A Critique of John Colquhoun's The Law and The Gospel (Pt.6)

Section 2: The Law as given to Adam under the Form of the Covenant of Works?

Again, we have this problem of a presumption that the "law of creation" is somehow equivalent to the Ten Commandments according to this Covenantal view of a covenant of works, that life could be 'earned' before the face of the One who gives it. In the intentional terms of the theory, I agree that the covenant would have had conditions; whatever covenant that was, I would need to figure out where to begin to give it a name or even how to really call it a covenant with the creation. There was God in the beginning, and then there was man as the result of God making a sovereign choice. There was no consideration for the creation regarding life in this garden. So, I wouldn't really call it a covenant at all. It was just the creation of life with built-in conditions to live under that quality of life in the presence of God's fellowship. Therefore, having the one condition, I wouldn't really call it a covenant of works, for the rest of the relationship was shaped by grace since the man was created innocent of the covenant that would enter the world but was made from before the foundation of the world in the event of the violation of the one condition of that quality of life (Rev.13:8; 2Tim.1:9; Tit.1:2).

So, this theory of a covenant of works has no support from the beginning. Adam made no agreement with God to be the 'federal head' of the human race (1Cor.15:22). This was a sovereign choice on God's part, and God warned Adam that should this sovereign act of God's power be violated, Adam would see a different face of God's sovereignty (Gen.2:8-9, 15-17). But grace was the covenant from the beginning (Eph.1:4; Rom.16:25), for, on the day that Adam violated the condition for life in God's garden (Gen.3:4-5), a new face of God was revealed to Adam according to mercy and justice because the consequence of the condition was death unto death (Rev.2:11, 20:6, 14; 21:8). However, though Adam saw death, he did not see the second death (Gen.3:15); therefore, it was never a covenant of works for him (Gen.3:22-24). There was no "cutting of an agreement" that we should call this a covenant of works with Adam to earn eternal life in the garden of God in the midst of Eden. It was God who made the ecosystem perfect for Adam to live gracefully (and eternally) in that garden. It was only upon the condition that God is God as Adam's Creator and Sustainer that Adam lived by faith in God's presence until Adam became brave enough to declare himself his own god to live outside of the graceful means of eternal life and to sustain his own life as his own creator apart from the tree of life that was the key to Adam's quality of life in the garden.

Under this condition, apart from any covenant, Adam sovereignly chose to become the author of evil through the tree called the knowledge of good and evil, being ignorant (and innocent) of the covenant of grace that God made with Himself in Jesus Christ who would sovereignly choose to save him from his sin (Matt.1:21-23. Therefore, to frame this as a covenant of works would require redefining who God is and man's relationship to who God is (Isa.46:8-10). God is sovereign over the man regardless of any covenant that the man could imagine making with this sovereign and all-powerful God (Isa.28:15-18). Adam's life was never in his own hands. Adam was only given the liberty to choose the quality of his life, and even that life was in ignorance and innocence of the mystery or "covenant of grace" (Rom.16:25; 1Cor.2:7-8). In fact, you could say that Adam created the covenant of works by trying to earn life through his own works outside of the graceful conditions that God made for him to live eternally in his natural body (Rom.3:27). But he chose to be his own god apart from any condition of God's sovereignty over him until he felt the consequence of that decision (Gen.3:7), which is the curse or "work" of the original law and has become an unchangeable "natural" law except by God's sovereignty to choose to be graceful upon whom He wills held under the consequence of that law (Rom.2:14-15; 12-14, 19a; 7:14, 24; 8:2), which is the wage of Adam's work (Rom.6:23; 1Cor.15:56-57).

What does this "law" reveal as a condition of eternal life? Was it intended to reveal "a covenant" (of works) that would earn eternal life for Adam (Matt.5:48)? Or was it simply a "law" created as a result of the "condition" that Adam should recognize God as his sovereign and, therefore, God as his Creator and Father (Gen.3:5)? Was it meant as a means by which God reveals Himself and His relationship to the creature (Gen.3:11)? Is (the) man being given a choice to make a covenant with God as His Father and Creator (Rom.9:20; Isa.29:16; 45:9-10)? What then was the "law" designed to teach the man but the grace of God when Adam would make a covenant (with himself) to be his own god (Gen.3:22)? Would Adam be able to fulfill his covenant of works with himself to live forever outside of God's boundaries as a creature of the creation that demonstrates the glory of the Almighty God (Rom.9:17-19, 21-24)? Would this grace be irresistible when Adam learns what he lost by being removed from the garden (Rom.1:18-25)? Where, then, does this covenant of works originate from in the knowledge of God's knowing the beginning and the end of the knowledge of man (Gal.3:10-11, 15-18/emphasis: v.15)?

