The controversial Kerux review of The Law Is Not of Faith is now available on line. I cannot get past the first sentence: “For the past thirty years, a shift in Reformed covenant theology has been percolating under the hot Southern California sun in Escondido.â€
This is an amazing opening because for thirty years the sideline Reformed world has experienced a controversy over the refashioning of covenant theology and the doctrines that flow from it. But Westminster California was not the place where the controverted doctrines came from. Did the reviewers for Kerux notice anything about Federal Vision, or Evangelicals and Catholics Together, or Norman Shepherd? Of course, not. These are real controversies conveniently ignored to go after the alleged real culprit: WSC and its part-time professor, Meredith G. Kline.
Atop the bluff of a former orange grove, a quiet redefinition of the Sinaitic covenant administration as a typological covenant of works, complete with meritorious obedience and meritorious reward has been ripening. The architect of this paradigm shift was the late Meredith G. Kline.
Again, this is truly dumbfounding. The doctrine of justification has been up for grabs in the heart of conservative Reformed and Presbyterian communions such as the OPC, PCA, and URC. The doctrine has received further questions and revisions in the broader Protestant world thanks to the already mentioned Evangelicals and Catholics Together, the Federal Vision, and the New Perspective on Paul. And yet, Kerux decides to lower the boom on Kline and WSC.
It should be noted that Kline, as a professor at Gordon-Conwell, was one of those who thirty years ago supported the Westminster faculty who were opposed to Shepherd’s teaching – among them, W. Robert Godfrey, Palmer Robertson, Robert Knudsen, and Arthur Kuschke. And since then it has been Klineans who have been clearest on justification, its centrality to the Reformed doctrine of salvation, and its priority to sanctification. At the same time, it has been those who have either defended or been silent about Shepherd who have been some of the biggest critics of Westminster California.
Consequently, it is an odd historical judgment that Kerux offers, and one that draws attention away from the real source of controversy in Reformed circles.
But the problems of historical analysis only get worse for the authors of the review. Not only was Kline an important critic of Shepherd but his students have been at least partly responsible for bringing a measure of calm to that controversy within the OPC thanks to the leadership of WSC faculty on the study committee on justification. That report was clear regarding the defects of Shepherd’s views and their ties and affinities to the Federal Vision and the New Perspective on Paul.
And in case anyone actually thought WSC was ambiguous about justification, the seminary has issued a statement on the doctrine, “Our Testimony on Justification,†which counters the Shepherdian claim that justification needs to be set free from its Lutheran bondage. It declares:
. . . some who claim to be Reformed suggest that too many Reformed people have a Lutheran view of justification and need to develop a distinctively Reformed view of justification. These critics usually claim that they accept the Reformed confessions, yet at the same time claim that Reformed theology needs to be changed and clarified to be distinctive. Such critics, called neonomians in the seventeenth century, today are perhaps better labeled covenant moralists.
Our testimony is directed primarily to this third group who claim to be genuinely Reformed. These covenant moralists teach, contrary to the Reformed confessions and/or historic Reformed conviction, some or all of the following:
that the Reformation doctrine of justification is not fully biblical;
that the Lutherans and Calvinists have different doctrines of justification;
that the Reformation misunderstood Paul on justification;
that justification is not by faith alone, but by faithfulness, i.e. trust in Christ and obedience;
that the idea of merit as a way of explaining the work of Christ for us is unbiblical;
that Christ died for our sins but he did not keep the law perfectly in our place (his active obedience);
that Christ does not impute his active obedience to us;
that obedience or good works is not only the fruit or evidence of faith, but is also part of the ground or instrument of justification;
that our justification is in some way dependent on the final judgment of our works.
As the faculty of Westminster Seminary California we believe that we must issue this testimony especially in relation to those who claim to be Reformed in their attack on the Reformation doctrine of justification and who claim to uphold the teaching of the Reformed confessions.
So for the last thirty years, Westminster California has through its faculty, both in the courts of the church and individual authors, during debates about Shepherd, ECT, Federal Vision, and the New Perspective, been on the right side of the doctrines of grace. Now along comes Kerux to re-write history and say that not Shepherd, Richard John Neuhaus, Chuck Colson, nor N. T. Wright was the problem but Meredith G. Kline and his students. To borrow a line from Harry Emerson Fosdick, “what incredible folly!â€
203 Comments
Bob:
Neither I nor anyone called you a gospel denier. It’s not all about you. I said: “the unintended consequence of your views is to attack vital doctrines that are essential to sola gratia and sola fide. Our vituperation is — or should be — directed at your views, not at you.” This is not personal. It’s about the positions being expressed. Let’s leave to one side for the moment the posters on this site (so no one takes offense.) As Mike Horton demonstrated in an impotant paper, it’s inherent in the view that denies the soteric covenant of works that that view leaves no room for Christ to fulfill the covenant perfectly as our covenant mediator and surety, hence no room for his perfect righteousness to be imputed to us by faith, hence no gospel. Now those like John Murray who regrettably denied the covenant of works, in its classical sense, did not intend to deny the gospel; and to his credit Murray did not follow his view to its logical conclusions the way some do. But it’s fair game to force people to see the logical consequenses of their positions. I would not call Murray a gospel denier even though his denial of the covenant of works led ultimately to that conclusion.
DGH: I think you make a good point saying the world is consituted in such a way that generally those who obey the law receive benefit — even though their law keeping is imperfect (at a minimum, it’s not from the heart, it’s not from faith). Yet they receive benefit even in the 21st century. Because God ordained a world that is put together this way. If God decreed to accept imperfect, external obedience of a nation as sufficient to deserve temporal blessing, doesn’t he have the sovereign right to set the standard that will please him for his (typological) purposes? Who are we to say that he has to accept only perfect obedience on the order of pre-Fall Adam when his purposes were typology and pedagogy and not salvation? Why? Because our English word “merit” is defined that way? That’s a category mistake.
