Editor’s Note: The following is the complete chapter as it appeared in R. Scott Clark, ed., Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry: Essays by the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2007), 167-96. In 2021, the publisher returned the publication rights to the copyright holder and the chapter is presented here as a service to the public by the Heidelberg Reformation Association. The material is copyrighted. All Rights Reserved. You are welcome to link to this chapter but you are not entitled to reproduce it in any way without permission of the copyright holder.
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Introduction
Those not well read in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed theology might be forgiven their ignorance of the covenant of redemption or for concluding that it is an arcane doctrine long abandoned. Judging by its absence from some contemporary systematic theologies and its idiosyncratic treatment or rejection in others, one might not realize that the eternal covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), also known as the counsel of peace (the Vulgate translates עֲצַת שָׁלוֹם in Zech 6:13 as consilium pacis), among the trinitarian persons was not only one of the most fascinating aspects of the development of Reformed federalism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but also one of the most important and widely taught aspects of Reformed covenant theology and a cornerstone of its soteriology.1
1. Since the late 1960s several monographs on covenant theology have appeared wherein the discussion has centered entirely on the historia salutis. Writers from a variety of perspectives
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In Reformed theology, the pactum salutis has been defined as a pretemporal, intratrinitarian agreement between the Father and Son in which the Father promises to redeem an elect people. In turn, the Son volunteers to earn the salvation of his people by becoming incarnate (the Spirit having prepared a body for him), by acting as the surety (ἔγγoυς, sponsor, fideiussor, or expromissor) of the covenant of grace for and as mediator of the covenant of grace to the elect. In his active and passive obedience, Christ fulfills the conditions of the pactum salutis and fulfills his guarantee (sponsio, vas, or fideiussio), ratifying the Father’s promise, because of which the Father rewards the Son’s obedience with the salvation of the elect. And because of this, the Holy Spirit applies the Son’s work to his people through the means of grace.
For the Son, the pactum salutis is a legal/works covenant of obligation, merit, and reward wherein, as Louis Berkhof says, “eternal life could only be obtained by meeting the demands of the law.” In this, God the Son incarnate served as our representative, surety, sponsor, and guarantee. With respect (considered prospectively) to sinners,
omit any discussion of the pactum salutis; see Jacob Jocz, The Covenant: A Theology of Human Destiny (1968; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999); Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969); C. K. Campbell, God’s Covenant (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1974), who uses the term covenant of redemption strictly to denote the historia salutis; John M. Zinkand, Covenants: God’s Claims (Sioux Center, IA: Dordt College Press, 1984); Thomas Edward McComiskey, The Covenants of Promise: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985); C. Van Der Waal, The Covenantal Gospel (Neerlandia, AB: Inheritance Publications, 1990); Clarence Stam, The Covenant of Love: Exploring Our Relationship with God (Winnipeg: Premier, 1999); Rowland S. Ward, God and Adam: Reformed Theology and the Creation Covenant (Wantirna, Australia: New Melbourne Press, 2003); Donald G. Bloesch, God the Almighty: Power, Wisdom, Holiness, and Love (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1995); idem, Jesus Christ: Savior and Lord (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997); Gordon J. Spykman, Reformational Theology: A New Paradigm for Doing Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992); Dewey D. Wallace Jr., “Federal Theology,” in The Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith (ed. Donald K. McKim; Louisville: WJK, 1992); Peter A. Lilback, “Covenant,” in New Dictionary of Theology (ed. Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), who makes only a passing reference to the pactum salutis; Hendrikus Berkof, Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith (trans. Sierd Woudstra; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), who mentions (and rejects) the covenant of works but ignores the pactum salutis completely; Jürgen Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom (trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 83, 111–28, who writes of intratrinitarian relations in Hegelian terms so that history is not so much the outworking of the divine counsel of redemption as it is the self-realization of God and the inclusion of humanity with him; and Otto Weber, Foundations of Dogmatics (trans. Darrel L. Guder; 2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), who is aware of federal theology but does not mention the pactum salutis.
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however, it is a gracious covenant, the condition of which is extraspective faith.2
The function of the pactum salutis in Reformed theology is, first, to synthesize and explain a series of biblical passages that indicate a pretemporal covenant of the sort described above. Second, it accounts for the covenants of works and grace in Scripture being not mere conventions or nomina, but rather covenants made in history being grounded in the nature of the intratrinitarian relations. Third, and most important for this volume, the pactum salutis provides an essential part of the biblical and theological context for the doctrine of active obedience and hence the doctrine of justification. When Jesus Christ earned the righteousness to be imputed to his people, he was fulfilling not only the historical covenant of works as the Second Adam (Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:45) but also the covenant he made with his Father.
Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609) is sometimes credited with first using the noun pactum to describe this arrangement between the Father and the Son.3 Arminius, however, was not the first to use the term. Rather, it was Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531), who in his 1523–24 lectures on Isaiah first spoke of a pactum between the Father and “his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,” describing an eternal, legal, intratrinitarian agreement, and again in the early 1530s in lectures on Hebrews.4 Given that this language and conception
2. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), 268.
3. B. Loonstra, Verkiezing-Versoening-Verbond: Beschrijving en beoordeling van de leer van het pactum salutis in de gereformeerde theologie (The Hague: Boekencentrum, 1990), 21–31. In 1603 Arminius was voicing support for the doctrine, but by 1608 he was at least ambivalent toward it. He argued that Christ’s righteousness—rather than Christ’s obedience—made it possible for our faith to be imputed to us as righteousness. See Jacobus Arminius, Opera theologica (Leiden, 1629), 1.16, 39, 66, 963; idem, The Works of James Arminius (trans. James Nichols and William Nichols; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1.343, 365, 410–31; 2.727.
4. Johannes Oecolampadius, In iesaiam prophetam hypomnematon (Basle, 1525), 268b: “Pactum cum filio suo domino nostro Ihesu Christo.” Two things about the passage in which this language occurs strike the reader. The first is the casual way Oecolampadius introduces the idea. The tone of the passage suggests that he did not consider the idea controversial or novel. The second is that he appeals to the pactum between the Father and the Son in support of his exposition of the covenant of grace. In other words, for Oecolampadius, the nature of the covenant of grace is grounded in the pactum salutis; see idem, In epistolam ad hebraeos (Strasbourg, 1534), 78. See also A. A. Woolsey, “Unity and Continuity in Covenantal Thought: A Study in the Reformed Tradition to the Westminster Assembly” (PhD thesis; Glasgow University, 1988), 1.262.
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occur so early in the development of Protestant (and Reformed) theology, rather than thinking of the pactum salutis as a late transplant we should think of the pactum salutis as indigenous to Reformed theology.5
The pactum salutis has appeared in every era of Reformed theology and in every region where Reformed theology flourished, beginning in the early orthodox period in Germany (Caspar Olevianus, Zacharias Ursinus), Switzerland (Amandus Polanus), and the Netherlands (William Ames, Gijsbertus Voetius, Johannes Cocceius, Abraham Heidanus).6 In the period of high orthodoxy, it was found in Britain (John Owen, Edward Leigh), Geneva (Francis Turretin), Germany and the Netherlands (Peter Van Mastricht, Franz Burman), and Switzerland (J. H. Heidegger). Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pactum salutis found support among a variety of Reformed schools. For example, both the Cocceians and the Voetians taught it, as did Herman Witsius, who sought to mediate between them. In Scotland, the leader of the so-called Marrow men, Thomas Boston, taught the pactum salutis, and Jonathan Edwards, the leader of the New Side revival, taught it in New England. In the nineteenth century, the pactum salutis was a staple of the old-school theology at Princeton (Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, B. B. Warfield) and of the southern Presbyterians (John L. Girardeau, Robert L. Dabney). In the early twentieth century, Dutch neo-Calvinists Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, Geerhardus Vos, and M. J. Bosma all taught the pactum salutis.
