A principle of works - do this and live
- governed the attainment of the consummation-kingdom proferred
in the blessing sanction of the creational covenant. Heaven must
be earned. According to the terms stipulated by the Creator it
would be on the ground of man's faithful completion of the work
of probation that he would be entitled to enter the Sabbath rest.
If Adam obediently performed the assignment signified by the
probation tree, he would receive, as a matter of pure and simple
justice, the reward symbolized by the tree of life. That is,
successful probation would be meritorious. With good reason then
covenant theology has identified this probation arrangement as
a covenant of works, thereby setting it in sharp contrast to the
Covenant of Grace
This standard Reformed analysis of the
covenants with its sharp law-gospel contrast has come under attack
from various theological quarters, including of late the broadly
Reformed community. Indeed, it has been contended that in bestowing
the blessings of his kingdom God has never dealt with man on the
basis of law (i.e., the principle of works as the opposite of
grace). Paternal love informs all such transactions and, so the
argument runs, that fatherly beneficence is not compatible with
the legal-commercial notion of reward for meritorious works, of
benefits granted as a matter of justice. Appeal is made to the
fact that man as a creature is an unprofitable servant even when
he has done all that has been required of him in the stewardship
of God's gifts. Or, stating it from the reverse side, man cannot
possibly add to the riches of his Lord's glory for God is eternally
all-glorious; everything belongs to the Creator. Hence, the conclusion
is drawn that in the covenant relationship we must reckon everywhere
with the presence of a principle of "grace" and, therefore,
we may never speak of meritorious works. The rhetoric of this
argument has gone to the extreme of asserting that to entertain
the idea that the obedience of man (even sinless man) might serve
as the meritorious ground for receiving the promised kingdom blessings
is to be guilty of devilish pride, of sin at its diabolical worst.
With respect to the over-all structuring of covenant theology,
once grace is attributed to the original covenant with Adam, preredemptive
and redemptive covenants cease to be characterized by contrasting
governmental principles in the bestowal of the kingdom on mankind.
Instead, some sort of continuum obtains. A combined demand-and-promise
(which is thought somehow to qualify as grace but not as works)
is seen as the common denominator in this alleged new unity of
all covenants. (The following discussion of this radical departure
from the classic law-gospel contrast reflects my studies "Of
Works and Grace," Presbyterion 9 (1983) 85-92 and
"Covenant Theology Under Attack," New Horizons
15/2 (1994) 3-5, critiques of the teachings of the Daniel P. Fuller-John
Piper-Norman Shepherd school.)
Other Instances of the Works Principle
(Christ and Israel)
Contrary to the sweeping denial of the
operation of the works principle anywhere in the divine government,
the biblical evidence compels us to recognize that God has in
fact employed that principle. Indeed, the principle of works
forms the foundation of the gospel of grace. If meritorious works
could not be predicated of Jesus Christ as second Adam, then obviously
there would be no meritorious achievement to be imputed to his
people as the ground of their justification-approbation. The
gospel invitation would turn out to be a mirage. We who have
believed on Christ would still be under condemnation. The gospel
truth, however, is that Christ has performed the one act of righteousness
and by this obedience of the one the many are made righteous (Rom
5:18,19). In his probationary obedience the Redeemer gained the
merit which is transferred to the account of the elect. Underlying
Christ's mediatorship of a covenant of grace for the salvation
of believers is his earthly fulfillment, through meritorious obedience,
of his heavenly covenant of works with the Father.
Since the works principle is thus foundational
to the gospel, the repudiation of that principle - in particular,
the denial of the possibility of meritorious works where paternal
love is involved (as it certainly is in the relation of the Father
and the Son) - stands condemned as subversive of that gospel.
What begins as a rejection of works ends up as an attack, however
unintentional, on the biblical message of saving grace. Moreover,
in the attributing of diabolical pride to the one who thinks to
do something deserving of the reward of the kingdom glory there
is, in effect, a blasphemous assault on the religious integrity
of Jesus himself. For Jesus, the second Adam, regarded his works
as meritorious. He claimed for himself the Father's glory on
the basis of his having glorified the Father (John 17:4,5; cf.
