Racheal

Before...(you can't really tell how dirty they were from the picture.)

After...

The finished brooder coop.

The water trough brooder.

Bedding in, heat lamp on...

All ready! Due to the size of the chicks when they arrive, I took the lids of the feed trays. The chicks would be incapable of eating out of them if the lids were on. As is, they rather have to get in to eat! :D

Box full of peepers!

Eagerly opening the box...

Peepers!!

Say "Hi!"

Fuzz-balls!

Smart ones too...they found the water real quick!

Ya think he was a little miffed with me?? :D

See how it's eyes are shut and it's kind of curled into the fetal position? As soon as I saw those closed eyes like that, I knew he was a goner.

      Racheal

      Racheal

Does that even look like me??? I knew it was going to be funny when she took it because of how I was holding my face. :D

Heading out to work....Isn't our new driveway beautiful? It's very bright, however...thus the squinting under the hat-brim.

Happy kid. I like machinery. "RRRrrrrrr...."

Gates for the rest of the chicken paddocks.

What did I say about it being really bright out there?

My "rooster-tail" cracks me up. (I started carrying a handkerchief last summer like that and haven't regretted it for a minute, no matter how goofy I look...)

Da goofy peeps!

Ready for supper...hot, tired, slightly sunburned, but satisfied with a good days work.

      Racheal

In no way can God be considered its source, although He has, in fact, foreordained whatsoever comes to pass in time....It would be blasphemous to speak of the holy God as the author of sin....There is and can be no unrighteousness in the holy God, who is light, and in whom is no darkness at all. He cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone to evil (James 1:13). (651-652)

Sin originated with Satan, the Tempter (Gen. 3:1). (652)

Satan is a created reality. Jesus considered him to be a real, personal being (Mark 1:13), and so did His apostles (Eph. 2:1–3). He is thoroughly wicked and malicious. There is nothing in him to admire at all. His purpose is to overthrow God’s plan and kingdom, and to take God’s place in the world. He is a created being with many powers superior to those of man; but, being a finite creature, he is no rival or
threat to God. He is not omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent. In fact, he is under the restraints of the sovereignty of God (Job 1) and he is fatally wounded and curtailed in his influences and activities by the cross of Christ and the preaching of the gospel. (652)

[O]riginally, Adam and Eve were created perfectly holy and yet capable of choosing evil. They had the power to remain upright, but they also were capable of falling. (652)

The fall was included in God’s plan so that we would gain far more in Christ than we ever lost in Adam. Adam was in a holy and happy condition before the fall, but there was always the possibility of falling away. Now, in Christ, believers are increasingly holy and happy, and someday we will be perfectly so. In addition,
there is no possibility of our falling away from this saved condition, now or ever. (653)

The temptation was a shrewd and evil conspiracy against God and man. Satan injected unbelief into Eve’s mind so as to produce actual disobedience. He attacked the integrity, goodness, power and truthfulness of the Creator, by asking Eve: “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’”...Satan attempted to make God look like a fool before man, so he could make man look like a fool before God. (654)

At the fall, God held Satan responsible for tempting man; but he also held Adam and Eve accountable for entertaining and embracing the temptation in their hearts (Gen. 3:14–19). God did NOT look at their sin in any of the following ways: (1) The existence of evil in man by virtue of the fact that he had a physical body, thereby
robbing sin of its ethical character and blaming the Creator of the body with the evil; (2) The unavoidable result of created limitations, which obliterates the distinction between moral evil and simple mistakes; (3) An illusion resulting from human ignorance, which would reduce phrases, as “moral behavior,” to meaninglessness; (4) The lack of God-consciousness resulting from the soul’s unfortunate connection with a physical organism, which makes man sinful because of his createdness; (5) Simple ignorance of the truth which education would remedy, which is contrary to the fact that sin is transgression against the law of God; (6) The opposition of our lower animal appetites to our gradual evolutionary development, which is an attempt to define sin without considering the fact that sin is a revolt against God and a breaking of His laws. 
All of these views of sin make sin a metaphysical, not ethical, problem for man, rooted in his own created humanness.(654-655)

Adam tried to escape the responsibility and consequences of his sin in environmentalism, i.e., the idea that man is what his environment makes him, thereby shifting the blame for his sin away from himself...Adam was blaming God for his sin as the cause of his problems....Human beings are totally accountable to God their Creator and Judge for all their actions and attitudes. (655)

