The Covenant of Works according to Thomas Ridgely
I guess it all depends on the definition of grace. If grace be defined as something relating particularly to man's sinful state, then there is no doubt: the covenant of works has not a shred of grace attached to it. To put it another way, grace in this sense would be defined as relating not merely to unmerited favor, but rather to demerited favor. That is, not only are we neutral with regard to God's favor, but rather we have positively spurned it. Here is what Thomas Ridgely wrote about it: "Some call it, 'a Covenant of Innocency,' inasmuch as it was made with man while he was in a state of innocency. Others call it, 'a Covenant of Works,' because perfect obedience was enjoined, as the condition of it. In this light, it is opposed to the covenant of grace; as there was no provision made in it for any display of grace, as there is in that covenant which we are now under" (vol 1, pg 376). What needs to happen, then, is a full-orbed study of the Hebrew word groups hen and hesed, as well as the Greek word group charis. What we have here is nothing less than a redefinition of grace. Nowhere in Scripture is God's relationship with Adam described as being gracious, nor is what God gives to Adam described as being grace. I am perfectly willing to admit that God condescended to engage in relationship with Adam, and that Adam did not deserve such a relationship as a creature. However, Adam was sinless, and not in need of any grace in that sense whatsoever. I believe that grace is a concept belonging exclusively to the post-Fall world. Mark Horne, therefore, is full of rhetoric against the "meritists," but has hardly proven his point Scripturally.
posted by Mr. Baggins @ 9/07/2006 12:15:00 PM
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Luke 2.40
The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.
Luke 2.52
And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in grace with God and men.
Philippians 2.9
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and graced Him with the name which is above every name
The French Confession
We believe that man was created pure and perfect in the image of God, and that by his own guilt he fell from the grace which he received, and is thus alienated from God, the fountain of justice and of all good, so that his nature is totally corrup
John Calvin
In order for us to come to a sure knowledge of ourselves, we must first grasp that Adam, parent of us all, was created in the image and likeness of God. That is, he was endowed with wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and was so clinging by these gifts of grace to God that he could have lived forever in Him, if he had stood fast in the uprightness God had given him. But when Adam slipped into sin, this image and likeness of God was cancelled and effaced, that is, he lost all the benefits of divine grace, by which he could have been led back into the way of life (1536)
If man had no title to glory in himself, when, by the kindness of his Maker, he was distinguished by the noblest ornaments, how much ought he to be humbled now, when his ingratitude has thrust him down from the highest glory to extreme ignominy? At the time when he was raised to the highest pinnacle of honor, all which Scripture attributes to him is, that he was created in the image of God, thereby intimating that the blessings in which his happiness consisted were not his own, but derived by divine communication. What remains, therefore, now that man is stripped of all his glory, than to acknowledge the God for whose kindness he failed to be grateful, when he was loaded with the riches of his grace? Not having glorified him by the acknowledgment of his blessings, now, at least, he ought to glorify him by the confession of his poverty (1559).
The Belgic Confession
He also created the angels good, to be His messengers and to serve His elect; some of whom are fallen from that excellency in which God created them into everlasting perdition, and the others have by the grace of God remained steadfast and continued in their first state
Hugh Binning (1627-1653)
[In the covenant of works] there were some outbreakings of the glorious grace and free condescendency of God; for it was no less free grace and undeserved favour to promise life to his obedience, than now to promise life to our faith. So that if the Lord had continued that covenant with us, we ought to have called it grace, and would have been saved by grace as well as now (The Common Principles of the Christian Religion, Lecture VI)
John Ball
The Covenant is of God, and that of his free grace and love: for although in some Covenant the good covenanted be promised in justice, and given in justice for our works: yet it was of grace that God was pleased to bind himself to his creature, and above the desert of the creature: and though the reward be of justice, it is also of favour. For after perfect obedience, performed according to the will of God, it had been no injustice in God, as he made the creature of nothing, so to have brought him unto nothing: it was then of grace that he was pleased to make that promise, and of the same grace his happiness should have been continued.
Francis Turretin
with respect to God, it [the covenant of works] was gratuitous, as depending upon a pact or gratuitous promise (by which God was not bound to man, but to himself and to his own goodness, fidelity, and truth)" (Institutes 8.3.16).
