Heinrich Bullinger And Pneumato-Cardionomography In The Old Testament

By Joe Mock

[Joe Mock ministers at Gracepoint Chinese Presbyterian Church at Lidcombe, New South Wales, Australia.]

Abstract

The Swiss reformer, Heinrich Bullinger, emphasized the organic unity between the old and the new covenants. Through his application of humanist rhetoric in reading the canon as a whole, Bullinger underscored that Scripture has one divine author. That is why many of his works highlight salvation history and God’s unfolding plan for the salvation of his elect.

Pneumato-cardionomography is a term coined by Steven Coxhead in a recent WTJ article and refers to the writing of God’s law on the heart of his people. Bullinger regarded pneumato-cardionomography as operating on the heart of the faithful immediately after the fall. God’s torah was written on the heart by the Spirit in both covenants but more clearly and more fully on the hearts of believers in the new covenant age with the coming of Christ, the promised seed of Eve.

This article examines Bullinger’s understanding of torah in salvation history and how he understood that pneumato-cardionomography was already a reality in the old covenant age.

Bullinger’s thought anticipates the conclusion of Coxhead’s article, which reads, “The OT highlights the great need for the cardionomographic work of the Spirit on an international scale, and it looks forward to the time when this would take place, to the time of the new covenant, when God would write his law on the hearts of his people through his Spirit in a comprehensively and ultimately complete way as an integral and vitally important component of the new covenant in Christ.”

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This article seeks to demonstrate how the Swiss reformer Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) regarded pneumato-cardionomography as operating in the elect immediately after the fall, commencing with the promises of the protoevangelium of Gen 3:15. The term pneumato-cardionomography has been recently coined by Steven Coxhead.[1] The term refers to the writing of God’s torah on the heart by the Spirit.[2] Inter alia Coxhead discusses the concept of cardionomography in the OT, the reality of cardionomography in the old covenant age, and the importance of pneumato-cardionomography in salvation history. Coxhead points out that “having God’s law in one’s heart is an OT ethical ideal.”[3] Moreover, Coxhead concludes that “the reality of pneumato-cardionomography, therefore, is portrayed in the OT as being central to the survival of Israel in the promised land, as well as being necessary for the realization of the fullness of covenant blessings in the eschatological age.”[4] Even though Coxhead does not explore the reality of cardionomography in the pre-Sinaitic age,[5] a noticeable theme of Bullinger’s is that pneumato-cardionomography took place on the hearts of the elect in the old covenant before the inscripturation of the torah at Sinai. Only true Israel or spiritual Israel, as opposed to carnal Israel, had God’s torah written on their hearts by the very finger of God through his Spirit. God’s torah would be written “more abundantly,” however, on the hearts of the elect people of God in the new covenant with the coming “blessed seed” or promised Messiah.

In his purple patch as a single man in the cloister at Kappel am Albis in the early 1520s, Bullinger had come to grasp the broad contours of the biblical canon. Having been stimulated by the recent writings of Luther and Melanchthon and having immersed himself in some of the church fathers, Bullinger applied humanist tools to ascertain the message of the Bible as a whole. He came to an understanding of its teaching about reconciliation with God through faith in Jesus, the promised seed of Adam, and how the people of God should live righteously (integer) in covenant relationship with God, the “horn of plenty” (cornucopia) who gives all good things (omnia bona) to the elect. As time and circumstances permitted him in the midst of his responsibilities as Antistes of the church in Zurich after the demise of Zwingli, he fleshed out his understanding of salvation history in his published works. The key works in this regard are his treatise on the covenant, Of the One and Eternal Testament or Covenant of God: A Brief Exposition (1534);[6] The Old Faith (1537);[7] and The Decades (1549–1551), which consists of fifty sermons in Latin and is probably his most well-known work.[8] Bullinger regarded the covenant between God and his people to be the underpinning theme linking both the OT and the NT. This is reflected, for example, in his strong emphasis on the parallel (more so than other reformers) between baptism and circumcision and between the Lord’s Supper and Passover. Indeed, Bullinger taught that the Lord’s Supper is primarily a covenant sign and seal of the promises of God (past, present, and future) as well as a covenant renewal ceremony of the people of God.[9] As Christian Moser[10] and Aurelio Garcia Archilla[11] have correctly pointed out, a characteristic feature of Bullinger’s works is their historiographic significance as he unpacked how the outline of biblical history unfolds to reveal God’s plans for the salvation of the elect.[12] Bullinger saw both continuity and development between the OT and the NT, between the promises of the old covenant and the promises of the new covenant. Thus he regarded that torah as the conditions of the covenant were written on the hearts of the patriarchs and on the hearts of spiritual Israel in the old covenant, but that this would be written on the hearts of believers in the new covenant more clearly or more fully with the coming of Christ in fulfillment of Scriptures such as Deut 6:7–9, 20–25, Jer 31:33, and Ezek 36:26–27. This article focuses on Bullinger’s understanding of law in the context of salvation history and the role of the Holy Spirit in writing law on the hearts of the elect to enable them to live integer in faithful, obedient covenant relationship with God.[13]