Who here denies the covenant of works? Not me. I affirm it 100%. What I affirm, as well, along with almost everyone in the 17thC, is that the covenant of works was gracious. You guys use monocovenatalism to describe that position, but then we have a whole load of monocovenatal Reformed theologians, and not just Murray, but stretching back to the 16thC. Just read Richard Muller.
Murray affirms the substance of the covenant of works. He has qualms with the terminology. And, he’s not alone in the history of Reformed theology. The cow didn’t exactly jump off the pages of Scripture, hence, it didn’t become a commonplace till the 17thC.
JJ:
The Gospel that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law” is good news to both Jews and Gentiles for two reasons:
1. For Jews and Gentiles, because Jesus was born as the second Adam, from who all men descend and inherit the corruption and guilt of his first sin.
2. For Jews, because he was born under the administrative bondage of the Mosaic covenant, which consisted in the burden of ceremonies, and its legal administration (not substance). Thus he inagurates an era of relatively greater freedom for them (cf. WCF 20:1)
I don’t need a Klinean-works-merit form of republication to maintain that.
EB
Sullivan:
You write:
“If God decreed to accept imperfect, external obedience of a nation as sufficient to deserve temporal blessing, doesn’t he have the sovereign right to set the standard that will please him for his (typological) purposes? Who are we to say that he has to accept only perfect obedience on the order of pre-Fall Adam when his purposes were typology and pedagogy and not salvation?”
God cannot decree an absolute, logical contradiction. Nor can he, by his omnipotent power, execute something that implies a contradiction. For example, he cannot decree that he would make a circle a square. He cannot decree that a man would have a body and not have a body at the same time in the same sense. He cannot decree that man would be a sinner and that he would also be sinless in the same sense at the same time.
Likewise, he cannot decree that imperfect obedience can be accepted as meritorious (or “sufficient to deserve temporal blessing” as you put it). Perfection is a necessary condition for merit. If you want to define merit to encompass the imperfect obedience which God accepts and rewards in grace, then I guess we can talk about merit for Israel. But then it seems to me you would have to say that NT saints also “merit” when God accepts the good works of believers in Christ and “is pleased to reward that which is sincere, although accompanied by with many weaknesses and imperfections” (WCF, 16:6).
I said “I guess” we can do that. But it seems to me to be a rather sloppy way of describing the nature of obedience and reward to fallen sinners. In fact, it would take a word that strictly and properly refers to perfect obedience to refer to the exact opposite (imperfect obedience). I guess we could also decide to define the word “woman” as “man” and “man” as “woman”; or the word “yes” as “no” and “no” as “yes.” We could do that, but it would utterly confuse most of the people who would listen to us talk. And that, it strikes me, is something far more confusing that what Shepherd and the FV argue about faith and works in justification (who are wrong).
EB:
You are engaging in category mistakes, both linguistic and logical. Kline’s word “merit” has so troubled you that you are blinded by it. The word “merit” is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Nor is God limited by Webster’s English Dictionary’s definition of that word. There would be a contradiction if God had decreed perfect, perpetual, personal obedience as the hinge and sine qua non [apologies to the Latin police] of all human blessing, and then also decreed that Isrsael could have fat cows if they generally, nationally, achieved a sufficient level of obedience that the eschatalogial imagery was retained to a sufficent decree. There would be a contradiction if he decreed an A was necessary to pass all classes in seminary, but then also decreed that a C was sufficient to pass Hebrew. But there is no contradiction if he decreed that an A was necessary to pass Pentateuch but a C was sufficient to pass Latin (in recognition of its relatively useless state anyway). There is no contradiction if God decreed that an A was necessary to received the reward of eternal life, but a C was enough to receive the reward of fat cows.
A thing cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. But obedience for eternal life is a differenct category/relationship than obedience to receive rain for your crops or to avoid a three-day notice to vacate the land. No contradiction, unless you assume a single, unitary standard of obedience for all purposes and all blessings for all people in all covenants in all periods for all time. I don’t see that in Scripture.
Sullivan:
I see we are getting nowhere with this discussion. If I have contributed to the impasse through a lack of clarity, I apologize.
The contradiction lies in the fact that God’s standard of justice is perfection. All imperfections, howesoever small, nullify that standard of justice. Therefore, it is at best confusing to describe imperfect obedience as meriting a reward on a principle of works-merit that is “opposite to faith grace” as Kline says (see quote above). That is the way Kline himself defines the works principle: it is “opposite grace-faith.”
Surely, God is not bound by his dictionary! But when Kline says the merit-principle was opposite grace, and then argues that the merit involved the gracious acceptance of imperfect obedience, he has fallen into a contradiction. How can it be “opposite grace faith” and involved “grace” at the same time?
The word “merit” is found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Hebrew term is “SACAR,” and it means “wages.” However, like many words in Hebrew (or English), it does not always carry its strict signification, but is sometimes used to denote rewards God gives in grace to his servants. The Greek term is “μισθός,” which can also be used broadly or strictly in the way I have just described. But Paul does contrast it sharply with grace-faith in Romans 4:1ff.
My point is not to talk about the flexibility of language, but to point to what I regard as a contradictory (or at least confusing) conflation of a “works-merit principle opposite grace” with a degree of grace. Please Sullivan, tell me: how can something be “opposite faith grace,” and still involve grace? You have to admit that that is at least a confusing and unclear way of speaking? Those are Kline’s words, not mine.
