The Covenant of Redemption (Part 1)

I am beginning today to post a multi-part series on the covenant of redemption. If you would like more reading on this topic I would commend a number of books to you. 1) The God of Promise by Michael Horton. 2) The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man by Herman Witsius. 3) Systematic Theology Volume 2 by Charles Hodge.

Covenant language is the language of the Bible. The idea of covenant stretches from the beginning of the Bible to the end. The idea of covenant is bound into the commands and prohibition found in Genesis with regard to God and Adam. Though the covenant is not explicitly mentioned in Genesis with regard to Adam, it is intimated in other portions of the Scripture. God makes a covenant with Abraham, through his seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. God makes a covenant with David. His throne will endure forever. Then, finally, there is the New Covenant. Inaugurated in Christ’s blood and extended through the proclamation of the gospel to all the nations, tribes, and people.
It is also indicative of covenant theology that there is the covenant of grace, which is the whole plan of redemption that God manifests throughout redemptive history and culminates in Christ. Furthermore, there is a covenant that is referred to as being the foundation of which the covenant of grace is built. This is called the covenant of redemption.
The focus of this paper is to first explain and define the covenant of redemption and then to discuss the different covenant stipulations that are said to be a part of this covenant. Finally, there will be a discussion as to the validity of using covenant language with regard to this pre-temporal covenant.
Let us define a covenant. O. Palmer Robertson defines a covenant this way: a covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered.[1] He goes on to say that at its most essential aspect, a covenant is a bond that binds people together. The other two aspects put forward by Robertson that it is a bond in blood and the sovereign administration. The bond in blood “expresses the ultimacy of the commitment between God and man in the covenantal context.”[2] This primarily refers to the idea of “cutting a covenant that is found throughout the Scriptures (Gen. 15:18; 21:27; Ex. 23:32, 34; Deut. 4:23; 5:2-3; 31:16; Josh. 9:6ff; Judges 2:2; 1 Sam. 11:1-2; 2 Sam. 3:12ff; Job 31:1; Ps. 50:5; Ezra 10:3; Neh. 9:8). This phrase accords ideally with the emphasis by the Scripture that apart from the “shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22).
The sovereign administration pertains to the unilateral nature of God’s covenant dealings with man. “The Sovereign Lord of heaven and earth dictates the terms of the covenant.”
John Murray in his marvelous work The Covenant of Grace defines a covenant is somewhat more succinct terms for our purposes in this paper. He writes, “From the early times in the era of the Reformation and throughout the development of the covenant theology the formulation has been deeply affected by the idea that a covenant is a compact or agreement between two parties (emphasis mine).
In the work Sealed With an Oath, Paul Williamson borrows from the work of S.L. McKenzie entitled Covenant: Understanding Biblical Themes. Here McKenzie states that defining covenant in the Bible is not as easy as it may seem. However, he does imply one thing can be agreed upon by all regarding the definition of a covenant. It, broadly speaking, “refers to an arrangement of some kind between two or more parties.”[3]
Charles Hodge would define a covenant in these terms: “One person assigning a stipulated work to another person with the promise of reward upon the condition of the performance of that work.”[4]
It is the definition put forth by McKenzie, Hodge, and Murray that seems most operative when discussing what is termed the covenant of redemption. The essence of the covenant, especially as we speak of the covenant of redemption, is an agreement between two parties in which some work is stipulated and upon completion of that work blessing or reward is promised.
Palmer Robertson’s definition does indeed give a definition of a covenant for sure, but this definition needs to be used not with any inter-Trinitarian agreement, but with regard to the salvation and the entering into covenant with man. As there is no bond in blood that is alluded to between the Father and the Son in eternity past. The closest thing that could possibly said about this is that the Son’s sacrifice of Himself as was part of the obedience He was to perform in fulfilling the will of the Father and redeeming a people for Himself. However, a portion of the obedience of the Son could not be said to be a bond between the Father and Son in the way Robertson describes it. Robertson seems to dismiss and discount calling any pre-creation decree of God as having any merit it calling it a “covenant.” He notes, first of all, “This particular covenant finds not specific development in the classic creeds of the Reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”[5] I will show that this is not necessarily true. Although it is not specifically stated, I believe it is certainly alluded to. Secondly, he remarks, “affirming the role of redemption in the eternal counsels of God is not the same as proposing the existence of a pre-creation covenant between Father and Son. A sense of artificiality flavors the effort to structure in covenantal terms the mysteries of God’s eternal counsels.”[6] Third, he states the to speak in any type of definitive terms of an inner-Trinitarian covenant “with terms and conditions between Father and Son mutually endorsed before the foundation of the world is to extend the bounds of Scriptural evidence beyond propriety.”[7]

We will pick up with an assessment of Robertson's comments and further our understanding of the covenant of redemption in our next post.

[1] Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, p. 4.
[2] Ibid. p. 7
[3] Williamson, Sealed With an Oath. p. 35
[4] Hodge, Systematic Theology Vol. 2, p. 360
[5] Robertson, Christ of the Covenants, p. 54.
[6] Ibid. p. 54.
[7] Ibid. p. 54.