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. 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.
It is extremely common to say that those who are not members of the covenant of grace are still under the covenant of works. It makes initial sense because everyone is expected to obey God and the punishment for disobedience is death.
That being said, the above quotation from the Westminster Confession (chapter 7) leads in a different direction. It claims that all men and angels (reasonable creatures) owe God obedience apart from any covenant. You don’t need the covenant of works to explain why God must punish disobedience.
And what of Adam and Eve? Once they had broken God’s covenant were they still “under” it as a way to gain fruition from God? No, they were under God’s wrath and curse. They had broken it and there was nothing left but the condemnation. And that is exactly the situation into which all their offspring were and are born. Not with the covenant of works before them as way of gaining fruition from God, but as condemned.
Which brings us to a question about Jesus. Why should he have to be under the same covenant as Adam? True, he was a second Adam. But he had a new situation. Adam had a perfect world to grow and learn in; Jesus came to a world that was sinful and cursed. He had to deal with Adam’s disobedience, not simply offer up his own obedience for himself and his children.
And again, the fact that Jesus had to be obedient (even if one wants to insist that obedience must be imputed to believers in addition to and distinction from other aspects of his life and work) does not require the Covenant of Works as an explanation. It would be the natural obedience that all creatures owe to their creator. There is nothing in the logic of the system to demand that this obedience be considered related to the covenant of works.
Of course, this is all just an hypothetical exercise. There may be good exegetical grounds for going a different way. But the commonplace explanations I see given on the web and in sermons, quite frankly, have holes in them. Holes that I think are fairly obvious because fairly large. And there are more of them than I have mentioned above.
Reformed Theology, unlike the Arminians of the 17th century who like you considered the Covenant of Works to be wholly abrogated, considered the CofW to be partly a thing of the past and partly still in force.
God didn’t abrogate the conditional promise (Gal. 3:12). And because the curse and punishment pronounced on the transgressor still apply to all who continue in sin the demand for perfect obedience still holds.
The CofW is only abrogated in that the obligations are met by the Mediator.
But Gal. 3:12 is your problem.
I forgot to mention the above comment is paraphrased from Berkhof’s Manual of Christian Doctrine, pg. 133, Eerdman’s edition.
Mark, your game is to play the confession off against Reformed Theology in the context of exploiting the short word count of a confession. This is not being serious.
Alexander, you are assuming a ton of stuff to say that Galatians 3.12 counts as evidence for some sort of covenant of works v. grace. Again, Westminster is clear that the covenant of works does not exhaust the reasons why man must obey God. So, if the Law simply consists of God’s commands then it doesn’t have to be connected with any COW under Westminsterian principles.
But, of course, the Torah is not identical with the COW, so it is not clear that Galatians 3.12 is relevant. I realize there are prooftexts used that way in the Westminster documents, but as we all know from discussions of baptism and the New Testament, those prooftexts have never been considered binding.
The fact that Arminians believed things is interesting, but hardly helps answer the question. The demand that all people obey God perfectly, and that they will be punished if they do not, is perfectly understandable, on Westminsterian principles, without any need for a COW.
So why make out that the COW is ongoing and that believing it is ongoing is so important?
Mark, if all you’re going to do is repeat “there is no covenant of works, there is no covenant of works” then OK. But the subject, with reference to Gal. 3:12, was the abrogation (or not) of the covenant with Adam. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law…” (Gal. 3:13) From the curse of the what, Mark? Seems that it is still in force until we have saving faith in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. The Bible uses the terminology of being ‘in Adam’ and being ‘in Christ.’ 1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Being ‘in Adam’ means being still under the federal headship of Adam, who fell, and we fell ‘in Adam.’ That situation is still in effect until one becomes ‘in Christ.’
Umm, the curse of the law refers primarily to Sinai.
Being “in Adam” is also not the same as being “in Eden.” In fact, the Pauline notion of union with Adam is problematic precisely because the original covenant is broken, and thus the penalty of death is being extracted upon us all. When Adam was initially in covenant in Eden, he was not under the curse of that covenant. He fell under the curse of the covenant after he broke the covenant. We start out in the broken situation, and we can never go back to the pre-broken (and thus keepable) covenant in Eden. I think that’s part of Mark’s point.
Another thing we should be careful about is equating “Reformed Theology” with “Federalism.” There were plenty of 1st generation Reformers who held to a pre-law, law, post-law schema.
I never said there is no covenant of works. I said that the Westminster Confession tells readers that perfect obedience would be demanded of the rational creature apart from it (and I think implies a natural justice to eternal death as punishment).