Again, I agree that God can accept imperfect obedience and reward it (in Christ). But this happens only in the covenant of grace.
The word “merit” (when applied to sinners, not when applied to Christ or Adam) also troubles Augustine, Calvin, Luther, the WCF and a whole host of other Reformed theologians and confessions. I am still amazed that it fails to trouble many of you.
Sullivan:
I don’t see (as you say) a “assume a single, unitary standard of obedience for all purposes and all blessings for all people in all covenants in all periods for all time.”
As I have argued, there are only two ways our good works can be acceptable to God: through the covenant of works (which requires pefect obedience in order to receive a reward) or through the covenant of grace (which accepts imperfect obedience through Christ’s work and graciously promises it a reward.
These are the only two covenants (or “categories” as you put it) I read about in Scripture and in the Reformed Confessions. There is no tertium quid between them. Where in Scripture do you read about a third?
If the Mosaic covenant rewards imperfect obedience, it is a covenant of grace, not a covenant of works, nor a third covenant.
Okay, we have beat this one to death. Let the readers (who are certainly numerous) think about what we have said and decide which one (perhaps neither!) makes more sense.
And on that note, I leave, as well. Paenitet me sceleris!
I wouldn’t phrase it as Kline did, but I don’t see the contradiction. (Kline was a genius, and I learned a great deal from him, but he would have done better with an editor and someone to disable the hyphen function on his word processor.) agree with you that the Mosaic Covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace. Thus grace was the basis upon which Israelites were saved, and common grace or saving grace are the only bases upon which finally any human being receives anything other than hell. But it’s no contradiction to see that, under the principle of periodicity, God can use different economies at different times, and have different administrations of the covenant of grace, as indeed he did before the New Covenant. And to have a works-principle overlaid upon the gracious Mosaic Covenant is not a contradiction. The principle operates by works only at the typological level, only at the national level. God decreed to be satisfied with national, human works of the nation at the level of typology, temporarily, in his theocracy, for purposes of illustration and teaching, as was his sovereign right. That he did so is blindlingly obvious, and rather than insist that God must have only one standard for all purposes, outside of the soteric, because Miriam Webster says so is something I’m not willing to say. Scripture doesn’t say that, and you have cited no passage that sustains your proposition. Rom. 4 is in the context of justificaiton. Paul insists works must be perfect to yield justification, and Christ is the only perfect lawkeeper who earned our justification.That’s not in dispute. You can’t import that standard into a different context such as the works principle of the Mosaic covenant.
I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness and careful attempt to defend your view. I encourage others to read Kline and Vos for themselves before making up their mind. Thanks for the exchange.
Your idea of strict “merit” is a proxy for perfect obedience, but the Hebrew sacar does not carry that meaning. It has a broad semantic range, and can mean “reward” or “recompense,” including degrees of reward.
Darn! I was hoping you’d stick around, Bob, and give us the Latin for “boo!”
EB, you need a little dose of two kingdom theology to straighten this out. Magistrates are ordained by God to punish evil and reward good. Magistrates are a type of eschatological judgment, but they are not the real thing. Those whom the magistrate condemns could be vindicated on the day of Christ’s judgment. So there is a paradoxical relationship between the earthly shadow of divine justice and heavenly reality.
If you can understand this, I don’t see why it’s so hard to see this going on with Israel. Of course, Israel has another dimension going on as descendants of Abraham and that covenant. But despite that gracious background, in its earthly existence Israel is not correlating with heavenly realities. They were supposed to be waiting for a heavenly city. What they did here, did not necessarily usher in there.
I see a similar paradoxical relationship for church and culture after Israel. The cross was folly to the Greeks. That doesn’t mean that the Greeks were foolish. They were wise in the wisdom of the world. But their wisdom could not take them beyond this world to the truths of the world to come. Paul doesn’t call the Greeks foolish. He says that the gospel is foolish to them because the gospel does not conform to the realities of this world. Which is exactly what is true of the Covenant of Grace. It does not conform to the Covenant of Works. If it did, we’d all be dead men walking.
Christian, could you expand on how a denial of “republication” leads to a denial of justification by faith alone.
Just to clear up one point: I said (following the language of Hebrews) that “to believe is to obey” — which means that obedience is the fruit of belief.
You read it as, “to obey is to believe”, which is logically opposite and *not* an orthodox expression.
You can see the subtlety, and you can understand that when Murrayites say “to believe is to obey”, it can be read by Klineans as “to obey is to believe.”
JRC
DGH,
“boo” is a Latin word!
Love,
Bob
What about “hoo” as in “boo hoo,” I thought you had left us?
I’ll give it one more round and then leave it here.
First point: You appeal, quite rightly, to Deut. 28 for the articulation of the works principle. However, the works principle in Deut. 28 does not allow for acceptance of a less-than-perfect obedience. Instead, the standard given is “If you fully obey…if you obey all the commands…However, if you do not obey … if you do not carefully follow all of the commands…”
It really, truly is an absolute merit principle expressed here.
Ah, you say, but Israel didn’t obey perfectly and God still left them in the land. So, you reason, it must be that God was evaluating their merit on a relative scale. It’s a reasonable inference, but it flatly contradicts the “all” and “every” language of Deut. 28. That’s the contradiction: The very passage that establishes the merit principle also rules out relative merit.
Further, the relative merit inference ignores the fact that God gives a completely different principle for their possession and retention of the land: “For the sake of Abraham.” Significantly, you have not yet addressed this in considering the functioning of the merit principle.
