The Covenant of Redemption
Origins, Development, and Reception
by John Fesko
Hardback (Published)
(December 2015)
ISBN: 9783525550984
Price: $127.00
On back order
The covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), the eternal intra-trinitarian covenant, was a common staple within Early Modern Reformed theology, yet there are very few historical works that examine this doctrine. This volume seeks to address this lacuna.
The covenant of redemption (pactum salutis), the eternal intra-trinitarian covenant, was a common staple within Early Modern Reformed theology, yet there are very few historical works that examine this doctrine. J. V. Fesko’s study, The Covenant of Redemption: Origins, Development, and Reception, seeks to address this lacuna.In the contemporary period the covenant of redemption has been derided as speculative, mythological, a declension from trinitarianism, or erroneously derived from one or two biblical proof-texts. Yet seldom have critics carefully engaged the primary sources to examine the different formulations, supporting exegesis, and ways in which the doctrine was employed.Far from speculation, sub-trinitarian, or a cold business transaction, proponents of the covenant of redemption constructed this doctrine based upon a web of interconnected biblical texts and were very sensitive to maintaining a robust doctrine of the trinity, as they employed this doctrine as a bulwark against the anti-trinitarian claims of Socinian theologians. Proponents of the doctrine also saw this pre-temporal covenant as the embodiment of intra-trinitarian love that overflows unto those chosen in Christ for their salvation and ultimate fellowship with the triune God.John V. Fesko explores the historical origins of the doctrine and then surveys its development in the seventeenth- through nineteenth-centuries, examining key advocates of the doctrine including, David Dickson, Herman Witsius, Johannes Cocceius, Francis Turretin, Patrick Gillespie, John Gill, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Hodge, and A. A. Hodge. He then examines the contemporary reception of the doctrine in the twentieth century with a survey of the doctrine’s critics, including Karl Barth, Herman Hoeksema, Klaas Schilder, and John Murray. After exploring the claims of the critics, the study moves to examine the views of twentieth-century proponents, including Geerhardus Vos, Herman Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper, Louis Berkhof, and G. C. Berkouwer.
- By (author) John Fesko
"In light of the present revival of Protestant scholasticism, Fesko paves a clear path to furnishing historians and theologians with needed resources to evaluate and to recover the significant place of the covenant of redemption in Reformed theology." --Ryan M. McGraw, Calvin Theological Journal Vol. 51 No. 2 (November 2016)
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Other Titles in this Series
The Promise of the Trinity
The Covenant of Redemption in the Theologies of Witsius, Owen, Dickson, Goodwin, and Cocceius
Volume 48
Christ and the Covenant
Francis Turretin's Federal Theology as a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace
Volume 1
Calvinus Pastor Ecclesiae
Papers of the Eleventh International Congress on Calvin Research
Volume 39
Reprobation: from Augustine to the Synod of Dort
The Historical Development of the Reformed Doctrine of Reprobation
Volume 63
Reformed Evangelicalism and the Search for a Usable Past
The Historiography of Arnold Dallimore, Pastor-Historian
Volume 61
Calvinus sacrarum literarum interpres
Papers of the International Congress on Calvin Research
Volume 5
Christ and the Old Covenant
Francis Turretin (1623-1687) on Christ's Suretyship under the Old Testament
Volume 51
Histories that Mansoul and Her Wars Anatomize
The Drama of Redemption in John Bunyan's Holy War
Volume 15
Reformed Covenantal Eudaimonism
Wilhelmus à Brakel (1635–1711) on Highest Good, Virtue, and Law
Volume 87
John Edwards (1637-1716) on Human Free Choice and Divine Necessity
The Debate on the Relation between Divine Necessity and Human Freedom in Late Seventeenth-Century and Early Eighteenth-Century England
Volume 22
Learning to Pray
The Heidelberg Catechism's Teaching on Prayer in its Sixteenth-Century Context
Volume 82
Reforming Good Works in Geneva
Bénédict Pictet’s Doctrine of Good Works and His Place in Late Reformed Orthodoxy
Volume 85
Johannes Cocceius and the Exegetical Roots of Federal Theology
Reformation Developments in the Interpretation of Hebrews 7-10
Volume 7
A Knot Worth Unloosing
The Interpretation of the New Heavens and Earth in Seventeenth-Century England
Volume 53
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