Reserving the covenant of redemption for a separate treatment is warranted because many Christian Theologians, as noted in part above, restrict the covenant concept to only those “transactions” that occur in Biblical history and therefore don't consider what is typically referred to by this covenant as a covenant in any sense at all. Consequently, it is dropped from the discussion. However, though not explicitly named a covenant of redemption, the WCF points to the intratrinitarian commitment that lays the groundwork for the works principle manifested in the covenant of works and the plan of redemption (which itself is based on Christ fulfilling his covenant of works made with the Father):
It pleased God , in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten son, to be the mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest and King, the Head and Savior of his church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom from all eternity give a people, to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified1.
And further in the confession:
The Lord Jesus, in His human nature thus united to the divine, was sanctified, and anointed with the Holy Spirit, above measure, having in Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; in whom it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell; to the end that, being holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace and truth, He might be thoroughly furnished to execute the office of a Mediator and Surety. Which office He took not unto Himself, but was thereunto called by His Father, who put all power and judgment into His hand, and gave Him commandment to execute the same.2
The covenant of redemption is different from all other covenants on three counts. The first is that it is the only covenant that is made not between God and man, but between the persons of the trinity. The second is that it is the only covenant not named as such even if implicitly.3 Thirdly, the covenant of redemption, precisely because it was not initiated at some specific place and time in the history of creation is not a covenant whose defenders can point to a specific passage that details it fully.
Essentially, the covenant of redemption is a works covenant. The pledge “this I will do” forms the basis of the covenant. God the Father elects a rebellious covenant breaking people for himself which he promises to give as an inheritance to his Son. God the Son promises to work as the second Adam (and as the true Israel) in order to reconcile the rebellious elect to the Father. God the Spirit promises to effectually bring these rebellious elect to saving belief in the Son.
1WCF Ch. 8, P1.
2WCF Ch. 8, P3.
3The Davidic covenant of 2 Sam. 7 is not named a covenant during the historical event when it is announced but is referred to as a covenant in Psalm 89:3. Likewise, the Adamic covenant of works is referred to as a covenant in Hosea 6:7.
32 comments:
A note on your footnote 3: the Davidic Covenant is named as such by God in 2 Chr 7:18.
What do you make of the conditions of obedience/faithfulness in 2 Chr 7:17-22? Is this an extension of the Davidic Covenant, converting it from unilateral (Royal Grant) to bilateral (Suzerainty) form? Is this "Solomonic Covenant" recognized as distinct from the Davidic (somewhat in the way that the Mosaic Covenant is distinct from the Abrahamic Covenant)?
Finally, what do you make of Gen 22:16-18, when God reiterates the Abrahamic covenant, as conditional on Abraham's (already completed) obedience? Or the possibility that Gen 12:1 is a condition for the first pronouncement of the AbCov in 12:2-3?
Some questions from our friend Frank Valenti, maybe that will spice up your blog for a while...
Your questions regarding the conditionality of the royal grant are good and worth exploring.
I will submit what I know tonight.
As for spice, I don't need any.
Yup, needs a little spice. Interesting content, but not exactly riveting prose. How about, "dispensationalism sucks", or "The Covenant of Redemption kicks all the other covenants' butts!" Now you've got the kids involved, and Jerry Springer interested in theology.
I won't give much of an answer - mostly because I don't see these so called conditions as anywhere near offsetting the "I wills" in Scripture.
The promise of God to Abraham, of course, has two manifestations. The land - which of course the Israelites got. And the heavenly city, which is what believers (pilgrims) were really looking for. Israel's stay in the earthly land was conditional on obedience only because of the works covenant. The prophetic lawsuits were tempered by God's longsuffering accompanied by "but for the covenant I swore to your fathers A,I, and J". Also, mercifully, the exile was a 70 year "timeout". Go to your room. A way to stage the drama of redemption in ways not imagined.
If FV is correct, I'm going to hell. And I will be a miserable son of a bitch all the way there. The FV burden is too much. I've seen too much of the theology of glory to ever want to go back and get any more of it. In other words this isn't a hair-splitting debate to me.
For clarification, I am disobedient and can't see much of a change in this regard down the road. That is, I haven't cut off my hand, plucked out my eyes or sold everything I have and given the money to the poor. These flagrant acts of disobedience are what will damn me if FV is right.
