Theology: Ralph Smith's Eternal Covenant

Eternal Covenant - How the Trinity Reshapes Covenant Theology
By Ralph Allan Smith
Canon Press, 2003
(112 pages, $10.00, paperback)

reviewed by Virgil Hurt

If the covenant characterizes the very life of the Triune God and if it is the key to all of His relationships with man and the physical universe, then the covenant is the central and most important single idea in the Christian worldview. (99)

Ralph Smith has accomplished something quite amazing in this short book. He has challenged a long-held prevailing paradigm of reformed theology in a concise and compelling manner. Like any paradigm, there is a tremendous difficulty for those living inside and thinking inside of it, to think or live in any other way. The only way out of the prevailing paradigm is to break out. Eternal Covenant is this sort of “breaking out” of a paradigm, a paradigm shift, if you will.

God’s covenant with Adam is the prevailing paradigm of covenantal understanding. While Smith does not directly assail this part of the paradigm, he does work hard, and I think successfully so, to show that in adopting the covenant of works with Adam as the standard, we have got the cart before the horse. He shows that God’s covenant with Adam is not the ultimate paradigm from which to view covenant. The ultimate covenant is the one that operates within the Trinity itself. This puts the cart back behind the horse where it ought to go. Furthermore, he goes on to attack the very idea and nature of the “covenant of works” as a non-biblical idea. This fact has many theologically significant results as well as some startling manifestations in how we apply covenantal thinking in our everyday lives.

The Godhead does not exist primarily as an agreement/reward kind of covenant. That is, the Son does not merit the Father’s favor in the way in which we generally view God’s covenant with Adam. The prevailing view of the Adamic covenant is one of a “covenant of works.” If Adam obeyed God, God would then grant him eternal life. This is the standard view of the covenant of works. We then work this covenant of works forward to Jesus and assume that Jesus’s job was to also merit God’s favor and thus win the salvation of men. But this way of thinking is flawed.

Foremost, Adam was not promised eternal life for compliance. He was promised death for failure. Adam already existed in God’s covenant of love and life, prior to any so-called meritorious completion of the terms of the covenant. He had the life but lost it. As we think about Jesus, the same is true of Him. He did not have to earn or merit the Father’s favor. He was in the Father’s favor. But that which Adam lost, Christ never lost. The idea of merit or works is not a necessary component of either God’s covenant with Adam or of Jesus’s work for us on the cross.

Why is this a powerful paradigm shift? Because the proper view of the covenant is not one of agreement/fulfillment/reward but rather a covenant of love/response. We view the foundational aspect of the covenant not as one of pact but one of mutual love. This changes our view of the Godhead and all the persons of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also of God’s dealing with man.

I have paraphrased Smith’s teaching above. Let me add some tantalizing quotations. “The compelling, consistent and comprehensive character of God’s covenantal relations with creation and man suggests that the covenant is not a mere secondary feature of the world, but an aspect of God’s own being” (37). “The life of God is covenantal life. God is three persons united in covenantal love” (47). “Love is the fulfilling of the whole covenant, the essence of the law” (53).

Smith spends a few pages in the beginning of the book arguing for the covenant as a hermeneutical principle. He then does a reformed historical survey of several different views of the covenant, attempting to provide a historical link to the idea of a covenant within the Trinity. Some may find this helpful. However, he does his best work when he moves on to new ground, fleshing out the covenant of love as opposed to the covenant of works and even suggests a revision of our confessional standards along these lines.

I would highly recommend this book, particularly for those already committed to a covenantal understanding of the Scriptures. The views put forward here will have a great impact on the way we view God and His relations with us. This is bound to have lasting and good effect on the way in which we worship and live out our lives before our Triune God: loving Father, faithful Son, and communing Holy Spirit.

Virgil Hurt is pastor of Providence Church (www.providencekirk.com) and headmaster of Pactum Christian Academy (www.pactumchristian.com) in Lynchburg, VA.