From: “Rich Lusk”
Subject: “covenantal grace”; was responding to the MVP Report
Nobody followed up on my earlier post regarding “covenantal grace,” but I did want to ask a question or two to Joel and anyone else who’s really familiar with the tradition of Reformed scholasticism.
This is what I wrote last night:
What I’m moving towards in terms of formulation is something like this:
I think rather than formulating the matter simply in terms of special grace or common grace (with the Holy Spirit’s “common operations” usually put in the latter category), we need a third category: “covenantal grace,” I’ll call it. (This is somewhat analogous to Peter L’s creation of a “middle grace” category in a BH occasional paper some yrs back, to account for the fact that unbelievers are still often influenced by the church and the Bible. In other words “common” and “special” grace get mixed together in history.)
Or to put it another way, we cannot just speak in terms of “state of nature” and “state of grace” as the WCF tends to do. We have to also have the category of “covenantal state.” This state is undifferentiated, at least in history. It is a state “common” to all within the covenant. And it is truly a gracious place to be.
Covenantal grace can be thought of much the way we think of the “L” in Calvinism. We say the atonement is “sufficient for all, but efficient only for the elect.” Hence, we secure both the free offer of the gospel (Jesus died for YOU! we can tell the man on the street) as well as the sovereignty of God in salvation (he lays down his life for the sheep). Analogously, “covenantal grace” (the grace of baptism and covenant membership) is sufficient for all, but will be effectual only for those elected-unto-perseverance.
In this way, we can say to a baptized person everything the Bible says about him. But we also leave open the possibility of apostasy becasue, after all, mere covnenant membership does not guarantee perseverance. We can say Romans 6:2–6, 8:31–39, and 11:18–22 to the same people, in the same direct (2nd person) language.
I think somthing like this covenantal grace (sufficiant for all, efficient only for the elect) is clearly at work in a passage like Hebrews 6:4–8. That warning is open ended. The people in view have received blessings (enlightenment, tasted the heavenly gift, etc.), and yet two things are clear: they *might* persevere (6:9), OR they *might* apostastize (6:6). The blessings listed in 6:4–5 are enough to make perseverance possible, but they do not make perseverance an inevitable, come-what-may necessity. Thus, they are exhorted to keep their eyes fixed on Christ (Heb. 12:1–4), etc. These people are regarded as neither elect nor reprobate; they are regarded as covenant members who have the ability to endure to the end, but also remain in jeopardy until they cross the finish line of their Christian race. And there is no hint of contradiction.
Isa. 5:1–7 works the same way. Israel has been blessed. Obedience, faithfulness, and perseverance were genuine *possibilities* for Israel. And yet apostasy was *possible* as well. It could go either way, and Israel chose to apostatize. Nevertheless, God can say to Israel, “What more could I have done for you?” In other words, “I gave you sufficient grace, and you still chose to reject me.”
It is the category of “covenantal grace” that has been missing in most Reformed theology, at least since the rise of scholasticism. But I see all kinds of ways in which this kind of category could be of service to us exegetically and theologically and pastorally. I’d even thinnk it would have ecumenical payoffs since it would certainly undercut the best arguments for Arminianism, and perhaps bridge the Calvinist-Arminian divide.
Obviously this raises questions about how “irresistible grace” in traditional Calvinism relates to my concept of “covenantal grace.” I certainly would want to guard against any notion that perseverance becomes something we do to add to God’s covenantal grace. But I think that can be done easily enough. I would still affirm the “I” in TULIP, but in a much more nuanced way.
Now, in thimking this over it dawned on me that I had come across the sufficient/efficient distinction before with regard to persevering grace. (Like just about any “insight” you think you’ve arrived at, you find after a while that it really came from another source.) Where had I seen it before? Jacob Arminius used language like this, though I don’t recall all the details. (I read some of Arminius yrs ago — he might be worth revisiting).
I remember also that Arminius used Augustine quite a bit. I haven’t read much of Wesley but I wonder if his concept of “prevenient grace” has some connection with what I’m getting at in regards to “sufficient grace” or “covenantal grace” (though whatever the case, Wesley’s soteriology is still chock full of problems).
My question is: Are there any Reformed scholastics who have used this kind of sufficient/efficiant distinction with regard to persevering grace? I know some scholastics made this kind of distinction with regard to the “L” in TULIP, but did they bring the same nuance to bear on the “I” and the “P”? I just haven’t read enough to know. As argued above, I think a distinction like this is exegetically warranted, even necessitated — but it’d be nice to know if others in the tradition solved the problem in the same way.
