Vol. 81; No. 2; October 15, 2004
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Reclaiming the
Truth of the Image of God
Invincible
Doctrine of Federal Headship
Reformation and
the Doctrine of Man
Woman’s Unique Place in Marriage
Luther: On the Doctrine of Man
Excerpts from Calvin’s Institues,
Book II, Chapter 1, Beveridge Translation (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1957.).
The
reader who makes it through this unusual choice for our “meditation” this month
will be richly rewarded. As long as “meditation”
doesn’t imply “light,” in your mind, you will see why we made this choice. The reader will recognize Calvin’s influence
on the Reformed confessions, not only in content and argument (if the sin of Adam was
passed on only by imitation, is the righteousness of Christ available in the same way?),
but even in wording. As you read this
(perhaps) on a Lord’s Day afternoon, be reminded of Augustine’s ancient battle
against Pelagius and the present necessity to be thoroughly Augustinian. Meditate on the believer’s confession as
Calvin leads you to admit that there is nothing more appealing to sinful nature than
flattery. But reflect on the explanation of
Scripture as it leads us, in Calvin’s estimation, to the exercise of two virtues: dependence on God and humility before others. Then close your eyes … and meditate.
1.
It was not without reason that the ancient proverb so strongly recommended to man
the knowledge of himself. For if it is deemed
disgraceful to be ignorant of things pertaining to the business of life, much more
disgraceful is self-ignorance, in consequence of which we miserably deceive ourselves in
matters of the highest moment, and so walk blindfold.
But the more useful the precept is, the more careful we must be not to use it
preposterously, as we see certain philosophers have done.
For they, when exhorting man to know himself, state the motive to be, that he may
not be ignorant of his own excellence and dignity. They
wish him to see nothing in himself but what will fill him with vain confidence, and
inflate him with pride. But self-knowledge
consists in this, first, When reflecting on what God gave us at our creation, and
still continues graciously to give, we perceive how great the excellence of our nature
would have been had its integrity remained, and, at the same time, remember that we have
nothing of our own, but depend entirely on God, from whom we hold at pleasure whatever he
has seen it meet to bestow; secondly, When viewing our miserable condition since
Adam’s fall, all confidence and boasting are overthrown, we blush for shame, and feel
truly humble. For as God at first formed us
in his own image, that he might elevate our minds to the pursuit of virtue, and the
contemplation of eternal life, so to prevent us from heartlessly burying those noble
qualities which distinguish us from the lower animals, it is of importance to know that we
were endued with reason and intelligence, in order that we might cultivate a holy and
honorable life, and regard a blessed immortality as our destined aim. At the same time, it is impossible to think of our
primeval dignity without being immediately reminded of the sad spectacle of our ignominy
and corruption, ever since we fell from our original in the person of our first parent. In this way, we feel dissatisfied with ourselves,
and become truly humble, while we are inflamed with new desires to seek after God, in whom
each may regain those good qualities of which all are found to be utterly destitute.
2.
In examining ourselves, the search which divine truth enjoins, and the knowledge
which it demands, are such as may indispose us to everything like confidence in our own
powers, leave us devoid of all means of boasting, and so incline us to submission. This is the course which we must follow, if we
would attain to the true goal, both in speculation and practice. I am not unaware how much
more plausible the view is, which invites us rather to ponder on our good qualities, than
to contemplate what must overwhelm us with shame — our miserable destitution and
ignominy. There is nothing more acceptable to
the human mind than flattery, and, accordingly, when told that its endowments are of a
high order, it is apt to be excessively credulous. Hence
it is not strange that the greater part of mankind have erred so egregiously in this
matter. Owing to the innate self-love by
which all are blinded, we most willingly persuade ourselves that we do not possess a
single quality which is deserving of hatred; and hence, independent of any countenance
from without, general credit is given to the very foolish idea, that man is perfectly
sufficient of himself for all the purposes of a good and happy life. If any are disposed to think more modestly, and
concede somewhat to God, that they may not seem to arrogate every thing as their own,
still, in making the division, they apportion matters so, that the chief ground of
confidence and boasting always remains with themselves.
Then, if a discourse is pronounced which flatters the pride spontaneously springing
up in man’s inmost heart, nothing seems more delightful. Accordingly, in every age, he who is most forward
in extolling the excellence of human nature, is received with the loudest applause. But be this heralding of human excellence what it
may, by teaching man to rest in himself, it does nothing more than fascinate by its
sweetness, and, at the same time, so delude as to drown in perdition all who assent to it. For what avails it to proceed in vain confidence,
to deliberate, resolve, plan, and attempt what we deem pertinent to the purpose, and, at
the very outset, prove deficient and destitute both of sound intelligence and true virtue,
though we still confidently persist till we rush headlong on destruction? But this is the best that can happen to those who
put confidence in their own powers. Whosoever,
therefore, gives heed to those teachers, who merely employ us in contemplating our good
qualities, so far from making progress in self knowledge, will be plunged into the most
pernicious ignorance.
5.
As Adam’s spiritual life would have consisted in remaining united and bound to
his Maker, so estrangement from him was the death of his soul. Nor is it strange that he who perverted the whole
order of nature in heaven and earth deteriorated his race by his revolt. “The whole creation groaneth,” saith St.
