0 Marrow Theology: A Helpful Word from Thomas Boston on the Covenant of Grace

In The Marrow of Modern Divinity, I happened upon a paragraph that I had missed, I think, but which makes an important point concerning the covenant of grace. The Westminster Larger Catechism clearly notes in question 31 that the Covenant of Grace is made with Christ and His elect in Him as His seed:

Question 31: With whom was the covenant of grace made?
Answer: The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.

This did not keep the Westminster Divines from asserting that many are visibly in the covenant of grace - part of the covenant community - though they are really and truly under the covenant of works. They certainly participate in the visible activities of the church, but merely by profession and other visible signs. They are not in a true sense united to Christ, though they may have taken on the trappings of that union by being baptized. This was the case among Abraham's descendants, who were under the covenant of grace visibly and by profession, just as it is today. The sign of circumcision was given to his immediate descendants for those who identified themselves with the covenant community and their children... the sign of baptism is rightly practiced within the church for all those who are members of its visible expression - but is no guarantor of salvific blessings, nor of one's union with Christ. (contrary to what is proclaimed among Federal Vision advocates)

Now, back to The Marrow of Modern Divinity, where Edward Fisher writes, with Nomista, the legalist, speaking of the people in Moses's day to whom the Law had been delivered as a republished covenant of works:

"Nomista - But, by your favour, sir, you know that these people were the posterity of Abraham, and therefore under that covenant of grace which God made with their father; and therefore I do not think that they were delivered to them as the covenant of works; for you know the Lord never delivers the covenant of works to any that are under the covenant of grace.

Evangelista - Indeed it is true, the Lord did manifest so much love to the body of this nation, that all the natural seed of Abraham were externally, and by profession, under the covenant of grace made with their father Abraham; though, it is to be feared, many of them were still under the covenant of works made with their father Adam." (p. 80, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Nomista is perplexed, regarding the delivery of the Law to the Israelites - whom he rightly characterizes as being children of Abraham in the physical sense - but he seems confused regarding their identity as partakers of the covenant of grace. Evangelista rightly corrects, noting, however, that their identity as Abraham's posterity places them within the sphere of the covenant of grace in an outward sense. Thomas Boston then inserts this note for the purpose of clarification:

"The strength of the objection in the preceding paragraph lies here, namely, that at this rate, the same persons, at one and the same time, were both under the covenant of works, and under the covenant of grace, which is absurd. Am. The unbelieving Israelites were under the covenant of grace made with their father Abraham externally and by profession, in respect of their visible church state; but under the covenant of works made with their father Adam internally and really, in respect of the state of their souls before the Lord. Herein there is no absurdity; for to this day many in the visible church are thus, in these different respects, under both covenants. Farther, as to believers among them, they were internally and really, as well as externally, under the covenant of grace; and only externally under the covenant of works, and that, not as a covenant co-ordinate with, but subordinate and subservient unto, the covenant of grace: and in this there is no more inconsistency than in the former." (p. 76, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

This is, I believe, very helpful. We who confess the Westminster Standards as a proper and true summary of Biblical truth will recognize the clear distinction between the visible and invisible church - the visible and invisible manifestations of the covenant of grace. This distinction MUST be kept clear if we are to properly understand the saving work of Christ, and union with Him! Today the waters are VERY muddied, unfortunately.

0 Marrow Theology: The Covenant of Works and of Grace, and the Covenant Heads, Adam and Christ

As I read again first chapters of The Marrow of Modern Divinity, I come again to the following thought (bold as it may be). Please forgive the length of this post, also - but this is so incredibly important to understand that I'm taking the risk of going on at length.

If one misunderstands the relationship between Adam and Christ, then it is certain that he will horribly foul up the relationship between God and His elect people in covenant. Put slightly differently, the right understanding of God's covenant of grace, and of Christ's saving work requires one to properly understand the roles of Adam and Christ with respect to the people with whom they stand in union, and with respect to the primordial covenant of works. As Boston argues in his notes, Christ must be seen as standing in the sinner's room regarding the covenant of works (to use common Puritan verbiage) to redeem them from the condemnation the sinner faces due to his place as a son of Adam. In short: messing up the covenant of works messes up the covenant of grace.

Fisher begins his discussion of the gospel by laying out its character as the declaration of an accomplished work of God's sovereign grace:

"The law of faith is as much as to say the covenant of grace, or the Gospel, which signifies good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings; that is to say, that God, to whose eternal knowledge all things are present, and nothing past or to come, foreseeing man's fall, before all time purposed, and in time promised, and in the fulness of time performed,f the sending of his Son Jesus Christ into the world, to help and deliver fallen mankind." (p. 63, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

The gospel is not, per se, an "offer" (as is commonly misconstrued) but rather it is news of God's work in Christ, securing eternally His elect people. It is the cry of the advance messenger, declaring the good news of victory to a people in battle. The gospel MUST be seen in this light, and continually promoted among God's people as the certain and secure solution that God has given for the sin of His people - the salvation of His elect. When the gospel becomes something less than news, something different than a sovereign proclamation of a work accomplished, then the effect is the same as twisting justification into something other than the declarative act of our Sovereign, Almighty God. People run naturally to justify themselves and save themselves through something they do (whether that be works in the purest and grossest sense, or even 'acts of faith').

"before there could be reconciliation made, there must be two things effected; (1.) A satisfaction of God's justice. (2.) A reparation of man's nature: which two things, must needs be effected by such a middle and common person that had both zeal towards God, that he might be satisfied ; and compassion towards man, that he might be repaired : such a person, as having man's guilt and punishment translated on him, might satisfy the justice of God, and as having a fulness of God's Spirit and holiness in him, might sanctify and repair the nature of man. And this could be none other but Jesus Christ, one of the Three Persons of the blessed Trinity ; therefore He, by his Father's ordination, his own voluntary offering, and the Holy Spirit's sanctification, was fitted for the business." (p. 64, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

At this juncture, Thomas Boston adds the following clarifying note, which is critical:

"As man lay in ruins, by the fall guilty and unclean, there stood in the way of his salvation, by mercy designed, 1. The justice of God, which could not admit the guilty creature; and, 2. The holiness of God, which could not admit the unclean and unholy creature to communion with him. Therefore, in the contrivance of his salvation, it was necessary that provision should be made for the satisfaction of God's justice, by payment of the double debt mentioned above ; namely, the debt of punishment, and the debt of perfect obedience." (p. 66, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Again... if we do not understand that perfect obedience was required by covenant, and that all humanity was dashed in Adam's sin, and stood in broken covenant because of Adam's disobedience a la Romans 5, then we cannot properly understand Christ's salvation properly at all. We do not, therefore, understand that not only is satisfaction of the penalty required (a penalty given in covenant terms in the Garden, no less!) but so is perfect obedience. It is precisely this double act that is required, and this double act that is denied by some in Reformed circles today, and is a cause of much confusion.

We need to understand that Christ undertook, as the children's catechism we use with our younger girls goes, "To keep the whole law for his people, and to suffer the punishment due to their sins". We stand, as human beings, condemned under the law, and needed rescue - from our guilt and our pollution, which involves a two-fold mercy that God alone in Christ provides His people, as Boston noted.

This salvation, we need to recognize, is one brought forth in eternity past by the covenanting together of the Father, the Son and the Spirit, in what historically has been designated the Covenant of Redemption. Salvation is not a "plan B" brought about by God, but designed from all eternity as the means by which God would be most glorified. Fisher draws our attention to this covenant as follows:

"Whereupon there was a special covenant, or mutual agreement made between God and Christ, as is expressed, Isa. liii. 1 0, that if Christ would make himself a sacrifice for sin, then he should "see his seed, he should prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord should prosper by him." So in Psalm Ixxxix. 19, the mercies of this covenant between God and Christ, under the type of God's covenant with David, are set forth : " Thou speakest in vision to thy holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon One that is mighty :" or, as the Chaldee expounds it, "One mighty in the law." As if God had said concerning his elect, I know that these will break, and never be able to satisfy me ; but thou art a mighty and substantial person, able to pay me, therefore I will look for my debt of thee." (p. 64, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Christ did obey - and did satisfy (as it were, actively and passively) all the requirements of the Law for His elect. He covenanted with His Father to take our punishment, and to obey for us, that we might be imputed with His spotless righteousness. Fisher continues:

"As Pareus well observes, God did, as it were, say to Christ, What they owe me I require all at thy hands. Then said Christ, "Lo I come to do thy will ! in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God! yea thy law is in my heart," Psalm xl. 7, 8. Thus Christ assented, and from everlasting struck hands with God, to put upon him man's person, and to take upon him his name, and to enter in his stead in obeying his Father, and to do all for man that he should require, and to yield in man's flesh the price of the satisfaction of the just judgment of God, and, in the same flesh, to suffer the punishment that man had deserved ; and this he undertook under the penalty that lay upon man to have undergone." (p. 64-65, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

In order to satisfy for His people - Christ willingly (and here is the catch for some) enters into the terms of the covenant of Works for us, in order to bring us safely home.

