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TOPIC: Edwards, Jonathan - Rational Biblical Theology (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: Chapt 16 The Covenants
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When the term “covenant” is used, the general educated reader needs to be told its religious meaning. The general reader, somewhat literate on matters religious and Christian, will likely think of the “covenant of grace”, which he will likely associate generally with Protestantism, and he may know it is especially associated with Calvinism and Puritanism.
The more specialized religious reader may know that though the “covenant of grace” is central, there are a number of other covenants in that system: covenants of redemption, works, and church and state. Jonathan Edwards was concerned with all of these, especially the covenants of redemption and of grace.
After an examination of Calvinism and covenants generally, I will briefly discuss the doctrine of the covenants as found in Edwards theology: the covenants of redemption, works, and grace, the covenant and children, the Half-way Covenant and the state covenant
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1. Calvinism and the Covenants
In his Dissertation concerning the End for which God Created the World, Edwards goes back behind even the covenant of redemption, the ultimate covenant. “[T]o speak more strictly according to truth,” he writes,
we may suppose that a disposition in God, as an original property of his nature, to an emanation of his own infinite fulness, was what excited him to create the world; and so that the emanation itself was aimed at by him as a last end of the creation. *1*
This very desire is what necessitated the redemption of sinners following man’s creation and fall into sin, and to that end the covenant of redemption was made. The fall made man desperately needy of it, and the mercy involved revealed God in His greatest glory to man. God and His Son in this covenant bound themselves to save a multitude of fallen mankind, and by the subsequent covenant of grace the Godhead bound itself to save the elect by Christ’s provision of salvation and their Christ-enabled faith to accept it.
Before I examine these covenants, we must face the fact that many modern scholars reject the very concept of covenant (God’s binding Himself) as alien to the predestinarianism of Calvinism and of Augustinianism. With Augustine it was not his covenantism but his ex opera operato doctrine of the sacraments that seemed to some to preclude his strong predestinarian doctrine. But just as obviously as God could, if He chose, use ex opera operato sacraments in carrying out His foreordained will, it seems obvious that God could, if He chose, use covenants.
Bronkema is one of the early modern opponents of Puritan covenantism claiming its activism to be incompatible with Calvinism. *2* Perry Miller did not originate this notion, though he has gained greatest prominence exploiting it. In fact, the continental Calvinists have always been uncomfortable with the activism of the English Puritan Reformed theology. De Jong goes so far as to see Edwards, the Puritan, as having “no eye for organic relations” and makes a mysterious allusion to Edwards’ having “lost sight of the use which God made of His own ordinances.” *3*
Perry Miller is the most prominent opponent of the covenant’s compatibility with Calvinism and especially with Jonathan Edwards. However, by 1956 after putting down those who “published the happy tidings, in my name, that the Puritans were not and never had been Calvinists,” *4* he acknowledged that the Puritan way of interpreting the Bible must be called Calvinist.” *5* Nevertheless, he concluded his “revision” with “What I meant to say, and miserably spoiled in saying, is only that Edwards brushed aside the (by his day) rusty mechanism of the covenant to forge a fresh statement of the central Protestant definition of man’s plight in the universe which God created.” *6* This shows that Millers repentance needed repenting of. This “rusty mechanism of the covenant” was oiled, greased and made to swing Edwards’ whole theology. Millers essay on Solomon Stoddard was a further descent ad infernos so far as this point is concerned. *7*
Miller, in fact, traced opposition to the covenant of grace all the way back to John Calvin, whose transcendent doctrine supposedly could never descend to anything as demeaning as covenant thought. Miller venturing into terra incognito stood the map on its head. Calvin was infinitely above covenant; the Puritans, though Calvinists after a fashion, condescended to men of low estate. They needed some sort of contract, from which mediocrity Edwards, reacting, joined Calvin in the heavenlies (a beautiful intellectual picture lacking nothing except correspondence with reality). In fact, Calvin had the doctrine in germ *8* which was brought to precision by the Puritans and made the centerpiece in Edwards.
Following closely in the steps of Miller, R. C. Whittemores “Jonathan Edwards” has a God free of covenant obligations simply because Edwards fails to mention them. *9* The fact that the text of “God Glorified” concentrates on the different roles of the three divine persons in human redemption seems to escape Whittemore’s notice. All redemption is by a divine agreement, and in this the redeemed can boast.”
While Edwards saw some grace in the covenant of works, many scholars cannot even see that there is any grace in the covenant of grace. Though Edwards saw grace in the covenant with the First Adam, some cannot see Edwards finding any grace in the covenant with the Second Adam.
So sure is Whittemore that he insists, “[w]hat Edwards was saying is that if man is utterly dependent on a sovereign God there can be no covenant because man by his fall has forfeited all rights, including that of obligating God.” *10* It is true that Edwards certainly insisted that man of himself cannot obligate God, but the covenant of grace has God obligating God. Whittemore cites this 1731 sermon God Glorified as making “no mention of assurance of mercy through the covenant of grace.” *11* Oddly enough that idea runs all through that sermon.
At the very outset, Edwards summarizes his whole sermon in what amounts to the covenant of redemption in everything except the title:
Thirdly, It is of him that we are in Christ Jesus, and come to have an interest in him, and so do receive those blessings which he is made unto us. It is God that gives us faith whereby we close with Christ.
