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 
Jeff,
Sowers is holding on line 2. Something about wanting you to talk him out of theonomy. Smith is on line 3 wanting to give up pietistic, revivalistic biblicism, Cross is on line 4 wanting you to talk him off the Papsist ledge, and Greg is on 5 asking which film he should check out tonight.
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David,
“In fact, I wonder if one pre-Kline exposition of that text can be produced that explains the passage in terms of Moses having broken a covenant of works.”
I wouldn’t say that either – a works principle doesn’t always entail a covenant. God never covenantally promised Moses that if he disobeyed a command he would not enter the land.
“If one (e.g., Moses) deserves an eternal curse, as of course we all do; it is grace that, by virtue of God’s electing love, he only has to endure a temporal one.”
The question though is, why does God, in typifying grace, allow rebellious sinners into the Holy land, yet a truly righteous man he does not allow based on one act of disobedience? While the former clearly pictures the principle of grace, the latter pictures…grace also?
I think more telling than our differing views of the MC is your accusations of genuine anti-nomianism, which may be at the heart of all this, but others it seems are challenging you on this so I’ll let it go.
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Erik, no matter how much people think they are winning here (by ignoring basic Reformed theology and ignoring advanced Reformed arguments), they aren’t even hitting the tip of the iceberg of past greats.
But people wasting what has to be 12 hours of their life in an argument going right down the tubes from the first second is never helpful.
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… a works principle doesn’t always entail a covenant….
This has been, and continues to be, our basic disagreement.
The question though is, why does God, in typifying grace, allow rebellious sinners into the Holy land, yet a truly righteous man he does not allow based on one act of disobedience? While the former clearly pictures the principle of grace, the latter pictures…grace also?
To your second question, no.
I think more telling than our differing views of the MC is your accusations of genuine anti-nomianism, which may be at the heart of all this, but others it seems are challenging you on this so I’ll let it go.
You deny that the repub view has any implications for one’s position on the question of the direct application of the Decalogue to the Christian life?
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David R: For the umpteenth time…. That’s not all that’s happening. But you haven’t answered my question: Did the third use apply to Israel or not?
I did actually answer, but you know how these discussions go…
The third use of the law applied to justified Israelites, but it did not and could not apply to the theocracy as a whole.
Fair enough. Now is there any connection at all between the “third use” and the theocracy’s obedience, and in particular that of its leaders (when it/they were obedient)?
Also, the land sanctions were not administered under the third-use principle. We know this partly for the aforementioned reason, partly because justified individuals were excluded from the land at times, while unjustified individuals were permitted to remain …
Sure, but that just means its not the only principle involved. In general, the blessing sanction was connected with (corporate) obedience flowing from principles of grace (as is always the case with the post-fall obedience of sinners).
… partly because the land sanctions were a matter of type and not substance and were therefore pedagogical, falling under the first (pedagogical) use of the law.
I think you’re mistaking categories here….
Instead, the land sanctions were administered under a principle whose ground floor was a reflection of the CoW (per Deut 28), but mitigated by grace for the sake of mediators.
On the contrary, the blessing sanctions reflect the CoG (i.e., they foreshadow its promised blessing). I would agree that the curse sanctions foreshadow the threatened eternal curse of the CoW.
David R: And the last few weeks here have been eye-opening for me in terms of the extent to which some deny the need for obedience. Nuff said…. But I don’t think that repub will necessarily lead to this.
Here you’ve been over-reading (and under-reading) what has been said. No-one has said that the obligation to the Law is gone.
Well, I strongly disagree but I am glad to know that you, for one, do not deny the necessity of obedience.
What has been said is that when God receives us, He will receive us ONLY on the ground of Christ’s obedience.
But that has never been in dispute.
I trust that you agree? And if so, then I trust that you can see the problem wit Venema: “the redemption promised in the covenant required the response of faith … And obedience…”
Is that right? From one point of view. Is that wrong? From another, more profound point of view. Is it therefore poorly expressed theology? Absolutely.
The sentence fragment you’ve provided ain’t much to go on, but as you point out, there’s nothing heterodox there (or in what I quoted from Warfield some time ago to similar effect). But my purpose has never been to defend Venema’s formulations (or Dennison’s, or those of anyone else writing today).
