Alan Dunn | D. Scott Meadows
A RECOMMENDATION OF GETTING THE GARDEN RIGHT:
ADAM’S WORK AND GOD’S REST IN THE LIGHT OF CHRIST
by Richard Barcellos [Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2017]
Getting the Garden Right [GGR] is an important book. In GGR, Rich Barcellos discusses the importance of God’s dealings with Adam as foundational for our understanding of ourselves, our world, our salvation in Christ, and our hope of eternal glory. He instructs us as to how to interpret Scripture in obedience to Scripture and then argues for the legitimacy and necessity of seeing Adam as being given “the covenant of works.” “The covenant of works is that divinely sanctioned commitment or relationship God imposed upon Adam in the garden of Eden. Adam was a sinless representative of mankind [i.e. a public person] and an image-bearing son of God. The covenant God made with him was for the bettering of man’s state, conditioned upon Adam’s obedience, with a penalty for disobedience. Here we have: 1] sovereign, divine imposition; 2] representation by Adam [i.e. federal headship], a sinless image-bearing son of God; 3] a conditional element [i.e. obedience]; 4] a penalty for disobedience [i.e. death]; and 5] a promise of reward [i.e. eschatological potential]” [38].
The covenant of works provides the foundation for defining Adam’s sin and fall into death as well as Christ’s redemptive obedience by which we are saved unto eschatological life. That life is seen to be the blessing of entering into God’s Sabbath Rest. Sabbath stood before Adam prior to the Fall as his eschatology into which he was to enter upon the completion of his vocational mandate. However, by his sin, Adam and his posterity, fell short of this glorious destiny. But Jesus the second Adam, has succeeded where Adam failed and in resurrection victory has gone before us into God’s Sabbath Rest. Barcellos shows how the provision and prospect of Sabbath has sustained and encouraged God’s people throughout redemptive history. “The biblical doctrine of the Sabbath begins at creation and follows the storyline of the Bible to the consummation” [11]. Indeed, Sabbath is part of the very backbone of biblical revelation. GRR gives us a much needed chiropractic adjustment, realigning us to our Head, Christ Jesus, and to our glorious destiny in God’s promised Sabbath Rest.
The instruction found in GGR is urgently needed. We need to appreciate who we are as image of God made to dwell with God in His Sabbath glory. We need to know Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath, who alone shepherds and guides us to this exalted hope. We need to commune with Jesus now as we travel through the wilderness of this age en route to our eternal destiny in resurrection glory. We need to turn from the preoccupations of this passing age and learn to live as redeemed sons of God who have gospel privileges and provisions with the certain prospect of a glorious inheritance. GRR meets these and many other urgent needs and encourages us to persevere in steadfast faith, hope, and love as we pray, Even so, come Lord Jesus!
— Alan J. Dunn, Pastor of Grace Covenant Baptist Church, Flemington, New Jersey
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Getting the Garden Right is no garden-variety theology book. More fruitful than fault-finding, it produces the biblical testimony lushly, apprehended best in the tradition of Reformed orthodoxy, that God is blessing His creation toward a redemptive end which is indeed better than the beginning. The seeds of His purpose were all sown in Eden. The light of all Scripture helps us see them now. They bud, flourish, and flower in the Promised Seed, even our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the abundant fruition of God’s righteousness, gracious presence, and Sabbath rest.
Even without a special interest in New Covenant Theology, reverent readers will appreciate this meditation on the paradise God has prepared for those who love Him. Were more dialogue about doctrinal differences conducted this way, more light would illumine our hearts, the breaches among brothers would decrease, and God would be more glorified. I would especially urge pastors to plow through these verdant fields of theological insight and to reap a harvest of enrichment for their own ministries of the Word.
— D. Scott Meadows, Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church (Reformed), Exeter, New Hampshire
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