Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction, by Harrison Perkins. Lexham, 2024, xxvii + 491 pages, $44.99.

General Traits of Perkins’s Presentation

Patient and energetic readers of Reformed Covenant Theology will be rewarded for both their patience and their effort. I almost sensed that I had returned for a crash course that covered three years in seminary. This almost-500-page book would likely have been nearly twice the length had anyone else written it. However, this is not to say the book is easy; it will richly reward those who give it the effort and time it deserves, but the casual reader should probably just watch television and leave this gem for others. The book is well-titled, because it is devoted to the distinctively “Reformed” covenant theology, while also frequently demonstrating the roots of the same in the early church, in Irenaeus and Augustine (et al.). Perkins has a thorough working relationship with important theologians and, perhaps especially, with the historic Reformed confessional literature, which he cites pertinently and judiciously throughout the volume. The ease with which he transitions from discussing Scripture passages, theologians, or confessional literature is so seamless that some readers may not even realize that he is doing it.

The volume is very strong in interacting with alternative views, both within Reformed covenant theology and without. Perkins appears equally comfortable with the early church (Irenaeus and Augustine), the medieval church (Anselm and Aquinas), the Reformational theologians (Calvin, Witsius, Turretin, Perkins, Bavinck, and Vos), and living contemporaries. The coverage is remarkably thorough and engaging, and the critical reasoning is acute. The book is full of rich biblical theology and precise exegesis, as Perkins explains important New Testament texts in light of the Old Testament texts they develop.

Pastoral application and illustration through the entire book will make the book more accessible than it might have otherwise been. Even so, this work is not for those unable or unwilling to exert significant intellectual effort.

Perkins functions within a classic tri-covenantal approach to covenant theology and even locates his section on the covenant of redemption (about which Westminster was silent, though not ignorant) between the parts on The Covenant of Works and The Covenant of Grace. This section (his “Part Two: The Covenant of Redemption”) is remarkably and refreshingly Trinitarian and gives due justice to the Holy Spirit’s role in the matter:

More specifically, three triads of A’s structure the particular functions that the Father, Son, and Spirit fulfill to bring about the elect’s redemption: (1) the Father arranges redemption by appointing the Son as mediator and assigning the elect to him; (2) the Son accomplishes redemption by accepting his Father’s will and attaining righteousness for the elect; and (3) the Spirit applies redemption by accompanying the Son in his earthly mission and administering Christ’s benefits to his elect. (132, emphases his)

Perkins here astutely positions his discussion of the covenant of redemption between the covenants of works and grace, respectively, so that he can observe that the covenant of redemption is a covenant of works for Christ and a covenant of grace for us. His discussion of the covenant of redemption is not only lengthier than some discussions, but it is also profoundly trinitarian and includes all three persons of the Godhead, especially in Chapter VI, “The Father, Son, and Spirit in the Fulfillment of Salvation.”

Through the whole book Perkins emphasizes that creation itself was oriented to our future blessedness, though such could only be attained through a federal head, a point that distinguishes Reformed covenant theology from Lutheran covenant theology:

God created us to be oriented by nature toward our supernatural end in the world to come. Had Adam completed his task in the covenant of works, he would have victoriously entered the new creation. Since Adam failed, Christ brings his people into that eschatological communion. . . . The legal character of the covenant of works again reminds us of God’s immense love and kindness for Adam and the whole human race. God not only gave Adam the gift of existing in the divine image but also offered him the potential to intensify the communion that he had with God by covenant. (63, 74–5)

Chapter VII (“The Last Adam and His People”) affirms all the important tenets of federal theology in the two-Adam framework. Perkins here prefers “satisfaction” to “atonement,” because it is the preferred language of our standards (“satisfaction” language appears fifteen times in the Westminster standards; “atoning” language not once), and because it emphasizes what is often called “active” and “passive” obedience by using the two-fold debt of both obedience (called by early Reformed theologians “principal debt”) and not disobeying (called by early Reformed theologians “a penalty debt”). Christ paid both, via his active and passive obedience. This distinction highlights that Christ’s work as the second Adam was as much about his covenant-fulfilling obedience as it was about his curse-bearing death. . . . These debts are far from impersonal, despite their association with financial transactions, but are fundamentally relational. We were meant to express our full love for God in our creaturely and covenantal relationship with him by fully keeping his law (John 14:15; 15:14) but defaulted on our relational debts. We failed to satisfy those payments of relational love which we should have happily and joyfully rendered to God for his goodness in making us and in further offering us even greater blessings simply for doing what we were supposed to do. (175)