He never, ever says “You have obeyed so imperfectly, yet because of your feeble-but-sincere obedience, I’ll let you stay.” The closest you might get to that is something like Chron. 27, “Jotham grew powerful because he walked steadfastly before the Lord.” Or 2 Chr 34.27-28, where God delays judgment because of the obedience of Josiah. But this statement is not precise enough to determine whether we’re talking about satisfying Deut. 28 or whether we are seeing the “obedience of faith”; and therefore, it is not precise enough to see whether we’re talking about merit or something else.
And even those statements are few and far between. The Northern Kingdom had zero good kings — zero! — and yet they stayed in the land some 300 or 400 years beyond David. Almost twice the lifespan of our country.
What accounts for the radical disconnect between the actual works of Israel and the promises and threats in Deut. 28? It cannot be that God accepted their imperfect obedience, because He does not characterize it as imperfect obedience. He characterizes it as failure.
Second point: There is a theological term for what you describe, an imperfect obedience accepted as “good enough.” It is called, in Catholic theology, congruous merit (see Summa Q114 Art. 3). It is this notion of merit that was rejected by the Reformers as being semi-Pelagian: man contributes his part, and then God graciously accepts it as “good enough.”
I believe that EB is arguing that your picture of the typological republication, functioning positively according to what looks like congruous merit, is semi-Pelagian. Perhaps you don’t mean to go there? Certainly, Kline did not — but his treatment of Gen 26 is unfortunate.
[Sub-point -- you say that Rom 4 is about justification, not the land. Rom 4.13 appears however to be talking about the land promise; and it is commonplace in Reformed theology (over against Dispensational theology) that the covenant, which was received by faith, is a unit, not separable into different promises that applied to different groups of people. The land promise goes with the justification goes with "I will be your God.", which is why Paul calls the whole package, "the promise."]
Third point:
You speak of a works-principle overlaying a covenant of grace. This is, I think, exactly right. Deut. 28 is a works-principle that adds on to and administers, but does not nullify (Gal.) the gracious covenant with Abraham.
I’m just arguing, let’s not try to merge the works-principle into the covenant of grace, so that works are graciously accepted as if meritorious. That is the Catholic confusion. Instead, wouldn’t it make more sense to say that grace functioned at the same time as the works principle, softening it and delaying the inevitable curse of the Law?
Anyways, I hope this makes sense. I appreciate your spirit of interaction.
Jeff Cagle
Precisely. Which is why we ought not (IMO) say that Israel kept the land because of obedience to a works-principle, however relative. The land was a part of the covenant of grace; keeping it because of obedience would conflate the covenants. No?
Carry this to its logical conclusion. Suppose Israel had kept the Law — what then? Ah, you say, but they didn’t; they couldn’t; because of their depravity.
And I say, “Exactly.” Just as with individuals, so also the Law functioned nationally to expose the depravity of Israel. It was demeritive only.
Right, this is the “Proverbs point” — wisdom is its own reward because God has set the world up that way (credit: Mark Futato).
But this is yet something different from either merit or typological republication. It applies even in China. On Wall Street, even.
Did I, a Gentile who was never under the terms of the Mosaic covenant, need Christ’s active obedience of that covenant imputed to me?
JJ:
You write: “Did I, a Gentile who was never under the terms of the Mosaic covenant, need Christ’s active obedience of that covenant imputed to me?”
You and I, as Gentiles (sons of Adam) need a new/second/last Adam to obey where our first father Adam disobeyed (Rom. 5:12ff). Adam had to obey God perfectly (active obedience). Thus Christ had to obey the law actively, and impute that active obedience to our account to free us from sin, condemnation, and death (praise be his name!). In addition, he had to suffer the penalty that was due us for our sins. He did this on the cross (passive obedience) which is also imputed to our account.
These two, taken together constitute the full “merits of Christ” imputed to our account in justification (which recieved by faith alone).
Why do I need a Kline-typological-works-merit doctrine of republication to get this? I get it all from my standard, orthodox, confessional contrast between the prelapsarian covenant of works with the first Adam, and the postlapsarian covenant of grace in the second Adam. Why is my denial of Kline-works-merit typological republication paradigm tantamount to being a member of the kingdom of Satan (as some here have suggested–a statement that very few have actually denounced, including you Dr. Hart).
If we operate with Pauline categories, and only acknowledge TWO Adams (Adam and Christ), we are left with a pristinely orthodox doctrine of justification by faith alone, and we don’t have to try to sort out the confusing, contradictory, and sloppy messes that are created when we try to argue that Israel is a kind of “third Adam” or Adam version 1.1 that comes in between that is capable of some kind of merit-grace hybrid.
Paul is clear: there are only two Adams. The first Adam and the second/last Adam. Between these two, there is no other Adam.
Jeff:
Thank you for this post. I think you hit the nail on the head, especially the part about Deut 28. Thank you for that: I think it puts things clearer than I had before.
But (in my opinion) Kline’s take on Genesis 26 was more than “unfortunate.”
But which Law did he obey for me (a Gentile)?
That of Moses or that of creation? Or both?
>Christian, could you expand on how a denial of “republication†leads to a denial of justification by faith alone.
In our time it’s usually part and parcel.
——-
>Christian, your zeal for doctrine is commendable. It’s just that you’re too quick to pull the trigger on charges of “ulterior motive†, “false teacherâ€, and so on.
I am directing such comments to the false teachers and their followers. False teachers have followers, some unwitting, some not. If I catch the unwitting followers in the drag net then that is also not so bad because they at least get a good shock that what they have been taught is not exactly universally held truth.
———–
>In the case of Eutyches’ Bane, he wants to guard against something specific: he wants to make it clear that Israel was incapable of following the Law, even at the national-typological level. You know, Joshua 24 and all that?