The thing not to be missed in this taxonomy is that it covers virtually every school, major subgroup, era, and location in the history of the Reformed theology from the late sixteenth century up to the early twentieth century. Support for the pactum salutis in the Reformed tradition has been virtually universal and constant until quite recently.
5. Herman Witsius addressed this question in De oeconomia foederum dei cum hominibus (Leeuwarden, 1677), 2.2.16; for English translation see The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man (trans. William Crookshank; 1803; repr. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1990).
6. On Olevianus, see R. Scott Clark,Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ (Rutherford Studies in Historical Theology; Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 2005), 168, 177–80, 209.
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Confessional Teaching on the Covenant of Redemption
The earlier Reformed confessions did not present a detailed covenant theology in formal terms, but shared many of the assumptions exploited by the more mature covenant theology, including the basic ideas behind the covenant of works and the pactum salutis.
The most explicit covenant theology in the Belgic Confession (1561) concerns the covenant of grace. The term covenant occurs in the explanation of the sacraments. Baptism is, according to the Latin text adopted at Dort (1619), a “sign of the covenant” (signum foederis) (Schaff 3.427).7 Bearing in mind the theological context in which the confession was written, we should not miss the import for covenant theology of terms such as mediator and high priest. When, according to the Belgic Confession, did Jesus become our “high priest forever” and mediator (21)? According to Belgic Confession 26, the Father has “constituted” (constituit) the Son as “mediator” between “himself and us” (Schaff 3.413).8 The confession regards this constituting as eternal, interpersonal, legal, and covenantal.
The formal covenant theology of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) was also rudimentary. The terms testament and covenant (Bund in the German edition and foedus in the Latin) occur only in conjunction with questions concerning the sacraments (HC 68, 77, 79, 82, 84).9 The Heidelberg Catechism assumed the covenant of works/covenant of grace scheme taught by Ursinus and Olevianus. In this context, then, we should read the catechism’s references to Christ as mediator (e.g., HC 15, 18) as implying the pactum salutis. This is especially true regarding the catechism’s reference to Christ’s office as high priest (HC 31), which teaches the foreordination of Christ as the revealer of God’s “secret counsel and will . . . concerning our redemption” and our “only high priest.”10 This language reveals the same conceptual
7. The Latin text is found in J. N. Bakhuizen Van Den Brink, ed., De nederlandsche belijdenisgeschriften (Amsterdam: Uitgeversmaatschappij Holland, 1945), 129.
8. Ibid., 109.
9. Schaff 3.329–37 (German-English text); H. A. Niemeyer, Collectio confessionum in ecclesiis reformatis publicatorum (Leipzig, 1840) (Latin text).
10. Schaff 3.317; Niemeyer, Collectio confessionum, 437. If it is objected that the term pactum salutis does not occur in the Heidelberg Catechism and thus it is improper to interpret it to teach the pactum salutis, we respond by noting that the Heidelberg Catechism also does
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framework that supported the pactum salutis in orthodox Reformed theology.
The Canons of Dort (1619), however, were more explicit. In 1.7, as part of the definition of election, synod ruled that the Reformed churches believe that God has “elected . . . a certain number of persons . . . to salvation in Christ.” Christ is he “whom also, from eternity, God constituted mediator and head of all the elect, and the ground of salvation.” This was the very language used by the orthodox to teach the pactum salutis: “God has decreed to give [them, the elect] to Christ to be saved by him, and effectually to call and draw them . . . by his Word and Spirit” and to give them the benefits of Christ (Schaff 3.582).11 Canons of Dort 2.2 removes any ambiguity about the commitment of the canons to the pactum salutis when it says that God “from his infinite mercy” gives his “only begotten Son as our surety [sponsor]” (Schaff 3.586).12 No one familiar with the basics of Reformed orthodoxy in this period could miss the force of this language.
The Westminster Divines were even more explicit in their endorsement of the ideas behind the pactum salutis. Westminster Confession of Faith 8.1 says that “God, in his eternal purpose, . . . [chose] and ordain[ed]” Christ “to be the Mediator between God and man” to “whom he did, from all eternity, give a people to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified” (Schaff 3.619). This is the essence of the pactum salutis: that the Father gave a people to the Son upon certain conditions, namely, that the Son should redeem them and that his work should be applied to those elect. Westminster Confession of Faith 8.2 makes it clear that the Son performed those very stipulations as mediator. The confession’s conception of the pactum salutis is explicitly trinitarian. Christ was not only conceived by the Holy Spirit (WCF 8.2), but he was “thoroughly furnished” by the Holy Spirit “to execute the office of a
not use the words Trinity or triune and yet it would obtuse to refuse to see that doctrine in the catechism.
11. “Ad salutem elegit in Christo, quem etiam ab aeterno Mediatorem et omnium electorum caput, salutisque fundamentum constituit; atque ita eos ipsi salvandos dare, et ad eius communionem per verbum et Spiritum suum efficaciter vocare ac trahere” (Schaff 3.553).
12. “Deus ex immensa misericordia Filium suum unigenitum nobis Sponsorem dedit” (Schaff 3.561).
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mediator and surety” (8.3 [Schaff 3.620]).13 This language reflected the Reformed orthodox doctrine of the pactum salutis as expressed in the period.14
Modern Literature on the Covenant of Redemption
Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949) taught the pactum salutis not only in his 1891 essay but also in the classroom in Grand Rapids, as evidenced by his 1910 Dogmatiek.15 He argued that the work of salvation was covenantal “at its roots” and that the “rest of its unfolding was bound to correspond to it.”16 This had also been the approach of Herman Bavinck.17
The theologian of the Netherlands Reformed Congregations, G. H. Kersten (1882–1948), defended the pactum salutis as established with Christ as the federal head of the elect.18 He was highly critical of South
13. The Latin text has mediatoris vadisque (mediator and surety). This latter term, vas, vadis, is a commercial-legal term denoting a bail or guarantee. It seems to have been relatively rare word in Reformed use, so its appearances here and in Calvin are interesting. See also Johannes Cloppenburg, “Exercitationes super locos communes theologicos,” in Cloppenburg’s Theologica opera omnia (ed. Johannes Marckius; Amsterdam, 1684), 10.2.13, where Christ is described as both sponsor and vas.
14. A distinction is to be made between Christ’s offices as mediator and surety. They are related closely, however, in the Westminster Confession of Faith since in the pactum salutis the Son is appointed to be mediator of the covenant of grace. On the relations between these two offices, see John Owen, The Works of John Owen (ed. W. H. Goold; Edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–53), 21.495–512. On the Spirit’s role in the pactum salutis in Reformed theology, see Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), 96–97, 133–40, 146–50.
15. Geerhardus Vos, Dogmatiek (Grand Rapids: N.P., 1910), 2.88–90.
16. Geerhardus Vos, “Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 252. William Hendriksen (1900–1982) followed this view in The Covenant of Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1932).
17. See Herman Bavinck, Magnalia dei (Kampen: Kok, 1909), 261; idem, Our Reasonable Faith (trans. Henry Zylstra; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1956), 273.
18. G. H. Kersten, Reformed Dogmatics: A Systematic Treatment of Reformed Doctrine (1947; repr. Grand Rapids: Netherlands Reformed Book and Publishing Committee, 1980), 1.233– 58. He recognized that there were “sound divines” who taught that the covenant of grace is established with the elect (and taught the internal/external distinction) and should be regarded as anti-Arminian and anti-Pelagian (1.237). On the debates in the Christelijke Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland on these issues, see J. Van Genderen, Covenant and Election (Neerlandia, AB/Pella, IA: Inheritance Publications, 1995). On the doctrinal distinctives of the liberated, see Jelle Faber, “The Liberation: The Doctrinal Aspect,” in The Liberation: Causes and Consequences: The Struggle in the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in the 1940s (ed. Cornelis Van Dam; Winnipeg: Premier, 1995), 1–29.