Now that I've thought about it, here's what makes sense to me:
Unlike the Mosaic and Adamic (and "Solomonic"?) covenants which include continuing conditions (blessings & cursings, do this and live, fail and earn death), AbCov (Gen 22:16, 12:1) has preconditions. Just like the New Covenant has the precondition of Christ's obedience. This is the big difference: nowhere does God tell Abraham "I am making a covenant with you, but if you screw it up, the deal is off!". That type of statement is what God promised to Adam, Moses, and Solomon, and all of them did end up screwing up, and they all got the promised curses -- God is faithful to his word though we are not! But God's promise to Abraham (and Adam&Eve (Gen 3) and David, and Christ) has no escape clause, no possibility of revocation due to our unfaithfulness. They are promises from God, and they unilaterally and reliably depend on God's own faithfulness.
Obviously, Abraham sacrificing Isaac is a type of God sacrificing Jesus (nowhere else in scripture is child sacrifice encouraged or condoned). Therefore, the linkage between Abraham's faithfulness (and let's not forget Isaac's faithfulness -- how easy would it have been for a teenager to escape from a ~100 year-old man if he decided not to be obedient to the point of death?) and the initiation/establishment/sealing of the covenant, typifies the Father and the Son executing the Plan of Redemption in order to initiate the New Covenant.
But still my question remains -- does reformed tradition recognize a Solomonic covenant distinct from the Davidic covenant, or am I just crazy?
Ron reported problems leaving comments, but it just worked for me, so I am attempting to forge a comment from Ron (pasted from email):
Rube:
A problem with that structure is it seems to neglect the fact that Abraham was already in covenant with God when he fulfilled the necessary condition of faithfulness. But as both Paul and James remind us, Abraham was justified *before* he was circumcised (Rom 4) and *when* he offered up Isaac (James 2). So the pre-condition, as you put it, was faith. But faithful obedience was an ongoing condition (of which we see the specific instances of circumcision and the offering up of Isaac).
Also, with the Mosaic as well as the "Solomonic" covenant, there is a failure to note that those covenants are the fullfillment of the covenants that preceeded them (and therefore, in the mono-covenantal paradigm, the same covenant). Let me flesh this out:
1. God promised Abraham numerous offspring and a place to put them.
2. The Exodus is one of the firstfruits of that covenant. "God remembered His covenant with Abraham..." (Exodus 2)
3. When God entered into covenant with Abraham, He also entered into covenant with Abraham's offspring. (Gen 17:7)
4. The children of Israel at the Exodus were Abraham's offspring and therefore living under the Abrahamic covenant.
Now check this out, here's the kicker: If the Mosaic covenant was conditioned upon faithful obedience (which we both agree it was), but the Abrahamic covenant was unconditional, then God did in Exodus 20 what you say my understanding of Genesis 22:16 accuses Him of doing to Abraham, that is starting with an unconditional covenant and then backdooring some conditions in there after the fact. The problem presented by this accusation (which we both agree is obviously false) only goes away when one realizes that the Abrahamic covenant began and continued with the ongoing condition of covenant faithfulness.
Bruce: "I won't give much of an answer - mostly because I don't see these so called conditions as anywhere near offsetting the "I wills" in Scripture."
Do you see any conditions in Ezekiel 33:13-16 as "offsetting" the "I wills" in that same passage? God even goes so far as to say, "I surely will..." How do you reconcile that passage with your statement quoted above?
ron
Testing again -- now I'm having trouble...
Welcome aboard, Ron. I ask simply this: are you asserting somehow that these conditions are attached to something other than the covenant of works? To me these describe the covenant of works.
I heartily affirm vs. 13 regarding the futility of trusting in my own righteousness. To that I add that I trust in the righteousness of another. I know that is foolish. It will be like walking into a gun battle with no gun. But that is how I read the gospel.
Please remember that this paper is not about the COW per se. It is about the covenant as a lens into systematic theology, particularly the covenant of redemption as a lens.
Grrr, gotta type this all in again! It was better the first time!
"But faithful obedience was an ongoing condition (of which we see the specific instances of circumcision and the offering up of Isaac)."
