On Covenants and Covenanting

All the intercourse which God holds with men is through the medium of covenant transactions. Soon after the creation of this world, it was put under a federal dispensation, of which man was the head. By this arrangement, nothing was detracted from the glory of the Creator in the exercise of his high prerogative as Legislator; but by it there was an eminent display given of his goodness. The law under which man was created, was a copy of the moral perfections of God. In the superadded form of a covenant which it received, it exhibited a transcript of his gracious character. On that dispensation, under which man was placed in innocency, there are the clearest traces of the goodness of God, as well as of his wisdom, and power, and justice, and holiness. And it was this finishing act of the six days' creation work that made it, in the highest degree, the object of Divine complacential contemplation. "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good."

Much that has been said and written in denial of the covenant of works, proceeds from evident ignorance of the nature of such a transaction. Did God, by fair implication, give to our first parents promises of good, to be fulfilled, when they should perform the condition required of them? Life was as certainly promised, as death was threatened, in the covenant of works. A penalty is necessary to law, and therefore, does not change its nature; but in the exercise of purely legislative authority, there is no place for promises or reward. "When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say we are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do." Luke 17:10. Those who have only what was their duty, have merited nothing. Promises on the part of God, to our first parents, exhibited him in another than a merely legislative character. It displayed his benignity in promising to reward man's obedience, and his faithfulness as pledged for the fulfillment of his engagement. The covenant of works was not a mere act of Divine authoritative will to preserve order and subordination in the world, but it was an emanation from the goodness of the Divine nature, in this way discovering itself, mediately for the good of man, and ultimately for the glory of God.

The design of the foregoing remarks, is to show that God is inclined, by his essential graciousness, to connect with his commands promises of reward, as motives to obey. An argument a priori is thus furnished for the proposition under consideration. Abundant facts confirm the same truth. In the whole history of man till the present time, and in that which remains to be filled up until time shall be no more, a single exception shall never be found to that rule of the divine administrations, by which God is exhibited as a God who makes and who keeps covenant with men. The condemnation and punishment of the wicked furnish nothing incongrous with this most interesting view of the Divine character, for they all die under the covenant of works, and suffer its direful penalty; and their sin has this aggravation, that it is committed under a dispensation of new covenant mercy, and against a Savior by whom it is administered. And, while from that very fact, the righteousness of the Divine government, in their sentence and its execution, will be most clearly displayed, there will be, in the salvation of all the redeemed, a most glorious exhibition of the gracious perfections fo the Triune God. "He hath sent redemption unto his people; he hath commended his covenant for ever; holy and reverend is his name."

2. All God's covenant transactions with men since the fall, are based on the covenant of grace. The covenant of works being broken, there was no place left under it for promises. By the violation of his engagement, man lost all claim to the Divine favor. There was before him nothing but a "fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation." It was perfectly clear that if promises be made again to man, it must be under an order of things entirely new, and for which the covenant of works made no provision, Infinite wisdom foresaw and provided for the exigency. Between the eternal FAther and the eternal Son a covenant was made in eternity, which contemplate the wiping away of all the dishonor done to God by the introduction of sin, and the manifestation fo the Divine perfections in restoring to the moral universe the harmony which that foreign and malignant element had disturbed. "I have made a covenant with my chosen." "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." The Son of God undertook, in our nature, to satisfy Divine justice, and to opent up a way through which mercy could be manifested to sinners. By his obedience to the death, he fully performed all the stipulations of the covenant, and provided for the children of men a way of access to God. "In Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ."

[Taken from Vol. 3 no. 21, October 13, 1995 of the Original Covenanter and Contending Witness. Originally published in 1850.]