The Bible teaches what Reformed theologians have called a covenant of redemption - an agreement in eternity between God the Father and God the Son, in which the Father sent his Son to undergo humiliation in order to redeem sinners (John 5:30, 17:4). The Son willingly accepted this commission from the Father (John 10:17-18, Phil. 2:4-8, Heb. 10:5-10), and the Father promised the Son that upon the completion of his work there would be an inheritance as the fruit of his labors (Isa. 53:10-12, John 17:5 and 24).

However, most of the biblical references to covenant do not speak of a covenant between the Father and the Son, but of a covenant between God and his people (Gen. 17:1-2 and 7, Deut. 29:10-13, and Isa. 55:3-4). Reformed theologians have distinguished between a covenant of redemption and a covenant of grace or reconciliation. The covenant of grace is the communion between God and his people. The covenant of redemption sets forth the humiliation and atonement of Christ as the means of procuring our redemption, and is the foundation for the reciprocal relationship of fellowship between God and the people he has redeemed. The enjoyment of fellowship between God and his people in the covenant of grace is dependent upon the procuring work of Christ under the covenant of redemption.

In this essay we will discuss some aspects of the covenant of grace. There are today many winds of doctrine from quarters other than the Puritan heritage of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Our intention is to set forth clearly what is taught in the Westminster standards, and then contrast this with a contemporary alternative to the covenant theology of our subordinate standards.

Robert Rollock and his background

We may begin by a consideration of the teaching of two Scottish Presbyterian theologians who contributed significantly to the discussion of our topic. Robert Rollock (1555-99) was the first principal of Edinburgh University. In training his scholars, he drew upon the theology of the Heidelberg Catechism, as well as upon treatises by Theodore Beza which set forth Genevan orthodoxy in the generation after Calvin. Rollock published a large number of biblical commentaries which were highly commended by Beza. Rollock's major work, A Treatise of God's Effectual Calling, was published in 1597. In this book he uses the covenant as a key to understanding many areas of Christian doctrine. He was one of the first to use the concept of the covenant for arranging and tying together all the subjects of Reformed systematic theology.

Rollock is significant because he taught that everything in the Word of God may be designated either as a promise or a condition under some divinely-appointed covenant, so that God says nothing to men except through one covenant or another. Rollock assigns the various promises of Scripture according to the covenant to which they belong. First, the covenant of works must be explained to sinners. That covenant proposed life upon the condition of a perfect compliance with the law. Exposition of the covenant of works from the pulpit is intended to bring conviction to the sinner, who is brought to see what is required of him, and that he is unable to perform that requirement. Such preaching is designed to overthrow the sinner's confidence that in his unregenerate nature he would be able to conform to the law of God. Then are declared the promises of the covenant of grace, wherein Christ and his benefits are freely offered to sinners upon condition of faith. Hence, all the promises of Scripture fall under some covenant, and only under the covenant of grace can there be a fulfillment of the condition and consequently a reception of the promises.

Rollock discusses in particular the condition for appropriating the blessings of the covenant of grace. The significance of denoting faith as a condition is that faith directs us to Christ. If anyone would suggest that because this covenant is a free covenant, there could be no condition attached to it, Rollock explains that the gracious character of the covenant is not in jeopardy when faith is said to be its condition. For it is not properly because of faith that God performs the promises of the covenant, but because of the merits of Christ, in whom we trust. "Whereas God offereth righteousness and life under condition of faith, yet doth he not so respect faith in us, which is also his own gift, as he doth the object of faith, which is Christ, and his own free mercy in Christ, which must be apprehended by faith; for it is not so much our faith apprehending, as Christ himself, and God's mercy apprehended in him, that is the cause wherefore God performeth the promise of his covenant unto us, to our justification and salvation."(1)

Central to Rollock's covenant theology is his doctrine of calling. As we have noted, his exposition of the covenant is entitled A Treatise of Effectual Calling. Rollock says that the preaching of the gospel is a publishing to sinners of God's covenant of grace. This preached covenant is the first element in an effectual calling. Eternal life is offered under the covenant of grace to men who are still unjust and unregenerate, lying dead in trespasses and in sins. But the Spirit works faith in those predestinated unto life, enabling them to respond to God's call, and this efficacious work of the Spirit in the hearts of the elect is the second element in effectual calling.

Rollock speaks of the double grace or privilege given in calling: "Our calling . . . is by God's free grace, and that in a double respect. For first in our effectual calling, the publishing of the covenant and the preaching of the gospel is of the only free grace of God. . . . Next, faith, whereby we receive the promise of the covenant, which is offered unto us in Christ, is of the mere grace of God. . . . That former grace may be called the grace of our calling; this grace is common to all that are called, elect and reprobate. But the latter grace in our effectual calling may be called the grace of faith, appertaining only to the elect, for it is given only to those that are predestinated to life everlasting to believe. . . . For whereas there is a double mercy of God in our effectual vocation, to wit, first, an offering of Christ with all his benefits in the covenant of grace or the gospel; secondly, faith to receive Christ being offered, . . . therefore, in our effectual calling two graces must be understood, the grace of our vocation, or of offering Christ unto us, and the grace of faith, or of receiving Christ by us."(2)

Rollock was not saying anything novel when he declared that the covenant of grace is outwardly administered to many who hear the Word preached, with only the elect actually receiving the saving blessings in the covenant. In this, Rollock stands in a clearly-defined line of influence, from John Calvin through Olevian. Caspar Olevian (1536-87) was a pupil of Calvin's before returning to his native Germany, to become the pastor of a large congregation in Heidelberg, and to teach dogmatics at Heidelberg and Herborn. He was one of the two authors of the Heidelberg Catechism. In The Substance of the Covenant of Grace (1585), Olevian wrote of the outward administration of the covenant through preaching and the sacraments, with the substance of the covenant being enjoyed only by the elect, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit creates a faith to receive the saving mercies offered in the covenant. Many who are exposed to the administration of the covenant through preaching do not appropriate the substance of the covenant. Olevian notes that the gift of faith was procured for the elect by Christ, who undertook to be a sponsor for his people. Christ entered an eternal covenant with the Father on behalf of the elect, and then, by his death, secured the gift of faith for his people.