Boston notes here:

"The Son of God consented to put himself in man's stead, in obeying his Father, and so to do all for man that his Father sliould require, that satisfaction sliould be made : farther, he consented in man's nature, to satisfy and suffer the deserved punishment, that the same nature that sinned might satisfy ; and yet farther, he undertook to bear the very same penalty that lay upon man, by virtue of the covenant of works, to have undergone; so making himsilf a j)roper surety for them, who, as the author observes, must pay the sum of money that the debtor oweth." (p. 66, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

If we miss this point, I don't see how we can rightly understand the Covenant of Grace! The Covenant of Grace, in which we are united to Christ as our Head, and as the Second Adam, requires that we already stand condemned under the Covenant of Works - which ALL HUMANITY stand condemned under at conception. The Covenant of Grace envisions broken man - condemned, guilty and polluted - at the outset, and from that condemnation we must be rescued. This requires Christ to undertake the Law with perfect, spotless obedience as condition for Him to perform the work of redeeming His people. I honestly cannot understand why some find this so objectionable - and don't quite understand how the Covenant of Grace works in any other way. Romans 5:12-21 clearly portrays Christ as the second Adam - as one standing in Adam's place to take his role as a new Head of God's people. As such, He must satisfy what Adam did not.... must he not?

Anyway, enough of my spouting. Let's let Fisher finish things off with his comments (and those of Boston), which are so beautifully put as to stand on their own as an excellent summary of Christ's atoning work for us:

"And thus did our Lord Jesus Christ enter into the same covenant of works that Adam did to deliver believers from it : he was contented to be under all that commanding, revenging authority, which that covenant had over them, to free them from the penalty of it ; and in that respect, Adam is said to be a type of Christ, as you have it, Rom. v. 14, "Who was the type of him that was to come." To which purpose, the titles which the apostle gives these two, Christ and Adam, are exceeding observable : he calls Adam the "first man," and Christ our Lord the "second man," 1 Cor. xv. 47; speaking of them as if there never had been any more men in the world besides these two ; thereby making them head and root of all mankind, they having, as it were, the rest of the sons of men included in them. The first man is called the "earthy man ;" the second man, Christ, is called the "Lord from heaven," I Cor. xv. 47. The earthy man had all the sons of men born into the world included in him, and is so called, in confortnity unto them, the "first man:"--the second Man, Christ, is called the "Lord from heaven," who had all the elect included in him, who are said to be the "first born," and to have their "names written in heaven," Heb. xii. 23, and therefore are appositely called "heavenly men;" so that these two, in God's account, stood for all the rest. And thus you see, that the Lord, willing to show mercy to the fallen creature, and withal to maintain the authority of his law, took such a course as might best manifest his clemency and severity. Christ entered into covenant, and became surety for man, and so became liable to man's engagements : for he that answers as a surety must pay the same sum of money that the debtor oweth.

And thus have I endeavoured to show you, how we are to conceive of God's eternal purpose in sending of Jesus Christ to help and deliver fallen mankind." (p. 65, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Thomas Boston, in his notes on this passage, sums up Christ's work in regard to the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace in these words. Would that Christians all would understand the glory of God that ensues from an understanding like this!

"Our Lord Jesus Christ became surety for the elect in the second covenant, Heb. viii. 22 ; and in virtue of that suretyship, whereby lie put him self in the room of the principal debtors, he came under the same covenant of works that Adam did; in so far as the fulfilling of that covenant in their stead was the very condition required of him, as the second Adam in the second covenant. Gal. iv. 4, 5, " God sent forth his Son ; made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." Thus Christ put his neck under the yoke of the law as a covenant of works, to redeem them who were under it as such. Hence he is said to be the " end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," Rom. x. 4 ; namely, the end for consummation, or perfect fulfilling of it by his obedience and death, which presupposeth his coming under it. And thus the law as a covenant of works was magnified and made honourable; and it clearly appears how "by faith we establish the law," Rom. iii. 31. How then is the second covenant a covenant of grace? In respect of Christ, it was most properly and strictly a covenant of works, in that he made a proper, real, and full satisfaction in behalf of the elect ; but in respect of them, it is purely a covenant of richest grace, in as much as God accepted the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them ; provided the surety himself, and gives all to them freely for his sake." (p. 66-67, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

These last words are the kicker. Christ satisfied the terms of the first covenant - requiring perfect obedience, and that the penalty for disobedience be paid. These He undertook as our surety, under the terms of the Covenant of Redemption, made with the Father before time began... and these we benefit from, receiving the glorious inheritance of God, eternal life, immutably Holy in glory after death - an immutable condition and communion that was to be Adam's (and ours) had he obeyed in the first place. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

0 Repost: The Marrow Theology - The Error of Monocovenantalism

One of the objections raised in recently in Federal Vision circles is an objection to the nature of the prelapsarian relationship between God and Adam as covenantal - or at least that such a relationship cannot properly described by a covenantal arrangement that differs from that in which we are engaged with God as believers. This leads to all kinds of problems, as was noted in yesterday's reposted article.

It is clear from Scripture that we are conceived condemned. That is, people are conceived covenantally guilty before God, even having done nothing, because of Adam's sin. Adam is the head of all the human race, as Paul makes quite clear in Romans 5 - and the headship is a covenantal headship as is made plain in that passage. We aren't talking mere "organic biology", but covenantal headship. We ALL, the Word says, sinned in Adam. Period. We are held accountable for his sin, and it is every bit as much our OWN sin, as it would have been had we been in his place.

Now if Adam, pre-fall, was in relationship with God under the terms of the same covenant that we are... then what does his breaking of that covenant do? Paul makes clear that we are guilty before God of Adam's sin. If his sin was a failure of faith, then we cannot be justified through faith. We cannot somehow supercede Adam's failure with our own success and sit just before God. We are conceived UNJUST - and therefore in need of a DIFFERENT covenantal arrangement.

The headship of Adam in covenant relationship with God implies, for his posterity, that in whatever the arrangement was, since he failed and broke that covenant, we, too, have broken that covenant. If there is to be a new covenant relationship such that people can be saved and brought into eternal relationship with God, then that new covenant CANNOT have BOTH the same promise and same conditions as the previous covenant. (else how is it new?) That covenant between God and Adam in the garden is done. Gone. Broken for all men who proceeded naturally from Adam, as he, their head failed to uphold its terms.

Monocovenantalism simply FAILS on the face of it. There is no way that Adam faced the same covenantal obligations in the garden, prior to his fall, that believers do today, post-fall. To argue this is to completely misread Genesis 3 and Romans 5 (among other places). To argue this is to destroy the covenant headship of Adam, and to twist the covenant headship of Christ into something unrecognizable.

What's coming next in The Marrow of Modern Divinity is the discussion of the promise of God. In that promise was revealed several important things: Thomas Boston, in the notes presented on page 68 of the version one can purchase here, writes:

"In this promise was revealed, 1. Man's restoration unto the favour of God, and his salvation; not to be effected by man himself, and his own works, but by another. For our first parents, standing condemned for breaking of the covenant of works, are not sent back to it, to essay the mending of the matter, which they had marred before; but a new covenant is purposed,—a Saviour promised as their only hope. 2. That this Saviour was to be incarnate, to become man, "the seed of the women." 3. That he behoved to suffer; his heel, namely his humanity, to be bruised to death. 4. That by his death he should make a full conquest over the devil, and destroy his works, who had now overcome and destroyed mankind; and so recover the captives out of his hand: "he shall bruise thy head, viz: while thou bruisest his heel." This encounter was on the cross: there Christ treading on the serpent, it bruised his heel, but he bruised its head. 5. That he should not be held by death, but Satan's power should be broken irrecoverably: the Saviour being only bruised in the heel, but the serpent in the head. 6. That the saving interest in him, and his salvation, is by faith alone, believing the promise with particular application to one's self, and so receiving him, forasmuch as these things are revealed by way of a simple promise." (p. 68, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

This promise is simple news - the gospel - good news of God's redeeming work, which He accomplished in the sending of His Son for His people. This ancient gospel, the covenant of grace first announced in Genesis 3:15, and subsequently revealed progressively through the history of God's covenant people, by announcements from prophets and priests (and kings), is the next subject of the Marrow.

