Sunday, May 22, 2011

Gulley on Bullinger on the Covenant

Those interested in the influence of Bullinger and Zwingli on the English Church are aware of the work of Frank Gulley Jnr. Gulley’s Vanderbilt dissertation of 1961 is entitled “The Influence of Heinrich Bullinger and the Tigurine Tradition upon the English Church in the sixteenth Century.” What is less well known are the helpful insights that Gulley makes about understanding Bullinger’s thought.

Since Gulley’s work may be not so easily accessible I will append some of his comments about Bullinger and the covenant:

“Emanujel Graf von Korff, some fifty years ago, expressed the judgment that Heinrich Bullinger was the first covenant theologian. He recognized that the theme of the covenantal relationship between God and man was to be found in Zwingli’s writings, but correctly concluded that at no time was it the fundamental doctrine (Ausgangspunkt) of his theology. With Bullinger however, he saw this concept as the controlling principle of his theology, and for this reason, he concluded that Bullinger could legitimately be called a covenant theologian. In more recent years, Peter Walser has taken issue with this thesis. He maintains that, since Bulinger was a biblical theologian, his theology naturally reflects the non-systematic character of the Bible itself. This does not deny the importance of the covenant in his theology, however. He admits that the concept of the covenant is the means (Sammelpunkt) by which Bullinger displays his theology.

Therefore there is great question whether the term covenant theologian can appropriately be applied to Bullinger. Certainly it must be admitted that Bullinger was not a covenant theologian in the same sense that the term is customarily applied to men in the Puritan tradition of the seventeenth century covenant theologians did. In this sense we must agree that Bullinger was not a covenant theologian. On the other hand it must be affirmed that the Covenantal relationship figured prominently in Bullinger’s thinking. For our purposes it shall be sufficient to discuss Bullinger’s theology in terms of the Covenantal relationship. Insofar as it is possible to determine any fundamental structure to Hooper’s theology, it is that of the covenantal relationship between God and man……

In the beginning God created man in a state of righteousness. That is Adam was created ‘good, most pure, most holy, most just, and immortal, and adorned … with every excellent gift and faculty, so that there was nothing wanting to him in God, which was available to perfect felicity.’ Thus Adam was created with a free will, which enable him to choose between good and evil. In order that he might exercise his freedom intelligently God him a law commanding him not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Stated in the affirmative, the law required obedience and faith in God. Adam, through his free will, chose to eat of the fruit thus refusing obedience to God and showing lack of faith. Thus he incurred the just damnation of God. At this point Bullinger insisted that we must understand that Adam’s fall was the result of his own free will and not the working out of an eternal decree. He did not wish to give occasion for the charge that God is the author of sin and evil.

God, however, was not willing that Adam should remain in disfavor, and so he devised the means by which the broken relationship could be mended and Adam could be brought once again into divine favor. God’s answer was the covenant. Bullinger chose this medium because it was a procedure already familiar to man. Men, as individuals and as nations, in order to lvie safely and in peace with one another, bind themselves together in pacts, treaties, and covenants. By this procedure all parties concerned are able to know ‘what they be that make the confederacy, upon what conditions, and how far the covenant shall extend. Because of the precise character of this arrangement, God chose it as the means by which he would heal the breech.

Since God was the party wronged, it was he who offered the covenant and fixed the conditions. God, on his behalf, offered to bestow his grace and favor upon man through the gift of his only son, Jesus Christ. It was ‘the living, eternal, and omnipotent God, … the chief maker, preserver, and the god of all things’ who condescended to man, pledging,’I will be thy God, they fullness and sufficiency.’ Bullinger is quick to point out that God’s condescension to man does not indicate any lack or need on God’s part. On the contrary, God is ‘very fullness and sufficiency itself.’ The nature of God’s promise is the gift of his Son as satisfaction for the sin of man and as guarantor of God’s grace and favor. Though Christ’s coming was to be many centuries in the future, his coming at whatever time stands as valid guarantee of God’s favor beginning with the fall and lasting forever. Thus the terms of the covenant are valid eternally.

