The Dutch Reformed Doctrine of the Covenant of Works

A Brief History of the Development of the Covenant of Works in the 16th-18th Centuries

Is the covenant of works an aberration in Reformed theology? Is it simply the view of the Puritan theologians who wrote the Westminster Confession? One fact that might lead some to believe that this is true is the absence of any explicit reference to the covenant of works in the Three Forms of Unity (TFU), the doctrinal standards of many of the continental Reformed Churches. Does this mean that the continental Reformed theologians rejected the covenant of works or thought it unimportant?

On the other side, if the Reformed theologians on the continent did hold to the covenant of works, then why is there no explicit mention of it in the TFU? How is that there is no explicit mention of the covenant of works in the TFU in the first part of the 17th century but in the second half of the 17th century, there is an adamant statement from a popular theologian stating its necessity for theological formulation? Consider Wilhelmus à Brakel’s statement from his book, The Christian’s Reasonable Service:

We shall now speak of Adam as being in covenant with God--the covenant of works. Acquaintance with this covenant is of the greatest importance, for whoever errs here or denies the existence of the covenant of works, will not understand the covenant of grace, and will readily err concerning the mediatorship of the Lord Jesus. Such a person will very readily deny that Christ by His active obedience has merited a right to eternal life for the elect. This is to be observed with several parties who, because they err concerning the covenant of grace, also deny the covenant of works. Conversely, whoever denies the covenant of works must rightly be suspected to be in error concerning the covenant of grace (The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 355).

For Brakel, the covenant of works was no light matter, and similar statements could be added from other Dutch theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries.

In this essay, we would like to explore the development of the doctrine of the covenant of works in the 17th century. The question we are seeking to answer is how do we get from no explicit mention of the covenant of works in the TFU to an adamant defense of this doctrine in Brakel and other subscribers to the TFU?

The Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism

In order to answer this question accurately, we must distinguish between the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism on the one hand and the Canons of Dort on the other. Both the BC and the HC were written in the 1560s in large part to define the Reformed Church over against the ongoing Council of Trent. In both of these documents, there is no explicit mention of the covenant of works. Why is this the case? The answer is rather simple. The terminology of the covenant of works was not in wide use. Consequently, it is not surprising that one would not find this term mentioned in the HC and BC. (See Muller, After Calvin, 175-189 and Bierma, German Calvinsim, 112-120).

Even though the specific terminology was at least not in wide use at the time, we should not conclude that the concept was uncommon. This is true, first, because we can find all the elements of the doctrine in the Church Fathers. Clearly, Augustine believed that Adam had an eschatology (a goal, an end) of eternal life that would be obtained by perfect obedience. For example, he wrote in The City of God:

Man, on the other hand, whose nature was to be a mean between the angelic and bestial, He created in such sort, that if he remained in subjection to His Creator as his rightful Lord, and piously kept His commandments, he should pass into the company of the angels; and obtain, without the intervention of death, a blessed and endless immortality (XII.21).

It is also obvious that Augustine believed that whatever Adam did would result in the condemnation or blessing of the whole race.

Second, the early Reformers exhibit the concept of the covenant of works, even if they do not use the explicit terms. Consider a few of Calvin’s comments. On Leviticus 18:5, he says:

Foolishly, then, do some reject as absurdity the statement, that if a man fulfills the Law he attains to righteousness; for the defect does not arise from the doctrine of the Law, but from the infirmity of men, as is plain from another testimony given by Paul (Rom. 8:3)…God by no means deceives us, yet the promise becomes ineffectual, because we do not perform our part of the agreement.

In his comments on Ezekiel 20, Calvin makes the same point but also responds to the objection that man’s works cannot merit eternal life. He writes:

But the solution is at hand, that we deserve nothing, but God graciously binds himself to us by this promise…Since, then, it pleased God to descend so far as to promise life to men if they kept his law, they ought to accept this offer as springing from his liberality. There is no absurdity, then, if men do live, that is, if they deserve eternal life according to agreement.

Certainly, anyone familiar with the WCF cannot but hear an echo of chapter 7:1-2.