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African theologian J. A. Heyns (1928–94) and Gereformeerde Kerken Nederland (Vrijgemaakt/Liberated) theologian Klaas Schilder (1890– 1952) among others for distinguishing between the pactum salutis and the covenant of grace19 and also for failing to distinguish between those who are in the covenant of grace only externally and those who are in the covenant of grace both externally and internally.20 As a result, in Schilder’s view, all baptized persons, elect and nonelect, are in the covenant of grace “head for head” in precisely the same way. One is either baptized and therefore in “the covenant”—or not. It is alles of niks (all or nothing), to use Schilder’s famous expression. The results of Schilder’s view were that the covenant of grace could be “broken” such that Schilder seemed to make remaining in “the covenant” (for Schilder there was only one) a matter of works, and further Schilder had the Son acting as “the Surety of the covenant” for elect and reprobate alike.21
Louis Berkhof (1873–1957) affirmed and defended the covenant of redemption, adopting the three-covenant view.22 He recognized that
19. The approach Kersten takes in not distinguishing the pactum salutis from the covenant of grace has a long and honorable pedigree, but it is not our approach, in which the pactum salutis and the covenant of grace are distinguished clearly without divorcing them. For example, Caspar Olevianus, Herman Witsius, and Charles Hodge taught the pactum salutis within a three-covenant scheme (i.e., pactum salutis, covenant of works, covenant of grace), whereas Zacharias Ursinus, the Westminster Larger Catechism, and A. A. Hodge taught the pactum salutis within a two-covenant scheme (i.e., covenant of works, covenant of grace). Both approaches have been used by orthodox Reformed theologians, and the thing to emphasize here is that both approaches held and taught the pactum salutis. The differences were pedagogical not theological.
20. Citing Calvin, Gomarus, Voetius, Van Mastrict, and others, Kersten argues for the traditional distinction between those who are in the covenant of grace “internally” and those reprobates and hypocrites who have merely an “external” relation to the covenant of grace. Those whom Scripture describes as having “broken” the covenant (Gen 17:14; Jer 31:32; Hos 6:7; 8:1) are those who have been initiated into the covenant of grace (1 Cor 10:1–5; John 15; 2 Pet 2:1) and who have become responsible persons before God; see Reformed Dogmatics, 1.250–55. See also R. Scott Clark, “Baptism and the Benefits of Christ: The Double Mode of Communion in the Covenant of Grace,” Confessional Presbyterian 2 (2006): 3–19.
21. Ibid., 1.236; see also 235, 252. R. L. Dabney makes this same criticism in Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1972), 432. If Kersten’s analysis is correct, Schilder’s approach to covenant theology would seem to have paved the way for the so-called Auburn Avenue or federal-vision theology (see chapter 9 below). On Schilder’s covenant theology, see J. Mark Beach, “The Doctrine of the pactum salutis in the Covenant Theology of Herman Witsius,” Mid-America Journal of Theology 13 (2002): 111–13; and S. A. Strauss, “Schilder on the Covenant,” in Always Obedient: Essays on the Teachings of Klaas Schilder (ed. J. Geertsma; Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1995). For a review of modern Afscheiding thought on covenant and baptism, see Jelle Faber, American Secession Theologians on Covenant and Baptism (Neerlandia, AB/Pella, IA: Inheritance Publications, 1996).
22. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 266–71.
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the term pactum salutis was not in Scripture, but he argued that the substance of the doctrine is present (i.e., contracting parties, promises, and conditions). The pactum salutis is a sort of archetype for the historical covenants. He argued that the eternal plan was covenantal in form on the basis of the promises made to Christ (John 5:30, 43; 6:38–40; 17:4–12), most particularly Luke 22:29.23 Following Cocceius and others, he noted the verbal connection in Jesus’s language between the verb διέθετο (to appoint) and the noun διαθήκη (covenant). He argued in defense of the Voetian view that Christ as expromissor (as distinct from fideiussor) earned complete forgiveness (ἄφεσις) rather than a mere overlooking (πάρεσις) of the sins of Old Testament believers. For Berkhof, the pactum salutis entailed that the Son appeared “in this covenant” as surety, head of his people, and the Last Adam and did “what Adam failed to do by keeping the law and thus securing eternal life” for the elect. This is the ground of the active obedience of Christ in which he entered into natural, penal, and federal relations to the law in order to merit eternal life for his people.24
Since the middle of the twentieth century, reception of the pactum salutis among Reformed theologians has been mixed, and it has received more than one idiosyncratic reformulation. According to Herman Hoeksema (1886–1965) the pactum salutis (he preferred “counsel of peace”) is “the eternal decree of God to reveal His own Triune covenant life in the highest possible sense of the word in the establishment of and realization of a covenant outside of Himself with the creature in the way of sin and grace, of death and redemption, to the glory of His holy name.”25 Though retaining the expression pactum salutis, he rejected the essence of the traditional doctrine as a legal transaction involving “mutual stipulations, conditions and promises.”26 He distinguished between the “covenant God establishes with Christ as the Servant of the Lord” and “the eternal covenant of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity.” He charged that the traditional
23. Perhaps prototype might be a better word here than archetype since, in Reformed theology, what is archetypal belongs to God and the pactum salutis is revealed and therefore ectypal and belongs to us (Deut 29:29 [MT 29:28]).
24. Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 269.
25. Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Reformed Free Publishing, 1966), 330.
26. Ibid., 292.
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failure to make this distinction has led to the practical denial of “the co-equality of the Son with the Father.”27
The biblical passages traditionally cited for the pactum salutis really apply to the covenant between the Father and the Son, not to the pactum salutis as Hoeksema conceived of it. It is clear that Hoeksema taught that there was an eternal arrangement between the Father and the Son, with the Son as the head of the elect for their redemption. He simply wanted to strip that arrangement of the title pactum salutis and of any contractual implications. Of course, this criticism flowed from his definition of covenant as “the communion of friendship.”28 According to Hoeksema, implicit in Berkhof’s formulation was an unintentional “denial of the Trinity” and subordination of the Son to the Father, making the work of redemption the Father’s alone. He advocated a covenant between the triune God and Christ.29 In his redefinition of the pactum salutis, however, it is apparent that he did exactly what Vos rejected, making it nothing other than a “reworking of the doctrine of election.”30
In his famous excursus on federal theology in the Church Dogmatics 4/1, Karl Barth (1886–1968) expressed cautious appreciation for aspects of traditional Reformed federalism, but rejected much of it as unbiblical.31 He rejected the covenant of redemption and the classic distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace as legalistic. In particular he criticized the innergöttlichen Pakt, asking provocatively:
Can we really think of the first and second persons of the triune Godhead as two divine subjects and therefore as two legal subjects who can have dealings and enter into obligations with one another? This is mythology, for which there is no place in a right understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity as the doctrine of the three modes of
27. Ibid., 319, 297.
28. Ibid., 318, 322.
29. Ibid., 293.
30. Geerhardus Vos, “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 251.
31. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (trans. G. W. Bromiley; Edinburgh: Clark, 1956), 4/1.54–78.
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being of the one God, which is how it was understood and presented in Reformed orthodoxy itself.32
Barth did understand the tension between the traditional covenant theology and his reformulation of it. He did not seem to see the irony of claiming to uphold the Reformed tradition concerning “modes of being” (a groundless assertion) and his rejection of one of the principal expressions of the Reformed doctrine of the Trinity, the pactum salutis.
John Murray (1898–1975) also adopted a definition of covenant that precluded the sort of conditional or legal relations entailed in the traditional view. Using the postdiluvian Noahic covenant as his paradigm, he defined covenant as a “sovereign administration of grace and promise.”33 Further, he restricted the term covenant to purely “temporal administration,” arguing that it is “not strictly proper to use a biblical term to designate something to which it is not applied in the Scripture itself.”34
In his 1980 covenant theology, O. Palmer Robertson also adopted a definition of covenant (“a bond in blood sovereignly administered”) that precluded the pactum salutis. He argued that the eternal counsel of God should not be construed as a “pre-creation covenant between Father and Son” because a “sense of artificiality flavors effort to structure in covenant terms the mysteries of God’s eternal counsels.” To speak of a pactum salutis “is to extend the bounds of scriptural evidence beyond propriety.”35
Bert Loonstra’s 1990 monograph explores the pactum salutis from historical, biblical, and systematic perspectives.36 His diachronic survey of the history of the doctrine argues that the pactum salutis was developed as a response to Arminian universalism.37 In the
32. Ibid., 65. The English translation intertrinitarian is infelicitous at best; see Karl Barth, Die kirchliche Dogmatik (Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1953), 4/1.69.