So that in this verse is shown our dependence on each person in the Trinity for all our good. We are dependent on Christ the Son of God, as he is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We are dependent on the Father, who has given us Christ, and made him to be these things to us. We are dependent on the Holy Ghost, for it is of him that we are in Christ Jesus; it is the Spirit of God that gives faith in him, whereby we receive him, and close with him. *12*
Later Edwards says, “we are dependent on the goodness of God for more now than under the first covenant. . . .” *13* The “first covenant” is a reference to the covenant of works, and every minister knew that the “second” covenant implied was the covenant of grace. Just as Edwards did not need to say covenant of works, he did not need to tell Puritans that the “second” was the covenant of grace.
Again, “God is the Redeemer and the price; and he also is the good purchased. So that all that we have is of God, and through him, and in him.” *14* All redemptive blessings are of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How could that have been but by agreement or covenant (as Edwards always taught explicitly and implicitly). It may be mentioned in passing that Edwards uses the term “Trinity” only three times though talking about the Trinity in almost every paragraph. No one would have missed his profound Trinitarianism. Again, “all is of the Father, all through the Son, and all in the Holy Ghost” *15* is nothing other than the covenant of redemption in its simplest terms. Any impairment of this as a “not so entire a dependence on the Holy Ghost for conversion, and a being in Christ, and so coming to a title to his benefits” *16* is reprehensible as a partial denial of the covenant of redemption.
His conclusion is that this means that God contrived to glorify himself. *17* What is that “contrivance” but an agreement among the persons of the Godhead?
The application or “use” of this definitive sermon is a grand summary of the entire ministry of Jonathan Edwards, showing his rock bottom Calvinism as he glorifies the work of Father, Son and especially Holy Ghost and reduces the sinner to moral zero which is the very meaning of the covenant of redemption applied to the elect as the covenant of grace. I quote in full:
1. We may here observe the marvellous wisdom of God, in the work of redemption. God hath made man’s emptiness and misery, his low, lost, and ruined state, into which he sunk by the fall, an occasion of the greater advancement of his own glory, as in other ways, so particularly in this, that there is now much more universal and apparent dependence of man on God. Though God be pleased to lift man out of that dismal abyss of sin and woe in to which he was fallen, and exceedingly to exalt him in excellency and honour, and to a high pitch of glory and blessedness, yet the creature hath nothing in any respect to glory of; all the glory evidently belongs to God, all is a mere, and most absolute, and divine dependence on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And each person of the Trinity is equally glorified in this work: there is an absolute dependence of the creature on every one for all: all is of the Father, all through the Son, and all in the Holy Ghost. Thus God appears in the work of redemption as all in all. It is fit that he who is, and there is none else, should be the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the all and the only, in this work.
2. Hence those doctrines and schemes of divinity that are in any respect opposite to such an absolute and universal dependence on God, derogate from his glory, and thwart the design of our redemption. And such are those schemes that put the creature in God’s stead, in any of the mentioned respects, that exalt man into the place of either Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, in any thing pertaining to our redemption. However they may allow of a dependence of the redeemed on God, yet they deny a dependence that is so absolute and universal. They own an entire dependence on God for some things, but not for others; they own that we depend on God for the gift and acceptance of a Redeemer, but deny so absolute a dependence on him for the obtaining of an interest in the Redeemer. They own an absolute dependence on the Father for giving his Son, and on the Son for working out redemption, but not so entire a dependence on the Holy Ghost for conversion, and a being in Christ, and so coming to a title to his benefits. They own a dependence on God for means of grace, but not absolutely for the benefit and success of those means; a partial dependence on the power of God, for obtaining and exercising holiness, but not a mere dependence on the arbitrary and sovereign grace of God. They own a dependence on the free grace of God for a reception into his favour, so far that it is without any proper merit, but not as it is without being attracted, or moved with any excellency. They own a partial dependence on Christ, as he through whom we have life, as having purchased new terms of life, but still hold that the righteousness through which we have life is inherent in ourselves, as it was under the first covenant. Now whatever scheme is inconsistent with our entire dependence on God for all, and of having all of him, through him, and in him, it is repugnant to the design and tenor of the gospel, and robs it of that which God accounts its lustre and glory.
3. Hence we may learn a reason why faith is that by which we come to have an interest in this redemption; for there is included in the nature of faith, a sensible acknowledgment of absolute dependence on God in this affair. It is very fit that it should be required of all, in order to their having the benefit of this redemption, that they should be sensible of, and acknowledge, their dependence on God for it. It is by this means that God hath contrived to glorify himself in redemption; and it is fit that he should at least have this glory of those that are the subjects of this redemption, and have the benefit of it. - Faith is a sensibleness of what is real in the work of redemption; and the soul that believes doth entirely depend on God for all salvation, in its own sense and act. Faith abases men, and exalts God; it gives all the glory of redemption to him alone. It is necessary in order to saving faith, that man should be emptied of himself, be sensible that he is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Humility is a great ingredient of true faith: he that truly receives redemption, receives it as a little child, Mar_10:15. “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, he shall not enter therein.” It is the delight of a believing soul to abase itself and exalt God alone: that is the language of it, Psa_115:1. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name give glory.”
