Westminster Seminary California clark

ST/HT565 COVENANT THEOLOGY LECTURE 9

Introduction
1. Definition
2. Objections and Responses
  1. Speculative/Rationalist
  2. Unjust
3. Response and Thesis
  1. Biblical
  2. Confessional
  3. Classical Reformed Theology
4. The Exegetical Motives of the Foedus Operum
5. Theological Motives of the Foedus Operum
I. Historical Theology
1. Patristic Roots
  1. Pre-lapsarian Probation
  2. Augustine Contra Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians
2. Reformation Restructuring
  1. Law and Gospel
  2. Reformation Federalism (Two Adams)
  3. Nature and Grace
  4. Probation
  5. Calvin (1509-1564)
3. Post-Reformation Consolidation
  1. Contra Socinians, Arminians
  2. To Preserve the Law and the Gospel Dichotomy
  3. To Account for Christ's Obedience for Us
  4. Ursinus
  5. Caspar Olevian (1536-1587)
  6. Robert Rollock (c.1555-99)
  7. Johannes Wollebius (1586-1629)
  8. John Owen (1616-1683).
  9. Francis Turretin (1623-1687).
  10. Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635-1711).
  11. Herman Witsius (1636-1708)
4. Modern Reception and Rejection
  1. Reception
    1. Marrow Men (Thomas Boston et al)
    2. Charles Hodge (1797-1878).
    3. Herman Bavinck (1854-1921).
    4. Louis Berkhof (1873-1957).
    5. Meredith G. Kline
  2. Rejection
    1. Remonstrants (and their successors)
    2. Karl Barth
    3. G. C. Berkouwer
    4. John Murray?
Exegetical Theology
1. OT Proofs
  1. Gen 1.26-31
    1. Image and Covenant
    2. Covenant and Creation
    3. Permission, Commission and Dominion
  2. Gen 2.8-9, 15,16
    1. Covenant of life
    2. Covenant of nature
    3. Covenant of works
    4. Why the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in a Good Creation?
    5. Yahweh Elohim Put Adam in Eden to Work it and Keep it (rm;v;)
      1. Gen 3.24
      2. Gen 17.9-10 Abraham is to "keep" covenant
      3. Ex 19.5
      4. Deut 29.9
      5. Jer 34.18
    6. v. 16: Permission
    7. v.17: Prohibition
      1. The condition of the covenant
      2. The curse/sanction of covenant
      3. The blessing implied in the curse
  3. Gen 2.25: The innocence of the prelapsarian state
  4. Gen 3.1-20: The Threat to the Covenant
    1. The crafty (~Wr[') serpent
    2. The prohibition questioned (vv 1,4)
    3. The covenant mischaracterized (vv. 3,5)
    4. The covenant broken (v.6)
    5. The loss of innocence (v.7)
    6. The impending judgment (v.8-10)
    7. The discovery (v.11)
    8. The blame (v.13)
    9. The curse (v.14, 16-19)
    10. The promise (vv.15, 20, 21)
  5. Gen 3.22-24
    1. Yahweh Elohim Excludes the Covenant Breaker (v.22)
    2. Excommunication (v.23)
    3. God's Cherubic Covenant Keeper (rm;v;) (v.24)
  6. Hos 6.7
    1. Like Adam, they transgressed the covenant
      1. In Gen, 1 Chron 1.1 = the person
      2. Job 31.33 "If I have concealed my transgression like Adam..." (~d'äa'k.)
      3. In Joshua 3.16 = Place
      4. Context of Hos 6.7
      5. Logic of the verse
      6. Warfield
2. NT Proofs
  1. Rom 2.11-13
    1. God is impartial
    2. Those who sin avno,mwj perish avno,mwj
    3. It is not hearers but poihtai who are di,kaioi
    4. Adam was under the Law and able to do it
  2. Rom 4.4
    1. To the one working (tw/| de. evrgazome,nw|)
    2. Wages are not reckoned according to grace (o` misqo.j ouv logi,zetai kata. ca,rin)
    3. Wages are reckoned according to debt (avlla. kata. ovfei,lhma)
  3. Rom 5.12-21; 1 Cor 15.22, 45
    1. Two Adams
    2. vv.12, 15,17: Sin and Death Through One Man (diV e`no.j avnqrw,pou h` a`marti,a)
    3. v.13: Sin is not reckoned (evllogei/tai) where there is no law
    4. v.14: Death Reigned from Adam to Moses
    5. v.18: Through One Act of Disobedience (diV e`no.j paraptw,matoj)