33. John Murray, The Covenant of Grace (London: Tyndale, 1953), 31.
34. John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1976–82), 2.130–31.
35. O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1980), 4, 54.
36. For a critical analysis of Loonstra’s Verkiezing-Versoening-Verbond, see Hans Boersma’s review in Calvin Theological Journal 26 (1991): 241–44.
37. Loonstra, Verkiezing-Versoening-Verbond, 28–31.
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biblical and systematic sections, Loonstra rejects any location of the pactum salutis in the being of God and proposes a revision of the traditional pactum salutis by removing any notion of contract from covenant theology, excluding Christ’s suretyship. According to Loonstra, the traditional construction has the two divine parties equal in the contracting but unequal in the administration of the pactum salutis, which tends toward Nestorianism.38 Loonstra wants to reshape the pactum salutis to focus on the history of redemption in Christ and to serve as an account of the Son’s voluntary self-humiliation.39
In 1993 Robert Letham claimed that Johannes Cocceius invented the pactum salutis in 1648 and criticized the doctrine for omitting the Holy Spirit, introducing elements of subordinationism with respect to the Son, and containing tendencies to tritheism.40 In his 1994 Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem essentially restated the classic view of the pactum salutis, but made more explicit than some (e.g., Berkhof) the role of the Spirit in the pactum salutis.41 Bastiaan Wielenga criticized the traditional Reformed doctrine of the pactum salutis, arguing instead that, in the Old Testament, the covenant of peace is nothing but the Noahic covenant, which is part of the Abrahamic covenant.42 Robert Reymond addressed the pactum salutis as a way of accounting for the economic subordination of the Son and identified it with the divine plan of salvation.43 He also used it as a synonym for the “eternal order of the decrees.”44 He did not, however, define the pactum salutis, nor did he describe its exact relations to the historical covenants. Meredith Kline taught and defended the pactum salutis from an exegetical perspective, as part of his research into the historical administration of the covenants
38. Ibid., 343–45.
39. Ibid., 347–51.
40. Robert W. Letham, The Work of Christ (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), 53, who cites and follows G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election (trans. Hugo Bekker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 162.
41. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 519.
42. Bastiaan Wielenga, “Over het vredesverbond als noachitisch verbond: pactum salutis in Vetere Testamento,” In die Skriflig 30 (1996): 457–69.
43. Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville: Nelson, 1998), 227–28, 337–38.
44. Ibid., 502.
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of works and grace.45 J. Mark Beach called attention to the pactum salutis in the theology of Herman Witsius.46 Most recently, S. M. Baugh has published a vigorous exegetical defense of the pactum salutis based on his interpretation of Galatians 3:15–20, which shall be considered below, and Michael S. Horton has restated the classic Reformed view.47
Criticisms of the pactum salutis
Since the middle of the twentieth century, five major criticisms have
been leveled against the covenant of redemption:
- It is speculative, unbiblical, rationalist, and even grotesque.48
- It confuses the ontological Trinity with the economic Trinity.
- It tends to tritheism.
- Its biblical proofs refer not to pretemporal, intratrinitarian
relations but to redemptive history. - It ignores the person of the Holy Spirit and construes redemption in binatarian terms.
In response, we argue that the traditional doctrine of the pactum salutis is essentially correct and necessary not only to understand Reformed federal theology properly but also to provide the best explanation of a series of biblical passages.
Biblical Teaching on the Covenant of Redemption
The Reformed tradition developed the doctrine of the covenant of redemption under the conviction that it accurately expresses the
45. Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2000), 145; idem, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2001), 219–40.
46. Beach, “Doctrine of the pactum salutis.”
47. S. M. Baugh, “Galatians 3:20 and the Covenant of Redemption,” Westminster Theological Journal 66 (2004): 49–70.; and Michael S. Horton, God of Promise: Introduction Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 78–82, 87.
48. Cornelius Plantinga describes the pactum salutis as “grotesque,” in “The Threeness/ Oneness Problem of the Trinity,” Calvin Theological Journal 23 (1988): 37–38.
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teaching of Scripture, and, as we shall see, this conviction was correct. Taken together, three principal points establish the main contours of the doctrine. First, Scripture describes the relationship between the Father and Son as one conditioned on the obedience of the Son with the promise of a reward upon obedience. Second, this relationship is portrayed in Scripture as covenantal in nature. Finally, this covenant is properly understood in Scripture as established in eternity, even while executed in time.
A Relationship of Obedience and Reward
The catholic doctrine of the Trinity holds that the God who is one is also three distinct persons or subsistences and that these persons exist eternally in perichoretic (i.e., the Son is eternally begotten, the Spirit is eternally proceeding) personal relations with one another. That such relations exist, specifically here between the Father and the Son, seems justified, given the copious material in Scripture, and particularly in the Gospel of John, testifying to the conscious fellowship between them. The crucial and more difficult question is how to describe the nature of this relationship. Scripture describes this relationship as one in which the Father promises a reward to the Son upon his fulfilling the condition of perfect obedience, which condition the Son accepts voluntarily on behalf of his people. More specifically, the Father promises to the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, both his own exaltation and the salvation of a people to share in his glory, to be given on the basis of the Son’s obedience to the will of his Father.49
That the relationship of Father and Son entailed some sort of obedience on the part of the Son to his Father’s will is clear from many places in Scripture. In John, for example, Christ speaks of the commandment(s) (ἐντολή, ἐντέλλω) given to him by the Father (10:18; 12:49; 14:31; 15:10) and of finishing the work that his Father entrusted to him (17:4). Both Paul and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews speak of the “obedience” that Christ rendered during his earthly sojourn (Phil 2:8; Heb 5:8). Hebrews also adds, in interpreta-
49. See Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1873), 2.360.
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tion of Psalm 40, that Christ came to do the “will” of his Father (Heb 10:5–10). Therefore, that Christ was offering obedience to the will and commandments of his Father seems unobjectionable.
A more challenging question is how to describe the context of that obedience. Why exactly was Christ obeying and what were its consequences? The Reformed doctrine of the covenant of redemption posits that Christ obeyed in order to obtain from his Father a reward: his exaltation and the salvation of a chosen people. Hence, Christ’s obedience was the cause of the reward bestowed such that his obedience is meritorious in the eyes of his Father. Witsius puts it succinctly yet clearly: “The obedience of Christ bears to these blessings, not only the relation of antecedent to consequent, but of merit to reward; so that his obedience is the cause, and the condition now fulfilled, by virtue of which he has a right to the reward, as several express passages of scripture declare.”50 Two Scripture passages that Witsius mentions in support of this claim, along with a few other texts, are perhaps the most powerful biblical testimonies to the truth of this aspect of the doctrine.
First, the quotation and exposition of Psalm 40:6–8 (MT 40:7–9) in Hebrews 10:5–10 provides initial evidence for the idea that the Son’s obedience was the cause of his reward. The context of this passage occurs within a discussion of the perfection of Christ’s sacrifice in comparison with the sacrifices of the old covenant. Hebrews 10:1–4 discusses these old covenant sacrifices and concludes that, though they positively served to remind the people of their sin, they could not take sin away, as evidenced by their being offered repeatedly. In 10:5–10, the author contrasts this with Christ’s sacrifice, concluding with the claim that Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice has provided true sanctification for his people. Important for present purposes, Hebrews grounds this efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice in the Son’s commitment to accomplish the will of his Father. Hebrews 10:5 identifies Christ as the speaker of Psalm 40, which concludes with the Son’s promise: “Behold, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll of the book—to do your will, O God.” Hebrews 10:9, continuing the author’s exposition of Psalm
50. Witsius, Economy of the Covenants, 1.190 (emphasis original). See also Beach, “Doctrine of the pactum salutis,” 129–37.
