Covenant Theology By Ben Sasse

Federal theology -- or Covenant theology -- seeks to explain how Adam acted as the head of all humanity in our sinfulness. He declared rebellion against God and fathered a line of willing rebels proud of the family tradition. We are guilty, our world is under the curse, and -- as the Heidelberg Catechism indelicately phrases it -- all of us are "inclined by nature to hate God and [our] neighbors." Perhaps the best shorthand for the human predicament is simply that we are "in Adam."

The well-catechized Christian retorts, however, that there is more to the story of Federal theology: Believers are now also "in Christ." By the miracle of redemption, Jesus has become our new, faithful head. By his initiative, we have been united to the "second Adam" -- and consequently our identification with the old Adam, though always persistent in this age, is genuinely being put to death.

But there is an important point here that we frequently overlook: We know that Christ atoned for Adam's and our disobedience on the cross, but we often forget that Christ's work was not merely negative or "passive" (enduring the curse). Our Lord was also "actively" obedient, fulfilling the law on our behalf. Those united to Christ stand not only neutral or guilt-free before the father, but actually as those reckoned positively righteous, as if we ourselves have clothed the naked, fed the hungry, and kept the whole law. Like the criminal on the cross, we have done these things "in Christ."

The background for understanding the active and passive obedience of Christ (again, actively keeping the law and passively suffering in the place of law-breakers) is the covenant that God made with Adam. This agreement in the Garden -- called the covenant of works -- was not based on grace, but on merit. God promised Adam eternal life and blessings for obedience, and the curse of death for disobedience.

After the fall, God mercifully offered a new covenant, this one a covenant of grace. But we must distinguish clearly here: The covenant of grace did not render the covenant of works obsolete; the Gospel did not do away with justice. Rather, the good news of the second covenant was that God would send a messiah to fulfill the first covenant. God promised a mediator, who would be obedient where the first Adam had proved disobedient.

The covenant of works and the covenant of grace then both require perfect, perpetual obedience. The difference between them is that where the covenant of works required Adam's personal obedience, the covenant of grace provided his faithful descendants with a second Adam who would fulfill perfect, perpetual, substitutionary obedience.

In an important sense, there are not two paths of salvation: faith or works. There is only one way -- and it is by works. But the question is whether salvation comes by our personal works, or by the substitutionary work of another. The covenant of grace then is actually a path to fulfill the covenant of works -- which hasn't gone away and which those of us born of Adam cannot personally fulfill. The important distinction here is not before versus after the Incarnation (Old Testament/New Testament). Rather, the chief distinction for all historical epochs is between seeking to fulfill the law ourselves (covenant of works) and relying by faith on the law-keeping of our mediator (covenant of grace).

Benjamin E. Sasse was Executive Editor of Modern Reformation, and co-editor (with the Late Dr. James M. Boice) of Here We Stand. He is presently a doctoral student in history at Yale University.