134. “Progress”: Will there be a “third testament”?
134. “PROGRESS”: WILL THERE BE A “THIRD TESTAMENT”?
If there is such a thing as “progressive revelation”, if God reveals Himself gradually rather than all at once, in accordance with man’s gradual growth and maturity, then does it not follow that in the future He will reveal more than He has in the past, so that there may be a “third testament” beyond the “second testament”, i.e., the New Testament, just as the New Testament (the second) is beyond the Old (the first)? And will not that “third testament” be the revelation of the Holy Spirit, as the Old Testament was the revelation of the Father and the New Testament the revelation of the Son? Why was this idea, as taught by Joachim of Flora in the Middle Ages, condemned by the Church as a heresy?
Objection:. . . just as the Father is distinct from the Son and the Son from the Father, so is the Holy Ghost distinct from the Father and the Son. But there was a state corresponding with the Person of the Father, viz. the state of the Old Law . . . and likewise there is a state corresponding to the Person of the Son, viz. the state of the New Law. . . . Therefore there will be a third state corresponding to the Holy Ghost. . . .
Reply: The Old Law corresponded not only to the Father but also to the Son, because Christ was foreshadowed in the Old Law. Hence Our Lord said (Jn 5:46): If you did believe Moses, you would believe me also, for he wrote of Me. In like manner the New Law corresponds not (only) to Christ but also to the Holy Ghost, according to Romans 8:2: The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, etc. Hence we are not to look forward to another law corresponding to the Holy Ghost.
The state of the world may change in two ways. In one way, according to a change of law; and thus no other state will succeed this state of the New Law. Because the state of the New Law succeeded the state of the Old Law as a more perfect law (succeeds) a less perfect one. Now no state of the present life can be more perfect than the state of the New Law. . . . In another way the state of mankind may change according as man stands in relation to one and the same law more or less perfectly. And thus the state of the Old Law underwent frequent changes, since at times the laws were very well kept and at other times were altogether unheeded. Thus too the state of the New Law is subject to change . . . according as the grace of the Holy Ghost dwells in man more or less perfectly. Nevertheless we are not to look forward to a state wherein man (in general) is to possess the grace of the Holy Ghost more perfectly than he has possessed it hitherto. . . .
As Dionysius says, there is a threefold state of mankind: the first was under the Old Law, the second is that of the New Law, the third will take place not in this life but in Heaven. But as the first state is figurative and imperfect in comparison with the state of the Gospel, so is the present state figurative and imperfect in comparison with the Heavenly state (I-II,106,4).
There are indeed three ages corresponding to the revelation of the three Persons of the Trinity; but in all three ages all three Persons are active. Every word in the Old Testament is in some way about Christ the Word of God. Each word is an atom in His Face. The Spirit was also active from the beginning, for it was He Who inspired all the prophets. And in the New Testament, Christ reveals not just Himself but His Father. He says His teaching is not His own but His Father’s (Jn 7:16), and that He has come into the world only to do the will of His Father, not His own will (Jn 5:30). And it is He Whose prayer to the Father sends the Spirit (Jn 14:16-17). It is the Spirit Who does His work, the work of instilling the very life of Christ—of the whole Trinity—into our souls. It is all one work, for there is only one God.
There is no third law, or third testament because there are only two, the Old and the New, which will be perfected in Heaven. Heaven will do to earth what the New Law did to the Old: not replacement but consummation (Mt 5:17). Really, there is only one covenant, from the beginning. God never abrogates His covenants. Heaven will consummate what the Old Law promised and what the New Law has delivered to us: the real presence of Christ in our souls (—and bodies: Mt 26:26).