Covenant and Election in the Reformed Tradition
Covenant and election are two of the most prominent and most important truths in Scripture. They run through the Bible like two grand, harmonious themes in symphony. These two doctrines and their relation are the twofold subject of this book.
The author illumines covenant and election from the controversial history of the confession of the teachings and their relation to the Reformed tradition—from John Calvin in the sixteenth-century through the fathers of the Secession churches in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to the twentieth-century theologians Herman Bavinck and Herman Hoeksema.
Author: David J. Engelsma
Hardcover | 263 pages | ISBN 9781936054022
Covenant and election are two of the most prominent and most important truths in Scripture, on anyone's reading. They run through the entire Bible like two grand, harmonious themes in a symphony, from the first Adam in paradise to the second Adam in the new heaven and earth. They are the material unity of the inspired word of God.
These two doctrines and their relation are the twofold subject of this book. The author illumines covenant and election from the controversial history of the confession of the teachings and their relation in the Reformed tradition—from John Calvin in the sixteenth century through the fathers of the Secession churches in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to the twentieth-century theologians Herman Bavinck and Herman Hoeksema.
In light of the history, several concluding chapters describe and defend, as biblical and Reformed, a doctrine that relates covenant and election in Jesus Christ. These chapters offer a fresh, comprehensive, exegetical explanation of the covenant of God with men in all its administrations.
The occasion of this book is the present controversy in Reformed, Presbyterian, and evangelical churches over covenant and election, introduced by the theology of the federal vision. This theology brings to a head the ages-long struggle in the Reformed branch of Protestantism between two doctrines of the covenant—one that has the covenant cut loose from election and is, therefore, conditional and the other that roots the covenant of grace deeply in the gracious decree and is, therefore, unconditional.
The appendix is a document of extraordinary significance for the current controversy over the covenant. It is the Declaration of Principles concerning the Covenant of the Protestant Reformed Churches. Adopted in 1951 as their necessary settling of a raging controversy over the doctrine of the covenant in their own fellowship, the Declaration demonstrates that the Reformed creeds teach an unconditional covenant rooted in eternal election.