Though it is some years since it appeared David A. Weir’s The Origins of The Federal Theology in Sixteenth Century Reformation Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) is still a must read in order to grasp the development of understanding the covenant in the 16th century.
This is what Weir writes in his Introduction about Bullinger:
“Heinrich Bullinger also gave the idea of the covenant a central position in theology. He took Zwingli’s use of the covenant to defend in fact baptism and expanded it into a much broader concept. He sued it for a unified vision of history: history, for Bullinger, is not marked by radical discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments, but by unity and discontinuity. The crucial starting point for Bullinger is the covenant with Abraham. Bullinger points out interesting parallels between the old and New Testaments:
1. God concludes the covenant with Abraham appearing as El Shaddai, God Almighty; when Jesus Christ is incarnated he appears as God Almighty.
2. The covenant with Abraham is directed toward all nations, not just the Jews. When Christ comes, he comes to offer the gospel to all nations, not just to the Jews.
3. A condition is laid upon Abraham: ‘Walk before me and be blameless.’ Jesus Christ fulfils that condition.
4. Circumcision is made the sacrament of the Old Testament, which has its parallel with baptism in the New Testament.
If Abraham and Christ are the two basic loci of history for Bullinger, why was the law given to Moses? Bullinger takes the Mosaic law as a concession to human weakness. The children of Israel had been led astray by the sinfulness of Egypt, and so the Abrahamic covenant to be strengthened with the guide-lines of conduct.
Bullinger makes no reference to a prelapsarian covenant with Adam. Mark Walter Karlberg, in his recent dissertation, tries to show that Bullinger made some sorft of reference to a prelapsarian covenant with Adam in his treatise De testamento Dei unico et aeterno (1534):
‘As far as we can discover, there is only one instance in which he alludes to the covenant prior to the fall, the ‘most ancient of all covenants with Adam,’ which covenant was reestablished by the finger of God upon tables of stone. The context of this reference emphasizes the temporal, pedagogical function of the Mosaic law specifically in regard to the ceremonial law.’
Karlberg is to the following passage in Bullinger’s De testamento:
Primum ergo ipsa prisci foederis capita restituit, sed copiosius exposuit, inque tabulos lapideas proprio digita inscripsit. In his autem nulla adhuc ceremoniarum mentio. Sat enim praescriptum erat fidelibus. Verum dum isti infidels et perfidi esse pergerent, iniectum est humeris miserorum onus ceremoniarum, quo caruere prisci. Atqui in hunc finem atque hoc consilio iniectum ex caussa impellente constat, ne alienis deis instituerent sacra: propria erga instituit, eaque sibi ad tempus correctionis placere pronunciavit quae sine verospiritu et sine vera fide perfecta adeoque sine Christo negligebat, ut vel ista ratione testamentum confirmaret, praetera et Christi mysterium hisce velut typis inuolueret, essentique sacramenta et verba quaedam visibilia.
However, we fail to see the validity of this assertion. There is no mention in the text of the most ancient of all covenants ‘with Adam’, but simple of the most ancient covenant, which would refer to the covenant of grace. If we read this carefully we see that Bullinger is speaking of the ignorance of the Israelites in Egypt, and how God had to teach them anew of the covenant with Abraham. Lillback translates the passage in this manner:
First, therefore, He re-established the very heads of the ancient covenant, but He explained it more fully, and He wrote in tables of stone with His own finger. Moreover, in these things there is no mention thus far of ceremonies. Indeed, it is enough that the written rule was for the faithful. Truly, while they continued to be unbelieiving and unfaithful, the burden of the ceremonies was imposed by the arms of pity, which the ancients never had. Both to this end and by this counsel, He established the imposition out of an urgent cause, that they not institute the worship of a foreign god. Therefore, He established a special thing, and by this he declared Himself to be pleased for the time of correction, which he was passing over without the true Spirit and without the true completed faith and thus without Christ, so that He might establish the testament with that plan (Ps. 98:8-11). Further, by this He might cover the mystery of Christ even as by figures, and there might be certain sacraments and visible words.
J.Wayne Baker, in his extensive study of Bullinger’s doctrine of the covenant, has not found any reference to a prelapsarian covenant.”
A few comments are in order:
1. Weir is merely following Cottrell, baker and others who argue that Bullinger took over where Zwingli left off writing on the covenant. I am of the opinion that it was Bullinger influenced Zwingli on the covenant rather than vice versa.
2. Weir refers to “The crucial starting-point for Bullinger is the covenant with Abraham”. It is true that De Testamento focuses on Genesis 17 but from The Old Faith and The Decades it is clear that the covenant was first made with Adam. Karlberg is seeking to come to terms iwht this but wrongly refers to such a covenant with Adam as a prelapsarian covenant.
3. Weir fails to see a reference to a covenant with Adam in De Testamento. He has gone to the effort of citing the Latin text and Lillback’s translation which is appended to his dissertation. The endnote in Weir refers to Page 515 of Lillback’s dissertation. But had Weir checked page 514 carefully he would have read at the bottom of that page: “Indeed, this which he made with Abraham is not the first of all covenants. Rather, the first is what he made with Adam…..”
I have identified the text that Lillback used for his translation of De Testamento and there is the insertion of several sentences at this point to the text that is used by Baker. I am still hoping to get this published. So far no manuscript has been accepted for publication. De Testamento (in its expanded form) does clearly refer to a covenant with Adam but it was a postlapsarian covenant.
If readers can access Baker’s translation of De Testamento they will find it clearer, I believe, than Lillback’s. The section that Weir cites is where Bullinger explains why the ceremonies were added – ie because of the idolatry in Egypt. So that worship of God by the Israelites in OT times according to the ceremonies was ‘pleasing to God’ though, in reality, God desired to go back to the future. Ie back to the time of the patriarchs (pre the ceremonies) when God’s word was written by the finger of God on the tablets of their hearts. With the coming of Christ this becomes not only a reality but is at a higher level – hence Christ declares “God is spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
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