James Fisher (Fisher's Catechism)
Q. 33. What then was the grace and condescension of God that shined in the covenant of works?
A. In that he entered into a covenant, at all, with his own creature; and promised eternal life as a reward of his work, though he had nothing to work with, but what he received from God, 1 Cor. 4:7.
A. A. Hodge
[God's covenant with Adam] was a covenant of works and of law with respect to its demands and conditions, [but] also in its essence a covenant of grace, in that it graciously promised life in the society of God as the freely-granted reward of an obedience already unconditionally due [because] Creation itself, being a signal act of grace, cannot endow the beneficiary with a claim for more grace.
God offered to man in this gracious Covenant of Works the opportunity of accepting his grace and receiving his covenant gift of a confirmed holy character.
Thanks, Mark. It looks like it's Lane who is out of step with the way the Bible and Reformed orthodoxy uses the word grace. Someone may have redefined the word recently, but it wasn't Mark.
Mark, first of all, if you mean for your Luke passages to prove that Adam could not have merited anything, but rather that he had grace from God, then your passages prove too much, for they prove that Jesus Himself as a creature did not deserve favor from God, if Adam did not. This is very dangerous ground. You cannot use passages referring to Christ to prove your point with regard to Adam in this sense of the word "grace." Your whole point seems to me to be that in *no* sense could Adam have merited eternal life, but that *any* inheritance would have been wholly gracious. This is completely untenable, as a closer reading even of your quotes in context will show. You have not proved that everything Adam had or would have had upon obedience would have been gracious in nature, and not merited.
On the Philippians 2 passage, again you prove too much. For the passage to be pertinent to your point, Jesus could not have deserved the name that is above every name. It is important to recognize that "charis" does have a semantic domain that is broader than simply "grace." It can mean simply "favor." That is my exegesis of Luke 2 and Philippians 2. Favor does not exclude merit. In fact, in the Philippians passage, the very reason ("dio") for God giving Jesus that name above every name is the merit of Christ's sacrifice! Therefore, the passage proves almost the exact opposite of what you think it proves.
The French Confession quotation is not germane here, since it has nothing to say about whether Adam would have inherited eternal life based on pact-merit. With regard to the Calvin quotes, it would have been helpful to have references, but I wouldn't be surprised if Calvin meant "favor," and not grace in the sense in which I have defined it. To counter-quote, what do you make of 2.17.1-3, which loads Christ's work with the term merit?
The Belgic Confession quotation is talking about angels. No grace is given to fallen angels, so the whole question is beside the point. Never does the Belgic Confession say that God exercized grace toward unfallen Adam, whereas in several places, it speaks of the merit of Christ (art 22-23, see also Heid cat. question 60). The reason why Christ's merit is relevant to the discussion is that Christ's merit is the answer to our demerit. It does more than that, because Christ's merit is on an altogether higher level than Adam's ever could have been. But that in turn was necessary because Christ was doing it for someone else, not Himself. Christ's merit was fully condign.
I simply disagree with Binning.
The John Ball quotation does not exclude merit according to pact, if you read it closely.
On Turretin, you will find precisely what I am advocating on page 578 of volume 1. While there is no condign merit with regard to Adam, there is merit according to pact. In fact, Turretin uses this idea in section 17 on that page: "If therefore upright man in that state had obtained this merit, it must not be understood properly and rigorously. Since man has all things from and owes all to God, he can seek from him nothing as his own by right, nor can God be a debtor to him- (i.e., me) not by condignity of work and from its intrinsic value (because whatever that may be, it can bear no proportion to the infinite reward of life), but *from the pact* (emphasis mine) and the liberal promise of God (according to which man had the right of demanding the reward to which God had of his own accord bound himself) and in comparison with the covenant of grace (which rests upon the sole merit of Christ, by which he acquired for us the right to life). " You keep quoting Turretin as favoring a "no-merit" situation before the Fall. This is because you consistently and completely wrong-headedly deny a distinction between condign merit, and merit according to pact. You refuse to acknowledge that pact-merit is possible, even though Turretin obviously here posits it.
