What exactly is so threatening about this?
Every Reformed minister loves preaching from Romans and Galatians. Presenting the Mosaic law as teaching a works principle really helps in explaining Paul’s doctrine of justification: what sin is all about, why people can’t rely on their own law-keeping, how faith is radically different from works, how Christ fulfilled the terms of the law so that we may be justified. That’s the gospel as I see it, but you can’t explain the gospel without understanding the law. Or take all of those Old Testament passages that call for Israel’s obedience and promise blessing and threaten curse in the land depending on their response. For example, the beginning of Deuteronomy 4, which tells Israel to follow the law so that they may live and take possession of the land. Or Deuteronomy 28, which recounts all sorts of earthly blessings in the land if the Israelites are careful to obey and all sorts of earthly curses if they aren’t. I don’t want a congregation to think that God was holding out a works-based way of salvation here, and I also can’t tell the congregation that this is the same way that God deals with the New Testament church when he calls her to obedience, for there’s nothing equivalent in the New Testament, no promise of earthly blessing for the church today if we meet a standard of obedience. Saying either of those things might by simple, but of course they’d be misleading, and damaging for the church to hear. (The Law is Not of Faith, 5)
Could it be that this view seems to allow Christians to think that law-keeping does not contribute to their salvation? Well, if the law requires “personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul and body, and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he owes to God and man: promising life upon the fulfilling, and threatening death upon the breach of it,” who is up to that challenge? Don’t be bashful.
Old Life 
I heard from our OPC RE back from GA about republication ‘issues’ causing a committee to be formed….I have read Dr. Leonard Coppes tract against the ‘new’ 2k and the ‘new’ republication controversey, but apart from that and a few blogs, I really can’t identify the antirepublication position. It seems to me to hover around whether we must consider the sinaitic covanent a CoW or a CoG. Is it really that simple? Can you help me to understand the opposing side?
Thank you
LikeLike
It’s not “threatening,” it’s just that it begs some important questions. Is this the only view that “seems to allow Christians to think that law-keeping does not contribute to their salvation?” Is this the view that the Scriptures teach? Calvin thought no. Turretin thought no. Berkhof thought no. Most Reformed theologians thought no.
LikeLike
Not to belittle genuine theological controversy in the OPC nor her desire for theological precision, but methinks this is a tempest in a teapot.
LikeLike
David,
I wasn’t sure if you were commenting on mine.if so, I am glad it is not threatening, since I am somewhat sympathetic to the republication POV, at least so far as I understand it. I did see that Berkhof wrote against republication in his ST, but did so in connection with dispensationalism. Is that not a different beast from what this admirable blog is referring to? I just do not understand how one can argue against the idea that the mosaic covenant contained a republication of the CoW, in some sense. I also cannot understand how one argues that the TEN are a publication of the CoG, unless it is immediately followed by ‘in some sense’. That sword cuts both ways.
I am interested in what exactly a non republication view looks like.
Thank you
LikeLike
I have begun reading TLNF, and have inquired about what it (Republication) means before this post, so this discussion is appreciated.
In my mind and to my understanding, I understand that Christ has fulfilled ‘all things’ for us already through his active obedience, and now He is conforming me to His image, or in shorthand, helping me to follow Him in His example of active obedience to the Law, though imperfectly rendered in this life. I see this as ‘reaching for the stars’, but I know it’s a fallible analogy because of God’s mysterious way of working His will, but somehow it helps.
Because Christ has completely fulfilled the Law/Covenant of Works already on my behalf, the work is already done, and I can *rest in His completed work (Justification), while at the same time He is conforming me to it in my (Sanctification). I am not privy to God’s secret counsel/will, but knowing the Gospel, I can *rest in Him.
It is not bothering me at all if I am on a trajectory of ‘walking out’ (after Christ’s example) conformity to the Covenant of Works in this life. Master and Apprentice model. That’s the way I see it. And I am not bothered or thinking about rewards. The reward for me is to know Christ, and to live for Him in this rebellious and tortured soul and body, where even the smallest daylight of seeing His goodness and grace means more than life itself.
* Denotes the Pietist’s freak-out word
LikeLike
Brian, the question isn’t whether the doctrine of the covenant of works was restated for pedagogical purposes under Moses. There are a number of issues and I tried to give my opinion on the state of the question in this thread (you’ll have to scroll down to the tenth comment on the page).