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40, repeats these words without the parenthetical comment: “I have come to do your will.” In the conclusion of this pericope, the author brings his reasoning to a head: “By that will we have been sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once-for-all.” The author reasons, therefore, that Christ’s accomplishment of the will of God, in his atoning sacrifice, is precisely what brought about the Holy Spirit’s sanctification of God’s people, one aspect of the reward promised to the Son according to the covenant of redemption doctrine. The author’s progression of thought here is this: God’s will impels Christ’s work, Christ’s sacrifice fulfills God’s will, and the result of Christ’s obedient sacrifice is our salvation. The basis of the blessing is Christ’s accomplishing his Father’s will.
The beautiful conclusion to Isaiah 53 is perhaps even clearer on Christ’s obedience to his Father’s will as the cause and basis of his reward. In this extended prophecy about the sufferings of the Servant of Yahweh, attention turns in 53:10 to the will of Yahweh, a familiar idea just observed in Hebrews 10. Isaiah 53:10, in fact, speaks of the will of God both as verb and as noun: “Yahweh willed to crush him. . . . The will of Yahweh will flourish in his hand.” In these phrases, a similar idea is communicated from different angles. Yahweh wills the suffering of the Servant, and the Servant’s actions bring about the accomplishment of Yahweh’s will. And Yahweh’s will in Isaiah 53:10 is directed at exactly the same thing as it is in Hebrews 10, namely, the offering up of the Messiah for sin. Though even stronger causal language appears in the following verses, already in Isaiah 53:10 the Servant’s suffering is described as the basis for subsequent reward: “When [or if] his soul makes an offering for sin, / he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; / the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand” (ESV). Isaiah 53:11 continues the recitation of blessings that will flow out of the Servant’s accomplishment of Yahweh’s will: not only the seeing of his offspring and the prolongation of his days but also his seeing the light, his satisfaction, and the justification of his people.
Finally, in Isaiah 53:12, the causality becomes explicit: the atoning work of the Servant—identified in 53:10 as Yahweh’s will for him—is the cause of the Servant’s subsequent victorious exaltation. Isaiah 53:12 begins with a strong causal conclusion: “Therefore [לָכֵן] I will
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divide him a portion with the many, / and he shall divide the spoil with the strong” (ESV). Isaiah here portrays the Servant as a conquering king, one resembling a warrior who joins the mighty in taking plunder from the vanquished. Why does God appoint the Servant to seize the booty? The use of “therefore” suggests that this appointment is the consequence of what has just been said at the end of 53:11: “He shall bear their iniquities” (ESV). Because the Servant bears his people’s sins, God will give him the plunder of the enemy. But the causal language becomes yet more explicit. Immediately following the statement at the beginning of 53:12 concerning the Servant’s appointment as the plunder-taking conqueror, Isaiah continues: “Inasmuch as he offered up his soul to death / and was counted with transgressors, / and he bore the sins of many / and makes intercession for transgressors.” This phrase begins with a striking expression: Because (תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר)—inasmuch as—the Servant did these things, Yahweh has made him the seizer of spoils. The causal force of this Hebrew phrase is evident in Deuteronomy 28:47–48: “Because [תַּחַת אֲשֶׁר] you did not serve the LORD your God . . . therefore you shall serve your enemies” (ESV). The disobedience was the basis for the curse. Likewise in Isaiah 53:12: the Servant’s soul-offering, transgressors-identifying, sin-bearing, intercession-making is the basis for the glorious riches that God will give to him.
A third passage that testifies to the Son’s obedience as earning the reward from his Father is Philippians 2:5–11. Many significant doctrinal matters are addressed in this carmen Christi, yet perhaps none as significant as the obedience-reward pattern that characterizes the covenant of redemption. The two aspects of the Father-Son relationship under consideration in this section—obedience and reward—dominate this passage. Philippians 2:7–8 speaks explicitly of the Son’s obedience: his emptying himself, taking the form of a servant, being found in human appearance, and humbling himself. These verses then conclude with the profound proclamation that he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The next verses, however, turn immediately to speak of how God exalted the Son following this obedience, giving him the name above every name so that every knee might bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (2:9–11). Just how does this passage characterize the relationship of the Son’s obedience and
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the Father’s exalting him? Curiously, advocates of the federal-vision theology argue that Philippians 2 establishes that the Father exalted the Son as a matter of grace rather than merit or reward, based on the word used for the Father’s giving in 2:9, ἐχαρίσατο (bestowed [ESV]), being etymologically related to the common Greek word for “grace” (χάρις).51 Such an exegetical conclusion rests upon the fallacy that etymological relationship determines the meaning of a word, apart from consideration of the context in which the word appears. In Philippians 2, the context is incompatible with the conclusion that the Father’s exaltation of the Son is a gift of grace that excludes the idea of merit. Instead, Paul speaks of the exaltation as the consequence of the obedience and, conversely, the obedience as the cause of the reward. Immediately upon finishing his thoughts on Christ’s obedience in 2:8 (“having become obedient unto death, the death of the cross”), Paul uses a strong causal conjunction to make his transition to the exaltation: “And therefore [διό] God exalted him.” Why did the Father exalt the Son? Not because he is a gracious God (though he is), but because the Son drank the cup of God’s wrath down to the very dregs, because he was obedient even unto the horrific death of the cross.52 The Son obeyed, and therefore his Father exalted him.53
51. See Rich Lusk, “A Response to ‘the Biblical Plan of Salvation,’” in The Auburn Avenue Theology, Pros and Cons: Debating the Federal Vision (ed. E. Calvin Beisner; Fort Lauderdale, FL: Knox Theological Seminary, 2004), 137–38; and James B. Jordan, “Merit versus Maturity: What Did Jesus Do for Us?” in The Federal Vision (ed. Steve Wilkins and Duane Garner; Monroe, LA: Athanasius, 2004), 193. Geerhardus Vos, who held a traditional Reformed understanding of the pactum salutis, does speak in a way somewhat similar to Lusk and Jordan by noting that ἐχαρίσατο suggests a gracious act on God’s part; see The Pauline Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 275n13. Vos was not, however, throwing out the idea of merit altogether. Immediately before the footnote just cited he writes that “the gracious bestowal of the name above every name upon the Saviour is placed by Paul without the slightest hesitation on the footing of work rendered and value received” (275).
52. N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 86–97, interprets these verses as evidence of Paul’s “Adam Christology,” wherein Christ is presented as “the obedient man,” not only undoing what Adam did (snatching equality with God), but undoing the damage of Adam’s snatching but refusing to cling to his divine prerogative. Such a reading is consonant with the argument made here and is quite superior to that offered by Wright’s federal-vision followers.
53. Many other passages could be added to the three considered in this section; for example, Heb 2:9; 5:7–10; John 17:4–5; and perhaps Ps 2:7–8. See also Geerhardus Vos, “‘Legalism’ in Paul’s Doctrine of Justification,” in Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation: The Shorter Writings of Geerhardus Vos (ed. Richard B. Gaffin Jr.; Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 398–99.
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A Covenantal Relationship
A second aspect of this intratrinitarian relationship that calls for detailed biblical discussion is its covenantal nature. Even within the Reformed community, where relations between Father and Son, following an obedience-reward pattern, have long been recognized, the propriety of understanding these relations in covenantal terms has been called into question, as noted earlier.54 Scripture gives multiple lines of warrant for viewing these relations as covenantal: implicit covenantal language, the analogy with God’s legal covenant with the First Adam, and explicit covenantal language.