0 Repost: The Marrow Theology - The Depth and Extent of Adam's Sin

In the beginning of The Marrow of Modern Divinity, we find Nomista (the legalist) and Evangelista (the pastor) discussing the Covenant of Works. One of the plainest and most concise treatments of the Covenant of Works ensues, in which several of the objections some in the church today (particularly those in the Federal Vision camp) have against the notion of a covenant of works in the garden are dealt with. Among these are

1) Nowhere is the word 'covenant' used to describe the situation of Adam in the Garden and the obedience required of him.

To this objection, Evangelista replies:

"Evan. Though we read not the word 'covenant' betwixt God and man, yet have we there recorded what may amount to as much; for God provided and promised to Adam eternal happiness, and called for perfect obedience, which appears from God's threatening, Gen. ii.17; for if a man must die if he disobeyed, it implies strongly that God's covenant was with him for life if he obeyed. (p. 53, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Several of the above-mentioned disputers with the doctrine of the Covenant of Works argue that, in fact, Adam was subject to the requirement of faith, and not of works.... an objection with which I cannot agree or really understand. What is presented in Genesis is CLEARLY a covenant requiring perfect, flawless obedience.

2) that regardless of any covenant, man owed God perfect obedience anyway... so that there is no need to speak of any covenant. It's fair, I think, to say that ANYONE who has read the Bible at all and understands the creature-creator distinction realizes that yes, indeed, had there been no covenant at all in the Garden, Adam would have been bound to perfectly obey. The point is, though, as Evangelista makes it, that God did in fact append promising and threatening to Adam's obedience/disobedience - and this is key.

"Evan. Yea, indeed: perfect and perpetual obedience was due from man unto God, though God had made no promise to man; for when God created man at first, he put forth an excellency from himself into him; and therefore it was the bond and tie that lay upon man to return that again unto God; so that man being God's creature, by the law of creation he owed all obedience and subjection to God his Creator.

Nom. Why, then, was it needful that the Lord should make a covenant with him, by promising him life and threatening him with death?

Evan. For answer hereunto, in the first place, I pray you understand, that man was a reasonable creature; and so, out of judgment, discretion, and election, able to make choice of his way, and therefore it was meet there should be such a covenant made with him, that he might, according to God's appointment, serve him after a reasonable manner. Secondly, It was meet there should be such a covenant made with him, to show that he was not such a prince on earth, but that he had a sovereign Lord: therefore, God set a punishment upon the breach of his commandment; that man might know his inferiority, and that things betwixt him and God were not as betwixt equals. Thirdly, It was meet there should be such a covenant made with him, to show that he had nothing by personal, immediate, and underived right, but all by gift and gentleness: so that you see it was an equal covenant, which God, out of his prerogative-royal, made with mankind in Adam before his fall." (pp. 54-55, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Adam indeed owed perfect obedience to God as a creature of God... that is certainly agreed to by all. However, the covenant of works has many distinct reasons for being - among them are the points given above... almost pedagogical and certainly revelatory characteristics. God revealed particular things to us by means of the institution of the Covenant of Works, and, importantly, promised Adam eternity of life and happiness contingent upon his obedience under the terms of this covenant. What is often denied by those who dispute the existence of the Covenant of Works is that Adam's eternal state, had he obeyed in perpetuity, would ever have changed.

We have to remember that Adam was created posse peccare et posse non peccare - able to sin, able not to sin. He was freely able to choose sin or not. To be suspended in such a condition for eternity would NOT be the eternal and free bliss that was promised him, nor is it the eternal and free bliss that we are to enjoy upon glorification. That free and eternal state is characterized by the phrase non posse peccare - not able to sin. Confirmed in righteousness, in other words - never to be subject again to the possibility of sinning. That was not Adam's state in the Garden, ever... yet we know from the way the Bible describes the eternal state that it is God's design that His people eternally be free from sin. And so shall we be. This existence was promised upon Adam's "passing the test" as it were. Given the promise, upon obedience - given the threat, upon disobedience... there was something more in the Garden between God and Adam than the mere creature-Creator relationship.

Finally, I want to turn ahead a little bit because the treatment of Adam's breach of the covenant of works is interesting. Yes, he had but one commandment - but as the author argues, all the Law was wrapped up in that one commandment. Adam's breach was therefore of immense proportion - almost impossible to imagine its magnitude:

"Evan. Though at first glance it seems to be a small offence, yet, if we look more wistfully ⁵ upon the matter it will appear to be an exceeding great offence; for thereby intolerable injury was done unto God; as, first, His dominion and authority in his holy command was violated. Secondly, His justice, truth, and power, in his most righteous threatenings, were despised. Thirdly, His most pure and perfect image, wherein man was created in righteousness and true holiness, was utterly defaced. Fourthly, His glory, which, by an active service, the creature should have brought to him, was lost and despoiled. Nay, how could there be a greater sin committed than that, when Adam, at that one clap, broke all the ten commandments?" (p. 57, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

All? Yes, all. We are so ready to accept a brief, woodenly literalistic interpretation of the ten commandments such that only something designated as the literal telling of a falsehood is a breach of commandment #9 - and only a crafting of a carved idol to which one bows down and worships as a god in its own right is a breach of commandment #2. This hardly captures the meaning of the ten commandments, which encompass EVERY sin. There is not a single sin that can be committed that is not covered by the ten commandments... and as Evangelista argues, Adam's breach of the command in the garden not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was a breach of the WHOLE law, in every part.

"Nom. Did he break all the ten commandments, say you? Sir, I beseech you show me wherein.

Evan. 1. He chose himself another God when he followed the devil.

2. He idolized and deified his own belly; as the apostle's phrase is, "He made his belly his God."

3. He took the name of God in vain, when he believed him not.

4. He kept not the rest and estate wherein God had set him.

5. He dishonoured his Father who was in heaven; and therefore his days were not prolonged in that land which the Lord his God had given him.

6. He massacred himself and all his posterity.

7. From Eve he was a virgin, but in eyes and mind he committed spiritual fornication.

8. He stole, like Achan, that which God had set aside not to be meddled with; and this his stealth is that which troubles all Israel,—the whole world.

9. He bare witness against God, when he believed the witness of the devil before him.

10. He coveted an evil covetousness, like Amnon, which cost him his life, (2 Sam 13), and all his progeny. Now, whosoever considers what a nest of evils here were committed at one blow, must needs, with Musculus, see our case to be such, that we are compelled every way to commend the justice of God, and to condemn the sin of our first parents, saying, concerning all mankind, as the prophet Hosea does concerning Israel, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself," (Hosea 3:9)." (pp. 57-58, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Every one. Adam failed at every point to uphold the perfection of obedience required of him. And we fell in him, with him, under him as our head. Thus the beginning of the "bad news".

The "bad news" is quite substantial - all of us, from the least to the greatest, rich or poor, sick or healthy, ALL are conceived in this state of utter failure, having already broken the Law of God, standing already guilty before we have done anything. The greatness of Adam's guilt and sin and effects thereof are exceeded only by the greatness and effects of Christ's righteousness and the substitutionary atonement whereby God's elect are covered with the full righteous robes of Christ - having the penalty of the Law satisfied on their behalf, and the rightoeusness of a perfect record of obedience, required of them through the covenant of works, also satisfied for them. Christ in our room - in our stead - and we in Him, accepted of the Father. How glorious is our God and gracious is He.

1 The Marrow Theology: Further Discussion on Adam and Us

A little further on, in Boston's footnotes to the latter half of Chapter 1 of The Marrow of Modern Divinity, the topic of the Covenant of Works is again brought up - this time, in terms of our human tendency to seek reward by works rather than to humbly receive our own brokenness and cry out for grace as our only hope.

In a section entitled No Recovery by the Law, or Covenant of Works, Fisher's character Nomista asks,

"had it not been possible for Adam both to have helped himself and his posterity out of his misery, by renewing the same covenant with God, and keeping it afterwards?" (p. 58, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Again, if Adam was not in a special covenantal relationship with God prior to the Fall - one which required his obedience to the command given him as condition - then we must understand Adam not as covenant head of humanity (a la Romans 5), but as one like us under the same covenant with God as we are. In such a case, then, the Fall is hard to understand - and naturally, one might argue, together with Nomista, that this covenant could very well have been renewed.