"Can Satan force us against our will to sin? A. No, he tempts us and knocks at the door without, but our will and lust opens the door. Satan is [the] midwife that helps forward the birth but our will and lust is father and mother to all our sins." 6 Samuel Rutherford, Rutherford’s Catechism (Edinburgh: Blue Banner Productions, [1886] 1998), 24. (656)

Put very simply in the words of the Larger Catechism Q. 24: “Sin is any want [lack] of conformity unto, or transgression of any law of God.” The “law of God” is comprised of the commandments of the God, who is the one Judge, King, Lawgiver and Redeemer (Isa. 33:22), which He has given to all people in all ages and in all situations as their rule of life, individually and corporately; and which are revealed in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. (658)

Biblical Law is the one and only standard from God which defines sin for us, so that we can distinguish accurately between good and evil...Unless Biblical law is used to determine what is good and what is evil, we have no reliable standard, and man himself will become the final authority in all things, which always leads to tyranny. If God’s law is rejected, there can be no moral absolutes, no reliable authority to distinguish morality from immorality, except fallen human subjectivity, which “is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” (658)

Man’s first act of disobedience can be described in many ways; but, primarily, it was a rejection of God as the supreme and final authority for life. (659)

[1] God is not in control of things. He does not know infallibly how things will turn out. There is no universal government, no absolute law to which all people are accountable. (660)

[2] They chose to believe that obedience to God’s Word enslaves a person and
cramps his life; and that obedience to self over God is true freedom. (660)

[3] Adam and Eve chose to believe that they, like God, had the ability to determine
good and evil without reference to God or to His Word. (661)

[4] ...fallen man can live beyond God’s standard of good and evil and beyond the consequences of doing evil, because he himself can know for himself and in himself what constitutes good and evil. (661)

The history of the human race can be summed up in terms of what has happened because of Adam and what has happened because of Christ. This means that salvation is not simply a matter of forgiveness. It is a radical change in our whole
position before God: formerly we were “in Adam” and now we are “in Christ.” We have become members of the new kingdom, the new age, the new race, the new humanity, covenantally represented in Jesus Christ, just as we were a part of the fallen and condemned race, covenantally represented in Adam. (663)

In Romans 5:12–19, Adam is presented as the head of the fallen race. His actions were not exclusively private. He was a “public” person and his actions were those of a representative. He acted for those whom he represented; and he represented the entire, fallen, human race (1 Cor. 15:22)....All sinned in Adam our representative! His transgression affected his immediate descendants (Gen. 5:1–6:6) and everybody else since then (Rom. 3:23). (664)

First, Adam’s sin, as our representative and covenantal head, constitutes all his descendants as sinners....And it gives us actual sinful human natures, which we inherit from our ancestors all the way back to Adam....In fact, we were constituted sinners in Adam’s loins....We sin because we are born sinners, which sinful nature we inherited from Adam. (664-665)

Second, Adam’s sin brought death and the reign of death to all his descendants. (665)

Third, Adam’s sin brought condemnation and divine judgment upon all his descendants, because of their culpability in his transgression. (665)

The good news of this passage is that Christ has come to be the head of a redeemed race of people, those who believe in Him as their Lord and Savior. (665)

This representative-principle in the Bible has many important implications.
(1) THE SIGNIFICANCE OF HUMAN ACTIONS... (2) THE SOLIDARITY OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN: The actions of parents do affect their children....
(3) THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF UNIVERSALISM: “All” and “many” in Romans 5:12–19 represent two groups of people—all the many who are in Adam, and all the many who are in Christ.... (4) THE HEADSHIP PRINCIPLE ILLUSTRATED IN LIFE: The divinely delegated headship of husbands, parents, elders and civil magistrates demands submission as illustrative of our submission to Christ, our New Covenant Head. (5) THE SOLIDARITY OF THOSE IN CHRIST: Jesus deals with believers as parts of a whole body, as well as individuals.... (6) THE UNITY OF THE BIBLE: God deals with people from first to last on the same principles of grace, faith and Christ... (7) THE SOLIDARITY OF THOSE IN ADAM: We must expect the unregenerate to continue to conspire against and oppose the Church of Christ. (666-667)

Fallen man’s entire life, personally and culturally, is devastated by sin. His whole life is marked by TOTAL DEPRAVITY and TOTAL INABILITY. (667)

