Adam was sinless, and not in need of any grace in that sense whatsoever. I believe that grace is a concept belonging exclusively to the post-Fall world. Mark Horne, therefore, is full of rhetoric against the “meritists,” but has hardly proven his point Scripturally.
Luke 2.40
The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.
Luke 2.52
And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in grace with God and men.
Philippians 2.9
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and graced Him with the name which is above every name
The French Confession
We believe that man was created pure and perfect in the image of God, and that by his own guilt he fell from the grace which he received, and is thus alienated from God, the fountain of justice and of all good, so that his nature is totally corrup
John Calvin
In order for us to come to a sure knowledge of ourselves, we must first grasp that Adam, parent of us all, was created in the image and likeness of God. That is, he was endowed with wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and was so clinging by these gifts of grace to God that he could have lived forever in Him, if he had stood fast in the uprightness God had given him. But when Adam slipped into sin, this image and likeness of God was cancelled and effaced, that is, he lost all the benefits of divine grace, by which he could have been led back into the way of life (1536)
If man had no title to glory in himself, when, by the kindness of his Maker, he was distinguished by the noblest ornaments, how much ought he to be humbled now, when his ingratitude has thrust him down from the highest glory to extreme ignominy? At the time when he was raised to the highest pinnacle of honor, all which Scripture attributes to him is, that he was created in the image of God, thereby intimating that the blessings in which his happiness consisted were not his own, but derived by divine communication. What remains, therefore, now that man is stripped of all his glory, than to acknowledge the God for whose kindness he failed to be grateful, when he was loaded with the riches of his grace? Not having glorified him by the acknowledgment of his blessings, now, at least, he ought to glorify him by the confession of his poverty (1559).
The Belgic Confession
He also created the angels good, to be His messengers and to serve His elect; some of whom are fallen from that excellency in which God created them into everlasting perdition, and the others have by the grace of God remained steadfast and continued in their first state
Hugh Binning (1627-1653)
[In the covenant of works] there were some outbreakings of the glorious grace and free condescendency of God; for it was no less free grace and undeserved favour to promise life to his obedience, than now to promise life to our faith. So that if the Lord had continued that covenant with us, we ought to have called it grace, and would have been saved by grace as well as now (The Common Principles of the Christian Religion, Lecture VI)
John Ball
The Covenant is of God, and that of his free grace and love: for although in some Covenant the good covenanted be promised in justice, and given in justice for our works: yet it was of grace that God was pleased to bind himself to his creature, and above the desert of the creature: and though the reward be of justice, it is also of favour. For after perfect obedience, performed according to the will of God, it had been no injustice in God, as he made the creature of nothing, so to have brought him unto nothing: it was then of grace that he was pleased to make that promise, and of the same grace his happiness should have been continued.
- Francis Turretin
- with respect to God, it [the covenant of works] was gratuitous, as depending upon a pact or gratuitous promise (by which God was not bound to man, but to himself and to his own goodness, fidelity, and truth)” (Institutes 8.3.16).
- James Fisher (Fisher’s Catechism)
- Q. 33. What then was the grace and condescension of God that shined in the covenant of works?
A. In that he entered into a covenant, at all, with his own creature; and promised eternal life as a reward of his work, though he had nothing to work with, but what he received from God, 1 Cor. 4:7.
- A. A. Hodge
- [God’s covenant with Adam] was a covenant of works and of law with respect to its demands and conditions, [but] also in its essence a covenant of grace, in that it graciously promised life in the society of God as the freely-granted reward of an obedience already unconditionally due [because] Creation itself, being a signal act of grace, cannot endow the beneficiary with a claim for more grace.
God offered to man in this gracious Covenant of Works the opportunity of accepting his grace and receiving his covenant gift of a confirmed holy character
Its always interesting to bring angels into the discussion to muck things up.
If we emphasize that Christ fulfilled a covenant of works thereby earning merit, and we do this to emphasize the glory of Christ’s obedience, then do not angels have equally glorious and meritorious obedience?
But they shouldn’t, should they?
I am not sure what the argument is here. I agree Reformed opinion is that grace existed in the Covenant of Works in the fact that God made a covenant with Adam at all. It does not negate the fact that the covenant itself was one of works or perfect obedience. That is reflected in most of your quotes. The tide of Reformed opinion is that it was gracious to institute the Covenant of works, but the covenant of works was not the covenant of grace. Am I missing something in this discussion?
I have the same question as Lee.
Ben
I think I’ve answered this:
http://markhorne.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-is-presbyterian-doctrine-of.html
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