Throughout, Perkins appears to adopt and embrace the language of the 2016 Orthodox Presbyterian Church study report,[1] which attempted to resolve a half-century of debates about relating the Abrahamic to the Sinai covenant: “The covenant of grace is one in substance but diversely administered” (353). This permits Perkins to display the unity of the covenant of grace while freeing him to notice how profoundly diversely the one covenant of grace is administered:

God’s promises to Abraham and to David were the reason for all of God’s mercies concerning heavenly and earthly blessings—but that the Mosaic covenant provided the rationale for their judgment. This underemphasized development within the Old Testament narrative clarifies the Mosaic covenant as resembling the covenant of works for the nation.

Although God’s promise appears unconditional for David, its fulfillment seems conditional for his heirs. (357)

Perhaps this sort of language, and the OPC committee’s distinguishing of substance and administration, becomes the language we will use in the future. Note that Section II of the first chapter of that study paper was entitled “Covenant of Grace: Substance and Administration,” and the first sentence in that section began,

When it comes to the covenant of grace, John Ball’s famous statement summarizes the overall principle well: “For manner of administration this covenant is divers, as it pleased God in sundry manners to dispense it: but for substance, it is one, the last, unchangeable and everlasting.”

Note also Perkins’s irenic comment: “Still, these matters of interpreting Mosaic typology are very specific and even niche, rendering overly vitriolic disagreement about parsing these delicate issues inappropriate when our varying interpretations fall within the confessional boundaries” (351).

Affirming the unity of the covenant of grace appears to free Perkins to appreciate, and feel the full weight of, the diversity of administration within that one substance. He affirms throughout that the Abrahamic and Davidic administrations are much more promissory and that the Mosaic administration of the one covenant of grace is much more legal:

Every time God mentions his covenant with David, he appealed to it to explain why he was delaying judgment or doing good to his people. . . . Alternatively, biblical authors appealed to the Mosaic covenant always to explain judgment. In stark contrast to the Davidic covenant, God never mentioned Moses as the reason for withholding punishment. . . . The appeals to the various covenants throughout the ongoing biblical narrative confirm that God’s promises to Abraham and David were continual reasons for hope, but the Mosaic administration required obedience to maintain the people’s earthly blessing. In every era, the people were saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, but each administration contributed its own set of types or promises that applied Christ and his work before he came. Those administrations, however, cannot be mixed as if they all perform the same exact function since Scripture appeals to them for different purposes as they drive history toward Christ. (359–62, emphasis his)

Unsurprisingly, then, Perkins states, “The new covenant as an administration of the covenant of grace radically differs from, specifically, the Mosaic administration” (369, emphasis mine).

“A Covenantal Ethic” (sub-section of XVI, The Shape of Covenantal Life with God) interested me, because I have pursued (and taught about) a biblical theology of ethics for years and this April published a book that summarizes my results: Choose Better: Five Biblical Models of Ethics.[2] Perkins’s discussion was particularly encouraging to me, because he attempts there to augment the “divine command theory” (ethics based on God’s revealed Word) with prayer: “prayer should be the chief factor of our Christian life” (417), and a kind of virtue ethics: “virtue ethics suggests that the image of God entails that we are made for certain ends, namely, to reflect the holy God’s good character” (421). He also says, “The commandments are not exhaustive legislation but encapsulate wisdom principles to be further applied” (426). In Choose Better I refer to a “law model,” a “communion model,” a “wisdom model,” and an “imitation model” to convey similar thought.