First, Scripture uses implicit covenantal language in describing this relationship. The implicit nature of the language considered in the passages below ought not to be viewed as making this evidence necessarily less persuasive than that from explicit language. Scripture teaches many doctrines without using traditional theological language, but its testimony is nonetheless persuasive. Thus it is in the present case, where some of the most compelling covenantal descriptions of the Father-Son relations speak not of covenant explicitly but of oath. Throughout Scripture, covenant and oath bear the closest relations, covenants typically being sealed by oaths and the taking of oaths between parties ordinarily indicating the initiation of covenants.55 To see the oath-bound character of the relationship between Father and Son is to see its covenantal nature.
Perhaps no better place to begin on this point is Isaiah 45:23, for it connects us directly with the previous section. The closing verses of Philippians 2:5–11 (discussed above to demonstrate the obedience-reward pattern) are a reference to the prophecy of Isaiah 45:23: “For to me every knee will bow, / every tongue will swear.” Isaiah presents a promise of what God will do for himself, and Paul
54. Murray, Collected Writings, 2.130–31.
55. For literature on the interdependence of covenant and oath, see M. G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963); idem, The Structure of Biblical Authority (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972); idem, By Oath Consigned (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968); G. E. Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Pittsburgh: Presbyterian Board of Colportage of Western Pennsylvania, 1955); Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and in the Old Testament (Analecta biblica 21A; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute Press, 1981).
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presents this as fulfilled in the reward that God has given to Christ for completing his course of obedience. What Isaiah 45:23 makes clear is that the obedience-reward pattern described in Philippians 2 occurs in oath-bound context: “By myself I have sworn; / from my mouth has gone out in righteousness / a word that shall not return: / ‘To me every knee shall bow, / every tongue shall swear allegiance’” (ESV, emphasis added).
This oath-bound, and hence covenantal, context of the Father-Son relationship is seen also in the rich verses of Psalm 110. In this psalm, the theme of Christ’s kingship is pervasive, as well as the themes of conquest and triumph. As king, the promised Messiah is seated at God’s right hand (110:1), and his scepter goes forth from Zion as he rules in the midst of his enemies (110:2). As conqueror, he destroys kings and judges the nations (110:5–6). In the mysterious yet awesome closing verse, the Messiah drinks from a brook and lifts up his head—a metaphorical description of one, with no enemies left to defeat, who can refresh himself without fear and stand up in triumph (110:7). All of this hearkens back again to the material in the previous section, where Christ’s royal exaltation was part of the reward for his obedience. Further connecting Psalm 110 with the discussion above is its identification of the Messiah not only as a victorious king, but also as a priest (110:4), and therefore as a suffering king. His exaltation cannot be disconnected from his priestly suffering. Therefore, it seems evident that Psalm 110 speaks about the relationship between Father and Son under consideration in this essay, not only by means of prophesying his suffering and exaltation but also by means of the intratrinitarian communication revealed in 110:1 and 110:4. Of special interest, however, is that Psalm 110 speaks of this relationship as oath-bound. As in Isaiah 45:23, the Father seals this relationship with an oath: “The LORD has sworn / and will not change his mind, / ‘You are a priest forever / after the order of Melchizedek’” (ESV, emphasis added).56 Thus Psalm 110 also points us to the covenantal nature of this Father-Son relationship. Were the context of Psalm 110
56. Another interesting similarity between Ps 110:4 and Isa 45:23 is God’s promise that he will not repent, an idea inherent in an oath but not necessary to say explicitly: “The LORD has sworn / and will not change his mind” and “by myself I have sworn . . . / a word that shall not return” (ESV, emphasis added).
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not enough, Hebrews 7:21–22 explicitly interprets Psalm 110:4 in covenantal terms.57
Another piece of evidence for the covenantal nature of the intratrinitarian relations implicit in the language of Scripture is Christ’s frequent practice of calling the Father “my God.” Examples of this language can be drawn from both Old Testament prophecy and the New Testament: Psalm 22:1–2 (MT 22:2–3); 40:8 (MT 40:9); 45:7 (MT 45:8); and John 20:17. The high privilege of calling the Almighty “my God” is a covenantal privilege. The great covenant promise echoed throughout Scripture, “I will be your God and you will be my people” (e.g., Jer 31:33; Rev 21:7), captures this point, and the adoption of similar language characterizes various Old Testament covenant renewal ceremonies (e.g., Deut 26:17; Josh 24:18). Also significant here is Hebrews 10:5–10, one of the passages considered above in regard to the obedience-reward pattern, being a quotation and interpretation of one of the passages in which the Son addresses the Father in this covenantal manner (Ps 40:8 [MT 40:9]). The obedience is rendered and the reward is given in the context of covenant.
A third and final example of implicit language in Scripture testifying to the covenantal nature of the Father-Son relationship is the reference to the “counsel of peace” in Zechariah 6:13. Though a popular proof-text for the covenant of redemption in some older Reformed literature, the relevance of this verse is dismissed by many recent Reformed theologians—even by some committed to the doctrine itself.58 The ESV translates this verse as follows: “It is he [the
57. In Heb 7, the Levitical priests of the weak and useless old covenant (7:11, 18) could not bring consummation precisely because it was never intended that they should (7:19). Jesus introduced a “better hope” (7:19). His priesthood was grounded in the power of his “indestructible life” (7:16) and involved an “oathtaking” (7:20). The writer quotes Ps 110:4, of which he concludes: “This [oath] makes Jesus the sponsor of a better covenant” (Heb 7:22). Though the broader context of this passage speaks of the relationship between two administrations of the covenant of grace, the old and new covenants, the discussion in 7:21–22 seems not to be discussing an oath-swearing in history (what incident would be in mind?). Instead, the author suggests a pretemporal oath-swearing that underlies the efficacious character of the new covenant.
58. As examples of those who used this text to support the pactum salutis, see Johannes Cocceius, Summa de foedere, 5.27 in Omnia opera (Amsterdam, 1673), 6.27; Abraham Heidanus, De origine erroris (Amsterdam, 1678), 7.2.398; Witsius, Economy of the Covenants, 1.167–70; idem, Exercitationes sacrae in symbolum quod apostolorum dicitur (Amsterdam, 1697), 14.17.241; Johannes Heidegger, Corpus theologiae (Zurich, 1700), 2.12, cited in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (trans. G. T. Thomson; London: Allen & Unwin, 1950), 376; and Johannes Marckius,
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Branch—see 6:12] who shall build the temple of the LORD and shall bear royal honor, and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on his throne, and the counsel of peace [שָׁלוֹם עֲצַת] shall be between them both.” The ambiguity in the language is evident even in this English translation: who or what are the “both” between which there is a counsel of peace? Seeing this verse as a reference to the covenant of redemption seems to require that “both” speaks of the messianic Branch and Yahweh—that is, the Son and the Father. Others suggest, however, that “both” refers instead to the kingship and priesthood of Christ the Branch (e.g., Turretin, Institutes 2.393 §14.5.6). In other words, the two offices of king and priest, ordinarily separated so that no one person would hold them both, are to be united in the Messiah. While this latter interpretation is happily orthodox, it seems to be a much weaker exegetical option. Two figures are mentioned at the beginning of the verse: the Branch and Yahweh. Explicitly, the Branch will build Yahweh’s temple, and thus “his throne” upon which the Branch will sit refers to the throne of Yahweh. Hence, “there shall be a priest on his [Yahweh’s] throne.” The emphasis of the verse lies upon the work that the Branch does for Yahweh and the honor that Yahweh bestows upon the Branch. The foci of this verse are not abstract notions of kingship or priesthood, but the concrete persons of Father and Son. The compelling interpretation of the end of 6:13 remains, therefore, that a counsel of peace exists between these two persons—Yahweh and the Branch.
