JUDICIAL WARFARE
Christian Reconstruction and Its Blueprints For Dominion
by Greg Loren Durand

Chapter One:
An Overview of Covenant Theology

       Before commencing a exposition of the theonomic foundation of Reconstructionism, it is necessary to outline the theological premise upon which this book will proceed — that of historic Covenant theology as taught in the Westminster Standards and the other creeds and confessions of the various Reformed denominations. While Covenant theology was first formulated in sixteenth-century Zurich and Geneva, its doctrinal roots go deep into the patristic period. Of course, Covenant theologians would argue that it is, in fact, the theology of the Bible and that to whatever extent one departs from it, to that extent they depart from biblical Christianity. J. Ligon Duncan described Covenant theology as follows:

       Covenant theology is the Gospel set in the context of God’s eternal plan of communion with his people, and its historical outworking in the covenants of works and grace (as well as in the various progressive stages of the covenant of grace). It explains the meaning of the death of Christ in light of the fullness of the biblical teaching on the divine covenants, undergirds our understanding of the nature and use of the sacraments, and provides the fullest possible explanation of the grounds of our assurance. Put another way, covenant theology is the Bible’s way of explaining and deepening our understanding of: (1) the atonement (the meaning of the death of Christ); (2) assurance (the basis of our confidence of communion with God and enjoyment of his promises); (3) the sacraments (signs and seals of God’s covenant promises — what they are and how they work); and (4) the continuity of redemptive history (the unified plan of God’s salvation). Covenant theology is also an hermeneutic, an approach to understanding the Scripture — an approach that attempts to biblically explain the unity of biblical revelation.
       Covenant theology is a blending of biblical and systematic theology. It is biblical theology in the sense that covenant theology recognizes that the Bible itself structures the progress of redemptive history through the succession of covenants. It is systematic theology in that it recognizes the covenants as a fundamental architectonic or organizing principle for the Bible’s theology. Thus it proceeds to integrate the biblical teaching about the federal headships of Adam and Christ, the covenantal nature of the incarnation and atonement, the continuities and discontinuities in the progress of redemptive history, the relation of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, law and gospel, into a coherent theological system.⁽¹⁾

