David Murray concludes his four-part series on Merit and Moses — the book that is anti-republication — by boiling it down to this:
. . . my own concerns about RP have grown as I’ve increasingly come into contact with people who are using the RP to argue against any place of the law in the Christian life. They hear RP teachers saying that Israel obeyed the law to merit the land, but the NT believer is no longer under that arrangement. Thus they conclude, we don’t need to obey God’s law any more. Again, I know that’s not what RP intends but it is such a complex and confusing system that even those who have heard it explained many times still struggle to understand and communicate it accurately. I remember the first time I heard the RP preached, I thought, “What on earth was that?” To some degree, I still feel that sense of bafflement. With theology, I’ve often noticed that the more complex a system, the more likely that it’s wrong.
What is striking about this conclusion is that Murray (David, that is) winds up basically where Norman Shepherd started — Christians in the 1970s believed they could dispense with the law (thanks either to D. James Kennedy’s Evangelism Explosion or Jack Miller’s Sonship Theology). Shepherd opposed such antinomianism and wasn’t even contending with republication or 2-kingdom theology. He was, of course, sorting covenant theology out to some degree with Meredith Kline, who turned out to be one of the leading opponents of Shepherd. And Kline, as David Murray points out, represents for the authors of Merit and Moses the overreaction against Shepherd.
Has anyone yet to show us what the right reaction against Shepherd is? The folks who have been most vigorous in opposing where Shepherd led (i.e. Federal Vision) were some of the people who wrote for The Law is Not of Faith. Do they get credit for that? Not much. And what about the Murrayites (not David) who didn’t go the way of Federal Vision? Were they critical of Shepherd or Federal Vision? Or did they sit on their hands? Or how about the Obedience Boys? Have they had their innings with Norman Shepherd who argued for an obedient faith?
My contention is still that the very small world of U.S. conservative Presbyterian and Reformed believers has not yet gotten over Shepherd.
Old Life 
David R., where does chapter 19 say that the justified are required to obey the law to obtain salvation? And how could it possibly say that if our good works are filthy rags? I get it. You hold out for imperfect obedience. Now that’s
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D.G., here it is (from the heart): You think Paul was contrasting a covenant that promised Christ with one that did not. However, both Vos and Berkhof thought he was “not contrast[ing] with the covenant of Abraham the Sinaitic covenant as a whole, but only the law as it functioned in this covenant, and this function only as it was misunderstood by the Jews.” Does that help any?
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David R., where does chapter 19 say that the justified are required to obey the law to obtain salvation?
Nice try, D.G., nice try…. Let me remind you that my assertion that you claimed to take issue with was this: “First of all, the inheritance offered was the eternal inheritance … Thirdly, the MC offered life and salvation in Jesus Christ, whose meritorious obedience alone secures the inheritance on behalf of the elect. Fourthly, they (i.e., believers) were under grace, and thus the obedience required of them was the sincere obedience that flows from life, not the perfect obedience necessary in order to inherit life.”
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Just trying to keep up… a question to clarify and maybe help this along (hopefully):
Where does it argue in the New Testament (Galatians) that the law contrasted with the promise was a function of the law “only as it was misunderstood by the Jews?” I know that’s a popular interpretation, but where does Paul actually make that case? T. David Gordon argues this differently, and rather convincingly that the contrast Paul makes is between those “of faith” and those “of works of law” not those who mistakenly rely on the law (rely is not in the Greek)… consistent with the contrast Paul makes between the promise (Abrahamic covenant) and the Law (Mosaic covenant).
Thanks.
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IOW, the question is not whether “the justified are required to obey the law to obtain salvation.” Rather, the question is whether the justified are required to obey the law “as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he hath appointed them to salvation” (WLC 32). If you answer “yes” to the first question, you’re a Shepherdite, but if you answer “no” to the second, you’re an antinomian. I’d like to avoid both those alternatives….
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David, one other question, again trying to understand the “why” of your concerns about TLNF. Can a “repub” of WSCAL stripe answer your first question with a “No” and the second (LC 32) with a ‘Yes”?
Does their repub position not allow them to give those answers and remain consistent? If not, why not?
Thanks…
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Just trying to keep up… a question to clarify and maybe help this along (hopefully):
Where does it argue in the New Testament (Galatians) that the law contrasted with the promise was a function of the law “only as it was misunderstood by the Jews?” T. David Gordon argues this differently …
It would benefit you to check out some of that material I linked you to earlier. There are lots of standard Reformed treatments there arguing against the position that the Mosaic covenant was specifically distinct from the Abrahamic (i.e., against Gordon’s position). I found their arguments far more convincing than his.