Paul, “being made subject to vanity, not willingly,” (Romans
8:20, 22). If the reason is asked,
there cannot be a doubt that creation bears part of the punishment deserved by man, for
whose use all other creatures were made. Therefore,
since through man’s fault a curse has extended above and below, over all the regions
of the world, there is nothing unreasonable in its extending to all his offspring. After the heavenly image in man was effaced, he
not only was himself punished by a withdrawal of the ornaments in which he had been
arrayed, viz., wisdom, virtue, justice, truth, and holiness, and by the substitution in
their place of those dire pests, blindness, impotence, vanity, impurity, and unrighteousness,
but he involved his posterity also, and plunged them in the same wretchedness. This is the hereditary corruption to which early
Christian writers gave the name of Original Sin, meaning by the term the depravation of a
nature formerly good and pure. …The
orthodoxy, therefore, and more especially Augustine, labored to show, that we are not
corrupted by acquired wickedness, but bring an innate corruption from the very womb. It
was the greatest impudence to deny this. But
no man will wonder at the presumption of the Pelagians and Celestians, who has learned
from the writings of that holy man how extreme the effrontery of these heretics was. Surely there is no ambiguity in David’s
confession, “I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me,” (Psalm 51:5). His object in the passage is not to throw
blame on his parents; but the better to commend the goodness of God towards him, he
properly reiterates the confession of impurity from his very birth. As it is clear, that there was no peculiarity in
David’s case, it follows that it is only an instance of the common lot of the whole
human race. All of us, therefore, descending
from an impure seed, come into the world tainted with the contagion of sin. Nay, before we behold the light of the sun we are
in God’s sight defiled and polluted. “Who
can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not
one,” says the Book of Job, (Job 14:4).
6.
We thus see that the impurity of parents is transmitted to their children, so that
all, without exception, are originally depraved. The
commencement of this depravity will not be found until we ascend to the first parent of
all as the fountain head. We must, therefore,
hold it for certain, that, in regard to human nature, Adam was not merely a progenitor,
but, as it were, a root, and that, accordingly, by his corruption, the whole human race
was deservedly vitiated. This is plain from
the contrast which the Apostle draws between Adam and Christ, “Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned; even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord,” (Romans
5:19-21). To what quibble will the
Pelagians here recur? That the sin of Adam
was propagated by imitation! Is the
righteousness of Christ then available to us only in so far as it is an example held forth
for our imitation? Can any man tolerate such
blasphemy? But if, out of all controversy,
the righteousness of Christ, and thereby life, is ours by communication, it follows that
both of these were lost in Adam that they might be recovered in Christ, whereas sin and
death were brought in by Adam, that they might be abolished in Christ. There is no
obscurity in the words, “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so
by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”
Accordingly, the relation subsisting between the two is this, As Adam, by his ruin,
involved and ruined us, so Christ, by his grace, restored us to salvation. In this clear light of truth I cannot see any need
of a longer or more laborious proof….
7.
To the understanding of this subject, there is no necessity for an anxious
discussion, (which in no small degree perplexed the ancient doctors,) as to whether the
soul of the child comes by transmission from the soul of the parent. It should be enough for us to know that Adam was
made the depository of the endowments which God was pleased to bestow on human nature, and
that, therefore, when he lost what he had received, he lost not only for himself but for
us all…. Thus, from a corrupt root
corrupt branches proceeding, transmit their corruption to the saplings which spring from
them. The children being vitiated in their
parent, conveyed the taint to the grandchildren; in other words, corruption commencing in
Adam, is, by perpetual descent, conveyed from those preceding to those coming after them. The cause of the contagion is neither in the
substance of the flesh nor the soul, but God was pleased to ordain that those gifts which
he had bestowed on the first man, that man should lose as well for his descendants as for
himself. The Pelagian cavil, as to the
improbability of children deriving corruption from pious parents, whereas, they ought
rather to be sanctified by their purity, is easily refuted.
Children come not by spiritual regeneration but carnal descent. Accordingly, as Augustine says, “Both the
condemned unbeliever and the acquitted believer beget offspring not acquitted but
condemned, because the nature which begets is corrupt.” Moreover, though godly parents do in some measure
contribute to the holiness of their offspring, this is by the blessing of God; a blessing,
however, which does not prevent the primary and universal curse of the whole race from
previously taking effect. Guilt is from
nature, whereas sanctification is from supernatural grace.
8. …Original sin, then, may be defined a hereditary corruption and depravity of our nature, extending to all the parts of the soul, which first makes us obnoxious to the wrath of God, and then produces in us works which in Scripture are termed works of the flesh. …The two things, therefore, are to be distinctly observed, viz., that being thus perverted and corrupted in all the parts of our nature, we are, merely on account of such corruption, deservedly condemned by God, to whom nothing is acceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity. This is not liability for another’s fault. For when it is said, that the sin of Adam has made us obnoxious to the justice of God, the meaning is not, that we, who are in ourselves innocent and blameless, are bearing his guilt, but that since by his transgression we are all placed under the curse, he is said to have brought us under obligation. Through him, however, not only has punishment been derived, but pollution instilled, for which punishment is justly due.… And the Apostle most distinctly testifies, that “death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,” (Romans 5:12); that is, are involved in original sin, and polluted by its stain. Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother’s womb, suffer not for another’s, but for their own defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted in them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God.… Next comes the other point, viz., that this perversity in us never ceases, but constantly produces new fruits, in other words, those works of the flesh which we formerly described; just as a lighted furnace sends forth sparks and flames, or a fountain without ceasing pours out water.… For our nature is not only utterly devoid of goodness, but so prolific in all kinds of evil, that it can never be idle. Those who term it concupiscence use a word not very inappropriate, provided it were added…that everything which is in man, from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, is defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence; or, to express it more briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence.
Rev. Terpstra is pastor of First Protesetant Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan.
“For
our salvation was a matter of concern to God in such a way that, not forgetful of himself,
he kept his glory primarily in view, and therefore created the whole world for this end,
that it may be a theater of his glory” — Consensus Genevensis, as quoted
in The Theater of His Glory: Nature and
Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin, Susan E. Schreiner, Labyrinth Press, 1991
(cf. Institutes of the Christian Religion, J.T. McNeill, Ed.; F.L. Battles,
Transl., Westminster, 1960, 2 vols., I. v. 8, where Calvin also uses this term).
