Sárospataki Füzetek 16. (2012)
2012 / 3-4. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Eberhard Busch: Az egyház értelmezése a Heidelbergi Káté tanítása szerint
God’s Transcendence of Our Concepts the most important indication of being elected. So, he who believes in Christ, may consider himself as part of the covenant and may be assured of divine election. Christ is the foundation of the covenant and that implies election in him. Representatives of the second approach are Zwingli and especially Buliinger, representatives of the first Calvin and even more Beza. In the first approach the covenant is subordinated to the election. In the second approach the election is subordinated to the covenant. In the second approach is considerably more place for the human answer. And also the dynamics of human history can be incorporated in a more satisfying way. The idea of the covenant sought to understand the whole history of salvation and divine-human relationships in terms of a bond or agreement between God and humankind, first in a covenant of works and then, after that failed, in a covenant of grace. “In its developed form”, so the Canadian church historian William Klempa summarizes its meaning and impact succinctly, “covenant theology represented a significant reaction against a mechanical version of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination. Instead of locating the work of salvation solely in the divine decree, covenant theology sought to provide a distinctly biblical and dynamic understanding of God’s dealings with humanity in successive stages of human history, thus furnishing a formula for the Christian interpretation of history.”7 Covenant theology became the ruling orthodoxy of the Reformed churches in the seventeenth century as can be recognized in chapter 7 of the Westminster Confession of 1647 that discerns between two covenants: a covenant of works made with Adam and his posterity on the condition of perfect obedience and a covenant of grace made in Christ with believers, offering them the gift of salvation on the condition of faith in him. Sometimes the discernment between different covenants is more detailed and encompasses first the covenant of God with Adam, then with Noah and further with Abraham, with Moses and finally in Christ. The main characteristic of all these covenants is that God takes always the initiative. So, they have always an one-sided, unilateral begin, although the intention, of course, is to function two-sidedly, bilaterally. Hence, most of them are not unconditional, only in the case of the covenant with Noah and the covenant in Christ they are. Even when we defy the covenant, God will not repeat the flood and even when we betray Christ, God will not withdraw his offer of salvation in Christ. And even in the case of the conditional covenants like those with Adam, Abraham and Moses in which God announces his punishments for the trespassers, it is clear that He will never withdraw his offer of human life in the image of God to Adam, his announced blessing to the posterity of Abraham and his gift of the Ten Commandments to Moses. Therefore, even when the intention is outspoken bilateral, the unilateral initiative is kept up. Especially the covenants with Adam and Noah are important for the explanation of the meaning of the idea of humans as images of God. They signify a breakthrough of the exclusive annotations often connected with the concept of the covenant. They endorse the universal intentions of all the covenants. From the very first they were open to the whole of humanity, not in the sense that all were automatically members of it but in the sense that it was made for all and that it is the destiny of all to 7 Klempa, William: “The Concept of the Covenant in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Continental and British Reformed Theology.” In: D.K. McKim (ed.): Major Themes in the Reformed Tradition. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992. (94-107). 94. 2012/3-4 Sárospataki Füzetek 87
