Law and Gospel?

Hear Dr J. I. Packer on the relationship between the Old and New Covenants, and the Mosaic law and the gospel. There is still a widespread view in evangelicalism that in the Old Testament, God’s people are saved by keeping the law and then in the New Testament, they are saved by faith in Christ. Rather, law and gospel are redemptive-historical categories, typifying and realising respectively the one covenant of grace.

We must not be misled by the fact that he [the writer to the Hebrews] speaks of two “covenants”, the first and the second, the old and the new: this is simply a reflection of Old Testament usage, in which the word “covenant” acquired an institutional significance and became “the formula designating the entire structure and content of the religion of Israel”. The two “covenants” are two successive systems, the first typifying the second, for the realisation of the selfsame covenant privilege - present fellowship between God’s people and himself. So far from throwing doubt on the unity and continuity of the covenant promise, the contrast thus presupposes and confirms it.

Packer continues in a footnote:

Limitations of space preclude any treatment of the passages in which Paul opposes the Mosaic law to the gospel, describing it as a covenant of works which brings bondage and death (cf. Gal iv.21 ff., 2 Cor. iii, etc.). It must suffice to say that these passages are arguments ad hominem, in which he accepts pro tempore the evaluation of the Law as a self-sufficient covenant of life which Judaism by its rejection of Christ had given it, and devotes himself simply to proving that those who treat it as such will find that it leads to death, for they will in fact break it and thus incur its curse. The ease with which he slips into this line of thought reflects his years of controversy in Jewish synagogues. We have already see that in his own view the Law was not given to be a covenant of life at all.

‘Baptism: A Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace’, Churchman 1955 volume 9 issue 2, pp. 79-80.

Turretin on the Covenant of Grace (iv)

“The Old Testament is taken most especially in two ways, either broadly or strictly. Broadly, it denotes in general the whole dispensation under which the fathers lived from the beginning of the world until Christ. It contained the doctrine of grace delivered to the ancients, promising salvation and life to the people openly (indeed, under the condition of perfect obedience rendered to the moral law and the threatening of transgressors with death, together with the intolerable burden of ceremonies and the yoke of the most restricted Mosaic polity); reservedly, however, under the condition of repentance and faith in the Messiah about to come. In this respect, the Old Testament embraces three things most especially: (1) old doctrine, partly legal and partly evangelical; (2) an old servile form of worship and ecclesiastical service, laborious and shadowy; (3) the old method of external polity bound to one people and place.”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VIII, III

“Strictly, however, it denotes the covenant of works or the moral law given by Moses - the unbearable burden (abastakto) of legal ceremonies being added, absolutely and apart from grace. The former was signified properly and of itself (if the scope and intention of the lawgiver be considered) because in that first economy, he joined together these three things by giving the old covenant or legal dispensation, not to abolish the promises, but to lead unto Christ. The latter is accessory and accidental, springing from an ignoring of the true end and the devising of a false. Te true end was Christ for righteousness to every believer (Rom. 10:4) but the self-righteous Jews did not obtain this end because it was proposed under a veil (2 Cor. 3:14), i.e. under a wrapping of types and of figures because the promise of grace on account of Christ was clothed with legal rites. Hence they invented a false end, maintaining that the law was given in order that by its observance they might be justified before God and be saved (Rom. 10: 3-5). Against this error the apostle everywhere disputes from that hypothesis which takes the law strictly and opposes it to the promise.”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VIII, IV

“The New Covenant is also taken in a twofold manner either broadly, in as much as it stands for the covenant of grace in general made with sinners, which existed under the Old Testament as well before Christ appeared as under the New after he had been manifested; or strictly, for the covenant of grace promulgated after the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, which should continue to the end of the world.”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VIII, V

“Those… who make two covenants diverse in substance, take the old covenant strictly, not only separating the promise of grace from it, but opposeing the one to the other. In this sense, Paul seems to take it frequently (as 2 Cor. 3; Gal. 4), so that the old covenant is the covenant of works and the new the covenant of the gospel and of faith. On the other hand, they who maintain only one (as Calvin, Martyr, Ursinus) take the word covenant more broadly, as embracing also the promise of grace (although somewhat obscurely). Because that promise was dispensed in different ways before and after Christ, they distinguish it into two - the old and new - by a distribution not of genus into species (as the former), but of subject according to accidents (which the others do not deny); thus they differ only as to the different use of terms, but not as to the thing itself (as Calvin observes, ICR, 2.7.2).”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VIII, VI

Turretin on the Covenant of Grace (iii)

I make no apology for reproducing swathes of Turretin on this subject. He writes very lucidly and steers a clear, safe course through this sometimes confusing matter.

