The Law and the Covenants— A Study in John Ball
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The Law and the Covenants—
A Study in John Ball
Ball was born in October 1585 at Gassington in Oxfordshire, and educated in Oxford. In 1610 he became minister of the church at Whitmore, Staffordshire, where he died in 1640. He has been called “one of the fathers of Presbyterianism in England.” His greatest work, published posthumously in 1645, was “A Treatise of the Covenant of Grace”; according to Thomas Blake, “his purpose was to speak on this subject of the Covenant, all that he had to say in all the whole body of divinity.” Such a method of arranging all theology under a system of covenants was an anticipation of Cocceius (1603–69) and the Dutch Federal school of Reformed theologians. Bali’s book would probably have been enlarged had he lived; as it is, it is an elaborate and immensely learned volume. This paper summarizes the central aspects of his teaching.
I. The Covenants
“Covenant” in English represents the Hebrew “berith,” rendered in the Septuagint and New Testament by diatheke (a testamentary disposition)—although, as Ball points out, “berith” never meant that in common Old Testament usage. Sometimes these biblical terms stand for an absolute, unconditional promise, sometimes for a promise with a stipulation attached.
Ball reviews the various stages in God’s revelation of His covenants, as Scripture records them. Historically, seven stages may be distinguished: (1) the covenant made with Adam in innocence; (2) the covenant of promise made with Adam upon his fall; (3) the covenant of grace made with Abraham; (4) the covenant of grace under Moses; (5) the covenant made with David; (6) the covenant made with Israel after the Babylonian captivity; (7) the covenant revealed in Christ. Theologically, there is only one major distinction between the covenants: that of works and grace.
(A) The Covenant of Works
This was made with Adam in innocence. By it God “promises all good things, specially eternal happiness, to man on just and favourable conditions, and man promises to walk before God in free and willing obedience.” “The form of this covenant stood in the special promise of good which man might expect justly to receive as a reward for his work.” It was imposed on man by God, and was in one sense a covenant of grace. “God enters into Covenant with man not as his equal but as his Sovereign, and man is bound to accept the conditions offered by his Creator. There is no equality of power and authority between God and the creature of such a kind that the creature may make a bargain with the Most High. The covenant is of God, and as such is an expression of His free grace and love: for although . . . the good is promised in justice for man’s works, yet it is of grace that God is pleased to bind Himself to man . . . and it is far beyond anything that man deserves. Thus, though the reward is given in justice, it is also given in grace.”
(B) The Covenant of Grace
All subsequent stages in God’s dealings with man by covenant are parts of the covenant of grace. It was first announced in the Protevangelium, Genesis 3:15. “The Covenant of Grace entered immediately after the fall, and so may be called a Covenant of reconciliation . . . At the very instant when God was passing judgement on the several delinquents in the fall and pronouncing sentence against the tempter, He brought in the One Who would execute the sentence. In this execution there was unfolded the Covenant of Grace for the salvation of man whom the tempter had destroyed.
“The author of this Covenant was God, considered as a merciful and loving Father in Jesus Christ . . . The cause that moved the Lord to make this Covenant was not any worth or merit in man . . . neither can the cause be found in the misery into which man had brought himself . . . The only cause that moved God to make this Covenant was His love, favour and mercy.
“This Covenant was made with Christ, in and through whom man is reconciled to God: for since God and man were separated by sin; no Covenant could be made between them, no reconciliation could be expected, and no pardon could be obtained, but by means of a Mediator.”
This covenant promises pardon and eternal happiness to sinful man “if he will return from his sin, receive by true faith the mercy held out to him, and walk before God in sincere and willing obedience.” Plainly, “man cannot be under the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace at one and the same time . . . He who is under grace cannot at the same time be under the law; and he who trusts for salvation from free and sovereign mercy cannot expect it from justice as the deserved wages of his good works.”