Phil 2:8,9). Here in the relation of Jesus with the Father, where
we encounter pure religion and undefiled, the holy validity of
the works principle receives divine imprimatur.
Also contradicting the contention that
no divine covenants have ever been governed by the works principle
is the irrefutable biblical evidence that the Mosaic economy,
while an administration of grace on its fundamental level of concern
with the eternal salvation of the individual, was at the same
time on its temporary, typological kingdom level informed by the
principle of works. Thus, for example, the apostle Paul in Romans
10:4ff. and Galatians 3:10ff. (cf. Rom 9:32) contrasts the old
order of the law with the gospel order of grace and faith, identifying
the old covenant as one of bondage, condemnation, and death (cf.
2 Cor 3:6-9; Gal 4:24-26). The old covenant was law, the opposite
of grace-faith, and in the postlapsarian world that meant it would
turn out to be an administration of condemnation as a consequence
of sinful Israel's failure to maintain the necessary meritorious
obedience. Had the old typological kingdom been secured by sovereign
grace in Christ, Israel would not have lost her national election.
A satisfactory explanation of Israel's fall demands works, not
grace, as the controlling administrative principle.
According to ample and plain biblical
testimony, God has dealt with man on the basis of the works principle
in covenantal arrangements within even redemptive history, and
these arrangements of God the Father with God the Son and with
his son Israel have been at the same time expressions of the most
intense paternal love. Manifestly, paternal love and the legal
justice of the works principle are not mutually exclusive but
entirely compatible. The revulsion felt at the concept of meritorious
works in divine-human relationship by those who reject meritorious
human works in the avowed interests of making room for divine
love is not attuned to the teaching and spirit of the Scriptures.
In particular, it is inimical to a Scriptural theology of the
Cross. We are obliged by the biblical facts to define works and
justice in such a way that we can apply both the legal-commercial
and family-paternal models to explicate the same covenants.
From the presence of the works principle
in these other divine covenants it is clear that there can be
no a priori objection to the standard view of the original Edenic
order as a covenant of works. Moreover, the works-covenants already
adduced are so related to God's covenant with mankind in Adam
as to demonstrate the works character of the latter. This is
particularly clear in the case of the works-covenant of the Father
with the Son as second Adam. Correspondence in God's dealings
with the two Adams is required by the very analogy that Scripture
posits in its interpretation of the mission of Christ as a second
Adam, succeeding where the first Adam failed. Adam, like Christ,
must have been placed under a covenant of works.
Likewise, the identification of God's
old covenant with Israel as one of works points to the works nature
of the creational covenant. Here we can only state a conclusion
that study of the biblical evidence would substantiate, but the
significant point is that the old covenant with Israel, though
it was something more, was also a re-enactment (with necessary
adjustments) of mankind's primal probation - and fall. It was
as the true Israel, born under the law, that Christ was the second
Adam. This means that the covenant with the first Adam, like
the typological Israelite re-enactment of it, would have been
a covenant of law in the sense of works, the antithesis of the
grace-promise-faith principle.
1st Objection: "If Adam could
merit a reward, he would enrich God by adding to His glory; but
this is impossible"
In the introduction to this discussion
we mentioned factors which, according to those who reject the
Covenant of Works concept, make it impossible that man could merit
reward and compel us to attribute whatever blessings he enjoys
to divine grace. Among the factors appealed to were some that
obtained from the very beginning of man's existence, and before
it. There was the nature of God, the eternal Creator, all glorious,
all sovereign; the very thought of his further enrichment from
any outside source is inconceivable. And corollary thereto was
man's nature as a creature and the unprofitable character of the
service that he might render, even when he had done his utmost.