       Covenant theology teaches that when God created man in the Garden of Eden, He entered into a Covenant of Works (or Covenant of Life) with him in which Adam, the representative, or federal, head of mankind, was promised eternal life, or glorified life, as the reward for perfect fulfillment of the terms of the covenant.⁽²⁾ Though these terms are not expressly found in the scriptural account, Covenant theologians agree that Adam was required to render perfect and perpetual obedience to the moral law.⁽³⁾ In other words, the one commandment to abstain from eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:16-17) encapsulated the whole of Adam's duty to both God and his fellow man (his posterity). No one can say how long this period of probation was intended to last before Adam would have received the promised reward, but that point is irrelevant.
       In sinning, Adam violated the terms of the Covenant of Works (Hosea 6:7), and the result was spiritual death and separation from God for both himself and for his posterity (Isaiah 24:5; Romans 5:12).⁽⁴⁾ He was thereafter cut off from access to the Tree of Life, banished from the Garden, and sent out into a cursed world where the effects of sin would wreak havoc on his physical body and eventually put him into the grave.⁽⁵⁾ The Covenant of Works did not contain a clause of mercy, so had God not intervened by establishing a second covenant with Adam, commonly called the Covenant of Grace, through which He promised a Redeemer (Genesis 3:15), mankind would have been irreconcilably cut off from any hope of salvation. Hope in the promise was kept alive through the offering of animal sacrifices, but as the centuries passed, men began to drift into paganism and the belief that they could appease the Deity by their own works. This proves that the obligation to the moral law under the Covenant of Works was universally understood and that it is, in fact, ingrained into man's nature that there is a God to whom he is responsible for his sins. Fallen man does not need special revelation to know his predicament, for nature itself testifies to him of his obligations to his Creator and of his failure to meet them (Romans 1:18-32). What is hidden from the natural man -- what he is incapable of knowing apart from special revelation -- is the mystery of the Gospel that God Himself would enter human history to become man's Redeemer from the curse of the broken covenant (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 3:4-6; 1 Timothy 3:16).
       The Old Testament is a record of how God providentially arranged and directed human events over many centuries in preparation for the advent of the Redeemer. First, He called Abraham out of his homeland and established a covenant with him and his descendants, the only condition of which was simple faith (Galatians 3:6). The New Testament makes it clear that these descendants are not merely his physical posterity (as Dispensationalism would suggest), but those who share the faith of Abraham out of every "nation, tribe, and tongue" (Galatians 3:29; Revelation 5:9). Ultimately, according to the Apostle Paul, the "seed" of Abraham is Christ Himself (Galatians 3:16), and so it is safe to conclude that the Abrahamic Covenant was the earthly expression of the Covenant of Grace itself, which was made in eternity between God the Father and God the Son for the purpose of delivering the elect out of the "estate of sin and misery."⁽⁶⁾ This covenantal relationship was passed from Abraham to Isaac, and then to Jacob, through whom the twelve tribes of national Israel came.
       Following the death of Joseph, the Israelites were enslaved for four hundred years in Egypt. During that time, they abandoned the faith of Abraham and substituted the worship of the Egyptian sun-god for that of the true God. By the time God raised up Moses as their deliverer, the Israelites were thoroughly pagan. At the exodus, God directed them to Horeb, where He entered into covenant with them, reaffirming and expanding the covenant previously made with Abraham. This was a blood covenant, sealed by a ceremonial sprinkling of the people (a clear symbol of Christ's death in behalf of His elect), and it included the "first edition" of the Decalogue, written on stone tablets by the finger of God Himself. During Moses' lengthy absence on the mountain-top, the Israelites grew impatient and quickly reverted back to their former worship of the sun-god (symbolized by Apis, the golden calf), to which defection Moses responded by smashing the stone tablets to pieces.
       There has been some speculation that this action was a public declaration that that specific covenant had been abolished as far as they were concerned, and the fact that Moses was required to go back up the mountain to receive a new set of commandments (this time dictated to Moses rather than being written with the finger of God Himself) lends support to the theory that the covenant thereafter made with Israel was substantially different from the initial one.⁽⁷⁾ The "second legislation" of the Decalogue was also not ratified by the sprinkling of blood, as had been the first. Whereas the first covenant had been a further expansion of the Abraham Covenant, the second had the effect of placing the Israelites under the heavy yoke of a localized form of the Covenant of Works, consisting of 613 statutes which regulated even the most mundane aspect of life, an intricate sacrificial system, an establishmentarian joining of the religious element to the civil, and, most importantly, clearly enumerated positive and negative sanctions for obedience and disobedience. Whether one accepts the "second legislation" theory, it is nevertheless true that it is the Sinatic covenant, or the Mosaic law, which dominates the rest of the Old Testament and is the basis of all of God's lawsuits against Israel through His prophets. This is the covenant which the unbelieving Jews, particularly the Pharisees, later came to believe would lead them to favor with God. This is the covenant referred to as a "parenthesis" between the Abrahamic Covenant and its fulfillment in Christ (Galatians 3:15-18). Even though it demanded perfect and perpetual obedience, and pronounced death for even the slightest infraction of its precepts, the Mosaic law was nevertheless a gracious gift of God to His people because through it the elect within the nation would be driven to despair of their own righteousness and thus to faith in the promised Redeemer as He was foreshadowed in the ceremonies (Galatians 3:24). Other than testifying to the absolute holiness of God, this was the purpose of the Mosaic law; as such, it was never intended to be a civil "model" for the rest of the world. In fact, the Gentile nations were left by God under the broader, and unwritten, Adamic Covenant of Works and deprived of any true knowledge of a Redeemer (Ephesians 2:12).
       By the First Century, those identified as God's covenant people had been narrowed down to the tribe of Judah and those from other tribes which had joined themselves to Judah. Christ was born as a Jew and was therefore bound, along with the rest of His kinsmen according to the flesh, to perfect and perpetual obedience to the Mosaic law (John 6:38; Galatians 4:4). As the "last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45), He therefore did not come to destroy the authority of the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-18). In fulfilling the righteous requirements of the Siniatic covenant (Matthew 3:15; John 17:4), He likewise fulfilled the Adamic duty in relation to the more general Covenant of Works in behalf of God's elect outside of Israel. In passively submitting to death on the cross, Christ paid the penalty of the broken covenant (John 19:30), and His active and perfect obedience to the law (Romans 5:18-19) is thereafter imputed to the believer through the vehicle of faith alone (Ephesians 2:8). At the very moment of faith, the believer is forever and completely justified before God (Romans 3:21-24; 2 Corinthians 5:21); he is no longer "in Adam" — under the Covenant of Works — but is now "in Christ" — under the Covenant of Grace (1 Corinthians 15:22). If a Jew, he is reckoned as having fulfilled every jot and tittle of the Mosaic law; if a Gentile, he is reckoned as having fulfilled the Adamic covenant (Romans 3:31). Either way, the Christian is "no longer under the law," but is a free man under grace (Romans 6:14; 1 Corinthians 7:22). He is not merely restored to the probationary position of Adam in the Garden, but is instead seated in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:5-6). He has eternal life (Romans 6:23; 1 John 5:13) — the very promise held forth in the original Covenant of Works. This is the Gospel, and it is this Gospel which Theonomy obscures, if not openly denies, as we shall see.

Endnotes

1. J. Ligon Duncan, "Covenant Theology is Historic Christianaity," www.fpcjackson.org/resources/apologetics/Covenant%20Theology%20&%20Justification/ligon_ctheology.htm

2. Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 7, Section 2; Chapter 19, Section 1; Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 20.

3. Larger Catechism, Question 92.

4. Confession of Faith., Chapter 6, Section 2; Larger Catechism, Question 22.

5. Larger Catechism, Question 25-28.

6. Ibid., Question 30.

7. Appendix Two: "On the Bonds of the Second Legislation."