A Critique of the Covenant of Works in Contemporary Controversy

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal
Reformed church world, and many continue to press on defending
the crumbling walls of their covenantal paradigm, including the
covenant of works.
In the controversy with the FV, however, in which many passionately
defend the covenant of works, as the Myrmidons fought for the
dead body of Patroclus, the longstanding arguments of the Protestant
Reformed Churches against the covenant of works deserve another
hearing.
And an answer.
The criticism of the covenant of works by the Protestant Reformed
Churches is unique. It is certainly not like the FV’s. The criticism of
the covenant of works by the Protestant Reformed Churches is weighty,
theological criticism against a doctrine that the FV now exposes more
clearly as being part of the problem in Reformed churches in their
explanation of the doctrine of the covenant.
The problem with the doctrine of the covenant of works begins
with its definition of the covenant as a pact. This definition of the
essence of the covenant has been virtually built into the doctrine and
is still defended today.
Whatever we say about the covenant of God with Adam, it was
a covenant, and its essence must be that of a covenant. To say that
the covenant is an agreement does not do justice to the two outstanding
biblical words for covenant: berith and diatheke. Scholars admit
that:
The OT statements which use the word berith may be divided into
two main groups. To the one belong those in which the concept is
understood as the firmly regulated form of a fellowship between
God and man or man and God. To the other belong those in which
the covenant is presented as the half-legal and half-sacral form of a
fellowship between man and man. 63
Botterweck and Ringgeren give the etymology of berith from a
root meaning “to clasp” and insist that the basic meaning of berith
63 G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Vol. II, trans.
Geoffery W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 109.
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Vol. 44, No. 2