It is that theme of God’s glory
that dominates Calvin’s thought concerning God’s work of creation. Calvin’s doctrine of creation is cast in
beautifully positive terms and is therefore wonderful to explore. Though Calvin had to be polemical at times in his
treatment of this doctrine (as Reformed theologians and believers still do!), the truth of
creation was for the most part free of controversy in his time. Though the Protestants of the great Reformation
did have controversies with Rome over the creation of man, specifically over the image of
God in man, there was no conflict over the creation of the world in general. And so Calvin presented creation as a glorious
work of God, revealing His power in making a well-ordered and perfectly good universe that
proclaimed the glory and goodness of its Maker.
...Wherever
you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least
some sparks of his glory. You cannot in one
glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse,
without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness. ...This skillful ordering of the universe is for
us a sort of mirror in which we can contemplate God, who is otherwise invisible (Inst.,
I. v. 1).
Following the classic doctrine of
the Christian church, Calvin taught that this world was not the product of blind chance or
of any other power outside of God, but was the work of the triune God alone. In this he simply upheld the historic confession
of the church, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.” It was Calvin’s faith, as it is and must be
ours, that God the eternal Father, through the Son as His eternal Word, and by the Holy
Spirit as His powerful Breath, created all things visible and invisible.
Even though Calvin did not face
the error of evolutionism in his day, he did confront other similar unbelieving notions
about the origin of the universe. For
example, he refuted the pagan Greek idea that matter is eternal — an idea that is at
least still implied, if not taught, in modern evolutionism.
In his commentary on Genesis he remarks on chapter 1:1,
He
moreover teaches by the word ‘created,’ that what before did not exist was now
made; for he has not used the term yatsar, which signifies to frame or form, but bara,
which signifies to create. Therefore his
meaning is, that the world was made out of nothing. Hence
the folly of those is refuted who imagine that unformed matter existed from eternity.... Let this, then, be maintained in the first place,
that the world is not eternal, but was created by God (Commentary Upon the Book of
Genesis, Transl. by Rev. J. King, Baker, 1979, p. 70).
This
key point, that God created the world “out of nothing” (ex nihilo),
silences the vain shouts of all those who defend evolutionary theories about how the
universe came into being. Calvin would not be
on the side of such “scientists.”
Further, at one point in the Institutes
Calvin refers to those who “babble” about the universe being given life by some
“secret inspiration.” He quotes the
philosopher Vergil, who promoted this idea in some famous lines. But Calvin responds,
“As if the universe, which was founded as a spectacle of God’s glory, were its
own creator!” (Inst. I. v. 5). And
at another point, in speaking of the glory of God evidenced in the human body, Calvin
writes of those who nonetheless deny this divine handiwork, with words that ring
strikingly true of today’s evolutionists:
How
detestable, I ask you, is this madness: that man, finding God in his body and soul a
hundred times, on this very pretense of excellence denies that there is a God? ...They set God aside, the while using ‘nature,’
which for them is the artificer of all things, as a cloak.
...Here also they substitute nature for God (Inst. I. v. 4).
It should be clear from this that for Calvin there was no room for any evolutionary theory
concerning the origin of the universe.
In this connection, a matter of
great importance to every Reformed Christian should be what Calvin taught with regard to
the days of Genesis
1 . Did he view Genesis 1 as
real history, with God’s work carried out in a chronological order, such that the six
days of creation were ordinary, successive days of 24 hours? Or did he take this opening chapter of God’s
Word to be poetry or some other type of literary framework to describe the creative work
of God? Did he, in other words, allow for
today’s framework and day-age theories, which would give room for some type of
evolutionary development of the universe, even if it be controlled by God (theistic
evolution)? And therefore, did Calvin believe
that the universe was young or old?
In answering this, it is
important to remember again that this was not as such a controversial question in Calvin’s
time. At least not on this specific question
of how the days of Genesis 1
were to be interpreted. It was assumed that
they were to be taken literally, i.e., as ordinary days of 24 hours. But Calvin did face this question in connection
with another conflicting viewpoint. Augustine
and other church fathers before him had taught that God’s work of creation was done
“in a moment,” and that therefore it did not take God six days to create the
world. In writing about this miraculous work
of God, Moses, they argued, spread the work over six days for our instruction, but not
because it actually took God that long to make the world.
Calvin took issue with this when
he first came across the word “day” in Genesis 1:5:
Here
the error of those is manifestly refuted, who maintain that the world was made in a
moment. For it is too violent a cavil to
contend that Moses distributes the work which God perfected at once into six days, for the
mere purpose of conveying instruction. Let us
rather conclude that God himself took the space of six days, for the purpose of
accommodating his works to the capacity of men. ...God
applied the most suitable remedy (for our dullness, CJT) when he distributed the creation
of the world into successive portions... (Genesis, p. 78).
As
W. Robert Godfrey writes in his recent study on Genesis 1,
in which he includes an appendix on “Calvin on Creation,”
He
cannot be accused of accommodating to modern science....
Calvin does conclude in his study that Genesis 1 is
simple chronology and does see the days of creation as ordinary days (God’s
Pattern for Creation: A Covenantal Reading of Genesis 1 ,
P&R Publishing, 2003).
This is an honest but striking admission in view of the fact that Godfrey himself does not
take Genesis
1:5 to refer to a day of 24 hours and leaves this question open to various
interpretations (cf. pp. 28, 30), a fatal concession to those who want to defend a
framework theory and an old earth in conservative Reformed churches in our day. Calvin firmly believed an early earth, based on
his proper understanding of the days of Genesis 1.
But Calvin also believed that
this present created order was not an end in itself.
