in Hos 12:1 and Ezek 17:13. It is also more broadly and frequently used to describe God’s relationship to the Hebrew patriarchs and the nation of Israel (Gen 6:18; 9:9–17; 15:18; 17:2–21).
In Covenant Theology or Federal (from the Latin term foedus, meaning “compact” or “covenant”) Theology the concept of covenant structures God’s relation to the world and the Bible’s redemptive plan. The multiple types of covenants or covenantal forms and their varying conditions prompt Diarmaid MacCullough’s portrayal of it as “a fertile concept that is full of hope and reassurance” resulting in an “idea that can take off in a various directions.”91 The accuracy of his description is verified by the ubiquity of the covenantal form as a central doctrine for theologians within the ranks of Presbyterianism as well as their disagreement over its exact meaning and role. Robert Godfrey’s understanding of the covenant of works, “as a key foundation for understanding the work of Christ and justification by faith alone”92 or Geerhardus Vos’ declaration of covenant theology as “a truly universal phenomenon, emerging everywhere where theology is done on the basis of the Reformed principle,” as well as Gerard Van Groningen’s summary of the Bible as the “written record of the revelation of two covenantal relationships” are representative of the prominence given to Covenant Theology in Reformed and Presbyterian thinking.93
The domination of Scottish and British confessions by the covenant concept is accounted for not only because of its biblical roots but also because of its prevalence in legal and political thought as democratic ideas emerged in the early seventeenth century. Arguably, the prevalence of the covenant principle in the Reformation is proof of its adaptability to a unified state and church society.94 The emergence and development of Covenant Theology during the social crisis in sixteenth-century Zurich was actually precipitated by the rejection of the state church by some of Ulrich Zwingli’s more radical followers.
After Zwingli’s reforms in the early 1520s those who later would be known as anabaptists, disputed the biblical legitimacy of a state church as well as the practice of baptizing infants into its membership. Zwingli’s response was to defend the baptism of infants as the Christian equivalent of the Old Testament’s practice of circumcision and as the sign of the new covenant now been made in Christ. The linking of baptism with a covenant was particularly successful among the Swiss cantons for whom the ‘Bund’ or ‘covenant’, was already a familiar and useful political structure. Zwingli used the theme of covenant only in relation to infant baptism, but his successor in Zurich, Heinrich Bullinger, organized his entire discussion of Christianity around it.95
As a Presbyterian minister Caruthers subscribed to the Westminster Confession of Faith, a Reformed and Puritan confessional document produced in Seventeenth-century England by the Westminster Assembly. With the exception of the seven Independents, the assembly of 121 theologians were Presbyterians. The assembly was convened by the Parliament at Westminster Abbey in 1643 to revise the doctrinal standards of the English church, the Thirty-Nine Articles. A newspaper’s reference during the opening week of the assembly to “the drooping spirits of the people of God who lie under the pressure of Popish wars and combustions” typifies the common sentiment during this extended period of political and religious strife between Charles I and Parliament.96 When revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles proved unworkable, the assembly instead produced several new documents of theological doctrine including a confession of faith for the Reformed churches of Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland.
Completed by the assembly with proof texts in 1647, the Westminster Confession of Faith never fulfilled its intended role, but still retains an historic place in the doctrines of the Church of Scotland. It was subsequently adopted by American colonial Presbyterians in 1729 with the exception of its chapter on the civil magistrate. It continues to embody the doctrinal standards of Presbyterians in America and throughout the world, but in varying degrees. Berkhof’s complaint that “Presbyterian scholars . . . take due account” of covenant doctrine “in their theological works” but “in the Churches which they represent it has all but lost its vitality” is arguably true of the entire confession’s present day influence within all but the most conservative Presbyterian congregations.97 Nevertheless, the Westminster Confession remains the most important embodiment of Covenant Theology because of its arrangement of all redemptive history into a covenantal framework of works and grace.
Vos’ description of the Westminster Confession as “the first Reformed confession in which the doctrine of the covenant . . . has been able to permeate at almost every point” suggests the overarching importance of the confession’s seventh chapter, Of God’s Covenant with Man for the Presbyterians of the assembly.98 As found in the seventh chapter, six sections in the confession explain their understanding of the “voluntary condescension on God’s part which he has been pleased to express by way of covenant.” Vos notes the appearance of John Ball’s Treatise on the Covenant of Grace in 1645 during the sitting of the Westminster Assembly as well as Archbishop James Ussher’s formulation of the covenant published in the Irish Articles in 1615, as probably constituting the direct influences of the confession’s seventh chapter.99
The Westminster Confession of Faith’s seventh chapter presents the “covenant of works,” as “ the first covenant made with man . . . wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” It was broken by humanity represented by Adam and Eve making them “incapable of life by that covenant” but “the Lord was pleased to make a second . . . the covenant of grace wherein he freely offers to sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him.” The covenant of grace was “differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel,” in the former time of the patriarchs and Mosaic era “by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews” and in the latter time under the gospel by “the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.”
Not appearing in the Westminster Confession of Faith, but a further development of the concept, the “covenant of redemption” designates for Caruthers and Presbyterian theologians from the eighteenth century onward “the agreement between the Father, giving the Son as Head and Redeemer of the elect, and the Son, voluntarily taking the place of those whom the Father had given Him.”100 Even those who did not adopt this particular formulation nevertheless spoke of “that eternal agreement between the Persons of the Godhead, on which the whole dispensation of mercy to mankind is founded.”101 Psalm 2, cited by Caruthers, is seen as a particularly persuasive proof of such an agreement between God and Christ. It is a psalm ostensibly written for the immediate Davidic monarchy of its era, but which is also attested as Messianic prophecy by the New Testament implying a compact between the Father and the Son with conditions and promises, after the pattern of a covenant.102 While in the Old Testament the covenant and its conditions between God and Israel are explicit,103 other implicit covenantal forms like Psalm 2 can also be found in which a covenant is implied such as in the conditions and responsibilities given to Adam.104
Charles Hodge, a nineteenth-century contemporary of Caruthers and the leading theologian of Princeton