Behind Olevian, at the fountainhead of both German Reformed and British Puritan teaching, is Calvin (1509-64), who also wrote of the covenant promise extended to all who heard the Word preached. In the seventy-second of his Sermons Upon Deuteronomy, a series preached in 1555-56, Calvin speaks of the election of Israel, and then of a second, narrower election unto eternal life. The broader or general election is the administration of the covenant of grace among the children of Abraham. The promise of the covenant was made to all the race and lineage of Israel, but the promise of the covenant was sealed in the heart only when the Holy Spirit gave faith to elect individuals.

Commenting on Deut. 10:15, Calvin says: "See here, I pray you, the election of God, whereby he putteth such difference between the lineage of Abraham and all the rest of the world, that he made the same lineage his church of purpose, that the signs of his favor and of his covenant should remain there, and that his name should be called upon there, so as he offered the promises of salvation to them that descended of the same race and lineage. . . . Lo, here, I say, a general election that belonged to all the children of Abraham, and yet was that grace to be confirmed by faith but in a part of them. . . . Now then, God's general election which extended to the whole people was not sufficient, but it behooved every man to be partaker of it in his own peculiar behalf. And how was that to be done? By faith. . . . Lo, here, the double election of God. The one extendeth to the whole people, because circumcision was given indifferently to all, both small and great, and the promises likewise were common. But yet for all that, God was fain to add a second grace, by touching the hearts of his chosen, namely of such as he listed to reserve to himself, and those came unto him, and he made them to receive the benefit that was offered them."(3)

When Calvin discusses the doctrine of predestination in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he devotes three sections (III.xxi.5-7) to distinguishing between God's covenant with Israel and God's election of individual Israelites. Calvin speaks of three groups among men, namely the heathen outside the church, those externally invited by the preached Word, and the elect. Those sitting under the preached Word "hold a kind of middle place." Calvin says: "The reason why the general election of the people is not always firmly ratified, readily presents itself - viz. that on those with whom God makes the covenant, he does not immediately bestow the Spirit of regeneration, by whose power they persevere in the covenant even to the end. The external invitation, without the internal efficacy of grace which would have the effect of retaining them, holds a kind of middle place between the rejection of the human race and the election of a small number of believers. The whole people of Israel are called the Lord's inheritance, and yet there were many foreigners among them. Still, because the covenant which God had made to be their Father and Redeemer was not altogether null, he has respect to that free favor rather than to the perfidious defection of many. . . .."(4)

If God through the preached covenant offers eternal life to sinners, is there a covenant condition that defines the responsibility of the hearer to respond? Calvin, like Rollock, says that there is. In the fifty-third sermon on Deuteronomy, Calvin refers again to God's general election, by which Calvin means the administration of the covenant of grace in the church through the preaching of the Word. Calvin speaks of how this privileged hearing will come to nothing if there is no faith: "Now hereupon Moses addeth, That God will keep covenant to a thousand generations of them that love him: yea through his mercy, saith he. For as much as he treateth of the general election, therefore he exhorteth the people to bethink themselves advisedly. Note ye, saith he, that for as much as God hath promised your father Abraham to be the God of his seed after him, he will not fail you. But yet for all that, look that ye walk warely, for the covenant is made with condition, that ye must be sound and have a right meaning heart. Therefore think not but that your God can drive you out of his house and out of his church, if he find you unworthy of the benefit which he hath offered unto you. With that meaning doth Moses speak, when he putteth here a difference between them that love him and keep his commandments, and them that hate him. Now by these words we be taught, that when God offereth us his word, it is already an allying of himself to us, and a giving of us a record of our salvation, but yet doth it not follow that we may therefore be careless. Nay rather we must be quickened up to embrace the promises which he sendeth us, so as we may rest wholly upon them, and be steadfastly settled in them all our life long. That is a thing whereupon it behooveth us to think. True it is that God layeth open his heart unto us when his word is preached unto us. There we may be put in mind of his love, and also have full assurance of our salvation. But yet must that word enter in unto our heart, and prevail with us, which thing is not done but through faith. And so let us understand that God's election is as it were defeated by us, unless we be constant and continue steadfastly in it to the end."(5)

Notes
(1) Robert Rollock, Select Works, ed. William M. Gunn (Edinburgh: Wodrow Society, 1844-49), 1:40.
(2) Rollock, Select Works, 1:269-71.
(3) John Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy (1583, reprint ed., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), p. 439.
(4) John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, translated by Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1879), 2:210.
(5) Calvin, Sermons on Deuteronomy, p. 317, commenting on Deut. 7:9.

Go to the next installment:
The Preached Covenant: Part II