30. COVENANT.With reference to what has been before spoken of the covenant [No. 2]. Covenant is taken very variously in Scripture, sometimes for a divine promise, sometimes for a divine promise on conditions. But if we speak of the covenant God has made with man stating the condition of eternal life, God never made but one with man to wit, the covenant of works; which never yet was abrogated, but is a covenant stands in full force to all eternity without the failing of one tittle. The covenant of grace is not another covenant made with man upon the abrogation of this, but a covenant made with Christ to fulfill it. And for this end came Christ into the world, to fulfill the law, or covenant of works, for all that receive him (Miscellanies, HERE).
35. COVENANT.Towards the rectifying of what has been already said about the covenants [Nos. 2, 30]. The covenant of grace or redemption (which we have showed to be the same) cannot be called a new covenant, or the second covenant, with respect to the covenant of works; for that is not grown old yet but is an eternal immutable covenant, of which one jot nor tittle will never fail. There have never been two covenants, in strictness of speech, but only two ways constituted of performing of this covenant: the first constituting Adam the representative and federal head, and the second constituting Christ the federal head; the one a dead way, the other a living way and an everlasting one (Miscellanies, HERE).
250. COVENANT.
I think really that the covenant that God made with the children of Israel was the covenant of works. He still held them under that covenant; that is, what is required in that covenant is to them particularly deciphered, and many additional positive commands which answer to the precept concerning the forbidden fruits and God proposes this covenant to them as the condition of his favor, and gives them to understand that none of those promises he had made could be challenged without perfect obedience: but yet gives them to understand so much of his merciful nature and his inclination to pity them and to accept of a propitiation for them, that they, finding that they could not challenge anything from those promises [on the ground] of obedience, trusted only to the mere undeserved mercy of God and were saved by grace, and expected life only of mere mercy.We are indeed now under the covenant of works so, that if we are perfectly righteous we can challenge salvation. But herein is the difference betwixt us and them: to us God has plainly declared the impossibility of obtaining life by that covenant, and lets us know that no mortal can be saved but only of mere grace, and lets us know clearly how we are made partakers of that grace. All ever since the fall were equally under the covenant of grace so far, that they were saved by it all alike, but the difference is in the revelation: the covenant of works was most clearly revealed to the Israelites, to us the covenant of grace. The church, which was then in its infant [state], could not bear a revelation of the covenant of grace in plain terms; and so with them the best way to bring them off from their own righteousness was to propose the covenant of works to them, and to renew the promise of life upon those conditions. God did with them as Christ did with the young man that asked what he should do for eternal life: Christ bids him keep the commandments. And in that sense they were under the covenant of works, that it was proposed to them as the condition of life, that they might try. To us it is not so.The covenant of grace was indeed insinuated to them and proposed under covert, but ’twas to that they were all forced to fly. The promises seem to be so contrived as to give them to see that they can’t challenge anything except they perform a perfect obedience, if God will be strict, but yet that he will of his mere mercy accept them into his favor if they perform a sincere obedience proceeding from the true love and fear of him; so that the fruits of faith are proposed instead of faith itself. But by this, none but such as had faith could hope for life; and by God’s contrivance of that dispensation they were led not to depend on these as works, but as a disposition to receive, as so many manifestations of repentance and submission; and they depended on them as such only, for life (Miscellanies, HERE).
252. COVENANT.The covenant that God made with the children of Israel with respect to outward blessings was entirely legal, a covenant of works (Miscellanies, HERE).
439. COVENANTS. TESTAMENTS.The covenant that God made of old with the children of Israel is spoken of in Scripture as different from that which he makes with his people in these gospel times. We will consider what difference there was. And here, 1. God proposed a covenant to them that was essentially and entirely different, which was the covenant of works: he promulgated the moral law to them, together with many positive precepts of the ceremonial and judicial law, that answered to the prohibition of eating the forbidden fruit; which God proposed to them with the threatening of death, and the curse affixed to the least defect in obedience. If it be inquired, in what sense God gave this covenant to them more than to us, I answer, that although it was as much impossible for them to be saved by it as it is for us, yet it was really proposed to them as a covenant for them, for their trial (Exodus 20:20), that they might this way be brought to despair of obtaining life by this covenant, and might see their necessity of free grace and a Mediator. God chose this way to convince them, by Proposing the covenant of works to them, as though he expected they should seek and obtain life in this way, that everyone, when he came to apply it to himself, might see its impracticableness; as being a way of conviction to that ignorant and infantile state of the church. God did with them as Christ did with the young man, when he came and inquired what he should do to inherit eternal life: Christ bid him keep the commandments. There was this difference also: the law, or covenant of works, was more fully and plainly revealed to them than the gospel, or covenant of grace, was… (Miscellanies, HERE).
