Q20. Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
A. God having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.
Now we arrive at the good news. This covenant of grace is 1. rooted in eternity; 2. for a particular people; 3. a wholly better estate than the first; 4. found in a Redeemer.
The second and third prooftexts that the Westminster Divines used here (Romans 3:20-22 and Galatians 3:21-22) do not necessarily unpack any of the clauses of their answer. However, it is clear enough how they function in the turn from the Covenant of Works to the Covenant of Grace. In these two places, Paul discusses justification by faith alone in the context of the purposes of the law. In the Romans passage, the law was revealing righteousness and in the Galatians passage the law was driving the people of God to the singular Offspring, so that in both there are dimensions of what is called the Evangelical Use of the Law. But at no point is the gospel contrary to the law, anymore than it could be contrary to the divine righteousness behind that law. Rather, the law was paving the way for the promise to be fulfilled.
The Covenant of Grace is Rooted in Eternity
The remaining proof text only cites verse 4 of Ephesians 1, but if we read the whole sentence by Paul we see the scope of this grace, ranging from its first cause in eternity to its end in glory.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:3-5).
What is the cause of all of the gracious parts of salvation that we encounter in Christ and which are applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit? The answer is that predestination which was before time. So the Catechism answer says FROM ALL ETERNITY. This is an aspect of the decree of God.
When we say that this gracious covenant was “rooted” in eternity, this has implication both for our ability to speak about it, and also for its character as revealed in time. Dabney explains this very well, that, “when we consider it in its inception in the Divine mind, we must go back into the recesses of a past eternity.” Now, just when one is prepared to rebuke Dabney for speaking contrary to God’s attributes of simplicity and the atemporal sense of eternity, he further clarifies:
“Conceiving of God’s eternal decree as in parts, (the only mode of conception of it competent to our finite minds,) we must consider that part of His plan formed from eternity, which was implied in that other part of the same plan whereby He purposed to permit man’s fall and ruin … that being such, the Covenant of Grace must of course possess those general properties which we asserted of the Decree; and for the same reasons, viz., eternity, immutability, wisdom, freeness, absoluteness, graciousness.”1
This brings us to the doctrine of unconditional election. While God’s choice is the cause of all else that follows, we might ask what is the cause of his choice? The answer here is OUT OF HIS MERE GOOD PLEASURE, which is what Paul says in Ephesians 1. There is a great misunderstanding here, as if the doctrine of unconditional election is saying that God has no reason to choose as he did. A better start is to take into account everything the Scriptures say about God’s reason. We can observe eight such categories. God chose those that he chose: 1. for his own glory (Isa. 48:11, Rom. 9), 2. by his grace alone (Rom. 11:6), 3. according to his counsel, or good pleasure (Eph. 1:11), 4. because he loved us (Deut. 7:7-8), 5. not because of anything in us (1 Cor. 4:7), 6. so that no one would boast (Eph. 2:9, 1 Cor. 1:30), 7. so that we would credit him for doing so (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14), and 8. so that our hope and faith would be in his performance rather than our own (Heb. 13:9, 1 Pet. 1:21). You see what happens? We find out that there was no reason in us—no inherent righteousness or virtue by which the sinner could be commended to God—and we immediately conclude that if the reason is not to be found in me, then God has no reason at all. But this is typical of the narcissism of sinners.
The language that God DID ENTER INTO A COVENANT OF GRACE speaks of his absolute freedom to save or not to save. There is nothing in the essence of God that has bound him of necessity to this second covenant.
The Covenant of Grace is for a Particular People
The answer continues that God ELECTED SOME TO EVERLASTING LIFE. The language of the Confession draws out this idea of particularity in the decree:
“These angels and men, thus predestinated and fore-ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished” (III.4).
I said before that this covenant is “rooted” in eternity, but it does not remain there alone. Let’s put together two other clauses in this answer: ELECTED SOME … TO DELIVER THEM … AND TO BRING THEM. Note these links in the chain are of the same chain. It is the same “them” in salvation in time and experience as it is the “some” in the eternal decree. Now what am I driving at here? It is common for people to get the notion that if God settles this or that in eternity, then what need for Christ’s work? What need for repentance and faith? What need for evangelism? What need for prayer? What need for holy living? But once we get a basic grasp of what election actually is, to pit the temporal outworkings against the eternal root would be infinitely sillier than to object: “What need for the leaves and branches when there are those roots in the ground? What need of the walls and scaffolding when there is that foundation being poured? What need of the photosynthesis of the plant when the is that sun beaming like that?” And so on with countless other examples.