“It pleased God to administer the covenant of grace in this period [from Moses to Christ] under a rigid legal economy - both on account of the condition of the people still in infancy and on account of the putting off of the advent of Christ and the satisfaction to be rendered by him. A twofold relation (schesis) ought always to obtain: the one legal, more severe, thorugh which by a new promulgation oft he law and of the covenant of works, with an intolerable yoke of ceremonies, he wished to set forth what men owed and what was to be expected by them on account of duty unperformed. In this respect, the law is called the letter that kills (2 Cor. 3:6) and the handwriting which was contrary to us (Col. 2:14), because by it men professed themselves guilty and children of death, the declaration being written by their own blood in circumcision and by the blood of victims. The other relation was evangelical, sweeter, inasmuch as “the law was a schoolmaster unto Christ” (Gal. 3:24) and contained “the shadow of things to come” (Heb. 10:1), whose body and express image is in Christ.”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VII, XXXI

“According to that twofold relation, the administration can be viewed either as to the external economy of legal teaching or as to the internal truth of the gospel promise lying under it. The matter of that external economy was the threefold law - moral, ceremonial and forensic… The form was the pact added to that external dispensation, which on the part of God was the promise of the land of Canaan and of rest and happiness in it; and under the image of each, of heaven and the rest (sabbatismou) in him (Heb. 4:3, 9); or of eternal life according to the clause, “Do this and live.” On the part of the people, it was a stipulation of obedience to the whole law or righteousness both perfect (Deut. 27:26; Gal. 3:10) and personal and justification by it (Rom. 2:13). But this stipulation in the Israelite covenant was only accidental, since it was added only in order that man by its weakness (adynamian) might be led to reject his own righteousness and to embrace another’s, latent under the law.“

Twelfth Topic, Q. VII, XXXII

“The end of that economy (by way of negation [kat' arsin]) was not the justification of man. By reason of the moral law, they could easily know their own sins, by which they became guilty (Rom. 3:20); the irritation of their lusts (Rom. 7:7); the impossibility of fulfilling the moral law (Rom. 8:3); the curse of the law, which it denounced against the least transgression (Gal.3:10). By reason of the ceremonial law, they knew that the end of that economy was not the justification of man (1) from the nature of the ceremonies, which was wholly worldly and carnal, having nothing in common with the conscience; (2) from their repetition and iteration, such as the justification which consists in not remembering of sins (Heb. 8:12)”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VII, XXXIII

“Such was the external dispensation of the Old Testament. The internal, latent under it, pertains to the substance of the covenant of grace and of the gospel promise. This was also administered in different ways and by various degrees. On God’s part, it contained both Christ himself (the foundation of the covenant promised in the oracles and lying under the types of ceremonies) and in his sufferings, crucifixion, death and glory (obscurely indeed and hidden)… and promises (temporal as well as spiritual), which the formula of the covenant (”I am thy God”) includes in itself.”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VII, XLIII

“To these spiritual promises pertain (1) remission of sins and justification. As this derogated the law causally in itself considered, so it is ascribed to faith in Christ (Acts 13:39; Rom. 4:7) and was claimed by the fathers (as Abraham, David and others, Ps. 32; Rom. 4)… (2) Adoption, attributed to the Israelites, not only as external (Rom. 9:4), but also internal, without which the former would have been useless (Gal. 4:2); although it was connected with a servile condition on account of the minority of children… (3) Sanctification, which is everywhere commanded and promised under the Old Testament (Lev. 26; Is. 1). (4) The gift of the Spirit, included in the promise made to Abraham (Gal. 3:13, 14) and found to have been promised frequently elsewhere… However this was not in the same manner as under the New Testament… (5) the resurrection of the dead, which Christ deduced from the formula of the covenant; (6) eternal life, also included in that formula as the apostle gathers from the same (Heb. 11:10)”

