I am continuing to listen to the White Horse Inn series on covenant confusion, and was duly astonished by something Michael Horton said. By registering this astonishment, I am not saying that I differ with him on this necessarily, but just that I was surprised to hear him talking this way. He said that Jesus Christ, by His perfect sinless life, fulfilled all the requirements of the covenant of works. Amen. In saying amen, I am not abandoning my previous assertions that the covenant of works was fundamentally gracious, but the point here is a different one.
Here is the rub. In order to fulfill the requirements of the covenant of works, the Lord Jesus would have had to have been a member of that covenant. The terms of the covenant would have to be a requirement for Him to fulfill. The covenant would have to pertain to Him somehow. Now, how was He a member of it? Was Adam His federal head? No, that would mean that Adam’s sin would have to be imputed to Him. But Christ could not have fulfilled that covenant unless he was a party to the covenant, and in what sense was it possible for Him to be a party to it?
Further, that obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, both active and passive, is imputed to us, as believers in Jesus. Amen again. But this means that the particular obedience that is reckoned to our account is obedience to the terms of the covenant of works. And this means that my justified status is that of one who is obedient (through Christ) to the covenant of works. In other words, the covenant of grace is God’s instrument for making us fulfill the terms of the covenant of works, and the covenant of works never goes away — because we are constantly in need of the imputed righteousness of Christ. And so this imputed righteousness of Christ is a righteousness defined by the covenant of works. Through the imputed righteous of Christ, I am now obedient (by grace through faith alone, lest anyone from the Trinity Foundation read this and think to write another book). So through Christ alone I am obedient now. Obedient to what? Now, there is a point here, I promise.
All this means that Michael Horton is a monocovenantalist of some stripe. What is imputed to me in the covenant of grace? Covenant-of-works-obedience-through-Christ, that’s what. This means that the continuing validity of the covenant of works is a distinguishing feature of the covenant of grace, and is an essential part of it. These covenants are joined at the hip, at least according to Horton.
Now I have denied in the past being a monocovenantalist because it seems clear to me that two federal heads necessitate two covenants. No man can serve two masters, and one static covenant cannot have two heads. But it is equally clear that throughout the course of history the headship of Adam is “swallowed up” by the headship of Christ. This is the sense that I believe Horton was pointing to. History matters in all this. At the eschaton, there will only be one covenant, the new covenant. And that new covenant will include within it all the terms of the broken covenant of works, now restored through the obedience of Christ. The point is a simple one — so long as I need the obedience of Christ reckoned to me (which is constantly and always), I will always have some relation to the covenant of works. Through Adam, I was a disobedient son of a broken covenant (of works). Through Christ alone, by the covenant of grace, I am an obedient son of a restored covenant (of works).
My thanks to Michael Horton for this suggestive and stimulating line of thought.