In chapters 11 and 12 Calvin discusses the similarities and differences between the Old and New Covenants. The topic of continuity and discontinuity between the Old Testament and the new, between Israel and the church, and between the law and Jesus has produced volumes of books.
It truly is a key subject. It has to do with the question of God, the nature of revelation, and the gospel. From Lutheranism, to the Reformed, to the Roman Catholics this has been discussed. Well, what did Calvin say about it so many years ago?
This summary will try to capture his thought. It will come in a number of instalments.
1. By the word covenant we basically mean “promise.” God has given us a record of all his promises he has given to mankind in Scripture. He gave these promises by his free sovereign grace. He bound himself to man; mankind has not, nor do not force him to force himself upon us. In sin man does not seek after God, but God still seeks after man to redeem him by his grace.
2. All people redeemed from their sin and united with God are redeemed and united by Jesus through God’s covenant of grace. There has always been and always will be one gospel of grace, wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ.
3. Some have argued that the Old Testament and its covenants are not the same as the New Testament and its grace. They say the Old Testament works by law and not by grace. They say in the Old Testament dispensation, grace and Christ were mere statues, dead and not active in a saving activity. What saved them was law, accompanied by a faith in God; not a faith in Christ, specifically or grace exclusively.
4. The Old and New covenants are the same. They are just subsidiaries of the one Covenant of Grace. The person of this covenant is Christ, by which all the elect are redeemed. As Calvin writes, “The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are actually one and the same. Yet they differ in the mode of dispensation” (Pg., 429).
5. The covenants made with the patriarchs were primarily spiritual in nature. Their main emphasis was not physical land, prosperity in this life or happiness in this existence. This spiritual emphasis is identical with the New Covenant.
6. The covenants made with the patriarchs were all of grace. Calvin says, “The covenant by which they were bound to the Lord was supported, not by their own merits, but solely by the mercy of the God who called them” (Pg., 429).
7. The patriarchs under the Old Covenant knew Messiah, “through whom they were joined to God and were to share in His promises” (Pg., 430).
8. In the New Testament we are told that the gospel of Christ and justification by Christ were promised and active in the Old Testament. [Rom 1:2-3; 3:21; Eph 1:13-14; Jn 8:56; Heb 13:8; Heb 9:15; Lk 1:54-55; 72-73]. In both testaments there are symbols which manifested the grace of God. In the Old there was circumcision and Passover. In the New there is baptism and Holy Communion.
9. Grace covers both Testaments. The gospel has always been the same. The gospel “declares nothing else than that sinners are justified apart from their own merit by God’s fatherly kindness; and the whole of it is summed up in Christ” (Pg., 431).
10. In conclusion: “The Lord not only communicated to the Jews the same promises of eternal and heavenly life as He now deigns to give us, but also sealed them with truly spiritual sacraments” (Pg., 433).
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