Francis Roberts wrote the longest work on covenant theology in the seventeenth century and his thoughts on grace in the covenant of works are interesting.  He argues that God’s entering into the covenant of works with Adam was an “act of divine grace and favour, not of debt” (God’s Covenants, 23).

God could have dealt only in terms of “command”, requiring duty from Adam without a reward.  However, because he condescended to Adam and entered into a covenant with him, it was “meer grace” (Ibid).  Roberts insists that Adam could not merit any reward.  In fact, even if Adam had rendered perfect obedience he would still have “been an unprofitable servant, having done nothing but what was duty” (Ibid).  On account of Creation, Adam owed God obedience.  On account of God instituting a covenant at creation, Adam had to be “double dutiful” (Ibid).  In fact, Roberts suggests that if God’s dealings with Adam in the covenant of works was an “Act of Divine Grace”, then God’s covenant of grace was an act of “superabounding and transcendent grace” (Ibid).

What is interesting is that Thomas Goodwin takes a rather different approach than Roberts, which is yet more evidence of the diversity among theologians in the Reformed tradition.  Sure, the covenant of works became firmly entrenched in our confessional tradition, but the details of the covenant of works have never been fully agreed upon.

Goodwin calls the estate into which man was born the estate of pure nature by “creation law”.  He recognizes that “our divines” rightly call it the Foedus Naturae, the Covenant of Nature (Goodwin also uses the term “covenant of works”).  This covenant is “founded upon an equitable intercourse set up between God the Creator, and his intelligent unfallen creatures, by virtue of the Law.”  We, as creatures, are therefore bound to deal with God according to that bond and obligation which is a result of the imago Dei.

Interestingly, Goodwin prefers, instead of “the covenant of works/nature”, the term “The Creation Law, Jus Creationis“.  In other words, “of what was equitable between God, considered merely as Creator, on one part; and his intelligent Creatures that were endued with understanding and will, on the other, simply considered as such creatures.”  This “law” between the Creator and creatures “lay in an equitable transaction between God and them, a congruity, dueness, meetness, on either part.”

Since God is Creator it became him to do for his creatures what was worthy of the Creator-creature relationship.  He was under no obligation to exceed what his position required as a Creator.  He gave all that was due for his creatures to attain their end of happiness because, as Creator, “his will regulated itself by what was meet for their (the creatures) Natures, as such, to receive from him, and for him as a Creator to give.”

During the pre-Fall administration, God bestowed “such faculties and powers, as the creature itself could any way judge requisite to his performing the work of a creature of an intelligent Nature.”   Specifically, then, when God created Adam and Eve, it became him to endow them with his own image of holiness “whereby they might be able to know, to love, and to enjoy a Communion with him … as their chiefest good.” Moreover, on God’s part, as a Creator, he was bound to continue his favor and goodness to Adam and Eve if they would remain in their estate of holiness.

Hence, the promise, “if you do these things, you will live”, was their life on account of “creation dues” and “an equity by creation law”. (All quotes from “Of the Creatures, and their Condition”, Works, 1691-1704, vol. II:20-21.)

Goodwin continues by asserting that though God bound himself to certain “dues” to his creatures, by virtue of his being, he was not obliged to preserve his creature in their state of innocence.  Importantly, Goodwin argues that we must not lay upon God any blame for the Fall (James 1:13-14). God stands free; it is “not upon prerogative, but Equity, that he is a Debtor unto Man.”  God was at perfect liberty to give or not to give what he had not compacted for.

Of course, Goodwin argued in this same work that Adam’s reward could not have been heavenly life; only Christ could merit such blessings.

Finally, regarding grace in the covenant of works, Thomas Boston says that “it was certainly an act of grace, favour, and admirable condescension in God, to enter into a covenant, and such a covenant, with his own creature.” For Boston, man was still bound to obey, perfectly, before the covenant “in virtue of his natural dependence on God.” Man could not have “required eternal life as a reward of his work” before the covenant. The entering into the covenant was itself an act of grace.  However, once the covenant had been instituted, man “may crave the reward on the ground of the covenant.” (T. Boston, The Complete Works of the Late  Rev. Thomas Boston, 12 Vols. (1853; repr., Wheaton, IL: Richard Owen Roberts, Publishers, 1980), VIII:18-19).

The Scot, Hugh Binning, describes grace in the covenant of works in the following way:

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 (Common Principles of Christian Relg., lec. 6).

There are, of course, a number of issues that need to be discussed in relation to what has been said.  There are important reasons, both theological and exegetical, why the majority of Reformed theologians have spoken of grace in the covenant of works; and, as you well know, there are reasons why a small minority (very, very small) have resisted the language of grace in the Adamic administration.

So, you see, there are some real points of disagreement on this issue, and I haven’t even touched on Adam’s reward, which was either continued life in Eden or the reward of heaven.  Important Christological issues are connected with this issue!