This is from a wonderful essay by (the now defected) Reinhard Hütter called, "The Twofold Center of Lutheran Ethics: Christian Freedom and God's Commandments." I thought this would be a good intro into my upcoming section on the different Lutheran positions on the continued relevance and place for the law in the lives of believers. Both what Luther says and what Yeago says in response, I agree with. I would only offer a slight tweak in emphasis: While the interpretation of the tree is a good one, it is not the only "historical form" (as Yeago would say) by which God ordered Adam's life. Adam was put in the garden to "work it" and "keep it" (Gen. 2:15); God "commands" him concerning the tree (2:15); Adam was in charge of the animals (2:19-20); God created Eve to help Adam (and logically thus, Adam helped Eve), and they were to serve each other as man and wife (2:20-25). From all this I would argue that man was created to live in a communion of self-giving; in worshipping God in service and faithfulness, and in serving each other and God's creation. The command concerning the tree does, though, have a type of arbitrariness to it (in the good sense). That is, by not eating from it, Adam does not benefit creation, nor neighbor, nor God (in that we can never "benefit" God). In keeping the commandment concerning the tree, Adam and Eve, rather, give God the only thing we can ever offer him: loving faithfulness to his Word.
"In interpreting Genesis 2, Luther states:"And so when Adam had been created in such a way that he was, as it were, intoxicated with rejoicing toward God and was delighted also with all the other creatures, there is now created a new tree for the distinguishing of good and evil, so that Adam might have a definite way to express his worship and reverence toward God. After everything had been entrusted to him to make use of it according to his will, whether he wished to do so for necessity or for pleasure, God finally demands from Adam that at this tree of knowledge of good and evil he demonstrate his reverence and obedience toward God and that he maintain this practice, as it were, of worshipping God by not eating anything from it. [From LW 1:9]
"David Yeago rightly draws the following consequence:"The commandment is not given to Adam that he might become a lover of God by keeping it; Adam already is a lover of God, "drunk with joy towards God," by virtue of his creation in the image of God, by the grace of original righteousness. The commandment is given, rather, in order to allow Adam's love for God to take form in a historically concrete way of life. Through the commandment, Adam's joy takes form in history as cultus Dei, the concrete social practice of worship... The importance of this cannot be overstated, particularly in view of conventional Lutheran assumptions: here Luther is describing a function of divine law, divine commandment, which is neither correlative with sin nor antithetical to grace; indeed, it presupposes the presence of grace and not sin. This function of divine commandment is, moreover, its original and proper function. The fundamental significance of the law is thus neither to enable human beings to attain righteousness nor to accuse their sin, but to give concrete, historical form to the "divine life" of the human creature deified by grace... The commandment is given originally to a subject deified by the grace of original righteousness, a subject living as the image of God; it calls for specific behaviors as the concrete historical realization of the spiritual life of the deified, God-drunken human being. What happens after sin comes on the scene is simply that this subject presupposed by the commandment is no longer there,; the commandment no longer finds an Adam living an "entirely divine life," "drunk with joy towards God," but rather an Adam who has withdrawn from God who believes the devil's lies about God and therefore flees and avoids God. It is precisely the anomaly of this situation that causes the commandment to become, in Luther's terms, "a different law" (alia lex). [David Yeago, "Martin Luther on Grace, Law, and Moral Life: Prolegomena to an Ecumenical Discussion of Veritas Splendor," in The Thomist, 62 (1998), 176-178.]"
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-Reinhard Hütter, "The Twofold Center of Lutheran Ethics: Christian Freedom and God's Commandments," In The Promise of Lutheran Ethics, ed. Karen L. Bloomquist and John R. Stumme, 31-54 (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 1998), 42-43.