“In its manner of administration this comprehensive Covenant of Grace reveals great diversity, for it has pleased God to dispense it in different ways but so far as its substance is concerned it is one, final, unchangeable and everlasting.” The epochs of its administration divide broadly into two: those in which it was the Covenant of Promise (from Adam to Christ) and that in which it was fully promulgated as the New Covenant, following on the historical coming of the promised Mediator. The Covenant of Promise “appears in the following stages of development. The first stage is from (1) Adam unto Abraham: the second is from (2) Abraham until the Covenant made with Israel on the Mount, and the third is from (3) Moses to Christ. This last stage must be sub-divided: for the Covenant which God promised to make with Israel and Judah after their deliverance from the North Country was to exceed the former Covenant which He had made with their fathers when He brought them out of Egypt.”
The Sinai covenant marked an advance in the revelation of the covenant of grace. It was “a clearer expression of this free gracious Covenant, extended as it now was to a people who had grown to a large number and who were about to be united in the forms of national life. The Covenant of Grace running down in Abraham’s seed was every day being despised, as in the Ishmaelites, Edomites, Syrians and others. God therefore was pleased to bind the seed of Abraham together more strongly in a state Covenant, that things might grow better and not worse.” Scripture calls the Mosaic dispensation the “old” covenant “not because it was first . . . but because it was to become old, to give place to the more excellent Covenant following, and finally to be abolished.”
Ball argues strongly that the Old Covenant was a form of the covenant of grace. “That the Old Covenant was a Covenant of Grace may be demonstrated by that spiritual union which was brought about by God a little before the promulgation of the Law. It is described in the following words: ‘Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treas-ure unto me above all people . . . ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation’ (Exodus 19:4–6) . . . In the New Testament believers are called ‘a peculiar people’ and ‘a people for peculiar possession.’ This was the privilege of the Israelite which he obtained by this Covenant, and it is often mentioned to the praise of God’s free grace and love towards them. ‘The Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treas-ure.’ This privilege, however, they could never have obtained by the Covenant of Works . . . These are privileges granted in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom believers are adopted, and made kings and priests to God . . . When the Lord gave His Law He began by a reminder of the evangelical promises He had given them and the recent deliverance from Egypt which had served as a type of His saving grace. It can hardly be questioned whether that Covenant in which man is bound to take God to be his Father, King and Saviour is the Covenant of Grace.” Again: “It was of grace that God promised to be the God of Israel; and therefore the Lord, when He keeps the Covenant with Israel, is said to keep the mercy which He swore to their fathers and when He establishes them for a people to Himself, He is said to perform the oath which He swore to their fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.”
Ball points out that all the godly men of Israel understood their covenantal relation to God in this light. “The godly kings and people of Israel, repenting of their transgressions committed against God, many times renewed their Covenant, binding themselves to the Lord to be His people, to walk in God’s law . . . But Jehoshaphat, Josiah, Nehemiah and other godly governors; who were well acquainted with their infirmities . . . would never promise punctual and exact obedience with the hope of deserving eternal life by that means . . . nor would they flatter themselves as though they could stand before the tribunal of God’s justice in their own righteousness, when there was ample proof that no flesh could be justified in His sight. Without question they understood that God of His free grace had promised to be their God, and that of His undeserved and rich mercy He would accept their willing and sincere obedience, even though weak and imperfect in degree. All this, in effect, means that the Covenant which God made with them, and which they renewed, was a Covenant of Grace and is the same for substance as that which is made with the faithful in Christ in the time of the Gospel.”
Therefore the Abrahamic and the Mosaic covenants are for substance identical: for “the promise is the same and the things required are the same. In the former God promises to be God sufficient to Abraham and to bless him with all necessary good for this life and the life to come: in the latter He promises freely and of His own grace and favour to be their God and make them a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to Himself. In the former He requires of Abraham that he shall walk before Him in integrity: in the latter He covenants that they shall obey His voice and keep His commandments. What is it to walk before God, but to keep His law?”
And the New Testament tells us that the law was always intended to subserve the gospel. “ ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness,’ and ‘the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.’ But if it did not point out Christ to men, or presuppose Him as One Who was promised, it could not bring them to Him; He is not the end of the Law if the Law did not direct to Him and require faith in Him.”
Of the covenant made with Israel at the time of the return from exile, Ball says: “When we think of the new blessings that were added by the Lord at this time, (this) Covenant . . . may be called new but so far as the author, matter, form, end, effects and means of administration, teaching and application are concerned, it was one with the former”—and with it to be contrasted with the New Covenant in Christ which superceded it.
