Of Repentance Unto Life

In his commentary on Chapter XV of the Westminster Confession of Faith, Robert Shaw wrote:

"The repentance described in this chapter is called repentance unto life, because it is inseparably connected with the enjoyment of eternal life, and to distinguish it from the sorrow of the world, which worketh death. It is styled a grace because it is the free gift of God, and is wrought in the heart by the operation of the Spirit. 'Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.' Acts xi.18. 'Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; surely after that I was turned, I repented.' Jer. xxxi. 18, 19. This repentance is also denominated an evangelical grace, to distinguish it from legal repentance. The latter flows from a dread of God's wrath; the former, from faith in God's mercy. In the latter, the sinner is chiefly affected with the punishment to which his sin exposes him; in the former, he mourns for his sin as offensive and dishonouring to God. Cain and Judas repented, but it was on account of the consequences of sin to themselves; whereas the true penitent mourns after a godly sourt, with a godly sorrow, or a sorrow which directly regards God. 2 Cor. vii. 9, 10." - Rev. Robert Shaw, An Exposition of the Confession of Faith of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (1846), pages 178-179.

Back in Shaw's day, when the holiness of God, the necessity of His judgment of sin, and His wrath toward the unrepentant was still being preached from the pulpits, there was a danger that many professing Christians merely had this "legal repentance," rather than the required "evangelical repentance." Today, when preaching has become so watered down that God is believed to just love and forgive everyone indiscriminantly, there may not even be "legal repentance" in the majority of those sitting in the pews.

Evidence That People Hate the Gospel

Check out The Virtuous Woman. blog for all the evidence one could ask for that fallen humanity hates the Gospel and the God who gave it. Notice how many of the negative commenters are professing Christians. What a sad state the modern Church is in today!

Thomas E. Peck on the Judicial Law of Moses

While government is the ordinance of God (Rom. xiii.), in the sense that the social nature of man necessarily gives rise to it, yet as to the form which this government may assume in all other other nations, and the special laws by which the ends of government may be secured, God has prescribed nothing except that the civil magistrate shall have the power of life and death, and that it shall be his duty to inflict the penalty of death for the crime of murder. Regulative principles of government are implied in the moral law, and in the general tenor of Scripture teaching, but the constitutive principles of government there are none, except in the case of the Jews. The case of the Jews was made an exception, because they were to be separated from all other nations for the specific purpose of being a type of the kingdom of God and a preparation for it. Hence, a purely natural civil development could not be allowed, as it would interfere with the execution of this purpose. If the Hebrews had been permitted to determine their own polity and laws, they would soon have lost their distinctive character and become mingled with the Gentiles. In point of fact, we find that they did lose it in a very great degree, in spite of all the legal regulations which were prescribed to prevent it. The great powers of the old world struggled for the possession of the land of Palestine, just as the great powers of the modern world have struggled for it, and are now watching one another with intense eagerness and jealousy in regard to it. It was to prevent the Hebrew power from becoming a member of the “political system” of the Orient that the judicial law was given, but given, to a great extent, in vain (Writings of Thomas E. Peck, Volume Two, pages 158-159).

David Dickson on the Judicial Law of Israel

...[D]o not some err, though otherwise orthodox, who maintain, That the whole judicial law of the Jews, is yet alive, and binding all of us, who are Christian Gentiles?

Yes.

By what reasons are they confuted?

1st, Because the judicial law was delivered by Moses to the Israelites to be observed, as a body politic, Exod. 21.

2d, Because this law, in many things which are of a particular right, was accommodated to the commonwealth of the Jews, and not to other nations also, Exod. 22.3. Exod. 21.2. Lev. 25.2,3. Deut. 24.1-3. Deut. 25.5-7.

3d, Because in other things, which are not of particular right, it is neither from the law of nature obliging by reason; neither is it pressed upon believers under the gospel to be observed.

