In its third use the law serves as the rule for the Christian. Now, however, our relation to the law has changed. “Before, it was an instrument of the spirit of bondage to throw down and bruise man, but afterwards it becomes the instrument of the Spirit of adoption to promote sanctification. Thus the law leads to Christ and Christ leads us back to the law; it leads to Christ as the redeemer and Christ leads to the law, as the leader and director of life.”

Contrary to many popular (and some academic) presentations, Reformed theology did not begin nor did it end with John Calvin. Indeed, Calvin was part of a broader tradition that existed before him, that drew heavily and directly from Luther and was influenced directly and indirectly by the Zürich theologians (e.g., Zwingli, Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli). The tradition was much broader than Calvin. It also continued after Calvin. Reformed theology spread into the German Palatinate, France, (briefly) into Italy, and the Netherlands. It continued to develop after Calvin. That is not to say that there was a great discontinuity between Calvin and the later Reformed theologians. It is to say that they faced issues he did not. They had decades to reflect on issues and come to different conclusions. They sometimes dissented from his biblical exegesis. Contra the now discredited “Calvin v. the Calvinists” thesis, the application of Reformed theology to the challenges of the late 16th century through the 17th century in the church and academy did not “corrupt” Reformed theology (e.g., make it “rationalist”).

Because of the long-standing hostility, however, to Reformed orthodoxy as it developed after Calvin, scholars, pastors, and laity have too often been reluctant to study the Reformed orthodox and to learn from them. That is too bad and a significant mistake. There is much to be learned about Reformed theology, piety, and practice from Calvin’s orthodox successors. One of them was Francis Turretin (1623–87), the leading seventeenth-century theologian in Geneva, whose family fled Italy to Geneva because of Romanist persecution of Protestants.

Like Calvin, Turretin wrote an Institutes, a book of basic Christian instruction. Unlike Calvin’s’ Institutes Turretin’s was aimed at responding to specific challenges to the Reformed faith and practice in the 17th century. It is less a comprehensive survey and more targeted. He did, however, address the question of the believer’s relationship to the law in 11.22.8–13.¹ By the time Turretin was lecturing on theology Reformed covenant theology was well-developed. The doctrines of the pactum salutis, the pre-temporal covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son, and the covenant of works made with Adam as the representative head of all humanity before the fall, were well established. When Calvin died, the language “covenant of works” or “covenant of nature” or “covenant of law” or “covenant of life” (all synonyms) were just being formed in Reformed theology. The doctrine existed well before the Reformation but recovering it and putting it to use was another matter.

In 11.22.8 he addressed the use of the law as a covenant of works:

VIII. The relative use is manifold according to the different states of man. (1) In the instituted state of innocence, it was a contract of a covenant of works entered into with man and the means of obtaining life and happiness according to the promise added to the law. Although express mention is not made of a promise made to obedience (but only of a punishment), still it may be sufficiently inferred from the latter because it is not very probable that God would have threatened our first parent with punishment (if he should sin) and not have added any promise of a reward (if he should obey); or that he promised less in reference to a reward than he had threatened in reference to a punishment. Yea, the tree of life itself was a seal that there would be conferred upon him eternal life, which is opposed also to the eternal together with temporal death denounced in Rom. 6:23. This has already been proved in Part I, Topic VIII, Question 5.

He recognized that the substance of the covenant of works was present before the fall, that, in the state of innocence, the law promised life and eternal blessedness on condition of perfect obedience. It was an inference but the Reformed found this inference compelling. As I wrote above, they did not invent this idea. It existed among the Fathers and was expressly articulated by Augustine in The City of God on the basis of their understanding of Hosea 6:7. We should note too his inference from existence and function of the tree of life. In other words, for Turretin as for the Westminster Divines before him and the Reformed orthodox from the 1560s through the 19th century, the existence of a covenant of works was evident from Genesis 2 and by reinforced by their reading of the history of the Israelite theocracy (hence the doctrine of republication of the covenant of works to Israel).

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