LikeLike
Watching “The Yakuza”, screenplay by Paul Schrader & Robert Towne. Brian Keith’s bodyguard has the last name of Hoekstra. That’s a little CRC Dutch Reformed shout out by Schrader…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073918/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_24
LikeLike
Perhaps back in the days of Nixon– before I had dissipated all of my neuroplasticity learning about multivariable calculus, wave equations, Krebs cycle, synaptic junctions, upper motor neuron disorders and erythropoiesis– I could have grasped the significance of this debate.
Would somebody please let me know when they publish the Classics Comicbook version?
LikeLike
Could it be that the anti-repubs perceive or imagine other undesirable tendencies among the repub crowd? Are some of their tears crocodilian?
LikeLike
David R., what about Paul? You keep citing Reformed theologians as if you have a Ph.D. in historical theology or as if Reformed Protestantism has popes. I have yet to see you cite one passage of Scripture. And the way you read the Standards does not give me hope about the way you read Calvin and Turretin (not to mention that you don’t show much wiggle room in this matter of interpreting texts — your interpretation is the only one allowed, or you are the umpire of all interpretations).
LikeLike
David R., and if it is not threatening, then why are you obsessed?
I haven’t seen you comment on Ferguson, Missouri yet. Don’t you care?
LikeLike
Brian, My understanding is that everyone in the Reformed world believes the Mosaic Covenant was part of the Covenant of Grace. The question is how the law functions in the Covenant of Grace and whether the Mosaic covenant is decisive for all iterations of the covenant of grace. I find it hard to believe that the Mosaic covenant is decisive for the way Christians understand the law because of that fellow Paul.
LikeLike
CW, you mean this is another front in the obedience boys’ fight?
LikeLike
Berkhof wrote: “But the covenant of Sinai was not a renewal of the covenant of works; in it the law was made subservient to the covenant of grace.” (p. 298 in Systematic Theology) However, he goes on to write, “It is true that at Sinai a conditional element was added to the covenant, but it was not the salvation of the Israelite but his theocratic standing in the nation, and the enjoyment of external blessings that was made dependent on the keeping of the law, Deut. 28:1-14.” (ibid.)
I like how Kline explained it in his Old Testament Hermeneutics class: On the foundational level of individual salvation the Sinai covenant was a continuation of the one covenant of grace, pointing to faith in the promised Messiah as the only way of salvation. But on the superadded, corporate level of national theocracy the Sinai covenant was a covenant of works, requiring total loyalty and obedience for retention of their standing in the promised land.
LikeLike
I’ve been re-reading The Marrow of Modern Divinity and have been struck by the fact that Fisher and Boston teach a form of republication. As the writers of TLNF point out, republication is not a new idea.
Fisher says, “in that long course of time betwixt Adam and Moses, men had forgotten what was sin… therefore, ‘the law entered,’ that Adam’s offense and their own actual transgression might abound, so that now the Lord saw it needful, that there should be a new edition and publication of the covenant of works, the sooner to compel the elect unbelievers to come to Christ, the promised seed, and that the grace of God in Christ to elect believers might appear the more exceedingly glorious.” (p. 83)
And here is part of Boston’s lengthy note entitled “Two Covenants Delivered at Sinai”:
“Wherefore I conceive the two covenants [i.e., of works and grace] to have been both delivered on Mount Sinai to the Israelites. First, the covenant of grace made with Abraham, contained in the preface, repeated and promulgated there unto Israel, to be believed and embraced by faith, that they might be saved; to which were annexed the Ten Commandments, given by the Mediator Christ, the head of the covenant, as a rule of life to his covenant people. Secondly, the covenant of works made with Adam, contained in the same ten commands, delivered with thunderings and lightnings, the meaning of which was afterwards cleared by Moses, describing the righteousness of the law and sanction thereof, repeated and promulgated to the Israelites there, as the original perfect rule of righteousness, to be obeyed; and yet were they no more bound hereby to seek righteousness by the law than the young man was by our Saviour’s saying to him, ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments — Thou shalt do no murder…’ (Matt. 19:17-18). The latter was a repetition of the former.