The Hodge quotation must be seen in the light of his definition of merit on page 227 of his commentary on the Confession. He says this: "The word 'merit,' in the strict sense of the term, means that common quality of all actions or services to which a reward is due, in strict justice, on account of their intrinsic value or worthiness. It is evident that, in this strict sense, no work of any creature can in itself merit any reward from God; because- a. All the faculties he possesses were originally granted and are continuously sustained by God, so that he is already so far in debt to God that he can never bring God in debt to him. b. Nothing the creature can do can be a just equivalent for the incomparable favour of God and its consequences. There is another sense of the word, however, in which it may be affirmed that if Adam had in his original probation yielded the obedience required, he would have 'merited' the reward conditioned upon it, not because of the intrinsic value of that obedience, but because of the terms of the covenant which God had graciously condescended to form with him. By nature, the creature owed the Creator obedience, while the Creator owed the creature nothing. But *by covenant* (emphasis his) the Creator voluntarily bound himself to owe the creature eternal life, upon the condition of perfect obedience." My point precisely.
Todd, I think you are way too quick with such a comment.
"Mark, first of all, if you mean for your Luke passages to prove that Adam could not have merited anything, but rather that he had grace from God, then your passages prove too much, for they prove that Jesus Himself as a creature did not deserve favor from God, if Adam did not"
That was not the issue. I would have offered different quotations if I had understand you insisting on Adamic merit.
You said "I believe that grace is a concept belonging exclusively to the post-Fall world." Jesus was not a sinner. Ergo, grace is does not belong exclusively to a post-Fall situation.
Of course, if we want to talk about concepts rather than words, then you are free to stipulate a technical term for unmerited favor despite sin. But, neither the Bible nor the Reformed heritage singles out "grace" as that technical term. I certainly will agree that the concept of "unmerited favor despite sin" has value and applies exclusively to the post-Fall situation.
I have always been taught that the distinction between condign and congruent merit is a Romanist heresy and I have never read or heard of any Reformed teacher claiming it was some important distinction that we must all understand to properly grasp the covenant of works.
I'll trust you if you tell me some Reformed theologians have had a use for it, Lane. Buit it isn't mainstream and there is nothing in Westminster which mandates or even implies it.
"The French Confession quotation is not germane here, since it has nothing to say about whether Adam would have inherited eternal life based on pact-merit."
You said grace applies exclusively to the post-Fall situation.
"To counter-quote, what do you make of 2.17.1-3, which loads Christ's work with the term merit?" I haven't checked the quote yet but I have never hesitated to affirm Christ's merit covers our demerit.
"The Belgic Confession quotation is talking about angels. No grace is given to fallen angels, so the whole question is beside the point."
No, it says that the unfallen angels remained unfallen by God's grace. On the other hand, you claimed that grace applies exclusively to the post-Fall situation.
"The John Ball quotation does not exclude merit according to pact, if you read it closely. "
Debate for another time. It does say that the pre-Fall situation was gracious.
Turrettin: "If therefore upright man in that state had obtained this merit, it must not be understood properly and rigorously. Since man has all things from and owes all to God, he can seek from him nothing as his own by right, nor can God be a debtor to him" Exactly. But, I was addressing the fact that Turretin teaches the COW was "gratuitous."
Hodge says the Covenant of Works were gracious in essence. You quote him as also saying that Adam's works could not be meritorious. Right.
No one denies that God graciously promised to bestow blessing on Adam if he remained faithful. That is not at issue. The claim you made was that there was no grace in the pre-Fall situation. Hodge disagrees with you, as do Fisher, Turretin, etc.
Lane,
I am inclined to say that instituting the Covenant of Works was a gracious of God. That in no way means that the covenant itself had grace in it. What exactly is your definition of grace?
Lane,
I think Mark's point in quoting grace with Jesus was....if Jesus who was sinless had grace why couldn't Adam? I agree with Mark. And...what is your definition of grace if Mark's is a redefinition?
Lane, Mark is right. You have adopted a definition of grace that is much more narrow than the way the word is used in the Bible and in Reformed history. You are out of step with the Reformed tradition.
I will respond to everyone, but haven't the time this morning.
I understand Lane's usage of "grace" to be a dogmatic category. It is, therefore, altogether legitimate to use it in a narrower sense than Scripture's "charis" semantic domain.
Especially telling is that the Reformed tradition, while sometimes referring to the Covenant of Works as being, in a sense, gracious, the category of merit is not excluded. Indeed, the category of merit is confessional.
Also, many have pointed out that God establishing the COW can be described as a gracious act, while the COW itself is not gracious.