The New Covenant, promulgated upon Christ’s coming, is one with its predecessor in substance. “They both flow from the free grace and mercy of God directed towards sinners in Jesus Christ. They are both the same in substance, the requirement of the obedience of faith and the promise of life everlasting. They both have the same object, Jesus Christ, Who, being promised to the fathers in prophetic Scriptures, God has in due time made known under the Gospel. They both have the same general end, namely, the praise of the glorious grace of God in Jesus Christ. Both Covenants are made with . . . sinners . . . who no longer rely on their own law-keeping, but put their trust in Him Who justifies the ungodly. In both, it is the same Spirit who seals the truth of the Covenant to all who are under Covenant.” But the New surpasses the Old in its administration, in the following respects in it, (1) God’s love is more fully manifested; (2) Christ is more openly revealed; (3) the promises are more spiritual; (4) Moses gives place to Christ as Mediator; (5) the blood is more efficacious; (6) the Law is written in the heart; (7) all nations are included in its scope; (8) the gospel is more powerful to secure its ends than ever the Law was; (9) the covenant people enjoy a maturity of relation to God. Grace was the same thing for believers before Christ as after, but its measure was not so rich.
The external administration of the covenant must at every stage be distinguished from the internal, which is not wholly coterminous with it. “Externally, this Covenant is made with every member of the Church, with parents and their children together . . . so many as hear and accept the promises of salvation and dedicate their children to God according to His direction. For what are the sacraments but seals of the covenant? Savingly and effectually, however, this Covenant is made only with those who partake of the benefits promised. According as the Covenant is made either outwardly or inwardly, so some are the people of God outwardly and others are the people of God inwardly and in truth
. . .” The covenant is made, “not only internally with the heirs of promise” (i.e., by spiritual regeneration in effectual calling), but also externally, with all those who profess to receive the promises and dedicate themselves, or are dedicated by their parents, in the outward ceremony of dedication which God has prescribed. “If this Covenant had not been externally administered no unregenerate man could ever have been in the Church or have shared in the ordinances of religion. But by virtue of this Covenant, Cain as well as Abel offered sacrifice to God as a member of the Church.” Similarly, Paul distinguishes Abraham’s seed into the merely natural and that which was spiritual also (Romans 9:7–8). “All who descended from Abraham and all who were born in his house and bought with his money were counted for his seed,” and circumcised accordingly; “thus Ishmael, Esau and others were circumcised, counted Abraham’s seed and under Covenant, until they fell away and put themselves out of covenant . . . The whole nation of Israel . . . was accounted the seed of Abraham until the time of reformation, though many among them were wicked . . . In respect of the external administration of the Covenant they were counted the seed (John 8:37–40): but they did not walk in the steps of the faith of Abraham, and therefore in deed and truth they were not the seed . . . Further . . . the Covenant reaches to all infants born of the seed under the Covenant . . . Your children ‘are holy,’ says the Apostle (1 Corinthians 7:14), they are holy by Covenant, even though by nature they are sinful . . .”
II. The Law
The covenant of works was based on law; its very title is based on the Scripture phrase “law of works.” “We do not find the word Covenant used for the relation between God and man in the time of man’s innocence . . . The phrases Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace are not found in Scripture in so many words. The nearest we come to this distinction is where the law of works is described as opposed to the law of faith (Romans 3:27)”—which phrases, Ball thinks, are virtually equivalent to covenant of works and covenant of grace.
The Mosaic Law was never propounded to man as a covenant of works. “It cannot be proved that God ever made a Covenant of Works with man in his fallen state . . . ” “The . . . Covenant of Works . . . does not allow for repentance of past sin. The Covenant made with the Israelites; however . . . contains the possibility of renewal after transgression and allows for repentance, Deuteronomy 4:30–31. If the Covenant may be renewed after transgression it is clearly of grace.” The Mosaic enactment was the covenant of grace “propounded in a way suitable to the time and purpose for which it was made. It was given . . . first, that it might serve to reveal sin and drive the Israelites to flee to the mercy of God revealed in Jesus; and second, that it might be a rule of life to a people in Covenant . . .” This is the position taken by the Westminster Confession.