Point is, of course, that Adam broke the pre-lapsarian covenant he was in for ALL humanity. All are guilty of it, and are condemned by that covenant. It cannot be renewed - and we cannot be saved through its stipulations, for it already lies broken. (not to say that we do not still live under obligation to obey our Creator - sin is still sin, now as it was in the beginning - the moral law is eternal and perpetual)

Evangelista gives some excellent counsel to his friend in response to his question, saying

"When he had once broken it, he was gone forever; because it was a covenant between two friends, but now fallen man was become an enemy. And besides it was an impossible thing for Adam to have performed the conditions which now the justice of God did necessarily require at his hands; for he was now become liable for the payment of a double debt, viz. the debt of satisfaction for his sin committed in time past, and the debt of perfect and perpetual obedience for the time to come; and he was utterly unable to pay either of them. (p. 58, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Boston adds some important further comments:

"The covenant of works could by no means be renewed by fallen Adam, so as thereby to help himself and his posterity out of his misery, the which is the only thing in question here; otherwise, indeed, it might have been renewed, which is evident by this sad token, that many do actually renew it in their covenanting with God, being prompted thereto by their ignorance of the high demands of the law, their own utter inability, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. And from the same principle our legalist here makes no question but Adam might have renewed it, and kept it too, for the after-time; only, he questions whether or not Adam might thereby have helped himself and his posterity too, out of the misery they were brought into by his sin." (p. 62, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Again - it is merely a matter of misunderstanding the nature of Adam's relationship to the rest of humanity - as covenant head, once the covenant in which he was representative head was broken, that's it. All parties to the covenant - all humanity - lie in brokenness, forever. Nothing but a new covenant and new covenant head, instituted by God, can save.

Now, having noted these few things, I'm going to repost a few articles I wrote the first time I was going through the Marrow, last summer, before proceeding into the next sections.

0 The Marrow Theology: Adam and Us

In The Marrow of Modern Divinity, Edward Fisher (together with Thomas Boston, through his margin notes) provides an excellent discussion concerning the Covenant of Works that is particularly timely considering the on-going controversy of the Federal Vision in conservative presbyterian circles. As I have picked up The Marrow again to read through, I am only going to make a couple of brief points, before reposting some articles that I posted a year ago.

It is interesting to me, but not surprising, that Fisher's character Nomista, the legalist, is opposed to the doctrine of the Covenant of Works. His view is very like that going around in some circles today: Adam owed God consistent and perpetual obedience simply as a creature of His, and nothing more. According to Nomista, no covenant in the Garden prior to the Fall was necessary because creatures naturally are expected to obey their Creator's laws. (see p. 54 of the Christian Focus edition) While it is certainly true that obedience to his Creator is true for any creature, this merely natural creaturely obedience owed the Creator is not the point of this discussion.

If all Adam is guilty of is failing in this creaturely obedience that is naturally owed his Creator, rather than being guilty of breaking a Covenant in which he was head and we are parties as his posterity, then there is no basis for our being held accountable for that sin as Paul does hold us in Romans 5. If Adam is not covenant head over humanity, then one makes hash of Romans 5:12-21, and bad hash at that. It really is that simple.

Furthermore, if there were no particular covenant relationship requiring perfect obedience to God prior to the Fall, as Nomista asserts, then we are apparently expected to believe that Adam had set before him a life wherein he would perpetually be suspended between life and death, always hanging on the precipice of losing it... In what sense could he be secure? In what sense could he ever truly enjoy life? We know that the Christian is promised life everlasting, a life of secured righteousness. It is not a return to Eden that the Christian is promised - a return to fellowship with God, but with a mutable condition. No, no - Adam was mutable. Such is not the future the elect look forward to - and neither was it the future Adam had before him, had he obeyed.

Further, if mere creaturely obedience is what kept Adam in communion with God, and was to be his perpetual requirement, whereby he would forever be standing or falling on his own doing, what has changed after the Fall? If, as is the case in Nomista's worldview, Adam is not covenant head over humanity, what is the upshot? Are we not therefore in the same covenant as Adam, subject to the same terms? It seems to me to this conclusion is both obvious from the premises, and also shockingly bad. (and I've heard this very thing said, though usually with the gloss that Adam's covenant was really a covenant requiring faith, not works!)

If this premise is granted - that is, if Adam is not seen as our representative covenant head, as I've said, the conclusions stemming therefrom are dreadful. After the Fall, we have no hope of salvation, unless Adam's identity as our original covenant head under a covenant of perfect and continual obedience (a la Romans 5:12-21) is upheld. I don't think anyone really wants to go there... for if Adam isn't our covenant head in the sense that we fell in him, then Christ (again, referencing Romans 5) is not our covenant head in the sense that we are raised with Him. Romans 5 clearly presents Christ as the second Adam - as standing over His covenant people in the same way as head, as representative, of His people, just as Adam was. One man's disobedience (Adam's) plunged all his people into death. One man's obedience (Christ's) brought forth life for all His people. If the former is denied, the latter cannot be sustained. This is grievous.

Finally, and this, too, is no minor point, though it pales in comparison with the immediately preceding one: if Adam and we are in the same relationship with God, and therefore if he is not our head under a pre-fall covenant, then Christ is merely an example for us. Christ then becomes the "first Christian" in some sense, rather than the covenant Head of a new covenant - that promised in Genesis 3:15. This, too, is a grievous conclusion.

Thanks be to God that Scripture does in fact portray something very different than Nomista's ideas. Christ, the Second Adam, performed what the first Adam could not and did not - and brought to life - the ultimate eschatological end set before Adam in the beginning, and set before God's elect in Christ now - His people, living up to the name given Him before His birth: namely, Jesus - he who saves His people from their sins.

1 The Marrow, The Law (of Works, Faith and Christ) and the often misunderstood 'heavy burdens'

Well, it's been FOREVER since I posted much of substance other than Covenant Radio updates, but I think, maybe, after a long time away from blogging, I might be able to get back into it more regularly.

I bought the new Christian Focus version of The Marrow of Modern Divinity, by Edward Fisher (with notes by Thomas Boston) - a VERY nice hardbound copy that has Boston's notes formatted in a much more readable manner than in the older version I have quoted from previously.

Because it's been a while, and because I picked up the new copy recently and have begun my read of this work a second time, I'm backtracking a little from the last post on the Marrow, last year.

The first major note that Thomas Boston has in the Marrow regards the distinction among "The Law of Works", "The Law of Faith" and "The Law of Christ" - a distinction that, it seems to me, is very frequently misunderstood. In talking with people, I've often heard "The Law of Christ" denoted as something that is clearly viewed as less demanding in terms of ethical standards - people seem to think that "The Law of Christ" has 'more to do with trying to do good than satisfying the letter of the law', or 'a requirement of the heart's attitude rather than a requirement of satisfying the ten commandments'. I'm not sure where this comes from, but it seems to stem from the idea that Christ replaced the ten commandments and their strict standards of ethics with "the law of love", which more or less seems to mean "be nice and don't offend anyone".

Boston deals with this notion head on in this note, making clear the distinction between "The Law of Works" and "The Law of Christ" - and dispatching with any notion that the Law of Christ is somehow a "law-lite" high-jump bar that we need to clear with a Fosbury Flop:

By the law of works is meant the law of the ten commandments, as the covenant of works. By the law of faith, the gospel, or covenant of grace; for justification being the point upon which the apostle there states the opposition betwixt these two laws, it is evident that the former only is the law that doth not exclude boasting; and that the latter only is it, by which a sinner is justified in a way that doth exclude boasting. By the law of Christ, is meant the same law of the ten commandments, as a rule of life, in the hand of a Mediator, to believers already justified, and not any one command of the law only; for "bearing one another's burdens" is a "fulfilling of the law of Christ," as it is a loving one another: but, according to the Scripture, that love is not a fulfilling of one command only, but of the whole law of the ten commands, (Rom 13:8-10).—"He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." It is a fulfilling of the second table directly, and of the first table indirectly and consequentially: therefore, by the law of Christ is meant, not one command only, but the whole law.

The law of works is the law to be done, that one may be saved; the law of faith is the law to be believed, that one may be saved; the law of Christ is the law of the Saviour, binding his saved people to all the duties of obedience, (Gal 3:12, Acts 16:31).

The term law is not here used univocally; for the law of faith is neither in the Scripture sense, nor in the sense of our author, a law, properly so called. The apostle uses that phrase only in imitation of the Jews' manner of speaking, who had the law continually in their mouths. But since the promise of the gospel proposed to faith, is called in Scripture "the law of faith," our author was sufficiently warranted to call it so too. So the law of faith is not a proper preceptive law.