4. Let us be exhorted to exalt God alone, and ascribe to him all the glory of redemption. Let us endeavour to obtain, and increase in, a sensibleness of our great dependence on God, to have our eye to him alone, to mortify a self-dependent and self-righteous disposition. Man is naturally exceeding prone to exalt himself, and depend on his own power or goodness; as though from himself he must expect happiness. He is prone to have respect to enjoyments aliene from God and his Spirit, as those in which happiness is to be found. - But this doctrine should teach us to exalt God alone; as by trust and reliance, so by praise. Let him that glorieth, glory in the Lord. Hath any man hope that he is converted, and sanctified, and that his mind is endowed with true excellency and spiritual beauty? that his sins are forgiven, and he received into God’s favour, and exalted to the honour and blessedness of being his child, and an heir of eternal life? let him give God all the glory; who alone makes him to differ from the worst of men in this world, or the most miserable of the damned in hell. Hath any man much comfort and strong hope of eternal life, let not his hope lift him up, but dispose him the more to abase himself, to reflect on his own exceeding unworthiness of such a favour, and to exalt God alone. Is any man eminent in holiness, and abundant in good works, let him take nothing of the glory of it to himself, but ascribe it to him whose “workmanship we are, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” *18*
De Jong in his Covenant Idea made a mountain out of Miller’s relative mole hill. He found Edwards to be the chief underminer of New England covenant theology. The broad structure of his book and Jonathan Edwards’ place in it can be seen in the table of contents:
Part Two - Development:
The Early Puritan Conception of the Covenant
The Beginnings of Change
The Synod of 1662: The Half-Way Covenant Adopted
Stoddardeanism: The Half-Way Covenant Modified
Jonathan Edwards: The Half-Way Covenant Attacked
The New Divinity: The Half-Way Covenant Overthrown
The Loss of the Covenant Conceptions *19*
De Jong has many indictments of Edwards’ view of the covenant, which is seen to be a direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious, attack on the covenant as understood by De Jong.
Conrad Cherry confuses the situation somewhat, though improving on De Jong and Miller. *20* He sees the Puritan doctrine of the covenant as a way of construing revelation so that it did not bind God to man. Cherry sees a problem that he imagines the Puritans suffered from, though his citations prove no such thing. The Puritans were supposed to be unable to conceive of God binding Himself to man by the latter’s faith because God and man are so unequal. Hence the doctrine of the covenant is thought to solve that problem. But instead of solving a “problem” Edwards sees the covenant as merely illustrating the way of God’s gracious acting.
The Rom_9:18 sermon shows God at His deepest condescension without any requirement of covenant. *21* The covenant is, in Edwards’ mind, the form the binding takes, but the binding is no way dependent on covenant. It is not covenant that makes binding possible, but binding that makes covenant necessary. That God could “become bound to us worms of the dust, for our consolation!” is what amazes Edwards, not the form that binding takes, except that the form of covenant by an oath shows the extremity of the condescension. *22* Believers can actually demand salvation through Christ as a debt! *23* The sermon ends with the emphasis on sovereignty. “This is the stumbling block on which thousands fall and perish; and if we go on contending with God about his sovereignty, it will be our eternal ruin.” *24*
Cherry corrects Perry Miller effectively enough by showing that Edwards himself corrected him. Through the covenant of grace the sinner “may in justice demand delivery” Edwards had preached. *25* Cherry also sees that God can be “tied up” to human claims. *26* What he does not clearly see is that the elect sinner has no merit of his own, but only that God, in His sovereignty, does not acknowledge it to be such. Cherry states Edwards’ view in these words: “The possibility of the believer’s demanding salvation on the basis of his own godliness is precluded.” *27* The sentence should read “The possibility of the believer’s demanding salvation on the basis of his own initial godliness is precluded.” But God Himself supplies the regenerate’s godliness.
Cherry, unlike Miller, gets a fundamental aspect of Edwards’ doctrine: “Man does not ‘tie up’ God, but God ties himself to man in the covenant.” *28* However, immediately after this, Cherry sells the covenant short: “This is Edwards’ interpretation of the Incarnation. . . .” The Incarnation was, however, only the first step in the covenant of grace which was “finished” in the atonement, resurrection and ascension. Another error follows: this “demand” of the covenant beneficiary is “never through or on the basis of his own goodness or obedience.” But without that “obedience” the person is not in the covenant and cannot “demand” anything of God. Again, the point is that the blessing is not on the person’s benefiting from any merit of his own obedience.
Showing that he never gets completely out of the Millerian thicket, Cherry comments: “The notion of God’s indebtedness to man borders on blasphemy - in fact it is a kind of ‘blasphemy of faith’.” *29* No one could so write who understood Edwards’ work on Satisfaction *30* which shows that Jesus Christ so perfectly satisfied divine justice that if God the Father questioned the Son’s work He would be blaspheming.