Total depravity refers to the fact that “[e]very aspect of man’s being is affected and governed by sin. Mind and body, reason and emotions, will, sexuality, and all things else are changed, altered and warped by the Fall.” 18. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, 1:445–446. (667)

To speak of total depravity is not to say that all people are as depraved as they can be, but that all people are sinful throughout every aspect of their being. (668)

Total inability has reference to the fact that sin has totally incapacitated  unregenerate man from delivering himself from his sinful plight, and from doing anything that is pleasing to God as long as he is in that unregenerate condition: “the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for IT IS NOT EVEN ABLE TO DO SO; and those who are in the flesh CANNOT please God” (Rom. 5:7–8, emphasis added). (669)

So then, a fallen human being is totally depraved and totally unable to deliver himself from his depravity. (670)

Fallen man has also lost his fellowship with God.... This close fellowship with God is restored only in the reconciling work of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:16). (671)

God placed a curse on the central roles of fallen man and woman. He cursed the ground for Adam’s sake (Gen. 3:17), and He cursed child-bearing for Eve’s sake (3:16). Now, no fulfillment is to be found in these central roles and functions, which are so essential to the life of man and woman. Man was created to find contentment in meaningful work, but, apart from Christ, there are only “thorns”
and “sweat,” with a loss of meaning and purpose and calling. Woman is to find fulfillment in child-bearing, but apart from Christ, there is “pain” in childbirth and frustrating, embittering rivalry with man. (671-672)

The entirety of unregenerate, fallen human existence is under the fiery anger of Almighty God. (672)

Man’s only hope is to run to Jesus for refuge from the anger of God because Christ has taken the anger of God against sin in Himself and has removed the curse from all who receive Him as Lord and Savior (Gal. 3:13–14). (672)

What is the anger of God? It is comprised of three elements. (1) His great displeasure at all sin...(2) His passionate resistance to every will set against
His own will...(3) His fierce, judicial attack on all resistance and rebellion against Him in attitudes or actions... (672)

God’s anger is not arbitrary, irrational, impulsive or unjust. It is His eternal detestation of all sin in His universe. It is His holiness, offended and insulted by our sin, stirred to activity against it. It is, as someone has said, “the onslaught of the holy God asserting and establishing His absolute claim to dominion.” 22. http://tinyurl.com/ygsu5kw (673)

(1) Because of God’s anger, He often blinds the minds of the unbelieving, as a righteous judicial response to the willful refusal of man to use his mind and life for God’s glory.

(2) In His judgment on people and their cultures, God sometimes “gives them over to a reprobate mind” (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28).

(3) In His holy anger God sometimes punishes the wicked by sending upon them “a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thes. 2:11–12).

(4) Often God responds to the persistently disobedient who harden their hearts and stiffen their necks against Him, by hardening their hearts even harder, thus completing in judgment what the sinner had begun in rebellion.

(5) God’s wrath can also constantly terrify a sinner and make him a miserable slave to that terror, driving him to irrationality (Isa. 33:14; Gen. 4:13; Matt. 27:4).

(6) According to Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, God sends a large variety of effects of divine wrath upon a rebellious culture: poor health, malignant diseases, and war (26:14–17), famine and economic collapse (26:18–20), wild animals (26:21–22), the devastations of war (26:23–26), national destruction, exile and slavery (26:27–39).

(7) God’s wrath brings death: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

(674-676)

The most horrifying punishment of sin is what awaits the unbelieving sinner after death in HELL. It is a reality. (676)

Hell is a place and condition of unimaginable torment, misery, pain and woe....The existence of those in hell will be nothing else but one of sorrow, regret and uncontrolled and unceasing anger and rage, requiring unceasing punishment. (676)

Hell is a place of unquenchable fire. (676)

Hell is an actual, never-ending existence of wicked human beings in excruciating, everlasting fire, as a just punishment for their sin. (677)

Hell is a place where both the body and the soul of the wicked are tormented forever, with no hope of cessation or escape. (677)

You must come to grips with this truth which is as clear as daylight: HELL AWAITS THE IMPENITENT UNBELIEVER. (678)

Be more afraid of sin than you are of hell. (679)

Because God is the omniscient, all-wise and omnipotent God, He is able to render the actions of man certain without compelling or forcing man to do what is contrary to his will. All the actions of man are free and spontaneous on man’s part and predetermined by God. When man sins, he does so freely without any compulsion on the part of God. (682)

"Because sin is revolt against God and His Law, sin is totally an alien and impossible concept to ascribe to God, in commission or in origin, i.e., moral origin. The question [Is God the author of sin?] thus is not an admissible one…. Man being
a creature, he is totally the “product” of God’s creative purpose, and thus totally subject to the will and law of his Maker. Sin is a rejection of creaturehood and a demand for transcendence over and beyond the limitations of the creature.
This is the root and origin of sin." 4. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, 1:443–44. Emphasis added. (683)

      Racheal

     Racheal

      Racheal

The rows (a couple of them).

