Mono VS Bi-Covenantal view

Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes, the kind of life Adam was promised is the kind of life Christ merited condignly for the elect, namely, the glorified state. I believe this is proven by a careful reading of 1 Corinthians 15.

One thing that I am curious about in regards to this view.

If Adam could have obtained the glorified, heavenly, eternal life that Christ gained for us, then what would of happened to all of Adam's posterity if he had kept the covenant of works and entered into the glorified state?
Because we know that, according to Jesus, there is no marriage or procreation in the glorified state. Would it of just been Adam and Eve in heaven then and no humanity at all?
If Adam had kept the covenant and entered into the glorified state, then none of us would ever of been born!


Note: In Rev. Winzer's view though, that Adam could of gained eternal "earthly" life only, there is not a procreation problem.
 
Last edited:
On congruent merit:

This is what would happen if someone didn't have enough money for the item, but the store owner decided to give the person a deal and take the amount of money (which is not enough to cover the cost of the item) for the item anyway.

On pactum merit:

There is a third kind of merit, which is what I believe Adam would have had had he obeyed. The basis for Adam's receiving the promised eternal life was his own works. But this was by agreement. Hence, the third kind of merit, which is called pactum merit, merit according to pact, merit according to agreement.

Different names, same idea.
 
Concerning Mono vs Bi-covenantal vews:

I've been reading some of Hoeksema's "Refomed Dogmatics", and he rejects the C. of works, and leans towards the Mono covenant view (His mono leanings seem clear when he say's "God is one and his Covenant is one").

A thought that came to me in regards to the Bi-Covental view:
The bi-covenantal view has in its schema, a Christless covenant (covenant number 1)...Thank about it, if to this very day Adam had not yet sinned, there would be no Christ. We would be living in a sinless, but Christless world, there would be no MAN, whose flesh was a part of creation, ruling and reigning as King in heaven. Creation would never reach its eschatological goal, Christ.

The promise of the covenant is in Christ. But again, the bi-covenatal view has God's first plan in creation, his first covenant, as a Christless one.
Now granite, the bi-covenantal view does include Christ, but only as a second option...in the second covenant.

The mono view sees Christ as the promise of the ONE covenant to begin with,,,that the creation was for Christ (sort of speak).
e.g., Was Christ created for the Church...or was the Church created for Christ?

- In the mono view, Christ is the eschatological goal and purpose of the covenant.
- In the bi covenant view, Christ is only option number 2
 
On congruent merit:

This is what would happen if someone didn't have enough money for the item, but the store owner decided to give the person a deal and take the amount of money (which is not enough to cover the cost of the item) for the item anyway.

On pactum merit:

There is a third kind of merit, which is what I believe Adam would have had had he obeyed. The basis for Adam's receiving the promised eternal life was his own works. But this was by agreement. Hence, the third kind of merit, which is called pactum merit, merit according to pact, merit according to agreement.

Different names, same idea.

Actually, it's not the same idea at all, because congruent merit uses the kind of work that actually would go towards the reward, there just isn't enough of it. With pactum merit, the work has no intrinsic relationship to the reward at all. So, not the same thing at all.
 
Actually, it's not the same idea at all, because congruent merit uses the kind of work that actually would go towards the reward, there just isn't enough of it. With pactum merit, the work has no intrinsic relationship to the reward at all. So, not the same thing at all.

Condign merit contains "worth," something in the action which requires reward. Congruent merit refers to a reward which is "appropriate." In your view of congruent merit, the reward is appropriate because the store owner gives a deal. In your view of pactum merit, you say it is appropriate eternal life should be merited by Adam because God entered into an agreement with him to that effect. In conguent merit you focus on the condition while in pactum merit you focus on the promise; but the fact remains the two are referring to the same idea.
 
It is a completely different kind of medium. Or are you going to say (going back to my analogy) that money is the same thing as a grade on an SAT test? In the case of Adam, the difference between pactum and congruent would be the purpose and the power of the work involved. So, Adam's pactum merit does not have the intrinsic purpose of supererogation, since he owes it all anyway. Congruent merit would have that purpose of supererogation, only there wouldn't be enough of it. The reason it is pactum and not congruent is that Adam is a creature, and is bound by the moral law to give all glory to God. So, I repeat, they are not the same thing at all. What you are pointing out is a similarity in the nature of the agreement (acceptance of something not sufficient as if it is). However, congruent merit requires no agreement ahead of time. Pactum merit most certainly does. So, even there, the two are distinct. See Turretin volume 1, pg. 578, where Turretin means pactum merit when he says,

If therefore upright man in that state had obtained this merit, it must not be understood properly and rigorously (i.e. condignly, LK). Since man has all things from and owes all to God, he can seek from him nothing as his own by right, nor can God be a debtor to him- not by condignity of work and from its intrinsic value (because whatever that may be, it can bear no proportion to the infinite reward of life), but from the pact and the liberal promise of God (according to which man had the right of demanding the reward to which God had of his own accord bound himself) and in comparison with the covenant of grace (which rests upon the sole merit of Christ, by which he acquired for us the right to life).​
 
Congruent merit would have that purpose of supererogation, only there wouldn't be enough of it.

This is where the wheels are falling off. By ascribing some intrinsic "worth" to the merit it is turned into a lesser degree of condign merit. Congruent merit does not possess worth but agreeableness to the reward. It is a different kind of merit, not a lesser degree of worthiness.

The Turretin quotation is worth pondering because it shows the impropriety of using the word "merit" in relation to Adam's obedience.
 
A Closer Look at the Covenant of Works

Hello, brothers. I’m still at the theological module in Wyoming, but I’ve found some spare moments and Internet access. So I thought I’d reply to some of the latest input. A lot has been added to the discussion since I’ve been away, so forgive me if I don’t address it all. In particular, though, I’d like to try to address some questions raised by Rich, Ruben, and Matthew, as well as to make a few comments about Lane’s comments, much of which I found very helpful and pertinent to the discussion. I’ll try to develop my responses and thoughts under three questions.

1. Do the Reformed Confessions and (most importantly) the Scriptures support a mono- or bi-covenantal structure for redemptive history?

This is, of course, the central question raised by Shawn in this thread. It seems that most of us affirm that the WCF and LBCF teach a bi-covenantal structure (I’m honestly not as familiar with the TFU) and that the Scriptures support such a view. That is, redemptive history can be viewed from the perspective of a Covenant of Works (also called covenant of nature, law, creation, etc.) and a Covenant of Grace. I think we all agree that the former was inaugurated during the pre-lapsarian era (Gen. 1:26-28; 2:15-17) and the latter at the commencement of the post-lapsarian era (Gen. 3:15). It seems that Shawn, in his latest post (#93), questions a bi-covenantal view and proposes that we adopt a mono-covenantal scheme in which “Christ is the eschatological goal and purpose of the covenant.” I see problems with this view, which I’ll try to address below, but I also think there might be an element of truth in a mono-covenantal scheme though my present understandng of such a scheme would probably differ from Hoeksema’s view (see below).

2. What were the stipulations and sanctions of the Creation Covenant or Covenant of Works?

“Stipulations” refer to laws, requirements, and expectations. In divine-human covenants, stipulations include both moral and also positive laws. “Sanctions” include punishments or curses for disloyalty vis-à-vis the covenant stipulations, as well as rewards or blessings for loyalty vis-à-vis the covenant stipulations. So what were the stipulations and sanctions of the Covenant of works? The pre-lapsarian revelation recorded in Genesis 1-2, as well as later post-lapsarian revelation would seem to indicate the presence of both moral and positive covenant stipulations. The positive covenant stipulations are, perhaps, most conspicuous. God creates the imago Dei and commands them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Genesis 2, which does not provide an additional or variant creation account but rather, in keeping with Hebrew parallelism, zeros in with greater detail upon God’s creation of man and assignment of the human task, providing further detail regarding the nature of man’s royal and priestly task. The Garden of Eden is no mere food plot or idyllic park but a royal garden-sanctuary, in which man, as Yahweh-Elohim’s vice-regent, is commissioned to serve as priest and guardian (2:15-17).

The sacramental trees (2:9) symbolize the sanctions. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil symbolizes punishment or curse for covenant disobedience with reference to the covenant stipulations, whereas the Tree of Like symbolizes reward or blessing for fidelity to the covenant stipulations. I don’t think it’s exegetically tenable to portray the Tree of Life sanction as offering nothing more than “earthly” life since the immediate context (3:22) and larger context of Scripture assign it eternal significance (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19). So God promised Adam and Eve eternal life upon the condition of their conformity to the covenant stipulations established by God. Hence, in such an arrangement, “merit,” namely, “something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation” (Random House Unabridged, 2006), is based on the standards of the covenant, which itself reflects God’s own justice and goodness. Note carefully that the stipulations of the covenant works are not that Adam must attain a kind of virtue that is ontologically equivalent to God himself. That would be impossible. Moreover, such a stipulation would in fact be the polar opposite of God’s requirement. Yahweh-Elohim commanded Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge for the express purposes of highlighting the Creator-creature distinction and to require that Adam assume the posture of a covenant servant (vassal) rather than a covenant Sovereign (Suzerain). Hence, under the stipulations of the primal covenant of works, “merit” for Adam is defined in terms of his recognition of his creaturehood and his assumption of the role of Yahweh-Elohim’s loyal vassal. Accordingly, the Covenant of Works God made with Adams did not, as Lane pointed out, demand a condign merit, that is, a kind of merit in which Adam crosses the bridge over the ontological chasm that separates him as creature from God as Creator.