Since these factors are always present
in the religious relationship, they would - if they were valid
arguments against the works principle - not only prove the creation
covenant was not a covenant of works but negate the possibility
of a covenant of works anywhere else. Therefore, the biblical
teaching that there actually have been covenants of works shows
that these factors do not in fact negate the operation of the
works principle nor demonstrate the presence of its opposite,
grace; no more so in the creational covenant than they do elsewhere.
Furthermore, though Adam could not enrich
God by adding to his glory, it was nevertheless precisely the
purpose of man's existence to glorify God, which he does when
he responds in obedience to the revelation of God's will. And
according to the revelation of covenantal justice, God performs
justice and man receives his proper desert when God glorifies
the man who glorifies him.
To be so rewarded is not an occasion
for man to glory in himself against God. On the contrary, a doxological
glorying in God in recognition of the Creator's sovereign goodness
will become the Lord's creature-servants. But if our concepts
of justice and grace are biblical we will not attribute the promised
reward of the creation covenant to divine grace. We will rather
regard it as a just recompense to a meritorious servant, for justice
requires that man receive the promised good in return for his
doing the demanded good. Indeed, if we do not analyze the situation
abstractly but in accordance with the created, covenantal reality
as God actually constituted it, we will see that to give a faithful
Adam anything less than the promised reward would have been to
render him evil for good. For we will appreciate the fact that
man's hope of realizing the state of glorification and of attaining
to the Sabbath-consummation belonged to him by virtue of his very
nature as created in the image of the God of glory. This expectation
was an in-created earnest of fullness, to be denied which would
have frustrated him to the depths of his spirit's longing for
God and God-likeness. Whatever he might have been granted short
of that for his obedience would be no blessing at all, but a curse.
According to God's creational ordering
it is a necessary and inevitable sequence, in preredemptive covenant
as well as in redemptive history, that "whom he justified,
him he also glorified" (Rom 8:30). Within the framework
of this judicial-eschatological bonding of glorification to justification,
once it has been determined on what principle justification operates
under a given covenant, the principle governing the grant of eschatological
blessings in that covenant has also been determined. If justification
is by grace through faith, as it is under the gospel, glorification
will not be by works. And if justification-approbation is secured
on the grounds of works, as it clearly is in the preredemptive
covenant, glorification will not be by grace. Bestowal of the
reward contemplated in the creational covenant was a matter of
works; it was an aspect of God's creational love, but it was
not a matter of grace.
2nd Objection: "God's goodness as
shown to Adam in the creational covenant was unmerited grace"
By clarifying the biblical-theological
concept of grace we may further expose the fallacy of those who
would inject the idea of grace into the analysis of the creational
covenant, thereby clouding and indeed contradicting the meritorious
character of the probationary obedience and the works-justice
nature of the covenant. Grace lives and moves and has its being
in a legal, forensic environment. In the biblical proclamation
of the gospel, grace is the antithesis of the works principle.
Grace and works could thus be contrastively compared only if
they were comparable, that is, only if the term grace, like works,
functioned in a forensic context. Grace does not exist then except
in relation to the rendering of divine judgment on situations
involving acts of human responsibility, acts of man as accountable
to God for compliance with appointed duty.
Divine judgment may be by the principle
of works or of grace but in either case the standard by which
man is measured in the great assize is covenant law. In a judgment
according to works, blessing rewards meritorious obedience and
curse punishes the transgressor. In a judgment by the principle
of grace, blessing is bestowed in the face of violation of stipulated
moral-religious duty, in spite of the presence of demerit.
(Divine justice will, of course, be satisfied whether it be a
judgment of works or of grace.)
The distinctive meaning of grace in
its biblical-theological usage is a divine response of favor and
blessing in the face of human violation of obligation. Gospel
grace takes account of man in his responsibility under the demands
of the covenant and specifically as a covenant breaker, a sinner
against covenant law. Accordingly, the grace of Christ comes
to expression in his active and passive obedience, together constituting
a vicarious satisfaction for the obligations and liabilities of
his people, who through failure and transgression are debtors
before the covenant Lord, the Judge of all the earth. Gospel
grace emerges in a forensic framework as a response of mercy to
demerit.