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From John Colquhoun, who isn’t often accused of mixing law and gospel:
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More from John Colquhoun — Treatise on the Covenant of Works (pp. 5-6,15, 45, 197). Sinai sure seems to have a covenant of works element given what he writes:
1. This contract between God and the first Adam, is in sacred writ, expressly styled a covenant. “These are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agare.” Here are two covenants mentioned, the one of which, genders to bondage, and the other, to liberty or freedom. The covenant of grace, or “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” is the one which genders to liberty, or which makes free from the law of sin and death. The one, therefore, which genders to bondage, must be that law or covenant of works, which was republished to the Israelites, from mount Sinai; which required perfect obedience to the ten commandments, on pain of death, and contained a promise of life, to the man who should do, or perform such obedience. This covenant, which ” the thunderings, and lightnings, and thick cloud, and voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, on the mount,” proclaim to have been a covenant of works, “gendereth to bondage.” By the awful manner, in which it was then displayed; by the strictness of its precepts, and the dreadful severity of its penalty, it tends to beget a slavish and servile spirit, in all who are under the dominion of it, and to subject them to bondage of the most ignominious kind. Now this covenant, is here contrasted with the covenant of grace, which, for his comfort, was revealed to Adam immediately after the fall; and, therefore, it must have been made with him, before the fall. And indeed, we cannot suppose that Jehovah, to whom infinite Goodness, as well as infinite Justice, is always essential, could have published such a covenant of works, from Sinai, to man in his state of sin, in which he is “without strength to obey, if he had not already entered into it with him, in his state of innocence…
If the Spirit of inspiration, in one of these passages, refers to Adam’s covering of his transgression, and in another, to the death to which, by his transgression, he became obnoxious; is it not natural to conclude, that in the third, he refers to the transgression itself, which occasioned both the one and the other? Since then the Israelites transgressed, like Adam, the covenant, under which they at that time were, it follows, that Adam transgressed some covenant…
It is evident from the cope of the Apostle in the context, and from the words themselves, especially when compared with the 10th and 13th verses of the third chapter of this epistle [Galatians], That by the “law” here, we are chiefly to understand the moral law, the foundation of the ceremonial and judicial laws, given to the ancient Israelites; that law, which in sacred writ is presented to us, under no other general form, than either that of a rule of life, or of a covenant of works. The Apostle here informs us, that Christ, the eternal Son of the Father, was ” made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” But is it the moral law considered as a rule of life, that is meant? Let us suppose for a moment that it is, and then attend to the consequence of such a supposition. It will make the Apostle’s meaning to be this: “God sent forth his Son, — made under the law ” as a rule of life, “to redeem them that were under the law” as a rule, from subjection to the authority of it, or from obligation to perform obedience to it.—This detestable doctrine, if admitted to be true, would at once, dissolve the believer’s obligations to holiness, and make Christ the minister of sin.
Far be it from me to believe that this, can be the meaning of the holy Apostle. If, then, Christ was not made under the moral law as a rule of duty, to redeem his people from subjection to it, the Apostle must be understood to mean, That he was made under it as a Covenant of Works, to redeem them from the dominion and curse of it under that form. —This, and no other, must be his meaning.
2. It is also to be observed, that this natural law is the law of the ten commandments, or the moral law, which was long afterward, promulgated from mount Sinai. The ten commandments are, as Moses expresses it, those statutes and judgments, “which if a man do, he shall live in them; and which the apostle Paul styles, “The commandment which was ordained to life,” and the law which “was weak through the flesh.” It is also the moral law, which the same Apostle mentions in Gal. iii. 10, 12, when he says, “It is written, cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” — “And the law is not of faith; but, the man that doeth them, shall live in them.” The tenor of the covenant was, “Do, and thou shalt live.” Hence our blessed Lord, thus replied to the young Pharisee: “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments…”
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Thanks for the tip, David and Jack. Reading Colquhoun is a genuine pleasure.
And he puts me in mind (on p 39) of a point that I think we have already agreed to, but need to make explicit.
The moral law has always demanded perfection, not simply for the attainment of life in the Garden, but even now for believers. What makes our situation different from that of Adam in the Garden is that another has fulfilled the law’s demands on our behalf.
So when Berkhof or Vos speaks of “relative obedience” or “typologically appropriate obedience”, I don’t understand that to mean that God relaxed the standard, as if “be careful to obey all the Law” really meant “get close enough.”
Rather, I understand them to mean — I hope they mean — that God did not enforce the standard with rigor. Just as with us, God does not enforce the sanctions of the CoW because they have been enforced upon another.
So the ground floor is a demand of perfect obedience. The upper story is then acceptance of the obedience of a mediator in the stead of perfect obedience. This is different from a changing of the standard to be that of relative obedience.
Agreed?
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David R., “You deny that the repub view has any implications for one’s position on the question of the direct application of the Decalogue to the Christian life?”
