This article will be the first in a short series. I’m beginning this project primarily to sharpen my understanding and views of covenant theology. About 4-5 years ago I came across Baptist covenant theology.1 Before that, I had been introduced to covenant theology after discovering Dr. R.C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries online. And, naturally, for a while, I equated covenant theology with Presbyterianism (broadly speaking). I also equated the practice of infant baptism with covenant theology. I became interested in covenant theology, but as a committed Baptist, I thought that I could not adopt it without becoming a Presbyterian.
So, I began reading and researching the subject more. It fascinated me and helped to frame all of Scripture into a cohesive whole. Covenant theology gave me back the Old Testament, in a way. I’m sure you are familiar with the difficulty of knowing what to do about the more “obscure” books of the Old Testament. Are they for us today? What about national Israel? How do we understand the Old Testament? Does it apply to Christians? If so, how? These questions, and others, were answered when I discovered covenant theology. But as I continued to read, listen to, and watch (online, YouTube, etc.) books, sermons, and lectures on covenant theology, I began to see an issue. I needed to figure out if a Baptist could affirm covenant theology and remain a Baptist.
Thankfully, as it turns out, the answer to that important question is yes! I eventually discovered that Baptists have a long-standing history with covenant theology dating back to the early 17th century.
What is a covenant?
Before we look at the covenant of works, a definition of ‘covenant’ is in order. Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, in his book on Baptist covenant theology, says, “A divine covenant consists of the legal and binding terms of a relationship with God.”2 Consider also Nehemiah Coxe’s (??-1688) definition as he borrowed from another reformed theologian, Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669). Cocceius defined “covenant” as
A declaration of [God’s] sovereign pleasure concerning the benefits he will bestow on them [those with whom He enters into a covenant], the communion they will have with him, and the way and means by which this will be enjoyed by them.3
Along with this general definition borrowed from Cocceius, Coxe added a few more clarifying comments. (1) Firstly, the concept of covenant “implies a free and sovereign act of the divine will exerted in condescending love and goodness.” (2) Secondly, “the notion of a covenant adds assurance to that of a promise, since it implies a special bond of favor and friendship which belongs to federal-interest and relation.” (3) And, thirdly, “the immediate and direct end therefore, of God’s entering into covenant with man at any time (so far as concerns man himself) is the advancing and bettering his state.”4 Coxe goes on to add that the idea of covenant also involves, not merely promises but “obligations” and “restipulations.” For Coxe, these “terms” of divine covenant “oblige us to accept with holy fear and thankfulness both the benefits he offers to us and the terms on which they are offered in his covenant.”5
The Covenant of Works
In the world of covenant theology, three major covenants—the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace—provide a helpful framework to see the Bible as a connected whole. Covenant theology sees all of the Bible as one story of redemption. In eternity past, the Father covenanted with the Son to save a people for Himself. This is what is known as the pactum salutis (Latin for covenant of redemption). This terminology seeks to express what we find in passages like John 17:4-5. And the covenant of grace is the covenant by which all men are saved after the Fall of Genesis 3. This covenant is mediated by Jesus Christ for the elect of God. It provides salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (Matt. 26:28).
However, neither the covenant of grace nor the pactum salutis is the focus of this essay. This essay will aim rather to give a brief introduction to the pre-Fall, Edenic covenant of works between God and Adam. A covenant has already been defined and now we will consider the covenant of works in detail.
The covenant of works may be properly classified, per the words of Geerhardus Vos, as pre-redemptive.6 This means that God and man were in covenant communion with one another before the Fall in Genesis 3 (Hos. 6:7). Now, if any doubt is raised as to whether or not this is a legitimate covenant, Edward Fisher, in his 17th-century work titled The Marrow of Modern Divinity, answers a common objection in the form of dialogue:
Nomista: But, sir, you know there is no mention made in the book of Genesis of this covenant of works, which, you say, was made with man at first.