    6. One Act of Obedience (diV e`no.j dikaiw,matoj)
  4. Rom 7.10
    1. The very commandment that was for life (h` evntolh. h` eivj zwh.n)...
    2. Became "unto death" in the fall
  5. Rom 10.3-5
    1. Some are seeking their own righteousness
    2. Christ is the the te,loj of the law
    3. o` poih,saj auvta. a;nqrwpoj zh,setai evn auvtoi/jÅ
  6. 1 Tim 2.13
    1. Adam formed first, then Eve
    2. Adam was not deceived, but Eve Became a Transgressor (paraba,sei)
    3. There was a legal arrangement and a transgression of the Law
  7. Gal 3.10, 12
  8. As many as are of the Law, they are accursed...cursed is everyone who does not continue...
    1. The Law is Not of Faith
    2. ~O poih,saj auvta. zh,setai evn auvtoi/jÅ
Polemic Theology
1. Objections
  1. Disproportionality of Proposed Reward to Required Obedience
  2. The so-called "Grace of the Law"
  3. The alleged unfairness of the federal arrangement
  4. The covenant of works cannot be in force after the fall since its unjust to require of sinners what they cannot perform
2. Responses
  1. The covenant of works has been said to have been made graciously but not gracious in ipse
  2. The covenant of works is grounded in the justice of God
  3. The covenant of works is grounded in the will of God
  4. God is free to create any sort of relations he willed
  5. The covenant of works is the historical anti-type to the pactum salutis
  6. Therefore, the covenant of works cannot be said to be disproportional
  7. Grace and law are reconciled in God's own nature and in history in Christ, but the modern and/or moralist turn to the "grace of the law" fundamentally confounds Law and Gospel which is fatal to the Biblical and Protestant doctrine of justification.
  8. The prelapsarian covenant was in the state of nature, for life and by works.
  9. The "unfairness" objection is grounded in rationalism. If Scripture reveals the covenant of works, we are obligated to confess it.
  10. We were able to perform it and it is not the fault of divine justice that we broke the covenant of works
  11. Sin does not eliminate the moral obligation to the covenant
Dogmatics
1. The covenant of works was legal (Gen 2.8, 15; Hos 6.7; Rom 5)
2. The covenant of works was personal (Gen 2.14; Gal 3.21)
3. The covenant of works was federal (Rom 5.12; 1Cor 15, 22, 45)
4. The covenant of works was eschatological (Gen 2.9; 3.22-24; Rev 2.7; 22.2, 14, 19)
5. With regard to the land promise, the Mosaic covenant was, mutatis mutandis, a republication of the Adamic covenant of works
  1. Owen
  2. Witsius
  3. Hodge
  4. M. G. Kline
  5. The Israelites were given the land and kept it by grace
  6. They were expelled for failure to keep a temporary, typical covenant of works (Genesis 12.7; Exodus 6.4; Deuteronomy 29.19-29; 2 Kings 17.6-7; Ezekiel 17).
6. The covenant of works has been abrogated in some ways and not in others
  1. The covenant of works has been abrogated as a way of salvation or justification,
  2. Nevertheless, all human beings are either in Adam or in Christ.
  3. Those who are in Adam remain under the moral obligation to perform perfect and personal obedience to the moral Law.
  4. To deny this truth is to call into question the perfect, active and passive obedience and merits of our Lord.
Confessional Theology
1. Merit in the Reformed Confessions
  1. HC 21, 60, 63, 84, 86; (Christ's merits not ours)
  2. BC 22, 23, 24, 35.
  3. CD RE 1.3; 2.7; RE 2.1; RE 2.3; RE 2.4; RE 2.6; 5.8;
  4. WCF 16.5; 17.2;
  5. WLC Q.55; Q. 174; Q. 193.
2. Heidelberg Catechism (1563)
  1. Q. 6 Did God create man thus wicked and perverse? A: No, but God created man good and after His own image, that is, in righteousness and true holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal blessedness, to praise and glorify Him.