Its purpose was not just the glory of God in this material world with all its
beauty; it also served the greater and higher purpose of the glory of God in the
redemption of His people in Jesus Christ. It
was in this created heaven and earth that sin and grace would be revealed. Calvin throughout his treatment of the doctrine of
creation views this present world as the stage for the revelation of God’s program of
salvation for His elect church. Always he
relates the creation to God’s plan in Christ in the face of man’s fall into sin. That is true of his comments in the early part of
Genesis, even before the account of the Fall. But
it is also true of those special places in Scripture where God’s salvation plan is
tied to Christ and creation (cf. his comments on Rom. 8:19ff.;
Eph.
1:10ff., and Col. 1:15ff.). That means Calvin also believed the
redemption of all creation in Christ. Not of
all men, for reprobate men and angels are excluded from this gracious plan of salvation. But all the elect and all the elect angels, as
well as the entire created world, will be gathered together in one in Christ. This is God’s plan and purpose with His
creation. In this, too, He shows Himself to
be a faithful Creator. And all of this serves
the glory of God. That is the ultimate
purpose of all things.
Because of this saving purpose of
God in Christ, Calvin also taught that fallen man cannot attain to a true and saving
knowledge of God apart from God’s gracious revelation of Himself in Christ through
the gospel as set forth in Scripture. He
makes this abundantly plain in the opening section of the Institutes. While Calvin teaches that all men have a natural,
innate knowledge of God given them by God through the things He has made (Rom. 1:19-21),
this knowledge is not saving, nor does it lead men to reach higher for the knowledge of
God as Savior. He writes: “In this ruin of mankind no one now
experiences God either as Father or as Author of salvation, or favorable in any way (no
common grace here! CJT), until Christ the Mediator comes forward to reconcile him to us”
(I. ii. 1).
In fact, Calvin shows that this
natural knowledge that man has he totally corrupts, due to the presence of sin in him,
just as Romans
1:21ff. teaches.
But
although the Lord represents both himself and his everlasting Kingdom in the mirror of his
works with very great clarity, such is our stupidity that we grow increasingly dull toward
so manifest testimonies, and they flow without profiting us. ...Sometimes we are driven by the leading and
direction of these things to contemplate God.... Yet
after we rashly grasp a conception of some sort of divinity, straightway we fall back into
the ravings or evil imaginings of our flesh, and corrupt by our vanity the pure truth of
God. ...We forsake the one true God for
prodigious trifles (I. v. 11).
This is what makes the revelation
of God in Christ through the Holy Scriptures necessary, which Calvin goes on to treat in
the Institutes.
...It
is needful that another and better help be added to direct us aright to the very Creator
of the universe. It was not in vain, then,
that he added the light of his Word by which to become known unto salvation; and he
regarded as worthy of this privilege those whom he pleased to gather more closely and
intimately to himself (I. vi. 1).
This is the amazing grace and abundant mercy of God to us His people in Jesus Christ. For this gracious revelation of God we ought to
thank and worship the Lord. For this
wonderful mercy of God we will praise and serve Him everlastingly in the new heavens and
earth.
Rev. Koole is pastor of Grandville Protestant Reformed Church in Grandville, Michigan.
Many were the areas in which the
Reformers cleared away the stifling undergrowth of Romish, scholastic error and opened up
and clarified the church’s understanding of biblical truths. One of these vital areas was the truth of the
image of God in man.
What Berkof says in his Reformed
Dogmatics is certainly true: “The
doctrine of the image of God is of greatest importance in theology, for that image is the
expression of that which is most distinctive in man and in his relation to God” (Vol. I, p. 191, Eerdmans, 1932 ed.). If one goes astray here, his view of man, in
particular man’s condition in his fallen state (what of this ‘image’ man
lost, if anything) and how man stands related to God, is going to be affected. One’s view of what remains of the image of
God in man’s fallen condition will also have a bearing on one’s view of saving
grace, that is, the extent to which Christ Himself is needed for its restoration.
The importance of a correct
understanding of this doctrine is clear from the fact that it is something the Spirit led
Moses to underscore in the very first chapter of God’s book to us (Gen. 1:26, 27). “And God said, Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness: …So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them.” By these words the Spirit was certainly
distinguishing man from the animals, man made in such a way as to bear (be endowed with)
something that no mere animal possibly could. And
it was this ‘something,’ this image and likeness, that enabled man to stand and
function as God’s friend.
What properly constitutes this
image of God has been the subject of all kinds of discussion and disagreement. Adding to the volume of discussion is Genesis 1
’s use of the term “likeness,” following its declaring that “in the
image of God made he man.” It has been
common to distinguish between the two. Some
have been of the opinion that “image” refers to the intellectual abilities given
to man, and “likeness” to the spiritual virtues in man; others that “image”
refers to man’s body, and “likeness” to man’s soul. Still others maintain that the image of God refers
to everything that makes man unique as a creature, and “likeness” refers to man’s
dominion over creation. These are but a few
of the variations that exist.
More serious was the
distinction that developed in Romish theology prior to the Reformation (ultimately in
order to justify serious [Pelagian] error). Rome’s
theologians talked about a “natural” image of God in terms of that which was
given at man’s creation (having to do with a soul that was spiritual, a will that was
free, and a body that was immortal), which gave to man a “natural righteousness”;
and then they went on to talk about “the likeness of God” in terms of a
supernatural endowment (of grace) being added (called the donum superadditum). It is this supernatural endowment that provided
what became known as man’s “original righteousness”; and it is this
gracious supernatural endowment of God’s image that alone enables man (even Adam
himself in the state of perfection) to resist “concupiscence,” that is, the
natural tendency of the appetites of the human body (be it a sinless body) to yearn for
and feed on sin.
This forced and “unnatural”
distinction applied to the “image of God” in man has serious implications when
it comes to how one views the consequences of Adam’s fall and of original sin on the
human race. Berkof’s description of Rome’s
view makes this plain.
