Covenant theology must identify, or distinguish, and speak of three aspects of the covenant: the bond; the word, or speech, identified often as promise; and the sign, seal, or token of the covenant.

A way of further distinguishing these aspects is to coordinate them. Similar: What role does each aspect have in distinction from the other? What is the role of the bond of the covenant in distinction from the role of the different tokens of the covenant? Why is it necessary, then, to give to each aspect its proper place? Why is it so important not to deny any aspect its existence or its place in the whole?

The coordination of these aspects is that the goal is first and is the essence of the covenant: the bond of fellowship and friendship between God and his people in Jesus Christ. Their coordination is also that the introduction, exercise, and fulfillment of the covenant are by the speech of the covenant. Put another way, the communion of the covenant is by communication—verbal communication between God and his people. The coordination of these aspects is, third, that verbal communication also gives signs and tokens of the covenant. Creaturely elements are brought by the word into the service of the word of the covenant, and thus into the covenant itself, to signify and seal the covenant.

In the previous installment I emphasized the need to prioritize these covenantal aspects. A proper priority among them serves well their coordination. A proper priority also makes all the difference in the profit a believer receives from the truth of the covenant. Will the covenant be strong, or will it be weak? Will the covenant be a true and lasting comfort or a fearful dependence on man’s weak determination? Or will the covenant be merely an intellectual study, devoid of life and power?

Another important benefit of proper coordination is harmony and complementary character. Coordination keeps the three aspects from opposition to one another. This is perhaps the greatest danger to all debate over the covenant, whether it is unconditional or conditional. It is a great temptation to dismiss one or two aspects and then to lay hold on the remaining and make it the whole of covenant theology. There is the possibility that speech, or promise, receives all the priority so that the bond is wholly excluded. The covenant, then, is not the end itself but becomes only a means to an end. If the covenant is thus conditional, it no longer has any real reference to the end. Conditional covenant doctrine is limited to the means of grace. It cannot consider which specific individual persons are actually saved and brought to glory. It can only generalize: believers who have fulfilled the covenant condition.

There is another possibility, that of placing all the emphasis on the covenant as a bond of fellowship. The danger is the exclusion of the proper place of covenant speech and covenant token. The danger is that the covenant becomes a mere abstraction. It exists, to be sure, but its blessed reality and benefits are left out of reach for God’s covenant people. The true comfort and peace of the covenant, meant for their assurance, cannot live in their hearts and affect their lives.

A proper coordination of the three aspects will ensure that God’s people have spiritual access to the bond of the covenant. By the covenant word and by the covenant sacraments, God’s people are meant to know that they belong to the covenant of grace. Coordination is beautifully expressed in this phrase in the Lord’s supper form: “That we might firmly believe that we belong to this covenant of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His last Supper, took bread.” With this proper coordination, the power of word and sacrament is that they lead to the everlasting covenant of grace exactly as the fellowship that is salvation, enjoyed in this present life and in the life to come. To be forever God’s covenant people and to have God forever as our God is true, everlasting covenant blessedness.

That coordination is evident in the very phrase itself in the Lord’s supper form. The aim and goal of the Lord’s supper is expressed in that phrase. The point is the belief “that we belong to this covenant of grace.” Belonging to this covenant of grace is the same as salvation itself, as is evident from the following language in the form: “certainly feed and nourish your hungry and thirsty souls with My crucified body and shed blood to everlasting life.” And still later: “have true communion with Him, and be made partakers of all His blessings, of life eternal, righteousness, and glory.”

The same phrase from the form regarding belonging to the covenant expresses the proper coordination with the other aspects of the covenant. The sacrament of the Lord’s supper, a sign and seal of the covenant, is put in a relationship of service to the bond of the covenant. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ in his last supper take bread and break it, speaking the words of institution? He did so in order “that we might firmly believe that we belong to this covenant of grace.” The element of speech is given its coordination in three distinct ways. Most central are the words of institution spoken by our Lord and recorded in the form. With his words he instituted this sacrament. The second way is the application of those words of institution to every particular administration of the Lord’s supper for which the form is read. The third way is the entire use of the Form for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper. They are together the word of the covenant, meant to bring God’s people to their God as the God who feeds and nourishes their souls to everlasting life with the body and blood of his Son at his blessed table.

The three aspects are evident in their distinction and operation throughout the revelation of God’s everlasting covenant of grace in the pages of holy scripture. Scripture is not merely the revelation of the covenant of grace; it is the revelation of that covenant in the three aspects. The truth of the covenant of grace is not merely taught by scripture; it is also exercised. Scripture not only declares the covenant promises of God and teaches his faithfulness to those promises, but it also records the faithfulness of God to his promise. He performs all that he has spoken.

Scripture also reveals the truth of the covenant by development. Scripture is rightly described as “progressive revelation.” That progressive revelation especially involves the doctrine of the covenant of grace. The scriptures are divided into Old Covenant and New Covenant. Within each “Covenant” the truth is developed both as taught and as carried out on its pages. The heart of the covenant forever remains the same: friendship and fellowship between God and his elect people in Jesus Christ. But that heart becomes more and more visible over the development of sacred, covenant history. That heart also becomes more visible in its tokens of creatures and actions, as well as in the speech of fellowship.

