Repeatedly over the last several years a variety of characters have accused the so-called “Federal Vision” of being “monocovenantal.” Many other wild and unsubstantiated accusations against the “Federal Vision” have been made, of course. Recently I learned that two of the men on the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s study committee on “Federal Vision” did not even know that there was a book called The Federal Vision. These men had read next to nothing, if anything, about the “Federal Vision,” but actively wrote a report full of lies and misrepresentations of it.
The lies about the “Federal Vision” early on took on a life of their own. Those repeating them, marching mindlessly in lock step, never bother to consult any “FV” representatives. They just issue report after report repeating the same lies. After a while it becomes, “Well, how could so many churches be wrong about the Federal Vision? Hey look, ALL the denominations have condemned it!”
The answer is simple: the people on the committees are mindless marchers. They march in step with the mindless marchers who have told them these lies. Seldom do they read anything written by the people they supposedly are investigating. They publish wild reports, filled with amazing lies, and when called to account they say this, “Well, those men say that they don’t believe these things; but we know that they really do.”
How do you answer such evil men? They cannot find that you’ve ever written XYZ, and they cannot find that you’ve ever said XYZ, but they accuse you of it anyway. When you say you don’t believe XYZ, they call you a liar. I wish I were wrong about this, but it seems that these are the kind of men who staff the theological committees of pretty much all the “conservative” “Reformed” denominations these days. There is no charity, no benefit of the doubt, not even a phone call. The attitude is pretty clear; as Luther put it: They proudly say, “Now, where is he That shall our speech forbid us? By right or might we shall prevail; What we determine cannot fail; We own no lord and master!” (Luther, Psalm 12)
Among the lies constantly reiterated by the unthinking marchers is the charge of “monocovenantalism.” According to them, “Federal Visionaries” deny that there are two covenants in human history. Since nobody has ever said this, the charge is a lie. Somebody started up this lie, and the mindless marchers, too lazy to check into it for themselves, simply repeat it over and over.
Reformed theology does say, of course, that the three persons of God exist in covenant with each other. They exist with each other in other ways also, but they are indeed covenantally united. This follows from the Biblical doctrine of creation. There is nothing in the creation that does not have its archetype in God, because there is nothing outside of God that God could look at when making the creation. Covenants exist in human life because the three persons of God are in covenant with one another. This is standard, garden-variety Calvinistic teaching, and anyone who denies it is not Reformed in any way, shape, or fashion.
So, ultimately, in God there is one covenant. This is an inescapable fact that anyone with the least knowledge of systematic theology should know. In history, however, there are phases in God’s administration of His relationship with man and there are two overarching covenants. (Oh by the way, “Federal Visionists” despise systematic theology as “inherently rationalistic” we are told!)
The human race was created in covenant fellowship with God, but in a child form of that relationship. Human beings were under “law” administered by angels until they grew up. When the human race was ready, God entered into a new covenant, an adult covenant with humanity. The first covenant was in Adam and in the human beings that came from him, including Jesus the Christ. Jesus was born into the first covenant, and then through death and resurrection brought the new covenant, the covenant of maturity or glory. So, there are two overall covenants.
Nobody denies this. To say that “Federal Visionists” deny this is a lie. Nobody has ever denied it.
Of course, beyond this, we recognize a succession of covenantal administrations in history: the Adamic, Noahic, Patriarchal, Sinaitic, Kingdom, Prophetic, and Oikumenical covenants, which precede and lead down to the New Covenant. Each of these previous covenants reiterates the “angel/law” world of the childhood covenant, but each also reveals and progressively partly manifests the adult world of the mature covenant. And, because of the fall of man into sin, each of the older covenants reveals the coming salvation of the world from death and sin, which will make possible the entrance into the New Mature Covenant.
Beyond this, each of these eight covenants has an initial and then a full form. The Adamic covenant is “not good” until Adam has gone through a kind of death-sleep and then been glorified with a bride; then the covenant is “very good.” Similarly, the Sinaitic covenant has a first phase, in which the Ten Words are written on stone and in which the bride is merely part of the husband’s house in the Tenth Word; and then after the death and resurrection of Israel in the wilderness comes the full phase of the Sinaitic covenant, in which the Ten Words are now put in flesh through the voice of Moses and in which the bride is elevated in the Tenth Word to co-rule with her husband over the house. The same kind of move from initial to full form can be seen in each of the covenant administrations, once it is recognized that the “bride” is the community. Hence, again, the Prophetic covenant starts with Elijah as soloist, but after his departure, Elisha is seen always in community.
The point of this essay is not to give a full explication of genuine Biblical and Reformed covenantal theology. The point is that there are no monocovenantalists. As far as I know, there never have been any.
This article was originally posted on the Biblical Horizons blog. Below are additional comments and responses to the article.