The other participant in the covenant was Adam – father of the human race through whose seed all men are infected with sin and by whose command to the covenant we are made heirs of the covenantal promises.Man’s responsibility is to ‘walk before God and be upright.’ In more precise terms, man must practice ‘faith and due obedience’ unto God. In later times God found it necessary to renew the covenant with Noah, Abraham, and Moses. With the latter the terms of the covenant were spelled out in greater detail. ‘The conditions of the league (covenant) were at large written in the two tables (the tables of Moses) and many ceremonies added thereunto.’ Thus we see an embellishment of the original requirements laid upon Adam. However, Bullinger insists that ‘in the substantial and chiefest points, ye find nothing altered or changed’ from the original covenant. Thus from the time of Moses onward, it was obedience to God’s will as found in the law which is specifically the commitment of man in the covenantal relationship. But the terms of the covenant are binding from the Fall to the present, obligating all generations in the past, present, and future. Thus there is only one covenant binding men of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The terms and obligations for both are identical…..

Since obedience to the law is obligatory for Jew and Christian, Bullinger wrote exclusively of its proper interpretation. In the first place, he insists that the faithful, from Adam until the time of Christ, knew that the observance of the bare letter of the law was impossible, indeed it was designed to drive man to despair. But this was and is not its sole purpose. It was also an instrument of revelation. Finding ourselves unable to fulfill the will of God through our own strength, the law ‘leads us directly by faith to Christ.’ This it does by preaching ‘the true doctrine of justification, teaching plainly that we are justified by faith in Christ, and not by the merits of our own works.’ All of this, Bullinger insists, the faithful people of the Old Testament understood, and therefore they ‘did not seek for righteousness and salvation in the works of the law, but in him which is the perfectness and end of the law, even Christ Jesus.’

In a similar way the ‘ancient saints,’ that is, the faithful, the elect of God (not all men) were able to discern through the eyes of faith the ‘prefigurement’ of Christ in the law and in all the ceremonies. They understood, for example, that the numerous ceremonies, which expressed Jewish worship, were not to be understood literally and that the ceremonies in and of themselves were not pleasing to God. Instead, these ceremonies had the function of directing the minds and faith of God’s people ‘upon the Messiah to come who was prefigured in all the ceremonies and ordinances of the law.’ It must be admitted that there were many who failed to understand the ‘true’ meaning of the law and the ceremonies. Certainly there were those who ‘did abuse the law, who thought that they were acceptable to God, and that they served him as they should because they were busy in those ceremonial works.’ Thus these men lived under external shadows and outward figures.

The two most important of the ceremonies instituted by God were circumcision and the feast of the Passover. Bullinger describes these as ‘signs and seals’ designed to confirm the covenant between God and man. Circumcision had the added importance of being ‘a testimony and a seal of free justification in Christ, who cicumciseth us spiritually without hands by the working of the Holy Ghost.’ It is most important to notice that in Abraham’s case, and therefore for all mankind, the outward act of circumcision was a sign that God had justified man through grace ‘before his circumcision.’ Thus the act itself was an outward confirmation of God’s inner activity; man’s justification is not thereby ultimately dependent upon the act itself.

Bullinger understood Passover to be the second sign or seal which God selected for confirming the covenant between God and man. To the faithful participant in the ceremony, it had a past dimension: ‘to keep in memory the benefit which God did for them in the lad of Egypt.’ In this sense the observance of the Passover ‘did, after a sort, make a sermon to their eyes and other senses.’ To that same participant there was a present dimension: A testimony of God’s good will toward all that remained faithful and a means whereby the faithful are gathered together into the fellowship of one body and are reminded to be thankful and righteous. And finally there was a future dimension to the Passover: A witness to ‘what Christ should be, what he should do for the world, by what means the faithful should be partakers with him, and how … (the faithful) should behave before him.’