Man,
then, as he was originally constituted (i.e., in paradise — kk) was by nature without
positive holiness, but also without sin, though burdened with a tendency which might
easily result in sin. But now God added to
the natural constitution of man the supernatural gift of original righteousness, by which
he was enabled to keep the lower propensities and desires in due subjection and order. When man fell, he lost this original righteousness
(i.e., what was given by the “likeness” of God’s image — kk), but the
original constitution of human nature remained intact.
The natural man is now exactly where Adam was before he was endowed with
original righteousness, though with a somewhat stronger bias towards evil. (emphasis mine - kk) (op. cit., pp. 196-7).
Note the words in italics. The upshot of Rome’s faulty distinction is a
denial of the truth of fallen man’s depravity (its vitiating, ruinous effect upon the
whole man) and his spiritual death. It is a
denial of the truth and reality of original sin. Man’s
fall amounts to little more than a relapse back to the state of pure nature. Dr. R. L. Reymond points this out in clear
fashion.
Accordingly,
in Roman Catholic theology, in and by the fall man lost the “likeness” while
still retaining as man the image of God. Thus
fallen man is essentially deprived of the “superadditional gifts” of
holiness and righteousness but not morally depraved throughout the whole man. Indeed, he is not even in a state of sin but only
in the state of a tendency to sin (Systematic
Theology, p. 426).
It was against this grievous, and
essentially Pelagian error that the Reformers reacted in their formulation of what
constituted the image of God in man.
While it is true that the
Reformers were not in perfect agreement about what constituted the full scope of the image
of God, Luther in particular giving it a narrower scope, about one thing there was no
disagreement, Rome’s view was to be vigorously rejected, and in this there was basic
agreement, a rejection of any real distinction between the two terms, image and likeness.
Calvin, as one might suppose, is
representative.
The
“image” and “likeness” has given rise to no small discussion:
interpreters searching without cause for a difference between the two terms, since “likeness”
is merely added by way of exposition. First,
we know that repetitions are common in Hebrew, which often gives two words for one thing:
and, secondly, there is no ambiguity in the thing itself, man being called the image of
God because of his likeness to God. Hence
there is an obvious absurdity in those who indulge in philosophical speculation as to
these names, placing Zelem, that is, the image, in the substance of the soul, and
the Demuth, that is, the likeness, in its qualities, and so forth. God having determined to create man in his own
image, to remove the obscurity which was in this term adds, by way of explanation, in his
likeness, as if he had said, that he would make man, in whom he would, as it were, image
himself by means of the marks of resemblance impressed upon him. Accordingly, Moses,
shortly after repeating the account, puts down the image of God twice, and makes no
mention of the likeness (Inst. I. xv. 3, Beveridge ed.).
The point is, Calvin wanted it to
be clear that once man rebelled against God and fell, it was not just some “likeness”
to God that was affected, the loss of a special original righteousness, leaving the
original image with all its powers (for instance, man’s free will) unaffected and
intact, but the image in its entirety was affected, vitiated, and left in ruin. Fallen man is not now simply lacking a certain
kind of righteousness, but is by very nature filled with unrighteousness, opposed to God.
Luther, taking his lead from the
New Testament Scriptures that speak of the image as restored by Christ and the renewing
Spirit (Eph.
4:24 and Col.
3:10), restricted the image to spiritual virtues originally bestowed on man, namely,
true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. The
other gifts of mind and soul that make man superior to the brute beasts are what enable
man to bear and exhibit these virtues, but are not part of the image itself.
The implication of this view is
that by man’s fall God’s image and man’s likeness to God was brought into
complete ruin and lost. Thus the author of The
Bondage of the Will shut the door on any natural good or spiritual abilities remaining
in unredeemed, unregenerate man.
Calvin was willing to maintain a
broader definition of what belonged to the image of God, namely, everything that set man
apart and lifted him above the animals. The
image then includes what belongs to man’s intellectual gifts and rationality, as well
as his spiritual virtues of righteousness, holiness, and the knowledge of God. In the context of insisting the image of God
primarily finds its seat in the soul of man, man’s spiritual side, Calvin states,
“...though [I still] retain the principle which I lately laid down, that the image of
God extends to everything in which the nature of man surpasses that of all other species
of animals” (Inst. I. xv. 3).
This explanation became the
general consensus of perspective in the Reformed tradition.
It became the occasion for speaking of the image in both a broader (or ‘formal’)
sense, and in a narrower (or ‘material’) sense.
What is significant today, in the
days of drifting (motoring?) towards Rome, is that the emphasis in Reformed circles is
more and more on this broader, formal aspect of the image.
The emphasis is on what all human beings, due to these so-called wonderful remnants
of the image still found in everyone, still share in common. (And, of course, it is common grace that is given
credit for preserving these wonderful remnants of the image in fallen man). Be that as it may, the result of this mis-emphasis
is that universalism has been given opportunity to rear its ugly head in Reformed
teachings. This is certainly an abuse of the
direction Calvin meant to go.
Calvin was willing to grant that
not everything of the image was destroyed and lost through man’s folly, but not in
the interests of finding some ‘redeeming’ virtue in fallen man. As he states emphatically (I. xv. 4),
Wherefore,
though we grant that the image of God was not utterly effaced and destroyed in him, it
was, however, so corrupted, that anything which remains is fearful deformity….
And then a little later in the
same section, Calvin points out that just as the image of God shone through the excellency
of the human nature prior to the fall:
…[it]was
afterwards vitiated and almost destroyed, nothing remaining but a ruin, confused,
mutilated, and tainted with impurity….
Whatever ‘broadness’
Calvin was willing to grant to the content of the image, it cannot be denied that Calvin
placed the primacy (the core) of the image in the spiritual, ethical aspect of man. As he states in his Institutes:
However,
it appears that no complete definition is as yet given of that image, unless it be set
forth more clearly in which faculties man excels by which he must be considered a mirror
of the glory of God. Now this can be known
better from no other source than from the restoration of the corrupt nature (I. xv. 4).