WCF nowhere mentions merit. Neither do the catechisms. The WCF on good works explains why our works cannot be meritorious and includes creaturely limitations among its reasons. Francis Turretin denied the COW was Meritorious, as did Benedict Pictet. Zacharias Ursinus also.
Mark, if Christ's obedience to the law can be classified as merit, then Adam's obedience to God's law would also have been.
No, Christ had to be true God as well as true man precisely in order "give worth and efficacy to his sufferings, obedience, and intercession."
And even if you are right, you should be attacking Turretin and Zacharias Ursinus. Let's make this an honest conversation Lane.
“Apart from God’s good pleasure, Christ could not merit anything; but did so because he had been appointed to appease God’s wrath with his sacrifice, and to blot out our transgressions with his obedience.”
- Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, 17, 1; 529.
Mark,
I am in agreement that the institution of the Covenant of Works was gracious, and so is Turretin; however, to say that Turretin denied the Covenant of Works was Meritorious is misleading. He denies merit in the sense of “a condignity of work and from its intrinsic value”, but he does support the idea that within the Covenant of Works man, if he lived perfectly, “had the right of demanding the reward to which God had of his own accord bound himself” (Vol. 1 3rd question, 17th paragraph, pg. 578, I do believe this was quoted above). Thus, I think one can see both the ideas of grace and works or merit in Turretin’s presentation of the Covenant of Nature or Works. It seems then that Turretin thinks the promise to reward the merit of man in the COW is a gracious promise, but it is indeed merit he promised to bless in the COW. So I have to think that Turretin disagrees with both you and Lane. Lane thinks grace is only post-fall to which Turretin objects, and you seem to think that in no way can Adam be said to have merit, but Turretin disagrees with that as well.
I would be interested in seeing your quotations from Ursinus and Pictet about denying the COW was meritorious.
Enjoying the give and take, and hoping that Lane gets back to us soon with that definition of grace!
Since I am a 3 Forms guy here, I had in mind the Belgic Confession. Article 22 mentions the merit of Christ twice.
Lee, you have shown 0 evidence that Turretin believed that Adam could merit anything from God. That God's own righteousness demands that he fulfill his graciously-given promises is true both in God's Covenant with Adam and in God's covenant with us as Christians. Faith is the condition of the New Covenant. Is faith meritorious? Of course not!
I was reading through Guy Waters' book last night. He reminded me that, in addition to the Belgic Confession article I previously mentioned, there are references to Christ's merit in the Westminster Standards:
WLC 55: "Christ maketh intercession…in the merit of his obedience and satisfaction on earth, declaring his will to have it applied to all believers"
WLC 174: "…feeding on him by faith..., trusting in his merits…."
WCF 17.2: "…the efficacy of the merit and intercession of Jesus Christ….:
In addition, there are other references to Christ's merit in the 3 Forms:
Heidelberg Catechism:
Q and A 21: "…everlasting righteousness and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merit."
Q and A 84: "…all their sins are really forgiven them of God for the sake of Christ’s merits…."
And Canons or Dordt:
Rejection of Errors I, 3: "…the pleasure of God and the merits of Christ…."
Rejection of Errors II, 1: "…of the wisdom of the Father and of the merits of Jesus Christ…."
Rejection of Errors II, 3: Dort rejected the error of those "Who teach: That Christ by his satisfaction merited neither salvation itself for anyone, nor faith…."
Rejection of Errors II, 4: "…we by faith, in as much as it accepts the merits of Christ, are justified before God and saved…."
Just a reminder about this thread: Here's the claim Lane made: "I believe that grace is a concept belonging exclusively to the post-Fall world." Questions about the merit of Christ and of Adam are related, of course, but the original issue was the use of the word "grace" in the Bible and in Reformed history. I think that we're still waiting for Lane to answer Mark about grace. But who's keeping score?
There seems to me to be quite some confusion about what I said about grace. I defined grace as I used it as referring to man's *sinful* state. It can hardly be argued by anyone in this discussion that such grace cannot ever be posited of the Adamic covenant. There is no such grace before the Fall, nor can there be, by my very definition, since there is no sin. If someone wants to say that God did not have to make a covenant of works with Adam, and that all the gifts that God bestowed on Adam were not merited by Adam, I don't think I could quibble with that.