  2. Q. 7: From where then comes this depraved nature of man? A: From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise whereby our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin (Heidelberg Catechism, 1563).
  3. Q. 9 Does not God then do injustice to man by requiring of him in His Law that which he cannot perform? A: No, for God so made man that he could perform it, but man, through the instigation of the devil, by willful disobedience deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.
  4. Q. 62. But why cannot our good works be the whole or part of our righteousness before God?
    Because the righteousness which can stand before the judgment-seat of God, must be perfect throughout and wholly conformable to the divine law; but even our best works in this life are all imperfect and defiled with sin.
3. Belgic Confession (1561)
  1. Art 14. The Creation and Fall of Man, And His Incapacity to Perform What is Truly Good. We believe that God created man out of the dust of the earth, and made and formed him after his own image and likeness, good, righteous, and holy, capable in all things to will agreeably to the will of God. But being in honor, he understood it not, neither knew his excellency, but willfully subjected himself to sin and consequently to death and the curse, giving ear to the words of the devil. For the commandment of life, which he had received, he transgressed; and by sin separated himself from God, who was his true life; having corrupted his whole nature; whereby he made himself liable to corporal and spiritual death. And being thus become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he has lost all his gifts which he had received from God, and retained only small remains thereof, which, however, are sufficient to leave man without excuse; for all the light which is in us is changed unto darkness, as the Scriptures teach us, saying: The light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not apprehended it; where St. John calls men darkness.
  2. Art. 15. We believe that through the disobedience of Adam original sin is extended to all mankind; which is a corruption of the whole nature
4. Canons of Dort (1619)
  1. 3/4.1 Man was originally formed after the image of God. His understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator, and of spiritual things; his heart and will were upright, all his affections pure, and the whole man was holy. But, revolting from God by the instigation of the devil and by his own free will, he forfeited these excellent gifts; and an in the place thereof became involved in blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity, and perverseness of judgment; became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in heart and will, and impure in his affections.
  2. RE 2.3: we reject those: Who teach: That Christ by His satisfaction merited neither salvation itself for any one, nor faith, whereby this satisfaction of Christ unto salvation is effectually appropriated; but that He merited for the Father only the authority or the perfect will to deal again with man, and to prescribe new conditions as He might desire, obedience to which, however, depended on the free will of man, so that it therefore might have come to pass that either none or all should fulfill these conditions. For these adjudge too contemptuously the death of Christ, in no way acknowledge that most important fruit or benefit thereby gained, and bring again out of hell the Pelagian error.
  3. 1637 Introduction to the Statenvertaling
    1. From the "Inhoud van Het Nieuwe Testament" in Bijbel dat is de Gansche Heilige Schrift …De Staten-Generaal, 3 vol. (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1913-15), 3.5-7; repr. from the 1637 edn and translated by Dr. Francis Nigel Lee.
      The word 'Testament' is a Latin word [Testamentum]. It translates the Greek word Diatheke, which the Greek Translators used to express the Hebrew word Berith, meaning 'Covenant.' Thereby is to be understood the Covenant itself which God made with man[kind] in order, under certain conditions, to give him [unlosable] everlasting life [cf. Isaiah 24:5].
    2. That Covenant is twofold - the Old and the New. The Old is that which God made with the first man before the fall [cf. Hosea 6:7], in which [unlosably] everlasting life was promised on condition of an altogether perfect obedience and keeping of the Law.
      …Because this condition has been transgressed with all men, and cannot now be fulfilled by any man [save Jesus], they must seek their salvation in another Covenant. That is called New. It consists of God foreordaining His Son as a Mediator. He promises everlasting life, on condition that we trust in Him. It is called the Covenant of Grace.
5. Westminster Standards
  1. Chapter 7: Of God's Covenant with Man. 7:1. The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him, as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.
  2. 7:2. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.
  3. Westminster Larger Catechism. Q. 20. What was the providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created? A. The providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created, was the placing him in paradise, appointing him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat of the fruit of the earth; putting the creatures under his dominion, and ordaining marriage for his help; affording him communion with himself; instituting the sabbath; entering into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.