The source that records for us
what God used Christ Jesus to restore in fallen, corrupted man is, of course, to be found
in Ephesians
4:24 and Colossians
3:10. Having quoted these two
passages, Calvin goes on to say:
Whence
it appears what Paul comprehends chiefly (note!— kk) under the image of God. In the first place he mentions knowledge, and
further, true righteousness and holiness: whence
we gather that in the beginning the image of God was conspicuous by the light of the mind,
the rectitude of the heart, the soundness of all the parts (I. xv. 4).
These, Calvin says, are the
“leading” features of the image restored by Christ, and because that is true, we
can only conclude that these spiritual, ethical virtues “...must also have held the
highest place in [the image of God’s] creation”
(I. xv. 4).
What also bears emphasis is what
it was that the churches of the early Reformation (students of both Calvin and the
Scriptures, and familiar with Luther as well) emphasized when it came to this matter of
the image of God in man. It was the image as
the spiritual, ethical reflection of God that received all the emphasis. This is found consistently in the Reformed
confessions.
The Canons of Dordt define the
image in this ‘narrow’ sense (III/IV, 1).
Man
was originally formed after the image of God. His
understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator and of spiritual
things; his heart and will were upright; all his affections pure; and the whole man was
holy.
The Westminster Confession does
the same.
After
God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and
immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness after his own
image… (Chpt. 4, sect. 2).
Cf. Heidelberg Catechism Q &
A 6 as well.
The Reformed church world does
well to note where the Reformers and the creeds put the emphasis in this vital matter. Errors here have invariably given way to greater
errors down the road.
In conclusion it must be admitted
that Calvin and Luther disagreed about what constituted the full scope of the image of God
in man — Calvin unwilling to give it as narrow (and, shall we say, as biblically
accurate) a scope as Luther did. But Calvin
and Luther did not disagree when it came to rejecting Rome’s view. In that they were in full agreement, their views
by very intention rejecting Rome’s view on this vital matter.
When one reads Calvin in his entirety, it becomes plain that he was much more in agreement with Luther than many a Reformed theologian wants to admit today, certainly much more in agreement with Luther’s teaching on this matter than where Protestant theologians are heading today, essentially back to Rome and its Pelagian view of fallen, unbelieving man.
Rev. Connors is pastor
of the Launceston congregation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Australia.
Adam … “who is the figure of him that
was to come” (Rom. 5:14). “For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22).
Federal headship!
It is a glorious reality.
In its light we have true
knowledge of ourselves and our fellow men. First,
we know ourselves to be dead in Adam, for “the [first, cjc] covenant being made with
Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind
descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in that first
transgression”; and second, we can know certain hope of heaven, for we learn that
“the covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all
the elect as his seed.”[1] In Adam we are fallen sinners cast upon the mercy
of God, and in Christ we are redeemed sinners raised up to sit in heavenly places.
The Reformation recovered the
doctrine of federal headship. The Reformed
have developed and placed it in its covenantal setting.
As such it is the invincible
doctrine of federal headship!
We shall discuss the doctrine,
and then note that when the Reformers tied headship into predestination they had loosed a
truth that might not rest until it had led the church of Christ into the knowledge of God’s
covenant — federal theology.
Federal headship?[2] One person appointed by God to represent
the many within His covenant. That one
is the head. He is like the root from
which the whole organism of his body springs forth and grows. He is a public person who represents every member
of the whole number that is incorporated into him. God
endows the head with authority and the legal right to represent his offspring, to stand in
their place, to act on their behalf and in their name.
Furthermore, such is the legal relation of the members to their head that each is
accounted by God to act in, with, and by the head.
Adam and Christ are both
representative heads within God’s covenant.
Adam represented all mankind
under the first covenant, variously called the covenant of creation, life, friendship, or
works. Within that covenant, man was assured
of life in God’s presence and blessing while ever he kept covenant by loving God in
perfect, personal, perpetual conformity to God and His command. Man was also warned that if ever he broke covenant
by sinning against God: “…thou
shalt surely die.” Adam broke that
covenant. “In Adam all die.”
Adam’s sin belongs to, and
affects, not only himself, but all men descending from him by ordinary generation. Adam’s headship means that we sinned in him
and fell with him in his first transgression. All
are involved in that sin through headship. Legally
we are guilty of that original sin, for it is ours in Adam.
Organically, we partake of the sinful nature of our head; so that from our mother’s
womb we are devoid of original righteousness, totally depraved, utterly incapable of and
opposed to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil —
continually! Sin and misery have swallowed
mankind whole! This truth is invincible
— it might be denied but it cannot be escaped!
Should this dreadful reality
strike home to our hearts we will never again think in terms of cooperating with God or
contributing toward our salvation! We will at
last agree with God, “by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in
his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The
broken covenant will sound in our hearts as it did in Adam’s, “thou shalt surely
die.” How could we even begin to
understand the universality of sin and death, or indeed our own need of the Savior sent
from God without this knowledge. It is a
dreadful reality, but it is our reality in Adam.
In like manner Christ, the Second
Adam, was appointed by God in eternity to be the head of the covenant of grace. “His goings forth are from of old, even from
everlasting” (Micah 5:2). At His appointment God gave all the elect
unto Christ as His seed, thereby establishing Christ as head over the whole body of His
elect (Eph.
