The Covenant of Works and Christology

Abstract

This chapter examines James Ussher’s covenantal framework in reference to Christology. He emphasized Christ as the solution to Adam’s failure in the covenant of works. Ussher drew on ancient and medieval doctrines of Christological recapitulation from Irenaeus of Lyons and Anselm of Canterbury as he explained Christ’s work. Ussher reframed Christological recapitulation in connection to the covenant of works, which further demonstrates the underlying catholicity of the covenant of works and shows how Ussher, like other Reformed theologians, used the covenant of works to integrate their understanding of other essential points of the Christian faith.