Cherry does agree with Miller at the very point he ought not to agree. He imperfectly critiques Miller’s attack on covenant only to agree with him on an even more egregious error - Miller’s attack on “preparation.” *31*
Cherry is as far from understanding the Puritan and Edwards’ doctrine of preparation or seeking as Miller was. Though he cites John Preston’s eloquent statement of the doctrine, Cherry still does not get the message. Preston (and Peter Bulkeley) have the convicted sinner pleading with God for covenantal mercy which Cherry interprets:
In other words, it is still [emphasis added] the sovereign God with whom the soul deals in the covenant-relation, but not the arbitrary God. God still has the power to withdraw his hand of mercy, but we have his sound testimony in Christ that He wills not to do so. He has the power to withhold salvation from the saints, but on the basis of his promise of salvation in Christ man may ‘pleadingly sue’ him for it with the assurance that he has freely bound himself to give it. *32*
Every Puritan who ever lived, and Jonathan Edwards most of all, would have been apoplectic about such an interpretation of their doctrine. That a holy God would bind Himself and still have it in His “power” to break that promise is blasphemy to the Puritan mind. Miller was consistently wrong in this area; Cherry is sadly inconsistent.
Edwards is sometimes supposed to mitigate the imagined problematic nature of faith by distinguishing between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace. That there was first a covenant between the equal Father and equal Son is thought to make the covenant between the divine Christ and human sinners somehow tenable. Yet manifestly, if God could not bind Himself to infinitely inferior creatures, having made an a priori agreement with an equally infinite person would make it no more possible for the infinite condescension to man.
One more item should be noted in Cherry before we leave him on the covenant. He raises a question about the covenant of grace, the covenant of redemption and their bearing on human faith as a condition:
[H]ow determinative of grace is man’s act of faith - the covenant of redemption between Father and Son notwithstanding? Put another way, how are the two distinct conditions - Christ’s work and human faith - related? Edwards’ answer appears to be that the covenant of grace and its condition are the implementation of the covenant of redemption. Yet this simply puts the problem at one remove; it does not explain to what extent faith is determinative of the efficacy of either covenant for the man of faith. If the covenant of grace (which has as its condition the act of belief) is the implementation of the covenant of redemption, does this mean, then, that the covenant of redemption is not applicable to a specific saint until the condition of the covenant of grace is performed by the saint? Edwards’ distinction between the two covenants leaves this question unanswered and hence does not clear him of the shortcomings, noted above, of viewing faith as the condition of the covenant. *33*
Edwards would surely say that the covenant of redemption is “applicable” but not applied salvifically until faith is born in the elect’s heart. All God’s covenants are eternal and certainly applicable to whom they concern since God’s intention and power are as sure as He is. This includes the covenant of grace as well as the covenant of redemption. Cherry says that “Edwards’ distinction between the two covenants leaves this question unanswered and hence does not clear him of the shortcomings, noted above, of viewing faith as the condition of the covenant.” The only “shortcomings” of Edwards here would be the “shortcomings” of God who utterly guarantees that all conditions” will be met. If any theologian ever stressed that God provided all conditions and had no “shortcomings,” it was Jonathan Edwards.
Edwards and the Puritans generally never had any problem with God’s binding Himself to creatures if He chose to do so. The problem in this union was not because of the infinite difference but because of the sinfulness of man. Because of this a holy God could have no communion with unholy man. The problem was overcome by the Son undertaking and the Father appointing Him to His mediation for the elect, agreed to in the covenant of redemption, and applied to man in the covenant of grace.
Yet many of Edwards’ interpreters cannot seem to grasp this point. Some, as we have seen, even represent Edwards as virtually eliminating the doctrin, returning to the imagined purer Calvinism of Calvin. More recent studies of this subject, however, have begun to correct this persistent mistake. For example, Harry Stout, the present general editor of the Yale University Press edition of The Works of Jonathan Edwards, maintains that, “[Edwards] was every bit the federal theologian that his Puritan predecessors were.” *34* This is a conclusion for which my Steps to Salvation *35* gave extensive textual evidence as well as theological foundation as early as 1960, and for which Carl Bogue offered support on almost every one of the 312 pages of his 1975 book on the subject. *36* Perhaps the reign of Miller’s mistake concerning Calvinism, Edwards and the covenant is finally drawing to a close.
2. The Covenant of Redemption
I come now to a discussion of the covenants in Calvinistic Edwards, it having been shown that such thinking is not alien to the Calvinistic tradition.
The outworking of redemption takes place in human history. However, we must not get the impression that Jonathan Edwards thought of it as having been planned in time. Rather, it is the working out of the eternal purpose of an immutable deity. If we would fully understand the way of salvation, we need to take a long look backward to the original plan of salvation in the eternal mind of God. This flashback brings us to the eternal covenant of redemption and the covenantal framework in which man’s salvation was projected.
The starting point in the covenantal teaching of Edwards is the eternal nature of God. If it had not been for His nature, God would never have created anything, including the world of men. Nor would He ever have created men except for His purpose of redeeming some of them. His purpose to redeem mankind underlies the covenant of redemption which in turn is the framework within which redemption is accomplished and applied.
As I have said, the salvation of men is rooted in the very nature of God. But what is this character of God that leads to the creation, fall, and redemption of men? This is stated most fully in Edwards’ treatise Concerning the End for Which God Created the World:
Therefore to speak more strictly according to truth, we may suppose that a disposition in God, as an original property of his nature, to an emanation of his own infinite fullness, was what excited him to create the world; and so that the emanation itself was aimed at by him as a last end of the creation. *37*
The thrust of the volume shows that God’s manifestation of His own glory is not inconsistent with His seeking the creature’s good, for the creatures good consists in sharing in the Deitys glory.