Comment
Thank you, Dr. Jordan, for taking the time to review the fundamentals for the benefit of those who don’t check their facts. Might we expect as follow-up walk-through on the active obedience of Christ? I was very gratified to hear such a clear affirmation of this basic tenant of Reformed Theology.
Response from Jordan
Dear Mr. Murphy,
No, I’m not interested in writing on “imputation of active obedience for justification” at this time. As you perhaps know, this is a doctrine nowhere taught in any of the Reformed confessions. It was discussed at the Westminster Assembly, and since there were men on both sides of the question, was left as adiaphora. As an historic Reformed believer, I’m going to leave it there for now.
It is quite true that the followers of the quixotic Meredith G. Kline have in recent years gone to war with earlier Calvinism over such issues as the social importance of Biblical law, 6-day creation, imputation of active obedience for justification, and a meritorious notion of the first covenant (something not found in any Reformed confessions). They have promoted their views vociferously and the result has been that many conservative bodies are being forced into becoming sects. As an historic Reformed believer, I’m against them in their behavior on these matters.
Cordially,
JBJordan
Comment
I can imagine “someone” replying that all you’re doing is sleight of hand: the cov’t with Adam matures into a cov’t with Christ–that’s one covenant in two phases. Their issue is calling the first cov’t a cov’t of works and the second a cov’t of grace (as I understand them). Therefore, there are two entirely separate cov’ts. Works= 1st; Grace = 2nd. Again, probably b/c I misunderstand your meaning, how is Adam’s covenant maturing into Christ’s not mono-covenantal? Go easy on me.
Response from Jordan
Yes, one view promoted these days is that God’s first covenant with Adam involved his earning something that in God’s provision would earn him eternal life. Since he failed, Jesus came and did that, and we receive it by faith. Hence there is a covenant of meritorious works and a new covenant of grace. The problem with this view is that it is nowhere taught in the Bible. Read Genesis 2 and you’ll see nothing whatever about earning anything. Adam was told NOT to do something, hence to continue in basic faithfulness to God. By sin Adam could lose the garden, but there was no promise that by obedience he would earn anything new. Earning has nothing to do with anything.
No new covenants in the Bible ever come from earning them, and neither does THE New Covenant. They all come through crises of death and resurrection. They are new CREATIONS, and one cannot “earn” the right to be created!!
And there is this: all pagan religions involve bringing gifts and good deeds to their gods as bribes for rewards. This modern notion of Adamic merit looks like God’s Plan A was paganism and God’s Plan B is grace. We don’t see anything like this anywhere in the Bible. Never does the Bible say Jesus earned eternal life or some such. Rather, God was pleased with Him and gifted Him with eternal life, and us in union with Him. It’s gift, not earning.
You are right that some of these modern types want to say that anyone who rejects THEIR notion of a meritorious “works” covenant is a “monocovenantalist,” but this is just very bad theologizing. Were they fair, they would just say that we reject that notion, because we clearly teach two distinct covenants. I choose to call them on the carpet for their very clear misrepresentations.
The first covenant does not simply “mature” into the New. Rather, God sets aside the first and brings the new. That’s what Hebrews is all about. The new is a new Creation, nothing less. It is given as a free gift to humanity when humanity is ready for it, old enough for it, mature enough for it, and that’s where Jesus comes in.
I can recommend my essay in *The Federal Vision* book on this, both for more argumentation, and for a discussion of the history of the actual Reformed positions on these matters.
Cordially,
JBJordan
An additional comment from Jordan
The issue behind the issue in all this is the incarnation. The early church and the Nicene Creed affirm that the incarnation was “for us” as well as “for our salvation.” The Son was not incarnated as man only to save us from sin, but also to “bring many sons to glory.” In other words, the incarnation was planned all along, sin or no sin.
Together with this is the denial in the west of Romans 8:30, “justified and glorified” same tense. There is present glorification just as there is future justification. The early church called glorification “deification.”
The passages used nowadays to show imputed righteousness, such as the robing of Jeshua in Zechariah 3, are actually about glorification (as is obvious). God killed an animal to cover Adam’s sin in the garden, and then clothed them in tunics, a royal garment. The “day of atonement” in Leviticus 16 is actually the Day of Coverings, plural. Blood covers the Ark-Cover, removing sin, and then the priest is covered in his glory garments.
I lean my hand upon the sacrificial animal, but he does not turn around and put his innocent paw upon me. Rather, he dies and his blood is displayed. That’s justification. My robes are white in the BLOOD of the Lamb, not from “imputed righteousness.” Then, however, the sacrifice enters into God’s fiery shekinah presence inside the “altar” (communion site) and ascends up to the throne. That’s glorification.
Jesus receives my liability to sin and thus dies, His blood displayed. What I receive from Him is union with His glorification by the Spirit. It is His new life, resurrection and transfigured life, that is given to me.
It is the well nigh universal failure of the Reformed faith to take this Biblical data into account that is behind the confusion over justification. Jesus died for me. That’s why I’m forgiven. That’s enough.