1:4-5). On the basis of this
eternal predestination, Christ was authorized and commissioned to act as head of His elect
within the covenant of grace. He came forth
to fulfill all the demands of the broken covenant in the place of His seed, and thereby to
redeem His body, bestow upon them the adoption of children, and lift them into glorious
life with their covenant God.[3] His obedience affects (actually redeems and
saves to the uttermost) all in whose name and place He acts. Just as really as the first head’s sin
destroyed his natural seed, so Christ’s obedience saves His elect seed: “even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
This reality — the might,
power, and sufficiency of Christ’s headship — is the substance of the gospel. It is the good news that God publishes in the
world fallen in Adam, because His covenant demands that the body be united to its head
through faith. Surely, this reality ought to
give pause to those of Reformed persuasion who insist that God must desire that all who
hear the gospel should be saved. Men, we ask,
what of the headship of Christ? What is the
content of your gospel?
Christ’s headship also
ensures that the covenant is unconditional. Christ
is the one who is appointed to act on behalf of all God’s elect. According to the tenor of His own ordinance, God
looks to the head, not to the body, for the provision of everything necessary. Every conceivable requirement, condition, or
prerequisite for salvation must be satisfied by the head.
Nothing — absolutely nothing — is wanting. Therefore, God is satisfied. Salvation must now be applied to the body as a
free gift, by grace alone. Headship demands
it.
This truth has tremendous
significance to saving faith. If a sinner should wish to contribute one particle
toward his own salvation, he commits the outrageous crime of despising Christ![4] Arminianism is a crime. Laboring to become good enough to be saved is a
crime. Self-righteousness is a crime. Federal headship demands faith in Christ alone.
The
Reformers’ Viewpoint
In Adam all die — in Christ
shall all be made alive — as is determined by eternal predestination. Headship is predestined. Federal headship is predestination outworked. That was the distinctive perspective of the
Reformers on this subject.
Though not yet singled out for
attention, developed, or systematized, this doctrine was integral to the Reformers’
thought. Martin Luther saw it as one of his
“very strong arguments”:
Seeing
that through the one transgression of the one man, Adam, we are all under sin and
damnation, how can we attempt anything that is not sinful and damnable. …Original sin
itself, therefore, leaves free choice with no capacity to do anything but sin and be
damned.[5]
John Calvin laments that “the
ancient doctors of the church touched upon this subject so obscurely,” and proceeds himself to work with the doctrine of
federal headship at considerable length.[6] He agrees with Augustine on the subject in his
defense of predestination: “As he alone
was predestinated, as MAN, to be our HEAD, so many of us are also predestinated to be his
members.”[7] Of Adam, Calvin writes:
1.
The eternal predestination of God, by which he decreed, before the fall of Adam, what
should take place in the whole human race and in every individual thereof, was unalterably
fixed and determined. 2. That Adam himself,
on account of his departure from God, was deservedly appointed to eternal death. 3. And lastly, that in the person of Adam, thus
fallen and lost, his whole future offspring were also eternally condemned; but so
eternally condemned that God deems worthy the honour of his adoption all those whom he
freely chose out of that future offspring.[8]
John Knox in his defense of
predestination was, if anything, even clearer:
In
the first man Adam (who fell from his purity) have we neither love, righteousness nor
life, but the contraries, to wit, hatred, sin, and death.
But God, as he had chosen his Elect before all beginning in Christ Jesus His Son,
so has he placed these gifts in the second Adam alone, “that out of his fullness we
may all receive even grace for grace.”[9]
The Reformers restored headship
to the orbit of eternal predestination. Headship
is God’s will. Divine predestination, they insisted, determines the truth with
respect to the headship of Adam and of Christ. Headship serves God’s purpose to
glorify His justice and make His power known in the punishment of sin, and it serves His
ultimate purpose to show His covenant to elect mankind redeemed unto Himself in Jesus
Christ! Election is a covenantal act. Election demands a covenant head. And a covenant head demands a covenant theology. Thus, the Reformers’ faithfulness to God’s
sovereign predestination became the launching pad for our covenant theology. In fact, it would seem that, for the Reformers,
predestination was their covenant theology!
How did they dispense with the
Pelagian assertion that the same all men /many/ whole world is represented by Adam
and by Christ? Knox is representative: “You make the love of God common to all men,
and that do we constantly deny, and say, that before all beginning God hath loved his
Elect in Christ Jesus his Son, and that from the same eternity he hath reprobated others.” They brought predestination down like an axe on
this pernicious root. They taught Adam and
Christ as heads of two distinct categories. Under
Adam stand all mankind fallen into the estate of sin and justly liable to eternal
damnation. Out of Adam God chooses the
whole world of elect sinners, arraying them under Christ as their head and Redeemer,
leaving the world of reprobate sinners forever in Adam. Christ is not their head. That many has no part in Him, for they are
children of wrath who shall perish in the way of their own sin. Common grace in Christ? The Reformers constantly denied it! The federal headship of Adam and of Christ
according to predestination forbad it.
That was federal headship
according to the Reformation.
In our day, many are embarrassed
by the Reformers’ unwavering adherence to predestination — but the heirs of the
Reformation ought never be. Their
faithfulness gave the Reformed churches the direction and impetus they needed to
understand God’s purpose in predestination in terms of the realization of His
covenant with man in Christ the head. That
development brought forth in the Reformed churches a mature confession of predestinarian
federal theology — that confession is the Westminster Confession of Faith.
At its very heart stands the Son
of God appointed from all eternity to be the Mediator of the covenant of grace, the second
Adam, the federal head of God’s elect.
The invincible head of the
invincible covenant of the invincible God!
He is the death knell to all
universalism.
He is the nemesis of conditional
theology.
He is the heart of Reformed
covenant theology!
He is the only hope of heaven for
a son of Adam like me!
1. Westminster Larger Catechism 22 and 31.
2. We have used the term federal because
this headship is most emphatically a covenantal ordinance.