Now here’s where the point at which I’m having some difficulty with the way in which Christ’s relationship to the Covenant of Works is being distinguished from Adam’s. On the one hand, Shawn thinks, “Adam could not keep the covenant of works because he did not” (Posts #26, 30, 33, 63). Not only is this an argument from silence, but also, as I indicated earlier, it casts a shadow over God’s ability to create a being in his image that is not ontologically flawed but equipped for every good work (see Gen. 1:31; 2:25), including the work assigned to him in the Creation Covenant. Moreover, I don’t think most Reformed theologians would follow Shawn’s logic. Consider, for instance, the words of John Owen:
We can go no further than what has been established; which is that the fountainhead of our race if he had remained in his first state of sinlessness, would have, at length, obtained a reward for his fidelity and that reward would have been the undisturbed enjoyment of God as was revealed in the terms of the covenant” [emphasis added] (Biblical Theology, trans. S. P. Westcott, [Soli Deo Gloria, 1994], 28).
Furthermore, the covenant under which God placed Adam offered eternal life not as a reward that was predicated upon Adam’s conformity to some kind of metaphysical equality with his Maker but upon the specific stipulations of the covenant itself. In other words, “justice” under the covenant of works is simply conformity to God’s revealed covenant stipulations not the attainment of metaphysical equality with God. In this sense, Adam’s merit was ex pactum. So I think I’d have to agree with Matthew that in one sense congruous merit is closely related if not identical to merit ex pactum. I might differ, however, in wanting to emphasize, unlike the Medieval nominalists, that God’s covenant was not based on an arbitrary condescension that has no relation to God’s own goodness and justice. As Lee Irons remarks,
There is no such thing as non-covenantal, condign merit because merit is by definition constituted by fulfilling what is stipulated in the covenant. And there is no such thing as congruent merit which, since it is covenantal, is supposedly not based on strict justice, because the covenant is by definition the revelation of God’s justice. Neither merit nor justice exists apart from covenant” [emphasis added] (“Redefining Merit,” 268).
God created man to be his visible replica, his mirror so to speak. Consequently, had Adam imitated his Father in heaven, Adam’s conformity to his Father’s covenantal standards, which in turn are a revelation of God’s own nature, would provoke a corresponding aesthetic/moral pleasure in the Godhead. Had Adam obeyed the stipulations, God would have seen an accurate reflection of his own moral character and eschatological drive for fullness (which, by the way, God implanted within man’s heart at creation, Eccl. 3:11). And upon seeing his “reflection in the mirror,” so to speak, God’s own nature and creation covenant enactment would constrain him to reflexively reward what his own nature and covenant demands.

Now here’s a question I have for you men. What covenant did Christ keep? If we argue that Christ kept the same covenant that Adam broke, then are we not bound to maintain that both the stipulations as well as the sanctions remain the same? John Owen appears to answer affirmatively when he writes,
“But in the new covenant, the very first thing that is proposed, is the accomplishment and establishment of the covenant of works, both as to its commands and sanction, in the obedience and suffering of the mediator” [emphasis added] (John Owen, Works, 22:89, 90).
So if we maintain, as some Reformed writers have done, that God offered Adam eternal life as a matter of grace and not justice as stipulated by the covenant, then are we not bound to construe God’s offer to the Second Adam under the same covenant stipulations and sanctions? In other words, if the sanction of eternal life offered in the primal covenant of works is to be construed as a gift freely bestowed rather than as a reward “earned” by means of inward and outward conformity to God’s creation covenant, which included both moral and positive law, then must not the sanction of eternal life offered to Jesus and his seed be the same as that which characterized God’s covenant with Adam? And if that were the case, would we not be forced to the conclusion that Jesus did not “earn” eternal life but gained it as a gift of God’s grace not as reward based on the justice revealed in the primal covenant?

I think that most of us would instinctively resist the notion that Christ’s obtained eternal life on the basis of God’s sheer grace and irrespective of Christ’s covenant merit. On the contrary, we rightly argue that Jesus the God-man merited eternal life for his seed. And if Jesus merited that life by fulfilling the same covenant of works under which the first Adam stood, then it seems to me that we must understand the terms under which God placed the First Adam as parallel to the terms under which God placed the Second Adam. Indeed, I’m encouraged towards this parallel not only by Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 but also by Philippians 2:5-11. There, Paul describes the kind of obedience Jesus offered not in terms of bridging the ontological chasm between Creator and creature, but rather in terms of assuming the form of a vassal servant who offered an absolute loyalty to His kingly Father—even unto death. This is the polar opposite of the first Adam who not only failed to assume the role of vassal-servant but, at the instigation of the Serpent, did seek to bridge the ontological chasm between Creator and creature, snatching after divinity. So “merit” under the covenant of works must not be defined in terms of attaining an ontological virtue equal with God but rather in terms of fulfilling the stipulations of the covenant, which called for nothing more and nothing less than perfect submission to Yahweh-Elohim’s moral and positive law. God’s first royal vice-reject failed to keep these stipulations. God’s second royal vice-regent succeeded in fulfilling these stipulations and has been rewarded with endless life and Sabbath-rest in accordance with the terms of the Edenic covenant. If we do not maintain this parallel, I don’t see how we can speak of bi-covenantalism. It would seem, rather, that we’d have to adopt a tri-covenantal view: one covenant for the First Adam; a different covenant with qualitatively different stipulations for the Second Adam; and the resulting covenant of grace through which God confers the reward of the covenant Head to His Seed.

Before I conclude this section, I’d like to address two objections to this symmetrical parallelism between the first and second Adams. First, Matthew seems to object on the basis of the ontological difference between Adam and Christ. He writes,
“To speak of Adam as himself inheriting eternal life is to destroy the figurative relationship between type and Antitype. Adam never could have inherited eternal life except as an [sic] hypothetical possibility because he was of the earth and earthy. His failure points to the fact that a man from heaven was needed to usher in the eschatological blessing of eternal life” (Post #74).
I agree with Matthew that there’s a typological relationship between Adam and Christ (Rom. 5:14). Hence, from one perspective (supralapsarian), we may insist that “Adam never could have inherited eternal life except as a hypothetical possibility.” Nevertheless, to ground Adam’s inability to keep the primal covenant stipulations that sanctioned eternal life a reward upon Adam’s ontological status as “earthy” is, I think, misguided. The creation covenant was established by God and imposed upon the imago Dei under the assumption that the imago Dei had been divinely equipped with the ethical-religious capacity to fulfill the covenant stipulations. And one cannot merely limit the stipulations that Adam was capable of fulfilling to the moral law. The stipulation of the covenant of works contained, as every historical covenant contains, both moral and positive laws. So Adam had the ability not to sin (thus fulfilling the moral law written on his heart) as well as the ability to fulfill the creation mandate while heeding God’s sacramental probationary prohibition. Yes, Adam was “earthy.” This simply means he never fulfilled the covenant stipulations thereby gaining “heavenly life” for himself and his posterity. But Adam’s “earthiness” has nothing to do with his mere humanity as opposed to Christ’s divinity. Indeed, one might say that Christ was, like the first Adam, “earthy” during his state of humiliation. But having fulfilled the creation covenant stipulations, Christ attained the reward-sanction of “heavenly life” (i.e., resurrection and glorified body) and so will all who stand in union with Him (1 Cor. 15:42-57).

The second objection is also an ontological one based on Luke 17:10. There, Jesus tells a parable and applies it to his disciples:
“And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do’” (Luke 17:7-10, NKJ).
This passage is commonly applied to Adam and the covenant of works. The argument seems to be that God is the master and Adam is the servant. Should Adam keep God’s moral law (or even positive law), he has no right to expect that God is indebted or obligated to him. He’s simply done his duty and his work bears no virtue of any consequence to his master (see Ruben’s post #71).

But I wonder if it’s appropriate to apply a teaching applied to sinful disciplines in an economy of grace to Adam in a state of integrity in an economy of law. Certainly, as sinners—even as justified sinners—we will enjoy the rewards of redemption not on the basis of our own merit but on the basis of Another’s merit. Moreover, there may be another way to interpret this text. Jesus may be reminding his disciples that they will never attain (as vassal servants) to a status of equality with God (the Supreme Sovereign). Adam violated this principle by seeking to “sit at the Master’s table and eat,” i.e., assume divine prerogatives, rather than following the example of Christ in his state of humility who maintained the posture of a servant without grasping after divine prerogative.

Whatever the case, I’m not convinced that this text rules out the idea that Adam could have “merited reward” not on the basis of attaining to some kind of virtue ontologically equivalent to God (that would be impossible) but by attaining to an analogical virtue that corresponded to the stipulations of the covenant of works, which stipulations were perfectly suited to humanity in his unfallen state.

I prefer to see the covenant terms Jesus kept as the very same terms God expected Adam to keep. Those covenant terms reflected both God’s goodness and his justice. And conformity to those stipulations would have constituted the merit ex pactum, which in turn would have obligated God to confer the sanction of the covenant blessing of life not as a gracious gift to the undeserving but as a reward earned on the basis of conformity to God’s justice as revealed in the Covenant of works. For this reason I agree with Johannes Heidegger who writes,
"The further question now arises as to the source from which flows the promise mentioned of eternal and heavenly life for man if he fulfills the law. Is it of he sheer eudokia and judgment (arbitrium) of the divine will, or of theopreparia of the virtues proper in God’s nature, such as principally His goodness and holiness? Those who affirm the former rely on the principle that God is free either to present the innocent creature with life or to annihilate, punish, torture it eternally. This is the hypothesis of most Scholastics. Our view then must clearly be that it becomes God to return the love of the creature who loves him, and that since a loving God cannot not wish and do well to once beloved, He must give and impart Himself entire to be enjoyed. Love is an affect of conjunction; as proceeding from Himself, God cannot fail to approve it as good or to desert it as bad" [emphasis added] (Heppe, 296).
But this ex pactum merit is not equivalent to the medieval “congruous merit” because it is based on covenant justice rather than God’s arbitrary decision to bless what in fact does not deserve blessing. For this reason, I am not comfortable with depictions of the covenant of creation, like Herman Hoeksema’s, that depict it as essentially gracious. This is to destroy the important distinction between law and grace, the former being the foundation when satisfied upon which the latter can be extended to the ill-deserving.

3. Should we view the Covenant of Works as an intrinsic part of man’s creation as the image of God or as a non-intrinsic facet of human existence, which was added later (superadditum)?

Ruben would like me to offer evidence for viewing the imago Dei as an intrinsically covenant concept. Such evidence would help to support the argument that the covenant of work was not something extrinsic but intrinsic to man’s creation. I'll give it my best shot.