However, using this idea to then posit that there is no merit whatsoever in the Adamic covenant is not warranted in the slightest. Mark, you consistently deny that the Reformed tradition has more than one definition of merit. You haven't answered my Turretin quote at all, which talks *explicitly* of pact-merit, which is all I'm talking about. You consistently set my theology up as a straw-man, using your arguments that would work perfectly well against absolute merit to strike down my position. It simply doesn't work. Turretin, and Pictet and all the rest of the authors you quoted are reacting against absolute merit. You haven't proved that they were rejecting pact-merit. And since Turretin himself uses this language of pact-merit, you absolutely cannot assert that the distinction between absolute merit and pact-merit is a Roman Cathlic invention.
The reason I bring in Christ's merit to this discussion is that Christ does fulfill what Adam should have done. Christ fulfills both the pact-merit that Adam should have gained, and also merits salvation in and of Himself, absolutely. That is, Christ gains both condign merit and pact-merit. Therefore, the quotations that David has so kindly looked up for us do indeed speak to whether Adam would have merited, since Christ answers to Adam in this very respect of the Covenant of Works.
BOQ No, Christ had to be true God as well as true man precisely in order "give worth and efficacy to his sufferings, obedience, and intercession." EOQ
This is not an answer, Mark. Christ's two natures is not the issue. The issue is whether or not Christ earned the merit that Adam should have, and the answer is yes. The Turretin quote proves that you have been misunderstanding him for quite some time now. And I am not being dishonest, as your acidic non-PPT comment would seem to suggest.
Lane, You didn't just invent a new term for your own conversation but made a claim about the Bible and about the Reformed way one ought to talk about grace. And you're wrong on both the Bible and the Reformed tradition. The Bible refers to grace in the case of Jesus and the Reformed heritage has, over and over again, spoken of the prelapsarian creation as a gift of God's grace.
What I want honesty about is admitting that both the Bible and the Reformed tradition don't use language the way you are demanding. I'm not concerned about "pact-merit" except that it would mean we would have to say that faith and repentance have "pact merit" under the new covenant, which I don't find helpful.
I'm not questioning the Turretin quote. But if Jesus had "pact-merit" then our mediator didn't need to be God incarnate. Adam had a real demerit before God and it required the God-man to deal with it because only God could satisfy God's justice. This is the parallelism in Romans 5: Christ's act of obedience overcomes Adam's act of disobedience. There is no reason why Adam would have to have merit for Christ to have merit.
You have made Turretin posit a new kind of merit, but I understand him to be saying it is not merit at all. But, again, I'm not really interested in that point and I'll let you use the term pact-merit if you want. If I had understood you to be talking about merit in your original post I would have written differently (if at all). I just think something more must be said about Christ's work (more than mere pact-merit) and I worry about applying the term to faith and repentance. You would have to say the same thing about Adam's obedience as about the conditions of the New Covenant.
Mark,
I agree that Turretin has a highly specific idea in mind, and whether or not we call God rewarding the conditions he laid out is merit, is something that could be argued at great length; however, it is not the point of the comment thread. Lane was aruging grace only existed because of sin, which I disagree with, and he seems to have backed off somewhat.
However, it might should be noted that Turretin did not believe faith a condition of the covenant of grace (vol 2. pg.185 III). He makes a helpful distincition between condition as a meritorious cause, and condition as a instrumental cause. Perhaps this distincition fits nicely into our discussion here as well.
Lee, thank you. Turretin denied that either the conditions met in the covenant of works or in the covenant of grace were meritorious causes.
When he admitted some other sort of merit for Adam ("pact-merit") then it would have to apply to faith as well. And it simply seems wrong to me to call faith meritorious. Even if we stipulate what sort of merit were talking about (meeting a necessary conditon) it still seems misleading and problematic.
But Mark, you still haven't acknowledged that, according to my particular definition of grace, I am correct. I am not willing to say that that definition of grace that I have been using is the only definition of grace there is. But there must be a clear distinction between the so-called grace given to Adam in a completely sinless state and the grace that is given to sinful mankind after the Fall.
BOQ I'm not concerned about "pact-merit" except that it would mean we would have to say that faith and repentance have "pact merit" under the new covenant, which I don't find helpful. EOQ
This simply doesn't follow, Mark. Besides the fact that God gives us both faith and repentance, and thus cannot in any sense be deemed a work (this has zero relevance to the condition of Adam before the Fall), I am not claiming pact-merit merely for Christ's work, which you seem to think I did. I claimed that Jesus' merit is absolute. Since the God-man is the only person who could ever acquire absolute merit, that is a large part of the reason why He became man.