In the creature’s knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged; his fulness is received and returned. Here is both an emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and God is the beginning, middle and end in this affair. *38*
Redemption began before man needed redemption and even before man was. In all eternity God foresaw a fall He Himself had ordained permissively. Before time was, He saw mankind wallowing in sin fit only for destruction. And then it was (eternally) that He felt mercy and chose to bestow it, at appointed times, for many, but not all, miserable, hell-deserving sinners.
Since God’s justice is inexorable, to have mercy He must first satisfy the justice of His holiness. The only One who could do that was a member of the Godhead, taking to Himself a human nature in which He could be punished, the righteous for the unrighteous. So there came to be (eternally) the “covenant of redemption, or that eternal covenant that was between the Father and the Son, wherein Christ undertook to stand as Mediator for fallen man, and was appointed thereto of the Father.” *39* Thus the first step in the working out of human salvation was the covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son.
“God the Father acts as the head of the Trinity in all things appertaining to the affair of man’s redemption.” ** The only way that God the Father is the head of Christ is not ontologically but soteriologically. But in the eternal covenant of redemption He had made the Father His head. Edwards stressed the solidity of the covenantal structure: “the covenant of grace is every way so ordered as is needful in order to its being made firm and sure.” *41* That was true also of the covenant of redemption which “preceded” it.
As Edwards put it in his sermon on Isa_53:10, “God was determined that man should be redeemed and he in infinite wisdom pitched upon his own eternal Son to do the work.” *42* Again, Edwards insisted that this pitching on the Son had to be by covenant, not authority. He cites Zec_6:12-13; Luk_22:29 and Psalms_40:6-7 :6, 7 :6, 7 to show that this command followed the covenant because it was part of that covenant or agreement.
We note that Christ “undertook” and the Father “appointed.” The covenant is between equals, Father and Son. Therefore, the Father cannot appoint unless the Son willingly undertakes. But when the fully divine Son undertakes, the Father is free to appoint and does. The “subordinationism” from which the Eastern Orthodox Church never became entirely free is avoided by Edwards at the very point where subordination occurs. It is a voluntary subordination that completely maintains the equal divinity of the subordinate one and the one who appoints Him to subordination. The Son was appointed by command only after the covenant had been made because that was part of the voluntary agreement. An early sermon on Psa_40:6-8 ew:6-8 w:6-8 developed this theme: “the sacrifice of Christ is the only sacrifice that is upon its own account acceptable to God.” *43*
We know what this meant for man, but Edwards asks what this means for the Son of God. Christ’s “mediatorial glory” is the answer. *44* The reward the Father promised His Son from eternity in the covenant of redemption was a “spouse.” Thus Edwards asserted that
God has used the creation that he has made to no other purpose but to subserve to the design of this affair. To this he has disposed mankind, to this angels, to this earth, to this highest heaven. God created the world to provide a spouse and kingdom for his Son. And the setting up the kingdom of Christ, and the spiritual marriage of the spouse to him, is what the whole creation labors and travails in pain to bring to pass.
This Work of Redemption is so much the greatest of all the works of God, that all other works are to be looked upon either as part of it, or appendages to it, or are some way reducible to it. And so all the decrees of God do some way or other belong to that eternal covenant of redemption that was between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world. . . . *45*
In a sense, the Rom_8:29 sermon explains what that mediatorial glory of Christ was as it focuses on what the Father gave the Son in His mediatorial glory. The Father gave the Son His elect:
[T]his eternal foreknowledge implies three things: i. God the Father’s choosing them and ii. His giving them to the Son to be his as he did in the covenant of redemption. Christ speaks of those that the Father had given him, Joh_6:37. iii. It implies the Son’s accepting them and looking on them as his from eternity. *46*
Once again we must realize that nothing can be added to God or the Son of God. But we are reminded that the Son of man took on a needy human nature, which, like the First Adam, needed a helpmeet, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Of course, this betrothal of Christ and the church and the later celestial marriage implies no bodily union except in the spiritual body of Christ. In heaven after the resurrection when the full consummation takes place the celestial marriage supper of the Lamb will take place (Rev_19:1-10). There will be no other marriage or giving in marriage except the marriage of the Lamb and His bride, the elect and perfected church. They will live ever happily ever after.
While Edwards speaks often of the covenant of redemption, especially in his History of Redemption, he does not mention the role of the Holy Spirit in it. It seems always to be represented as between the Father and Son only. However, in the first in a series of sermons on Joh_16:8, Edwards deals especially with work of the Holy Spirit in carrying out the covenant. There he argues that the Holy Ghost is Christ’s messenger whose appointed task “is to convince men of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.” *47* He “doth the finishing strokes” on Christ’s salvation, and what He does He does as Christ’s messenger. Ever since the fall of man, the Holy Ghost has worked subordinately to the Father and the Son. There is no inferiority, Edwards insists, for all the persons are of the same divine essence. There is no difference in glory. But this arrangement is agreeable to the order of the persons in the Trinity. It is meet that the one who suffered the great loss should have disposed of redemption. So Christ was given power over all flesh, and the Holy Ghost was subordinated to him, whom the Father had made head of all things. From this arrangement it follows that it must have been agreed, by all three persons of the Godhead, that just such a distribution of work in the redemptive plan should be, and each person thus acted according to the agreement or covenant made by all (though Edwards does not argue the point explicitly in this sermon).
