Merit in the Covenant of Life

Many writing under the Federal Vision banner have objected to the notion that God might have determined to reward Adam for keeping the Covenant of Life. In his commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 164-6, A.A. Hodge captures their discomfort well.

The word "merit," in the strict sense of the term, means that common quality of all actions or services to which a reward is due, in strict justice, on account of their intrinsic value or worthiness. It is evident that, in this strict sense, no work of any creature can in itself merit any reward from God; because - (a) All the faculties he possesses were originally granted and are continuously sustained by God, so that he is already so far in debt to God that he can never bring God in debt to him. (b) Nothing the creature can do can be a just equivalent for the incomparable favour of God and its consequences.

However, he also answers their objection this way:

There is another sense of the word, however, in which it may be affirmed that if Adam had in his original probation yielded the obedience required, he would have "merited" the reward conditioned upon it, not because of the intrinsic value of that obedience, but because of the terms of the covenant which God had graciously condescended to form with him. By nature, the creature owed the Creator obedience, while the Creator owed the creature nothing. But by obedience the Creator voluntarily bound himself to owe the creature eternal life, upon the condition of perfect obedience.