Theologically it is of the greatest
importance to recognize that the idea of demerit is an essential
element in the definition of grace. In its proper theological
sense as the opposite of law-works, grace is more than unmerited
favor. That is, divine grace directs itself not merely to the
absence of merit but to the presence of demerit. It addresses
and overcomes violation of divine commandment. It is a granting
of blessing, as an act of mercy, in spite of previous covenant
breaking by which man has forfeited all claims to participation
in the kingdom and has incurred God's disfavor and righteous wrath.
It bestows the good offered in the covenant's blessing sanctions
rather than the evil of the threatened curse even though man has
done evil rather than good in terms of the covenant stipulations.
Because grace cannot be defined apart
from this context of covenantal stipulations and sanctions and
is specifically a response of mercy to demerit, it must be carefully
distinguished from divine love or beneficence. For God's love,
though it may find expression in gospel grace, is also expressed
in the bestowal of good apart altogether from considerations of
the merits of man's response to covenantal responsibility. Such
is the goodness or benevolence of God displayed in the act of
creation. This marvelous manifestation of love seen in God's
creational endowment of man with glory and honor had nothing to
do with human merit. Without prior existence, man was obviously
without merit-rating one way or the other when the Lord creatively
assigned him his particular ontological status, with its present
good and eschatological potential.
We might speak of this creational act
of love as unmerited, but it would be better to avoid that term.
It is an abstraction whose use, whether for God's creational
goodness or redemptive mercy is liable to considerable theological
confusion. In the only situation where merit enters the picture
(that is, in connection with human response to divine demand)
there is either merit or demerit. In this situation of accountable
response to covenant duty obedience brings merit and failure to
perform the probationary task incurs demerit. There is either
merit or demerit, but no "unmerit." Unmerited is not,
therefore, a proper description of the blessings bestowed against
an historical background of (unsatisfactory) exercise of covenant
responsibility. And to speak of the goodness of God shown in
the act of creation as unmerited is not apropros since there can
be no thought of merit at all in that context.
Unfortunately, however, gospel grace
has been commonly defined by the term unmerited. Then, when unmerited
is also used for the divine benevolence in creation an illusion
of similarity, if not identity, is produced. As a result the
term grace gets applied to God's creational goodness. And the
mischief culminates in the argument that since "grace"
is built into the human situation at the outset, the covenant
that ordered man's existence could not be a covenant of works,
for works is the opposite of grace. If we appreciate the forensic
distinctiveness of grace we will not thus confuse the specific
concept of (soteriological) grace with the beneficence expressed
in the creational endowment of man with his ontological dignity.
We will perceive that God's creational manifestation of goodness
was an act of divine love, but not of grace. And we have seen
that the presence of paternal love in a covenantal arrangement
is no impediment to its being a covenant of works.
3rd Objection: "The disproportion
between Adam's work and the promised blessing forbids us to speak of
simple justice"
Another form of the attack on the Covenant
of Works doctrine (and thus on the classic law-gospel contrast)
asserts that even if it is allowed that Adam's obedience would
have earned something, the disproportion between the value of
that act of service and the value of the proferred blessing forbids
us to speak here of simple equity or justice. The contention
is that Adam's ontological status limited the value or weight
of his acts. More specifically his act of obedience would not
have eternal value or significance; it could not earn a reward
of eternal, confirmed life. In the offer of eternal life, so
we are told, we must therefore recognize an element of "grace"
in the preredemptive covenant. But belying this assessment of
the situation is the fact that if it were true that Adam's act
of obedience could not have eternal significance then neither
could or did his actual act of disobedience have eternal significance.
It did not deserve the punishment of everlasting death. Consistency
would compel us to judge God guilty of imposing punishment beyond
the demands of justice, pure and simple. God would have to be
charged with injustice in inflicting the punishment of Hell, particularly
when he exacted that punishment from his Son as the substitute
for sinners. The Cross would be the ultimate act of divine injustice.
That is the theologically disastrous outcome of blurring the
works-grace contrast by appealing to a supposed disproportionality
between work and reward.