The law of works, and the law of Christ, are in substance but one law, even the law of the ten commandments—the moral law—that law which was from the beginning, continuing still the same in its own nature, but vested with different forms. And since that law is perfect, and sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of it, whatever form it be vested with, whether as the law of works or as the law of Christ, all commands of God unto men must needs be comprehended under it, and particularly the command to repent, common to all mankind, pagans not excepted, who doubtless are obliged, as well as others, to turn from sin unto God; as also the command to believe in Christ, binding all to whom the gospel revelation comes, though, in the meantime, this law stands under different forms to those who are in a state of union with Christ by faith, and to those who are not so. The law of Christ is not a new, proper, preceptive law, but the old, proper, preceptive law, which was from the beginning, under a new accidental form. (p. 48, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, by Edward Fisher (with notes by Thomas Boston))

The Law of Christ, then, is to be distinguished from the Law of Works not by the content - but by the delivery and application. The substance of the Law is the same... the prescription of ethical standards is the same, exactly, as the moral law - the Ten Commandments. The Law of Works is that law delivered as an absolute standard by which men would be judged acceptable or unacceptable before God Almighty, the Lawgiver. Under the Law of Works, one tiny slip is sufficient to condemn.

Where Paul refers to the Law of Christ, however, he refers to the same Law delivered as a rule of life for those who already stand justified before God, and in union with Christ. In this sense the Law is NOT a law of justification or condemnation, for as Paul writes in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus".

When believers are said to be "dead to the law" (Rom. 6:14) it is the former sense that Paul is working with - the law of Works - the Ten Commandments as a covenant of works unto justification.

When believers are said to be "under the Law of Christ" - we are being described as those who stand in Christ, justified before God, having the good law of God as our guide for glorifying and honoring God in our relations to Him and to others.

Secondly, in this extensive note, Boston deals with the Pharisees and the "heavy burdens" that Christ describes in Matthew 23:4 as that which they bind people with, "lay[ing] them on men's shoulders," while "they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."

Oftentimes the things the Pharisees laid upon men, the works of the Law that men must uphold in order to be just in God's sight, are argued to be acts of the ceremonial Law. Paul condemns the Pharisees for this - and those who argue for justification by works often argue that when Paul says "works of Law" he means only the ceremonial.

Boston obliterates this idea by going immediately to Christ - where Christ in the passage cited above condemns the Pharisees for laying burdens on the people that the people cannot bear. If the "justification by works" crowd is correct (that is, if Paul condemns only "justification by the ceremonial works", but affirms "justification by obedience to the moral law) then what Christ says about the Pharisees in Matthew 24:3 makes no sense.

Boston explains:

"These heavy burdens were not human traditions, and rites devised by men; for Christ would not have commanded the observing and doing of these, as in this case he did, (verse 3), "Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do"; neither were they the Mosaic rites and ceremonies, which were not then abrogated, for the Scribes and Pharisees were so far from not moving these burdens with one of their own fingers, that the whole of their religion was confined to them, namely to the rites and ceremonies of Moses' law, and those of their own devising. But the duties of the moral law they laid on others, binding them on with the tie of the law of works, yet made no conscience of them in their own practice: the which duties, nevertheless, our Lord Jesus commanded to be observed and done." (p. 49, The Marrow of Modern Divinity, by Edward Fisher (with notes by Thomas Boston))

What Christ condemned was the Pharisee's enjoining of obedience to the moral law as not merely the rule of life for God's people, but as a means of justification by their obedience. Christ's condemnation of this use of the Law clearly supports Paul's later condemnation of the same thing, and is a thorny item for modern moralists to handle.

If you've not got this new version of The Marrow, and/or have never read it before - I'd strongly recommend it to you. It's well worth the time to drink deeply from, and to be encouraged by in your walk with Christ. More later, from IPD.

2 Marrow Theology: Our Natural Desire to be Justified by Works

One of the things that I think we are prone to, in our times in which God's Word has been fully revealed, and the purposes of the law made known to us more fully, is a prideful disdain for the Old Testament people of God who so often failed to recognize the purpose for which God re-presented the covenant of works at Sinai. We so readily look at those who missed the foundation of our holiness, the coming Messiah, and say in our hearts, "how could they have made that mistake?" We forget, in doing so, that we only know anything aright because of the revelation of God and the illumination of our hearts by God's Spirit. We neglect the great benefit of having the whole of God's Word given to us in our time.

In The Marrow of Modern Divinity, the author describes the chief difference between the covenant of grace as administered to the Old Testament people of God and that unto us as a difference of human construction. After having discussed the purpose of the republication of the covenant of works, Fisher turns his sights on this distinction, through his characters Antinomista and the pastor, Evangelista.

"Evangelista: Truly the opposition between the Jews' covenant of grace and ours was chiefly of their own making. They should have been drive to Christ by the law: but they expected life in obedience to it, and this was their great error and mistake.

Antinomista: And surely, sir, it is no great marvel, though they in this point did so much err and mistake, who had the covenant of grace made known to them so darkly; when many amongst us, who have it more clearly manifested, do the like.

Evangelista: And, truly, it is no marvel, though all men naturally do so: for man naturally doth apprehend God to be the great Master of heaven, and himself to be his servant; and that therefore he must do his work before he can have his wages; and the more work he doth, the better wages he shall have." (p. 34, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

The law of God, being written on the hearts of man, is present with us always. In fact it is thoroughly reasonable to expect it to be hard, this sense of law and of justice being part and parcel with us, for men to think otherwise than that their righteousness must be established by their conformity to "right and wrong". Even in today's postmodern age, it is clear to most and embraced silently by many that there are "rights" and "wrongs", stated or unstated, though the existence of those absolutes contradicts their stated worldview. Conformity to those "rights" and "wrongs" is even taken as a standard of "righteousness" by which they are judged morally "upright" in an absolute sense.

This points to the natural tendency that we have as human beings having God's law written on our hearts - the grace of the Gospel is foreign to us; justification by another's righteousness and a fully gracious declaration of our Sovereign is wholly outside our natural ability to understand. We err naturally in expecting that we will be acceptable based on our conformity to God's standard. When God's Law was presented at Sinai, the natural tendency was to read it as being presented as a covenant by which justification unto life was granted, and presented as supplanting the promise. Fisher continues,

"the general opinion of men's reason throughout the whole world, that righteousness is gotten by the works of the law; and the reason is, because the covenant was engendered in the minds of men in the very creation, so that man naturally can judge no otherwise of the law than as of a covenant of works, which was given to make righteous, and to give life and salvation. This pernicious opinion of the law, that it justifieth and maketh righteous before God, says Luther again, "is so deeply rooted in man's reason, and all mankind so wrapped in it, that they can hardly get out; yea, I myself, says he, have now preached the gospel nearly twenty years, and have been exercised in the same daily, by reading and writing, so that I may well seem to be rid of this wicked opinion; yet, notwithstanding, I now and then feel this old filth cleave to my heart, whereby it cometh to pass that I would willingly have so to do with God, that I would bring something with myself, because of which he should give me his grace." " (p. 85-86, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

This natural tendency is a universal characteristic of men - from the days of Moses, and of the apostles - and of Luther, and Fisher - to today. Many, many were then and are now persuaded of their acceptance before God being dependent upon and measured by their conformity to the law. This being our tendency as humans, is understandable; though understandable, it is nevertheless a pernicious error.

"Antinomista: Sir, I am verily persuaded, that there be very many in the city of London that are carried with a blind preposterous zeal after their own good works and well-doings, secretly seeking to become holy, just, and righteous, before God, by their diligent keeping, and careful walking in all God's commandments; and yet no man can persuade them that they do so: and truly, sir, I am verily persuaded that this our neighbour and friend, Nomista, is one of them.

Evangelista: Alas! there are thousands in the world that make a Christ of their works; and here is their undoing, &c. They look for righteousness and acceptation more in the precept than in the promise, in the law than in the gospel, in working than in believing; and so miscarry. Many poor ignorant souls amongst us, when we bid them obey and do duties, they can think of nothing but working themselves to life; when they are troubled, they must lick themselves whole, when wounded, they must run to the salve of duties, and stream of performances, and neglect Christ. Nay, it is to be feared that there be divers who in words are able to distinguish between the law and gospel, and in their judgments hold and maintain, that man is justified by faith without the works of the law; and yet in effect and practice, that is to say, in heart and conscience, do otherwise. And there is some touch of this in us all; otherwise we should not be so up and down in our comforts and believing as we are still, and cast down with every weakness as we are." (pp. 86-87, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

So effectual is our natural tendency that we often forget the dictum given us by the Apostle Paul - Christ is the end of the law to those that believe. Christ's righteousness, and his alone, qualifies. Even as it is theoretically possible for any who absolutely is conformed to the Law of God to be declared righteous in God's eyes - no man has ever or will be so conformed (apart from Christ) both because of the weakness of the flesh we inherit naturally from Adam, and because of the condemnation we share in him already as his covenant posterity. We lie guilty under the law from the start - and even if we should perfectly live subsequently, we are already condemned.