Twelfth Topic, Q. VII, XLV

Turretin on the Covenant of Grace (ii)

The particularity of the covenant of grace appears from various considerations…Sixth, from the sealing of the covenant, which is particular; whether the external by the sacraments (which are the peculiar property of the church) or the internal by the Spirit (Eph . 1:13), given only to the members of Christ. Nor thence can you properly infer - therefore also the covenant belongs to the called who are in the church and not only to the elect. For the offering of the sealing is one thing, the real application of it another. The former is common to all the called; the latter special to believers. So far is the covenant from being sealed for salvation unto unbelievers that on the contrary their own condemnation is sealed because they pronounce judgment upon themselves.

12, VI.XVI

Turretin on the Covenant of Grace

I have recently been discovering Francis Turretin, successor to Calvin and Beza at Geneva. Although some allege that he is dull, I find his Institutes of Elenctic Theology a delight. He is particularly clear, at least to me, on what it means to be externally or internally part of the covenant. Then again, it could be a sign of my peculiarity that I enjoy reading seventeenth-century Italian Reformed scholastic theologians in (slightly) archaic translation!

“The common and received opinion among the Reformed is different [to the universalists]. They hold to a particularity of the covenant (no less than of saving grace) that although what is extended to many may be called general (especially under the New Testament, the distinction of nations being taken away), still it never was universal with each and all, but particular only with the true elect members of Christ. Further they think that covenant may be regarded in two ways: either as to internal essence; or as to external dispensation. The former answers to the internal calling and the invisible church of the elect (which is constituted by it). The latter, however, answers to the external calling and the visible church of the called. In the latter respect, the covenant is regarded only as to promulgation and presentation by the external call; and as to external benefits, which flow from that presentation, in the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments and the participation in sacred things (of which as many as in the people or in the church retain the same profession, become partakers; and thus it is extended even to many reprobates, who remain in the visible church). In the former respect, it is further extended to the acceptation and conferring and reception of all federal benefits and internal communion with Christ by faith. In this sense, it pertains to none other than the elect, who are really partakers of the covenant according to God’s intention, in whom he fulfills the very conditions of the covenant and to whom he not only offers but actually confers the benefits of the covenant.”

Vol II, p. 207

For what it is worth, this clearly shows that proponents of the Federal Vision are outside the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy, confusing as they do external participation in the covenant with internal participation and teaching that those who are baptised (i.e. externally members of the covenant and part of the visible church) are actually united with Christ and given all the blessings of his work and yet - O horrid doctrine! - may lose their salvation if they are not elect. For a statement of the teachings of the Federal Vision, click HERE and for a fuller refutation, click HERE.

Alec Motyer on Genesis 17.1-2

Alex Motyer writes this, in his very helpful (if ever so slightly dull) new BST commentary on Exodus (p.19)

“Genesis 17:1-2 needs to be guarded from misunderstanding as it might be taken to mean, ‘If you walk before me and be blameless, then I will make my covenant with you’. This would make the covenant appear as a divine response to Abram’s commitment, even a reward for the perfection of his ‘walk’. This cannot be so because the covenant between God and Abraham had already been inaugurated many years before (Gen 15:18). Also, the wording in Genesis 17:2 does not express the idea of inauguration but rather confirmation. A literal translation would be, ‘and I will place my covenant’, an expression which signifies the covenant coming into active operation as the stated relationship between its maker than its recipient. Abraham’s life of fellowship with the Lord was not the pre-condition of the covenant but rather the response by which he entered into the promised blessings. From beginning to end, God’s covenant relationship with his people is based on his grace and not their merits.”

And is not the continuity of this covenant into the present age seen in the same response that is demanded of Christians to God’s gracious promises?

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5.48, A.V.)

cf. Genesis 17.1 (A.V.):

“I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.”