Some Questions and Answers about God's Covenant and the Sacrament That Is a Seal of God's Covenant

With Related Texts

Rollock, Denlinger

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498299428
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Robert Rollock is best remembered today for the role he played in the development of Reformed covenant theology, a role defined especially by the uniquely mature treatment of a pre-fall covenant of works discovered in his thought. However, scholarship on Rollock's covenant thought has until now been based almost entirely on an early modern English translation of Rollock's Tractatus de vocatione efficaci (1597), and has overlooked discussion of the covenant of works found both in Rollock's 1596 Quaestiones et responsiones aliquot de Foedere Dei, deque Sacramento quod foederis Dei sigillum est and his 1593 Romans commentary. This volume offers the first complete English translation of Rollock's 1596 catechism as well as English translations of relevant sections from his Romans commentary that deal with the subject of God's covenants with man. Thus this volume stands to offer students of Reformed covenant theology a better understanding of Rollock's thought and the contribution he made to the evolution of Reformed theology, particularly on the matter of God's covenant with humankind before the fall.

Some Questions and Answers about God’s Covenant and the Sacrament That Is the Seal of God’s Covenant

Concerning, first of all, God’s covenant in general, and then the covenant of works

1. Question: What is the covenant of God established with man?40

Answer: It is that by which God promises man something good under some settled condition, and man accepts the condition.

2. Q: How manifold is the covenant of God established with man?

A: It is twofold: there is the covenant of nature or works, and the covenant of grace. Gal 4:24.

3. Q: What is the covenant of nature or works?

A: It is the covenant of God in which he promises man eternal life under the condition of good works proceeding from the powers of man’s nature, and man accepts that condition of good works. Lev 18:5; Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12.

4. Q: Was there no grave threat added to the promise of this covenant?

A: One was added.

5. Q: In what form?

A: “Cursed is anyone who does not continue in all the things which are written in the Book of the Law, in order to do them.” Gen 2:17; Deut 27:26; Gal 3:10.41

6. Q: What is the foundation of the covenant of works?

A: A good, holy, and upright nature—the kind of nature that existed in man by creation. For if God had not made man after his own image—that is, wise, holy, and righteous by nature—he surely could not have established with him this covenant, which has for its condition holy, just, and perfect works of nature. Gen 1:26–27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:9.

7. Q: What is promised in the covenant of works?

A: A blessed life enduring forever. Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12.

8. Q: What is the condition in the covenant of works?

A: The condition is good works, which should proceed from that good, holy, and upright nature upon which the covenant itself was founded. Rom 10:5; Gal 3:12.

9. Q: What realities are excluded by this condition?

A: By this condition, first, faith in Christ, and second, works proceeding from grace and regeneration are excluded from the covenant of works. Rom 11:6.

10. Q: Why are these realities excluded?

A: Because the virtues of man’s nature, along with its works, cannot consist together with the grace of Christ and works of grace. Rom 11:6.

11. Q: What are the heads of this covenant’s condition?

A: They are comprised one apiece in the commandments of the Decalogue. Hence the tables on which the law was inscribed have been called “the tables of the covenant.” Exod 19 and 20; Exod 22:15;42 Heb 9:4.

12. Q: Is the condition of works a condition of merits?

A: Not at all. Rather, it is one of duties that bear witness to gratitude towards God the Creator. Rom 11:35; Luke 17:10.43

13. Q: But works of a holy and upright nature must be perfectly holy and good.

A: It does not follow from this that they must be meritorious. For the rule of merit is properly this: compensation is due to work that is done—work that is not owed—according to the order of justice. As Rom 4:4 says, “To the one who works”—that is, to the one who merits—“wages are reckoned according to debt.”44

14. Q: Why is this covenant called the covenant of works?

A: The reason for the name is discovered in the condition of the covenant, which is works proceeding from a good and upright nature.

15. Q: When was this covenant of works established with man?

A: It was established with man in his first creation. Gen 1:27ff.; Gen 2:15ff.

16. Q: In what manner and order was it established?

A: First God engraved his law—that is, the heads of his covenant’s condition—upon the heart of created man. Then he said, “Work and serve according to the rule of my law (for it is written upon your heart), and you will live.” And man accepted the condition, and pledged himself to fulfill it. Gen 2:15ff.

17. Q: You understand, then, this moral law to have been engraved upon man’s heart at creation, and thus the singular heads of this covenant’s condition to have been known by nature itself?

A: I do. And your own lingering acquaintance with the law, which still persists in corrupted nature after the fall, is proof of this very thing. Rom 1:19 and 32; Rom 2:14.

18. Q: Was this covenant of works afterwards repeated?

A: It was continually repeated from the creation and fall of man up until the coming of Christ. First, it was delivered by a living voice. Then, it was engraved upon tables of stone by the fingers of God himself. Afterwards, it was handed down and inscribed by Moses. Finally, it was repeate...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Some Questions and Answers about God’s Covenant and the Sacrament That Is the Seal of God’s Covenant
• On the Covenant of God
• On the Sacrament
• On Good Works
• Bibliography