Given that this verse situates us in the context of the Father-Son relationship, the language of “counsel of peace” has subtle, yet strong, covenantal, and legal overtones. Scripture at times associates the taking of counsel with covenant making. Psalm 83:5 (MT 83:6), for example, reads: “For they conspire [נוֹעֲצוּ] with one accord; / against you they make a covenant” (ESV). In addition to this, Scripture also speaks in many places of peace as a defining characteristic or purpose
Compendium theologiae christianae didactico-elencticum (Amsterdam, 1749), 18.18.362. Among those who rejected this text as a support for the pactum salutis is Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 266. On Cocceius’s use of the pactum salutis, see Willem J. Van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669) (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 299–300; and Brian J. Lee, “Biblical Exegesis, Johannes Cocceius, and Federal Thought: Developments in the Interpretation of Hebrews 7:1–10:18” (PhD diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2003), 151–53.
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of covenantal relationships. In Joshua 9:15 Joshua’s making peace with the Gibeonites is bound up in his making a covenant with them. Later, several of the Old Testament prophets use explicit language of a “covenant of peace” to describe God’s relationship to his people. Among several other examples (e.g., Ezek 34:25; 37:26; Mal 2:5; and perhaps Zech 9:10–11), Isaiah 54:10 reads: “For the mountains may depart / and the hills be removed, / but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, / and my covenant of peace [בְּרִית שְׁלוֹמִי] shall not be removed, / says the LORD, who has compassion on you” (ESV). Given this Old Testament prophetic background, therefore, the reference in Zechariah 6:13 to a “counsel of peace” strongly suggests a covenant relationship. Beyond the terminology itself, some broader considerations of the teaching of this bolster this conclusion. The description of Christ as both priest and king, in context of Yahweh’s relationship to the promised Messiah, evokes recollection of Psalm 110, with its oath formula, considered above.59 Therefore, Scripture has already indicated that such matters are to be read in covenantal fashion.
A second reason for speaking of the relationship under consideration here as covenantal is the biblical analogy between the First and Second Adams. Paul makes explicit analogy between Adam and Christ in two places: briefly in 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 and more elaborately in Romans 5:12–19. In the latter, Paul shows the similarity between the coming of disobedience and condemnation into the world and the coming of obedience and justification. As the work of one man brought the former, so the work of one man brought the latter. Here we observe the representative, federal principle so important for the doctrine of the covenant of redemption: the Son, on behalf of “the many,” obeys his Father so that the many might be righteous. The word covenant is not used here or in 1 Corinthians 15, of course. However, that Christ’s representative work purposefully resembles that of Adam—or vice versa, as Romans 5:14 suggests— brings us again squarely within the covenantal realm. As explored in another essay in this book, Scripture speaks not only explicitly
59. See M. G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Overland Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2001), 219–40.
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(Hos 6:7) but also implicitly in many ways of God’s dealings with Adam at his creation as a covenant.60 According to the overwhelming consensus of Reformed theology, Adam’s establishment as representative head of the human race, the testing of his obedience, and the promise of eschatological life stands at the heart of this creation covenant. That Christ came as the Second Adam as head of a new humanity, to have his obedience tested and to earn eschatological life, offers strong reason to speak of this in covenantal terms.
A third and final reason for speaking of this relationship of Father and Son as a covenant is grounded in the explicit language of Scripture. Christ himself spoke of his relationship with his Father as covenantal in nature in Luke 22:29 (Turretin, Institutes 2.177 §12.2.14). The significance of the language in this verse is likely to be missed if it is read only in English. The profound relationship of the Father and Son is certainly evident even in English renditions: “I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom” (ESV). Luke’s use of covenantal language, however, is not easy to communicate in translation. What the ESV translates as “assign” is διατίθεμαι, a verbal form of the New Testament’s common word for “covenant,” διαθήκη, and indicates activity of covenant conferral (see Acts 3:25; Heb 8:10; 9:16–17; 10:16). In other words, therefore, Christ speaks of his Father conferring a kingdom upon him by way of covenant, and he in turn conferring a kingdom upon his people by way of covenant. The former, of course, is of particular interest here. Both the words of this verse itself and its immediate context suggest its relevance for the very things this essay has been examining. Reading Luke 22:29 along with 22:30 shows that this kingdom that the Father confers upon the Son is an eschatological kingdom that he will enjoy with his people. Thus, here is a similar picture to that seen above concerning the Son’s reward: the king in his eternal glory. What is more, 22:28 anticipates 22:29 by speaking of the trials of Christ as the backdrop to this covenantal conferral of an eternal kingdom. Thus, the pattern of suffering obedience followed by an eternal reward is evident in these verses as well, and here the language of covenant is specifically used.
60. On the use of Hos 6:7, see B. B. Warfield, “Hosea VI.7: Adam or Man?” Bible Student 8 (1903): 1–10, repr. in Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield (ed. J. E. Meeter; Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1970), 2.116–29.
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Another example of explicit covenant language used to describe this relationship of Father and Son is Galatians 3:15–22, as S. M. Baugh argues.61 The words of 3:20, “Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one” (ESV), has long baffled interpreters. As Baugh contends, however, Paul’s principal point in 3:15–22 is the inability of the Mosaic law to mediate the promise given to Abraham and his seed, whom Paul identifies as Christ. Paul makes his point in two ways. First, in 3:15–18 he draws upon an analogy with human covenants to show that covenants once ratified cannot be annulled or added to. Then, in 3:19–20 he appeals to God’s essential unity. Baugh effectively argues how Paul’s claim that “a mediator is not of one (party), but God is one,” is an argument that the law, with its mediator Moses, is not able to mediate the covenant promise made to Abraham and Christ his seed. The reason is that God the Father, the promisor, and God the Son, the promisee, are one in the divine being. Hence, Paul had in mind the deity of Christ and the intratrinitarian relations when bringing his argument to a climax in 3:20. Baugh summarizes his exegetical conclusions: “The Father made his promissory oath to the covenant Head in whom all his promises are refracted (2 Cor 1:19–20). And until that One should come into the world, no third party could intervene, because the first two parties to this transaction—the pactum salutis—are actually one in inseparable divinity.”62
In the end, then, the evidence from Scripture points us overwhelmingly to the conclusion that this relationship of Father and Son, characterized by the obedience-reward pattern, ought to be referred to in covenantal terms. As suggested throughout, such covenantal relations among the trinitarian persons entails the legal nature of the covenant of redemption. Whether in equilateral (as in the case of Abraham’s defense alliance in Gen 14:13) or bilateral covenants (as in the case of the covenant of works with Adam in Gen 2:8–16) conditioned by obedience, there is always a legal aspect to covenantal relations. Thus, in the nature of the case, to speak of “covenantal” relations between trinitarian persons is but another way of saying that
61. S. M. Baugh, “Galatians 3:20 and the Covenant of Redemption,” Westminster Theological Journal 66 (2004): 49–70.
62. Ibid., 54. Readers are encouraged to read this article for Baugh’s full argument.
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the Father’s promise and the Son’s obedience occurred in the context not only of intimate personal fellowship but also legal relations, in the same way that a marriage is simultaneously personal and legal.
An Eternal Covenant
This leaves one final but significant question left to address, albeit more briefly: can we, and in what sense, refer to this covenant of redemption as an eternal covenant, as the Reformed tradition has done, and hence distinguish it from the covenant of grace executed by God with his people in time? Some recent Reformed theologians raise objections to the doctrine of the covenant of redemption on this point. They claim that while traditional Reformed teaching has spoken of the pactum salutis as an eternal covenant, the typical proof-texts speak instead of the relationship of the Father with the incarnate Son and hence as a historical rather than eternal covenant.63 This objection has some plausibility and deserves a few remarks in response.
No Reformed participants in this discussion would dispute that God has ordained the way of salvation through the work of Christ from all eternity. Ephesians 1:3–14, for example, sets forth redemption in Christ and all its benefits as eternally foreordained. At the very least, this means that the covenantal, obedience-reward patterned relationship examined above was foreordained in the divine council. Ephesians 3:8–12 suggests a similar conclusion. The administration of the mystery (Christ) was kept hidden from eternity (3:9), and God has made known his manifold wisdom through the church, in Christ, according to his eternal purpose (3:10–11). This eternal mystery/ purpose results in time in our enjoying confident access to God by faith (3:12), which is one of the saving benefits won for us by the covenant of redemption. Once again, the things we have considered under the covenant of redemption appear as eternally purposed. Many other passages of Scripture may come to mind about which similar conclusions could be drawn.64 In addition, Zechariah 6:13 may again be considered. This verse, as seen above, refers to the relationship of
63. E.g., Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics, 285–336.
64. 2 Thess 2:13; 2 Tim 1:9; and 1 Pet 1:2 are mentioned by Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 266.