Perkins’s book is aptly titled Reformed Covenant Theology, because it follows and explicates the mainstream of historical Reformed discussions of covenant theology. My rare difference is merely where I have the same difference with the Westminster standards themselves: both Perkins and Westminster drive “law” back into the garden, whereas Paul used (unqualified) νόμος (nomos) to designate a reality that was not only post-Eden, but also post-Abraham. Paul said, “Sin was in the world before the law” (Rom. 5:13), and he located “law” 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant (Gal. 3:17). “Law,” for Paul, was not a universal and timeless reality; it was a particular and temporary reality. If our standards (and Perkins) referred to “God’s will,” “God’s moral purpose/s,” “a probation,” or other such expressions, they could probably affirm what they wish (i.e., the covenant of works, which was itself an aspect of the covenant of redemption) without using a Pauline term in an unPauline way. For Paul, “the giving of the law” was one of Israel’s several distinctive realities (“They are Israelites, and to them belong . . . the giving of the law,” Rom. 9:4–5); and even Moses wrote sixty-two chapters (all of Genesis and the first twelve of Exodus) before he ever mentioned torah. Paul followed Moses and Jesus in regarding “law” as distinctly Mosaic. Jesus asked, “Did not Moses [not Adam nor Abraham nor God] give you the law?” (John 7:19, NKJV). The apostle John said, “The law was given through Moses” (John 1:17, NKJV). For those who do not have my scruples (and even those who do), they will find Perkins’s Chapter II, “The Covenant with Adam and Its Law,” to be one of the most nuanced, and most thoroughly informed, discussions about the matter, and I only scruple to his drafting Paul’s “law” into the Eden conversation. For those who share my scruples, they will cringe with me at casual comments such as these, about Romans 5:17-19: “Paul contrasts the first and the last Adam’s work by highlighting how Adam trespassed God’s law . . .” (143). Yet earlier in verse 13, Paul had expressly said, “sin was in the world before the law.” Our tradition unfortunately uses “law” to mean something like “God’s moral design,” “God’s moral will,” or “God’s moral purpose,” though, for Paul, νόμος (nomos) was not only post-Eden, but it was also 430 years post-Abraham.

If I had to recommend a single volume to introduce someone to Reformed covenant theology, this would be it. It not only employs clearer English than Witsius’s The Economy of the Covenants (1677 original in Latin), but it also engages ancient, medieval, and contemporary theologians more thoroughly than Witsius did, and demonstrates remarkable fluency and competence in the several important disciplines of systematic theology, biblical theology, and exegetical theology. Throughout, Perkins distinguishes both the areas of agreement within our tradition and the occasional areas of disagreement, without getting lost in the thickets on the one hand or overlooking them on the other hand. It is rare to encounter such judicious reasoning about such a broad range of knowledge.

Structure of Harrison Perkins, Reformed Covenant Theology

1. Meeting God in the Covenants

PART ONE: THE COVENANT OF WORKS

2. The Covenant with Adam and Its Law
3. The Covenant’s Legal Character and Reward
4. Applying the Covenant of Works

PART TWO: THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION

5. The Trinity and Their Covenant
6. The Father, Son, and Spirit in the Fulfillment of Salvation
7. The Last Adam and His People

PART THREE: THE SUBSTANCE OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE

8. The Unity of the Covenant of Grace in Christ.
9. The Unity of the Covenant of Grace in the Benefits of Christ
10. The Time of Tension

PART FOUR: THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE

11. God’s Multifaceted Plan of Salvation
12. From Adam to Moses
13. The Mosaic Covenant
14. From Moses to Christ

PART FIVE: LIVING IN GOD’S COVENANT OF GRACE

15. The Covenant Community
16. The Shape of Covenantal Life with God
17. Theses on Covenant Theology

Endnotes

[1] “Report of the Committee to Study Republication,” https://opc.org/GA/republication.html.

[2] T. David Gordon, Choose Better: Five Biblical Models of Ethics (P&R, 2024).

T. David Gordon is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is a retired professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Ordained Servant Online, January, 2025.