Of a piece with the specific teaching
that God's dealings with mankind in Adam were on the basis of
the forensic principle of works-justice is the general biblical
teaching that the rewarding of obedience and punishing of disobedience
are foundational to God's government of the world, an expression
of the nature of God as just. In the divine juridical order one's
eschatological harvest is what he has sown as the Lord renders
to every man according to his works (Rom 2:6-10; Gal 6:7). This
law of recompense is positive as well as negative, for the verdict
of justification and praise belongs to the doers of the law (Rom
2:13,29; cf. Heb 6:10). And in its distinctive, vicarious way
of grace the gospel order honors this principle too.
On the approach that mistakenly contends
that the presence of God's paternal love involves grace and so
negates the possibility of meritorious works and simple justice,
divine justice ceases to be foundational to all divine government.
A negative, punitive justice may be recognized, as in the retribution
against the wicked in hell, to which paternal love does not reach.
But there is no place in that view for positive justice; those
who advocate it must deny that the rewarding of doers of the law
with life forms the reverse side of the negative justice which
punishes the breakers of the law with death. They cannot consistently
confess that justice is the foundation of God's throne (Pss 89:14(15);
97:2).
The disproportionality view's failure
with respect to the doctrine of divine justice can be traced to
its approach to the definition of justice. A proper approach
will hold that God is just and his justice is expressed in all
his acts; in particular, it is expressed in the covenant he institutes.
The terms of the covenant - the stipulated reward for the stipulated
service - are a revelation of that justice. As a revelation of
God's justice the terms of the covenant define justice. According
to this definition, Adam's obedience would have merited the reward
of eternal life and not a gram of grace would have been involved.
Refusing to accept God's covenant word
as the definer of justice, the disproportionality view exalts
above God's word a standard of justice of its own making. Assigning
ontological values to Adam's obedience and God's reward it finds
that weighed on its judicial scales they are drastically out of
balance. In effect that conclusion imputes an imperfection in
justice to the Lord of the covenant. The attempt to hide this
affront against the majesty of the Judge of all the earth by condescending
to assess the relation of Adam's act to God's reward as one of
congruent merit is no more successful than Adam's attempt to manufacture
a covering to conceal his nakedness. It succeeds only in exposing
the roots of this opposition to Reformed theology in the theology
of Rome.
Subversion of the Reformation Gospel
The drift toward Rome is evidenced by
the fruits as well as the roots of the views that repudiate the
idea of merit and the law-gospel contrast. For blurring the concepts
of works and grace in the doctrine of the covenants will inevitably
involve the blurring of works and faith in the doctrine of justification
and thus the subversion of the Reformation message of justification
by faith alone.
Marking this view that repudiates the
works principle as a radical departure from classic Reformed theology
is its drastic revision of the fundamental theological construct
of federal-representative probation and forensic imputation.
According to the biblical data, the probationary role of the two
Adams called for a performance of righteousness that was to be
imputed to the account of those they represented, serving as meritorious
ground for justification and inheritance of the consummate kingdom.
What was in view was not merely the transmitting from the one
to the many of a subjective condition of righteousness but the
judicial imputation to the many of a specific accomplishment of
righteousness by the federal representative. That decisive probationary
accomplishment involved the obedient performance of a particular
covenantal service, and accordingly it is characterized as "one
act of righteousness" (Rom 5:18).
This standard doctrine of probation and imputation is obviously not compatible with the position that disavows the works principle. On that position, a declaration of justification and conveyance of eschatological blessings in consequence of a successful probation, whether of Adam or Christ, would be an exercise of grace, not of simple justice. But if there is no meritorious accomplishment possible, the rationale of the imputation arrangement in general becomes obscure, if the whole point of it is not in fact lost. In the case of the gospel, if there is no meritorious achievement of active obedience on the part of Christ to be imputed to the elect, then this cardinal doctrine of soteric justification in its historic orthodox form must be abandoned.
© 2007 Meredith G. Kline