I. Bullinger’s Understanding Of Law

The law of God is the subject of chapter 12 of The Second Helvetic Confession. In the very fourth sentence of 12.1 is the declaration: “And this law in fact was at one time by the finger of God written on the hearts of men and called the law of nature (Romans 2:15), and at another time engraved by his finger on the two tables of Moses, and eloquently expounded in the books of Moses.”[14]

Quite considerable space and attention are given to law in The Decades. Just under 30 percent of the work expounds the law, the Ten Commandments, the priesthood and the ceremonies of the OT, the role of the magistrate, and the role of the judiciary.[15] This emphasis reflects Bullinger’s purpose in The Decades, written for lay people, which was to instruct his readers how to live faithful and obedient lives. In doing so he gave as much background and detail as he deemed appropriate. As Peter Opitz explains, for Bullinger, law (torah) in the Bible is God’s word for his people given that they might live righteously and piously.[16]

Before Bullinger considers God’s law or law in the Bible in The Decades, he speaks in sermon 2.1 about law in general, about natural law and about human law. Bullinger declares that God “is the cause and beginning of laws [origo et causa legum]” and that “he through our Lord Jesus Christ will vouchsafe with his Spirit always to direct us in the way of truth and righteousness.”[17] He points out that some laws are of God, some are of nature, and some are of men and proceeds to write about natural law and human law. He regards natural law as an instruction of the conscience which is the knowledge, judgment, and reason of a person. He explains that “this reason proceedeth from God, who both prompteth and writeth his judgments in the hearts and minds of men.”[18] He further points out, with respect to natural law, that it is “of God himself, who with his finger writeth in our hearts, fastenth in our nature, and planteth in us a rule to know justice, equity and goodness.”[19] However, natural law in the heart of men and women has been corrupted by sin and they are sinners, as Paul expounds in Rom 2. Nonetheless, glimpses of the Decalogue can be discerned in natural law. By human law Bullinger means public laws, ecclesiastical laws, and human traditions drafted for the preserving of public peace and civility. Citing 1 Pet 2:13–14 Bullinger states that these have been “ordained” by God.

When Bullinger discusses God’s law or torah he states that it convinces all men and women of sin as it teaches the first principles or rudiments of righteousness. The law is “a certain looking-glass, wherein we behold our own corruption, frailness, imbecility, imperfection, and our judgment, that is, our just and deserved damnation.”[20] He points out that the purpose of the law is also “to teach them that are justified by faith in Christ what to follow and what to eschew, and how the godly and faithful sort should worship God.”[21]A further purpose of the law is to repress the unruly.[22] He considers a threefold division of law into the moral, the ceremonial, and the judicial laws. Several times he underscores that the sum of all law is the love of God and the love of neighbor in the context that the “ten commandments are the very absolute and everlasting rule of true righteousness and all virtue, set down for all places, men, and ages, to frame themselves by.”[23] Bullinger is careful in his use of the Latin terminology for law. For example, he points out that the saints in the OT were approved by their faith and obedience rather than keeping legalities (legalibus).[24] In his comment on 2 Corinthians in De testamento Bullinger differentiates between “law” (lex) and “legalities” (legalia, legalibus).[25] Also, in responding to the accusation against him of Ebionism, Bullinger cites Eusebius who pointed out that the Ebionites mixed the gospel with legalities (legalia) in their fleshly observance of the law.[26] He also refers to the abolition of legalities (legalium).[27] Moreover, he states that the main points of the torah given through Moses were “fortified with so many circumstantial legalities [legalibus].”[28]

Bullinger repeatedly stresses that the law leads us “by faith directly unto Christ.”[29] Christ fulfilled the law, that is, he fulfilled what was promised and prefigured and he fulfilled all the ceremonies. In his comment on Matt 5:17 he replaces the Vulgate’s adimplere (complete) with compleam (fulfill) and in citing Rom 10:4 he replaces finis legis (end or purpose of the law) with perfectio legis (completion or perfection of the law).[30] Furthermore, in his discussion of Matt 5 in De testamento he refers to the “very spirit of the law” and explains that Christ “taught by this sermon that the law is the will of God, which is altogether most elegant, holy, pure, and spiritual; which regulates the mind and will of man.”[31] He further explains that “Moses did not only urge the law, but did also preach Christ and life in Christ.” Moreover, “the law setteth forward the true doctrine of justification, teaching plainly that we are justified by faith in Christ, and not by the merits of our own works. In which point it is openly like unto the gospel.”[32] The following citation from sermon 3.8 demonstrates how Bullinger teaches that torah not only leads men and women to salvation in Christ but also that they might live by torah:

