Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

IV. Man in the Covenant of Works
The discussion of the original state of man, the status integritatis, would not be
complete without considering the mutual relationship between God and man, and
especially the origin and nature of the religious life of man. That life was rooted in a
covenant, just as the Christian life is today, and that covenant is variously known as the
covenant of nature, the covenant of life, the Edenic covenant, and the covenant of
works. The first name, which was rather common at first, was gradually abandoned,
since it was apt to give the impression that this covenant was simply a part of the
natural relationship in which man stood to God. The second and third names are not
sufficiently specific, since both of them might also be applied to the covenant of grace,
which is certainly a covenant of life, and also originated in Eden, Gen. 3:15.
Consequently the name “Covenant of Works” deserves preference.
A. THE DOCTRINE OF THE COVENANT OF WORKS IN HISTORY.
The history of the doctrine of the covenant of works is comparatively brief. In the
early Church Fathers the covenant idea is seldom found at all, though the elements
which it includes, namely, the probationary command, the freedom of choice, and the
possibility of sin and death, are all mentioned. Augustine in his de Civitates Dei speaks
of the relation in which Adam originally stood to God as a covenant (testamentum,
pactum), while some others inferred the original covenant relationship from the well
known passage of Hos. 6:7. In the scholastic literature and in the writings of the
Reformers, too, all the elements which later on went into the construction of the
doctrine of the covenant of works were already present, but the doctrine itself was not
yet developed. Though they contain some expressions which point to the imputation of
Adam’s sin to his descendants, it is clear that on the whole the transmission of sin was
conceived realistically rather than federally. Says Thornwell in his analysis of Calvin’s
Institutes: “Federal representation was not seized as it should be, but a mystic realism in
place of it.” 26 The development of the doctrine of the covenant of grace preceded that of
the doctrine of the covenant of works and paved the way for it. When it was clearly
seen that Scripture represented the way of salvation in the form of a covenant, the
parallel which Paul draws in Rom. 5 between Adam and Christ soon gave occasion for
thinking of the state of integrity also as a covenant. According to Heppe the first work
which contained the federal representation of the way of salvation, was Bullinger’s
26 Collected Writings I, p. 619. Cf. Calvin, Institutes II, 1.
230