611. COVENANT OF WORKS,why the moral law was not expressly given to our first parents, as well as the precept of not eating the forbidden fruit, see note on 1 Timothy 1:9 (Miscellanies, HERE).The “Blank Bible” note on 1 Timothy 1:9 states, “This may be given as a reason why the precepts of the moral law were not expressed by God to our first parents, as well as that positive precept of not eating the forbidden fruit. There is not that need of God’s expressly and particularly forbidding these and those immoralities to one that is perfectly righteous.”
- …understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers (1 Tim. 1:9)
The Covenant of Works Offers Life for Obedience; Romans 1-3 Represents the Covenant of Works
1074. THE COVENANT WITH ADAM.
That there was not only a threatening of death for disobedience, but a promise of immortal and more glorious life for obedience given to Adam in his first estate, is argued by Dr. Watts in his Ruin and Recovery, not only from the history of that affair in Genesis, but from several other things in Scripture.1. From Romans 2:7, where he supposes “the Apostle is rather representing the terms of the covenant of works, than the terms of the covenant of grace. God will render ‘indignation and wrath, [tribulation and anguish,] upon every soul of man that doth evil’ Romans 2:8–9]; but eternal life, with glory, honor and peace ‘to them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, honor and immortality’ Romans 2:7], and Romans 2:10, ‘glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good.'” Dr. Watts supposes it to be agreeable to the design of the Apostle in these three first chapters of the Romans here to represent the terms of the covenant of works, and show how all men are brought under condemnation by the law.
2. He observes that “’tis the covenant of works, with the terms of it, as expressed in the books of Moses, which is cited by St. Paul, Galatians 3:12, ‘The man that doth the commands shall live in or by them’; and Romans 10:5. This is called ‘the righteousness of the law,’ i.e. that which entitles a man to the promise of life. And Romans 7:10, ‘The commandment of the law which was ordained to life,’ shows that life and immortality would have been the reward of obedience to it.”
3. He produces to the same purpose that in Romans 3:23, “‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,’ i.e. have lost all hope of that glory of God, that glorious state in immortality which God promised, and to which man would have been entitled by his obedience, as Romans 2:7, before cited.”
4. “Hosea 6:7, ‘They like men have transgressed the covenant.’ But in the original it is, ‘they have transgressed the covenant like Adam’; which imports that Adam was under a covenant of life, as well as a law that threatened death: for there must be a promise of life, as well as a threatening of death, to make a law become a covenant” (Miscellanies, HERE).
1152.The original MS resumes here. The part of the original MS page on which JE wrote No. 1152 (as well as a brief section of No. 1150) was cut out at some point; the fragment is now at the Library of Congress. COVENANTS. PERFECT OBEDIENCE. CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS.
So it is most natural to understand that [saying] of Christ, John 12:50, “And I know that his commandment is life everlasting,” that obedience to the commands of God the Father is the grand, unalterable condition of eternal life to all his subjects universally. See the context (Miscellanies, HERE).
III. The next thing done towards the work of redemption, is God’s giving the moral law in so awful a manner at mount Sinai. This was another new step taken in this great affair. Deut. iv. 33. “Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?” And it was a great thing, whether we consider it as a new exhibition of the covenant of works, or given as a rule of life.The covenant of works was here exhibited as a schoolmaster to lead to Christ, not only for the use of that nation, under the Old Testament, but for the use of God’s church throughout all ages of the world. It is an instrument that the great Redeemer makes use of to convince men of their sin, misery, and helpless state, and of God’s awful and tremendous majesty and justice as a lawgiver, in order to make men sensible of the necessity of Christ as a Saviour. This work of redemption, in its saving effect on men’s souls, in all its progress, is not carried on without the use of this law delivered at Sinai.It was given in an awful manner, with a terrible voice, exceedingly loud and awful, so that all the people in the camp trembled; and even Moses himself, though so intimate a friend of God, said, “I exceedingly fear and quake. “ The voice was accompanied with thunders and lightnings, the mountain burning with fire to the midst of heaven, and the earth itself shaking and trembling. This was done in order to make all sensible how great that authority, power, and justice were, that stood engaged to exact the fulfilment of this law, and to see it fully executed. Here might he understood, how strictly God would require the fulfilment; and how terrible his wrath would be against every transgressor. Men, being sensible of these things, might thoroughly prove their own hearts, and know how impossible it is for them to obtain salvation by the works of the law, and be assured of their absolute need of a mediator.
If we regard the law given at mount Sinai—not as a covenant of works, but—as a rule of life, it is employed by the Redeemer, from that time to the end of the world, as a directory to his people, to show them the way in which they must walk, as they would go to heaven: for a way of sincere and universal obedience to this law is the narrow way that leads to life (From A History of the Work of Redemption, 4:3 HERE).