First, all divine human covenants include both moral law and positive law. Hence, to portray Adam as existing out of covenant with God but under His moral law seems to require an unbiblical dichotomy. Unregenerate pagans will not merely be judged for their failure to live up to God’s moral law (revealed in their conscience) but also for violating the primeval covenant of works. Thus, Isaiah indicts the nations, “The earth is defiled because of the sins of its inhabitants because they have transgressed laws, they have altered statutes, they have broken the primordial covenant [emphasis added] (24:5; author's translation). The failure to fill and subdue the earth for the glory of God is also an offense for which every sinner, pagan or religious will be judged. So the idea of man existing (for a time) out of covenant with Yahweh seems incongruous with what we know about the divine-human covenants of Scripture. As George Mendenhall notes, “The names given the two parts of the Bible in Christian tradition rest on the religious conception that the relationship between God and man is established by a covenant” (George E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East [Pittsburgh: The Biblical Colloquium, 1955], 24.). In other words, God always interacts with humanity in terms of covenant. So it’s difficult for me to conceive of a scenario where Adam would be perpetually obeying the moral law in abstraction from a divine human covenant. Someone earlier asserted that though Adam perpetually obeyed God’s moral law, God would have been under no obligation to offer a covenant sanction of eternal life. But one might then ask, “What would have happened to Adam?” Would he have died? Obviously not if he continued to obey God’s law. Would he have enjoyed communion with God? I find it difficult to conceive a being constituted to have and desire communion with his Maker standing in a non-covenantal arrangement.

Second—and this relates to the point above—the concept imago Dei is loaded with royal connotations, which is highly suggestive that Adam was purposely created from the beginning to serve as God’s vice-regent who would advance the divine kingdom on earth until he, in imitation of his Creator, entered into his Sabbath-rest enthronement at the right hand of God. I have developed this point in greater detail in an article that I’d be glad to share with anyone interested (“The Covenantal Context of the Fall: Did God Make a Primeval Covenant with Adam?” Reformed Baptist Theological Review [July 2007], 5-37). In brief, God not only created Adam with a conscience (the imago Dei in imperative mode) but also with an increated yearning for fellowship with his maker and a built in drive for eschatological fullness (Eccl. 3:11). A static existence in Eden would not have been Paradise for Adam. He was created to conquer and subdue in analogy to his great Archetype (Gen. 1:2ff.). Not only does general revelation bear witness to the fact that all men have an innate awareness of God’s moral law, but it also bears witness to the fact that all men desire to live forever and long for a sense of “fulfillment” or “fullness of meaning.” These longings in the unregenerate man are, of course, corrupt and self-centered rather than God-centered. Nevertheless, they point back to the original state of affairs. As God’s image, man was designed to have covenant communion with his maker. Therefore, it seems quite artificial and, in my mind, unnecessary to posit some kind of interim period of a covenantless natural condition wherein man existed merely as a sophisticated creature that was obliged to reflect his Makers holy character but not necessarily to enjoy eternal communion with his Father. Hence, I’m inclined to agree with Lee Irons when he writes,
“It is the act of creation itself which is voluntary. But once God freely determined to create a rational being endowed with the divine image in terms of his God-like ethical consciousness and dominion over the creation, then he was no longer free not to enter into a covenant with this creature. For by making man in his own image he constituted him a covenantal being whose very nature longed to attain to the higher status of an eternal and nonforteitable enjoyment of God” [emphasis added] (“Redefining Merit,” 267).
Similarly, Michael Horton writes,
To be created in God’s image is to be in covenant with God. Though vitiated by human rebellion, this covenant is still in effect. One is either ‘under law’ or ‘under grace’—that is, bound to either the covenant of creation (Adam) or the covenant of grace (Christ)” (God of Promise [Baker, 2006], 93-94).
Horton even references Cocceius who apparently argued for a creation covenant not only on the basis of an innate conscience but also on the fact of man’s innate longing for eternal life (Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 287). How can there exist within mankind an increated longing for eternal life and eschatological fullness (both of which are covenant concepts) if they are extrinsic to man’s natural state? The answer to this question seems, at least to me, patent: God made man a covenantal creature from the beginning. The creation covenant, therefore, was not superadditum. Gordon Spykman agrees,
The covenant is rooted in God’s work of creation. God covenanted his world into existence. Covenantal relationships are given in, with and for all created reality. From the beginning creation is unthinkable apart from its covenantal relationship of dependence and responsiveness Coram Deo” (Reformational Theology [Eerdmans, 1992], 260).
So though I affirm the WCF’s and LBCF’s language of God’s gracious condescension (7.2), I prefer to locate that divine act of condescension at the very point of God’s creation of his visible replica and covenant steward rather than locating it at some time subsequent to man’s creation. We still are indebted to God for his condescension in making us covenantal creatures rather than rocks, trees, or dumb animals (Rom. 11:35). To him be the glory forever (Rom. 11:36)!

Conclusion: I’ve argued that God created Adam as a covenantal creature. Thus, the covenant of creation (or covenant of works) was inaugurated the moment God created man as his image and is intrinsic to man’s relationship vis-à-vis God and the world around him. Moreover, I’ve argued that the reward-sanction proffered in the covenant of works is based on the principle of divine goodness and justice as revealed in the covenant stipulations. Hence, just as Adam’s disloyalty and disobedience with respect to the covenant stipulations actually merited God’s wrath and judgment upon the grounds of divine justice, so Adam’s loyalty and obedience with respect to the covenant stipulations would have merited God’s complacence and reward upon the grounds of the principle of divine justice and goodness revealed in the covenant of works. Similarly, I believe the second Adam was under the same terms as the first. He succeed where the first failed. Consequently, the Man, Christ Jesus, merited the sanction of endless life and Sabbath-rest enthronement not because he bridged the ontological chasm between humanity and deity but because he, in the capacity of our Federal Head, humbled himself, took of form of a servant, and demonstrated supreme loyalty by sacrificing his own life on the cross in order to ensure completion of his Father’s kingdom-building process to the end that God might be all and all (1 Cor. 15:24-28). Finally, I affirm bi-covenantalism in the sense that there is a clear distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace (which is also reflected in the law/gospel distinction). Nevertheless, there is a sense in which God meshes the two together. In reality, God’s covenant of grace or covenant of redemption can be viewed as His determination to ensure that the original covenant mandate given to humanity remains intact and on track. In redemption, God does not settle for option two because option one failed. Instead, the creation covenant is transtemporal and will accomplish God's eschatological goal. To ensure this end, God injects grace into his covenantal relationship with humanity and raises up a Second Adam who will succeed where he first failed. Viewed from this perspective, the covenant of grace can be viewed as an overlay for the creation covenant—grace intruding in order to satisfy God’s justice for covenant infraction and to fulfill the stipulations necessary to qualify the humanity-in-Christ for the covenant reward of life and Sabbath-rest enthronement with God (2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 5:10; 20:6; 22:5).

Cordially yours,
 
Last edited:
The second objection is also an ontological one based on Luke 17:10. There, Jesus tells a parable and applies it to his disciples:

“And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do’” (Luke 17:7-10, NKJ).

This passage is commonly applied to Adam and the covenant of works. The argument seems to be that God is the master and Adam is the servant. Should Adam keep God’s moral law (or even positive law), he has no right to expect that God is indebted or obligated to him. He’s simply done his duty and his work bears no virtue of any consequence to his master (see Ruben’s post #71).

But I wonder if it’s appropriate to apply a teaching applied to sinful disciplines in an economy of grace to Adam in a state of integrity in an economy of law. Certainly, as sinners—even as justified sinners—we will enjoy the rewards of redemption not on the basis of our own merit but on the basis of Another’s merit. Moreover, there may be another way to interpret this text. Jesus may be reminding his disciples that they will never attain (as vassal servants) to a status of equality with God (the Supreme Sovereign). Adam violated this principle by seeking to “sit at the Master’s table and eat,” i.e., assume divine prerogatives, rather than following the example of Christ in his state of humility who maintained the posture of a servant without grasping after divine prerogative.

Whatever the case, I’m not convinced that this text rules out the idea that Adam could have “merited reward” not on the basis of attaining to some kind of virtue ontologically equivalent to God (that would be impossible) but by attaining to an analogical virtue that corresponded to the stipulations of the covenant of works, which stipulations were perfectly suited to humanity in his unfallen state.

Dr. Gonzalez, no sinner can say that he has done all. That leads me to think that we must apply Christ's words to ourselves, of course, to keep us from an entitlement mentality in the face of God; but also to Adam, who had he not fallen, could have said more truly than any of us, "I have done that which it was my duty to do", but would not therefore have been rewarded without some condescension on God's part.

I prefer to see the covenant terms Jesus kept as the very same terms God expected Adam to keep. Those covenant terms reflected both God’s goodness and his justice. And conformity to those stipulations would have constituted the merit ex pactum, which in turn would have obligated God to confer the sanction of the covenant blessing of life not as a gracious gift to the undeserving but as a reward earned on the basis of conformity to God’s justice as revealed in the Covenant of works. For this reason I agree with Johannes Heidegger who writes,

"The further question now arises as to the source from which flows the promise mentioned of eternal and heavenly life for man if he fulfills the law. Is it of he sheer eudokia and judgment (arbitrium) of the divine will, or of theopreparia of the virtues proper in God’s nature, such as principally His goodness and holiness? Those who affirm the former rely on the principle that God is free either to present the innocent creature with life or to annihilate, punish, torture it eternally. This is the hypothesis of most Scholastics. Our view then must clearly be that it becomes God to return the love of the creature who loves him, and that since a loving God cannot not wish and do well to once beloved, He must give and impart Himself entire to be enjoyed. Love is an affect of conjunction; as proceeding from Himself, God cannot fail to approve it as good or to desert it as bad" [emphasis added] (Heppe, 296).

But this ex pactum merit is not equivalent to the medieval “congruous merit” because it is based on covenant justice rather than God’s arbitrary decision to bless what in fact does not deserve blessing. For this reason, I am not comfortable with depictions of the covenant of creation, like Herman Hoeksema’s, that depict it as essentially gracious. This is to destroy the important distinction between law and grace, the former being the foundation when satisfied upon which the latter can be extended to the ill-deserving.

