How could Adam and Eve lose their just standing before God if it was given to them as a Grace and not earned?

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Accepted answer

Reformed Protestant theology, which includes the doctrines of justification by faith alone and the perseverance of the saints (the inability to lose said justification) regard salvation to be necessary for mankind as a result of the sin of our "first parents".

That is to say, Adam and Eve did not receive "salvation" nor were they "justified" before the fall, because justification refers to the forgiveness of transgressions and the restoration of right standing with God, and salvation refers to that from the wrath of God that results from sin and is accomplished solely by the atoning work of Messiah. Adam and Eve did not "lose" salvation by their sin- they had not received salvation because before their sin, there was no condemnaiton from which they required salvation and no atoning sacrifice was called for. Likewise, they had not been justified because they, unlike their descendants, were not in a state where they were separated from God because of sin but alternatively already occupied the very state of perfection to which justification restores the sinner.

From Luther's commentary on Genesis 3:

In the preceding chapter [of Genesis], we were taught the manner in which man was created on the sixth day; that he was created in the image and after the likeness of God, that his will was good and perfect, and that his reason or intellect was also perfect, so that whatsoever God willed or said, that man also willed, believed and understood... Universal experience indeed shows us all these calamities [caused by the fall]; but we never feel the real magnitude of them until we look back to that unintelligible but real state of innocency, in which there existed the perfection of will, the perfection of reason and that glorious dignity of the nakedness of the human body. When we truly contemplate our loss of all these gifts and contrast that privation with the original possession of them, then do we, in some measure, estimate the mighty evil of original sin...

Wherefore, as I said, let us never extenuate, but rather magnify that mighty evil, which human nature has derived from the sin of our first parents; then will the effect he that we shall deplore this our fallen state and cry and sigh unto Christ our great Physician, who was sent unto us by the Father for the very end that those evils, which Satan has inflicted on us through sin, might by him be healed, and that we might be restored unto that eternal glory, which by sin we had lost.

To utilize Luther's analogy, salvation and justification are the forms of healing and results of the treatment of our Divine Physician, Jesus Messiah. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were not saved or justified, but they were perfectly healthful in both the physical and spiritual sense, not yet requiring the work of that Physician until after sin had inflicted upon them its grave injury.

So, to say that Adam and Eve lost salvation or justification in the manner of speaking meant by the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints or to ask how such were lost is to commit a categorical error. It is only after the fall that the human race needed to be saved from the incurred wrath and restored into right standing with God.

Upvote:5

The underpinnings of this answer depend on the theology of two covenants. Adam and Eve were originally under a covenant of works. This is to say, that God made an agreement with them that, as long as they obeyed Him perfectly, they would be saved. When they broke this covenant by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they thus lost the part of the deal promising them life. See Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology, the chapter on the Covenant of Works, for more details.

Adam and Eve, up until the fall, were saved by their works, not by faith in Jesus Christ to be their righteousness. AFTER the fall, they were saved by faith in Jesus Christ when God gave them the second covenant (the covenant of grace). Under this covenant, a coming seed (Jesus Christ) would crush the head of the serpent. See Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology, the section on Man in the Covenant of Grace, for more details.

Upvote:5

I believe we can agree that our first parents, who were in a state of original justice, had done nothing to earn that initial state and that it was a gift of God by virtue of his perfect creation. But if they had done nothing to earn their state of justification before the fall, how is it that they could lose it?

Short answer: they welched on the deal.

As @Nathaniel pointed out in his comment:

... any decent answer to this question is going to have to challenge your assumptions, because "OSAS" believers do not see Adam as needing justification prior to the fall. He was righteous then; and not having ever sinned, he had no need to be justified, and thus did not "lose justification".

It does not follow that Adam and Eve earned the gift of their life as created beings, and the gift of their time in the Garden. As your question suggests, their creation was itself a gift from God. In due course, they came to be in a covenant relationship with God and then lost some of those gifts due to their breaking of that covenant relationship.

Using the source that @Birdie provided, I offer a similar but differently organized answer, and also challenge the frame of Adam and Eve's initial condition being as stated -- a state of justification or a state of grace -- on the basis of a Covenant theological approach. That approach is explained in Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof. Just because Grace is a gift from God does not mean that receiving a gift establishes you in a state of Grace.

Detailed Answer

  1. It started so well. They had life in the Garden and all was good.

    • The original state of Adam and Eve was the state of life, a state of being which preceded any condition of death or sin. Berkhof points out that this is implied in Scripture by the covenant relationship presented in Genesis, wherein if they two were obedient (obedience ~ Covenant of Works) they would continue in the condition of life. Using a simple "If-Not-P-Then-Q" style of reasoning, Scripture shows that if they don't obey, then they die. Since death did not exist for them before their disobedience, life at that point was by default eternal.

    • The condition of life precedes death arriving as a possibility for them

    • Their original condition was life.
    • Their obedience fulfilled the Covenant of Works established between God and them by God. (Key point: God established the covenant.)
    • The condition of obedience goes hand-in-hand with the condition of (eternal) life while they maintained their covenant relationship. Their obedience continued until they ate the fruit of that tree.

  2. To not be obedient is to earn death. That is a promise from God. God keeps his promises.

    Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

  3. Once disobedience was chosen by tasting of the tree's fruit, God's promise came true. Death entered the human condition, which it had not until disobedience was chosen. I harp on this point because death is the opposite of their original condition -- life -- which was eternal life.

  4. The Covenant of Grace only became necessary as a result of the new state of being where death is now part of the human condition. Berkhof addresses the linkage between the two covenants that cover humans (Works/Grace) in the Covenant of Redemption. Jesus, who is obedient to God (as Adam should have remained), provides the way back to (eternal) Life and in so doing overcomes death (The wages of sin is death, etc). Jesus' own "covenant of works" is characterized by complete obedience to God (the Father).

The covenant of redemption may be defined as the agreement between the Father, giving the Son as Head and Redeemer of the elect, and the Son, voluntarily taking the place of those whom the Father had given Him. It only applies to the believers through Jesus Christ.

Berkhof points out that as theology developed, the theology on the Covenant of Grace preceded the theology on the Covenant of Works. Once all of the figuring out was done by theologians, the Covenant of Works was logically placed as having come first. Jesus ties it all together.

As the last Adam Christ obtains eternal life for sinners in reward for faithful obedience, and not at all as an unmerited gift of grace. And what He has done as the Representative and Surety of all His people, they are no more in duty bound to do. The work has been done, the reward is merited, and believers are made partakers of the fruits of Christ’s accomplished work through grace.

To sum up:

  1. The initial condition of Adam and Eve is one of life.

  2. The Covenant of Works established by God was not adhered to by the other party.

  3. Death entered the human condition.

  4. God established a covenant of redemption with Jesus.

  5. The covenant of grace operates through Jesus to overcome death, and to return to the original condition, eternal life, for those who believe in Jesus Christ.

From all of the above, we can be comfortable concluding that Grace wasn't necessary until the Fall and its consequences. Ample gifts had already been given from the beginning, irrespective of Grace, and a chance to keep the gifts through obedience. (Per Genesis).

Disclaimer: a profound apology to any of our Reformed participants here if I have made errors in this answer.

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