RL
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 14:20:12 -0600
From: Mark Horne
Subject: “covenantal grace”; was responding to the MVP Report
I don’t know about the efficient/sufficient distinction, but John Murray follows Kuiper in dividing common grace into three types. Covenantal Common Grace is one of them. The essay is on the web somehere.
mark
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 14:48:13 -0600
From: “Rich Lusk”
Subject: “covenantal grace”; was responding to the MVP Report
Yes, that’s true, although as I recall, Murray ends up saying very, very little about it — other than admitting that whatever the apostates received in covenant is “the apex of non-saving grace” (or something like that). Murray’s seems pointed in the right direction, he just doesn’t travel that far down the road.
Do you happen to know what work by Kuiper Murray was drawing from?
RL
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 14:56:25 -0600
From: Mark Horne
Subject: “covenantal grace”; was responding to the MVP Report
no
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 15:08:20 -0600
From: p.duggan@verizon.net
Subject: “covenantal grace”; was responding to the MVP Report
The blessings listed in 6:4–5 are enough to make perseverance possible, but they do not make perseverance an inevitable, come-what-may necessity. Thus, they are exhorted to keep their eyes fixed on Christ (Heb. 12:1–4), etc. These people are regarded as neither elect nor reprobate; they are regarded as covenant members who have the ability to endure to the end, but also remain in jeopardy until they cross the finish line of their Christian race. And there is no hint of contradiction.
But calvinism teaches believers to regard themselves as elect. They begin with no ability to do anything. It is solely election in the purposes of God and the irresistable grace of God that means they can endure.
If the grace is resistable grace, then our total depravity will kick in an we’ll be lost. If the grace to endure to the end is resistable grace, then “something else” is actually determinative of our enduring to the end other than the resitable grace to endure to the end.
Calvinism teaches us that this “somethign else” is knowable, and that we should predicate on it when whe read all of scripture. Calvinists might say “screw your ‘covenant’, I’ll rest in the irreststable grace of biblical calvinism”
Paul
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 17:24:26 -0600
From: “Rich Lusk”
Subject: “covenantal grace”; was responding to the MVP Report
The blessings listed in 6:4–5 are enough to make perseverance possible, but they do not make perseverance an inevitable, come-what-may necessity. Thus, they are exhorted to keep their eyes fixed on Christ (Heb. 12:1–4), etc. These people are regarded as neither elect nor reprobate; they are regarded as covenant members who have the ability to endure to the end, but also remain in jeopardy until they cross the finish line of their Christian race. And there is no hint of contradiction.
But calvinism teaches believers to regard themselves as elect.
Does it really? If so, why I have known so many Calvinists who went through life wondering, “Am I elect?” What I have in view when I say they are regarded as neither elect nor reprobate is just that the writer is not looking at these people in terms of decretal categories. Covenantally, the are a new Israel. In fact, all the blessings he ascribes to them (enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, etc.) derive from the OT exodus accounts. They are the people of the new exodus, and thus “elect” in the Deut. 7 (covenantal) sense. But they can fall from this election too, as Deut. bears out.
They begin with no ability to do anything. It is solely election in the purposes of God and the irresistable grace of God that means they can endure. If the grace is resistable grace, then our total depravity will kick in an we’ll be lost. If the grace to endure to the end is resistable grace, then “something else” is actually determinative of our enduring to the end other than the resitable grace to endure to the end. Calvinism teaches us that this “somethign else” is knowable, and that we should predicate on it when whe read all of scripture. Calvinists might say “screw your ‘covenant’, I’ll rest in the irreststable grace of biblical calvinism”
I’m not denying iresistible grace, nor did I say anything about people “falling from irresistible grace.” Remember, I spoke of sufficient *and* efficient grace. But how do we know who has irresistible grace? I’m just reiterating the point of Isaiah 5:4: every covenant member has been offered grace sufficient unto perseverance. The promises regarding perseverance belong to the whole covenant community, though not all claim them. Those who do can only give thanks for God’s efficient grace; those who don’t can only blame themselves. How can some fall from “sufficient grace”? Well, I don’t know, but Adam had sufficient grace and he fell too. You can’t really give a coherent explantion of sin. If you could, sin wouldn’t be so utterly sinful. If “resting in irresistible grace” means exercising ongoing trust in Christ as the Author and Finisher of our faith, then great — but I can’t see how that’s “screwing the covenant.” That’s just what life in the covenant is supposed to look like. We keep covenant by faith, by keeping our eyes focused on the goal of Christ himself. Again, I’m not denying the validity of the classic scholastic distinctions. In an ultimate, eschatological sense, people are elected unto final salvation or they are reprobates. Those who fall away were destined to do so. But within history, many eternally reprobated folks come into the covenant, and experience a favorable relationship with God for a time. In Calvin’s language, they “justly believe they are reconciled” to their heavenly Father. Afterwards, they fall away. Others, who have come to experience that same favorable relationship with God as Father, persevere to the end because God sustains them. Yes, there’s a difference all along the way, but that difference is really known only unto God until it manifests itself in history. There’s no experiential or psychological checklist given to us in Scripture to tell whether we’ve been “truly converted” or not. If you could slice into Saul’s heart (or spiritual psychology) in 1 Sam 9—10, it would look a whole lot like David’s. All we can do is live by faith, clinging to the promises by looking to Jesus as the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Empirically, the seed that sprouted in the stony ground looked just like the sprout coming up from the good soil. Only *after* trail and persecution came, did the difference become manifest to creaturely observers. Covenantal grace gets differentiated out over time.