Isn't saying that Adam and Christ were in precisely the same position with regard to covenant terms a difficult thing to reconcile with the fact that Christ was born under the law, and so was circumcised on the 8th day, baptised by John, and so forth, all things that had no application to Adam?

3. Should we view the Covenant of Works as an intrinsic part of man’s creation as the image of God or as a non-intrinsic facet of human existence, which was added later (superadditum)?

Ruben would like me to offer evidence for viewing the imago Dei as an intrinsically covenant concept. Such evidence would help to support the argument that the covenant of work was not something extrinsic but intrinsic to man’s creation. I'll give it my best shot.

First, all divine human covenants include both moral law and positive law. Hence, to portray Adam as existing out of covenant with God but under His moral law seems to require an unbiblical dichotomy. Unregenerate pagans will not merely be judged for their failure to live up to God’s moral law (revealed in their conscience) but also for violating the primeval covenant of works. Thus, Isaiah indicts the nations, “The earth is defiled because of the sins of its inhabitants because they have transgressed laws, they have altered statutes, they have broken the primordial covenant [emphasis added] (24:5; author's translation). The failure to fill and subdue the earth for the glory of God is also an offense for which every sinner, pagan or religious will be judged. So the idea of man existing (for a time) out of covenant with Yahweh seems incongruous with what we know about the divine-human covenants of Scripture. As George Mendenhall notes, “The names given the two parts of the Bible in Christian tradition rest on the religious conception that the relationship between God and man is established by a covenant” (George E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East [Pittsburgh: The Biblical Colloquium, 1955], 24.). In other words, God always interacts with humanity in terms of covenant. So it’s difficult for me to conceive of a scenario where Adam would be perpetually obeying the moral law in abstraction from a divine human covenant. Someone earlier asserted that though Adam perpetually obeyed God’s moral law, God would have been under no obligation to offer a covenant sanction of eternal life. But one might then ask, “What would have happened to Adam?” Would he have died? Obviously not if he continued to obey God’s law. Would he have enjoyed communion with God? I find it difficult to conceive a being constituted to have and desire communion with his Maker standing in a non-covenantal arrangement.

Second—and this relates to the point above—the concept imago Dei is loaded with royal connotations, which is highly suggestive that Adam was purposely created from the beginning to serve as God’s vice-regent who would advance the divine kingdom on earth until he, in imitation of his Creator, entered into his Sabbath-rest enthronement at the right hand of God. I have developed this point in greater detail in an article that I’d be glad to share with anyone interested (“The Covenantal Context of the Fall: Did God Make a Primeval Covenant with Adam?” Reformed Baptist Theological Review [July 2007], 5-37). In brief, God not only created Adam with a conscience (the imago Dei in imperative mode) but also with an increated yearning for fellowship with his maker and a built in drive for eschatological fullness (Eccl. 3:11). A static existence in Eden would not have been Paradise for Adam. He was created to conquer and subdue in analogy to his great Archetype (Gen. 1:2ff.). Not only does general revelation bear witness to the fact that all men have an innate awareness of God’s moral law, but it also bears witness to the fact that all men desire to live forever and long for a sense of “fulfillment” or “fullness of meaning.” These longings in the unregenerate man are, of course, corrupt and self-centered rather than God-centered. Nevertheless, they point back to the original state of affairs. As God’s image, man was designed to have covenant communion with his maker. Therefore, it seems quite artificial and, in my mind, unnecessary to posit some kind of interim period of a covenantless natural condition wherein man existed merely as a sophisticated creature that was obliged to reflect his Makers holy character but not necessarily to enjoy eternal communion with his Father. Hence, I’m inclined to agree with Lee Irons when he writes,

“It is the act of creation itself which is voluntary. But once God freely determined to create a rational being endowed with the divine image in terms of his God-like ethical consciousness and dominion over the creation, then he was no longer free not to enter into a covenant with this creature. For by making man in his own image he constituted him a covenantal being whose very nature longed to attain to the higher status of an eternal and nonforteitable enjoyment of God” [emphasis added] (“Redefining Merit,” 267).

Similarly, Michael Horton writes,

“To be created in God’s image is to be in covenant with God. Though vitiated by human rebellion, this covenant is still in effect. One is either ‘under law’ or ‘under grace’—that is, bound to either the covenant of creation (Adam) or the covenant of grace (Christ)” (God of Promise [Baker, 2006], 93-94).

Horton even references Cocceius who apparently argued for a creation covenant not only on the basis of an innate conscience but also on the fact of man’s innate longing for eternal life (Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 287). How can there exist within mankind an increated longing for eternal life and eschatological fullness (both of which are covenant concepts) if they are extrinsic to man’s natural state? The answer to this question seems, at least to me, patent: God made man a covenantal creature from the beginning. The creation covenant, therefore, was not superadditum. Gordon Spykman agrees,

“The covenant is rooted in God’s work of creation. God covenanted his world into existence. Covenantal relationships are given in, with and for all created reality. From the beginning creation is unthinkable apart from its covenantal relationship of dependence and responsiveness Coram Deo” (Reformational Theology [Eerdmans, 1992], 260).

So though I affirm the WCF’s and LBCF’s language of God’s gracious condescension (7.2), I prefer to locate that divine act of condescension at the very point of God’s creation of his visible replica and covenant steward rather than locating it at some time subsequent to man’s creation. We still are indebted to God for his condescension in making us covenantal creatures rather than rocks, trees, or dumb animals (Rom. 11:35). To him be the glory forever (Rom. 11:36)!

Conclusion: I’ve argued that God created Adam as a covenantal creature. Thus, the covenant of creation (or covenant of works) was inaugurated the moment God created man as his image and is intrinsic to man’s relationship vis-à-vis God and the world around him. Moreover, I’ve argued that the reward-sanction proffered in the covenant of works is based on the principle of divine goodness and justice as revealed in the covenant stipulations. Hence, just as Adam’s disloyalty and disobedience with respect to the covenant stipulations actually merited God’s wrath and judgment upon the grounds of divine justice, so Adam’s loyalty and obedience with respect to the covenant stipulations would have merited God’s complacence and reward upon the grounds of the principle of divine justice and goodness revealed in the covenant of works. Similarly, I believe the second Adam was under the same terms as the first. He succeed where the first failed. Consequently, the Man, Christ Jesus, merited the sanction of endless life and Sabbath-rest enthronement not because he bridged the ontological chasm between humanity and deity but because he, in the capacity of our Federal Head, humbled himself, took of form of a servant, and demonstrated supreme loyalty by sacrificing his own life on the cross in order to ensure completion of his Father’s kingdom-building process to the end that God might be all and all (1 Cor. 15:24-28). Finally, I affirm bi-covenantalism in the sense that there is a clear distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace (which is also reflected in the law/gospel distinction). Nevertheless, there is a sense in which God meshes the two together. In reality, God’s covenant of grace or covenant of redemption can be viewed as His determination to ensure that the original covenant mandate given to humanity remains intact and on track. In redemption, God does not settle for option two because option one failed. Instead, the creation covenant is transtemporal and will accomplish God's eschatological goal. To ensure this end, God injects grace into his covenantal relationship with humanity and raises up a Second Adam who will succeed where he first failed. Viewed from this perspective, the covenant of grace can be viewed as an overlay for the creation covenant—grace intruding in order to satisfy God’s justice for covenant infraction and to fulfill the stipulations necessary to qualify the humanity-in-Christ for the covenant reward of life and Sabbath-rest enthronement with God (2 Tim. 2:12; Rev. 5:10; 20:6; 22:5).

The points about all mankind being judged by a covenant, etc., whether your own or Dr. Horton's, are sufficiently accounted for by the fact that God did in fact make a covenant with Adam. So that does not speak to the nature of man. With regard to the question of vice regency, the fact that God created man in order to establish a covenant with him does not necessitate that the creation was in itself covenantal. Now that may seem like clinging to a position in the face of the evidence, but I don't believe that to be the case. The fact is that we have God setting out the terms of the covenant to the man, explaining what the covenant requires of him. Is it not more natural to see that as the establishment of the covenant?

To Lee Irons I will oppose Riissen, (Heppe, 84):
"God wills some things necessarily, some freely. Himself He wills necessarily; He is the final end and the highest goal, which He cannot not will and love, because He cannot not will His own glory or deny Himself. All other things He wills freely; nothing created is necessary as regards God, but contingent, since because He could have done without them, He wills them all in the sense that He might not have willed them."
 
In other words, “justice” under the covenant of works is simply conformity to God’s revealed covenant stipulations not the attainment of metaphysical equality with God. In this sense, Adam’s merit was ex pactum.

God has bound Himself by promise to give justification upon the condition of believing and forgiveness upon the condition of confessing, and the Scriptures explicitly teach that the justice of God ensures the result in each case; but no faithful Protestant would dare conclude that these are merited as a result of God having promised them.

Now here’s a question I have for you men. What covenant did Christ keep? If we argue that Christ kept the same covenant that Adam broke, then are we not bound to maintain that both the stipulations as well as the sanctions remain the same?

Jesus Christ kept the everlasting covenant, which was prefigured by the Adamic administration. He kept Adam's covenant and more. Because Christ came as Mediator of a better covenant, it is fallacious to argue that Adam's hypothetical obedience necessarily functions the same way as Christ's real obedience.
 
In other words, “justice” under the covenant of works is simply conformity to God’s revealed covenant stipulations not the attainment of metaphysical equality with God. In this sense, Adam’s merit was ex pactum.

God has bound Himself by promise to give justification upon the condition of believing and forgiveness upon the condition of confessing, and the Scriptures explicitly teach that the justice of God ensures the result in each case; but no faithful Protestant would dare conclude that these are merited as a result of God having promised them.

