Dispensational Federalists affirm The Pactum Salutis.
In 2006 Reformation Trust published ‘Foundations of Grace’ by Steve Lawson. It laid out the scriptural basis for The Doctrines of Grace.
The foreword to that book was written by John MacArthur. It was an essay entitled, ‘Divine Immutability and the Doctrines of Grace’. It was a remarkable piece of writing. Not content to merely affirm the doctrine of election, his theology pressed ahead even further, into the upper reaches of revealed truth. He asked, “Why did God do this? Why did He sovereignly determine, from eternity past, to save a segment of fallen humanity”. And then he followed that up with this alluring little statement, “the scriptures give us several glimpses into the divine motivation behind election”.
What followed was a masterful presentation of the scriptural basis for what many in church history refer to as The Pactum Salutis. And if you’ve picked up on my hint, this is coming from someone with clear dispensational sympathies.
The first passage of Scripture he brought forth was Titus 1:1-2.
“Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies…
And then notice the following words,
…promised before the ages began.”
“The apostles point”, he explained, “is that the whole unfolding miracle of salvation… is based on the absolute promise of our trustworthy God.” And then he asked another provocative question, “But to whom did God make this promise? If he made it before time began, then it could not have been made to any human being, or to any created being for that matter. Before the creation of time, nothing existed outside of God Himself. To whom, then, did He make this promise?”
To answer that question, he turned to Second Timothy 1:9, where God, “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.” From this, he concluded that this promise was an expression of God’s own purpose and grace. In other words, it was a promise God made to Himself. It was a pretemporal intra-trinitarian promise.
MacArthur writes, “There was a moment in eternity past (if we might so feebly speak of eternity in temporal terms) when the Father desired to express His perfect and incomprehensible love for the Son. To do this, He chose to give to the Son a redeemed humanity as a love gift – a company of men and women whose purpose would be, throughout all the eons of eternity, to praise and glorify the Son, and to serve Him perfectly.”
He then showed how the Bible speaks of this gift from Father to Son. In John 6:37, Jesus speaks of, “All that the Father gives me”. In John 17:9, Jesus prayed, “for those whom you have given me”. And in John 17:24 we even read, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” On this MacArthur wrote, “Here the glorious point of the Father’s love gift to the Son is unmistakable”.
1 Corinthians 15:25-28 was then presented. “Referring to the end of the age, this passage reveals that there will come a day when Christ, the King of Kings, will take His rightful throne and reclaim the universe that is His. At that time, everything will be put in subjection to Him, including death, and all of the redeemed will be gathered into glory, rejoicing in the fulness of eternal worship. When that is done,
“then the Son himself also will be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him [meaning the Father], that God may be all in all.”
He continues, “In other words, when the whole love gift of a redeemed humanity has been given to Jesus Christ, then He will take that redeemed humanity and, including Himself, give it all back to the Father as a reciprocal expression of the Father’s infinite love. At that moment, the redemptive purposes of God will be fully realized… The reality, then, is that believers are simply a small part of a much larger divine plan. The Father, because of His love for the Son, determined before time began to choose a redeemed community that would praise the Son for all eternity. And the Son, because of His love for the Father, accepted this love-gift from the Father, considering it precious to the point that He gave His life for it. The Son protects those whom the Father chose to give Him, and promises to bring them to glory according to the predetermined plan of God.”
Now, what we have just seen, hasn’t been anything more than a brief introduction to the subject. But even after considering this, it simply must be admitted that a pretemporal intra-trinitarian agreement, pact, or plan of redemption, is a biblical reality.
But again, when we realize that The Pactum Salutis is nothing other than what the Reformed call The Covenant of Redemption, we are left asking ourselves a familiar question. Does the word covenant really prevent us from embracing the content of this truth?
For Dispensational Federalists, The Pactum Salutis represents another point of agreement. Our differences lie elsewhere.
In our next article, we will look at Tenet No.3, the touchy subject of the Covenant of Works. What do Dispensational Federalists think about this?
Dispensational Federalism 