“Thus there is no confounding of the two covenants of grace and works; but the latter was added to the former as subservient unto it, to turn their eyes towards the promise, or covenant of grace… Hence it appears that the covenant of grace was, both in itself and in God’s intention, the principal part of the Sinai transaction: nevertheless, the covenant of works was the most conspicuous part of it, and law most open to the view of the people.
“According to this account of the Sinai transaction, the ten commands, there delivered, must come under a twofold notion or consideration; namely, as the law of Christ [i.e., the law as the believer’s rule of life under Christ the Mediator], and as the law of works [i.e. the covenant of works]” (pp. 77-78)
(these quotes are from the 2009 edition by Christian Heritage)
LikeLike
David R., here is why you don’t make sense and (sorry) why I don’t trust you and think you are being purposefully perverse:
You say this is the state of the question:
But then you ask or assert the following many times,
that sinners do merit in the CofG:
So I am wrong to imply that sinners don’t merit in the CofG.
or this:
So the principle of inheritance is the same between Moses and me, and that identification warrants your saying the moral law applies to me (the good news is you think I’m a believer, I guess).
or this:
So you think Leviticus applies to Christians in the same way it applied to the Israelites. So the law is of faith.
or this:
So you think law and grace are complimentary in the Mosaic Covenant and the CofG — law and faith go together.
And then for general confusion this:
You think Kline is affirming merit as part of the CofG when he is precisely opposing it and does so by distinguishing the type (inheritance of the land by merit) from the substance (inheritance of eternal life through a second Adam who would keep “all that God had commanded.” Here the really confusing thing is that you fault Kline for affirming merit when you yourself then turn around and say that Christians are in a position similar to the Israelites, trusting in Christ nets eternal life but blessings in this life come through imperfect personal obedience boosted by grace.
David, you are all over the place. You don’t make sense. Your criticism of repub is incoherent. Hence, something personal is going on. Man crush on Dennison?
LikeLike
DG, and culturalists right and left, inasmuch as they associate it with 2k. Of course, any halfwit can see that. Tribalism’s fine. Let’s just be honest about it.
LikeLike
Ok. Sorry if my questions are more basic than not, but I am happy to see a new thread about repub (RPB?) since the other ones are not alive to converse on.
I have read a few things on it recently since our elder came back from the OPC GA talking like it was going to be the next ‘big thing’ since FV and NPP. I am hoping y’all can help me get a better handle on it all.
If one is a RPB fan, is that a denial that the mosaic covenant contains a part of the CoG?
Whose position, if any claims that it contains both COG and CoW components? And what is a problem with it being stated that way?
Is it NOT RPB if one thinks the CoG is there, but “made subservient” to the CoG?
Is this ultimately about law/gospel distinctions?
It am getting a sense that law/gospel, 2K, and RPB are all tied together, and possibly amil as well, is this inaccurate?
Thank you
LikeLike
Sorry, should read, “..if one thinks the CoW is there, but ‘made subservient’…”
LikeLike
Republication appears to be a threat to those who are eternal members of the Tin Foil Hat Brigade and/or scholars insanely bitter and jealous that Hart/Clark/Horton are able to write edifying books under real publishers that Reformed people talk about.
LikeLike
Republication seems to further confirm/verify/authenticate The Good News. And it should be hopeful for churches struggling with whether they are being obedient enough to merit God’s blessing – removes that element from the Old Testament altogether. I hope that people will read this post and begin THINKING and QUESTIONING ministries like EMBERS TO A FLAME.
LikeLike
@ Brian: yes, Law/Gospel in the area of sanctification is the practical prize here.
This is evidenced by the charge and countercharge leveled by each at the other: antinomian and neonomian.
LikeLike
David R. are you David Robertson, also known as the self proclaimed wee flea? I ask this because if you are for me at least it would explain why you get involved in these posts. I also ask if you are David Robertson because if you are then your staunch defence elsewhere forTim Keller, John Piper and Stuart Townsend’s ecclesiology shows why you have a personal interest in these posts. I also wonder if your extensive knowledge is on display to really engage with others or to demonstrate some kind of theological prowess. I do know that the wee flea can be a crafty debater and rather unkind in his choice of words; the denomination I am a member of (the EPCEW) didn’t have a kindly commendation from him.