But like dogs, we return to our vomit and seek to justify ourselves, fooling ourselves, deceiving each other. The truth of the Gospel must ever be before us. Enemies of Gospel truth must always be withstood, even in the same way as Paul withstood Peter to his face when Peter had succumbed to the pressure of the Judaizers of his day. Let us beware of the leaven that seeks to undo what Christ has done perfectly, and what Christ alone can grant.

0 Marrow Theology: Republication of the Covenant of Works, part III

One of the important points that Edward Fisher makes in The Marrow of Modern Divinity is that the presentation of the Law made at Sinai was in fact in substance the same Covenant as existed in the pristine Garden, prior to Adam's Fall. He has made the point, as I've noted in previous posts in this short series, that the reason for God's re-presentation (or re-publication) of the Covenant of Works was not to muddy the waters and confuse the people, but to show them directly to what Covenant they already were obligated - to present to them exactly what righteousness God requires of man: a perfect conformity in thought, word and deed to that Law. This presentation has (at least) two impacts - one, to drive man entirely to the mercy of God in Christ (in the Sinaitic context, to the coming Seed) because of the immediate clarity with which one sees one's own sin when confronted with the Law of God, and two, to magnify and glorify the Son of God. Christ perfectly satisfied that which God required (and, even after the Fall, STILL requires of man), and through the republication of the Covenant of Works at Sinai we are clearly shown the glory of the God-Man by way of reminder of what God requires.

One of the important things the republication shows us is that Adam's breaking of the Covenant of Works does NOT imply in any sense that somehow man no longer has to measure up to that standard. The republication shows clearly that in fact all men MUST have that righteousness required of Adam. The glorious Covenants of Grace and Redemption, in which context the Covenant of Works was republished, give forth the truth that man CAN by substitutionary atonement of God's ordained Lamb in fact satisfy these standards to which every man is beholden still, even in the wake of Adam's fall.

Now that I've let the cat wholly out of the bag, let's pick up Fisher's text on these points. Fisher argues that the law covenant presented at Sinai was not some appending of rules and regulations to the Covenant of Grace, but in fact was a re-presentation of the same covenant of works God laid upon Adam:

"Antinomista: And, sir, did the law produce this effect in them? [to make them sigh and long for the promised Redeemer - TKP]

Evangelista: Yea, indeed, it did; as will appear, if you consider, that although, before the publishing of this covenant, they were exceeding proud and confident of their own strength to do all that the Lord would have them do; yet when the Lord came to deal with them as men under the covenant of works, in showing himself a terrible judge sitting on the throne of justice, like a mountain burning with fire, summoning them to come before him by the sound of a trumpet, [yet not to touch the mountain without a mediator,] (Heb 12:19,20), they were not able to endure the voice of words, nor yet to abide that which was commanded, insomuch, as Moses himself did fear and quake; and they did all of them so fear, and shake, and shiver, that their peacock feathers were now pulled down. This terrible show wherein God gave his law on Mount Sinai, says Luther, did represent the use of the law: there was in the people of Israel that came out of Egypt a singular holiness; they gloried and said, "We are the people of God; we will do all that the Lord commandeth.
...
Thus you see, when the Lord had, by means of the covenant of works made with Adam, humbled them, and made them sigh for Christ the promised Seed, he renewed the promise with them, yea, and the covenant of grace made with Abraham." (pp. 65-67, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Fisher plainly says - this covenant of law IS not merely a statement of rules - but in fact is a presentation anew of the Covenant of Works - the real deal, as it were, showing God's clear expectations upon man if he is to be acceptable before Almighty God. Without that re-publication it may not necessarily be clear to us that in fact that righteousness is still required of us! At this point, Thomas Boston adds an important footnote:

"Making a promise of Christ to them, not only as "the seed of the woman," but as "the seed of Abraham," and yet more particularly, as "the seed of Israel: the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet, from the midst of THEE, of THY BRETHREN," (Deut 18:15). And here it is to be observed, that this renewing of the promise and covenant of grace with them was immediately upon the back of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, for at that time was their speech which the Lord commended as well spoken: this appears from Exodus 20:18,19, compared with Deuteronomy 5:23-28, and upon that speech of theirs was that renewal made, which is clear from Deuteronomy 18:17,18." (footnote, p. 67, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

The purpose, then of this re-presentation is made clear.... to magnify the glory of Christ, AND, I might add, to magnify the wonder and glory of the Covenants of Redemption and Grace! Without this backdrop, it seems to me, the grace of God doesn't quite stand out in such stark relief. God through Moses gave immediate and clear reminder of what God requires of man - and with immediate clarity man sees that, as Isaiah says in chapter 6 of his prophecy, "I AM UNDONE!" What glorious grace shines forth at this moment as the Promised Seed, the Lamb, Christ Jesus is then brought to mind on the heels of the reminder of our unworthiness!

We are reminded later in this work again that Christ was born under the Law - and satisfied it, and that in this the Covenant of Grace is intimately tied in with the Covenant of Works. Again, Fisher:

"Antinomista: But, sir, was the form quite taken away, so as the ten commandments were no more the covenant of works?

Evangelista: Oh no! you are not so to understand it. For the form of the covenant of works, as well as the matter, [on God's part,] came immediately from God himself, and so consequently it is eternal, like himself; whence it is that our Saviour says, (Matt 5:18), "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no ways pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." So that either man himself, or some other for him, must perform or fulfill the condition of the law, as it is the covenant of works, or else he remains still under it in a damnable condition: but now Christ hath fulfilled it for all believers; and therefore, I said, the form of the covenant of works was covered or taken away, as touching the believing Jews; but yet it was neither taken away in itself, nor yet as touching the unbelieving Jews." (p. 74, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

The glory of Christ shines most brightly when we see that He alone satisfied that which is incumbent upon all man from Adam's creation... perfect holiness, righteousness, conformity to the Will of God. That righteousness without which no man shall see the Lord, that which is incumbent upon all because of the requirements placed upon man in the Covenant of Works, and re-presented at Sinai, IS GRANTED, AND (I cannot emphasize this strongly enough) IS REALLY OURS THROUGH CHRIST. The measure of righteousness has been laid out clearly. The impossibility of our satisfying it (one because of Adam as our head falling, and two because of the organic weakness to obey the Law that all have, also stemming from Adam's fall) is clear and highlights Christ's glory for us.

Praise be to the Lord on High that He has accepted us in the beloved Son and accounted to us that righteousness He requires. Does this not make your heart exult in God's Work? Let us praise Him with every fiber of our being!

0 Marrow Theology: Republication of the Covenant of Works, part II

The author, Edward Fisher, and the commenter, Thomas Boston, in The Marrow of Modern Divinity lay out carefully the doctrine concerning the relationships between the Covenant of Works, of Grace and of Redemption and the Sinaitic covenant. Central to their thesis is the doctrine of republication of the Covenant of Works - not as a covenant unto life, as Boston writes in the footnotes to this work, but for the purpose of showing believers their absolute inadequacy in establishing their own righteousness. This teaching has much to recommend it, and Boston and Fisher do an excellent job of explaining what republication means, and what it does NOT mean.

