This is partly trying to get things clear in my own mind. I think an awful lot of people I respect greatly and often trust to get things right are very wrong on this, so I need to treat very carefully...
Here's the theory of covenantal nomism, as taught by theologian Gabriel Biel:
- God made a covenant - a deal - with his people in Jesus
- The deal was that he would save them, and that they had to obey him as well as they could.
- God then graciously agrees to count people who have done as well as they could, even though they aren't perfect, as if they had done enough.
It's worth adding that Gabriel Biel was a German theologian who died in 1495, and his view of covenantal nomism would probably have been one of the main bits of theology taught to a young Martin Luther, which Luther then rejected.
It's also been argued that covenantal nomism (apart from the covenant being made through Jesus bit) was the belief of many Jews at the time of Jesus, which Jesus and Paul rejected. Actually, that's what the phrase usually means - I've just nicked it for Biel because it fits his views so well.
So far, so good, I guess. But the point is that I can't tell the difference between covenantal nomism and this:
- God has made a covenant with his people in Jesus
- The deal was that if people will obey Jesus and submit to him as their Saviour and Lord, he will forgive them.
Or even this...
- We have made a covenant with God, where he saves us, and we agree to follow him.
- Sometimes we break that covenant, and we then need to renew it. Confession and covenant renewal services are a good way of doing this.
That last one in particular sounds like a lot of things I've heard and come across as a Christian. My view, which I think Luther shared, and I'm fairly sure is what Galatians (for example) teaches is this:
- God chooses to reveal himself to some people and to save them.
- God gives them his Holy Spirit, which leads them increasingly to obey him
- We cannot keep our side of whatever bargain, deal, or covenant there is, so it's just as well there is no side we have to keep. God's new covenant in Jesus' blood is completely one-sided.
- Having been completely set free from any requirement to do anything, we should use our freedom to live in the way of God's Spirit.
Now, to my mind, that looks completely different to all the covenant renewal stuff and conditional covenants and requirements for church membership other than faith in Jesus stuff.
One thing that really worries me about this, is that if I'm right, the "fault line" goes right down the middle of evangelicalism, and most people seem completely unaware of it. I've been to covenant renewal services at both my sending church and my theological college where what was being said and taught was effectively covenantal nomism rather than free grace.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1, NIVYou, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
Galatians 5:13, NIV
11 comments:
You say 'it's just as well there is no side we have to keep. God's new covenant in Jesus' blood is completely one-sided. Having been completely set free from any requirement to do anything'.
This is a bit misleading: there are still conditions to the new covenant. In order to be saved we must have repentance and faith (cf., e.g., Acts 20:21). The crucial point is that God supplies those conditions in us himself. We are still under a requirement, but God graciously fulfils it in us.
You say 'I can't tell the difference between covenantal nomism and this: God has made a covenant with his people in Jesus The deal was that if people will obey Jesus and submit to him as their Saviour and Lord, he will forgive them.'
The difference is that in covenantal nomism we still have to work in our own strength to fulfil the conditions; in the Christian gospel God graciously fulfils the conditions in us.
I think that John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied is good on this general area.
"Having been completely set free from any requirement to do anything, we should use our freedom to live in the way of God's Spirit."
Isn't that some sort of antanomian cheap grace?
I suppose that the cost of grace is that we have to accept it, and to agree to let God refine and transform us completely, rather than that we have to do anything off our own bat. Is that what you're saying? Or would my talk of us "agreeing to let God..." get in the way of some sort of Iresistible Grace argument?
Daniel - I kind of agree. Our repentance and faith are ultimately God's work as part of saving us rather than ours as part of getting saved.
The difference between covenantal nomism and Christianity is essentially the work of the Holy Spirit, which is why there is so much Spirit / Law contrast in Acts, Galatians, Romans, etc.
ds -
"Having been completely set free from any requirement to do anything, we should use our freedom to live in the way of God's Spirit."
Isn't that some sort of antanomian cheap grace?
I'm glad you asked that, because I think Paul was challenged with the same thing, which makes me think all the more I'm on the right lines.
My statement was a direct paraphrase of Galatians 5:13...
I suppose that the cost of grace is that we have to accept it, and to agree to let God refine and transform us completely, rather than that we have to do anything off our own bat. Is that what you're saying? Or would my talk of us "agreeing to let God..." get in the way of some sort of Iresistible Grace argument?
I think that, as Daniel pointed out, us "agreeing to let God" is only, entirely and irresistibly made possible by the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
But with that qualification, that's pretty much what I'm saying.
Put differently, I think that coming to Jesus as Saviour and submitting to Jesus as Lord (or however we want to put it) is too often made into a work which we have to 'do' to be saved.
Arminius thought -- or was accused of having thought -- that the difference between the old and the new covenants was this: under the old covenant one had to keep the law fully to be saved, under the new one has only to repent and believe -- in one's own strength. But the Calvinists -- rightly, so it seems to me -- objected to this that it was just a watered-down version of salvation by works, and insisted that the distinctive feature of the new covenant (which, of course extends back to Abraham and maybe earlier!) was that God had graciously fulfilled in us all the necessary conditions for our keeping our side of the covenant.
Hence making the covenant effectively one-sided...
Daniel - do you agree with my perception that often evangelicals slip into the covenant of works mentality, particularly when it comes to covenant renewal services and so on?
ds - some more thoughts.
Recognising who Jesus is (the Christ who is Lord and God), which is only made possible by the Holy Spirit working in us, means recognising that we are not our own, which means following Jesus, led by the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father.
I didn't think covenant services were about the covenant of salvation?
Maybe that's where I'm going wrong then.
What other covenant might it be?
It depends on the church. Reformed Presbyterians, for example, have services renewing the Solemn League and Covenant (http://tinyurl.com/2c2a2l).
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