Adam, Christ and Covenant

A. T. B. McGowan

• Verlag: Apollos
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783594894
• Thema: Teología y religión
• Thema: Teología cristiana

McGowan reviews challenges to and disagreements over Reformed covenant theology and proposes that its strengths can best be retained by separating the two key ideas of union with Adam/Christ and God's covenantal dealings with his people.

PART 1

The context

In this first section of the book we shall provide an outline of covenant theology, as developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and as ‘codified’ in the Westminster Confession of Faith, noting that this was once the dominant theological perspective of Christian theologians in the Reformed tradition.

Then we shall consider the main opposition to covenant theology from within the Reformed tradition itself, namely, from Karl Barth and from two of those who followed in his trajectory, T. F. Torrance and J. B. Torrance.

Next, we shall consider the internal debates which have taken place among proponents of Reformed theology who are committed to covenant theology but have offered varying and in some cases revisionist accounts of the system: first, John Murray, then Meredith Kline and finally the school of federal theology.

In this way, we shall provide the general context of current studies in covenant theology, preparing the way for our own proposal in part 2 of the book.

Chapter 1

Covenant theology

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to describe covenant theology and to offer a brief sketch of its historical development. We shall focus particularly on Scottish covenant theology so as to prepare for our later examination of the theology of John Murray, whose significant critique of covenant theology (while holding to its core elements) provides the launching pad for our own proposed challenge to the system.

Covenant theology can be defined as that system of theology in which the relationship between God and humanity is described in covenantal terms. In particular, the focus is on Adam and Christ as the heads of two covenants between God and human beings. In its full-blown form, as we shall see, this involved a complex arrangement of covenants and headship. Covenant theology developed in the post-Reformation period but many theologians in earlier periods had made significant use of the covenant theme, which is so prevalent in Scripture.1 Others had offered interpretations of Paul’s comparison between being in Adam and being in Christ.2

Exposition

The classic exposition of covenant theology teaches that God entered into a ‘covenant of works’ with Adam in Genesis 2:16–17, whereby Adam was prohibited from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He was told that if he did eat from this tree, he would die, with the corresponding implication that, if he refrained from doing so, he would live. Most covenant theologians asserted that, if Adam had succeeded in obeying God during this period of ‘probation’ and had not eaten from the forbidden tree, he would have been granted eternal life. This would have involved the permanent conferral of the blessings he already enjoyed in his state of innocence and much more besides.

One vital aspect of covenant theology is that, when God entered into the covenant of works with Adam, he did not do so with Adam as a private individual but as representative of the human race. Thus when Adam disobeyed God and broke the commandment not to eat from the forbidden tree, the judgment which followed fell not only upon Adam but upon all those whom he represented, namely, all humanity (who had not yet been born). This explains why every human being is already corrupted by sin from conception, often called ‘original sin’. Correspondingly, if Adam had obeyed God, then the permanent conferral of blessing would also have come to the entire human race.

Despite Adam’s disobedience, God did not abandon the human race, each member of which he had created in his own image. Indeed, at the very point of Adam’s fall, God made a promise, recorded in Genesis 3:15, that someone would come to destroy Satan, the instigator of Adam’s sin. This protoevangelion (first promise of the gospel) indicated that God intended to act decisively to overcome the failure of Adam. This action began in Genesis 12 with the call of Abraham, with whom God made a covenant, described in Genesis 15 and 17. Covenant theologians generally view this as the first expression of a ‘covenant of grace’ which God made with his elect people, with Christ as the ‘head’ of the covenant. The family of Abraham became, during a period in Egypt, the Hebrew tribes and then ultimately emerged from Egypt as a nation under God. The covenant between God and his chosen people was renewed at Sinai through Moses and the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled as Israel became a nation and was given the ‘Promised Land’ of Canaan.

The covenant of grace, first intimated to Abraham, involved looking forward to the day when the protoevangelion would be fulfilled and Messiah would come. Jeremiah indicated that God would then establish a ‘new covenant’ in which all the blessings of salvation would come to God’s chosen people. Until then, the sacrificial system and a high priest were in place. These sacrifices ‘covered’ the sins of the people until the day when they could be dealt with permanently. These temple sacrifices themselves could never deal permanently with sin but were types and signs, waiting to be fulfilled when Christ (Messiah) came as the great high priest and, with one sacrifice on the cross at Calvary, paid the penalty for the sins of all God’s chosen people in all generations, bringing an end to the law in terms of its sacrificial system. Christ is head of this new covenant, in which the covenant of grace reaches its fulfilment, and all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Christ is able to be the head of the covenant of grace because, although a man, he was born of a virgin and therefore not included under the representative headship of Adam in the covenant of works and hence not tainted with original sin. Also, since he was ‘conceived by the Holy Spirit’, the Holy Spirit protected him from any effect of Mary’s sin.