LikeLike
D.G,
But then you ask or assert the following many times,
that sinners do merit in the CofG:
So do sinners merit in the covenant of grace or don’t they? Here you seem to imply that they don’t.
So I am wrong to imply that sinners don’t merit in the CofG.
No. What you are wrong to affirm is that they can merit in the OT administration of the CoG. I’m the one affirming they don’t, remember? You think they can. Sheesh….
LikeLike
Paul, no, I am not David Robertson.
LikeLike
Paul,
I don’t think David R. is your David R. Two David R’s. But I understand your reason for asking.
LikeLike
You think Kline is affirming merit as part of the CofG when he is precisely opposing it and does so by distinguishing the type (inheritance of the land by merit) from the substance (inheritance of eternal life through a second Adam who would keep “all that God had commanded.”
Opposing it by affirming it. A neat strategy….
LikeLike
I have tried mightily over the years to understand Reformed Covenant theology, but it seems like trying to nail Jello to the wall. There seems to be a tendency to retreat into scholasticism. I read this post:
Semper Reformanda
Posted August 30, 2014 at 5:16 am | Permalink
and think I understand it and agree. Is his understanding correct?
LikeLike
D.G.,
David R., what about Paul? You keep citing Reformed theologians as if you have a Ph.D. in historical theology or as if Reformed Protestantism has popes. I have yet to see you cite one passage of Scripture.
I don’t have a Ph.D. In exegetical theology either, but I think you’re just huffy because Calvin, Turretin, Vos, Berkhof et. al. disagree with your interpretation of the same two passages in Paul that you keep citing like it proves something.
LikeLike
David R., and you’re the one affirming the similarities between us and the Israelites. Your position is fundamentally contradictory. You’re also the one who says the Israelites inherit the type (eternal life) through imperfect obedience.
You are affirming things all over the place in order to what, not be repub?
You are also the one saying that we are required to be obedient to obtain salvation — full stop. You’re inner Shepherd has lots of mojo working.
LikeLike
To anyone invoking the name of VanTil, Kline, Hegel, Kant, et al.
If you honestly don’t have the academic chops to invoke them, PLEASE STOP IT!!
You are totally out of your league in doing so, making a total ass of yourself.
All those around you in life are ashamed of this horrible habit and wish you would stop doing this, especially during deacon-coffee after church fellowship.
LikeLike
Dan, it might be better to revolve around the idea that the Law is NOT of faith. There’s a purposeful setting off of grace and faith over against law and works by which the redemption through Christ in the gospel is placarded as GOOD NEWS such that saving faith is primarily characterized by receiving and resting upon Christ. It is finished. No, this doesn’t say everything, but this a primary point of tension. Semper seems to be on the right path.
LikeLike
David R., if you distinguish the law as one way of inheriting the land (which is impossible because the law can’t be followed perfectly and that’s why the law was a teacher to point to Christ who keeps the law) from grace as the way to inherit eternal life (by Christ’s doing what Adam did not and Israel could not do), then you can understand Paul who says the law is not of faith. Otherwise we are left with David R. (contra Paul) who tells us that the law is of faith — you know, obedience is required for salvation.
Confused? Perverse? You make the call.
LikeLike
So you think law and grace are complimentary in the Mosaic Covenant and the CofG — law and faith go together.
I was simply summarizing Turretin. That you disagree with him is no evidence that I’m “all over the place.”
LikeLike
Sean (and Semper), thank you. Before I could even read, my mother read the 23rd Psalm and John 10: 27-30 to me at bedtime many, many nights. I guess she thought that was what was most important. The older I get, the wiser she seems.
LikeLike
I wonder if one is allowed to be Reformed if he is not part of the Turretin fan club?
LikeLike
So you think Leviticus applies to Christians in the same way it applied to the Israelites. So the law is of faith.
Have you read Calvin’s comments on Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28? Guess what, no works principle so far as he’s concerned. And yes, he interprets those passages as if they’re about us. But that’s because he understands them to speak of the same promise, eternal life, inherited in the same way, by grace through faith.
LikeLike
Does one have to believe every (infallible?) word Calvin said to be Reformed?
LikeLike
TBR, if one thinks that C and T conflated law and grace, it raises questions in the minds of others.
LikeLike
Kent: “All those around you in life are ashamed of this horrible habit…”
That’s funny.
