A Critique of the Covenant of Works in Contemporary Controversy

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal
covenant of nature.” 17 Christian Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof
informs us that the covenant with Adam in the beginning was called
the covenant of nature, “which was rather common at first, [but] 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.” 18 Bavinck sums up this view of the Reformed well:
It was called “covenant of nature,” not because it was deemed to flow
automatically and naturally from the nature of God or the nature of
man, but because the foundation on which the covenant rested, that
is, the moral law, was known to man by nature, and because it was
made with man in his original state and could be kept by man with
the powers bestowed on him in the creation, without the assistance of
supernatural grace. Later, when this term occasioned misunderstanding,
it was preferentially replaced by that of “covenant of works.” 19
The Reformed were insistent that God and Adam were not in covenant
by virtue of his creation, but the covenant was added to Adam’s life
after his creation.
Consistent with the teaching that the covenant of works was
added to Adam’s life, the tradition taught that the covenant of works
was added as the means to the end of eternal, heavenly life that was
promised to Adam in the covenant. Berkhof says, “When God created
man, He by that very fact established a natural relationship between
Himself and man.” This relationship was emphatically not the covenant
relationship: “In addition to the natural relationship He, by a
positive enactment, graciously established a covenant relationship.”
The difference between these two was simply stated. In the natural
relationship “even if he did all that was required of him, he would
still have to say, I am but an unprofitable servant.” By virtue of the
covenant, God “enabled man to improve his condition in the way of
obedience,” and because of this covenant Adam “acquired certain
17 Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, 281
18 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (1932, repr., Grand Rapids, MI:
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1996), 211.
19 Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:567.
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Vol. 44, No. 2