One Universal Covenant

Notes

1. From the foregoing scriptures the following conclusions may be drawn:

(a) That God made man a free moral agent.

(b) That the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a test set before man.

(c) That his continued existence was dependent upon his choosing in harmony with God's will.

(d) That his act of disobedience was known, willing sin.

(e) That the compact, or covenant, under which Adam began his existence was that God promised life only on condition of Adam's obedience.

(f) That Adam fully understood this read "Patriarchs and Prophets," pages 48, 49.

2. We are safe in concluding that the angels were placed on probation, and that some of them voluntarily left the station assigned them. By this act they sinned, and so are destined to share the fate of sinful men. Hence the angels must have lived under the same covenant as man, namely, "Obey and Live." All character must be placed under trial. In harmony with this we read in the "Spirit of Prophecy," Vol. 2, page 10: "They [the angels] were created beings and probationers." And in "Great Controversy," page 673: "In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch,—Satan the root, his followers the branches. The full penalty of the law has been visited."

3. "Early Writings," page 32, shows that the inhabitants of other worlds are on probation, and that the test placed before them is the same as that placed before us; and that to fail to endure that test would be sin, and would bring upon them all the sad consequences, including death, which the same act has brought upon man. Thus obedience, or righteousness and life, go together, while disobedience, or sin and death, are inseparable.