I think the Bible makes that clear enough for us. And it is not any part of classical Covenant – Federal – Theology that Israel is able to follow the law to a ‘t’ in any context. Again, harping piously against such ‘dangerous flirting’ with ‘works righteousness’ is a tactic of the false teachers (in our day think Federal Visionists) when their whole program is to deny justification by faith alone. They are like communists who called themselves ‘people’s republic’ and said they were for ‘democracy’ until they attained enough power to show their true colors.
———
>So to preserve this idea, he takes aim at the Kline hypothesis that the Law was republished typologically at Sinai as a means for Israel to stay in the land by merit.
And he and any other person with his ‘concern’ has had it explained to them over and over and had the ABCs of Federal Theology explained to them over and over to the point where we can only conclude they are persisting in their confusion because they want to. It’s called disingenuous bewilderment, and it’s a necessary tactic when attacking biblical doctrine from inside the tent.
———
>Christian: your post here is WAY over the line. Are you arguing that if you don’t believe in republication, you can’t believe in justificaiton by faith alone? Are the many men in good standing in the OPC, PCA, URC, and several other NAPARC churches all heretics and false teachers because they don’t agree with (your view) of republication? Are they really members of the kingdom of Satan?
As I said before: attacking republication is a sign of ulterior motive and taking an oblique angle towards another target simply because republication is so innocuous. It’s called basic Federal Theology. Federal Theology says there is one way to be saved: works. Either your own (good luck with that) or Jesus Christ’s, appropriated by faith (by the grace of God).
———-
>Christian,your zeal for doctrine is commendable. It’s just that you’re too quick to pull the trigger on charges of “ulterior motive†, “false teacherâ€, and so on.
Explained above. Also, this doctrine is foundational to a Christian on the battlefield engaged in the spiritual warfare that confronts any who are regenerated by the Word and the Spirit. If you are being unwitting wrong you are just as lethal as if you are being consciously mischievous. So if you are innocent in your approach the shock to your system by anything I’ve written is still good for you.
The works principle re Israel and the land was included in a package of ceremonial sacrifice for sin (again, Israel is unique as a fallen people in this area as well). It was also their falling away from the latter (and worshiping and sacrificing to all the various gods of the peoples surrounding them) that led to their losing the land.
The ‘time frame’ for God’s justice to come down on them was obviously ‘hedged’ by the ceremonial sacrifice for sin.
To quibble that God didn’t evacuate them out of the land the moment the first Israelite told a lie is an example of the petulant desire to always find ‘loose ends’ and confusion in this subject when the Bible itself makes it rather clear.
“At Sinai it was not the ‘bare’ law that was given, but a reflection of the covenant of works revived, as it were, in the interests of the covenant of grace continued at Sinai.”
- G. Vos, p. 255 in selected shorter writings
Law is law for the Israelites, whether moral, civil, or ceremonial. Doing the ceremonial law was not an act of faith. Faith towards what? ritual? God makes it clear in Isaiah the smoke from those sacrifices was nothing He needed from them. They were not faith, they were works. God told them to sacrifice various things to pay for their sins during this time and to do it as a work. Obviously God made this real blood of animals effectual for putting off judgment for this part of the history of His overall plan. And the Israelites not only didn’t follow the moral law but they stopped following the ceremonial law as well. They sacrificed to Baal, or what have you. It’s less clear how delinquent they were in keeping the civil laws (but actually since the pure kingly bloodline from Adam to Christ just barely was maintained they obviously tried to be as delinquent there as they could be as well, i.e. ignoring the laws regarding marriage and so on), but for fallen man inflicting penalties on other people is much easier to do than holding yourself to the ten commandments or doing ritual.
So when Jesus incarnated He *was* the ceremonial law, the priest and the sacrifice. He followed the moral law (to a ‘t’); even to the very end while hanging on the cross, making sure his mother would be taken care of, i.e. 5th commandment. The civil laws were fulfilled by his very birth (hence His ability to say he who is without sin cast the first stone).
I write the above lest anyone would say following the ceremonial law was an act of faith rather than works. Faith for the Israelites was towards the coming Messiah, what the ceremonial laws as types pointed to, obviously vaguely for the Israelites, but we don’t know what other help they had to recognize the coming Messiah as the necessary object of their faith: prophets, other teachings still in existence from the time of the patriarchs, etc. See John Owen’s Biblical Theology for this subject…
Jeff:
In brief: I believe you underestimate the extent to which the Lord is pleased to use typology to point to Christ and his fulfillment of a covenant of works and securing of kingdom blessings, and often it involves temporal blessings and curses. You might not like that, but God does reward imperfect obedience at the typologial level, and it’s not confined to national Israel.
First, re Dt. 28, recall it’s part of a covenant treaty with Israel. Gen. 28 is part of the sanctions portion of the suzerainty treaty. You’re right that the stipulations can’t be kept perfectly, which is the pedagogical point of the OC law — to lead Israel to their Messiah. Recall also that the theocracy is a re-enactment of the Edenic theocracy, of humanity’s primal probation and fall, with Israel cast as God’s son, Adam, a type of the Last Adam. The connections between Adam-Israel-Christ are too numberous to mention here — to take just one example, the temptation of Christ recapitulates both Adam and Christ (the temptation, the wilderness, 40 days/40 years). It was as the true Israel, born under law, that Christ was the last Adam. To be a re-enactment, to be true to the typology, the Mosaic covenant had to be works based.