Matthew, you and I are obviously operating with two different definitions of "merit." In general, "merit" refers to “something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation” (Random House Unabridged, 2006). Under the covenant of works, God promised via covenant sanctions to threaten disloyalty with death and loyalty with life. As I said above, in such an arrangement “merit” is based on the standards of the covenant (i.e., ex pactum) not on the attainment of ontological virtue that is univocal with divine virtue (condign merit). This latter kind of merit would obviously be impossible for Adam since his virtue would only be analogical in nature not univocal. It is a non sequitur that the above construal of Adam's "meriting" reward via obedience would necessitate the believer's "meriting" reward via faith since Paul distinguishes between justifying faith which "passively" receives forgiveness and imputed righteousness on the basis of Another's obedience and works-reward which is based on "debt" (Rom. 4:3-17).

armourbearer said:
Now here’s a question I have for you men. What covenant did Christ keep? If we argue that Christ kept the same covenant that Adam broke, then are we not bound to maintain that both the stipulations as well as the sanctions remain the same?

Jesus Christ kept the everlasting covenant, which was prefigured by the Adamic administration. He kept Adam's covenant and more. Because Christ came as Mediator of a better covenant, it is fallacious to argue that Adam's hypothetical obedience necessarily functions the same way as Christ's real obedience.

I'm not arguing that Adam's hypothetical obedience functions in the same way as Christ's real obedience for the obvious fact that Christ had to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil. 2:5-8). The primal creation covenant never stipulated that Adam had to atone for the sins of his seed. Hence, Christ had to do something for us that Adam did not, nor could not. But it is my present view that those facets of the primal covenant that Christ fulfilled, he fufilled them in accordance with the stipulations revealed by God and attainable by man in his integrity, not in accordance with a conjectured stipulation of ontologically divine "merit."

Cordially yours,
 
Isn't saying that Adam and Christ were in precisely the same position with regard to covenant terms a difficult thing to reconcile with the fact that Christ was born under the law, and so was circumcised on the 8th day, baptised by John, and so forth, all things that had no application to Adam?

Ruben, as I said to Matthew above, I do not argue that Jesus did no more than fulfill the same stipulations of he primal covenant which Adam was obliged to fulfill. Christ not only had to keep the stipulations of the primal covenant but he had to keep the stipulations of the Messianic covenant/New covenant, which required him to shed his blood to attain the redemption of his seed. The primal covenant of works did not require Adam to shed his blood to redeem his progeny. This is a stipulation Adam could not have kept.

The points about all mankind being judged by a covenant, etc., whether your own or Dr. Horton's, are sufficiently accounted for by the fact that God did in fact make a covenant with Adam. So that does not speak to the nature of man. With regard to the question of vice regency, the fact that God created man in order to establish a covenant with him does not necessitate that the creation was in itself covenantal. Now that may seem like clinging to a position in the face of the evidence, but I don't believe that to be the case. The fact is that we have God setting out the terms of the covenant to the man, explaining what the covenant requires of him. Is it not more natural to see that as the establishment of the covenant?

To Lee Irons I will oppose Riissen, (Heppe, 84):
"God wills some things necessarily, some freely. Himself He wills necessarily; He is the final end and the highest goal, which He cannot not will and love, because He cannot not will His own glory or deny Himself. All other things He wills freely; nothing created is necessary as regards God, but contingent, since because He could have done without them, He wills them all in the sense that He might not have willed them."

In my article entitled "The Covenant Context of the Fall: Did God Make a Primeval Covenant with Adam," RBTR (2007), I argue that the main theme of the creation account(s) is "the kingdom of God." God establishes his kingdom and creates man as His vassal-image to serve as his royal administrator. How does this "kingdom" theme relate to covenant? The biblical berit is “the instrument constituting the rule (or kingdom) of God" (George E. Mendenhall and Gary A. Herion, “Covenant,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman [New York: Doubleday, 1992], 1:1179). Or to use the words of Gordon Spykman,
“Covenant suggests the idea of an abiding charter, while kingdom suggests the idea of an ongoing program. Covenant is more foundation oriented; kingdom is more goal oriented. Covenant may thus be conceived of as kingdom looking back to its origins, but with abiding significance. Kingdom may then be conceived of as covenant looking forward with gathering momentum toward its final fulfillment. Thus nuanced, covenant and kingdom are interchangeable realities" (Reformational Theology, 258).
So the idea of covenant is implicit in God’s creative work and royal mandate to humanity (1:26, 28) and becomes more explicit as the writer transitions to the second creation narrative with the introduction of God’s special covenant name, Yahweh. For this reason, I presently find the dichotomy between man's existence as a non-covenantal creature, which supposedly happened for a short period after man's formation from the dust, versus man's existence as a covenantal creature, which supposedly happened later, to be artificial. But I'm still open to be taught otherwise.
 
Last edited:
It is a non sequitur that the above construal of Adam's "meriting" reward via obedience would necessitate the believer's "meriting" reward via faith since Paul distinguishes between justifying faith which "passively" receives forgiveness and imputed righteousness on the basis of Another's obedience and works-reward which is based on "debt" (Rom. 4:3-17).

If merit by pact would have been the result of Adam's obedience because God agreed to make Adam's obedience the condition of eternal life, then merit by pact is the result of the believer's confession of sin because God has agreed to make the believer's confession of sin the condition of forgiveness. The apostle expressly states that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit, but in reality the recoil is at the system of "merit" that is being unjustly imputed to the promises of God.
 
It is a non sequitur that the above construal of Adam's "meriting" reward via obedience would necessitate the believer's "meriting" reward via faith since Paul distinguishes between justifying faith which "passively" receives forgiveness and imputed righteousness on the basis of Another's obedience and works-reward which is based on "debt" (Rom. 4:3-17).

If merit by pact would have been the result of Adam's obedience because God agreed to make Adam's obedience the condition of eternal life, then merit by pact is the result of the believer's confession of sin because God has agreed to make the believer's confession of sin the condition of forgiveness. The apostle expressly states that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit, but in reality the recoil is at the system of "merit" that is being unjustly imputed to the promises of God.

Sorry, Matthew, but I still don't follow. Merit by covenant is NOT the result of Adam's obedience. Covenantally defined merit was the stipulation to which Adam's obedience had to conform in order to attain life. Covenantally defined merit is also the stipulation to which the Second Adam's obedience had to conform. That obedience merited the reward of eschatological fullness which believers receive by faith as a gift of God. Those in union with Christ do in fact, as you suggest above, "merit" God's forgiveness and eternal life on the basis of Christ's covenantal conformity. If I'm in Christ, then God MUST be faithful and just to forgive me (1 John 1:9) because He is both faithful and just to fulfill His terms of the covenant to which the Second Adam has obligated God by his atoning death and perfect life. So when you assert, "No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit," I'm surprised you would make an unguarded statement. I would counter, "No doubt Protestants have believed and should believe that our forgiveness of sins have been obtained by merit--the merit of our Federal Head, Jesus Christ. Someone has to "merit" forgiveness and eternal life by fulfilling covenant stipulations. There is no such think as grace for sinners apart from the satisfaction of God's justice as revealed in His covenant stipulations and sanctions.

I hope this clarifies my position.
 
So idea of covenant is implicit in God’s creative work and royal mandate to humanity (1:26, 28) and becomes more explicit as the writer transitions to the second creation narrative with the introduction of God’s special covenant name, Yahweh. For this reason, I presently find the dichotomy between man's existence as a non-covenantal creature, which supposedly happened for a short period after man's formation from the dust, versus man's existence as a covenantal creature, which supposedly happened later, to be artificial. But I'm still open to be taught otherwise.

I suppose it's a different weighing of the evidence. To me, the fact that there are two creation accounts, which represent God in different aspects, one of which is openly covenantal, makes it easier and more natural to believe that God's creation and gracious condescension in making a covenant are distinct things.

I forgot to mention before that stating that God showed gracious condescension in not making me a tree, rock, etc., has been characterized by C.S. Lewis as, strictly speaking, nonsense.
 
So idea of covenant is implicit in God’s creative work and royal mandate to humanity (1:26, 28) and becomes more explicit as the writer transitions to the second creation narrative with the introduction of God’s special covenant name, Yahweh. For this reason, I presently find the dichotomy between man's existence as a non-covenantal creature, which supposedly happened for a short period after man's formation from the dust, versus man's existence as a covenantal creature, which supposedly happened later, to be artificial. But I'm still open to be taught otherwise.

I suppose it's a different weighing of the evidence. To me, the fact that there are two creation accounts, which represent God in different aspects, one of which is openly covenantal, makes it easier and more natural to believe that God's creation and gracious condescension in making a covenant are distinct things.

I forgot to mention before that stating that God showed gracious condescension in not making me a tree, rock, etc., has been characterized by C.S. Lewis as, strictly speaking, nonsense.

Ruben, thanks for the further interaction. I concede that Reformed interpreters differ in opinion as the the precise timing of God's inauguration of the primal covenant and whether it should be considered as something extrinsic to creation added later. In fact, the majority of Reformed theologians have probably held the extrinsic view that you presently favor.

I would, nevertheless, add one more thought that seems to support the view that sees the creation covenant as intrinsic to God's creative activity. In Hebrew narrative, the writer may give two "accounts," the second of which is not a distinct or subsequent account but repeating of some aspect or details of the first account, only now with greater focus and detail (compare Genesis 10 with 11:1-9).

Hence, the use of the covenant name Yahweh prefacing the more generic Elohim in chapter two does not mean, as the critics contend, two creation accounts and two different gods. nor does it signal an event subsequent to God's creative activity. Rather, it focuses with greater specificity upon Adam's and Eve's creations and their covenantal assignment to fill and subdue the earth as royal priests. The heavenly Suzerain's royal garden is not merely a food plot or an idyllic park.[1] Rather, it is a royal sanctuary where man is to pay homage continually to his divine King,[2] and from which man is to advance God’s kingdom centrifugally over the entire earth.[3] The implication is that man will eventually complete the task and, like his Sovereign, enter an eschatological Sabbath enthronement (Gen. 2:1-3; Heb. 4:1-11).[4]

[1] Of course, the narrative makes clear that the garden did provide an abundance of food (vv. 9, 16), which reflects a suzerain’s royal benevolence (Gen. 43:34; 47:22; 2 Sam. 9:7,13; 19:28; 1 Kgs. 2:7; 2 Kgs. 25:29-30; Psa. 23:5; Jer. 52:33-34). Furthermore, the proper noun “Eden” is probably related to a family of words that have the sense of “pleasure and happiness” (cf., 2 Sam. 1:24; Psa. 36:9; Jer. 51:34). The term translated “garden” is used elsewhere in the OT to refer to an enclosed area fenced-off by a wall or hedge (cf., 2 Kgs 25:4; Neh. 3:15; Jer. 39:4; 52:7; Prov. 24:30-31; Isa. 5:5). This sense is supported by the LXX, which uses a Persian loan word that means “what is walled, what is hedged about, a pleasure garden surrounded by a stone or earthen wall.” Keil and Delitzsch, The Pentateuch, trans. James Martin, Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), 1:80-81.