But the law was chiefly ordained (as I did declare a little before) to the end, that it might convince us all of sin and damnation, and so by that means send us from ourselves, and lead us by the hand to Christ, who is the fulfilling of the law unto justification to every one that doth believe. And therefore he doth fulfil and keep the law, who hath no confidence in himself and his own works, but, committing himself to the very grace of God, doth seek all righteousness in the faith of Christ.[33]

With respect to the abrogation of the law, Bullinger points out that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and that he abrogated the ceremonies. For example, in commenting on 2 Cor 3 in De testamento Bullinger explains: “In fact, he does not speak in that passage concerning the whole law but merely of that part (of the law) which is abolished.”[34] Because of the confusion the Anabaptists were making with their claim that the whole law had been abrogated with the coming of Christ, Bullinger wrote to Berchtold Haller of Bern with advice.[35] Echoing his commentary on Hebrews (1532) he responded to the Anabaptists’ misinterpretation of Heb 8:13 because they failed to understand the word “law” in its context. On some occasions it refers to the whole OT, on other occasions to the Pentateuch, and sometimes to the ceremonial laws. What were abrogated with the coming of Christ were the ceremonial laws.

Significantly, at the end of sermon 3.8 of The Decades Bullinger mentions that his readers would be familiar with both De testamento and The Old Faith where he had discussed law in the Bible.[36] In The Old Faith Bullinger links the giving of the law with the protoevangelium of Gen 3:15: “The law, therefore, confirmeth the first promise concerning the blessed Seed, and teacheth that we obtain all salvation in him only.”[37] Indeed, chapter 6 of The Old Faith discusses in detail how “the law of God given by Moses leadeth unto Christ, and maketh mention of all his doings.”[38] In De testamento Bullinger regards the law as intimately linked to the covenant of God with his people with the understanding that his covenant relationship was, through grace, God’s accommodation to mankind.[39] Indeed, God himself was the witness (testis) to the covenant.[40] The law summarizes the “conditions” of the covenant[41] for “the law truly teaches, with himself as witness, partly the love of God and partly the love of neighbor.”[42] The word “conditions” is used in De testamento to refer to torah because this is the term used in human covenants. Indeed, Bullinger points out that the Pentateuch or indeed the whole OT represents the documents of God’s covenant with his people:

What is last in testaments and covenants, moreover, is the composition of written records or if you will, documents comprehending and transmitting to posterity every reason and testimony of the transaction. And these indeed are strengthened by the name of covenant or testament. For we call the written documents of the testament or covenant the very covenant or testament itself. Although, in reality, they are not the testament or covenant. Rather they are an exact exposition and testimony of the conducted matters and conditions.[43]

A correct understanding of law in Bullinger, therefore, is God’s torah or God’s word which is his instruction for his people. This is aptly summarized at the end of a paragraph in De testamento which has the marginal reading, “All Scripture is referred to the covenant as its target: ‘Moreover, you will keep my covenant, walk before Me and be perfect [perfectus] or innocent [integer].’”[44]

Bullinger, therefore, sees the law as torah not as part of the process of forming the covenant, but rather as the instructions for living as faithful, obedient members of God’s covenant with the elect. He emphasizes that the very summary of the covenant is “obedience or faith itself.”[45] The link between torah and the covenant is underscored also by Bullinger in The Old Faith.[46]

II. Bullinger’s View Of Torah In Salvation History

As is widely known, Bullinger had on the title page of all his works:

Jesus
This is my beloved son in whom my soul
is reconciled, Listen to him!
—Matthew 17:5

Bullinger replaced placitus (pleased) with placatus (reconciled) to serve as a constant reminder that one is reconciled to God if one is in Christ. It is not without significance that at the end of The Decades this verse is repeated so that there is an inclusio of the fifty sermons of The Decades. This indicates that Bullinger sought to make the point that believers should listen to or obey Jesus. Since Moses and Elijah, representing the OT canon in terms of law and prophets, were present at the transfiguration, then Bullinger intended to emphasize that the torah of Jesus has superseded the torah of the OT. Opitz has pointed out that this passage refers to both the priestly and the rabbinic role of Christ who, as redeemer, fulfills the covenant.[47] The guideline for living integer before God as a member of God’s new covenant people is to live according to the torah of Jesus.