Another point should be made here in connection with the controversy the Protestant Reformed Churches endured in the 1950s over the doctrine of the covenant. Much of the controversy was over the form and content of the promise. Is the promise the speech and the words of that speech, or is it what the speech is about? As the covenant promise is “unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off” (Acts 2:39), is the promise merely the speech about the covenant that is heard and understood by all the church and all the baptized children of the church? Or is the covenant promise the salvation of God’s people, the true friendship and fellowship of everlasting life? Those who stood for the doctrine of the conditional covenant argued for the former. They maintained that the promise was only the words and that fulfillment of the promise depended on whether the condition of faith would be fulfilled. Those who stood for the doctrine of the unconditional covenant argued for the latter. They maintained that the promise made and fulfilled by God alone was the substance, what God had promised—and would be given by grace alone—to his elect people in Christ.

This confusion must be cleared away for the sake of a proper view of the covenant. If the covenant promise is only the speech, or words, about salvation, the covenant is not salvation. Neither is salvation the covenant. The covenant is only the means and not an end. In addition, there are only two aspects of the covenant: only the covenant sign, or token, and the covenant speech, or language. The bond of friendship and fellowship is something else. Salvation is something else. The bond is not the covenant, and salvation is not the covenant.

Conversely, if the covenant promise is what is promised, namely the bond of fellowship between God and his people in Christ, and salvation as eternal life itself, then the covenant is truly the end and goal of salvation history. Then the covenant is glorious and profound. Then the promise is truly a word of power, and then the sacraments have their rich and powerful significance.

Then also the doctrine of the covenant is worthy of all development and maintenance. It is worthy of diligent and careful study. Study of the covenant will yield more blessed knowledge and appreciation of it. It becomes delightful to see how the truth of the covenant of grace buds, blossoms, develops, matures, and ripens to its everlasting fruit in the everlasting kingdom of heaven. Edification comes from searching out its prominent features in the lives of the redeemed people of God in every generation, the generations of sacred history and of church history. Tracing its lines through all history as Jehovah’s faithfulness to his promise that he will be forever the God of his people in every age becomes a great blessing. Jehovah’s covenant promise will be seen as sure, although the covenant people fail and break his covenant. In their unfaithfulness his faithfulness becomes clearer and more praiseworthy.

In the scripture’s inspired record of creation, the particular doctrine of the covenant is already given a place of importance. Where is the covenant to be located first in the order of creation?

Prominent in most Reformed and Presbyterian circles is the doctrine of the covenant of works. The ground for the covenant of works is said to be the probationary command of Genesis 2:17. It was the threat of death that God would visit upon man were he to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which the Lord God had planted in the midst of the garden. Two twists are given to the probationary command to supply the ground for the covenant of works. The first twist turns the threat of death into a promise of life and its disobedience into obedience. A certain period of time is said to be implied, during which period Adam was to remain obedient and not eat of the forbidden tree. If Adam remained obedient during that time, God would grant what he had promised. God would remove the threat of death, and Adam and his descendants would enjoy immortality. Thus the covenant of works is that obedience merits life.

The second twist is that the promised life is not merely the continuation of the earthly life in which our first parents were created. It is heavenly life. Although I recognize that theologians are divided on this point, the most popular and attractive view is that heavenly life was to be achieved by obedience under the terms of the covenant of works. Adam was placed in a position to achieve everlasting, heavenly life. When he fell he lost as the first Adam what the second Adam, Christ, would achieve for those perished in the first. So, it is argued, the second, everlasting covenant of grace must be a proper reflection of the first, the difference being between works and grace only.

There are two points of great difficulty with this covenant of works. The first difficulty is what is stated in 1 Corinthians 15:50: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” The second is that Adam and Christ simply do not exist on the same level. Although they are compared to each other in Romans 5:12–21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21–22, Adam’s side is only negative and Christ’s side is only positive. By the man Adam came sin and death. By the second Adam came righteousness and life. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.

But the greatest difficulty with the covenant of works is far deeper. It is as fundamental as the truth of creation itself. All things were created by Christ and for Christ, including Adam and including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fall of our first parents in the garden was according to the decree of God, which decree was in the service of Christ and the glory of God’s grace in Christ established before the world began. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was planted ultimately in the service of the tree of Calvary’s cross upon which our Lord was crucified for the new and everlasting covenant of grace.

What makes the covenant of works impossible to maintain is that there was already a covenant in place and in operation. Man was created in fellowship with his God. Created in the image of God, man was created in knowledge of God, in righteousness, and in true holiness (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). The sovereign-friend created a servant-friend. With that creation itself the two were knit together, even as the Creator breathed into the man’s nostrils the breath of life so that he became a living soul. Life could not be merited, because life was already the full, glorious, and joyful possession of man. There was nothing lacking to him. There was nothing for him to gain. What was clear from the probationary commandment and threat was that everything was his to lose. “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Indeed, there was a law for the servant Adam to obey, but it was his to obey out of the life he already possessed, in grateful acknowledgment to his blessed Creator for it. It was his to obey out of the righteousness, holiness, and true knowledge of God, which Adam was created to value and treasure. In fact, it was the temptation of Satan to Eve that held out something greater and higher to attain through disobedience.

This manner of Adam’s covenant fellowship and friendship with his Creator is identified in the Canons of Dordt: “Man was originally formed after the image of God” (3–4.1). This article says nothing about violating or breaking a covenant of works. Instead it refers to man’s creation after the image of God and that his sin was revolt from God, casting off his servanthood in contempt of it. He violated the bond with God that he possessed from his creation.

Article 14 of the Belgic Confession has similar language: “The commandment of life which he had received he transgressed; and by sin separated himself from God, who was his true life; having corrupted his whole nature; whereby he made himself liable to corporal and spiritual death.” Both articles of the confessions make clear that obedience was in the life Adam already possessed by virtue of his creation and not unto life that was potentially his by merit. His disobedience did not mean loss of potential life to be rewarded him. It meant the complete loss of what he did possess by his creation in the image of God.