[2] The royal dimension of the garden is highlighted by the fact that ancient Near Eastern kings were known for their palatial gardens where they would entertain honored guests. Several OT passages refer to the “King’s Garden" in Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 25:4; Jer. 39:4; Neh. 3:15), and the book of Esther refers to the palatial gardens of Ahasuerus (1:5; 7:7-8). Some Mesopotamian kings even used the title “Gardener” as a royal epithet. In Tablet IX of the Gilgamesh Epic, the hero travels to the holy mountain Mashu, which appears to be a point of contact between the gods and mortals, and there he encounters the beautifully jeweled “garden of the gods.” See T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2-3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2000), 94-104,153-155. On the other hand, the many horticultural symbols used to adorn the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple may suggest a cultic dimension for the garden. See Gordon Wenham’s study “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 9 (1986), 19-25.

[3] This is the basic thesis of Gregory Beale’s book The Temple and the Church’s Mission: “[Adam and Eve] were to reflect God’s kingship by being his vice-regents on earth.... t is plausible to suggest that they were to extend the geographical boundaries of the garden until Eden covered the whole earth…. They were to extend the smaller livable area of the garden by transforming the outer chaotic region into a habitable territory…. God’s ultimate goal in creation was to magnify his glory throughout the earth by means of his faithful image-bearers inhabiting the world in obedience to the divine mandate” (81-82). Beale traces out the many biblical links between the Garden of Eden, the OT Tabernacle/Temple, the NT Church, and the New Heavens and New Earth. He argues persuasively that the Great Commission should be viewed as extension of the creation mandate of Gen. 1 and 2. What the first Adam failed to do, the Last Adam will successfully accomplish, and the holy Garden will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. See also J. V. Fesko, Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis 1-3 with the Christ of Eschatology (Mentor, 2007).

[4] Other considerations that indicate a pre-redemptive eschatology include (1) the creation mandate to fill and subdue the earth, which is further elaborated in connection with the Garden of Eden (Gen. 1:26,28; 2:15), (2) the sacramental Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge (2:9; 3:22), and (3) the innate God-like drive for eschatological fullness (Eccl. 3:11). As Rowland S. Ward appropriately cautions, “We must not idealise conditions in the world before sin. The state of innocence in paradise is far surpassed by the state of glory in the New Jerusalem. Put another way, we can say there was an eschatology before there was sin.” God & Adam, 23. Emphasis his. For more on this subject, see Howard Griffith, “Eschatology Begins with Creation,” Westminster Theological Journal 49 (1987): 387-396.
 
It is a non sequitur that the above construal of Adam's "meriting" reward via obedience would necessitate the believer's "meriting" reward via faith since Paul distinguishes between justifying faith which "passively" receives forgiveness and imputed righteousness on the basis of Another's obedience and works-reward which is based on "debt" (Rom. 4:3-17).

If merit by pact would have been the result of Adam's obedience because God agreed to make Adam's obedience the condition of eternal life, then merit by pact is the result of the believer's confession of sin because God has agreed to make the believer's confession of sin the condition of forgiveness. The apostle expressly states that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit, but in reality the recoil is at the system of "merit" that is being unjustly imputed to the promises of God.

Sorry, Matthew, but I still don't follow. Merit by covenant is NOT the result of Adam's obedience. Covenantally defined merit was the stipulation to which Adam's obedience had to conform in order to attain life. Covenantally defined merit is also the stipulation to which the Second Adam's obedience had to conform. That obedience merited the reward of eschatological fullness which believers receive by faith as a gift of God. Those in union with Christ do in fact, as you suggest above, "merit" God's forgiveness and eternal life on the basis of Christ's covenantal conformity. If I'm in Christ, then God MUST be faithful and just to forgive me (1 John 1:9) because He is both faithful and just to fulfill His terms of the covenant to which the Second Adam has obligated God by his atoning death and perfect life. So when you assert, "No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit," I'm surprised you would make an unguarded statement. I would counter, "No doubt Protestants have believed and should believe that our forgiveness of sins have been obtained by merit--the merit of our Federal Head, Jesus Christ. Someone has to "merit" forgiveness and eternal life by fulfilling covenant stipulations. There is no such think as grace for sinners apart from the satisfaction of God's justice as revealed in His covenant stipulations and sanctions.

I hope this clarifies my position.

I'm trying to get my head around what you're stating and do appreciate the length to which you're going to make yourself clear.

If I may summarize in a brief way, are you saying that merit would have been imputed to Adam on the basis of the CoW promise made to Him? Is that a fair way of putting it?

In other words, I can see what you're saying about our forgiveness is based upon Christ's merit but from our standpoint our faith is the instrument that procures something for us that we don't merit in ourselves.

In the same way, are you arguing that Adam didn't merit reward in Himself but that reward would have been imputed to Him on the basis of Covenantal faithfulness? He doesn't merit it within himself but it is Covenantally granted.
 
If merit by pact would have been the result of Adam's obedience because God agreed to make Adam's obedience the condition of eternal life, then merit by pact is the result of the believer's confession of sin because God has agreed to make the believer's confession of sin the condition of forgiveness. The apostle expressly states that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit, but in reality the recoil is at the system of "merit" that is being unjustly imputed to the promises of God.

Sorry, Matthew, but I still don't follow. Merit by covenant is NOT the result of Adam's obedience. Covenantally defined merit was the stipulation to which Adam's obedience had to conform in order to attain life. Covenantally defined merit is also the stipulation to which the Second Adam's obedience had to conform. That obedience merited the reward of eschatological fullness which believers receive by faith as a gift of God. Those in union with Christ do in fact, as you suggest above, "merit" God's forgiveness and eternal life on the basis of Christ's covenantal conformity. If I'm in Christ, then God MUST be faithful and just to forgive me (1 John 1:9) because He is both faithful and just to fulfill His terms of the covenant to which the Second Adam has obligated God by his atoning death and perfect life. So when you assert, "No doubt every true Protestant will recoil at the thought of forgiveness of sins being obtained by merit," I'm surprised you would make an unguarded statement. I would counter, "No doubt Protestants have believed and should believe that our forgiveness of sins have been obtained by merit--the merit of our Federal Head, Jesus Christ. Someone has to "merit" forgiveness and eternal life by fulfilling covenant stipulations. There is no such think as grace for sinners apart from the satisfaction of God's justice as revealed in His covenant stipulations and sanctions.

I hope this clarifies my position.

I'm trying to get my head around what you're stating and do appreciate the length to which you're going to make yourself clear.

Rich, thanks for wading through my lengthy posts. I realize that everyone is busy, and I hope my longer posts don't clog the flow.

If I may summarize in a brief way, are you saying that merit would have been imputed to Adam on the basis of the CoW promise made to Him? Is that a fair way of putting it?

More precisely, I would argue that the covenant merit imputed or credited to Adam would have been predicated on both the goodness and justice of God as revealed in the covenant stipulations and sanctions. The CofW did not oblige Adam to attain to ethical virtue that would be univocal with divine virtue but only analogous to divine virtue (Lev. 19:2; Matt. 5:48) since Adam was not created to be equal with God but only an analogue or visible replica of God.

In other words, I can see what you're saying about our forgiveness is based upon Christ's merit but from our standpoint our faith is the instrument that procures something for us that we don't merit in ourselves.

I agree that faith (in the passive sense) is the alone instrument of justification that procures something that, according to the stipulations and sanctions of the Covenant of Grace, we don't merit in ourselves.

In the same way, are you arguing that Adam didn't merit reward in Himself but that reward would have been imputed to Him on the basis of Covenantal faithfulness? He doesn't merit it within himself but it is Covenantally granted.

Like nearly all Christian theologians, I would deny that Adam's virtue could ever be equivalent in value to divine virtue. Moreover, I would even argue that Adam's potential faith and obedience would themselves ultimately be "gifts" or "endowments" from God. So in those senses, I would agree that Adam couldn't have merit in himself. What I am trying to argue (imperfectly, no doubt) is that the ground or basis for the reward sanction of eternal life under both the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is basically the same--conformity to the divine law and fulfillment of the divine commission. What makes the Covenant of Grace different in my mind is not that the ground or basis of the reward-sanction has changed. Even under the Covenant of Grace we are still saved on the basis of works--but not our works! Rather, the works of the Second Adam are imputed to us and serve as the basis of God's bestowal of eternal life. Simple faith, which Paul portrays in antithesis to our works, becomes the instrument or, if one prefers, the condition by which Christ's covenant fidelity becomes ours. So when it's all said and done, God's original plan for humanity will not have failed, At the Great Assize, God will reckon the new humanity to have successfully fulfilled the original creation covenant stipulations by virtue of its union with the Second Adam.

I hope these comments provide greater clarity regarding my present conception of covenant merit and on the way the two covenants relate to each other. I hope that your input and questions along with the contributions of Matthew, Ruben, Shawn, and others will sharpen my understanding and help me modify areas were my thinking or articulations may be imprecise or inaccurate.

Gratefully,
 
So idea of covenant is implicit in God’s creative work and royal mandate to humanity (1:26, 28) and becomes more explicit as the writer transitions to the second creation narrative with the introduction of God’s special covenant name, Yahweh. For this reason, I presently find the dichotomy between man's existence as a non-covenantal creature, which supposedly happened for a short period after man's formation from the dust, versus man's existence as a covenantal creature, which supposedly happened later, to be artificial. But I'm still open to be taught otherwise.

I suppose it's a different weighing of the evidence. To me, the fact that there are two creation accounts, which represent God in different aspects, one of which is openly covenantal, makes it easier and more natural to believe that God's creation and gracious condescension in making a covenant are distinct things.