4th, Because believers are appointed under the gospel, to obey the civil law, and commands of those under whose government they live, providing they be just, and that for conscience sake, Rom. 13.1,5. 1 Pet. 2.13,14. Titus. 3.1. - Commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith

Theonomy and the Covenant of Works

The backbone of Theonomy is a subtle, and sometimes outright, denial of the Reformed doctrine of the Covenant of Works. According to R.J. Rushdoony:

The Westminster Confession, one of the great documents of the Christian faith, has at one point been rightly criticized over the years. Its concept of a covenant of works is not only wrong but shows a misunderstanding of the nature of the covenant...

The covenant is always and only instituted by God's grace. It always is a covenant of law, because covenants are a form of law, and therefore it always requires works. This, however, does not make it a covenant of works (R. J. Rushdoony on "The Covenant of Works," Systematic Theology, Volume One [Ross House Books, Vallecito, CA: 1994], pp. 376-379).

This same idea was present in the writings of Greg Bahnsen:

His covenant with Adam was gracious in character, sovereignly imposed, mutually binding, called for trust and submission on Adam's part, and carried sanctions (blessings or curse). When Adam fell into sin, God mercifully re-established a covenantal relationship with him, one in which the gracious and promissory character of the covenant was accentuated even further -- in the promise of a coming Savior, a promise which is progressively unfolded and elaborated upon throughout the Old Testament (The Counsel of Chalcedon [December, 1992], "Cross-Examination: Practical Implications of Covenant Theology).

The implication in this statement is that the post-lapsarian covenant of Genesis 3:15 was the same in substance as the original covenant. The result of this monocovenantal interpretation is that the clear distinction between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace is obliterated and the legal demand of the former ("Do this and live") is necessarily carried over into the latter, thereby mixing works with faith: "Why must one practice and teach the details of God's law? Because then your righteousness will exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees who have no part in the kingdom.... The New Testament and Covenant continue the same demand for obedience. Entrance to the kingdom is dependent upon attesting obedience" (Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, page 202).

Contrary to Bahnsen's suggestion that the Adamic covenant was essentially one of grace, historic Covenant theology has instead taught that it was a covenant of divine condescension. Biblically speaking, grace is an attitude of favor which God exhibits towards those who not only do not deserve such favor, but who actually deserve the opposite - His wrath. In this sense, then, Adam in his prelapasarian state could not have enjoyed God's grace, for as yet he had not sinned and therefore did not deserve His wrath. God's favor was not given to him, but was already his by virtue of his innocence. However, this is not to say that Adam had any claim, as a creature, to the eternal life which God promised to him in the Covenant of Works. God did not originally owe Adam anything, but voluntarily bound Himself to grant the man an additional reward in exchange for his obedience. This voluntary act of God toward His creature was not one of grace, but of condescension.

In the postlapsarian covenant of Genesis 3:15, the situation is altogether different. Having violated the terms of the Covenant of Works, Adam justly incurred the wrath of God and the penalty of death, and with the loss of his innocence came the loss of God's favor. It was impossible for God to re-establish the original covenant relationship with Adam, as Bahnsen suggested, but the new covenant of necessity must have been, not only one of condescension, but of pure grace.

Bahnsen's monocovenatalism led him to completely misunderstand the nature of the later Mosaic covenant and to insist that Christians remain under its authority:

Now some people would say that New Covenant believers are under the Abrahamic covenant of promise today, but not the Mosaic covenant with its laws. However that is far from the outlook of the scriptural writers. In Galatians 3:21 Paul addresses this question to those who speak of being under one or the other covenant: "Is the law contrary to the promises of God?" And his inspired answer is, "May it never be!" The fact is that all of the covenants of the Old Covenant (that is, all of the Old Testament covenants) are unified as parts of the one overall covenant of grace established by God. Paul spoke of Gentiles who were not part of the Old Covenant economy which included the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants as "strangers to the covenants of the promise" (Eph. 2:12). There were many, progressively revealed aspects to the single promise of God in the Old Testament: many administrations of the one overall covenant of grace. Thus the various covenants of the Old Covenant were all part of one program and plan. Not only were they harmonious with one another, but they are unified with the New Covenant which was promised in Jeremiah 31 and is enjoyed by Christians today (cf. Heb. 8:6-13). There is one basic covenant of grace, characterized by anticipation in the Old Covenant and by realization in the New Covenant (cf. John 1:17).... ("God's Uniform Standard of Right and Wrong," Institute for Christian Economics, Volume I, Number 3, November, 1978).