Covenant theologians developed this concept of Adam and Christ as representative heads of two covenants from 1 Corinthians 15:21–22, 44b–49 and Romans 5:12–21.3 These verses tell us that we are either ‘in Adam’ or ‘in Christ’. If we are ‘in Adam’ we shall die and if we are ‘in Christ’ we shall be made alive. The parallel in these verses between Adam and Christ, in which Paul describes Christ as the ‘second man’ and the ‘last Adam’, is used to argue that, just as Adam was the representative head of the covenant of works, so Christ is the representative head of the covenant of grace. Christ takes the place of Adam and fulfils the covenant of works, succeeding where Adam failed and obeying where Adam disobeyed, thus bringing salvation to all those whom he represented, namely, God’s elect. Most covenant theologians have also argued that underlying this covenant of grace was a covenant of redemption between God the Father and God the Son, in which the Father promised to forgive sins if the Son would come as representative and substitute, to make atonement for sinners. Christ freely and willingly accepted the terms of the covenant and the incarnation took place.

The whole covenant scheme is set in the context of the post-Reformation Calvinistic theology. Thus it is argued that God, from all eternity, elected a people for himself. Christ died to pay the penalty for the sins of God’s elect people, bearing the wrath of God in their place, having qualified himself for this position by his incarnation and by his active obedience. The Holy Spirit then applies the work of Christ to the elect by effectual calling, regeneration, justification, sanctification and the other aspects of salvation which are summed up in the doctrines that make up the ordo salutis. The sacraments are viewed as signs and seals of the covenant of grace. Thus covenant theology seeks to be an all-embracing system of thought, based on Scripture and encompassing the whole scope of biblical teaching.

History

The scholarly debate concerning the historical development of covenant theology has largely taken place during the past forty years. In the course of this debate, several volumes have sought, inter alia, to chart the history of covenant theology.4 Although these volumes represent different theological perspectives, both for and against covenant theology, there is now growing agreement on the main line of development.

All Christian theologians must find a place for ‘covenant’ in their systems since it is such a recurring, even dominant, concept in the Scriptures. It was, however, in the Calvinist strand of Reformation theology that the concept came to be the central means of expressing the relationship between God and humanity. There is, however, disagreement among scholars as to Calvin’s own position. Some have argued that there is a radical discontinuity between Calvin and the later covenant theology,5 whereas others argue that Calvin was one of the originators of covenant theology.6 Many who would hesitate to take this latter position would nonetheless argue that covenant theology is a natural and legitimate development from Calvin’s own thought.7 It is certainly clear that the covenant was very important in Calvin’s theology.8 The debate which took place between these three different interpretations, together with the work of those who do not fit neatly into any of these three categories,9 has been called the ‘Calvin versus Calvinism’ debate. The recently published work by Andrew A. Woolsey, supporting earlier work by Richard Muller, makes a most persuasive case for the continuity argument.10

Covenant theology, as a two-covenant system, began with Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83), Caspar Olevianus (1536–87) and their colleagues in Heidelberg, between 1560 and 1590.11 There is no unanimous agreement as to the precise origin of the expression ‘foedus operum’ (covenant of works), although David Weir’s argument that a prelapsarian covenant was first introduced into Reformed theology in 1562 by Ursinus and that Dudley Fenner, in 1585, first called it the foedus operum is very persuasive.12 This is supported by David Poole:

The centre of covenant thought in the years immediately following 1562 was Heidelberg, the key figures being Ursinus and Olevianus. After that city’s return to Lutheranism in 1576, continental covenant theology came to pivot on Herborn. The seeds of the notion of a first covenant preceding that of grace, had already been sown on the Continent, but it was Dudley Fenner who first introduced the foedus operum in his Sacra Theologia (Geneva 1585).13

Covenant theology was popularized by William Perkins (1558–1602) and was significantly advanced by the later German theologian Johannes Cocceius (1603–69). Covenant theology quickly took root and grew after this point. By the end of the seventeenth century, covenant theology had become the dominant theological position within Reformed theology. In the course of this development, however, covenant theology was expressed in different ways, such that there was no one definitive covenant theology, although most of the key elements were agreed. When covenant theology received confessional status, however, first in a very preliminary form in the Irish Articles of 1615 and then more fully in the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646 (and its Congregationalist and Baptist variants), this became the definitive version most adopted by Reformed theologians.

The WCF deals with covenant theology in chapter 7, ‘On God’s Covenant with Man’, and, given its influence, is worth quoting in full:

I. 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 has been pleased to express by way of covenant.

II. 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.

III. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenan...