Adoption is a legal act and so is marriage.  Family is a legal relationship.  Marriage is a legal transaction.

Yet wives don’t merit their husband’s love and neither do children from their parents.

I keep hearing that someone denies a “legal covenant” because he denies that Adam had to earn or trade for eternal life.

But, plainly, such criticism is not defending the legal status of the pre-lapsarian covenant.  They are defending it as a trade–a mercantile relationship–a market transaction.

But if God is the uncreated one who creates ex nihilo then his act of creation and relationship with that creation is ultimately a loving and gracious gift.  Whatever requirements God demands, they do not merit blessing from God.  They receive it.