Offering up of Isaac was a one-time deal, not an ongoing condition (same as the cross, and we don't want to crucify Christ again!) And even FV, who is accused of making too much of baptism, would not say that baptism constitutes faithful obedience. Baptism is a one-time initiation event, a sign of entrance to the covenant. Not an ongoing condition.
"God promised Abraham numerous offspring and a place to put them."
But this promise to Abraham has two distinct senses that are difficult to entangle until the clarity of the NT.
Yes, Israel grew to a large nation, but in the N.T. we learn that the children of Abraham are actually those who have faith. Yes, Moses/Joshua took possession of a physical land, but in Hebrews we learn that Abraham "was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. ...a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city."
And yes, Moses' covenant had conditions of faithfulness attached to retention of the physical land by the natural descendants. But a proper N.T. understanding does not require backing Mosaic-style conditions back to Abraham.
Note: the "Please remember" above was not directed specifically to Ron.
Rube said, "Offering up of Isaac was a one-time deal, not an ongoing condition (same as the cross, and we don't want to crucify Christ again!)"
This is an obvious straw man. Nowhere do I say or even come close to insinuating that we ought to sacrifice Christ again.
And again, "And even FV, who is accused of making too much of baptism, would not say that baptism constitutes faithful obedience. Baptism is a one-time initiation event, a sign of entrance to the covenant. Not an ongoing condition."
Here, you have made a fallacious equivocation. What does baptism have to do with Abraham's obedience after he was already in covenant with God? Since Abraham was already in covenant with God, his obedience on Mt. Moriah cannot therefore be said to be a "pre-condition" to covenant membership like baptism or circumcision.
So we are back to the original question. How did a condition find its way into the Abrahamic covenant when that covenant is supposed to be unconditional?
Wait, there's more. Was God's requirement of Abraham to "walk before [Him] and be blameless" (Gen 17:1) a "pre-condition" to covenant entrance? If so, then how long did Abraham have to walk blamelessly before the LORD? Just long enough to meet the necessary "pre-condition" and then he could go back to living however he wanted to? And wasn’t Abraham already in covenant with God via God’s promises to him in Gen 12? Were those just stray promises to one outside of a covenantal relationship with God, or were they the makings of a covenantal relationship?
And if Gen 17:1 was an ongoing condition, then why not call the Abrahamic covenant a covenant of works?
And if it was no condition at all then was God just laying out a wish list? "Um, it would be nice if you'd obey me and worship me alone, but I’ll love you, no matter what." And if that was the case, what made God go all condition-crazy to the latter members of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17:7) after the Exodus? And their reward for faithfulness was not simply a stretch of land (as as one has implied), but the love of God himself. (Ex 20:6) And you know what? It is the same for us.
John 15:9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.
Was Jesus preaching a “works-based” covenant?
These two things you will see in every covenant if you honestly look through the scripture and stop trying to cram God's Word into your works/merit paradigm: Grace and obligation.
My short answer is that John 15:10 isn't materially any different than the conditions expressed in Matthew 5:20 "For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
Same deal. Impossible conditions. Why haven't you cut off your hands and plucked your eyes out Ron? Go ahead, tell me your holier than I am. Go ahead.
Bruce, do not be deceived, brother. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Was Paul giving an "impossible condition" there in Gal 6? What about Christ to the churches in Revelation? Isn't repentance from sin a condition for entrance into and continuance in the New Covenant? What is the difference between the Christian's faith and the faith of demons? Really, I want to know how you understand James 2 or the warnings in Rom 11, 1 Cor 10, or Hebrews 3,6,10. Does 1 John mean to say, "No one knows God"? Because it says we know that we know Him if we obey His commands. The one who says, "I know Him", but does not obey His commands is a liar.
I haven't cut off my hands or plucked out my eyes because they aren't keeping me from the kingdom. Jesus didn't really want people to cut off their limbs, bro. You know this. He wanted them to obey Him. In His great commission, He commanded His disciples to baptize and teach obedience. Do you think Christ simply wanted His disciples (and us) to hand out impossible requirements?
In chapter 14, the WCF says that saving faith yields obedience to the commands of scripture, trembles at the threatenings, and trusts in Christ for sanctification as well as justification. Do you trust in Christ for your sanctification, brother? Or do you think that correct theology is enough to save you? Don't demons have correct theology?
Some of your comments on this thread are discouraging, brother. Do you have no hope of growing in obedience in the future?