3. The Covenant of Works
The covenant of grace was preceded by yet one more covenant, the covenant of works. In fact, the covenant of works preceded even the covenant of redemption, for men must be lost before they are redeemed, and it was by the covenant of works that they were lost. By this covenant it was agreed that if man were obedient to God for a stipulated time, he would be given eternal life; if not, he would be given eternal death.
Before the covenant of works was made with Adam something similar was made with the angels:
The angels had eternal life by a covenant of works, upon condition of perfect obedience. They all of them performed the same condition, and they all thereby obtained complete blessedness, that ever on should be filled; but yet we are made acquainted that there are degrees amongst the angels. . . . *48*
Though some angels stood and some fell by their “covenant of works,” Christ was involved both in the falling of some and the standing of others. There was a sense in which the angels who successfully met their covenant of works were saved nevertheless by the grace of Jesus Christ. It was the fallen angel, Satan, who brought on the fall of man under the covenant of works. Edwards’ teaching on this subject will be developed further in the chapter on angels below.
Adam’s breaking of the covenant of works brought Adam and all his unredeemed progeny into eternal death by that one sin. Edwards saw Rom_5:12-19 as the center of his The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin:
What has been said, may, as I humbly conceive, lead us to that which is the true scope and sense of the Apostle in these three verses; which I will endeavor more briefly to represent in the following paraphrase.
12. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
The things which I have largely insisted on, viz. the evil that is in the world, the general wickedness, guilt and ruin of mankind, and the opposite good, even justification and life, as only by Christ, lead me to observe the likeness of the manner, in which they are each of them introduced. For it was by one man, that the general corruption and guilt which I have spoken of, came into the world, and condemnation and death by sin: and this dreadful punishment and ruin came on all mankind, by the great law of works, originally established with mankind in their first father, and by his one offence, or breach of that law; all thereby becoming sinners in God’s sight, and exposed to final destruction.
13. “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed, when there is no law.”
It is manifest, that it was in this way the world became sinful and guilty: and not in that way which the Jews suppose, viz. that their law, given by Moses, is the grand universal rule of righteousness and judgment for mankind, and that it is by being Gentiles, uncircumcised and aliens from that law, that the nations of the world are constituted sinners, and unclean. For before the law of Moses was given, mankind were all looked upon by the great Judge as sinners, by corruption and guilt derived from Adam’s violation of the original law of works; which shews, that the original, universal rule of righteousness is not the law of Moses; for if so, there would have been no sin imputed before that was given; because sin is not imputed, when there is no law.
14. “Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.”
But, that at that time sin was imputed, and men were by their judge reckoned as sinners, through guilt and corruption derived from Adam, and condemned for sin to death, the proper punishment of sin, we have a plain proof; in that it appears in fact, all mankind, during that whole time which preceded the law of Moses, were subjected to that temporal death, which is the visible introduction and image of that utter destruction which sin deserves; not excepting even infants, who could be sinners no other way than by virtue of Adam’s transgression, having never in their own persons actually sinned as Adam did; nor could at that time be made polluted by the law of Moses, as being uncircumcised, or born of uncircumcised parents.
Now, by way of reflection on the whole, I would observe, that though there are two or three expressions in this paragraph (Rom_5:12, etc.), the design of which is attended with some difficulty and obscurity, as particularly in the 13th and 14th verses; yet the scope and sense of the discourse in general is not obscure, but on the contrary very clear and manifest; and so is the particular doctrine mainly taught in it. The apostle sets himself with great care and pains to make it plain, and precisely to fix and settle the point he is upon. And the discourse is so framed, that one part of it does greatly clear and fix the meaning of other parts; and the whole is determined by the clear connection it stands in with other parts of the epistle, and by the manifest drift of all the preceding part of it. *49*
In spite of the universal effect of Adam’s breaking the covenant of works, Edwards maintained that that covenant was re-enacted by Moses. The sermon on Rom_6:14 teaches that not only the covenant of grace but the covenant of works as well was renewed at Sinai. *50* More specifically, Edwards contrasts it with the covenant of grace. “By grace is meant the dispensation of God’s grace in Christ or the covenant of grace as appears by the scope of the Apostle and by its being set in opposition to the law or covenant of works.” *51* On the next page he continues: “It gives another principle of obedience besides servile fear, it gives the spirit of adoption . . . which alone can render obedience spiritual and sincere.”
With regard to this point it is interesting to note that modern Dispensationalism is criticized for teaching that the different dispensations represent different ways of salvation. Though they maintain that no one was ever saved except by grace, that was because men failed the tests, not because they could not have been saved in different ways. Edwards is careful here to insist (though he refers to the repetition of the covenant of works at Sinai) that the covenant at Sinai shows only how “impossible it was for them to have salvation by the works of the law.” It only assures them of “the absolute necessity they stood in of a mediator.” So Sinai was not really a repetition of the offer of a covenant of works, but a reminder that it had brought death and the need for a Mediator of grace.