A small, but not tiny plant surrounded by weeds.

This area behind the barn is commonly known as the "Big Patch"...the Big Patch, before weeding.

The Big Patch, from the other end, after weeding.

Guess who? (And I hope no one is surprised that the knees of my jeans are somewhat grass-stained.) That must have been before lunch, because I still have my gloves shoved in my back pocket.

A little perspective on my days work-place. ;)

Finished...

      Racheal

The original home of the first human beings was the Garden of Eden: “And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed” (Gen. 2:8). (609)

It was not, in the first place, simply the original home for the first man and woman, it was the place where the man and the woman would be received into fellowship
with the Creator in His own “home.” Eden was God’s home on earth. (610)

Eden would become the home-base from which Adam and Eve would fill the earth and subdue it and exercise dominion over it. All its resources and pleasures could be used toward that end. And, make no mistake about it, Eden was a place of abundant natural resources (2:11), of challenge, work and delight. (610)

Adam was created to work (Gen. 2:5, 15). Work is not a curse, but a calling and a blessing. Adam was given work to do before the Fall, and manual labor at that....Work is God-like, because God works in creation, providence and redemption. (612)

The work mandate does not simply call for work, it calls for work with a certain constancy and regularity—six days of work with one day of rest. “The cycle of labor is as irreversible as the cycle of rest. The law of God cannot be violated
with impunity. We can be quite certain that a great many of our physical and economic ills proceed from failure to observe the weekly day of rest. But we can also be quite sure that a great many of our economic ills arise from our failure to recognize the sanctity of six days of labor.” 7. Murray, Principles of Conduct, 83. (612)

The Work Mandate underlies the whole issue of human vocation....Man is to work in his calling....“Every individual’s line of life, therefore, is, as it were, a post
assigned him by the Lord, that he may not wander about in uncertainty all his days.”9. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 vols. Trans. by John Allen (Philadelphia, PA: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936), 1:790. (613)

The ultimate goal of man’s work in the development of the earth’s resources is not the cultivation of man’s abilities, nor the beautification and utilization of the earth’s resources for man’s enjoyment, it is the MAGNIFYING OF GOD’S GLORY. (613)

God verbally revealed to man how human life was to be maintained, at least in the Garden of Eden, before the invasion of death. Man’s food was to consist of herbs bearing seed and trees bearing fruit (1:11–12). Later on, after the Fall and the Flood, God revealed to man that he could also eat meat (Gen.9:3). In fact, there is reason to believe that God gave permission to man to eat meat after the Fall and even before the Flood....Jabal, the descendant of Cain, who lived long before Noah, was “the father ofthose who dwell in tents AND HAVE LIVESTOCK” (Gen. 4:20), i.e., he raised cattle or sheep, indicating a demand for meat. (614-615)

Furthermore, if Adam and his family were to continue to eat plenteously of the fruit and vegetables provided by God, they would have to continue to work hard in cultivating them. By doing so Adam and his family would develop personally and economically. (615)

To man in the beginning of his existence, God gave several creation mandates, or creation ordinances—marriage, procreation, dominion, sabbath and work—which were to guide and direct the entire life of man and woman down through their generations. (617)

All of these mandates were given to man, so that as man obeyed them he would reflect (“image”) his God-likeness, on his human level. He would live as God lives, although on a creaturely level, as he obeyed these ordinances. God is creative and productive; therefore man is to be procreative. God enjoys intimate unity with himself, as the Trinity, so man is to enjoy the “one fleshness” of marriage. God has unlimited Dominion, therefore man is to exercise limited dominion under God. God works, so man is to work. God rests in Himself, so man is to rest in God. (617)