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Jack, If you’ll scroll to the top of the page, you’ll see that D.G. had asked: “David R., where does chapter 19 say that the justified are required to obey the law to obtain salvation?” Hence, my state-of-the-question clarifying comment.
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David, I think I understand your “state-of-the-question comment. My question though again is, Does their repub position not allow them to give those answers and remain consistent? If not, why not?
Again, thanks…
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Jack, the problem is that (based on this interaction anyway) some repubs can’t seem to tell those two questions apart.
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IOW, it seems like no matter how many times you ask D.G. the second question, he always thinks you’re asking the first.
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David, I appreciate your perspective on that. My question is in principle can a TLNF guy answer those two questions as you do? And if not, why not? I’m trying to get to what may (or may not, of course) lie at the core of disagreement.
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Jack, I wouldn’t have thought so but now there appears to be some doubt.
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Sorry, should be “I would have thought so …”
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If there is only the one covenant of grace, and not covenants, then we will need not only contrast but continuum between law and gospel, between condition and promise, as Daniel Fuller has explained for such a very very long time. Since the Mosaic covenant commands faith, Daniel Fuller claims, what we need to do is avoid MISUNDERSTANDING so that our works are “works of faith” and not a “legalism of merit without faith.”
It’s not “nothing of works”. Rather, it is of works, and on top of that, the works must be of faith. So instead of trusting only the finished work of Christ, we must constantly suspect ourselves, and look to see if we have works, and to see if these works are properly motivated. Thus the defense of the “conditionality” of the gospel–“The law is not the “letter” of 2 Corinthians from which we are released…. “The spiritual law of Romans 7:12 cannot be the same as the ‘letter’ of II Cor 3:6. The ‘letter’ from which we are released is the one without the Spirit…and thus is the very opposite of the spiritual law of Romans 7.”
This is the “misunderstanding” reading:—neither Romans 7 or II Cor 3 are seen as being about the redemptive historical changes brought by covenant cuts. Thus Daniel Fuller leaves us with warnings, proper for any time or covenant, to NOT MISUNDERSTAND, to not be a “legalist with wrong motives”.
Cranfield also support this reading of II Cor 3: “Paul does not use ‘letter’ as a simple equivalent of ‘the law’.” “Letter” is rather what the legalist is left with as a result of his misunderstanding, and misuse of the law in isolation from the Spirit is not the law in its true character….”
This “misunderstanding” view is what many are doing to minimize the discontinuity between law and grace. If you get the law back to its “true character”, then salvation is also by law. If you get works back to being enabled by sovereign grace, then Augustinian justification is by works of persevering faith, these works being predestined as were the waters of baptism.
The “misunderstanding view” is not limited to those with “the new perspective” or with the “federal vision”. Many other Reformed folks want to us to nuance any idea that God DID what those believing in the law could NEVER do (Romans 8:3) in order to avoid sounding “antinomian” and “dispensationalist”. .
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David R., well, that’s what repub does. “only the law as it functioned in the covenant” as if that is some trifling matter. You don’t understand it so it can’t be that easy.
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David R., if you say obedience is required, required for what, salvation? We need Jesus’ righteousness plus our own (as if Jesus’ righteousness is not mine? as if Adam’s guilt is not mine?)?
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David R., and your answers to both questions, along with your badgering about them, is not entirely clear what obedience is required for? So you agree that it is not faith plus works? Is so, then what’s the problem? That I don’t try to obey the law? How the hades do you know?
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David R., ” There are lots of standard Reformed treatments there arguing against the position that the Mosaic covenant was specifically distinct from the Abrahamic.”
You mean like Paul in Rom. 4 and Gal 3?
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David R., but that’s because you are never clear about the obedience required in the covenant of grace. You clear it up and get back to me.
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David R., well, that’s what repub does. “only the law as it functioned in the covenant” as if that is some trifling matter. You don’t understand it so it can’t be that easy.
There are many things I don’t understand that are easy for others, but this one I don’t actually find that difficult.
David R., if you say obedience is required, required for what, salvation? We need Jesus’ righteousness plus our own (as if Jesus’ righteousness is not mine? as if Adam’s guilt is not mine?)?
(sigh)
David R., and your answers to both questions, along with your badgering about them, is not entirely clear what obedience is required for? So you agree that it is not faith plus works? Is so, then what’s the problem? That I don’t try to obey the law? How the hades do you know?
(sigh)
David R., ” There are lots of standard Reformed treatments there arguing against the position that the Mosaic covenant was specifically distinct from the Abrahamic.”
You mean like Paul in Rom. 4 and Gal 3?
Well, the Reformed treatments I mentioned do examine those passages….
David R., but that’s because you are never clear about the obedience required in the covenant of grace. You clear it up and get back to me.
D.G., I’ve given it my best shot….
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