While the Mosaic economy was an administraiton of the covenant of grace at the basic level, it was also had a works component, I think we have to keep the law and the gospel separated, as Kline does, and not smutz them together like “congruent merit” works cooperating with grace. Ex: Paul in Rom. 10:4ff and Gal. 3:10ff sets up a contrast between the older order of the law and works wiwth the NC order of grace and faith. In fact he characterizes the Mosaic covenant as one of “bondage, condemnation, and death.” That doesn’t sound like grace. That’s law. (See also 2 Cor. 3:6-9 and Gal. 4:24-26). The OC had as its dominant character, law. That’s Paul’s whole point. For sinners, you’re right; they can’t keep it. That was Paul’s point. For post-fall man, it was a covenant of condemnation due to Israel’s sinful failures. There is no grace in that.
Paul saw that works and grace operated simultaneously in the Mosaic covenant, but withou conflict. He saw the works principle in the Mosaic economy and insisted there nevertheless was no failure of the promises to Abrham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gal. 3:17) BECAUSE sthe works pprinciple applied only to the typological kingdom of Canaan, not to the eschatalogical eternal city promised to Abrham and his seed through faith.
It also bears mentioning that the overlay of typlogy over the various administrations of the covenant of grace are not confined to Israel as a whole. The Lord was pleased to take the exemplary, albeit imperfect, obedience of some of his servants and make it a typological sign of how the obedience of the coming true Servant of the Lord would secure the true kingeom and its royal blessings for himself and his people. Ex: Abraham and David received covenants of grant as rewards for their faithfulness. Also Phinehas (Numb. 25:11-13). Many of these servants, who are types of Christ, are described as “faithful” and receiving temporal rewards. Joseph, Noah, Abraham, David. Of course these servants throughout the OT were saved by grace alone through faith alone, but the faithfulness of their lives in general, or the special acts of exemplary service, was invested by God with typologial meaning so they pointed to the true Servant of the Lord, Christ, as the One who was also under a COW and who would receive the kingdom for himself and his people.
In short, throughout Scripture God accepts, at the level of typology, imperfect faithfulness.
Now for those who want to say it was all of grace, and don’t want to admit any republication of the COW, I would ask, what are the covenant stipulations and sanctions about? As Kline states, if the old typological kingdom had been secured by sovereign grace in Christ rather than a works principle, Israel would not have lost her national election. That Israel fell and received the covenant curses — finally fulfilled in the first century — shows that the works principle, not grace, was the driving administrative principle of the Old Covenant. The works principle, that Kline so astutely saw, is present in much of the typology of Scripture, and results in purely typological blessings and curses, that are related to the eschatalogical blessings and curses.
I know you won’t agree, but I felt compelled to at least make the case.
Thanks for your admirable tone of charity and grace!!! Blessings to you.
Two thoughts:
First, just because an idea solves your problem doesn’t mean it’s entirely correct. I’ve argued above that the Moral Law was indeed republished at Sinai; but that Kline’s notion of typological republication needs correction to remove the idea that Israel or Abraham did in fact merit anything, even typologically.
So as you think about “those who deny republication”, keep in mind that it may not be every aspect of republication that’s denied, but perhaps a particular aspect of one theory of republication.
Second, I think Rom 3.21ff. solves the problem cleanly: the Law bound all men, Jew and Gentile; Jesus is the sacrifice of atonement for all.
(I’ve known a number of dispensationalists and never heard that one, BTW. Wonders never cease)
JRC
I left a reply to Jeff, but it got threaded in the middle above. I think these get imbedded in some random order ……
Then why did they lose the land? Once they lost it were they outside the covenant of grace? Please say no, otherwise there goes the Virgin Mary.
It is not something different if Adam was representative of all men in the CoW, and Israel was a type of Adam along with the Mosaic Covenant as republication.
well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse meeeeeeeeeeeeee.
DGH: I do believe that the world is so constituted that those who obey its laws — the created order — will live (generally speaking) more comfortably than those who don’t.
JRC: Right, this is the “Proverbs point†— wisdom is its own reward because God has set the world up that way.
But this is yet something different from either merit or typological republication. It applies even in China. On Wall Street, even.
DGH: It is not something different if Adam was representative of all men in the CoW, and Israel was a type of Adam along with the Mosaic Covenant as republication.
Explain more, please? How does China relate to Israel in terms of the Mosaic Covenant? Isn’t Adam’s (dis)obedience a foregone conclusion, so that we cannot look to the COW for blessings?
Could you add a couple more syllables next time … perhaps three, or four?
I saw it, thanks. I think we both want to keep law and grace separated, but we have opposite ideas as to how to accomplish it.
Blessings,
Jeff
It’s really more distinctive of NCT, I guess (ids.org).
>Christian, could you expand on how a denial of “republication†leads to a denial of justification by faith alone.
In our time it’s usually part and parcel
——————————————————-
Christian, I take it then that you don’t have a reason for it other than that some JBFA deniers also deny republication. I’d still like to see a logical connection though, since it’s easy enough to affirm JBFA and deny republication.
Don’t know how these threads get switched around, but here goes again…
>Christian, could you expand on how a denial of “republication†leads to a denial of justification by faith alone.
In our time it’s usually part and parcel
——————————————————-
Christian, I take it then that you don’t have a reason for it other than that some JBFA deniers also deny republication. I’d still like to see a logical connection though, since it’s easy enough to affirm JBFA and deny republication.
>Christian, I take it then that you don’t have a reason for it other than that some JBFA deniers also deny republication. I’d still like to see a logical connection though, since it’s easy enough to affirm JBFA and deny republication.
Yes, you can deny the mechanics of God’s plan of redemption (two Adams, second Adam fulfilling what the first Adam failed to fulfill, imputation of the active obedience of Christ by faith in Christ) and still hold to justification by faith alone. You’ll be naked if you have to defend it before false teachers or the devil himself.