One thing that is exceedingly important, and which Fisher takes pains to make clear through several illustrations, is that the covenant of works republished is NOT meant to replace or make more complete the covenant of grace. There is no annulment of the promise to Abraham, by which the covenant of grace is very clearly illustrated, as is clear from Galatians 3:17 - "The covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was 430 years after, cannot disannul." There is no fault in the covenant of grace, such that the republication of the covenant of works was needed to satisfy. The purpose of the republication, it seemed, was pedagogical -

"But it was added by way of subserviency and attendance, the better to advance and make effectual the covenant of grace; so that although the same covenant that was made with Adam was renewed on Mount Sinai, yet I say still, it was not for the same purpose. For this was it that God aimed at, in making the covenant of works with man in innocency, to have that which was his due from man: but God made it with the Israelites for no other end, than that man, being thereby convinced of his weakness, might flee to Christ. So that it was renewed only to help forward and introduce another and a better covenant; and so to be a manuduction unto Christ, viz: to discover sin, to waken the conscience, and to convince them of their own impotency, and so drive them out of themselves to Christ. Know it then, I beseech you, that all this while there was no other way of life given, either in whole, or in part, than the covenant of grace. All this while God did but pursue the design of his own grace; and, therefore, was there no inconsistency either in God's will or acts; only such was his mercy, that he subordinated the covenant of works, and made it subservient to the covenant of grace, and so to tend to evangelical purposes." (p. 63, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

The Sinaitic covenant involved the republication of the covenant of works - "not for the same purpose", Fisher says. Indeed, life was promised in this republication to those who perfectly upheld its conditions, namely perfect obedience in every particular. This hadn't changed - life WOULD be granted to any who satisfied its conditions. "Do this and you shall live" was still a valid statement. It was, as Fisher writes, "the covenant of works made with Adam" (p. 67) - though such fulfillment on the basis of any human attainment, after the fall, was impossible. As Fisher continues,

"...and if any man could yield perfect obedience to the law, both in doing and suffering, he should have eternal life; for we may not deny [says Calvin] but that the reward of eternal salvation belongeth to the upright obedience of the law. But God knew well enough that the Israelites were never able to yield such an obedience: and yet he saw it meet to propound eternal life to them upon these terms; that so he might speak to them in their own humour, as indeed it was meet: for they swelled with mad assurance in themselves, saying, "All that the Lord commandeth we will do," and be obedient, (Exo 19:8). Well, said the Lord, if you will needs be doing, why here is a law to be kept; and if you can fully observe the righteousness of it, you shall be saved: sending them of purpose to the law, to awaken and convince them, to sentence and humble them, and to make them see their own folly in seeking for life that way; in short, to make them see the terms under which they stood, that so they might be brought out of themselves, and expect nothing from the law, in relation to life, but all from Christ." (p. 64, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

Again, as I noted last time, this propounding of life upon the terms of perfect coherence with God's Law serves the noble purpose of showing the impossibility of its achievement, and the absolute necessity of resting in another, the one and only man who ever did in fact keep those terms. "How shall a man see his need of life by Christ," Fisher writes, "if he do not first see that he is fallen from the way of life?" (p. 64)

How, today, is any to understand their need for Christ if they are not clearly brought face to face with the fact of their inability to satisfy God's requirements and fulfill the righteousness that He demands? The Psalmist clearly marks as acceptable him whose hands are clean, and him alone in Psalm 24:3-5:

"³ Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place?

⁴ He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

⁵ He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation."

How many such are there among us? One, only one... and for His righteousness we must sigh, for it is His righteousness alone in which we are accepted. The republication of the covenant of works has the purpose of humbling proud sinners like me, and bringing us to recognize our deep and abiding need to be found in the promised Seed of Abraham, Him being our only hope.

There is nothing strange, nothing radical in this doctrine of republication that should be of concern to the confessionally reformed believer. It seems quite clear, at least in the presentation made in The Marrow of Modern Divinity, that what it entails is little different than Calvin's first use of the Law - to act as a goad and prod for stubborn sinners to see their need of Christ. I am thankful, ever thankful, that the Lord did place this republication in the clear context of the covenant of grace... that Christ is upheld in His righteousness so clearly through His obedience to the Law delivered at Sinai is critical for us to see. He satisfied in every particular the Law of God. He IS our righteousness. Thanks be to God for His marvelous grace and for His perfect Word through which we learn so clearly of His perfect redemption of His elect people.

1 Marrow Theology: Republication of the Covenant of Works, part I

After the discussion in The Marrow of Modern Divinity concerning the pre-fall Covenant of Works between God and Adam, Fisher (and Boston) take time to discuss the Sinaitic covenant in relation to the Covenant of Grace. Much can be written here, and has been - a recent work, The Law is Not of Faith deals explicitly with this idea and the concept of the Republication of the Covenant of Works in the Sinaitic Covenant - an old idea that goes back at least as far as The Marrow and the Westminster Era, and is widely found among Reformed and Puritan authors throughout the 17th century. Several of the Westminster divines held to this idea in various forms, so it's not as though the teaching arose with Meredith Kline, et al., as some have charged (and as Scott Clark has mentioned in his posts on the subject).

The doctrine of republication of the Covenant of Works at Sinai should not be taken as an indication that somehow Israel was under a Covenant of Works for salvation, though it is sometimes, by various parties, derided as such. That would be a gross misapprehension - and Fisher, and Boston through his footnotes in The Marrow, argue this quite emphatically.

"Nomista: But, sir, were the children of Israel at this time better able to perform the condition of the covenant of works, than either Adam or any of the old patriarchs were, that God renewed it now with them, rather than before?

Evangelista: No, indeed; God did not renew it with them now, and not before, because they were better able to keep it, but because they had more need to be made acquainted what the covenant of works is, than those before... So that you see the Lord's intention therein was, that they, by looking upon this covenant might be put in mind what was their duty of old, when they were in Adam's loins; yea, and what was their duty still, if they would stand to that covenant, and so go the old and natural way to work; yea, and hereby they were also to see what was their present infirmity in not doing their duty: that so they seeing an impossibility of obtaining life by that way of works, first appointed in paradise, they might be humbled, and more heedfully mind the promise made to their father Abraham, and hasten to lay hold on the Messiah, or promised seed.

Nomista: Then, sir, it seems that the Lord did not renew the covenant of works with them, to the intent that they should obtain eternal life by their yielding obedience to it?

Evangelista: No, indeed; God never made the covenant of works with any man since the fall, either with expectation that he should fulfil it, or to give him life by it; for God never appoints any thing to an end, to the which it is utterly unsuitable and improper. Now the law, as it is the covenant of works, is become weak and unprofitable to the purpose of salvation; and, therefore, God never appointed it to man, since the fall, to that end. And besides, it is manifest that the purpose of God, in the covenant made with Abraham, was to give life and salvation by grace and promise; and, therefore, his purpose in renewing the covenant of works, was not, neither could be, to give life and salvation by working; for then there would have been contradictions in the covenants, and instability in him that made them. Wherefore let no man imagine that God published the covenant of works on Mount Sinai, as though he had been mutable, and so changed his determination in that covenant made with Abraham; neither, yet let any man suppose, that God now in process of time had found out a better way for man's salvation than he knew before: for, as the covenant of grace made with Abraham had been needless, if the covenant of works made with Adam would have given him and his believing seed life; so, after the covenant of grace was once made, it was needless to renew the covenant of works, to the end that righteousness of life should be had by the observation of it. The which will yet more evidently appear, if we consider, that the apostle, speaking of the covenant of works as it was given on Mount Sinai, says, "It was added because of transgressions," (Gal 3:19). It was not set up as a solid rule of righteousness, as it was given to Adam in paradise, but was added or put to;* it was not set up as a thing in gross by itself." (pp. 61-63, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

The footnote indicated at the * is an important restatement by Boston, in which he writes,

"It was not set up by itself as an entire rule of righteousness, to which alone they were to look who desired righteousness and salvation, as it was in the case of upright Adam, "For no man, since the fall, can attain to righteousness and life by the moral law," Lar. Cat. quest. 94. But it was added to the covenant of grace, that by looking at it men might see what kind of righteousness it is by which they can be justified in the sight of God; and that by means thereof, finding themselves destitute of that righteousness, they might be moved to embrace the covenant of grace, in which that righteousness is held forth to be received by faith. (p. 63, footnote, The Marrow of Modern Divinity)

In no sense was the republication (or re-presentation) of the Covenant of Works at Sinai taken to be a replacement of the Abrahamic promise - the Covenant of Grace, whereby salvation was taught to us as being by grace through faith in Christ. The Sinai presentation of the Covenant of Works, rather, has much in common with Calvin's first use of the Law - for a good post on this topic, see Creed or Chaos here, and here. There is MUCH more to be said on the doctrine of republication as taught in the Marrow... but alas, it will have to wait til another time.

0 Marrow Theology: Geerhardus Vos on Garden Eschatology

Another voice on the question of Adam's covenantal relationship with God prior to the Fall comes from Geerhardus Vos, from his book The Eschatology of the Old Testament. He makes a very important point concerning eschatology in general that we often miss - and which is helpful in addressing the errors of the monocovenantal perspective.