"Their obligation and sanctity remain inviolate. It is not saying too much if we maintain that these creation ordinances furnish us with what is central in the Biblical ethic. These ordinances govern the life of man in that which is central in
man’s interest, life and occupation; they touch upon every area of life and behaviour. The fall did bring revolutionary changes into man’s life; yet these ordinances are still in effect and they indicate that the interests and occupations which lay closest to man’s heart in original integrity must still lie close to his heart in his fallen [and converted] state. Conditions and circumstances have been revolutionized by sin, but the basic structure of this earth, and of man’s life in it, has not been destroyed." 13. Murray, Principles of Conduct, 44. (617-618)

The two basic facts about all human beings which are essential to understanding the meaning of our humanity, our “humanness,” are: (1) Man and woman are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27); (2) Man and woman are called to have dominion over all the earth... (618)

Human beings were created in the image of God to exercise godly dominion over all the earth....He is called to build a God-honoring culture out of the resources of Eden and to fill it with generations of godly descendants. (618)

This mandate has reference to the harnessing and utilizing of the earth’s resources for the construction of a godly culture and civilization on the earth through the generations of mankind, which would be based on the Word of God and done to the glory of God....Christian mankind’s additional responsibilities include evangelism and world missions. (619)

Marriage originated with God (Gen. 1:28; 2:18–25), and therefore has a sanctity, that must be respected by everyone... (619)

“The skeleton is the structure of the body, that which supports the body; the body
would be like that of a jellyfish without the skeleton. Adam says, ‘She is bone of my bones’ (‘The structure of my being is the structure of her being’). ‘Flesh of my flesh’ (‘The very life of me is the life of her; I find myself, I realize myself in terms of her’).” 16. Rousas J. Rushdoony, Toward A Christian Marriage, ed. Elizabeth Fellerson (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975), 15. (620)

Marriage involves a LEAVING AND CLEAVING (Gen. 2:24). 1 Corinthians 11:3 makes clear that the head of a married woman is her husband, not her father. When a marriage takes place, a new authority structure is created and a transfer of allegiance takes place. (620)

Ephesians 5:22–33 clarifies these roles of the husband as the loving head and the wife as the loving and submissive helpmeet; but the creation mandates, such as
Genesis 1:28, make clear that “the woman shares with the man the responsibility to subdue the earth to the glory of God. She joins with him in his task of forming a culture glorifying to God the Creator.”17 O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 77. (620)

First, marriage is a means to the end of global dominion under God (Gen. 1:28). God blesses man to multiply and replenish the earth, so as to subdue it....In other words, marriage is not an end unto itself, but a God-appointed means to a God-appointed end. (621)

Second, marriage was instituted by God for intimate companionship (Gen. 2:18; Ps. 68:6, 7). (621)

Third, in marriage is the completion of the Divine image. Man and woman in marriage, TWO PERSONS SHARING ONE LIFE IN GOD’S IMAGE, complete the picture intended by the image of God. (621)

Fourth, marriage was instituted by God for procreation and replenishing the earth with godly generations (Gen. 1:28). Marriage is the institution established by God for the fulfillment of the procreative mandate to “be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 2:23, 24)....The Bible teaches us to have as many children as wisdom dictates, so as to subdue the earth. The assumption is that Christians will try to have large families, knowing that it is the Lord who opens and shuts the womb,
and that all children are gifts of God to His people (Ps. 127:3). (621)

Marriage is also the God-given provision for the sex impulses with which God has endowed us. These impulses are not sinful, for they have been implanted in us by God. (621)

However, the expression of these sexual desires must not be governed by impulse, but by rational choice based on the Word of God. “In a word, entrance upon the marital status is to be for the believer not an act of blind, impetuous impulse or fancy, but an act dictated by rational, deliberate decision in the light of the criterion by which God enables us to judge, the gift given us by God or the gift withheld from us.” 20 Murray, Principles of Conduct, 81. (622)

Adam rested on his weekly Sabbath, because he “saw” God rest from His creative labors on His Sabbath, at the close of the week of creation... (622)

Just as Adam kept the Sabbath on the seventh day of the week, because of DIVINE
EXAMPLE, so Christians keep the Sabbath on the first day of the week because of DIVINE EXAMPLE—on the first day of the week Christ rested from His redemptive labors (Heb. 4:9–10). (623)

God’s rest on the seventh day of the creation week was not one of inactivity. God ceased from the work of creation and began the works of providence and redemption. God’s rest was the rest of delight in His finished work of creation. Our Sabbath rest is the rest of delight in the accomplishment of God’s works of creation, providence and redemption. (623)

In this communion, or fellowship, between God and man, God “blessed” them and
communicated to them in words and sentences meaningful to both God and man (1:28). (624)