Third, the terminology of the covenant of works became widely used in the generation after Calvin. Dutch Reformed theology did not really begin in earnest until after the United Provinces gained their independence from the Spanish. In 1575, the Prince of Orange established the University of Leiden which became the center of theological education in the Netherlands. One of the earliest theologians of that University, Franciscus Junius, explicitly and fully taught the covenant of works. Junius taught at Leiden from 1592 until his death in 1602. Junius, according to the regular custom of the time, set forth his teaching in various theses, which were delivered in the form of a discussion or disputation. In his Leiden Theses “On the Covenant and Testament of God,” Junius stated that in Scripture there are two covenants corresponding to the “two states of men, namely, the state of integrity when he was created by God and the state of corruption arising from man’s fall by his own choice” (Thesis 2, p. 183). He defines the first covenant as that which God “…entered into with our first parents in the Garden of Eden in which He promised to them supernatural life and bound them to reverence, worship, and obey Him, adding to it the threat of death if they did otherwise” (Thesis 3). This same teaching was commonly found in that generation of theologians. Amandus Polanus, one of the most famous Reformed theologians of the late 16th century, who taught at Basle, wrote that “The covenant of works is a pact (pactum) of God made with man concerning eternal life, to which is added both a condition of perfect obedience to be performed by man and a threat of eternal death if he did not perform that perfect obedience” (Partitiones, 53). The definition of the covenant of works was already common and standardized.

By the time of the Canons of Dort, not only the doctrine but also the terminology of the covenant of works had become widespread. As the Reformed theologians of the second century sought to codify, organize, and defend the positions of the original Reformers over against the polemics of Rome, they found the covenant of works to be a satisfying, Biblical, and useful tool in defining the original relationship of Adam with his Creator. The obvious question that arises is, why did the Synod of Dort not include a statement about the covenant of works in the Canons?

The Canons of Dort

It is important to remember that the Synod of Dort did not attempt to put together a statement of all the major points of doctrine. The Synod responded to various errors taught by Arminius and his followers. The reason why the Synod did not deal with the covenant of works is rather simple. Arminius did not deny the covenant of works. The issue simply did not come up in this context (See Arminius, Works. Vol. 2, Disputation 29). It is safe to assume that even though the covenant of works was widely affirmed and even included the Irish Articles of Religion (Article 21), its full significance did not become apparent until after the Synod of Dort.

The Remonstrants (or Arminians) continued to exist and function in the Netherlands after Dort. The first major leader of the Remonstrant party after Dort was Simon Episcopius, who had originally succeeded Arminius at Leiden following Arminius’ death in 1609. There was even a Remonstrant Seminary in Amsterdam where Episcopius taught until his death in 1643. Episcopius taught that both with Adam “there were commands, but only commands with warnings; there was no stipulation or promise without which there can be no covenant properly so-called” (Institutiones Theologicae in Works, 23). His successors continued to deny the covenant of works (see Limborch, Theologia Christiana, 171-173). This takes us back to Brakel’s statement in the introduction. Brakel has the Remonstrants primarily in view when he wrote, “This is to be observed with several parties who, because they err concerning the covenant of grace, also deny the covenant of works” (355). According to De Moor, this denial was the primary error (prōton pseudos) that led them to deny the imputation of Adam’s sin and the imputation of the active obedience of Christ as well as making a substantive difference between the Old and New Testaments (Commentarius Perpetuus, III:60).

In addition to the Remonstrants there were some among the Reformed Churches who also denied the covenant of works. De Moor mentions Joshua de la Place who was a theologian of the innovating school of Saumur and also denied the imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity. Others such as Vlackius illustrated the point that wherever this doctrine is denied a person tends “to move away from the common doctrine of justification” (De Moor, III:61). De Moor concluded from his survey of the Reformed theologians of the 17th and 18th century that in general, those who deny the covenant of works “also commonly deny the immediate imputation of Adam’s sin and the active righteousness of Christ fulfilled for and imputed to the elect” (Ibid.). Thus, one argument that De Moor used to prove the doctrine of the covenant of works was because when it was acknowledged, the imputation of Adam’s sin, the righteousness of God in imputation in general, and Christ’s fulfillment of the penalty and the demands of the law would be more easily understood and received (De Moor, III:58).