What appears to set Bullinger apart from the other reformers, with respect to torah, was his understanding of a hiatus between the patriarchal period and the promised age to come that was ushered in by the inauguration of the kingdom of God with the coming of Christ. In the Garden of Eden God had spoken directly to Adam and Eve and had written with his own finger his word upon their hearts. God’s word was likewise written on the hearts of the faithful patriarchs (e.g., on Abel’s heart but not on Cain’s). In The Old Faith Bullinger referred to the fact that:

This Seth repaired our holy faith, which received great hurt at the death of Abel. This did Seth, I say, forasmuch as he, being taught inwardly of God, and by mouth or outwardly of Adam, learned his children and their seed to put their trust in God, and to comfort themselves in the blessed Seed, and to cleave unto the same.[48]

The patriarchs had no need of a written record of God’s torah or God’s instructions for living as his covenant people. Bullinger demonstrated how even the principles of the civil or judicial laws that were outlined in the torah given through Moses were already practiced by Abraham.[49] But because of the idolatry of Israel in Egypt at the time of Moses the torah was inscripturated with God writing it with his own finger on tablets of stone. Together with the giving of a written record of God’s torah at Sinai were also given to Israel the ceremonies, which the patriarchs did not have. In The Old Faith Bullinger gives an explanation of this phase of salvation history to reiterate the fundamental and basic importance of the Ten Commandments for the covenant relationship of Israel with God:

As for all the laws and ordinances which afterward were added unto these two tables, they were not joined thereunto as principal laws, but as by-laws for the declaration of better understanding of the ten chapters or commandments.[50]

These ceremonies were not only guidelines for worshiping God, but God also used these ceremonies as types of the promised Christ, the blessed seed of Adam and Eve. In reference to the sermon of Stephen in Acts 7, Bullinger points out that “Stephen, too, the most holy martyr of Christ, according to Luke in Acts 7, with almost unending examples of the ancients proved the fact that faith in God was acceptable to God before the law, in the law, and after the law, not the ceremonies.”[51] This understanding of law in salvation history is fleshed out by Bullinger in the following extended citation from De testamento:

Whence also, Paul speaking to the Galatians, “The promises were spoken to Abraham and his seed. It does not say ‘to seeds’ as if of many, but as if one, ‘and to your seed’ who is Christ. Moreover, I say that the law which began four hundred and thirty years later does not make null and void the covenant (testamentum) established earlier by God in Christ.” For the patriarchs were saved by the benefits of the covenant and not those of the law or the ceremonies.… Then you ask, “Did God institute the law apart from purpose, without a fixed reason, without benefit?” Far from it, but in fact while the souls of the seed of Abraham, that is, the Jews, had been corrupted by their long cohabitation in Egypt, with the result that they were not only ignorant of the ancestral religion and also almost of the covenant itself. But they were daily deserting more and more to Egyptian idolatry and all the manner of the worship of the Gentiles, at that time it pleased the wise and merciful Lord to come to the assistance of the collapsing covenant with certain props. Therefore, first of all he restored the main points of the ancient covenant, but he expounded these more fully and he inscribed these with his own finger on tablets of stone. But there was still no mention of ceremonies. In fact sufficient had been prescribed for the faithful. Truly as long as they (i.e. Israel) continued to be faithless and unfaithful, the burden of ceremonies was thrown upon their unhappy shoulders, which burden the ancients did not have. Nevertheless, to this end and by this deliberation it was imposed for an impelling cause so that they would not introduce the worship of foreign gods. Therefore, God instituted his own worship and he declared that it was pleasing to him, though, in fact, he did not care for it, so that rather with such a system he confirmed the covenant and moreover he enveloped the mystery of Christ in these ceremonies as types.[52]

The same point about the inscripturation of the torah because of idolatry at the time of Moses is reiterated a few folios later:

And with these words it is clear what had been the instruction of the prophets concerning legalities [legalibus], namely, what is the chief point of all the commands of God, the very summary of the covenant, obedience or faith itself by which the saints were agreed to be approved and not by legalities [legalibus]. It is true that the Lord ordered them, but very much so for another plan, of course to come to the assistance of the collapsing covenant and that he might divert all from idolatry and attach them to himself by faith; not that he might justify worshippers by these but he might by these foreshadow Christ, the righteousness to come. But because they were unwilling to understand, they were accused most severely in this passage by the prophet. Therefore, the Lord approved the spirit and not the flesh in the Israelites. For that reason, even before the birth of Christ he had a spiritual people out of the Israelites seeing that he disapproved so much of the carnal.[53]

Bullinger saw that there was one covenant in salvation history which was progressively revealed. That is why he titled his treatise on the covenant The One and Eternal Testament [testamentum] or Covenant [foedus] of God in which he frequently interchanged testamentum with foedus. Bullinger’s understanding of one covenant throughout salvation history is evident from this quotation from the 1539 version of De testamento which was published together with Bullinger’s commentary on the Pauline Epistles (In omnes apostolicas epistolas):

Indeed, this which he made with Abraham is not the first of all covenants. Rather, the first is what he made with Adam. Whence with clear words in the covenant that followed he may say, “I will erect” or “I will confirm” or “I will establish my covenant with you,” that is, “I will ever keep firmly the beginning of the covenant.” Indeed, it is often renewed. This is because of definite causes, as with Noah after the flood, now with Abraham, afterwards with Moses. Nevertheless, it is the one and the same covenant which is confirmed and established with all of these.[54]