Evangelista: Though we read not the word ‘covenant’ betwixt God and man, yet have we there recorded what may amount to as much; for God provided and promised to Adam eternal happiness, and called for perfect obedience; which appears from God’s threatening (Gen. 2:17); for if man must die if he disobeyed, it implies strongly, that God’s covenant was with him for life, if he obeyed.7
Evangelista explains to Nomista that the word ‘covenant’ does not need to appear explicitly in the text if the concept is sufficiently present.8 The 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 addresses this in chapter 1, “The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture…”9 The Confession makes clear that there are proper doctrinal conclusions to draw from the text of Scripture that are there implicitly, though not explicitly. This does not mean that it is up to the reader to make sense of Scripture, it is up to the reader to discover, by way of faithful exegesis, what is already “necessarily contained in the Scripture”.
The Covenant of Works in Genesis 2 and 3
In considering the covenant of works in the Garden, Particular Baptist Nehemiah Coxe helps us to see there was a true, covenantal relationship between God and Adam from the text of Scripture itself. (1) First, a positive (added, verbal) command is given in the form of both command and prohibition to Adam (Gen. 2:15-16). By way of command, God charged Adam with keeping and guarding the Garden. This highlights Adam’s role as priest-king in God’s Edenic kingdom. Next, God prohibited Adam from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This would serve as a test of obedience to the terms of the covenant as well as a reminder that Adam did not possess autonomous authority. His authority was God-given and limited.
(2) Secondly, we find a sanction/threat that acts as a guarantee of covenant-keeping. It would serve as an incentive for obedience. God threatened Adam with death upon disobedience (Gen. 2:17). Adam’s furthered communion and fellowship with the Creator would depend on his obedience.
(3) Thirdly, a promise of reward for Adam’s covenant-keeping is evident. This can be seen in Gen. 3:22 [see also Rev. 2:7; 22:19]. Adam was to obey and keep the covenant. Covenant-keeping would earn eternal life. Covenant-breaking would bring about swift judgment and death. However, it was to be this way only for a limited time (this is what is commonly referred to as Adam’s probation). In other words, the promise of life to be earned by perfect obedience was to be offered as a reward for the fulfillment of the terms of the covenant during Adam’s probation.
This covenant-keeping was not to be a perpetual or unending state of life for Adam. Rather, Adam would earn life for himself and all humanity upon perfectly keeping the covenant terms for the entirety of the probationary period. But this Adam failed to accomplish.
The severity of Adam’s covenant-breaking is evident from the immediate recourse taken by God to render judgment soon after the Fall (Gen. 3:14ff.). It is Adam, rather than Eve, whom God addresses and holds accountable (Gen. 3:9-11). Adam must answer for the covenant-breaking because it was Adam, not Eve, who was charged with covenant-keeping. This highlights Adam’s covenant headship as a federal representative for humanity (Rom. 5:12ff.).