The result of the Remonstrant attack on the covenant of works was a widespread defense of this doctrine by the Reformed theologians in the 17th century. Oftentimes, the theologians Johannes Cloppenburg and Johannes Coccejus, who both taught at Franeker, are thought to be the founders of “federal” or “covenant theology.” While Cloppenburg, Coccejus, and their followers did make a generous use of the covenant concept, they were very far from being the originators of the covenant of works/covenant of grace framework. Moreover, it was not their teaching that caused the debates over the covenant of works. Rather, it was the Remonstrant denial of the covenant of works altogether as well as the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of grace (Vriemoet, Elogiis Professorum Franequerae, 378-380, cited in De Moor, III:59).

When we examine the major streams of Reformed theology in the Netherlands in the 17th century, we see that all three major streams affirmed and defended the covenant of works. According to J. van den Berg, there were three major streams of thought in Reformed theology in the 17th century (Broeyer and van der Wall, Een richtingenstrijd, 16-17). They were the Cocceian, following Johannes Cocceius at Franeker and then Leiden; the Voetian, following the Utrecht professor Gisbertus Voetius; and the traditional stream, best represented by Samuel Maresius at Groningen. The last two eventually merged together. In any case, whether we look the Cocceian systems of Cocceius, Braunius, or Burman or at the Voetian systems of men like Rijssen, Marck, and Brakel, all of them defend the covenant of works. Whatever other difference there may have been, they all defended the covenant of works.

Conclusion

While the Reformed theologians nearly universally taught and then ardently defended the covenant of works in the post-Reformation period, the same cannot be true for the 20th century. After the period of Reformed orthodoxy, the Enlightenment brought a radical questioning of all the conclusions of the Reformation and the Reformed theologians of the period of orthodoxy. The covenant of works was rejected by the rationalist theologians and rationalist-leaning theologians such as Herman Venema (Hodge, Systematic Theology, II:117-118 and De Moor, III:58-60).

Even though the rejection of the covenant of works resulted from the rejection of Reformed orthodoxy, the recovery of Reformed orthodoxy surprisingly has not seen as universal and complete return to this doctrine. Reformed theologians such as John Murray, Herman Hoeksema, Anthony Hoekema, and a host of others have rejected this doctrine as un-Biblical. As in the 17th and 18th centuries, the denial has in many cases led to a rejection of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. On the other hand, whereas the Remonstrant rejection of the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works tended to make a substantive difference between the Old and New Testaments, the tendency of this modern rejection has been the reverse. In the case of the Federal Vision, C. Vanderwaal, Norman Shepherd, and others, there has been a flattening out of the distinction between the covenants of works and grace such that all of God’s covenants have the structure of “do this and live” (see my post on the covenant of works for further explanation). This represents a grave danger, and it indicates the serious consequences that can result from a denial of the covenant of works.

In this article, I have merely tried to present the history of the development of the doctrine of the covenant of works. This analysis demonstrates that even though this doctrine is not explicitly mentioned in the TFU, it is still an important doctrine that should be defended, as the great Dutch Reformed theologians of old have done. The Dutch Reformed theological heritage is a rich one, and my suggestion is that we go back to these older theologians and take a much more serious look at what they propose. There are several key works that are now readily available in English. Herman Witsius’ Economy of the Covenants has been available for sometime. Reformation Heritage books has made available Wilhelmus a Brakel’s classic work, The Christian’s Reasonable Service. Johannes Vanderkemp’s oft-reprinted sermons on the Heidelberg Catechism are also available. If one can read Dutch or Latin, many other such works are available. This same teaching is also defended by other continental theologians such as Francis Turretin and Benedict Pictet. The covenant of works is by no means a “British” doctrine. It was adopted and defended by Reformed theologians throughout the Reformed world in past times. Let us consider what they wrote and how we may appropriate it for our own times and by God’s grace avoid the many errors that can so easily lead us away from salvation unto confusion and destruction.