A Critique of the Covenant of Works in Contemporary Controversy

Protestant Reformed Theological Journal
the covenant of works must also be rejected because it minimizes the
work of Jesus Christ. The covenant of works makes Christ’s work a
mere remedy. Cornelis Venema takes this position:
This inheritance [the doctrine of the covenant of works] has always
understood the work of Christ, in the context of redemption and the
covenant of grace, to be one which restores fallen man to that original
favor and communion with God in and for which he was first created.
The covenant of grace is a post-fall remedy for the rupture in the covenant
relationship between God and man brought about by the failure
of Adam to live happily in terms of the first covenant. 76
This is also the position taken by contemporary defender of the covenant
of works Guy Waters:
The fact that Christ purchased eternal “life” for his own, and that he did
so for those who were eternally “dead” in Adam means that Christ’s
work was intended to remedy what Adam had wrought (death), and
to accomplish what Adam had failed to do (life.) 77
The work of Jesus Christ is really only a work of recovery—a
remedy—which on a closer analysis is not as full as the original work
in Adam could have been. Christ merely won what Adam demerited
and only some of what Adam could have attained. Adam, by his
simple obedience to the probationary command, could have merited
the glorious heavenly life that Christ merited through the long, deep
way of sin and grace, through His incarnation, lifelong obedience,
suffering, death, and resurrection. In addition, Adam, by merely abstaining
from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
could have earned eternal life for all humanity without exception, while
Christ earned eternal life for only the elect, and the rest of humanity
will perish. Adam, then, could have merited not only more easily, but
also for a much greater number of people than those for whom Christ
76 Venema, “Recent Criticisms,” 197. The emphasis is the author’s.
77 The Law Is Not of Faith: Essays on Works and Grace in the Mosaic
Covenant, ed. Brian D. Estelle, et al (Philipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing,
2009), 230.
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Vol. 44, No. 2