According to the Westminster Confession, "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 personal obedience" (Chapter VII:2). That the Westminster divines associated the Sinaitic covenant with the Adamic Covenant of Works is seen in their choice of proof-texts for this teaching: Genesis 2:17 and Galatians 3:10. The first verse contains the prohibition against eating from the forbidden tree and the second references the "works of the law," with a quotation from Deuteronomy 27:26, "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to do them." The phrases "the law" and "the book of the law" can mean nothing else but the Mosaic covenant. We see this same association implied in Chapter XIX of the Confession: "God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it: and endued him with power and ability to keep it. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables..." (1-2). Thus, the Decalogue itself is identified as a codification of the "perfect rule of righteousness" to which Adam was bound in the Covenant of Works, thereby rendering the Sinaitic covenant a restatement of the original Covenant of Works. Again, Genesis 2:17 is connected with Galatians 3:10, with the addition of Romans 2:14, which contrasts the nation of Israel, to which the written law was covenantally delivered, with the Gentiles "which have not the law," and Romans 10:5, which directly speaks of the righteous requirements of the Mosaic law. In the Larger Catechism, we read, "The providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created, was the placing him in paradise... [and] entering into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death" (Question 20). Once again, the divines chose to proof-text this teaching by citing Paul's discussion of the Mosaic law in Galatians 3:12 and Romans 5:5. It should be noted that the usage of the variant terms "covenant of life" and "covenant of works" did not imply different covenants, but the one covenant seen from the two different perspectives of condition and promise - the condition of perfect obedience and the life promised for the rendering of that obedience.

Since it is obvious that "no mere man after the fall can perfectly keep the ten commandments" (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 103), how then can it be said that the Sinaitic covenant was, in any way, a covenant of works? It was so on two levels. With reference to the Israelites, the Mosaic law was a covenant of works on a typological, or temporal, level. Their tenure in the promised land was dependent upon their keeping of the terms of the covenant; the "life" promised was therefore possession of the land, and the "death" promised was expulsion from the land. As Moses proclaimed, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). This "life and death, blessing and cursing" was expounded in the covenantal sanctions of Deuteronomy 28. On this typological level, the Sinaitic covenant was merely a restatement of the original Covenant of Works, but it could not be a formal ratification of that covenant because, though broken by mankind in Adam, the Covenant of Works had never been abrogated and it was therefore impossible for God to reinstate it afresh for fallen men without dismissing the guilt that had existed up to the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. For God to have thus pardoned the Israelites without also pardoning the rest of the world, and millions of those who has already perished in their sins up to that point in time, would have been unjust and contrary to His holy character, for He is "no respecter of persons" (Romans 2:11). Therefore, the Sinaitic covenant, in its relation to the Israelites, could only be an echo of the Covenant of Works, put into place primarily for the temporal purposes mentioned above, and ultimately to remind them of their guiltiness before God and their need of a Redeemer. Thus, the Mosaic law was subservient to, and therefore did not supplant, the Abrahamic covenant of promise, or the Covenant of Grace.

However, it was with reference to the Redeemer that the Sinaitic covenant was indeed a formal reinstatement of the original Covenant of Works. Being the Son of God incarnate in human flesh and born of a virgin, Christ was not touched by the guilt of Adam's sin. Therefore, the Covenant of Works could be established with Him, as the second Adam, through the instrument of the Mosaic law without the necessity of God pardoning the rest of mankind. The promise of life for Christ was not merely typological and tied to possession of the land, but an actual promise of glorification and eternal life in the anti-typological Kingdom of Heaven. Furthermore, because He was not a mere creature as was Adam, Christ's obedience to the terms of the covenant was meritorious for both Himself and those joined to Him by faith:

...[A]s a human being Christ was certainly subject to the law of God as the rule of life; even believers are never exempted from the law in that sense. But Christ related himself to the law in still a very different way, namely, as the law of the covenant of works. Adam was not only obligated to keep the law but was confronted in the covenant of works with that law as the way to eternal life, a life he did not yet possess. But Christ, in virtue of his union with the divine nature, already had this eternal and blessed life. This life he voluntarily relinquished. He submitted himself to the law of the covenant of works as the way to eternal life for himself and his own.