Ball understands the opposition between “law” and “grace” in the New Testament (Paul particularly) as follows: “Paul understood the force and meaning of the Law to consist in faith but because the Jews in their addiction to the letter of the Law gave no heed to the force and life of it, he proves that the Law when separated from faith comes to be the cause, not of life, but of death. What he does is to show that such a view and use of the Law not only lacks Christ, Who is the soul of the Law, but is even opposed to Him.” Such “opposition” as existed between law and grace arose from a misuse of the law by the Jews. “The Gospel before Christ’s time was in the Law as the corn is set in the ear”; but “if we think of the Law or Old Testament in the way that the Jews thought of it in the apostles’ day, that is, altogether severed from the New, we find not only that they are two, but that they are two opposites or contraries.” The designed contrast between the Old and New was not, however, this; it was rather that which is expounded in Hebrews 8:7–10. Ball comments on this passage as follows: “What law was it which the Lord here promised to write in the hearts of His people? Was it not the law given before by Moses?
. . . The words of the prophet about the writing of God’s Law in the heart of man can imply nothing but this, that the Law which previously and by the ministry of Moses had been delivered only in ink and paper should by the power of the Holy Ghost through the faith of Christ be written in the affections of the heart: . . . God in Christ would not only administer outwardly the letter of the Law, whether in writing or preaching, but would by the regeneration of the Spirit give grace inwardly so as to accomplish obedience to it . . . The Law is not opposed to the Law: but the writing to the writing. Writing in tables of stone belonged to Moses, or to the Old Testament; writing in the heart to Christ, or the New Covenant.” The contrast between Old and New is one not of content, but of administration.
Ball continues expounding this theme as follows: “The Law is a killing letter, says the apostle . . . but the same Law . . . is (elsewhere) styled a lively word, or lively oracles, that is, such as give life. The words of Paul therefore are . . . to be understood of the Law . . . only as it was separated from Christ and the Gospel. They are spoken in respect of men who rested in the Law and sought to be justified by it: whereas Christ was the end of the Law, which fact the Jews failed to perceive and thus perverted the true sense and scope of the Law . . . The Law considered without Christ wounds, kills and revives sin by means of men’s corruption, but the Law considered in Christ and as it points to Him kills corruption and converts the soul.”
In the epistle to the Galatians the apostle opposes the covenant of grace to the law in many things. For instance, he says that “the Law curses . . . and that it was four hundred and thirty years after the Covenant . . . and so forth. But it is to remembered that in those passages the apostle is disputing against the Jews who trusted in the works of the Law . . . who combined the law with Christ in the matter of justification, as if justification was partly by the works of the Law, an opinion which the apostle everywhere condemns as contrary to the intent and purpose of the Law. The contrariety, then, of the Law to the Covenant of Grace is not in themselves, but in the ignorance, pride and hardness of heart of those who did not understand or who perverted the right end of the Law, as if it were given for justification . . . according to the true meaning of the Law . . . the Law did not nullify the promise in any way, but rather established it.” The law separated from grace is opposed to grace, but the law recognised as subservient to grace is itself grace.
The law, as well as pointing to Christ, has its use for the believer as a rule of life, and he continues under it in this sense, though he is no longer under it as a covenant of works. The stipulation in the covenant of grace is that men “(a) must believe in Him Who justifies the ungodly and (b) must walk before Him in all well-pleasing”; i.e. must take the law as his rule of life. Believing and obeying are organically connected. “Seeing also that it is the property of faith to work by love and to be fruitful in all good works, it is clear that if faith is commanded; obedience is required . . . not as the cause of life, but as the way to life and the fruit of faith . . . To whom God gives the power to believe in Him, to them He gives the power to obey and do all His commandments . . . To what end, we may ask, is remission of sins promised? Is it that man . . . might continue in sin? No, but that he should serve God in holiness and righteousness.” This stipulation was made when the Covenant was revealed to Abraham (Genesis 17:1), and is repeated in the Mosaic covenant. Expounding the nature of the latter, Ball draws the following important distinction. “It is true that the promises rest on a condition of obedience; but conditions are of two sorts, antecedent or consequent. (a) It is an antecedent condition when the condition is the cause of the thing promised or given . . . (b) It is a consequent condition when the condition is annexed to the promise as a qualification of the subject. It was therefore in this latter sense that obedience to the commandments was a condition of the promise. It was not a cause why the thing promised was granted, but a qualification in the subject who was capable of receiving it . . . In this Covenant . . . perfect obedience is commanded”—but “sincere obedience is approved, even though it is imperfect.” The standard of God’s law is never altered or lowered, and all shortcomings are sin; but in the covenant of grace, where works are required, not as a ground of reward but as an evidence of faith, God graciously acknowledges and accepts that which is imperfect, provided it springs from faith and love.