Again, and again, and again: republication is innocuous. It is basic Federal Theology. The second Adam (Jesus) had to be *born under the law.* The *same law* Adam failed to fulfill. That law was given in elaborated form for all the world to know – via God’s Word ultimately – on Sinai. The false teachers of all eras who attack justification by faith alone in all eras *have* to deny Jesus did anything that is imputed to anybody. They also deny the Covenant of Works exists. They have to go back up river and deny all these doctrines so that they can present their usual justification by faith and works poison. They have to redirect the stream. That includes the pernicious – to them – doctrine of republication, which to any who understand and value classical Federal Theology is not a controversial issue.
I.e. there is nothing lost in seeing republication; there is everything lost in denying it.
Because it tends to confuse beginners in Reformed soteriology (What? we’re saved by works? Heresy!!!! I stand here to confront you, sir, and will confront you until stars fall and the mountains crumble and the tides refuse to ebb and, and so on!!! I will not abide any notion of works righteousness, sir!!! I will defend the faith as God has given me to defend it until His glorious return, sir!!!) So then you calmly point out that it is Jesus’ work that saves, after the fall. But they are too wrought up at that point to be able to think straight and they go away thinking they’ve defended the Kingdom against heresy.
One way to be saved: works. Either your own (good luck with that) or Jesus’, appropriated by faith (by the grace of God).
Then there are the false teachers who play on this easy confusion. Over and over and over.
It’s the false teachers like Federal Visionists who have ginned up republication to be ‘controversial.’
A good analogy in Reformed Theology as to why some Reformed theologians have written on it (republication) and some not is this: some Reformed theologians going back to the 16th century have chosen not to see a Covenant of Redemption, or to use that terminology. But they *assume it* in how they see the Covenant of Grace. It’s not controversial. Personally, I see a Covenant of Redemption and see it as important in understanding God’s plan overall especially against the onslaught of the usual angles of attack of the false teachers. Yet I see we’re on the same page anyway. Some don’t like the Covenant of Redemption and prefer to fold it into the Covenant of Grace and talk of it all as being the Covenant of Grace, fine.
Same with republication. Probably many well-known Reformed theologians never even thought about the issue.
Remember too: Federal Theology is covenant theology systematized. And some people have a prejudice against systematizing biblical theology (which is the realm covenant theology tends to reside in until systematized) to anything resembling a terminal point. It takes away their fun.
Always learning, never coming to understanding, the apostle says.
Hi Christian, I thought republication had to do with the idea that the whole of the Mosaic law was present (somehow) in the food law given to Adam. Scott Clark summarized it as “the giving of the Law at Sinai was a ‘re-publication’ of the Law given in the garden to Adam as part of the covenant of works.” (Heidelblog site.)
Clark goes on: “They thought this way because they had a doctrine of natural or creational law, i.e., there is a moral law that was given in the garden that is reflected in the law given at Sinai.”
This is the point anti-repubs deny. A food law is a food law. It is not creational law, nor the Mosaic code, nor even the 10 commandments. It’s just a food law, tout court.
Republicationists have replaced the nominal food law of Eden with a full-blow “creational law” theory. As I said, I think this is motivated by sabbatarianism, and really has nothing to do with JBFA.
I think Clark is right that the republication idea is taught in the WCF, but that does not mean the WCF is right. As Samuel Rutherford said, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works because it’s made with sinners, whereas the COW was made with a perfect man, and required perfect fulfillment.
Clark’s position is to change the idea of what a covenant of works is — he makes it less exacting when applied to land. I don’t think that’s really necessary, and it is only a consequence of the republication idea — that the Mosaic covenant is a repub of the COW
The Mosaic covenant is like the Adamic covenant only in the sense that it was conditional. But that only makes it a POLITICAL covenant, not a covenant of works (requiring exact obedience). The conditionality in the Mosaic covenant shows that it is not a covenant of grace either.
IOW, the Mosaic covenant was unique.
None of this has anything to do with imputation, or JBFA. Or at least you haven’t shown that it does.
Vern
I don’t understand what’s happening to the threading here. Is there no way to fix this?
Hi Christian, I thought republication had to do with the idea that the whole of the Mosaic law was present (somehow) in the food law given to Adam. Scott Clark summarized it as “the giving of the Law at Sinai was a ‘re-publication’ of the Law given in the garden to Adam as part of the covenant of works.†(Heidelblog site.)
Clark goes on: “They thought this way because they had a doctrine of natural or creational law, i.e., there is a moral law that was given in the garden that is reflected in the law given at Sinai.â€
This is the point anti-repubs deny. A food law is a food law. It is not creational law, nor the Mosaic code, nor even the 10 commandments. It’s just a food law, tout court.
Republicationists have replaced the nominal food law of Eden with a full-blow “creational law†theory. As I said, I think this is motivated by sabbatarianism, and really has nothing to do with JBFA.
I think Clark is right that the republication idea is taught in the WCF, but that does not mean the WCF is right. As Samuel Rutherford said, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works because it’s made with sinners, whereas the COW was made with a perfect man, and required perfect fulfillment.
Clark’s position is to change the idea of what a covenant of works is — he makes it less exacting when applied to land. I don’t think that’s really necessary, and it is only a consequence of the republication idea — that the Mosaic covenant is a repub of the COW
The Mosaic covenant is like the Adamic covenant only in the sense that it was conditional. But that only makes it a POLITICAL covenant, not a covenant of works (requiring exact obedience). The conditionality in the Mosaic covenant shows that it is not a covenant of grace either.
IOW, the Mosaic covenant was unique.
None of this has anything to do with imputation, or JBFA. Or at least you haven’t shown that it does.