LikeLike
Dan and Sean,
I really appreciate your encouragement and what you shared. The WSCAL Transforming Grace Conference in January of this year was tremendous, and when I went home, I felt as though I really understood Sanctification and was not troubled about it anymore like before. All of the sessions were awesome, but David’s spoke to me outright. There was something about how he unpacked the topics of Sin, The Law, Justification, and Sanctification in terms that I could really grasp. Three things still stand out to me from his presentation – even now – The Big Ugly Monster, The Club, and the Law is your Friend. I had never heard it explained to me like that before. You can watch or listen, here’s the link:
http://wscal.edu/resource-center/resource/sanctification-of-the-justified
It is difficult to write about what God does, but it’s so encouraging when others like yourselves offer reinforcement and affirmation.
LikeLike
David,
Darryl is exactly right in suggesting that Kline is opposing merit in the cov. of grace by affirming it in Moses. The very statement that the merit Israel was required in the MC was typological IS affirming that it is typological of something genuine, real, saving, (unlike the type), and that is the merit of Christ. If we say the animal sacrifices typified Christ, we are at the same time affirming that the animal sacrifices were NOT Christ and NOT efficacious. You may not grant this because you do not see the law-gospel contrast between Abraham and Moses like we do, or dare I say Paul does, but why do you think Klineans have been the most vocal opponents of Shepherd? Because we go the exact opposite direction you suggest our theology goes. In drawing a direct line from Israel to Christ, (opposed to your line from Israel to the visible church), we see Christ fulfilling all merit required of Israel, thus leaving no room for works as a condition of covenant blessing (yes, works are necessary evidences one is a recipient of the COG, but not a condition of blessing as per Deut 28.) As for Calvin, Berkhof, etc., no one is suggesting Kline follows them in every way on their understanding of the MC, and on their interpretation of Deut 28 and Gal 3:12 we believe many of the older writers were wrong, but when they end up explaining how the MC points to Christ and justification, we are all on the same page against legalists, neo-nomians, antinomians, etc. That is why up until the Dennison project nobody on either side of the debate was suggesting one is outside of reformed theology for holding either view of the MC, if one ended up with a proper understanding of justification and the necessity of obedience.
On a related note, our friend Gary North is warning the church against that evil fiend Kline as he seeks from the grave to covertly destroy conservative denominations.
http://teapartyeconomist.com/2014/08/30/baptists-beware-presbyterian-attack-creationism-headed-way/
I’m pretty sure Kline was somehow involved with 9-11 also.
LikeLike
David R. right. That you are all over the place is evidence that you are all over the place (but you are a single-issue all over the place commenter).
LikeLike
David R., “by grace through faith”? Where’s the obedience that’s required. Again, the David-R. flip-flop.
LikeLike
TRB, don’t think that David R. interprets Calvin correctly. After all, he doesn’t understand a lot of repubs.
LikeLike
David R., funny how Calvin and Turretin believed the Bible was authoritative. When do you ever address Paul who spent a lot of time (almost as much as you) figuring out the relation of Moses to Abraham.
LikeLike
Semper Ref, you are going to have to distinguish David VD from David R. I’m sure both would appreciate that distinction.
LikeLike
Clarification for earlier post, where I said
“removes that element from the Old Testament altogether”
I meant to say
” removes that element (Sinaic/Sinaitic Covenant) from the New Testmament altogether”
My apologies
LikeLike
Yes, Dr. Hart, Absolutely.
David Van Drunen is the principal author/general editor of
The Law Is Not of Faith
and David R. is not.
LikeLike
Dan,
I can identify with what you expressed about trying to understand all of this, too (Reformed Theology). It is still a struggle, but a lot of the concepts have been set now in my mind and thinking, and I have really become so persuaded/convinced.
My journey to begin to understand Reformed Theology began when I was in my late 40’s, and now I am in my mid 50’s. I became a Christian as a teenager in high school, so I practically spent 30 years without really understanding ‘The Good News’, and also, as Dr. Rod Rosenbladt says, that “the Good News is for Christians, too.
When I began listening to and reading Reformed materials, it was hard, even when the message was good – like, too good to be true. And there was also the aspect for me of wondering if I was truly being taught the truth, or that there was some fine print somewhere – must be a catch to this……….
LikeLike