RL
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 16:30:54 -0700
From: “John Barach”
Subject: “Covenantal Grace”
Rich writes:
Nobody followed up on my earlier post regarding “covenantal grace,” but I did want to ask a question or two to Joel and anyone else who’s really familiar with the tradition of Reformed scholasticism.
Well, I really don’t know much about what he taught, but you might want to check out William Heyns (1856–1933), one of the early profs at Calvin Theological Seminary. Heyns argued for some kind of “covenantal grace,” I believe. You can read a bit about him in Jelle Faber’s book on American Sessesion Theologians (which is attached to the copy of Klaas Schilder’s Extra-Scriptural Binding, which I suspect already have, Rich).
According to Faber, Heyns rejected Kuyper’s “presumed regeneration,” but he also didn’t want to fall into the error of presumed non-regeneration, which he often saw, as he said, especially “if they — the children — have not abandone all joyfulness of youth, in order to excel as examples of gloomy piety” (Handbook 143).
Heyns (along with Lammert Hulst) distinguished between God’s common grace, covenant grace, and saving grace. He rejects the idea that the things spoken of in the traditional Baptismal Form are only true “objectively.” He writes:
It seems to us that there is Scriptural evidence unmistakably pointing to an actual bestowal on the covenant members of a certain measure of subjective grace also, so that the subjective spiritual condition of the covenant children is different from that of the children outside the covenant (Manual of Reformed Doctrine 136).
He references John 15, Romans 11, and Isaiah 5. He cites Acronius (1596), who says that “Christian nurture of covenant children is necessary, in order that they should not *degenerate*.” He also cites Beza, who said that “subjective covennat grace can be shaken out by unbelief.” He argues that parents, teachers, and ministers are not dealing with “unfit material,” with children who are spiritually blind and deaf, but with covenant children in whom the Lord has worked so that He may expect fruis of repentance and faith.
In his 1907 Handbook, Heys even spoke “of a subjective covenant grace for all members of the covenant so that man's total incapacity by nature for the things that are of the Spirit of God is taken away, that there is in the covenant child an initial or incipient capacity of covenantal nurture” (Faber 41).
Heyns also wrote:
Even in the Covenant of Works the condition of obedience was not a condition for being taken into the Covenant, but for keeping the Covenant and for gaining its reward. In the same way faith and obedience are conditions for keeping the Covenant of Grace and for inheriting the promise, Heb. 6:15, whereas unbelief and disobedience make the Covenant member a Covenant breaker, who shall not enter in, Heb. 3:18–19 (Faber 42, no citation provided).
A few more quotations:
Re: Isaiah 5:4: “Would He, Who is the true One, ask this? Would He be able to ask this, if what He had done to them had only consisted of outward working without giving the internal susceptibility for it?”
If one wants to do justice to such expressions one has to come to the conclusion, whether one likes it or not, that Scritpure teaches us that each member of the covenant receives the gift of subjective grace. Each child of believers receives *sufficient to produce good fruits*. This gift is for all members of the covenant, not only for the elect.
Concerning the covenant with Noah, we believe that it has been accompanied by the benefaction of a measure of more common grace, with such an incerase of common subjective grace that mankind, by its sin-resistant action, would be saved from sinking a second time into a deluge of iniquity as before the flood, and would be able to inherit the promise of that covenant. Why wuold it be unacceptable then, that the so much more glorious covenant with Abraham has been accompanied with the giving of subjective grace to all members of the covenant, with the result that the total insusceptibility of natural men to the things of the Spirit of God is taken away to the extent that the members of the covenant have an initial susceptibility.
These quotations are taken from Schilder’s interaction with Heyns (Extra-Scriptural Binding 95ff.). Heyns was one of the major targets of Herman Hoeksema, which means he can’t be all bad. Schilder, too, took a few shots at him.
I own a few of his books, but haven’t read him. Anyway, might be worth checking out. Unfortunately, most of his stuff is in Dutch, but some is in English.
John