In Eden, God and man were close friends. God took delight in revealing Himself in all His glory to man, not merely intellectually, but in such a way as to bring intense delight to Adam. In this communion Adam had free and constant access to God, without fear of rejection, and with great pleasure in God’s presence. (625)

Although the word “covenant” (berith in Hebrew), is not used in the first chapters of Genesis, all the elements of a true covenant between God and man are definitely present: parties, promises, demands, sanctions, a bond of life-and-death significance....The phrase in Hosea [6:7], “like Adam,”cannot mean “like men,” for two reasons: (1) No plural is used here, and (2) It would be rather inane since man can hardly sin any other way than like men. Nor can it be translated, “at Adam,” for two reasons: (1) It clearly reads “as or like Adam,” and (2) Bible scholars know of no such location as “Adam.” (626)

When God entered into this Covenant of Life with unfallen Adam, as the root and head of the human race (Rom. 5:12–20), He acted in pure grace and condescension....This relationship between God and Adam was not only a natural one between Creator and creature, or Sovereign and subject. It had the added quality of a covenant bond, wherein a loving Father graciously seeks the welfare
and happiness of His dependent children. (628)


The undeserved, unearned, and unmerited grace of God pervades the Covenant of Life. It can be seen in the following principles:

First, the principle of probation: God could have defined the relation between Himself as Creator, and man as creature, merely in terms of Sovereign and servant, in which relation, man would be duty-bound to obey the will of his Sovereign, with the expectation of no reward. Instead, when God created man, He created him as His servant, and in his unfallen condition, as His son, in fellowship with Him, as His Image (Gen. 1:27; Luke 3:38; Acts 17:28, 29). (628)

This Covenant of Life, this probation with its conditions, promises, and penalties, was all of grace, for in it God promised to do more for Adam and his posterity than they would ever deserve or merit. (629)

Second, the principle of revelation: Adam could not have dreamed of such a gracious covenant without a special communication from God....Man’s life in this world has always been defined and conditioned by the gracious self-revelation of the character and will of God. (629)

Third, the principle of justification, i.e., probation limited by time: God’s grace is clearly seen in the Covenant of Life in the limitation of Adam’s probationary, testing period, with reference to time. Without the Covenant of Life with its conditions and promises, Adam’s perpetual innocence was his only guarantee of perpetual favor with God. The smallest infraction of God’s revelation would unravel the entire relationship. (630)

Fourth, the principle of representation, i.e., probation limited as to persons: God acted in grace, not only by limiting the time frame of Adam’s probation, but also by limiting the persons being tested to Adam, as the root, head and representative of the entire human race (Rom. 5:12–20). Without the Covenant of Life, wherein Adam stood for all men, representing all who would descend from him in ordinary generation, each individual would have to stand or fall according to his own individual obedience. But in this covenant, the risks of probation were limited to one man, acting for all men, instead of being indefinitely repeated forever in the conduct of each individual. (631)

Fifth, the principle of adoption, i.e., gracious rewards for obedience: God’s grace is especially manifested in the promise of the Covenant of Life, which was to crown the successful probation of Adam. (632)

Sixth, the principle of eternal life: The life promised Adam in the Covenant of Life, upon his successful probation was not mere extended existence. Eternal life in the Bible includes the blessing of knowing God, and all that implies (John 17:2–3). (633)

Eternal life implies: (1) A change of inward condition; and (2) A change of outward condition. (634)

God has always dealt with mankind on the basis of Divine grace, and never on the basis of human merit. Even the Covenant of Life, commonly called the Covenant of Works, is a covenant of Divine grace. (634)

This covenant established a life and death bond between the Creator of the universe and the first human being, Adam (Gen. 1:2, 26, 28)....God constituted Adam the covenantal head of all mankind so he could act in behalf of all his posterity. (636)

God gave Adam the promise of life in the path of obedience, which, if he walked in that path, would secure life for himself and for all his descendants. If he chose to disobey, he would secure death for himself and his posterity (Rom. 5:12–20)....His deliberate choice of disobedience corrupted himself; but, in addition, because he was the natural, covenantal and representative head of mankind, his disobedience affected, corrupted and condemned all his descendants. In righteous judgment, God imputes the guilt of Adam’s sin to all those represented by and covenantally related to him. (637)

God justly threatened Adam and his posterity with death—spiritually, physically, and eternally, if he disobeyed God’s commands. (637)