The obedience that Christ accorded to the law, therefore, was totally voluntary. Not his death alone, as Anselm said, but his entire life was an act of self-denial, a self-offering presented by him as head in the place of his own (Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume III, page 379).

Thomas Boston on Law and Gospel

Such is the natural propensity of man's heart to the way of the law, in opposition to Christ, that, as the tainted vessel turns the taste of the purest liquor put into it, so the natural man turns the very gospel into law, and transforms the covenant of grace into a covenant of works. - Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1860), page 70.

The Operation of the Conscience in the Unbeliever

Romans 1:18-32 teaches that fallen man not only knows that the true God exists (verses 20-21), but he also knows that this God has an absolute moral standard which binds all mankind and to which is attached the penalty of death for disobedience (verse 32). In other words, men are aware that there is a covenant of works because the "work of the law" has been "written in their heart" (Romans 2:15). This assertion is proven by the fact that every religion known to man is a manifestation, in one form or another, of a works-based system of righteousness. Even the most primitive savage has a concept of deity whose wrath he fears and whose favor he seeks to earn through good deeds, rituals, or even sacrifice.

The subject of which Paul wrote is the conscience, a word derived from the Latin "com" (with) and "scire" (to know or to discern). A man with a conscience is a man "with knowledge." The conscience is "the faculty by which [man] perceives the moral effect of actions in Time in reference to their results upon himself in Eternity. It is that sense which over and above the idea of Right and Wrong, has with it the idea of duty, the sense that it is right, and proper, and suitable to act this way, and not that; and the sense that if we do this way, then are we to be declared just; if we do that way, then are we to be declared unrighteous. That it is the sense of Duty and of Responsibility" (William Smith, The Elements of Christian Science [1857], page 78). The function of the conscience is threefold: "The first is Prohibitory. 'This act thou shouldest not do.' The second, Recording. 'This act I have done.' The third is Prophetic. 'Therefore for this act I am responsible'.... The Prohibitory has reference to the Present; the Recording to the Past; the Prophetic to the Future." (ibid., page 81). It is therefore the agent of the covenant of works, setting forth the moral standard, reminding man that he has failed to meet this standard, and declaring that he stands before his Creator in a position of condemnation as a result of that failure. Shakespeare put it thusly: "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues; and every tongue brings in a several tale; and every tale condemns me for a villain."

Through his conscience, the unregenerate man can only know God as his Judge. Inheriting original sin from Adam, and worsening his condition by his own actual sins, the sinner is always running away from God and yet at every turn, God thunders out His judgments through the faculty of his own conscience. Indeed, there is a civil war raging within the unbeliever in which his depraved will urges him to indulge his sinful passions in opposition to the authority of conscience; in fact, the obstinate sinner will spend his whole life trying to silence the voice of his conscience - to suppress the righteousness of God (Romans 1:18) - and in this effort he will only be successful if abandoned by God to his own lusts (Romans 1:28). The traditional Reformed doctrine of common grace enters at this point to teach that all men are not as evil as they could or would be because God inhibits such efforts to render the conscience inactive. Man longs for autonomy, but his own conscience - the ever-present voice of God's moral law - stands as a barrier to that goal and he is thus prevented from giving full vent to his depravity. The utter impossibility of escaping God's presence should lead him to repentance, but, if left to himself, he will instead respond by hating his perceived tormenter. The unregenerate sinner is therefore rendered unable to hear the call of a merciful God as it is declared in the Gospel and unable to trust in Christ for salvation.

The Calvinistic doctrine of "total depravity" is often misunderstood to mean that fallen man is so thoroughly wicked that he cannot do or know any temporal good. Of course, the Bible itself nowhere teaches that the functions of human nature are inoperative or that they are evil in and of themselves; man's problem is that his will has been corrupted by sin and his mind is "enmity against God" (Romans 8:7), but that, under normal circumstances, the conscience remains quite active and it is to this human faculty that the Gospel message is addressed.