Do you not know that you have been sanctified in Christ Jesus and are called to be holy? In Christ, you have been given grace and He will keep you strong until the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have been entrusted with the secret things of God, but it is required that you prove faithful. Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? And that is what you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Do you not know that your body is a member of Christ Himself? I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brother, that our forefathers were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be an idolater, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to play." We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. But God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way of escape so that you can stand up under it.
I mean this in all sincerity as Paul did when he penned it to the church in Corinth. Notice who and what he says they are, and yet he warns them of falling into sin and being condemned. I will be praying for you, brother. May the Word of God have its way with your heart.
Grace and Peace in Christ,
Ron
Bruce and Rube,
The more you debate with Ron, the more opportunity you give him to confuse you.
ron = Rome.
He confuses and blends justification with sanctification, faith with faithfulness, and consequently, it is no surprise to see him pushing monocovenantalism. The more you debate him, the more convoluted he will get. The more convoluted he gets, the harder you'll have to work to untie the knots, and the more difficult it will be to keep track of it all. I advise you to drop the conversation with him. Go and read the OPC's justification report instead.
Rube,
The relationship of the Davidic covenant and the Solomonic is akin to that between the Abrahamic and the Mosaic.
E
*sighs*
Michael,
If you couldn't tell, I was actually trying to encourage a brother, not merely win an argument.
You have made some unsupported assertions about me. Feel free to substantiate them. Use scripture, please. And please answer the questions I have presented concerning the scriptures and WCF passage I have cited. If you are unable to do this, then your accusations against me are unfounded and are nothing more than your breaking of the ninth commandment.
Ron: Michael, you're ruining my opportunity to sink my claws into these people. I'm harmless. I just want them to be happy.
Satan: Did God realllllly say?
Ron: Michael, if you are going to accuse me, substantiate it, because I want to get my claws into you too.
Ron, if you haven't read the OPC's justification report, go read it. If you don't agree with it, I have nothing to say to you. If you do agree with it, then I also have nothing to say to you, at least about this, because your problem is solved.
If you haven't read the OPC's report, and have no intention of reading the report, I think I have even less to say to you.
E
Ron,
You are right about one thing. If I really am unable to articulate exactly why you're wrong, I have no right to say what I've said. You're absolutely right.
Your views have been declared as heresy more than once by the church at large, most recently by the OPC. Not only can I articulate exactly what's wrong with your views, but my entire denomination has published a very helpful paper on it.
You might notice that I'm still not articulating what's wrong with your views beyond the blurring of distinctions that I mentioned above. You might also notice that that post was not addressed to you but to Bruce and Rube, because I didn't intend for that post to make your errors clear to YOU, but to THEM. It is my hope that THEY understand what's wrong with what you're saying. If YOU want to understand what's wrong with what you're saying, feel free to read the OPC's statement. It's free. If you don't want to read that statement, then you aren't really interested in figuring out what's wrong with your views, you're only interested in trying to bully people into accepting them, so that you can confuse them and ruin their doctrinal understanding which they have so carefully been building over the years. If you are unwilling to read the OPC's report, it proves that you are a wolf seeking merely to confuse people by lengthy debate, and that you have sought the blood of Bruce and Rube, children of God.
But before you read the report out of spite, remember, I still won't talk to you about this after you've read it, because if you agree with it, your problem is solved, but if you disagree with it, I've nothing to say to you. If that document can't convince you, I'd be utterly arrogant to think I can. So don't read it, hoping that you'll get to sink your claws into me or Bruce and Rube via this blog after you've done your pennance reading the report. You'll have no such luck.
By the way, if you keep trying to argue with Bruce and Rube, I'm going to keep making you look foolish. It's really going to make you frustrated. You'll be in a perpetual bad mood. What will make you really mad is that I won't really enter into honest debate with you, but will only continue to declare you to be the wolf that you are. So try to sink your claws into them if you like, but I will make sure it costs you something.
E
It grieves me that there is still division like this in the Church. I pray with our Lord, may we be one and the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son.
Mr. Echo, brother,
I want you to take a good look at what you are doing. You don't know me. You have never met me (that I know of). How can you treat me so uncharitably, and without any explanation save something like, "You believe what those people over there say you believe and that's bad"?