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL (2:9; 3:3) symbolized the principle of probation. It is called the tree of knowledge of good and evil because it was God’s “instrument to lead man through probation to that state of religious and moral maturity wherewith his highest blessedness is connected.”39 It was the sign of God’s supremacy over man and of man’s submission to God. 39. Vos, Biblical Theology, 31. (637-638)

THE TREE OF LIFE was the symbol of the principle of life in its highest potency. It was God’s “pledge” to Adam of life and communion with Him in covenant faithfulness to each other. (638)

First, the human race is no longer on probation. (639)

Second, human beings cannot attain to eternal life and communion with God in terms of the Covenant of Life, i.e., by their obedience to God’s Law. This possibility was forever forfeited for the human race by the fall of Adam. (639)

Third, God continues to require of man perfect obedience as a requirement of fellowship with Him....But man, the sinner, is unable to produce that perfection; therefore he is under a curse and God’s righteous condemnation....In the gospel, Jesus Christ offers both His perfect life and His sacrifice on the cross in the place of
those He came to earth to save; so that now, by faith, believers are “accepted in the Beloved.” (639-640)

Once the Covenant of Life had been violated, “no way of relief from the death-curse may be found other than a bloody substitution. Only as Jesus, the Lamb of God, bears in Himself the ultimate curse of the creation covenant may restoration be accomplished.”42...The Covenant of Grace for us is a Covenant of Works for Christ. 42. Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 87. (640)

The Last Adam, Jesus Christ, our new representative, instead of the first Adam, has by His life, death and resurrection, restored the image of God in His people, the New Humanity in Christ. He has placed them in a position to reign with Him, to share dominion with Him, and to apply successfully the creation mandates to all of
life, motivated by love for Him, so that God’s original goal of worldwide, godly dominion will be reached. (640)

Fourth, the mandates and promises of the Covenant of Life give us a whole and unified world-and-life-view....The Christian man and woman, as the restored images of God, are to be concerned with all of life on earth, now and forever....Faith in and obedience to the Word of God must pervade and dominate everything. .... The creation mandates—dominion, marriage, procreation, Sabbath
and work—which directed and enriched the life of man and woman in Eden before the Fall were not abrogated by the Fall. (641)

Fifth, John Murray explains the following three positive observations concerning the continuing relevance of the Covenant of Life:
(1) We all stood the probation in Adam as our representative head and failed in Adam. His sin was our sin, his fall our fall, by reason of solidarity with him. ...
(2) Christ’s vicarious sin-bearing on behalf of the new humanity included the Adamic sin as well as all other sins.
(3) The obedience Christ rendered fulfilled the obedience in which Adam failed. (641-642)

God revealed His Law to Adam. He spoke the creation mandates to him, and He inscribed His Law on his conscience...If men after the fall have the work of God’s law written on their consciences, how much more clearly and perfectly would unfallen Adam have that Law written on his heart. (643)

What Law did Adam have?...the Law God gave Adam was the Law of the Ten Commandments...God doubtlessly gave Adam a perfect law, which is the law of love, i.e., the law of the ten commandments (Matt. 22:37–39). (643)

(1) The law of God was the standard of right and wrong for Adam before the Fall.
(2) The demands of God’s law are absolute, requiring personal, entire, exact and perpetual obedience (WCF, XIX, ii).
(3) This very law, in its moral demands, has never been abrogated, and stands for all people everywhere, as summarized in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1–17). (645)

     Racheal

Gracious! I look like a horse! (The wind was blowing real hard. Notice I have my hat tied on...)

My job...the string was supposed to keep us in a straight line. I guess it helped a little bit. (It kept breaking.)

This is just so classic me!

Katherine planting.

I came after her and covered them up...

We put the irrigation hoses on after we were done. I went into the barn and brought out a few more other than the one's Daddy had already brought out for us.

Garden and field with a dandelion buffer. ;)

Would you just look at that dumb-dumb grinning! That red hadn't actually started to hurt yet...but boy, by Tuesday, I couldn't even stand my hair on it!!

Daddy and Katherine were working on the chickens new home when we left.

Our beautiful navigator...

Our lovely driver...

Selfies are not my strong point... :P

The canal...

I think someone actually lives here...

One of the locks on the canal (I think). I think locks are really neat! I remember seeing my first one and learning how it worked on some weekend trip we made in Louisiana.

      Racheal