“Sincere,” “evangelical” obedience, though it is only an imperfect obedience, is graciously accepted from those who are in covenant with God. When Old Testament saints “bound themselves by oath to walk in all the Statutes . . . of the Lord they understood this. ‘I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments’ (Psalm 119:106). Did the psalmist think himself able to fulfil the Law in every point? How will that stand with his prayer, ‘Enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified’ (Psalm 143:2)? No, but he knew that the sincere and willing obedience which he promised and would perform would be received by the Divine compassion.” Ball then cites Psalm 26:1; Isaiah 38:3; 2 Kings 23:25; 1 Kings 15:5; 23:43; 15:14; 2 Chronicles 15:12, and comments, “From these passages we cannot prove either that these servants of God fulfilled the Law of God perfectly, or that it is possible for men in this life to do so. Nor can we prove that the Law is given with such moderation, that the imperfections which attached to those . . . servants of God were not sins. What we may quite soundly infer . . . however, is that the Law as it was given to Israel makes allowance for sincere and earnest obedience, even though it is imperfect . . .” “This requirement of obedience (by the Law) must not be so understood as if it meant that if a man in his weakness offended in any one jot or tittle he would be regarded as a covenant breaker . . .”—for the law in the covenant of grace “calls for perfection but accepts sincerity.” In their context as part of the covenant of grace, the words ‘Do this and live’ (Leviticus 18:5; Deuteronomy 4:1; 5:33; 8:1; 16:20; 30:16, 19; Nehemiah 9:29; Proverbs 4:4; 7:2; Ezekiel 20:11, 13, 21; 33:16, 19; Luke 10:28; Romans 10:5; Galatians 3:12) must not be interpreted as if they promise life on a condition of perfect obedience. They must be expounded evangelically . . . describing the kind of person who possesses life eternal, not the cause why life . . . is conferred.” Law is not the way to life as wages, but it is the way of life as a gift. What the law requires is the very thing in which “life” consists. Life is not obtained by law-keeping, but is experienced in law-keeping. The “doing” envisaged by Scripture in these texts is that referred to in Exodus 19:5; Psalm 112:1; 116:3; 119:1–2; James 1:25. “All these passages are to be understood of sincere and upright walking: they show who are justified and to whom the promises of life belong, but not why they are justified. In like manner the apostle’s words “The doers of the law shall be justified” (Romans 2:13) may be expounded evangelically . . . of those who, being such as are already justified by grace by faith and not for their works, soundly obey the law. These works are opposed to faith in the matter of justification, not that faith can be without them, but because they cannot be causes together with faith in justification.”
The good works of “evangelical obedience” flow from faith, and the faith which justifies is that which also brings forth works. Hence Ball argues: “a disposition to good works is necessary to justification, being the qualification of an active and living faith. Good works of all sorts are necessary to the believer’s continuance in the state of justification. . . .” And Ball goes on to lay down an important distinction concerning conditions in the covenant. “If when we speak of the conditions of the Covenant . . . we understand anything that is required on the sinner’s part, as preceding, accompanying or subsequent to justification, then repentance, faith and obedience are all conditions: but if by conditions we understand what is required on man’s part, as the instrumental cause of the good promised, then faith in the promise of free mercy is the only condition.”
The doctrine which Ball elaborates is summed up in the Westminster Confession, 19: “Although true believers be not under the Law as a Covenant of Works, to be thereby justified or condemned; yet it is of great use to them . . . in that, as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly . . . So as a man’s doing good and refraining from evil, because the Law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the Law and not under grace. Neither are the aforementioned uses of the Law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly comply with it.”