I forgot to mention before that stating that God showed gracious condescension in not making me a tree, rock, etc., has been characterized by C.S. Lewis as, strictly speaking, nonsense.

Ruben, thanks for the further interaction. I concede that Reformed interpreters differ in opinion as the the precise timing of God's inauguration of the primal covenant and whether it should be considered as something extrinsic to creation added later. In fact, the majority of Reformed theologians have probably held the extrinsic view that you presently favor.

I would, nevertheless, add one more thought that seems to support the view that sees the creation covenant as intrinsic to God's creative activity. In Hebrew narrative, the writer may give two "accounts," the second of which is not a distinct or subsequent account but repeating of some aspect or details of the first account, only now with greater focus and detail (compare Genesis 10 with 11:1-9).

Hence, the use of the covenant name Yahweh prefacing the more generic Elohim in chapter two does not mean, as the critics contend, two creation accounts and two different gods. nor does it signal an event subsequent to God's creative activity. Rather, it focuses with greater specificity upon Adam's and Eve's creations and their covenantal assignment to fill and subdue the earth as royal priests. The heavenly Suzerain's royal garden is not merely a food plot or an idyllic park.[1] Rather, it is a royal sanctuary where man is to pay homage continually to his divine King,[2] and from which man is to advance God’s kingdom centrifugally over the entire earth.[3] The implication is that man will eventually complete the task and, like his Sovereign, enter an eschatological Sabbath enthronement (Gen. 2:1-3; Heb. 4:1-11).[4]

[1] Of course, the narrative makes clear that the garden did provide an abundance of food (vv. 9, 16), which reflects a suzerain’s royal benevolence (Gen. 43:34; 47:22; 2 Sam. 9:7,13; 19:28; 1 Kgs. 2:7; 2 Kgs. 25:29-30; Psa. 23:5; Jer. 52:33-34). Furthermore, the proper noun “Eden” is probably related to a family of words that have the sense of “pleasure and happiness” (cf., 2 Sam. 1:24; Psa. 36:9; Jer. 51:34). The term translated “garden” is used elsewhere in the OT to refer to an enclosed area fenced-off by a wall or hedge (cf., 2 Kgs 25:4; Neh. 3:15; Jer. 39:4; 52:7; Prov. 24:30-31; Isa. 5:5). This sense is supported by the LXX, which uses a Persian loan word that means “what is walled, what is hedged about, a pleasure garden surrounded by a stone or earthen wall.” Keil and Delitzsch, The Pentateuch, trans. James Martin, Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986), 1:80-81.

[2] The royal dimension of the garden is highlighted by the fact that ancient Near Eastern kings were known for their palatial gardens where they would entertain honored guests. Several OT passages refer to the “King’s Garden" in Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 25:4; Jer. 39:4; Neh. 3:15), and the book of Esther refers to the palatial gardens of Ahasuerus (1:5; 7:7-8). Some Mesopotamian kings even used the title “Gardener” as a royal epithet. In Tablet IX of the Gilgamesh Epic, the hero travels to the holy mountain Mashu, which appears to be a point of contact between the gods and mortals, and there he encounters the beautifully jeweled “garden of the gods.” See T. Stordalen, Echoes of Eden: Genesis 2-3 and Symbolism of the Eden Garden in Biblical Hebrew Literature (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2000), 94-104,153-155. On the other hand, the many horticultural symbols used to adorn the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple may suggest a cultic dimension for the garden. See Gordon Wenham’s study “Sanctuary Symbolism in the Garden of Eden Story,” Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies 9 (1986), 19-25.

[3] This is the basic thesis of Gregory Beale’s book The Temple and the Church’s Mission: “[Adam and Eve] were to reflect God’s kingship by being his vice-regents on earth.... t is plausible to suggest that they were to extend the geographical boundaries of the garden until Eden covered the whole earth…. They were to extend the smaller livable area of the garden by transforming the outer chaotic region into a habitable territory…. God’s ultimate goal in creation was to magnify his glory throughout the earth by means of his faithful image-bearers inhabiting the world in obedience to the divine mandate” (81-82). Beale traces out the many biblical links between the Garden of Eden, the OT Tabernacle/Temple, the NT Church, and the New Heavens and New Earth. He argues persuasively that the Great Commission should be viewed as extension of the creation mandate of Gen. 1 and 2. What the first Adam failed to do, the Last Adam will successfully accomplish, and the holy Garden will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. See also J. V. Fesko, Last Things First: Unlocking Genesis 1-3 with the Christ of Eschatology (Mentor, 2007).

[4] Other considerations that indicate a pre-redemptive eschatology include (1) the creation mandate to fill and subdue the earth, which is further elaborated in connection with the Garden of Eden (Gen. 1:26,28; 2:15), (2) the sacramental Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge (2:9; 3:22), and (3) the innate God-like drive for eschatological fullness (Eccl. 3:11). As Rowland S. Ward appropriately cautions, “We must not idealise conditions in the world before sin. The state of innocence in paradise is far surpassed by the state of glory in the New Jerusalem. Put another way, we can say there was an eschatology before there was sin.” God & Adam, 23. Emphasis his. For more on this subject, see Howard Griffith, “Eschatology Begins with Creation,” Westminster Theological Journal 49 (1987): 387-396.


Dr. Gonzalez, thanks for the additional information, all of which is very interesting. I must admit I don't see how any of it actually militates against my view. Of course the two creation accounts are not in conflict; but in one we see man created, with no mention of a covenant. In another we see him created and a covenant with him spelled out in some detail. It's quite natural to take the second account as giving us the more detailed account and therefore the more precise chronology.

I agree with much of the rest of what you posted. Interestingly, a post-Christian novelist has a similar theme in his major fantasy work -that all the land should become as Andelain.
 
Two points I cannot reconcile with regard to Adamic merit.

First, If pactum merit is nothing more than God being obliged to reward what He has promised on certain conditions, then every condition of the covenant of grace will imply merited benefits. This includes faith, repentance, obedience, perseverance, etc. The Bible repeatedly makes promises to these and other graces. Undoubtedly the graces are the gift of God, but any hypothetical obedience of Adam would have been the gift of God also. So the idea of pactum merit would lead to the conclusion that all conditional promises of Scripture entail merited reward. The conclusion is unacceptable to the fundamentals of Protestantism.

Secondly, it is fallacious to argue that the hypothetical reward of Adam operated in the same way as the real reward of Christ. According to Hebrews 13:20, 21, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the blood of the everlasting covenant. It is true that He fulfilled the stipulations of the covenant of works, but His obedience was to the covenant of grace not to the covenant of works per se. According to Hebrews this is a better covenant with better promises and a better Mediator.
 
Yes, the kind of life Adam was promised is the kind of life Christ merited condignly for the elect, namely, the glorified state. I believe this is proven by a careful reading of 1 Corinthians 15.

Interesting...

Do you think the WCF supports that? In other words, the language is sort of terse in stating that Adam was promised life upon obedience.

Do you believe the differences (that it doesn't say eternal life) are merely omissions without a difference?

I have a hard time seeing how Adam would have inherited what we would have but also have a hard time seeing how his reward could just be "fleshly".

Do you think Christ's resurrected body is simply a restoration of the type of body Adam enjoyed prior to the Fall or would Adam have received a glorified body?

Also, the nature of our glorified state is heirs through the Son. Is that what Adam would have had?

There are so many hypotheticals that this line of inquiry seems perilous but I'm just having difficulty equating the two types of eternal life as being precisely the same.

WCF 7.3 says that Jesus freely offers unto sinners life. In the context of section 2, that has to be the same life. In order for us to acquire it, we now have to be saved. But the life that Jesus now offers is the life that He Himself possesses. Therefore, the life that Jesus offers is the same life that Adam would have acquired. Adam did not have the glorified state prior to the Fall. If he were glorified, he would not have fallen, since part of the glorified state is the inability to sin or even be tempted (Augustine's non posse peccare)

This is excellent, Lane. I believe Boston drives at this point as well in the Fourfold State, but it's been so long since I've read it that I can't recall if he makes the same comparison. I think sometimes we lack recognition of how "good" Adam was in his created state - that the only thing he lacked was the inability to sin. I don't see how we can see Adam's life prior to the Fall as anything less than this. In our eternal, glorified state, it seems to me reasonable from the Scriptural account - the whole of it - to assume that we will differ from Adam's created state only in this one particular - that we will be unable to sin.
 
Two points I cannot reconcile with regard to Adamic merit.

First, If pactum merit is nothing more than God being obliged to reward what He has promised on certain conditions, then every condition of the covenant of grace will imply merited benefits. This includes faith, repentance, obedience, perseverance, etc. The Bible repeatedly makes promises to these and other graces. Undoubtedly the graces are the gift of God, but any hypothetical obedience of Adam would have been the gift of God also. So the idea of pactum merit would lead to the conclusion that all conditional promises of Scripture entail merited reward. The conclusion is unacceptable to the fundamentals of Protestantism.

Secondly, it is fallacious to argue that the hypothetical reward of Adam operated in the same way as the real reward of Christ. According to Hebrews 13:20, 21, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the blood of the everlasting covenant. It is true that He fulfilled the stipulations of the covenant of works, but His obedience was to the covenant of grace not to the covenant of works per se. According to Hebrews this is a better covenant with better promises and a better Mediator.

Matthew, your questions are good and may indicate that I need to do a better job of articulating my position. I think we each may be operating with different concepts of "covenant merit" and of the way in which the covenant of works and covenant of grace interface. I'm currently at a theological module in Wyoming, so my time has been limited. Lord willing, I'll have more time to reply when I get home next week. Thanks for your patience.
 
Bob Gonzales said:
Moreover, I would even argue that Adam's potential faith and obedience would themselves ultimately be "gifts" or "endowments" from God.

This sounds a bit like the donum superadditum of RC theology. You probably mean to say something else by it, but I just wanted to clarify.
 
