Chambers:

CHAPTER 6

THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION

Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.¹

The role of the covenant of redemption² has already been referred to both in relation to the purchase of faith and Owen’s understanding of redemption and satisfaction, and was highlighted in the outline of Owen’s argument as being central to the development of a structure that would allow Owen to convincingly demonstrate that Christ only intended to benefit the elect by his death, that it was only “for” the elect. What is the covenant of redemption as Owen understands it? Considered now in itself what contribution does it make to “The Death of Death” and the position Owen is arguing for? Is it a convincing structure which one should or must adopt in seeking to understand Christ’s work? In attempting to answer these questions we will first look at Owen’s exposition of this covenant in The Death of Death, supplementing that with his treatment of this covenant elsewhere, principally in Exercitation XXVIII of his commentary on Hebrews. We will then consider the role this covenant plays by relating it both to Owen’s central thesis and the other arguments he advances to support that thesis. Following that examination of the covenant in The Death of Death we will consider the origin of this covenant, its modern exponents and critics, and make an assessment of the place of such a covenant today. In the light of that assessment we will then reconsider Owen’s reliance on that covenant in relation to his thesis.

The covenant of redemption in the Death of Death.

The “covenant or compact” made in eternity between the Father and the Son is introduced by Owen in Book 1:III as the third aspect of the first of the Father’s “two peculiar acts… in this work of our redemption by the blood of Jesus,” his “sending of his Son into the world for this employment.”³ It is thus an element of Owen’s grounding the work of the atonement in the Trinitarian life of God who is the agent of this work of redemption.⁴

While elsewhere Owen goes to some length to both justify and fully explicate this application of covenant language to the relations between the Father and the Son,⁵ Owen is content to here assume the validity of this structure and focus on two aspects of this covenant that have particular relevance to his argument. These two elements are firstly the Father’s promise,

to protect and assist him in the accomplishment and perfect fulfilling of the whole business and dispensation about which he was employed, or which he was to undertake.⁶

It is on the basis of these promises that the Son undertakes “this heavy burden” of being a Savior for his people, and these promises are the foundation of the Savior’s confidence,

so that the ground of our Savior’s confidence and assurance in this great undertaking, and a strong motive to exercise his graces received in the utmost endurings, was this engagement of his Father upon this compact of assistance and protection.⁷

The second element is the Father’s promise of success, or a good issue out of all his sufferings, and a happy accomplishment and attainment of the end of his great undertaking.

This is that aspect of the covenant that is most directly relevant to the dispute about the intention of God in the atonement, for it directly introduces the notion of ‘end’ or purpose in relation to the Son’s work, his ‘great undertaking’ and assures it of success. That ‘end’ is what is promised the Son and it is that alone which the Son intended to achieve.⁸ For the content of the promise we are directed to Isaiah 49, and Owen makes it clear that what is promised is the salvation of his people, “his seed by covenant,” and it is only this the Son intends in the work. This sole determination to attain the promise is apparent in Christ’s intercession in John 17,

the request that our Savior makes upon the accomplishment of the work about which he was sent; which certainly was neither for more nor less than God had engaged himself to him for.

That intercession, which is

no doubt grounded upon the fore-cited promises, which by his Father were made unto him,⁹

is for a full confluence of the love of God and fruits of that love upon all his elect, in faith, sanctification, and glory.¹⁰

That is , what is promised Christ is the actual salvation of the elect, and this is the ‘end’ he seeks to achieve. The Son’s role is his agreement to undertake the work under the terms and conditions proposed, the principle being that he should make his life a ransom price for sinners.¹¹

Read the rest of this entry »