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every member ofthe visible, instituted church, orto every child ofbelieving parents.With his statement "the mutual covenant promises divinebenefits on the one hand, and human obedience on the other,"Lillback is headed in the right direction. Also his next line issound: "Men cannot keep their part of the covenant due to sin."Then he hedges: "God's covenant ofgrace, however, enables manto meet the condition through the redemptive benefits bestowed"(emphasis his). According to Lillback, God's covenant, bestowing"redemptive benefits" upon all with whom it is made, merely"enables man to meet the condition" (p. 247; emphasis added).Whether a particular person with whom God has established Hiscovenant makes good use of this enabling and thus is saveddepends on the man himself, not on the promising and covenantmakingGod.How this doctrine of the covenant differs one whit from theRoman Catholic and Arminian teaching ofa universal, saving, butresistible grace that depends for its efficacy on the will of ~an,Lillback does not tell us.In Lillback's presentation of Calvin's doctrine of the covenant,the contradiction in Calvin's theology goes deeper still.Calvin's doctrine ofthe covenant is itselfcontradictory. Lillback'sthesis is that Calvin taught a conditional, breakable covenant withelect and reprobate alike. But time and again, Lillback quotesCalvin as teaching an unconditional, unbreakable covenant withChrist and the elect only.On the very next page after Lillback has assured us thatCalvin held a "bilateral, mutual, conditional, and breakable covenant,"he quotes Calvin as teaching plainly that the covenant isunbreakable by virtue ofGod's making it "with us" in Christ.Let us then set forth the covenant that he once established as eternaland never perishing. Its fulfillment, by which it is finally confirmedand ratified, is Christ. Who, then, dares to separate the Jewsfrom Christ, since with them we hear, was made the covenantofthegospel, the sole foundation ofwhich is Christ? ... This is the newcovenant that God in Christ has made with us, that he will rememberour sins no more (p. 176).50PRTJ