Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV: CONCERNING THE TIME OF THE MANIFESTATION OF THE GOSPEL
§ 34. But because the Gospel was preached not only in the New Testament by the Son of God manifested in the flesh, by John the Baptist, and by the apostles but also in the Old Testament through the same Son of God not yet incarnate and by the patriarchs and prophets, the time at which the Gospel began to be revealed is easily deduced, namely, immediately after the fall. For after the first man was deceived by Satan’s frauds and was influenced by his own cupidity, and after he transgressed the command of his Creator and had become entangled in the web of eternal death, then from the arcane throne of His majesty the Son of God brought forth the statement of the Gospel about the woman’s Seed which would bruise the serpent’s head [Gen. 3:15]. From this spring, so to speak, flow forth all the sermons of grace which are repeated in the discourses and writings of the prophets and apostles and all the promises of the benefits of Christ, which are nothing else than more detailed explanations and statements of that first Gospel message.
** The Photinians claim that in the Old Testament God neither revealed nor promised eternal life but reserved this revelation and promise to be taught through Christ only to people in the New Testament (Catech. Racov., p. 231; Schmaltzius, Contra Frantz., p. 220). Against this, note: (1) As our first parents kept the primeval Law about the forbidden tree [Gen. 2:16–17], eternal life was revealed and promised in that very command. For since the opposite of eternal life—that is, eternal death—was declared to them when they violated that command, it cannot be denied that the Law promised eternal life to those who kept it, unless one may wish to deny that we can conclude a command to speak the truth from a prohibition about not giving false witness. (2) The First Gospel [protevangelium] about the woman’s Seed that would bruise the serpent’s head [Gen. 3:15] contains a promise of eternal life because the chief part of the serpent’s head was eternal death. Therefore where the eternal destruction of death is promised, there people are told to hope for the benefit of eternal life. (3) From these beginnings came the consolations of the prophets about the Messiah. “He will destroy death forever” (Isa. 25:8). “O death, I shall be your death” (Hosea 13:14), etc. (4) Christ sent the Jews back to the reading of Scripture and testifies: “You have eternal life in them” (John 5:39). How could He have sent them back to the testimonies of the ancient Scripture to receive eternal life if they had nothing about the eternal life promised in Christ? (5) Paul testifies before Felix: “I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law or written in the Prophets, having a hope in God which these themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust” (Acts 24:14–15). Therefore even though Jews remain the enemies of Christians, they await the resurrection promised in the Law and the Prophets. (6) Ezek. 18:9 expressly promises life—namely, eternal life—to the devout because temporal death is common to all. They reply: “The Israelites hoped for eternal life, though it was never promised to them.” We respond. How could they have hoped if they had not believed? How could they have believed something of which they had not heard? How they could have heard if He had not been preached to them? How could some have preached to them had it not been sent by God to be preached (Rom. 10[:14–15])? **
There is someone who claimed that the Gospel existed even before the fall in the state of innocence; he used two arguments especially: (1) Clearly the same Gospel of the grace of God was there, but it was still hidden and had not yet been revealed. (2) The first people around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had been about to hear all the joyful things about the kindness of God, the joys of Paradise, and life. Indeed, these things are correctly spoken, yet a distinction must be made between the decree of the Gospel and its manifestation. The decree is indeed eternal and was made before the foundations of the world had been set, but the manifestation occurred only after the fall. It should also be observed that the Gospel must be defined not only in general terms as good news, but the specific distinctions must be added also: that the Gospel is the good news of Christ, the Mediator, who died for our sins, through and because of whom the remission of sins comes to those who believe. From this it can be readily understood whether one should say that the Gospel, properly and specifically speaking, had been published even beforehand in the state of innocence.