Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

linked up in such a way with the notion of an external and an internal covenant, that he
comes dangerously near to the error of accepting two covenants, especially when he
claims that during the New Testament dispensation God incorporates whole nations
and kingdoms in the covenant.
D. THE COVENANT AS A PURELY LEGAL RELATIONSHIP AND AS A
COMMUNION OF LIFE.
Reformed theologians, such as Kuyper, Bavinck, and Honig, speak of two sides of
the covenant, the one external and the other internal. Dr. Vos uses terms that are more
specific, when he distinguishes between the covenant as a purely legal relationship and
the covenant as a communion of life. There is clearly a legal and a moral side to the
covenant. The covenant may be regarded as an agreement between two parties, with
mutual conditions and stipulations, and therefore as something in the legal sphere. The
covenant in that sense may exist even when nothing is done to realize its purpose,
namely the condition to which it points and for which it calls as the real ideal. The
parties that live under this agreement are in the covenant, since they are subject to the
mutual stipulations agreed upon. In the legal sphere everything is considered and
regulated in a purely objective way. The determining factor in that sphere is simply the
relation which has been established, and not the attitude which one assumes to that
relation. The relation exists independently of one’s inclination or disinclination, one’s
likes and dislikes, in connection with it. It would seem to be in the light of this
distinction that the question should be answered, Who are in the covenant of grace? If
the question is asked with the legal relationship, and that only, in mind, and really
amounts to the query, Who are in duty bound to live in the covenant, and of whom may
it be expected that they will do this? —the answer is, believers and their children. But if
the question is asked with a view to the covenant as a communion of life, and assumes
the quite different form, In whom does this legal relationship issue in a living
communion with Christ? — the answer can only be, only in the regenerate, who are
endowed with the principle of faith, that is, in the elect.
This distinction is warranted by Scripture. It is hardly necessary to cite passages
proving that the covenant is an objective compact in the legal sphere, for it is perfectly
evident that we have such a compact wherever two parties agree as in the presence of
God to perform certain things affecting their mutual relation, or one party promises to
bestow certain benefits on the other, provided the latter fulfills the conditions that are
laid down. That the covenant of grace is such a compact is abundantly evident from
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