Headship exists because God establishes His covenant in and through Jesus Christ. Adam was but
“the figure of him that was to come” (Rom. 5: 14.) Christ is no “Plan B” demanded by
the failure of the first Adam. Christ (the
end) is before Adam (the means) in God’s eternal counsel. Adam is first in time, because Christ must save
His people from their sins. Adam serves Him
who “is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from
the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence, for it pleased the Father that
in Christ should all the fullness dwell” (Col. 1:18-19).
3. It might also be noted that the divine
appointment of Christ as head of God’s elect provides the legal ground for him to act
as a Surety and Substitute, for the imputation of sin to Him, for Him to offer Himself in
a vicarious atonement for sin, for the imputation of His righteousness for justification,
and the impartation of His righteousness for sanctification. Lose headship and lose all!
4. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic
Theology (Philipsburg: P&R,
1997), vol. 2,
pp. 247-248.
5. Martin Luther, Luther and Erasmus: Free Will
and Salvation (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969), p. 315.
6. John Calvin, Institutes, Book 2, chapter
1, sections 4 – 11.
7. John Calvin, Calvin’s Calvinism
(Grand Rapids: RFPA, p. 124.)
9. John Knox, Works of John Knox
(Edinburgh, James Thin, 1895), vol. 5, pp.
60, 61.
Rev. Stewart is a missionary in the
Protestant Reformed Churches, currently working in Northern Ireland.
Reformed churches teach a
covenant relationship between pre-fall Adam and the triune God. In this article, we shall analyze the views of
various theologians, especially John Calvin, culminating in the work of Herman Hoeksema,
who identified the covenant as fellowship between the living God and His Son, whom He
created in His own image.
1. Is there a covenant with Adam?
The Christian church has spoken
of the relationship between God and Adam before the fall in terms of the covenant from at
least as far back as Augustine (354-430).[1] Reformed theology has developed this truth. Scholars have debated, however, if Calvin
(1509-1564) held to a pre-fall covenant with Adam.
Luther (1483-1546) and many
Reformed theologians rightly see a reference to God’s covenant with Adam in Hosea 6:7. [2] From his commentary on Hosea 6:7,
it is clear that Calvin was aware that some in his day understood the verse this way: “Others explain the words thus, ‘They
have transgressed as Adam the covenant.’”
However, Calvin calls this interpretation “frigid,” “diluted,”
and “vapid,” and so does “not stop to refute” it.
Calvin scholars have found only
one passage in which Calvin speaks explicitly of God’s covenant with pre-fall Adam. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion,
he writes of the “covenants” (plural) with Adam and with Noah and their
respective sacraments or signs:
One
is when [God] gave Adam and Eve the tree of life as a guarantee of immortality, that they
might assure themselves of it as long as they should eat of its fruit [ Gen. 2:9;
3:22]. Another, when he set the rainbow for
Noah and his descendants, as a token that he would not destroy the earth with a flood [ Gen. 9:13-16
]. These, Adam and Noah regarded as
sacraments. Not that the tree provided them with an immortality which it could not give to
itself; nor that the rainbow (which is but a reflection of the sun’s rays opposite)
could be effective in holding back the waters; but because they had a mark engraved upon
them by God’s Word, so that they were proofs and seals of his covenants
(4.14.18).[3]
Calvin does not call this
pre-fall covenant a “covenant of works” or a “covenant of creation” or
a “covenant of nature,” terms used by Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583).[4] The phrase “covenant with Adam” would
fit well with the above quotation from the Genevan reformer.
2. Could unfallen Adam have attained eternal, heavenly
life?
Calvin believed that “the
first man would have passed to a better life had he remained upright” (Comm. on Gen. 3:19). By a “better” life, he
means, more specifically, “eternal life” (Institutes 2.1.4) and heavenly
life, for “he would have passed into heaven without death” (Comm. on Gen. 2:16-17).
Calvin opines, “In this
integrity man by free will had the power, if he so willed, to attain eternal life.” A few lines later he writes, “Adam could have
stood if he had wished, seeing that he fell solely by his own will” (Institutes 1.15.8). We have no quarrel with the statement that Adam
would have “stood” in the way of obedience.
But neither Calvin nor anyone since has proved that Scripture teaches that Adam
would have received “eternal life.”
Commenting on “man became a
living soul,” Calvin writes,
Paul
makes an antithesis between this living soul and the quickening spirit which Christ
confers upon the faithful (I Cor. 15:45)
for no other purpose than to teach us that the state of man was not perfected in the
person of Adam; but it is a peculiar benefit conferred by Christ, that we may be renewed
to a life which is celestial, whereas before the fall of Adam, man’s life was
only earthly, seeing it had no firm and settled constancy (Comm. on Gen. 2:7).
To say the least, I
Corinthians 15:45 (and Calvin’s remarks on it above) do not sit easy with the
notion that pre-fall Adam could have attained to eternal, heavenly life in the way of
obedience, both for himself and, by implication, his descendants.
I
Corinthians 15:45-49 draws a contrast between the first Adam and the “last”
or “second” Adam, Jesus Christ. First,
Christ is “the Lord from heaven,” while Adam is merely “of the earth,
earthy” (I Cor. 15:47),
a “clayey figure,” as Calvin puts it (Comm. on Gen. 2:7). Second, Adam is “natural”; Christ
is “spiritual” (I Cor. 15:46). Third, whereas “Adam was made a living
soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (I Cor. 15:45). The latter happened through the incarnation,
death, resurrection, and session of Christ. Thus,
if it took the incarnation, cross, and ascension of the “spiritual” “Lord
from heaven”—“a quickening spirit!”—in order to convey eternal,
heavenly life to the elect, how could the “earthy,” “natural” Adam,
who was merely “a living soul,” ever gain eternal, heavenly life and communicate
it to his posterity?
Though many Presbyterian and Reformed men reckon that Adam could have gained eternal life, the Westminster Standards do not actually specify this: “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and