"Let us now explain the apostle's contrast step by step. The Old Testament is literal, because promulgated without the efficacy of the Spirit; the New spiritual, because the Lord has engraved it on the heart. The second antithesis is a kind of exposition of the first. The Old is deadly, because it can do nothing but involve the whole human race in a curse; the New is the instrument of life, because those who are freed from the curse it restores to favor with God. The former is the ministry of condemnation, because it charges the whole sons of Adam with transgression; the latter the ministry of righteousness, because it unfolds the mercy of God, by which we are justified. The last antithesis must be referred to the ceremonial Law. Being a shadow of things to come, it behooved in time to perish and vanish away; whereas the Gospel, inasmuch as it exhibits the very body, is firmly established forever...When we consider the multitude of those whom, by the preaching of the Gospel, he has regenerated by his Spirit, and gathered out of all nations into the communion of his church, we may say that those of ancient Israel who, with sincere and heartfelt affections embraced the covenant of the Lord, were few or none, though the number is great when they are considered in themselves without comparison."~II.11.VIII
Calvin having recently concluded his chapter on the similarities of the Old and New Testaments, in which he continues to lay what would later become the foundation for the WCF's "One Substance, Multiple Administrations" formula of CT, and establishes the Abrahamic as a promissorial administration of the Covenant of Grace, he goes on to write on the five "heads" of difference between the Testaments. Whereas his chapter on similarity focused on the typical/promisssorial blessings on Abraham and the Patriarchs, his differences emphasize the Covenant of Law, e.g., the Mosaic administration, and that in the blood of Christ. Specifically in section eight, Calvin outlines: 1) the contrast between the Mosaic Covenant as "literal" and the New as "spiritual". Not that this is the juxtaposition the modern dispensationalist would have: there is no tension here for Calvin. There is a spiritual reality in shadowy form in the Mosaic, and a "literal", in the sense of "real", element to the New (indeed, for Calvin, the New is more "real" than the shadowy/typological Old). Rather, Calvin's emphasis is on the "do this and live" presentation of the Law, which does not, in itself, offer either unconditional promise, or gracious aid in seeking the reward (typologically represented in the Land promise, as Calvin explained earlier in the chapter). This is contrasted with the pouring out and post-Pentecostal indwelling of the Spirit and it's writing of the moral law on the hearts of men.
2) The "deadly" element of the Mosaic administration is contrasted with the "life giving" promise of the Gospel. Here we see the smallest germ, perhaps, of a republication concept long before Owen or Kline: the curse of the Law is a representation of the curse already borne by the descendant of Adam, the breaker of the Covenant of Works.
3) The eternality of the Gospel covenant in contrast with the temporary obsolescence of the Law.
4) The extent of the Gospel promise, not to one chosen nation, but in great numerical abundance to all the nations of the earth.
Thus, Calvin sets the foundation to many of the arguments of Westminsterian CT long before the existence of the Standards, as the eternality, numerical superiority, Spiritual power, internalization, and life giving promise of the Gospel Covenant are set forward, contrary to the assertion that classical Covenant theology flattens the Covenant of Grace out into an undifferentiated admixture.
~JS