Further evidence for the covenant of works is found in the swift excommunication from the Garden upon disobedience. Further, there was no covenant mediator and no opportunity for forgiveness in the event of breaking the covenant of works. There was no opportunity for grace in the Garden.10 Kline says unequivocally, “Heaven must be earned” within the terms of the covenant of works.11 Therefore, Adam and Eve were immediately exiled from the presence of God (Gen. 3:24) in an act of divine judgment. Rather than earning life, Adam brought upon himself and all humanity the covenant curse of death.12
Conclusion
This has been intended as an introduction to the Edenic covenant of works (sometimes referred to as the covenant of life or covenant of creation). Although some take issue with the terminology, it seems clear that the opening chapters of Genesis show a covenantal relationship between God and Adam. Geerhardus Vos put it this way in his Reformed Dogmatics:
By assuming the positive character of the covenant of works …we in no way intend to assert that Adam existed for a single moment outside the covenant of works. He was apparently created destined to be under it, and the garden in which was placed was created to be a stage for his probation.13
Additionally, Herman Bavinck, in his Reformed Dogmatics, helps us see the importance of this doctrine and its relation to the gospel. He says:
After the covenant of works had been broken, God did not immediately conceive a totally different covenant unrelated to the preceding one [the covenant of works] and that has a different character. That simply could not be the case, for God is unchangeable; the demand posed to humans in the covenant of works is not arbitrary or capricious. …God stands by the demand that eternal life can be obtained only in the way of obedience; …The covenant of works and the covenant of grace primarily differ in that Adam is exchanged for Christ. …Sin and death accrue to humanity from Adam; righteousness and life from Christ. Christ is the second and last Adam who restores what the first Adam had corrupted and takes over what he had neglected. He is the mediator of the covenant of grace, the head of the new humanity.14
And finally a summarizing thought from Meredith Kline:
Under God’s covenant with mankind in Adam attainment of the eschatological kingdom and Sabbath rest was governed by a principle of works. Adam, representative of mankind, was commissioned to fulfill the probationary assignment; he must perform the one meritorious act of righteousness. This act was to have the character of victory in battle. An encounter with Satan was a critical aspect of the probationary crisis for each of the two Adams [Adam and Christ]. …It was the winning of this victory of righteousness by the one that would be imputed to the many as their act of righteousness and as their claim on the consummated kingdom proffered in the covenant.15
In summary, what I have attempted to highlight in this essay is the importance of this doctrine and its relevancy for the Christian. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinners under the covenant of grace is placed in stark contrast with the imputation of Adam’s sin due to the broken Edenic covenant of works. This will help us to better understand our Bibles and the grand metanarrative of redemptive history.
What is referred to here is the covenant theology of the 17th century English, “Particular Baptists”; men like William Kiffin, John Spilsbury, Benjamin Keach, and Nehemiah Coxe. For more information regarding the retrieval of the 17th-century Particular Baptist confessional theology, see the website 1689federalism.com.
Johnson, Jeffrey D.. The Kingdom of God: A Baptist Expression of Covenant Theology (Conway, AR: Free Grace Press, 2014) Kindle Ed., 32.
Coxe, Nehemiah. Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ (Palmdale, CA: RBAP, 2005); 36.
Coxe. Covenant Theology; 36.
Coxe, Covenant Theology; 37.
Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2000), 23.
Fisher, Edward. The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus Publishing, 2009), 53. This is a modern reprint of the work originally published in the mid-seventeenth century. This edition is also printed with Thomas Boston’s notes in the margins from the early eighteenth century.
This sort of objection is common with a biblicist approach to Scripture. A biblicist approach to Scripture often fails to see the underlying meaning and proper interpretation of a passage of Scripture because it cannot see past the bare meaning of the words on the page. This approach often results in creating interpretive challenges where there are none, and it often results in seeing contradictions throughout Scripture. It pits the bare words of Scripture in place against the bare words of Scripture in another place and then seeks to artificially resolve the tension. A biblicist approach to Scripture also tends to reject any connection to the history of the interpretation of any given text in favor of the reader’s personal interpretation. For further reading on biblicism, see this article by R. Scott Clark.
The Baptist Confession of Faith & The Baptist Catechism (Port St. Lucie, FL: Solid Ground Christian Books, 2018), 3.
Kline, Meredith. Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006), 112.
Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 107.
All of the above discussion on the covenant of works in Genesis 2-3 is essentially a summary of chapter 2 from Nehemiah Coxe in Covenant Theology: From Adam to Christ (p. 42-58). Robert L. Dabney employs virtually the same biblical rationale in Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1980 [1878]), 300-305.
Vos, Geerhardus; Gaffin, Richard. Reformed Dogmatics (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012-2016), Single Volume Edition, 250.
Bavinck, Herman; Bolt, John; Vriend, John. Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), Vol. 3, 226-227.
Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 117.