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Father and Son in terms of עֵצָה, a plan or strategy. Whatever execution of their tasks the Father and Son might perform in time, the idea of a plan or strategy indicates that counsel stands behind it.65 The actions of obedience and reward in time do not exhaust the scope of the covenant of redemption.
The objection has not really been answered yet. Though the covenant of redemption is undoubtedly purposed from eternity, in this it does not differ from the covenant of grace or anything else. The covenant of redemption might be purposed in eternity and yet still be entered into only in time with the incarnate Christ. Several passages of Scripture, however, answer this objection more specifically. The covenant of redemption was not entered into in time with the incarnate Christ, for the incarnation itself was a consequence of this covenant, the beginning of Christ’s obedience to his Father’s will. John 6:38, for example, states that Christ has come down (καταβέβηκα) from heaven in order to do the will of the one who sent him. The very obedience observed at the heart of this relationship between Father and Son is set into motion not subsequent to the incarnation, but by it. Such testimony makes it difficult to speak of Christ’s coming apart from an already-existing covenantal relationship that he was coming to execute. Hebrews 10:5–7 is similar. Here Christ, adopting the words of the psalmist in Psalm 40, says: “A body you have prepared for me. . . . I have come to do your will, O God.” Again, Christ’s very act of becoming incarnate by the Holy Spirit cannot be understood except in terms of his covenantal obedience. The Son of God obeyed because that is why he was “sent,” as so often described in the Gospels (e.g., Matt 10:40; 15:24; 21:37; Luke 4:18, 43; 10:16; and dozens of times in John).
In addition to these considerations, Hebrews offers reasons for viewing this covenant as eternal. Hebrews 5:5–6 reflects on Psalm 2:7 (“you are my Son, / today I have begotten you” [ESV]) and Psalm 110:4 (“you are a priest forever / after the order of Melchizedek” [ESV]). In Hebrews 7:21 the writer appeals to the intratrinitarian covenant revealed in Psalm 110:4. When, in the conception of Hebrews, did this
65. For other Old Testament examples of this use of עֵצָה, see 2 Sam 15:31; Ps 33:11; Isa 11:2; 19:17; 25:1; 28:29; 40:13; Mic 4:12.
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begetting, oath-swearing, and ordination occur? There is no particular event in redemptive history to which these things obviously refer. We are thus driven to understand them as revealed accounts of pretemporal relations that underlie the historical acts of redemption and that Reformed theology has described as the covenant of redemption.
Thus, there is good biblical warrant for speaking of this covenant as an eternal covenant. It was purposed from eternity, and the promise of obedience and reward was established from eternity, so that, in time, the Father might send the Son and the Son might obediently become incarnate and fulfill the work of redemption. The eternal character of this covenant offers one way in which to describe the distinction between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, established in time between God and his people. In considering this, however, the intimate connection between these covenants ought never be lost. As Christ related in Luke 22:29, he has covenanted a kingdom upon his people as his Father has covenanted one upon him. And as passages such as Isaiah 53:10–12 and Hebrews 10:5–10 reveal, the very justification and sanctification of Christ’s people (in the covenant of grace) are precisely among the rewards given to Christ upon the completion of his obedience.
Conclusions and Responses to Objections
On the basis of the foregoing historical and exegetical arguments we are prepared to respond briefly to three of the most pressing objections. First, G. C. Berkouwer (1903–96) criticizes the pactum salutis as a speculative doctrine.66 In this case, “speculative” seems to mean something like “not sufficiently grounded in divine revelation.” The pactum salutis is a deduction resulting from the analysis and synthesis of several biblical passages and strands of revelation. A synthetic doctrine is what Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6 calls a “good and necessary consequence.” The alternative would seem to be a sort of Socinian-biblicist approach to theology that neither Berkouwer nor any other significant Reformed theologian has ever followed.
66. G. C. Berkouwer, Divine Election (trans. Hugo Bekker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960), 162.
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Second, and perhaps more substantively, Berkouwer also criticizes the doctrine as tending to tritheism by confusing the economic and ontological distinction.67 This criticism is ironic because one of the chief theological functions of the covenant of redemption has been to express this very distinction. Indeed, in his essay “The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity,” B. B. Warfield appeals to the pactum salutis as a way of explaining “modes of operation” peculiar to the divine persons or subsistences. Theologoumena such as the pactum salutis are essential to explaining subordinationist passages such as John 14:28: “My Father is greater than I.” This language is either economic or ontological. If it is economic, what are the implications? Warfield argues that the subordination evident in John 14 and elsewhere is due more to “a convention, an agreement, between the Persons of the Trinity—a ‘Covenant’ as it is technically called—by virtue of which a distinct function in the work of redemption is voluntarily assumed by each.”68 Far from confusing a distinction, the pactum salutis relies on it. Those who impute ontological subordination of the Son to the Father have lost the distinction. Surely, Berkouwer and Letham would not have us think that the economic distinction has no basis in the divine subsistence.
This question leads to the next issue: whether the pactum salutis tends to tritheism. This criticism could have force only in the case that consideration of the distinct work of the trinitarian persons in the history of creation and redemption tends to tritheism, but such is not the case. If consideration of the Spirit’s distinct role in creation and redemption meant tritheism, then all study of creation and redemption would have to cease.
By analogy, the covenant of redemption imputes the very same economic relations back into pretemporal existence. The Son’s eternal filiation is ontologically necessary but, by contrast, the Son’s subordination for our salvation was voluntary but not ontologically necessary. The Father can promise and the Son can accept the covenant only if both are “very God of very God,” but they can enter into a covenant
67. Ibid., 163. See also Letham, Work of Christ, 53.
68. B. B. Warfield, Biblical Doctrines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1929), 166.
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only if they are distinct persons. This seems more Athanasian than tritheist.
In response to Socinianism and the Remonstrants, theologians such as Owen and Witsius argued that the subordination was not ontological but economic and used the pactum salutis to express those economic relations.69 Therefore, the traditional discussion of the pactum salutis quite naturally tends to focus on the Father and the Son. Nevertheless, as Vos argued over a century ago, the pactum salutis emerges “from the depths of the divine Being Himself.” God the Father issues the “requirement of redemption,” God the Son “becomes the guarantor,” and to God the Holy Spirit belongs the application of redemption. This is a thoroughly trinitarian scheme that illumines the intrapersonal relations within the Trinity serving as an analogy of the archetypal perichoresis or interpenetration of the trinitarian persons.70
69. See Trueman, Claims of Truth, 133–39, 189–222; Owen, Works, 10.163–74; Witsius, Economy of the Covenants, 1.180.
70. Vos, “Doctrine of the Covenant,” 247.
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Note: A special thanks to Courtney Litts for her efforts in helping us to get this chapter formatted to publish here.
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David VanDrunen
Dr. VanDrunen, a minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, began teaching at Westminster Seminary California in 2001. He was formerly a pastor of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Hanover Park, IL, and has served on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s Committee on Christian Education since 2005. He was the recipient of the Acton Institute’s Novak Award (2004), a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University (2009), a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology (2016–17), and Research Fellow at the Protestant Theological University in The Netherlands (2022).
Dr. VanDrunen is the author or editor of thirteen books, including Politics after Christendom: Political Theology in a Fractured World (Zondervan Academic, 2020), named Book of the Year (2021) in Politics and Public Life by Christianity Today. His scholarly articles have appeared in many journals, including Journal of Reformed Theology, Journal of Law and Religion, and Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.
More by David VanDrunen ›R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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