  4. Westminster Larger Catechism. Q. 21. A. Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, through the temptation of Satan, transgressed the commandment of God in eating the forbidden fruit; and thereby fell from the estate of innocency wherein they were created.
  5. Westminster Larger Catechism. Q. 22. Did all mankind fall in that first transgression? A. The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression.
    The Sum of Saving Knowledge (1647). 1b) God originally made everything from nothing, perfect. He made our first parents, Adam and Eve, the root of mankind, both upright and able to keep the law written in their hearts. This law they were naturally bound to obey upon penalty of death. God was not bound to reward their service, till he entered into a covenant or contract with them, and their posterity in them. He promised to give them eternal life, upon condition of perfect personal obedience. If they failed they would die. This is the covenant of works.
6. Helvetic Consensus Formula (1675)
  1. Canon VII: As all his works were known unto God from eternity, (Acts 15:18), so in time, according to his infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, he made man, the glory and end of his works, in his own image, and, therefore, upright, wise, and just. Having created man in this manner, he put him under the Covenant of Works, and in this Covenant freely promised him communion with God, favor and life, if indeed he acted in obedience to his will.
  2. Canon VIII: Moreover that promise connected to the Covenant of Works was not a continuation only of earthly life and happiness but the possession especially of eternal and celestial life, a life namely, of both body and soul in heaven, if indeed man ran the course of perfect obedience, with unspeakable joy in communion with God. For not only did the Tree of Life prefigured this very thing unto Adam, but the power of the law, which, being fulfilled by Christ, who went under it in our place, awards to us nothing other than celestial life in Christ who kept the same righteousness of the law. The power of the law also threatens man with both temporal and eternal death.
  3. Canon IX: Wherefore we can not agree with the opinion of those who deny that a reward of heavenly bliss was offered to Adam on condition of obedience to God. We also do not admit that the promise of the Covenant of Works was any thing more than a promise of perpetual life abounding in every kind of good that can be suited to the body and soul of man in a state of perfect nature, and the enjoyment thereof in an earthly Paradise. For this also is contrary to the sound sense of the Divine Word, and weakens the power of the law considered in itself.
  4. Canon X: God entered into the Covenant of Works not only with Adam for himself, but also, in him as the head and root with the whole human race. Man would, by virtue of the blessing of the nature derived from Adam, inherit also the same perfection, provided he continued in it. So Adam by his sorrowful fall sinned and lost the benefits promised in the Covenant not only for himself, but also for the whole human race that would be born by the flesh. We hold, therefore, that the sin of Adam is imputed by the mysterious and just judgment of God to all his posterity. For the Apostle testifies that "in Adam all sinned, by one man's disobedience many were made sinners" (Rom 5:12,19) and "in Adam all die" (I Cor 15:21-22). But there appears no way in which hereditary corruption could fall, as a spiritual death, upon the whole human race by the just judgment of God, unless some sin of that race preceded, incurring the penalty of that death. For God, the most supreme Judge of all the earth, punishes none but the guilty.
  5. Canon XV: But by the obedience of his death Christ, in place of the elect, so satisfied God the Father, that in the estimate of his vicarious righteousness and of that obedience, all of that which he rendered to the law, as its just servant, during his entire life whether by doing or by suffering, ought to be called obedience. For Christ's life, according to the Apostle's testimony (Phil 1:8), was nothing but submission, humiliation and a continuous emptying of self, descending step by step to the lowest extreme even to the point of death on the Cross; and the Spirit of God plainly declares that Christ in our stead satisfied the law and divine justice by His most, holy life, and makes that ransom with which God has redeemed us to consist not in His sufferings only, but in his whole life conformed to the law. The Spirit, however, ascribes our redemption to the death, or the blood, of Christ, in no other sense than that it was consummated by sufferings; and from that last definitive and no blest act derives a name indeed, but not in such a way as to separate the life preceding from his death.
7. Confession of 1967
  1. Grace destroys the Law/Gospel Dichotomy
  2. No Covenant of Works
Conclusions
1. The Covenant of Works Stands for Law in Reformed Hermeneutics and Theology
2. The Covenant of Works is Intrinsic and Essential to Confessional Reformed Theology
3. Historically and Dogmatically Denial of the Covenant of Works Jeopardizes the the Doctrine of Justification

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