Why Is [Covenant] Nomism So Attractive?

“Good” motives can lead to bad, even deadly, theology. Only God knows what is in people’s hearts, so I am not judging or speaking about the personal intentions of those who would bring their own works into salvation. Yet we can look at the history of Christian theology and draw some conclusions, since this is not the first time people have proposed the “get in by grace, stay in by works” program, in which our final acceptance with God depends on our obedience. We call this nomism.

In every case of which I am aware, the first motive behind nomism is to create a system that requires people to obey as a condition of acceptance by God. Setting aside the question of whether our obedience wins (or retains) favor with God is biblical, we must acknowledge that the scheme might seem rational. After all, if employers want their employees to be more productive, they set incentives that either reward success or punish failure. Schools do the same with children, so why not do the same in salvation?

The answer, of course, is found in Paul’s explanation of the difference between works and grace in Romans 11:6: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”

Paul sets out two distinct principles: works and grace. The works principle is expressed clearly in Genesis 42:18, when Joseph set a test for his brothers. Our Lord Jesus articulated this principle to the lawyer who asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. In answer, Jesus told him that he must keep the law of God (love God with all one’s faculties and one’s neighbor as oneself). “Do this, and you will live” (Luke 10:28). The other principle is grace—that is, God’s favor, free acceptance with God. John 1:17 contrasts grace and law. Acts 15:11 and Romans 6:14 also make this contrast. Relative to acceptance with God, grace is the antithesis of our performance. It is premised on the performance, the obedience, the righteousness of another for us.

We see the same contrast in Galatians 3:1–6:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

In his attempt to get Christians to be good, the nomist sets a test: “Do this and live.” When he does, he has turned (the covenant of) grace into (a covenant of) works. Biblically, however, these are two distinct, if closely related principles.

As suggested above, a second reason nomism is attractive is that it seems so reasonable, but there is a difference between reason (or rationality) and rationalism. The latter confuses our understanding with God’s or chooses ours over God’s. This was Luther’s critique of the medieval consensus that we are justified because we are sanctified. He called it a theology of glory.

Acceptance based on performance makes sense to us intuitively because, as Mike Horton and others have noted, we were originally wired to present ourselves to God based on our performance, based on our doing. The implication of “The day you eat thereof you shall surely die” and the existence of the tree of life is that there is life beyond the garden. We were created “good” and were able to meet the test God set, but mysteriously (and tragically) we chose sin and death over obedience and life.

The great error Pelagius, much of the medieval church, Rome, and all other forms of nomism have made is failing to distinguish between our abilities before and after the fall.

There are two ways to confuse before and after. The medieval church found a way to do both simultaneously. They came to believe that we were broken simply by virtue of being human. That is the first way to confuse things: reading the fall back into the prelapsarian (pre-fall) world. The second way of confusing them is to read the prelapsarian state into the fallen world.

Since the early twentieth century, there has been a widespread revolt against the idea of a covenant of works because it would be “legalistic.” It has often been rejected as contrary to grace, so that grace has swallowed up everything in history. According to G. C. Berkouwer, this is what happened in Karl Barth’s theology: Election (grace) swallowed up history.

That “triumph of grace,” however, came at a cost. As we saw in earlier posts in this series, Scripture has two principles: grace and works. The latter is about justice. If grace swallows everything, there is no justice, and it is beyond me how one can read Scripture and conclude that God is not concerned with justice. Unless one takes a Gnostic or Marcionite view of the Old Testament (where the “god” of the Old Testament was said to have been a sort of evil demi-god), then we must reckon with phenomena such as the cities of refuge or the ten plagues. For those of us who still believe Scripture, who cannot dismiss two-thirds of Scripture as myth, those are taken as real events that witness to something real in God: a desire for righteousness—a desire that he himself satisfied in the active and suffering obedience of his Son, our Savior Jesus.

One consequence of obliterating the distinction between the covenants of works and grace is that the covenant of grace becomes a covenant of works. This is what has happened in the theology of Daniel Fuller, Norman Shepherd, and others who have followed in their footsteps. So even for those who say they are “all about” grace, the works principle comes back, but instead of Christ fulfilling it for us, we end up fulfilling it for ourselves, and thus the covenant of grace is no more a promise of free acceptance with God but a covenant that really says, “You’ve been given an opportunity: Don’t blow it.” This is a deadly message to sin-corrupted people.

The unspoken assumption behind the conversion of the covenant of grace into a covenant of works is that we really aren’t that sinful. It is semi-Pelagian. With the help of grace, we are able to do, for acceptance with God, what God requires. This is what Protestants have called moralism. See C. FitzSimons Allison’s excellent book on this, The Rise of Moralism. The two main reasons nomism finds favor are both subspecies of what Luther called “the theology of glory”: rationalism and moralism. Neither has anything to do with the Christian religion, the theology of the cross, or the good news of Jesus’s resurrection for the justification of sinners.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the Heidelblog in 2012 and appears here with minimal edits. 

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Post authored by:

• 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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