Finally, Edwards is insistent on a certain graciousness even in the covenant of works: “It was an act of God’s goodness and condescension toward man to enter into any covenant at all with him and that he should become engaged to give eternal life to him upon his perfect obedience.” *52*
4. The Covenant of Grace
In the theology of Jonathan Edwards, the “failure” of the covenant of works was the pathway to the glorious and everlasting covenant of grace:
So the first covenant, that God made with Adam, failed, because it was weak through the weakness of human nature, to whose strength and stability the keeping was intrusted. Therefore God introduces another better covenant, committed not to his strength, but to the strength of one that was mighty and stable, and therefore is a sure and everlasting covenant. God intrusted the affair of man’s happiness on a weak foundation at first, to show man that the foundation was weak, and not to be trusted to, that he might trust in God alone. The first was only to make way for the second. *53*
Edwards greatest interest, as the Bibles, is in the covenant of grace whereby the eternal covenant of redemption is applied to elect man. His teaching on Psa_111:5 ties these two covenants together: “God never fails in any instance of faithfulness to the covenant engagements he has entered into in behalf of any of mankind.” *54*
Edwards distinguishes carefully between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace:
This one [the covenant of grace] probably succeeds as ’tis revealed in the world in the room of God’s covenant with Adam and stands in direct opposition to it, as God made his covenant with Adam for himself and all his posterity, so God makes this covenant with Christ, the Second Adam for himself and all his posterity. *55*
Focusing now on the covenant of grace, Edwards teaches that “[i]n the divine transactions and dispensations relating to man’s salvation, Christ and believers are considered as it were one mystical person.” *56* Though it is in sermons on different texts that Edwards shows Christ to be satisfied with his reward and fully satisfied, *57* the reason for this satisfaction is the perfection of his work in the redemption of his people. He and they have become one “mystical person.”
(1) One Covenant of Grace
Edwards examined carefully the problem raised by the unity of Christ and His people in the covenant of grace: what of those who outwardly profess allegiance to the Covenant Head, but have no love for Him in their heart? The Northampton pastor answered plainly - they are not part of that one mystical body. This does not imply, he argues, two different covenants, internal and external:
I know the distinction made by some, between the internal and external covenant; but, I hope, the divines that make this distinction, would not be understood, that there are really and properly two covenants of grace; but only that those who profess the one only covenant of grace, are of two sorts. There are those who comply with it internally and really, and others who do so only externally, that is, in profession and visibility. But he that externally and visibly complies with the covenant of grace, appears and professes to do so really. - There is also this distinction concerning the covenant of grace; it is exhibited two ways, the one externally, by the preaching of the word, the other internally and spiritually, by enlightening the mind rightly to understand the word. But it is with the covenant, as it is with the call of the gospel: he that really complies with the external call, has the internal call; so he that truly complies with the external proposal of God’s covenant, as visible Christians profess to do, does indeed perform the inward condition of it. But the New Testament affords no more foundation for supposing two real and properly distinct covenants of grace, than it does to suppose two sorts of real Christians.
When those persons who were baptized in infancy properly own their baptismal covenant, the meaning is, that they now, being capable to act for themselves, do professedly and explicitly make their parents’ act, in giving them up to God, their own, by expressly giving themselves up to God. But this no person can do, without either being deceived, or dissembling and professing what he himself supposes to be a falsehood, unless he supposes that in his heart he consents to be God’s. A child of christian parents never does that for himself which his parents did for him in infancy, till he gives himself wholly to God. But surely he does not do it, who not only keeps back a part, but the chief part, his heart and soul. He that keeps back his heart, does in effect keep back all; and therefore, if he be sensible of it, is guilty of solemn willful mockery, if at the same time he solemnly and publicly professes that he gives himself up to God. If there are any words used by such, which in their proper signification imply that they give themselves up to God; and if these words, as they intend them to be understood, and as they are understood by those that hear them, according to their established use and custom among that people, do not imply, that they do it really, but do truly reserve or keep back the chief part; it ceases to be a profession of giving themselves up to God, and so ceases to be a professed covenanting with God. The thing which they profess belongs to no existing covenant of God; for God has revealed no such covenant, in which our transacting of it is a giving up ourselves to him with reserve, or holding back our souls, our chief part, and in effect our all. And therefore, although such public and solemn professing may be a very unwarrantable and great abuse of words, and taking God’s name in vain, it is no professed covenanting with God. *58*
The sermon on Hos_3:1-3 is entitled: “The covenant there is between God and a professing people is like the marriage covenant.” *59* This is an especially interesting lecture, since it was delivered shortly before God’s professing people in Northampton were to divorce themselves from God’s faithful appointed representative.
(2) Temporal Benefits of the Covenant of Grace
There are also two sets of promises in the covenant of grace: “of this life that now is, and of that which is to come,” 1Ti_4:8. The first includes “common grace,” while the second constitutes the covenant of grace properly speaking. *60*
While the covenant of grace was meant for and established with the elect only, it did bring some by-product benefits for the non-elect also (so-called “common grace”) . Edwards thinks of common grace as God’s gift to natural men of temporal blessings, plus convictions of, and restraints upon, their sins.
In the sermon on Php_4:19, Edwards teaches that temporal blessings were promised in the covenant of grace according to 1Ti_4:8 and Matthew 6. *61* The clothes men wear were purchased by Christ. Seedtime and harvest, and their continuance, are owing to Christ. Indeed, he claims in this sermon that all forms of the goodness of God to the heathen world were a result of the mediation of Jesus Christ. We may say that God’s common grace for all men is an overflow of His special grace for some men. The covenant is the foundation not only of saving grace but of common grace as well.
