Covenant of Redemption

Definition and Meaning

The covenant of redemption is the eternal agreement understood to have been made between the Father and the Son before the creation of the world for the purpose of redemption, that is, delivering human beings from sin by paying the price for them. In Latin it is called the pactum salutis ("covenant of salvation").

According to this understanding, the Father appoints the Son as Mediator (the one who stands between God and humanity) and entrusts a people to him. The Son promises to become man, to obey the law, and to die in their place. In return, the Father promises the salvation of that people and the glorification of the Son. Some theologians also include the role of the Holy Spirit, describing the covenant as an agreement among the persons of the Trinity. In covenant theology it is treated alongside the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, and it is regarded as the eternal basis of the covenant of grace made with humanity in history.

Biblical and Historical Background

The term "covenant of redemption" does not appear in Scripture. Those who accept the concept derive the teaching by synthesizing a number of passages. Representative texts include Psalm 2:7-8, where the Father promises to give the Son the nations for his inheritance; John 6:38-40, where the Son will lose none of those the Father has given him; John 17:4-6, where the Son says he has finished the work the Father gave him to do; and 2 Timothy 1:9, which speaks of grace "which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

The concept was systematized in seventeenth-century Reformed covenant theology. The Scottish theologian David Dickson is generally held to have first presented it publicly around 1638, and it was further developed by the Dutch theologian Johannes Cocceius, among others. The Westminster Confession of Faith does not use the term. However, chapter 8, section 1, states that God, in his eternal purpose, chose and ordained the Son to be the Mediator and gave to him a people, and this passage is commonly read as a basis for the covenant of redemption. Later Reformed theologians such as Herman Bavinck and Louis Berkhof carried the concept forward.

There are also dissenting views. Some Reformed theologians do not treat the covenant of redemption as distinct from the covenant of grace, instead explaining the two as a single covenant. Karl Barth criticized the concept, arguing that portraying the relationship among the persons of the triune God as a kind of legal contract divides the one will of God.

Practice in the Korean Church

Presbyterian: The concept is treated chiefly in systematic theology courses at Presbyterian seminaries. Berkhof's Systematic Theology, which has been translated into Korean and is widely read, also introduces it. The term is not often used in Sunday sermons; it appears mainly in doctrinal classes and catechism study when predestination and the atonement are explained.

Methodist and Holiness: Denominations that follow Wesleyan theology, such as the Korean Methodist Church and the Holiness Church, do not make covenant theology the central framework of their doctrine. They emphasize prevenient grace and an atonement made for all people. Consequently, they tend not to use the Reformed explanation that a particular people is entrusted to the Son.

Baptist and Pentecostal: Within the Baptist tradition, Reformed Baptists who follow the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith accept the concept. By contrast, it carries little weight in churches influenced by dispensationalism. It is also seldom treated separately in the doctrinal instruction of Pentecostal denominations.