Vern
I’m no expert here and I recommend the VanDrunen chapter in TLNF, but my limited understanding is that Israel is a light to the nations in her experience as well as teaching. So, her inability to keep the law is a testimony to the need for an Adam who can keep the law. If you look at Sinai as republication, and have a natural law perspective on this, then the Mosaic law has a universal significance akin to the law given to Adam. VanDrunen argues that you can see this form of argument in Paul’s discusion of the law for Jews and Gentiles in Romans.
Israel’s relevance to China then is a type of Adam’s relationship to all those born of ordinary generation from him.
But don’t hold me to this because, as Bob knows, I don’t know what I’m talking about.
The phrase ‘food law’ is flippant and not serious. The command had to do with valuing the Word of God or the word of the devil. The Bible tells us Jesus fulfilled what Adam failed to fulfill. Jesus didn’t fulfill a mere ‘food law.’ Think about that. (No, really, think about that.)
>As Samuel Rutherford said, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works because it’s made with sinners, whereas the COW was made with a perfect man, and required perfect fulfillment.
As usual your side forgets a certain Person called the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Jesus was able to fulfill the Covenant of Works.
Here is what is happening: one needs to have the ability to see the parts in relation to the whole. To have the whole one needs to have the entire Word of God in understanding. At least engage it whole. You’re wrestling with parts and can’t yet see the whole. Federal Theology requires parts in relation to the whole understanding. Not that that is some big attainment. It’s rather simple and elegant, as one would suspect biblical doctrine to be.
[again]
The phrase ‘food law’ is flippant and not serious. The command had to do with valuing the Word of God or the word of the devil. The Bible tells us Jesus fulfilled what Adam failed to fulfill. Jesus didn’t fulfill a mere ‘food law.’ Think about that. (No, really, think about that.)
>As Samuel Rutherford said, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works because it’s made with sinners, whereas the COW was made with a perfect man, and required perfect fulfillment.
As usual your side forgets a certain Person called the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Jesus was able to fulfill the Covenant of Works.
Here is what is happening: one needs to have the ability to see the parts in relation to the whole. To have the whole one needs to have the entire Word of God in understanding. At least engage it whole. You’re wrestling with parts and can’t yet see the whole. Federal Theology requires parts in relation to the whole understanding. Not that that is some big attainment. It’s rather simple and elegant, as one would suspect biblical doctrine to be.
I’ll keep thinking on it. I had a good conversation with my pastor earlier today on this very topic — we’re starting a sermon series through Joshua. When Joshua is told individually to not let this book of the Law depart from his mouth, and be careful to do all that is in it, and he will have success — how does this fit in with merit over against the obedience of faith?
There are several issues to think through:
(1) Does it make sense to think of Israel as a type of Adam (the first Adam), since the antitype has already come and gone? That’s an odd and unique kind of typology, that skips out on all the “fulfillment” aspect.
(2) We’re thinking about Law in terms of its functions here. The Second Use is as a tutor, leading to Christ. That’s the sense that I get from Paul in Romans. What you’re suggesting is the Law as means of blessings and cursings, in a quasi-typological function. And I think that would be a different, fourth use of the Law (assuming I understand correctly … not guaranteed).
(3) What *is* the proper relationship of wisdom to the Law? As I understand you,
wisdom : natural law :: obedience : law.
But there’s at least one way in which they differ. To break the Law of God at one point is to break the whole thing. But to break natural law at one point is to substantially leave the rest intact. That is: we can have a skilled mathematician who nevertheless cheats on his taxes. Or an honest citizen who can’t do math. But the failures in one endeavor don’t take away from successes in another … which is why Tiger Woods still has corporate sponsorship from Nike and Electronic Arts.
So I don’t know. More thought needed.
Have a great Sunday,
JRC
Well, there’s a couple of things to split out.
First, was the command given in the garden a nominal food law, or was it in fact the moral law given in concise form? The Confession appears to say the latter (see 19.1-2).
Second, was the republication at Sinai a merit principle (yes — Deut. 28) that was in fact positively, if imperfectly obeyed? The anti-repubs argue, No, it was not obeyed, even imperfectly (except of course by Christ).
JRC
Christian said, The phrase ‘food law’ is flippant and not serious. The command had to do with valuing the Word of God or the word of the devil. The Bible tells us Jesus fulfilled what Adam failed to fulfill. Jesus didn’t fulfill a mere ‘food law.’ Think about that. (No, really, think about that.)
——
The term “food law” is an apt description. The command was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. No other command is in view. Adam & Eve would not have understood “creational law” or anything like that, for they did not have the knowledge of good and evil prior to their Fall. They only realized it afterward, after eating from the tree, after violating the food law — a simple law, easy to obey. Since it was a nominal law, it did not require any knowledge of good and evil. (That they were ashamed afterward shows that they had no knowledge of sin or evil prior to eating; i.e., the tree wasn’t just about wisdom or intellectual attainment).
>As Samuel Rutherford said, the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works because it’s made with sinners, whereas the COW was made with a perfect man, and required perfect fulfillment.
As usual your side forgets a certain Person called the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Jesus was able to fulfill the Covenant of Works.
————-
The Mosaic covenant could be a covenant of works for Jesus. This doesn’t mean it was a covenant of works for Israel (as per Rutherford’s point). For Israel it was a conditional political covenant.
Here is what is happening: one needs to have the ability to see the parts in relation to the whole. To have the whole one needs to have the entire Word of God in understanding. At least engage it whole. You’re wrestling with parts and can’t yet see the whole. Federal Theology requires parts in relation to the whole understanding. Not that that is some big attainment. It’s rather simple and elegant, as one would suspect biblical doctrine to be.
——
It appears to me you are using covenant or federal theology as a mantra, but are not acknowledging difficulties in its formulation or application.
Vern
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