Bullinger did not object to the terms Old Testament and New Testament. He pointed out that the terms old and new need to be seen, however, in the context of God’s one covenant with his people in salvation history. This is evident in the following explanation in De testamento:

First of all, therefore, it is certain that the nomenclature of the old and new covenant [testamenti], spirit and people did not rise from the very substance [substantia] of the covenant [foederis] but from some alien and non-essential things [accidentibus] which were recommended to be added in the intervals of time, first this and then that, according to the contradiction of the people of Israel. These additions were not perpetual nor particularly necessary things for salvation but they arose for the purpose of changeable things according to the time, according to the persons and according to the circumstances. The covenant [foedus] itself would unquestionably still stand without them.[55]

Bullinger emphasized the organic unity between the old covenant and the new covenant with his use of the Aristotelian categories of substantia and accidens. This is also reflected in the parallels he saw between circumcision and baptism and between Passover and the Eucharist. Circumcision was not regarded as a sign of the law, but rather as a sign of the covenant and therefore of God’s grace. Moreover, with the shedding of blood in the physical act of the cutting of the foreskin in circumcision Bullinger saw a prefiguring of the death of Christ on the cross.[56] He further saw that circumcision in the old covenant prefigured the circumcision done by Christ on the believer (circumcisio Christi), that is, the circumcision done not by hands.[57] Bullinger points out that “the Spirit is also the same in both Testaments.… God said he would give a new spirit which he meant nevertheless the abundance and the riches of the gifts to be imparted to the faithful through Christ.”[58] The following quotation from sermon 3.8 of The Decades also underlines Bullinger’s emphasis on one covenant in salvation history.

Verily, there is no difference of the people, of the testament, of the church, or of the manner of salvation betwixt them, among whom there is found to be one and the same doctrine, the same faith, the same Spirit, the same hope, the same inheritance, the same expectation, the same invocation, and the same sacraments. If therefore I shall be able to prove that all these things were indifferently common to them of the old church as well as to us, then have I obtained that which I shot at; to wit, that in respect of the substance there neither was, nor is, any more than one testament; that the old fathers are one and the same people that we are, living in the same church and communion, and saved not in any other but in Christ alone, the Son of God, in whom also we look for salvation.[59]

Bullinger’s understanding of the interlocking organic link between the old covenant and the new covenant contrasts somewhat with what appears the young Calvin wrote in “Christ the End of the Law,” which was written in 1535 as an introduction to the NT in the French Bible translated by Pierre Robert Olivétin:

And this book is called the New Testament in regard to the Old, which, inasmuch as it was to be reduced and reported to the other, being in itself weak and imperfect, and thereupon has been abolished and abrogated. But this New Testament is the new and eternal one which will never grow old or fail, because Jesus Christ has been its Mediator, who ratified and confirmed it by His death, in which He accomplished full and complete remission of all transgressions which remained under the first Testament.[60]

Bullinger saw that, in fulfillment of the prophecies of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with the coming of Christ, the torah was once again written on the heart through the Holy Spirit. Moreover, in the new covenant age it became clear that Gentile believers would also be the spiritual seed of Abraham, and that the torah would be written on the hearts of the elect “most abundantly” (abundantissime). The ceremonies were also abolished. What is to be noted is that Bullinger saw a spiritual Israel within the nation of Israel since the time of the patriarchs. Only upon these elect who looked forward to Christ and who were the true seed of Abraham was God’s torah written on their hearts. This point is particularly discussed in The Old Faith.

The coming of Jesus and the writing of his torah on the hearts of believers may be understood in terms of “back to the future” in that it was a return to the arrangement before the torah was inscripturated. Bullinger regarded that Christians in the new covenant “clearly resemble that ancient and original instituted (religion) of the patriarchs, which without ceremonies, that is by the main points of the covenant, shone with faith and obedience.”[61] Thus, Bullinger viewed a sort of hiatus between the patriarchal age and the age ushered in by Christ. Such a hiatus in salvation history had been suggested by Irenaeus, as pointed out by Denis Minns:

Abraham is father in faith to the Christians because his religious response is of the same kind as theirs, one of faith understood as obedient subjection to the unmediated saving purpose of God, not obedience to the commands enshrined in the Law. This provides Irenaeus with a means of acknowledging the divine origin of the Law of Moses, while regarding salvation history between Sinai and Christ as something of a detour. Just as Abraham was justified by faith without circumcision so the Christians are justified by faith without circumcision. Faith without circumcision comes first and last; circumcision and the Law occur in the middle times. 

