to recognize a covenantal relationship in these opening chapters of the Bible. When God established His covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7:12–16, for example, the term is not mentioned there either. Yet the psalmist later declares with unmistakable clarity that what God made with David was in fact a covenant:

You have said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant..." (Psalm 89:3)

Similarly, Scripture later refers to God’s relationship with Adam as a covenant and identifies him as the representative head of the human race:

But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. (Hosea 6:7)

For as by the one man’s (Adam's) disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s (Christ's) obedience the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

Tragically, Adam disobeyed and transgressed the covenant. His sin shattered fellowship with God, unleashed death and curse into the world, and left humanity separated from the God we were created to know and enjoy. Instead of filling the world with glory-reflecting image-bearers, our first parents filled it with glory-exchanging image-bearers who hate the light and refuse to seek God, traitorous rebels against the Most High.

Yet God did not abandon humanity or forsake His gracious eternal purpose. He promised that one of Adam and Eve’s descendants would crush the serpent, reverse the curse, and restore what Adam lost (Gen. 3:15). This first announcement of the gospel—the protoevangelium (“first gospel”)—becomes the gushing spring of hope behind the greatest story ever told. In this single promise, God sets into motion the story of His redeeming mercy, a story that reaches its climax and telos in Christ, the last Adam.

Across the biblical covenants—with Noah (Gen. 9:8–17), Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3; 15:1–6; 17:1–7), Israel (Ex. 19:5–24:8), and David (2 Sam. 7:12–16; Ps. 89:3–4)—God unfolds this promise more clearly, showing how His kingdom advances through the progression of these covenants, all of which point to Jesus Christ and the new covenant. By His death and resurrection, Jesus established the new covenant, inaugurated the new creation, and formed a new humanity to live and reign with Him eternally as God’s image-bearing priest-kings, redeemed by the blood of Christ and restored by His grace (Eph. 2:15, 4:24; Col. 3:10; 1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6).

The Bible is the story of two Adams: the first Adam, who plunged humanity into sin and death, and the last Adam, Jesus Christ, who brings salvation and restoration. Where the first Adam failed, the last Adam perfectly obeyed. Where the first Adam brought death by taking from the tree, the last Adam brought life and immortality by giving Himself on the tree (2 Tim. 1:10; 1 Pet. 2:24). Through Christ and the new covenant, God’s original purpose for humanity is not only restored but crowned with a glory that infinitely outshines anything our first parents ever knew in Eden!

Today, every human being is either in Adam or in Christ, including you. There is no middle ground. It is an “either–or” matter, not a “both–and” reality. Your eternal destiny—misery without end or life everlasting—depends entirely on whether you belong to the first Adam or the last Adam. “In Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).