In the fullness of time the Son of God became incarnate as God’s chosen means of securing the promise to Adam in the covenant and of rendering satisfaction to his offended justice. The validity of the covenant depended upon one with sufficient power and authority to guarantee it. Natural man could not do this. Hence and incarnation was necessary. Christ stands as the promised Messiah and guarantor of the covenant. He has the legitimate claim to these titles because he was able to appease the offended justice of God through his sacrificial death upon a cross. Thereby God’s promise of communion and fellowship with those who believe was made possible. It was then incumbent upon man to accept this fellowship through repentance and faith.

The community of the faithful, since the death of Christ, is known by the term ‘Church.’ But the Church is in no way different from the community before the incarnation. Both terms are designations of the same community. The community of God’s faithful exists from the beginning until the end of the world. Like the synagogue, the Church militant, ie the Church as an institution in society, is composed of those who are truly faithful to Christ – ‘lively members, knit unto Christ, not with bands and other outward marks and signs, but in spirit and faith’ – and those who ‘believe not truly or unfeignedly.’ But it is only those who are truly faithful that are the elect of Christ and thus are justified. While the exact constituency of this group is known to God alone, any man can know that he is a member of it, if he has faith. By faith, which is trust in God’s promises, man receives the imputation of Christ’s righteousness unto him and thus becomes a Son of God. Man receives faith not because of any effort on his own but through the unmerited action of the Holy Spirit. Thus man is no longer bound to obey the law in its absolute demands, but to have have faith in Christ who is the fulfillment of the law.

Following the atonement, the Church was given two new signs or seals of God’s promise fulfilled in the Covenant: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. These symbols function for the post-resurrection Church just as circumcision and the feast of the Passover did for the Church before Christ: to recall to man’s mind God’s gracious act toward him in Christ and to admonish him of his duty of faith and obedience. Thus the goals of the sacraments is that of a witness, a testimonial, sign and seal. Man’s ultimate salvation, is not bound up in them. However, the Christian man will make use of them because they have been commanded by Christ. Apart from these ceremonial activities, the Christian Church is freed from the ceremonial obligations of the Jews.”

This is quite a helpful and accurate analysis of Bullinger on the covenant, though it is based entirely on The Decades. Allow me to make the following observations/comments:

1. Gulley is on the money when he states that Bullinger is, first and foremost, a biblical theologian – ie he is concerned for the means of the canon as a whole. The theme of the covenant is Sammelpunkt. The reference to Walser is: Peter Walser, Die Prädestination bei Heinrich Bullinger (Zurich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1957), pp244.

2. The covenant was the means by which the broken relationship between God and man could be restored. God condescended to use “a procedure already familiar to man’. At this point, with Archilla, we would emphasize God’s accommodation in initiating the covenant.

3. “The terms of the covenant are valid eternally.” However, Gulley does not enlarge on this. Though he does refer to the fact that man’s responsibility is to “walk before God and be upright” and this means to practice “faith and obedience” to God.

4. Although he does not underline it, Gulley clearly sees the covenant as being initiated with Adam and then renewed with Noah, Abraham and Moses. It is one covenant “in the substantial and chiefest points, ye find nothing altered or changed.”

5. Gulley rightly concluded that, for Bullinger, the law was not the means of salvation In Old Testament times. It was desinged to point out man’s inability, it was an instrument of revelation and “leads us directly by faith to Christ.” Not Gulley’s observation that “the faithful people of the Old Testament understood, and therefore they ‘did not seek for righteousness and salvation in the works of the law, but in him which is the perfectness and end of the law, even Christ Jesus.’”

6. With respect to circumcision as sign or seal of the covenant, Gulley point out that Christ ‘circumciseth us spiritually without hands by the working of the Holy Spirit.’ Indeed, with respect to the circumcision of Abraham, it was an ‘outward confirmation of God’s inner activity; man’s justification is not thereby ultimately dependent upon the act itself.’

7. Gulley concludes: “Adam’s fall was the result of his own free will and not the working out of an eternal decree. He did not wish to give occasion for the charge that God is the author of sin and evil”. See the earlier posts on this blog on Venema on Bullinger and predestination.

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