The patriarchs had been guided by a divine law implanted in their hearts (AH IV.13.1; 15.1). This ‘natural’ law was sufficient for them and they had no need of a written code, for the ‘law is not laid down for the just’ (AH IV.16.3; cf. 1 Tim. 1.9). Abraham was justified by faith before his circumcision, which was a temporary dispensation that prefigured the spiritual circumcision ‘made without hands’ (AH IV.16.1; cf. Col. 2.11). The virtues of the patriarchs—the love of God and justice towards one’s neighbor—were forgotten during the slavery of Israel in Egypt, hence the need for the Decalogue.[62]

Irenaeus also refers to this detour in salvation history with the giving of the torah at Sinai in his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching: “He opened up the covenant of adoption, but to the Jews as Lord and Lawgiver, for in the intermediate times, when man forgat God and departed and revolted from Him, He brought them into subjection by the Law.”[63]

III. Pneumato-Cardionomography In The Old Testament

Bullinger saw the Holy Spirit as active throughout the period of the old covenant. Because he saw an organic unity between the old covenant and the new covenant, he therefore regarded the difference of the work of the Holy Spirit on the heart of the elect in terms of degree, that is, more abundantly in the new covenant. The difference “doth consist in the greatness [magnitudine], ampleness [amplitudine], largeness [copia], and plentifulness [ubertate] of the gifts, to wit, because they are more liberally bestowed and more plentifully poured out upon more now than they were of old.”64 That Bullinger recognized that the Holy Spirit was active in the lives of the elect in both the old covenant and the new covenant is clear from this quote from sermon 3.8 of The Decades:

And since it is evident that our forefathers were justified by the grace of God, it is manifest that that justification was not wrought without the Spirit of God; through which Spirit even our justification at this day is wrought and finished. Therefore the fathers were governed by the very same Spirit that we of this age are directed by.[65]

The continuity and development between the operation of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of the elect in both the old covenant and the new covenant is illustrated by Bullinger’s comment on Jer 31:33:

The ancient covenant of God was written on tablets of stone; now the new covenant is written on the heart. Moreover, God himself through his Spirit writes it on the hearts of men. God gives the faithful his Holy Spirit in the heart, who regenerates, stirs up faith through which they are justified, who next inspires love, and the spontaneous study of the law of God, so now what previously displeased us might begin to please us. In fact the Spirit is given also to the ancient fathers in the old covenant; but everything in the new covenant is brighter [illustriora], greater [ampliora] and more common [magis communia].[66]

Bullinger was primarily a biblical theologian. Therefore, it is not surprising that he frequently highlighted in his works the parallels between the old covenant and the new covenant. How Bullinger understood pneumato-cardionomography to be operating in the old covenant can be seen in the following passage from De testamento: “The Lord did not bother to have any documents written with the ancient fathers, for they were carrying the covenant written in their hearts by the finger of God.”[67]

Because De testamento and The Old Faith complemented one another it is not surprising that pneumato-cardionomography is referred to in The Old Faith:

As for Adam and Eve, they lacked none of those things. Though they had not the matter in writing: for God spoke it all to them himself, and wrote it in their hearts.[68] 

Besides this, the Lord gave unto Noe certain laws; but none other than even such as he had given to his forefathers, and written in their hearts.[69] 

Whoso now doth well ponder these ten chapters or commandments, and compareth them to the doings and works of the holy patriarchs and old fathers, which had no law in writing, he shall find that the Lord now with this his written law began no new thing, neither aught that was not afore in the world, but rather renewed the old; and the law that he hitherto had written in the hearts of holy men, now, when the people had gotten them stony hearts, he wrote the same in tables of stone.[70]

There appears to be no major development in Bullinger’s thought from his period at Kappel am Albis to the end of his time as Antistes of the church at Zurich, and therefore pneumato-cardionomography is also discussed in The Decades:

Wherefore the patriarchs ever, from the beginning of the world even until Moses’ time, were not without the precepts of the ten commandments, although they had them not graven in tables or written in parchments. For the Lord with his finger writ them in their hearts, which the lively tradition of the fathers did exquisitely garnish and reverently teach.[71] 

Yet for all this let no man think that the fathers received no remission of their sins. For as they by faith had free forgiveness of their sins, so did God both write his law and pour his Spirit into their hearts.[72]

Despite the fact that none of Irenaeus’s works appear to have been in Bullinger’s personal library[73] and the observation that there are only a few direct references in Bullinger’s works to the bishop of Lyon, Joachim Staedtke was convinced that Bullinger was influenced by Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses.[74] Although Staedtke offers no documentary evidence for this claim he suggests that the main themes of Irenaeus are reflected in Bullinger’s works. It may well also be the case that The Old Faith was intended to be a theological tract following the model of Irenaeus’s The Demonstration.[75] The idea that both Irenaeus and Bullinger saw something of a “detour” in salvation history with the inscripturation of the torah at Sinai has been referred to above. Indeed, in discussing the event of the giving of the torah through Moses, Irenaeus significantly made this observation: “But the righteous fathers had the meaning of the Decalogue written in their hearts and souls.”[76]

IV. Conclusion

Through his application of humanist rhetoric in reading the canon as a whole, Bullinger constantly kept in mind that Scripture has one divine author even though the individual books were written over many centuries. Hence he saw an organic unity between the OT and the NT. He further saw an organic unity between the old covenant and the new covenant, between the sacraments of the old covenant and the sacraments of the new covenant, and between the elect of the old covenant and the elect of the new covenant. He differentiated between spiritual Israel and carnal Israel. In both the old and new covenants Bullinger regarded God’s torah as written by God through the Holy Spirit on the heart of his elect people or, to use his familiar phrase, “all faithful believers.”