What you are talking about with regard to Jesus and the prelapsarian covenant cannot be called grace in the way I have been using the term. As I said above, there is another sense in which grace (I would use the term "favor") can be used which covers what you are talking about. I distinguish sharply between that kind of grace and the kind of grace given to us in the Covenant of Grace. My problem with your formulation is that you are not distinguishing these various biblical uses of the term. Grace is just one big category for you, in which the pre-Fall situation differs little from the post-Fall situation. I agree with David and Lee that the Covenant of Works is not gracious (in the post-Fall sense I have been using the term) itself in character, though the institution of it to Adam was gratuitous (but not as though Adam was completely undeserving, since God created him very good).
BOQ There is no reason why Adam would have to have merit for Christ to have merit. EOQ
This is exactly where you are most wrong. In justification, it is the merit of Christ that cancels Adam's demerit. If Adam had merited according to pact, then Christ's sacrifice would not have been necessary, since Adam would not have fallen. So Adam's non-existent but required merit was supplied by Christ. You still cannot seem to get away from the idea that I am using merit in a strict sense. I am not, which is why Turretin, Pictet and others whom you throw at me do absolutely nothing to shake my argumentation, since I am not advocating the position they are arguing against. However "informally" one wants to describe merit, Adam's obedience would have been a cause (even if not the only cause) of the inheritance of eternal life. In that sense, Adam's obedience would have merited eternal life. If Adam's obedience would have been causal in *any* way for the inheritance of eternal life, then to that extent, it would have been meritorious. Stop confusing the pre-Fall and post-Fall situations. You are mixing them all up.
"But Mark, you still haven't acknowledged that, according to my particular definition of grace, I am correct."
This is pretty silly, Lane. Do you remember your original post?
"What we have here is nothing less than a redefinition of grace."
The word "here," of course, linked to Mark's blog.
And so, Lane, you still haven't acknowledged that, according to Mark's particular definition of grace, he is correct. Are you willing?
And then, more importantly, how useful is your stipulated definition of grace when it has so few connections with how the Bible uses the word, and withhow the word has been used in Reformed theology? It's your view, and not Mark's, which constitutes a redefinition.
Lane,
I noticed that you do use the term "common grace" in other posts and not the Hoeksema term "common bounty" or something like that, but yet that type of grace is not the same as the Covenant of Grace's 'grace'. Why insist on 'favor' in Adam's case, and not in the case of the reprobate? Using your own definition, should you not throw out the term 'common grace'?
To Todd, I am not willing to acknowledge that Mark is right, for the very simple reason that he confuses the pre-Fall and post-Fall definitions of grace. So it is your comments that are silly.
To Lee, common grace is also a post-Fall form of grace. So I would certainly not throw out that terminology. Common grace does not embrace what God gave to Adam. Look at Jesus' formulation in Matthew 5:45, one of the key texts in discussing common grace, which plainly indicates a post-Fall situation.
Lane writes: "he confuses the pre-Fall and post-Fall definitions of grace."
So are you now ackowleding the legitimacy of a pre-Fall definition of grace? If so, we've made real progress here, although it would involve you admitting a shift from your earlier claim: "I believe that grace is a concept belonging exclusively to the post-Fall world." Come on, Lane. Be a man! You've been forced give up your former claim, right?
In that earlier claim, you did not merely stipulate a definition of grace for the sake of discussion. You made a categorical claim about the concept itself. Be honest!
Be honest, Todd, you didn't read my definition of grace. The statement to which you refer occured in a context of the definition of grace which I had given! Read the original post again. I have not retracted a thing. The reason I have been so hesitant to acknowledge grace before the Fall is precisely because the FV uses that to vitiate the substance of the Covenant of Works. It just isn't the same concept of grace at all.
Lane,
The reason I bring up common grace is because common grace has nothing to do with sin or salvation. It is a kindly dealing with men from God, even a merciful dealing with them. This requires a definition of grace that does not deal with sin, which seems to be your main contention. At the very least common grace appears to be a completely different concept of grace than Covenant of Grace's grace. Yet we still use the word grace. Why then not use the word grace, an unmerited favor or kindly dealing, for Adam before the Fall. Why willing to use one and not the other is my question?
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