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have moved away from the notion ofthe covenant as contract to theconception of the covenant as bond of fellowship.Regardless that one shies away from describing the rich,living covenant relation between God and His people as a contract,his doctrine of the covenant may still be that ofa cold, businesslikebargain between God and men. According to Lillback, suchwas the theology of John Calvin. Lillback is determined to showthat for Calvin the covenant is a conditional, breakable relationbetween God and every Israelite in the Old Testament and betweenGod and every memberofthe visible, instituted church in the NewTestament. God makes His covenant with all alike. But thecovenant is conditional. Whether it continues with a person,whether it will bestow its blessings upon this person, and whetherit will bring the person to heavenly life and glory depend squarelyupon certain works that the person himseIfmust do. These worksare faith and obedience. [fthe person with whom the covenant ismade fails to fulfill the condition, the covenant with him is broken,and he perishes.Calvin taught a "bilateral, mutual, conditional, and breakablecovenant" (p. 175). [n the theology of Calvin, "the covenant ismutual, conditional and potentially breakable" (p. 264).[f this was, in fact, Calvin's doctrine, he overthrew in hiscovenant theology everything that he taught in his doctrine ofsalvation. Calvin's soteriology was the gospel of God's efficaciousdeliverance of totally depraved sinners by grace alone.Grace is particular, in Calvin's thought, inasmuch as it has itssource in and is infallibly directed by election. And this election,accompanied by an equally eternal and sovereign reprobation, isunconditional.A doctrine ofa general, conditional, breakable covenant overthrowsthe gospel ofsalvation by particular, unconditional, irresistiblegrace since the covenant concerns grace and the salvation thatgrace gives. The very name ofthe covenant is "covenant ofgrace."Even such an ardent advocate ofa conditional, breakable covenantas Peter Lillback acknowledges that the covenant is grace-savinggrace-to those with whom the covenant is made; that the blessingsbestowed by the covenant are the blessings ofrighteousness, holi-48 PRTJ