Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 85:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Corporate Dimensions Of A Covenantal Apologetic: The Life Of The Church In Our Witness To The World
Author: William R. Edwards

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Corporate Dimensions Of A Covenantal Apologetic: The Life Of The Church In Our Witness To The World

William R. Edwards

William R. Edwards is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.

I. Introduction

A picture of Cornelius Van Til sits in my study. An elderly man, he is seated under a portrait of the revered Princeton theologian Geerhardus Vos, under whom Van Til studied and regarded as his “finest teacher.”1 In the picture, Van Til has a slight grin, perhaps conveying his pleasure at being seated under his professor once again, a position he surely would say he never left as he labored to clarify the implications of covenant theology for the apologetic task. Vos claims that “the Biblical idea is to have the reality of something practically interwoven with the inner experience of life.”2 As such, true comprehension entails deeply personal implications. Vos states that “‘to know’ can stand in the Biblical idiom for ‘to love.’”3 The epistemological can never be separated from the relational and ethical; knowing involves loving. And this captures the dynamic of the covenant, as Vos explains: “Because God desires to be known after this fashion [in love], he has caused his revelation to take place in the milieu of the historical life of a people. The circle of revelation is not a school, but a covenant.”4 Therefore, knowledge of God, which is set within the covenant, must be embodied in the lives of God’s people and expressed in love.

This richly covenantal framework of God’s revelation, and the knowledge of God it involves, should inform the church’s apologetic task. And, indeed, these convictions regarding the covenant underlie Van Til’s apologetic approach. Van Til, however, emphasizes the full reach of the circle of revelation that has the covenant as its context. As Vos describes God’s revelation taking place “in the milieu of the historical life of a people,” he speaks particularly of God’s redemptive special revelation that is directed to Israel and subsequently the

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church. God’s covenant dealings with humanity, however, began at creation, as Vos also affirms.5 And in a manner that is consonant with Vos’s description of the covenant and the knowledge it entails, Van Til’s apologetic recognizes the far reach of this circle of God’s revelation, encompassing the entire created order through the initial covenant relationshi...