The redemptive history which we have sketched in the previous posts explains the covenantal structure of God’s relationship with humanity – first in the covenant based on works, then in the covenant based on grace revealed through a series of unfolding covenantal administration. However, the climax of the covenant of grace – the new covenant – reveals clearly that within the Godhead, the persons of the Trinity relate to each other covenantally as well. The people of God are given to the Son (Jn 6:30; 10:29; 17:2,4-10; Eph 1:4-12; Heb 2:13) by an eternal plan – “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4, cf. Rev 13:8). The word covenant never appears in reference to the relationship between the Father and Son; but as in the case of the covenant of creation, it is clear that “the very notion of soteriological mediation requires some sort of pledge arrangement.”[1]

 

Moreover, the language of the father-son relationship featured prominently in Ancient Near Eastern covenant treaties – with the suzerain king referred to as father and the vassal king as son.[2] It is not surprising, then, that the New Testament authors draw on the covenantal Messianic themes of Psalm 2:7 (“You are my Son;today I have become your Father…”) to describe the relationship between God the Father and Jesus as the second person of the Trinity (Acts 13:33; Heb 1:5; 5:5). They would have easily been able to draw these conclusions from the very experiences of Christ’s baptism (Mt 3:17/Mk 1:11/Lk 3:22) and transfiguration (Mt 17:5/Mk 9:7/Lk 9:35; cf. 2Pet 1:17). Jesus’ baptism was the anointing which began his ministry as the Messiah/Christ (i.e., “Anointed One”) – God’s vassal king – and his transfiguration was the event (along with Peter’s confession of the Christ just beforehand) which caused Jesus to “set his face” toward Jerusalem (cf. Lk 9:51,53). In other words, the two pivotal moments of decision for Jesus – when to start his ministry and when to march to his death – were set in motion by the covenantal declaration from God, a covenant between the Father and the Son.

 

To be certain, we may not know all of the details of the covenant between the Father and the Son; but it is clear that it serves as the basis for the covenant of grace between God and man. As we already noted, Christ fulfills the very covenant that Adam should have fulfilled. In other words, the Son entered into a covenant of works in order to claim a people for himself. Christ’s obedience to God’s law earned him the place as the federal head of a new covenant people; and in his suffering, he provided the death deserved by those people! Therefore we have two covenants under the rubric of redemption: (1) an eternal covenant between the Father and Son to accomplish what humanity could not, and (2) a temporal covenant of grace between God and humanity which rest upon the accomplishment of the eternal one. In the words of Meredith Kline:

 

Though interlocking, these two redemptive covenants, the eternal and the temporal, are nevertheless to be clearly distinguished from each other for they differ in several most basic respects. In the eternal covenant, (1) the Son is assigned the role of covenant servant; (2) the second party is the Son in his status as second Adam and thus, included along with him, the elect whom he represents, and them exclusively; and (3) the operative principle is works. Contrawise, in the series of historical administrations of the gospel, (1) the messianic Son is Lord and mediator of the covenant; (2) the second party is the church, the community of the confessors of the faith and their children, including others beside the elect; and (3) the operative principle is grace.[3]

 

So covenantal theology not only explains the unfolding of the history of redemption between God and humanity, but it also gives us the fundamental categories to begin to understand the internal life of the Trinity.

 

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