Vos writes,

"It is not biblical to hold that eschatology is a sort of appendix to soteriology, a consummation of the saving work of God. Eschatology is not necessarily bound up with soteriology. So conceived, it does not take into account that a whole chapter of eschatology is written before sin. Thus it is not merely an omission to ignore the pre-redemptive eschatology; it is to place the sequel in the wrong place. There is an absolute end posited for the universe before and apart from sin. The universe, as created, was only a beginning, the meaning of which was not perpetuation, but attainment. " (p. 73, Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament)

In other words, when we append eschatology to soteriology - that is, when we make all eschatological pronouncements somehow active only in the era of redemption - then we miss the fact that God had placed something in Adam's view before he fell into sin. God promised something - something more than simple existence forever in the probationary state in which Adam lived prior to his fall. He promised a further paradise. Vos:

"This goal was not only previous to sin, but irrespective of sin. For the sake of plainness, let us distinguish between the goal as an absolute, perfect, ethical relation to God and as a supernaturalizing of man and the world. These elements are intimately related, but logically distinct. Both of these elements could have been realized apart from sin and redemption. The ethical element could have been carried to the highest point of unchangeable rectitude. Similarly the supernaturalizing element could have been realized apart from sin. The relation of these two is also conceivable on the same basis, i.e. apart from sin. In sum, the original goal remains regulative for the redemptive development of eschatology by aiming to rectify the results of sin (remedial) and uphold, in connection with this, the realization of the original goal as that which transcends the state of rectitude (i.e. rising beyond the possibility of death in life eternal). The nonredemptive strand explains the preeminence of the natural (physical) element in biblical eschatology. Thus, it is not a mere questin of the conversion of man (absolute ethical relation to God), but of the transformation and supernaturalizing of the world." (pp. 73-74, Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament)

For the same reason that covenants can be considered outside of the redemptive era (this is a key claim of some who err in covenant theology - that all covenants between God and man MUST be redemptive) so, too, can and must eschatology be considered in the pre-redemptive era. There was an end - a goal - for creation, presented to Adam by God that was above his present state at his creation. He was not to remain in his state of suspended animation, as it were, but was to come, along with all creation, to a point of consummation and an era of confirmed hope. We gain insight, as I've already written, into that which Adam was to expect, by looking at what Scripture says about our eternal state. We cannot be satisfied to envision Adam's "eternal life" as consisting of anything but that which our own will consist in after That Day. Vos continues along these lines:

"Two principles stand out in this primeval eschatology. First, the intimate conjunction between eschatology and ethics. We have here the possibility of an attainment of a higher state, but it is conditioned by obedience... Second, as to its content, it is highly religious. Highest life is characterized by the most intimate connection with God." (p. 75, Geerhardus Vos, The Eschatology of the Old Testament)

The most intimate connection with God, according to Vos, is a confirmed state of full rectitude - something that Adam did NOT have in the Garden - and hence something to which he must have looked forward prior to the Fall. This promise of a higher state, higher than Adam's "very good" creation, was the promise of the covenant in which he was created.... a covenant requiring perfect obedience to God's commands - the covenant of works. This conclusion is very had to deny... unless one is willing to do great violence to the Word of God. I think now (finally) I'll be returning to The Marrow of Modern Divinity and the Covenant of Grace.

0 Marrow Theology: More from a Brakel

In Wilhelmus a Brakel's The Christian's Reasonable Service, the author makes several helpful comments regarding the existence of the covenant of works (as distinguished from the covenant of grace, or as some monocovenantalists would like to say "the covenant of God", wherein they do not distinguish between Adam's covenant situation and ours) in two chapters primarily dealing with the subject.

He first lays down this particular, wherein the existence of the covenant of works is made evident:

"If God gave Adam a law which is identical in content to the ten commandments; promised him eternal life (the same which Christ merited for the elect in the covenant of grace); appointed the tree of knowledge of good and evil for him as a means whereby he would be tested and the tree of life to be a sacrament of life to him; and Adam, having accepted both the promise and the condition, thus bound himself to God -- then a covenant of works between God and Adam existed. Since all of this is true, it thus follows that such a covenant existed." (p. 356, volume 1, The Christian's Reasonable Service)

These things a Brakel then demonstrates in the chapter which follows this introduction. He writes concerning the law given to Adam:

"First, '...these (the heathen), having not the law are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts (Rom. 2:14-15)'. If men even after the fall have a law written in their hearts and are thus a law unto themselves, be it imperfectly and in obscurity, much more so would Adam in the state of rectitude have had a law. The reason for this conclusion is that the law of nature proceeds from the knowledge of God. Since Adam, after the fall, had a far superior and clearer knowledge of God than the heathen, he therefore also possessed the law in a far superior way." (p. 357, volume 1, The Christian's Reasonable Service)

The moral law, in summary form at least, was certainly in Adam's heart if it is in the heart of the native of deepest, darkest Africa. This was given to Adam in creation, as is apparent from the plain rendering of Scripture - and therefore was given, along with the specific covenantal test of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Most importantly, perhaps, is the question of whether Adam had eternal life promised to him that was in character different and higher than his earthly life in the garden. I have seen and heard this objected to by several different people whose sympathies lie with the Federal Vision (not that it is part of the standard FV teaching, though rejection of the covenant of works is) and have never understood it at all. Neither does a Brakel:

"The law of the ten commandments has the promise of eternal life appended to it, as can be observed in Matthew 19. A young man asked, 'What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?' Christ answered, 'If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.' (Matt. 19:16-17) This is also confirmed in the following texts: 'Ye shall therefore keep My statues, and My judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them.' (Lev. 18:5); 'The commandment, which was ordained to life" (Rom. 7:10); '...and in keeping of them there is great reward' (Psa. 19:11). Thus Adam had the promise of eternal life.
...
the same life which is granted upon the receiving of Christ by faith is promised upon perfect obedience to the law. Since eternal life is granted to the elect upon faith in Christ, this is likewise true for perfect obedience to the law. The apostle confirms that the same promise applies to both matters. 'For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart...thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:5-6,9) "...the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, the man that doeth them shall live in them" (Gal. 3:11-12). Here is one and the same promise: life, eternal life... The apostle demonstrates that there are two ways by which this goal can be reached, one being the law, and the other faith. From this it follows that Adam, having the law, had the promise of eternal life, which is now obtained by faith." (pp. 360-361, volume 1, The Christian's Reasonable Service)

Part of the difficulty monocovenantalists have with the covenant of works, I think, stems from one primary problem - their inability to accept the principle of perfect holiness and complete obedience as rightly being met with life eternal. They apply what is clearly observable now, post-fall, wherein we all sin and are sinful from conception, to the garden, where Adam was created very good - flawless, and in communion with God. Our human condition is thus thrust upon Adam, and therefore since we cannot merit any acceptance with God in our condition, therefore so it is with Adam, in their eyes - he was unable to be declared righteous based on his work of obedience. This is a highly flawed position.

Adam was accepted by God, and righteous - and had he obeyed, his righteousness would have been maintained, declared, and confirmed. He would rightly have passed into eternal life, into a state of non posse peccare - inability to sin - just as we will be after Christ returns and glorifies His church. To argue from the basis of our inability to be anything but unprofitable servants in the world POST fall, that Adam could therefore also be nothing but an unprofitable servant PRE fall, is a category error. Adam, PRE fall, was NOT tainted with original sin. We are. The reason we cannot be declared righteous based on our obedience is a condition we have that Adam did not prior to his fall.

Finally, a Brakel gives this helpful exhortation to study the covenant of works and be edified by it; a few choice pieces from that paragraph close my comments:

"Meditate frequently upon this covenant, in order that you may perceive to what a blessed state God had appointed the human race -- and thus also you as far as your original state was concerned. How perfect, fitting and even desirable are its conditions! How glorious are the promises, and how glorious it is to be in covenant with the all-glorious and infinitely good God! The dimensions of this are infinite. Then proceed to the breach of the covenant and the needless, reckless, and wanton nature of the same. What an abominable deed it was! From this perspective proceed to the righteousness of God and let the punishment and rejection of such covenant breakers meet with your approval. When considering the glory of this covenant, seek to amplify your actual and original sins. This beautiful covenant has now been broken, and an unconverted person who as yet has not been translated into the covenant of grace is still in the actual covenant of works. Therefore, as often as he sins, he breaks the covenant by renewal, remains subject to its curse, and increases it time and again. Therefore look away from the covenant of works. It has been broken and salvation is no longer obtainable by it. This exhortation is necessary since even God's children are often inclined to dwell upon their works and accordingly, are either encouraged or discouraged." (p. 367, volume 1, The Christian's Reasonable Service)