It is a sad irony when the doctrine of Sola Fide divides the Church. It is ironic because a correct understanding of Sola Fide should remind us that ALL PEOPLE who have faith Christ belong at the same table, regardless of their view of Sola Fide or their failure to incarnate their view of Sola Fide, as Peter did.
Galatians 2:11"When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? 15 "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified."
I suppose you could continue to call me a "wolf" as you have threatened without even addressing one thing that I have said, but you are wrong about one thing, brother. You won't be making me look foolish by doing so.
Ron,
Not that your admission is required, because it was as plain as day, but you obviously are admitting here that you don't believe in justification by faith alone. The gospel you believe in is a false gospel and a lie.
Here you have been here on this thread, trying to bully Bruce and Rube into accepting your heretical, false gospel.
I don't need to know you. I don't want to know you.
I want you to get your grimey, slimey, nasty lies away from my friends. You are a liar, you hate the true gospel, you are as bad as Rome, and your willingness to bully people into accepting your false gospel is atrocious.
You want to have unity with the church, the TRUE church, of which you are not now a part, due to your false confession?
Then let go of your false gospel and embrace the truth.
Far from being a doctrine that doesn't matter, Sola Fide is what the church, the gospel, stands or falls on. If justification is not by faith alone, then it is by works, and if it is by works, it is no longer grace, and Christ died for nothing.
You have RUINED the gospel, distorted it into a Roman lie and called it reformed. It is repulsive, disgusting, sinful, dirty, and exhibits the spirit of antiChrist.
1Jo 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
You seek unity with the church?
1Co 6:15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!
There can be NO union between your false gospel, wolf, and the true gospel. Be sad, and talk about how narrow minded I am all you want, but you just sound the same as the liberal progressives who want us to accept gays and all kinds of stupid things. Keep it up, wolf.
Ron,
By the way, in case you were wondering, my attitude is a direct result of the fact that you're trying to bully people into accepting your views. My attitude would be completely different if you were teachable, open to the truth, and seeking help. Because, as an adherent to a false gospel, you do need help. But rather than seeking help, or at least being even keel about it, here you are trying to TEACH your lies to these guys. You're trying to CORRECT them, bullying them into accepting your lies as truth. You are not merely tempting them to sin or sowing confusion, you are DEMANDING THAT THEY RENOUNCE THE GOSPEL AND ACCEPT YOUR FALSE GOSPEL!!!
Your actions are more than worthy of excommunication. Have a nice day wolf.
E
"Not that your admission is required, because it was as plain as day, but you obviously are admitting here that you don't believe in justification by faith alone."
If it is so obvious, brother, then perhaps you could show me where you believe I have made such a denial. Perhaps I could clarify.
In Christ,
Ron
It is a sad irony when the doctrine of Sola Fide divides the Church. It is ironic because a correct understanding of Sola Fide should remind us that ALL PEOPLE who have faith Christ belong at the same table, regardless of their view of Sola Fide or their failure to incarnate their view of Sola Fide, as Peter did.
So here you make it clear that "faith alone" shouldn't divide people, when that's the very thing that SHOULD divide people, dividing the church from the world.
http://www.opc.org/GA/justification.pdf
here ya go Ron, just in case you couldn't find it.
"So here you make it clear that "faith alone" shouldn't divide people..."
I'm sorry, bro, let me clarify. What I meant to say was that the doctrine of "faith alone" shouldn't divide the Church. It certainly should divide the Church from unbelievers, but Paul tells us in Gal 2 that this doctrine should unite all of God's people, not divide them.
In Christ,
Ron
So you're saying that I should accept Norm Shepherd as my brother, and Steve Wilkins, and the other Federal Vision ilk, and NT Wright and James Dunn, etc. We're all one happy family. Oh, and the Pope is my brother too.
Is that right?
Bruce,
I really wish you'd switch to Wordpress. Blogger is no good. Posting is a REAL pain.
E
Mr. Echo,
What is your criteria for extending the right hand of fellowship? Does someone have to agree with you on every doctrine? Or is some doctrinal diversity permitted?
In Christ,
Ron
Ron,
Fascinating that you didn't immediately deny that the Pope is our brother.
E
Ron,
http://ineedsheetmusic.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/christian-mind-paper-part-the-third-covenant-of-r/#comments
E
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