언약의 실체 그리스도(Christus Substantia Foederis)

Christus Substantia Foederis: Francis Turretin's Understanding of the Unity of the Covenant of Grace

The paper explores Francis Turretin's understanding of the unity of the covenant of grace by investigating his opus magnum Institutes of Elenctic Theology in the light of the concept of "faith in Christ." The first part is devoted to illuminating "Christ" as the sole and same substance of the covenant by referring His righteousness, fully completed by His obedientia passiva and activa, to the merit, wholly imputed to each who believes. Here, the unity of the covenant is pursued by the unity and continuity of Christ the Mediator. In the second part the paper investigates "faith" as the causa formalis or instrumentalis. Faith here signifies the faith of union—faith in and into the believers' union with Christ. The last part is given in order to explain faith "in" Christ. The presupposition "in" refers to the continuing mediation of Christ in the whole process of salvation. That Christ's mediation extends both His works as fideiussor and expromissor is pointed out as corresponding to the merit of satisfactio vicaria imputed to the justification and sanctification of the people who belongs to the covenant of grace. Based on this fact, the paper reveals how Turretin argues with the intercessio of the Son at the right hand of God the Father the continual imputation of His righteousness, which has been operating from the Old Testament era. Finally, the paper reveals the crucial error of the assumption of those who participate in "the so-called new perspective in Paul's theology" by maintaining the continuity between Calvin and post-Reformation Reformed theologians, called covenantal theologians, with reference to the unity of the covenant of grace in its substance.