Calvin and the Federal Vision

John Calvin (1509-64) was the pinnacle of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation in Europe. As we celebrate the five hundred-year anniversary of his birth it is worthy to explore Calvins covenant theology which may be one of the best windows to understand and evaluate his theology as a whole. In recent years the Federal Vision has been surfaced in the American conservative Reformed and evangelical circles. It has strong hermeneutical theological and practical attachment with Calvin. Although Calvin was a covenant theologian he firmly maintained the evangelical distinction between law and gospel especially in his exposition of justification by faith alone (sola fide) and salvation by grace alone (sola gratia) with a balanced emphasis of believers covenantal obedience. Moreover we will find out that Calvin not only applied the distinction between law and gospel to soteriology but also in the depiction of redemptive history. In Calvin the distinction between law and gospel was foundational for the depiction of biblical vision of eschatology in the Garden of Eden before the Fall and under the Old Covenant. However the exponents of the Federal Vision deny any validity of the distinction between law and gospel in hermeneutics theology and practice while they identify themselves with those of Calvin. In that sense we may identify the Federal Vision not with the Protestant Reformation and Calvin but as consistent monocovenantalism in which they deny the distinction between law and gospel and apply that monocovenantal principle consistently to their understandings of hermeneutics soteriology the doctrine of double predestination and sacramental theology.