The Covenant of Grace
Understand how the Standards present salvation as God's free, covenantal initiative: a second covenant, made in eternity and administered through history, in which life is offered to sinners through Jesus Christ.
Left to ourselves, the estate of sin and misery would be the end of the story. But the Standards insist it is not. Out of his mere good pleasure God did not leave all mankind to perish, but entered into a covenant of grace, and it is this covenant that holds together everything the rest of the Standards will say about Christ and salvation.
Why a covenant, and why grace
The distance between God and the creature is so great that man could never have enjoyed God as his blessedness except by God's voluntary condescension, which he has been pleased to express by way of covenant. The first such covenant was one of works; but man, by his fall, made himself incapable of life on those terms. So the Lord was pleased to make a second, the covenant of grace, freely offering to sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ.
What makes this covenant gracious is its source and its terms. It springs from God's good pleasure alone, and it requires of us faith in Christ that we may be saved, promising to give his Holy Spirit to all his elect to make them willing and able to believe.
With whom, and through whom
The Standards locate the covenant of grace in eternity and ground it in election. God, having out of his mere good pleasure from all eternity elected some to everlasting life, entered into this covenant to deliver them from the estate of sin and misery and to bring them into salvation by a Redeemer. The Larger Catechism makes the structure plain: the covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.
This keeps the covenant from collapsing into a bargain struck with sinners. The terms are met in Christ on behalf of his people, so that grace remains grace from first to last.
One covenant, two administrations
Though one in substance, this covenant was administered differently in the time of the law and in the time of the gospel. Under the law it was set forth by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances, all signifying Christ to come and sufficient to build up the elect in faith. Under the gospel, when Christ the substance was exhibited, these gave way to plainer ordinances, fewer in number and greater in fullness.
There are not, then, two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations. The believer under Moses and the believer under the apostles are saved by the same grace, the same Mediator, and the same faith.
Study the full text, Scripture proofs, and commentary on each:
- Read WCF 7.3 (number 39) alongside WSC 20 and note how each describes the move from the covenant of works to the covenant of grace.
- Trace the proofs behind WLC 31 and consider why the Standards say the covenant was made with Christ as the second Adam.
- List the differences WCF 7.5 to 7.6 draws between the two administrations, and ask what they hold in common.
See how this doctrine is stated across the Reformed confessions side by side.
The Covenant of Grace →