Personally, I think the question is "both." The sacramental trees in the Garden pointed to the sanctions of the covenant (compare Deut. 30:19-20). Had Adam obeyed God's prohibition and refrained from eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would have gained true wisdom (which is what that tree symbolized) rather than the counterfeit wisdom (the wisdom of this world) gained through eating the fruit. Moreover, he would have been rewarded with the very reality symbolized by the Tree of Life. By created man as his image, God created a covenantal being analogous to himself and consequently obligated himself to reward fealty with life (as royal grant) and disloyalty with death (as covenant curse). If an imago Dei obeys his Maker, that obedience has virtue because it is analogous to the divine Archetype.

Not a word of "merit" in this paragraph, showing that the idea of merit does not naturally follow from the condition of works.

Sorry, dear brother, but I don't fall for the "not a word of ... in this" context hermeneutic. In fact, there's not a word of "covenant" (berit) in either creation account, ch. 1 or ch. 2, yet, as Walther Eichrodt has astutely observed, “The crucial point is not—as an all too naïve criticism seems to think—the occurrence or absence of the Hebrew word" (Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 1:17-18.

God obviously predicated death as a sanction upon the condition of disobedience. Since I believe the reader should view the relational framework portrayed in the creation narrartive(s) in terms of a divine-human covenant, then I infer from the sacramental Tree of Life the oppositive sanction and stipulation, viz, eternal life predicated on unserving, heart-felt, faith-generated obedience. The semantic parallels between God's creation covenant stipulations and sanctions reverberate in the covenantal text I cited above--Deut. 30:19-20. Moreover, Paul seems to make a connection between "works" and "merit" when he writes, "Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt" (Rom. 4:4).


Furthermore, one should note that Jesus, as the second Adam, not only had to pacify divine wrath but he also had to satisfy divine justice in order to undo what Adam did as well as to accomplish what Adam failed to accomplish for his offspring. So I do not find it a huge leap of inference to conclude that the original covenant of works demanded both comformity to the moral law (which itself constitituted the bedrock of the covenantal relationship between God and man) but also fulfillment of the divine mandate, namely, to multiply, fill, and subdue the earth for the glory of God. Had the First Adam succeeded, he would have "merited" (by fulfilling the terms of the covenant which required that he reflect his Father's glory as analogue vice-regent) the royal eschatological grant of eternal life for himself and his posterity. Hence, Adam's "reward" would have been grounded both on God's goodness and also on God's justice.

I think the sticking point for you and me is our use of the term "merit." I'm well aware of the medieval debate over condign vs. congruous merit. It's important to remember, however, that that debate over human merit took place within the framework of soteriology--where it most certainly does not belong. My definition or understanding of the kind of merit demanded by the creation covenant is different from both condign merit and also congruous merit as defined by the schoolmen.

On the one hand, God did not expect Adam to merit his favor or reward condignly, that is, in the sense of attaining a kind of virtue that would be ontologically and univocally equal to divine merit. Nor did God superimpose a secondary construct over his creation-relation to mankind called a pactum or covenant, whereby God arbitrary decides to condescend and grant a costly and extravagant reward (i.e., eternal life) upon the condition of Adam's fulfilling a deed that, in the divine reckoning, was in fact a worthless, meaningless heap of manure by virtue of the huge chasm between God and man. This is a nominalistic view of merit. Rather, the merit demanded by the creation covenant is defined by the covenant itself, which in turn is a revelation of God's goodness and justice. Adam was never required to attain to a virtue ontologically and univocally equal to his Maker. Rather, as the imago Dei, Adam was required by covenant to reflect God's likeness analogically. Hence, the creation covenant or covenant of works that promised life predicated such reward on a faith, love, and obedience that analogously reflected divine virtue. Thus, analogical merit, not condign or congruous, is what the creation covenant demanded. And had Adam obeyed God law and fulfilled his Father's will in accordance with the dictates of that creation covenant, he would have obliged God by consequent necessity to keep covenant and reward fealty with life as a matter of justice and not grace.

That's my present understanding of the creation covenant and the question of merit.

Cordially,
 
Personally, I think the question is "both." The sacramental trees in the Garden pointed to the sanctions of the covenant (compare Deut. 30:19-20). Had Adam obeyed God's prohibition and refrained from eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would have gained true wisdom (which is what that tree symbolized) rather than the counterfeit wisdom (the wisdom of this world) gained through eating the fruit. Moreover, he would have been rewarded with the very reality symbolized by the Tree of Life. By created man as his image, God created a covenantal being analogous to himself and consequently obligated himself to reward fealty with life (as royal grant) and disloyalty with death (as covenant curse). If an imago Dei obeys his Maker, that obedience has virtue because it is analogous to the divine Archetype.

Not a word of "merit" in this paragraph, showing that the idea of merit does not naturally follow from the condition of works.

Sorry, dear brother, but I don't fall for the "not a word of ... in this" context hermeneutic. In fact, there's not a word of "covenant" (berit) in either creation account, ch. 1 or ch. 2, yet, as Walther Eichrodt has astutely observed, “The crucial point is not—as an all too naïve criticism seems to think—the occurrence or absence of the Hebrew word" (Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961), 1:17-18.

Brother, It has been a while since we discussed this, which accounts for the misunderstanding -- "not a word" referred to your eloquent paragraph in which you capably spoke of the reward of Adam's obedience without reverting to the idea of "merit." You carefully noted that God obligated Himself. I was not alluding to the biblical absence of the word, which should suffice to bury the speculation of "merit" in oblivion. The fact that Gen 1, 2, itself does not use the word "covenant" at least makes us cautious with regard to reading the concept into the passage, while we can acknowledge covenant as a meta-concept as a result of canonical teachings such as the two Adam structure of Pauline thought. The same cannot be said of "merit" because the Scriptures clearly distinguish Christ as the Lord from heaven and therefore competent to merit pneumatic life for His people. Blessings!
 
I was not alluding to the biblical absence of the word, which should suffice to bury the speculation of "merit" in oblivion.

Rev. Winzer,

I am interested to know what exactly you intended by the term "merit" as used above. For instance, what is the relation between the term "merit" as you will explain, and the compatible concepts of debt, wages, etc.

Cheers,
 
I am interested to know what exactly you intended by the term "merit" as used above. For instance, what is the relation between the term "merit" as you will explain, and the compatible concepts of debt, wages, etc.

I take "merit" in its usual sense of "deserving," "earning;" it means the person has done something which is worthy to be rewarded and entitles the person to a reward as something that is owed to him. Adam could not merit life for himself and his posterity because he was a "living soul" who owed his existence to God. Only a "Quickening Spirit" could do that which deserved the reward of life.
 
I am interested to know what exactly you intended by the term "merit" as used above. For instance, what is the relation between the term "merit" as you will explain, and the compatible concepts of debt, wages, etc.

I take "merit" in its usual sense of "deserving," "earning;" it means the person has done something which is worthy to be rewarded and entitles the person to a reward as something that is owed to him. Adam could not merit life for himself and his posterity because he was a "living soul" who owed his existence to God. Only a "Quickening Spirit" could do that which deserved the reward of life.

Rev. Winzer,

What do you make of Paul's statement in Romans 2:

6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds: 7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: 8 But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, 9 Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; 10 But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: 11 For there is no respect of persons with God.

As I'm sure you are aware, the term "render" means to pay back a debt which is owed. The emphasis of Paul in this passage is to prove that all men are condemned under the covenant of works (I'm assuming that this is a given regarding this passage; please correct me if I'm wrong).

That said, doesn't Paul indicate that the impartially considered merits are rendered to every man according to his works? In other words, if you perfectly, personally and perpetually obeyed the law, wouldn't God repay you with eternal life?

Cheers,
 
As I'm sure you are aware, the term "render" means to pay back a debt which is owed. The emphasis of Paul in this passage is to prove that all men are condemned under the covenant of works (I'm assuming that this is a given regarding this passage; please correct me if I'm wrong).

To render is simply "to give back;" the concepts of merit and demerit are read into the word. In the case of demerit it is acceptable because sin receives its just desert; but believers do not receive what their works deserve when God rewards their labours, therefore it is unacceptable to read the concept of merit into the term. So Calvin: "But there is not so much difficulty in this verse, as it is commonly thought. For the Lord, by visiting the wickedness of the reprobate with just vengeance, will recompense them with what they have deserved: and as he sanctifies those whom he has previously resolved to glorify, he will also crown their good works, but not on account of any merit: nor can this be proved from this verse; for though it declares what reward good works are to have, it does yet by no means show what they are worth, or what price is due to them. And it is an absurd inference, to deduce merit from reward.
 
To render is simply "to give back;" the concepts of merit and demerit are read into the word. In the case of demerit it is acceptable because sin receives its just desert; but believers do not receive what their works deserve when God rewards their labours, therefore it is unacceptable to read the concept of merit into the term. So Calvin: "But there is not so much difficulty in this verse, as it is commonly thought. For the Lord, by visiting the wickedness of the reprobate with just vengeance, will recompense them with what they have deserved: and as he sanctifies those whom he has previously resolved to glorify, he will also crown their good works, but not on account of any merit: nor can this be proved from this verse; for though it declares what reward good works are to have, it does yet by no means show what they are worth, or what price is due to them. And it is an absurd inference, to deduce merit from reward.

That's an interesting thought by Calvin, but doesn't answer the basic meaning of the term. Also, I think he's not assuming that this passage is discussing the Covenant of Works; he seems to be referring the impartial rendering of God to be to the believer; I don't think this passage can give this meaning, as the overall thought seems to be condemnation, and why the Jews are guilty under the Law's sentence, since they have not kept the law.

Render is rendered elsewhere:

Matthew 5:6 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Clearly a reference to repaying a debt.

Matthew 5:33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
The reference is to fulfilling one's obligations.


Matthew 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
This could be a passage with similar import to what Calvin reads in Romans 2; and which, I might add, makes your point that "render" can carry a range of meaning, which includes non-merit. However, I don't think Matthew 6 and Romans 2 are referring to the same concept of strict justice, or impartial judgment that I see in Romans 2.

Verses could be multiplied. I think what I see in scripture is that in situations of legal obligation, "render" has the connotation of paying back what one has merited. The langue of impartial justice in Romans 2:6, 11 seem to imply a strict-justice reading, rather than a mercy-justice rendering.

Cheers,
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top