Does this book "The Law and the Gospel" provide the answer to how this presupposition, which says God made a covenant with the man in the form of a covenant of works, comes from the knowledge of God? I do not see anywhere how this theory comes from the mind of God, as His thoughts are recorded for us in the form of this revelation. There remains a burden of proof on the framers of Covenant Theology to test this theory with holy fire and with the testimony of Scripture. I see this theory as an imagination of the man who is still trying to create a god in the man's own image and racing his own thoughts ahead of God's thoughts on the question (Rom.1:21-23, 25). But the good news is, there was never a man who changed God (Mal.3:6), and there is no man who can change God's grace that covers the ignorance of a man because creation and salvation are all of grace from the beginning of reconciliation to the end of faith into eternal sight (Col.1:15-20).

Now, the book does attempt to answer this by stating, "The command to perform perfect obedience merely is not the covenant of works, for man was and is immutably and eternally bound to yield perfect obedience to the law of creation (though a covenant of works had never been made with him). But the form of the command in the covenant of works is perfect obedience as the condition of life" (pg.17). Again, why do they insist on using the term covenant when no covenant had been made by their own confession? And if it is in the form of a covenant, why presume eternal life was based on one condition of "works" and not the relationship of God's grace? Was the "law" to reveal the earning of eternal life, or was the "law" to reveal the character and nature of God's relationship with the man that He sovereignly put into the garden for fellowship with Himself (Gen.2:18)? Is God trying to reveal Himself as a harsh taskmaster so that the man must earn this relationship with God through works of slavery, or was the law to reveal a gracious sovereignty and humility of the power of this gracious God (Rom.8:15)? Was not the command given in the midst of the knowledge that he was free to eat from every tree but the one (Gen.2:8-9, 16-17)? Was that to reveal a covenant of slavery and works (Gen.3:1, 4-5)? Or was it to reveal a special relationship with the only Sovereign of the garden? I believe these answers are obvious in what God intended regarding His relationship with the man. Adam was never created as a slave, and the covenant of works has been an invention of the devil from the beginning, who sowed it as a lie from the start and has Providentially been permitted to grow into spiritual weeds ever since as a consequence to choke out everything that does not love the truth of what God has said in truth (2Thess.2:1-12; Matt.15:13).  

Now, again, I must address the confusion created by this idea that the Ten Commandments are synonymous with the "law of creation" as a form of a covenant of works. John and his proponents have written that "The law of creation, or the Ten Commandments, was, in the form of a covenant of works, given to the first Adam after he had been put into the garden of Eden. It was given to him as the first parent and federal representative of all his posterity by ordinary generation" (pg.16). While I most certainly agree with the federal theology of Adam's headship, it becomes a contradiction when they want to make the Ten Commandments synonymous with the law of creation, which they observe as the moral law. But with careful thought, this would be impossible since Adam and Eve were left to procreate as the first and only two human beings with the command to be fruitful and multiply, filling the whole Earth. The Ten Commandments were not given as a summary of the law of creation but were added so the offense might abound in those outside the covenant and to restrain the evil within the covenant of God's grace to Israel as the promised seed in the form of a national covenant. And the Law included the forbidding of inter-family marriage. But the moral law doesn't change in nature, yet there was a change in the law regarding marriage. However, it would have been impossible for Adam to populate the Earth under such "moral" restrictions if it was always immoral to marry your sister or brother under those economic conditions. This was not an abomination until the Law was given at Sinai.

Therefore, we cannot say that the Ten is a summary of the purpose of the first principle. They are not the same in purpose. John and his proponents want to say that Genesis 2:16-17 is a positive precept, and since it was given as a liberty in that context, I would agree. But the problem with that is that they also want to count the Ten as the same in effect, stating, "This positive precept was, in effect, a summary of all the commands of the natural or moral law" (pg.17). But the covenantal Ten is not given as a positive but a negative to restrain rather than to liberate (Rom.5:20a-21a; Jn.15:22; Gal.3:19; 5:1-3, 16-18). So then, we cannot behold the two "forms" as synonymous. As they come from God, they are holy, spiritual, righteous, and good, but they are not imputed where there was no law revealed by God in the first principle (Rom5:13; 7:7). This is how Israel became the head of nations and was responsible to exemplify the Law as a national covenant for the nations to imitate (Ps.18:43; 44:14; 110:6; Dt.28:12-16, 43-46). Now, in conclusion, the first principle was not given in "covenantal" form, but the Ten were. So now we see the distinction.

Therefore, may God bless us with the liberty of the Spirit rather than the curse of the letter of the law. Now, may we not look to our performance in honoring the law but to the work of Christ as our only Surety and to the presence of the Spirit's sanctification of our conscience from the presence of sin in our corruption. May God grant us the repentance that leads to eternal life and away from the destruction that leads to the lake of fire in Hell. May we see God as just in His dealing with men as sinners and embrace Him as loving in dealing with us as sons. May we know and understand the grace and knowledge of Christ's person and work in coming in the flesh to redeem us from the curse of the law and in rising from the dead vindicated as God to bring us into peace with the Father.