Although God grants wicked men the benefits of this world, these do not actually benefit them. “That ’tis to the godly alone that God gives wisdom to know how to use worldly good things they possess and that he enables truly to enjoy the comfort of them.” *62* His second doctrine in this sermon is: “That God gives wicked men the travail and vexation of gathering and heaping worldly good things but tis not for their own but the godlys benefi.” The wicked do not enjoy the temporal things that God gives them either in the future or even in the present. Everything they receive has brimstone scattered over it. They but eat and drink damnation as long as they remain impenitent. They cannot enjoy pleasures even now because their conscience troubles them. If it does not, it is because it is hardened, in which case their pleasure is the pleasure of animals and stupid senseless beings.
On the other hand, the godly do enjoy the very things that the wicked gather. They receive them with inward peace such as the wicked never have. They enjoy the love of God in these things which is infinitely greater than the things themselves. They have joy and thankfulness. They are wise to see the purpose of these things and realize them. Grace tends to prevent any anxiety or the like as accompaniments of these gifts. In early sermons on Pro_24:13, Edwards preached on religion sweetening temporal delights and observed that the wicked enjoy their pleasures “at war with themselves” while the godly eat their “meat with gladness of heart.” *63* Sinners enjoy with their bodies, but their minds suffer, while religion denies the righteous no pleasures but what have more of sorrow.
A more important form of common grace is the convictions of the Holy Spirit which God is wont to give to wicked men. “There are many in this world, who are wholly destitute of saving grace, who yet have common grace. They have no true holiness, but nevertheless, have something of that which is called moral virtue; and are the subjects of some degree of the common influences of the Spirit of God.”
We may well ask why Edwards calls this common grace which issues in greater damnation. The answer is that in giving these things God grants the wicked a “reprieve from damnation” and an opportunity to be saved. This is an undeserved and very great favor which God shows them. It is a goodness in God that is offered to lead them to repentance. *64*
(3) Eternal Benefits of the Covenant of Grace
The second kind of promises were made to the redeemed exclusively and these are of two kinds: to the whole church and to individual believers. While in the first of these God promises to uphold the church in the world, the second is precisely the covenant of grace, a marriage covenant between Christ and each believer.
The heart of the covenant of grace is, of course, Jesus Christ. In a sense He is the covenant of grace. Christ purchases salvation for His people, and it is Christ who applies to them what He has purchased for them. Those who object to the covenant of grace as a contradiction in terms because covenant means quid pro quo legalism, and grace has the exactly opposite meaning, do not understand the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of grace. According to this, Christ is the quid and the quo; that which is given and that which is received; grace provided, grace applied.
The promises of the covenant of grace, or the new covenant, are expressed nowhere so fully as in Christ’s farewell discourse says Edwards in his sermon on John 14:27. *65* There the Savior, after Judas has left and none are with Him but those who believed in Him, bequeaths to His disciples the benefits of the new covenant. These include His whole estate: His Kingdom, His glory, His mansions, His life, peace, joy, grace, and victory. So the covenant of grace is that agreement which Christ makes with men: if they accept Him, believe in Him, He will give them eternal life.
Of course, if this everlasting life and everlasting covenant were losable in time, it would not provide eternal life. “They [the elect] have an interest in that covenant that is ordered in all things and sure.” Such an assertion about the covenant always raises the question whether the believer, who must endure to the end to be saved, may not fail to endure. The covenant of grace is the answer to that problem also. It is “ordered in all things and sure.” The sureness of the covenant grounds the assurance of the believer.
Perry Miller had thought that the federal system itself meant to minimize the aspect of inherited pollution in the saints. *66* Smith rightly denied that proposition but did not see how, according to Edwards, the moral pollution of saints was overcome (though not completely). *67* It is true, to be sure, that God is working in the saints to will and to do according to His good pleasure. But Edwards claimed that there was more than that - covenantal providence, no less. Other covenantalists before Edwards were aware that God makes all things in providence work for the good of the elect, but they had not seen or shown how essential this providence was to the perseverance of the saints.
Edwards carefully develops this apparently unique concept of “covenantal providence”. It is nothing but the carrying out in this world of the heavenly covenant. Covenantal providence, not grace, is that which keeps believers in grace. Though saints have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them, they have far more of remaining corruption. Consequently they are liable to gross sin - much gross sin - which would seem surely to destroy them (as the Arminians maintain is always possible). This destruction is not possible, according to Edwards, because God has covenantally arranged providence for His people. It is not grace but this special providence that keeps them from being fatally overtaken by temptation, and provides their way of escape.
The covenant of grace went into operation at the fall of man and has been in effect ever since. Nevertheless, Edwards compares the covenant to Christ’s “last will and testament.” *68* Christ’s dying bequest for his people was that all the benefits of the covenant of grace should be theirs. This Edwards also explains in his sermon on Joh_14:27, discussed above, where he calls the covenant Christ’s “last will.”
Such language raises the question whether the covenant of grace was not in effect until the death of Jesus. Were the saints before the incarnation and atonement devoid of the benefits of grace? Were they awarded them posthumously? No, the benefits of the covenant of grace were in operation from the moment that man fell, but this was in anticipation of the death of Christ. The benefits were administered in advance on the supposition that Christ in the fullness of time would merit them for His people. They were, however, awarded on no other ground than the death of Christ. “For though the covenant of grace indeed was of force before the death of Christ, yet it was of force no otherwise than by his death. . . .” *69*