Bullinger, therefore, anticipated the conclusion of Coxhead’s article:

The message of the OT, by recording the historical failure of Adam and Israel due to a limited cardionomographic work of the Spirit during the pre-Christian era, highlights the need for the internalization of the word of God in the human heart. In other words, the OT highlights the great need for the cardionomographic work of the Spirit on an international scale, and it looks forward to the time when this would take place, to the time of the new covenant, when God would write his law on the hearts of his people through his Spirit in a comprehensively and ultimately complete way as an integral and vitally important component of the new covenant in Christ.[77]

Notes

1. Steven R. Coxhead, “The Cardionomographic Work of the Spirit in the Old Testament,” WTJ 79 (2017): 77–95.
2. Because the English word law is so readily associated with a forensic meaning, torah is used here interchangeably with law to refer to God’s word or instruction. BDB lists instruction as a primary meaning for torah.
3. Coxhead, “Cardionomographic Work,” 79.
4. Ibid., 81.
5. Coxhead states: “Originally the law of Moses was delivered to Israel in an externalized form, symbolized by the Ten Commandments written on tablets of stone; but this external law was subsequently meant to be internalized in the hearts of the people through covenant instruction and meditation (Deut 6:7–9, 20–25). With the law internalized or written upon the hearts of the people of Israel, the obedience that God required of Israel under the stipulations of the covenant would be realized” (ibid., 80).
6. De testamento seu foedere Dei unico et aeterno (Zurich: Froschauer, 1534); see Heinrich Bullinger Werke: Bibliographie, ed. J. Staedtke et al. (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1972–2004), no. 54 (hereafter HBBibl). An English translation by Peter Lillback, following the twenty-two paragraphs of the text, is “Of the One and Eternal Testament or Covenant of God: A Brief Exposition,” in Thy Word Is Still Truth: Essential Writings on the Doctrine of Scripture from the Reformation to Today, ed. Peter A. Lillback and Richard B. Gaffin Jr. (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2013), 245–70.
7. Der alt gloub (Basel: Wolfgang Friessen, 1537), HBBibl no. 99. An English translation is The Old Faith, in Writings and Translations of Myles Coverdale, ed. George Pearson for The Parker Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1844; repr., New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968), 1–83.
8. Sermonum Decades quinque de potissimus Christianae religionis capitibus, ed. Peter Opitz (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2008). An English translation is The Decades of Henry Bullinger, ed. Thomas Harding for The Parker Society, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004).
9. Joe Mock, “Bullinger and the Lord’s Supper,” in From Zwingli to Amyraut: Exploring the Growth of European Reformed Traditions, ed. Jon Balserak and Jim West (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2017), 57–78.
10. Christian Moser, Die Dignität des Ereignisses: Studien zu Heinrich Bullingers Reformationsgeschichtsschreibung (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
11. Aurelio Garcia Archilla, The Theology of History and Historiography in Heinrich Bullinger: Truth in History (San Francisco: Mellen, 1992).
12. See, e.g., Bullinger’s Epitome temporum et rerum ab orbe conditio (Zurich: Froschauer, 1565), HBBibl no. 430.
13. Bullinger, De testamento, 15v.
14. My translation. The text reads: “Et quidem alias digito Dei inscriptam esse in corda hominum, vocarique legem naturae (Romans 2:15), alias autem digito insculptam esse in tabulas Mosis geminas, et libris Mosis copiosius expositam (Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5).”
15. This percentage indicates 298 pages out of 1071 pages in Opitz’s critical edition of The Decades.
16. Peter Opitz, Heinrich Bullinger als Theologe: Eine Studie zu den “Dekaden” (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2004), 353. Opitz points out that in the preface of The Decades Bullinger regards torah as “recte bene beateque vivendi ratio.”
17. Decades, 1:193.
18. Ibid., 1:194.
19. Ibid., 1:195.
20. Ibid., 2:238.
