Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 2 


We must therefore grant that two distinct covenants are described, rather than a mere twofold administration of the same covenant. We must do so, provided always that the way of reconciliation and salvation was the same under both. (For no reconcili- ation with God could be obtained by virtue of the old covenant, as our apostle contends at length, and thus all true believers were justifi ed and saved by virtue of God’s promise of a Saviour, even while they were under the old covenant.) The old covenant was a distinct


covenant, and not a mere administra- tion of the covenant of grace, for the following reasons:— This old covenant was never in- tended to be of itself the rule of life and salvation, but was designed to achieve specifi c ends. The old covenant revived and de-


clared all the commands of the Eden covenant in the Decalogue, for this is nothing other than a divine sum- mary of the law which was written in the heart of man at his creation. But because no one could comply with its demands it was called the ‘min- istration of death’, causing fear and bondage (2 Corinthi- ans 3.7). The law revived


the sanction of the fi rst covenant, with the curse or sentence of death, which it pro- nounced against all transgressors. Death was the penalty of the transgression


page 34 John Owen on the Covenants


of the fi rst covenant – this sentence was revived and represented afresh in the curse with which this covenant was ratifi ed, ‘Cursed be he that con- fi rmeth not all the words of this law to do them.’ The law revived the hopeless prom- ise of the Eden covenant – that of eternal life upon perfect obedience. So the apostle tells us that Moses describes the righteousness of the law thus, ‘That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.’ This was nothing less than a revival of the covenant of works. Furthermore, this covenant of Sinai had no gracious promise of eternal life joined to it. In short, the covenant made on Sinai declared the impossibility of obtaining reconciliation and peace with God any other way but by the promise of grace made previously to Abraham. In representing the com- mands of the covenant of works, requiring perfect, sinless obedience, and threatening the penalty of the curse, it was designed to convince men that this was no way for them to seek life and salvation. And so it


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