Furthermore, I have straightforwardly stated that we are all “in Adam” by natural birth. That is precisely the reason that makes the usual defenses of the ongoing covenant of works look doubtful. Only if we did *not* fall in Adam could we still be under the covenant of works. But we did.
The Torah is simply not the Covenant of works. If nothing else, we need to at least rescue Paul from this sort of eisogetical move.
I personally think you have bigger problems with Isaiah 24:5-6:
5 The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore, a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left.
And, it seems to me your reading of this section of the Confession (Chapter 7) is prejudicial.
The fact that all men merely owe obedience based on who God is does not invalidate a need for a covenant of works and 7.2 clearly indicates that all who followed are covered and responsible in the covenant that God made with Adam. 7.1 clearly indicates that the way this obedience and its fruit was to be manifested appropriately was through the means of a covenant.
Nice post, Mark. I found those insights helpful. I ‘ve thinking a lot about Active Obedience as it relates to the CoW. I want to affirm the law-keeping of Christ, but see no biblical basis for saying that we are saved by it as is popular today. My view is Anselmic (and Pauline), namely that the cross work saves us. It is the “beyond-duty” work (beyond law-keeping) which has eternal merit, or worth. You post has shown, in a different way than I have been thinking, that Christ’s obedience doesn’t have to be seen in the CoW to be meaningful, significant, and necessary. I’ve written (link below) a little on some AO problems, as I see it. Thanks for the iron.
http://towardpraxis.com/blog/?cat=4
Kevin, thank for your comment.
I would need some argument/evidence that the Isaiah passage is referring to the COW. No, actually, I would also need some explanation why we would be condemned for violating a covenant we have already been condemned for violating. It simply makes no sense. Adam sins and condemns himself and his progeny to eternal damnation, and Isaiah prophesying because these doomed sinners have sinned some more?
In any case, I have to disagree, at this point, that my reading is prejudicial. I should point out that I never said that there was no need for the covenant of works; in fact, I have assumed as true that the only way a creature could gain “fruition” from God was by His condescending to covenant. I’ll also point out that the situaiton we are in is found in 7.3, not 7.2. We are not “covered and responsible in the covenant that God made with Adam” but rather condemned in Adam as violators of the Covenant God made with him.
Joshua, thanks for your comment.
Glad you found something useful here. Please come back again. I look forward, when I have time, to following the link you posted.
Mark,
Maybe you can tell me then what other everlasting covenant all the inhabitants of the earth are guilty of breaking?
STEVEN W. WROTE:
“Umm, the curse of the law refers primarily to Sinai.
Being “in Adam” is also not the same as being “in Eden.” In fact, the Pauline notion of union with Adam is problematic precisely because the original covenant is broken, and thus the penalty of death is being extracted upon us all. When Adam was initially in covenant in Eden, he was not under the curse of that covenant. He fell under the curse of the covenant after he broke the covenant. We start out in the broken situation, and we can never go back to the pre-broken (and thus keepable) covenant in Eden. I think that’s part of Mark’s point.
Another thing we should be careful about is equating “Reformed Theology” with “Federalism.” There were plenty of 1st generation Reformers who held to a pre-law, law, post-law schema.”
This is why it’s so difficult to have exchanges with FVists and FV supporters (and quasi-whatever sort-of FVist types and so on) because you all really aren’t Reformed to any basic degree, despite you claims, and despite your wanting to converse on the grounds of such documents as the WCF. Scan the above from Steven W. To respond to that is really to respond to a liberal theologian whose doctrine is as nebulous and non-Reformed as just about any other liberal theologian’s doctrine.
Um, what?
As for my distinction between Reformed Theology and Federalism (notice that I am not trying to say that Federalism isn’t Reformed, but rather that Reformed is bigger than Federalism), I am drawing from Richard Muller’s book Christ and the Decree.
You’ll have to explain the rest bud…
Ok, all I can figure out is that perhaps I was understood to be saying that the Pauline notion is problematic, in the sense that I don’t like it. This would not be my point. What I meant was that the problem of being in Adam, as far as Pauline theology goes, is precisely because it is a post-fall Adam ie. one under the curse of the covenant. That’s the problem that Christ comes to solve.
I gave it my best shot. If there’s some hidden liberalism that I’m not seeing, you’ll have to help me out.
Liberal? Not reformed to any degree?
Are you serious?
Being Reformed means being a Predestinarian, Monergist, TULIP affirmer who believes in justification by faith alone. In no way, by no known use of reason, can my pointing out that the WCF indicates the demand for perfect obedience is part of the natural order apart from any covenantal arrangement, be used as a basis for these extremist accusations.
Back off.