21. Ibid., 2:243.
22. Ibid., 2:244.
23. Ibid., 1:211.
24. De testamento, 33b. Unless stated otherwise translations of De testamento are my own.
25. Ibid., 36v.
26. Ibid., 37r.
27. Ibid., 37v.
28. Ibid., 38v.
29. Decades, 2:241.
30. Bullinger, In sacrosanctum Iesu Christi Domini nostri Evangelium secundum Matthaeum, Commentariorum libri (Zurich: Froschauer, 1542), HBBibl no. 144, 54r, 54v.
31. Lillback, “Eternal Testament,” 262.
32. Decades, 2:241. The Latin text reads, “Qua parte miscetur apertissime evangelio evangeliique officium sibi sumit.”
33. Ibid., 2:251.
34. De testamento, 36v, 37r.
35. Heinold Fast and John H. Yoder, “How to Deal with Anabaptists: An Unpublished Letter of Heinrich Bullinger,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 33 (1959): 83–95.
36. Decades, 2:299.
37. Old Faith, 43.
38. Ibid., 37–49.
39. Joe Mock, “Biblical and Theological Themes in Heinrich Bullinger’s ‘De testamento’ (1534),” Zwingliana 40 (2013): 1–35.
40. De testamento, 17r.
41. “Conditiones.” Sometimes Bullinger uses “praescriptiones.”
42. De testamento, 17v.
43. Lillback, “Eternal Testament,” 267.
44. Ibid., 253.
45. Ibid., 261.
46. Old Faith, 42, 43.
47. Opitz, Bullinger als Theologe, 333.
48. Old Faith, 30.
49. De testamento, 18r–19v.
50. Old Faith, 41.
51. Lillback, “Eternal Testament,” 261.
52. De testamento, 29r–30r.
53. Ibid., 33r–33v.
54. Lillback, “Eternal Testament,” 259.
55. De testamento, 28v.
56. Decades, 2:172–78.
57. Joe Mock, “Bullinger and the circumcisio Christi,” RTR 73 (2014): 101–16.
58. De testamento, 34v.
59. Decades, 2:283.
60. John Calvin, “Christ the End of the Law,” in Thy Word Is Still Truth (ed. Lillback and Gaffin), 276. Compare this translation with that found in Robert White, trans., “To All Who Love Jesus Christ and His Gospel: John Calvin,” Banner of Truth Magazine 631 (April 2016): 16–17. Note 6 reads: “Calvin’s text prefaced the New Testament and not the entire Bible. This sentence reads literally, ‘The whole collection [= the apostolic writings] is called the New Testament, and is called this in respect of the Old which, being meant to lead up and into the New, was itself weak and incomplete, for which reason it has been set aside and superseded.’”
61. De testamento, 35r.
62. Denis Minns, Irenaeus: An Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 98–99.
63. St Irenaeus, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, trans. from the Armenian with introduction and notes by J. Armitage Robinson (London: SPCK, 1920), 76, 77.
64. Decades, 2:298.
65. Ibid., 2:286, 287.
66. Bullinger, Ieremias fidelissimus et laboriosissimus Dei propheta expositus (Zurich: Froschauer, 1575), 188r.
67. Lillback, “Eternal Testament,” 267. “Nam illi foedus digito dei cordibus inscriptum gerebant.”
68. Old Faith, 27. “Dann Gott hat es alles mit inen selbs geredt/unnd in ire hertzen geschriben, Der alt gloub, Bviv; Deus et enim de omnibus his praesens cum illis disserens, vi & efficacia divini spiritus cordibus illorum insculpsit” (Antiquissima fides et vera religio [Zurich: Froschauer, 1544], HBBibl no.103, 14r).
69. Old Faith, 33. “Dann grad die er sinen vordern geben und in ire herzen geschriben hatt, Der alt gloub, Ciiiiv; quas maiorum animis insculpserat” (Antiquissima fides, 20r).
70. Old Faith, 40. “…und das er bißhar in die hertzen der heiligen geschriben, Der alt gloub, Diiv; & quod hactenus in mollia corda patrum inscripserat” (Antiquissima fides, 26v).
71. Decades, 1:210, 211. “Inscripserat quidem illa dominus digito suo in corda ipsorum.”
72. Ibid., 2:298. “ita dies eorum cordibus olim quoque legem inscripsit et spiritum suum infudit.”
73. Urs Leu, “Heinrich Bullingers Privatbibliothek,” Zwingliana 30 (2003): 5–29. Of the 21 volumes of church fathers in Bullinger’s personal library none is from Irenaeus.
74. Joachim Staedtke, Die Theologie des jungen Bullinger (Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1962), 43.
75. Joe Mock, “To What Extent Was Bullinger’s ‘The Old Faith’ (1537) a Theological Tract?,” Unio cum Christo 3 (2017): 137–54.
76. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, the complete English translation from vol. 1 of ANF (n.p.: Ex Fontibus, 2010), 441. “Iusti autem patres virtutem decalogi conscriptam habentes in cordibus et animabus suis.”
77. Coxhead, “Cardionomographic Work,” 95.