While it is a particular people, there is a unity of that particular people; so that if anyone from cover to cover of the Bible has eternal life, then they are a party to this same covenant of grace. So Paul said,
“Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:7-9).
The covenant of grace is one, yet with several administrations: the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New Covenant.
The Covenant of Grace is a Wholly Better Estate than the First
Watson addresses the question of whether there are conditions to the covenant of grace, to which he replies, Yes—“But the covenant of grace does not require works in the same manner as the covenant of works did. In the first covenant, works were required as the condition of life; in the second, they are required only as the signs of life.”2 The difference is that between the root and the fruit. This highlights the name of the covenant. Turretin explains,
“Now this covenant is called ‘the covenant of grace’ both causally because it proceeds from grace strictly so called … and materially because all things in this covenant are gratuitous and thus even the conditions (Jer. 31; Ezk. 36); and finally because by it God wished to manifest the riches of his grace (Eph. 2:7).”3
Of course the covenant of grace takes a form in history. It is the drama of redemption. It says it was TO DELIVER THEM OUT OF THE ESTATE OF SIN AND MISERY. Where does the covenant of grace first manifest in history? Brakel points to Genesis 3:15 and says, “It is certainly known that the covenant of grace was established here.”4 In other words, by virtue of the promise.
So there is a deliverance from the second state of man to a third—TO BRING THEM INTO AN ESTATE OF SALVATION.
Salvation is a holistic concept. It is not simply a salvation from, but a salvation unto. So this follows the words seen already: ‘to everlasting life.’ The covenant is joined to such words, as in “I will make with you an everlasting covenant” (Isa. 55:3). What is an everlasting covenant but one promising eternal life. One cannot consider a promise to be gracious whose reward is everlasting, but whose recipient does not live to enjoy it: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn. 17:3).
The Covenant of Grace is Found in a Redeemer
Finally this answer transitions into a second, that introduces the Savior, or in the title used here, it is a salvation BY A REDEEMER. The LORD says to his Servant, “I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations” (Isa. 42:6; cf. 49:8).
This Redeemer performs an act that alone could explain how those bound under the condemnation of the first covenant could ever have hope to another. Two passages are instructive.
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5).
“Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15).
John Owen put it in this way, “Christ undertook to do ‘whatever was to be done in and by man, to effect it by his own Spirit and grace; that so the covenant on every side might be firm and stable, and the ends of it fulfilled.”5
This is also crucial as a pastoral matter and in relocating assurance when that is shaken. We find assurance in the Christ of the covenant; not abstractions outside of the covenant. It is a mistake to think either that the Reformed doctrine of salvation makes no difference to assurance; or, on the other extreme, that if it does bring assurance, that therefore Reformed believers cannot struggle with assurance. But here’s what we need to know about election and assurance. It is a solid ground in eternity because it focuses on God’s resolve instead of ours.
But I think we have all known people who have struggled (or perhaps struggled ourselves) with the notion that election is something to be pried into precisely for assurance, as if it were a peak into the Book of Life to see if our name is there. This commits that same error as before—that of isolating or abstracting the eternal decree from the way that God saves in time. So the question: “How do I know that I am elect?” gets asked of the Reformed pastor so as to force the pastor to look into either the decree in heaven or into the trajectory of the heart.
Now, let’s get this straight. Election and reprobation are true and they are eternal. However, we cannot see into the decree of God, or even into the whole trajectory of our hearts as God can. He gives us the gospel—to Christ in our place, which we can see. Wherever the Bible speaks of this, the emphasis is always, “Repent. Believe. Come to Christ.” For example,
“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (Jn. 6:37).
The failure to see this happens very frequently in falsely applying the warning passages of Hebrews 6 and 10. But we must repeat that the emphasis is never to analyze either (1) God’s eternal decree, which we cannot see; or (2) one’s own internal state, which is up and down, and deceptive at any rate. In other words, we ought never to delay repentance on the ground that we don’t know if we can. Likewise for simple trust. Election and reprobation (and therefore hardening beyond the point of no return) is always God’s job. Yes, the covenant of grace is rooted in eternity, but for assurance, it points those in the house to the same gospel that got them in the house to begin with.
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1. Dabney, Systematic Theology, 429, 30.
2. Watson, A Body of Divinity, 155-56, italics mine.
3. Turretin, Institutes, II.12.1.9.
4. Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, I:364.
5. Owen, Works, 19:78; quoted in Beeke & Jones, A Puritan Theology, 261.
