On the Covenant of Redemption
- brandon corley
- Dec 27, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 28, 2025
Work in Progress
Theses to be defended:
I. That the Covenant of Redemption is formally a creature—specifically, a real relation existing between God the Father and Christ incarnate beginning when Christ actually entered into his mediatorial office (whether this be at his birth or, as others have conceived, at his baptism). This relation is real on the side of Christ the mediator and logical on the side of the Father.
II. That before this, the Covenant of Redemption, considered as a decree, is a purely logical relation both on the side of Christ and on the side of the Father.
III. That those who want the Covenant of Redemption to be a real relation existing from eternity at least on the side of Christ err since there can be no real relation in God excepting the personal relations of origin. Ryan Hurd has rightly pressed this.
Argument: if there is a real relation in God, it either distinguishes the persons or it does not. If it does, then it is subsistent and one of the eternal relations of origins only formally, and not really, distinct from the essence of God. If it does not, then it is not subsistent and it is not formally, but really, distinct from the essence. But then it will be accidental. But God is simple. Therefore, etc.
IV. That the relation between Christ and the elect, considered as possessing representative rather than real being, is only a logical relation, even as representative being is logical being rather than real being. The principle of proportionate causality demands reciprocity here. That, consequently, what Gill wants with his “justification from eternity” can only ever conclude a logical relation about the decree to justify rather than justification itself which is a real relation presupposing real being.
V. That Christ’s work of mediation is virtually effective as a moral cause prior to his actual installment into the office of mediator, and so this does not entail that he was actually mediator prior to his actual installment into his mediatorial office while incarnate. That to say he was mediator under the Old Covenant may be taken in a correct sense (that his mediation was virtually effective at the time of and through the types of the OC), but it must be denied that he was formally and actually (as opposed to only virtually) mediator, both of the OC, and of the CoR at the time of the OC.
VI. That the Holy Spirit is not formally a party in the Covenant of Redemption since a relation exists between only two terms (unless perhaps one wishes to consider the terms not as The Father and Christ incarnate, but less properly as the Triune God and Christ incarnate). That He is rather to be conceived as the reward purchased for believers.
VII. That the Scriptures commonly adduced for the real distinction between the Covenant of Redemption and the Covenant of Grace (as in Isaiah 42:6, 49:8, 55:3, Luke 22:29) more naturally read as delineating two parts of the same covenant—that is, the New Covenant, or the Covenant of Grace—rather than two really distinct covenants.
VIII. That the Covenant of Redemption is to be conceived as only formally distinct from the Covenant of Grace. And that this distinction does not destroy the formal distinction between the Father’s relation to the Son and the Father’s relation to us in the Son, and the logical dependence of the latter upon the former, just as the formal unity of the soul (for the sake of the analogy, granting the faculties of the soul differ only formally) does not abolish the logical dependence of the will upon the intellect or the dependence of either faculty upon the essence of the soul.
IX. That Christ’s meriting of his own resurrection-justification is to be conceived as at the same time meriting our own justification, we being fundamentally justified in him. Cf. Gaffin. Christ’s merit for himself is not to be opposed to his merit for us but rather the latter logically depends upon the former even as the CoR and CoG do not really differ but suppose logical dependence and formal distinction.
Sources to link: https://x.com/brandoncorley99/status/2004976089115078666?s=46
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