Get your head out of the sand. OL is repub and pro-fourth commandment. Call your physician when your head stops spinning.
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“as to resemble the obedience of God’s spiritual Israel in its connection with their spiritual privileges under the gospel.”
The Leviticus lesson that “the law is not of faith” is often contradicted by the Romans lesson that “whatever is not of faith is sin”, so that lawbreaking is unbelief and belief is law-keeping.
Matt Perman—-By faith in Romans 14:23 Paul means the belief that a certain behavior is right. Paul is not using faith in the sense of believing in Christ for salvation. But even if Paul were speaking of saving faith in Romans 14, it would not follow that faith and obedience are the same thing. Paul is simply saying that what is not from faith is sin; Paul is not saying that anything which is not faith is sin.”
http://www.oocities.org/mattperman/romans45.html
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If we all agree with Colquhoun and Boston, what’s the disagreement? Sinai was both covenant of works and grace.
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@ Alexander: Thank you.
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@ David R: You are correct that Calquhoun views the condition of obedience for land-keeping as posterior and not antecedent. If you back up a view pages, you can see why. For Calquhoun, the land promises were unconditional promises given to Abraham and his seed. Hence, it is impossible that some antecedent condition could be later attached to nullify that promise.
On this one point, I would be to disagree with an otherwise masterful work, and I am joined in dissent by both Vos and Berkhof, who state clearly that remaining in the land was conditioned upon obedience (in an antecedent way, as their discussions make clear).
Were Calquhoun here, I would argue that the land promise given to Abraham was a promise to the true descendants of Abraham, that they would inherit the new heavens and new earth (per Rom 4). That promise did not therefore carry over unconditionally to all who were born Israelites.
For Vos, by contrast, the Israelites can and do lose possession of the land when they fail to meet the condition, and are restored after repentance. This is clearly an antecedent condition in Vos’s mind.
I don’t believe that Calquhoun’s view is central to the rest of his work.
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… I am joined in dissent by both Vos and Berkhof, who state clearly that remaining in the land was conditioned upon obedience (in an antecedent way, as their discussions make clear).
Really? Take (yet) another look at Vos:
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Jeff,
Also, if it is true “that remaining in the land was conditioned upon obedience (in an antecedent way,” then it would also appear to be true (according to Vos) that for a NT Christian, remaining a church member in good standing is conditioned on obedience in an antecedent way:
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D.G.,
Get your head out of the sand. OL is repub and pro-fourth commandment.
Does this mean you think obedience to the fourth is necessary? What about the other nine?
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Yes, really. What you cite appears to be speaking of the substance of the covenant and not the legal accidents of it and in any event does not contradict what I said. But I didn’t catch the reference?
Wrt remaining a church member in good standing, you are absolutely correct: it is antecedently conditioned on remaining outwardly faithful to your vows. There’s no particular mystery there: if you remain outwardly faithful, you stay. If not, you leave.
Our salvation is not so conditioned precisely because of justification on the forensic side (not outwardly visible) and the indwelling Spirit on the transformative side (also not outwardly visible). So the invisible economy works on a different principle from the visible – else, excommunication would be Roman, entailing actual loss of grace.
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Jeff, IOW, for Vos, expulsion from the land and excommunication from the church occur for essentially the same reason, i.e., apostasy. Thus, your assertion of an antecedent condition in the former case would seem to prove too much.
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No, it proves exactly the right thing: that the external does not operate on the same economy as the internal.
What is different between the Old legal economy and the New “external aspect of the covenant” is that the latter is intended to much more depict grace. So while church disicipline is administered on the ground of lawbreaking (1 Cor 5), it is unto restoration rather than unto destruction.
None of that has direct impact on eternal reality, but rather depicts it.
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Jeff, so then, if I follow you, you are saying that Christians remain members in good standing according to a principle of works? And does it also then follow that for you, the distinction between works (or merit) and grace does not correspond to the distinction between OT and NT, but rather to the distinction between the church visible and invisible?
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Exactly Alexander.
Sinai is a Covenant of Works and the best of us lay and lettered theologians agree to find Grace in it as well.
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Kent- I don’t think that’s quite what I meant but I’ll take advantage of this period of accord 🙂
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What is different between the Old legal economy and the New “external aspect of the covenant” is that the latter is intended to much more depict grace. So while church disicipline is administered on the ground of lawbreaking (1 Cor 5), it is unto restoration rather than unto destruction.
Agreed!
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David R: Jeff, so then, if I follow you, you are saying that Christians remain members in good standing according to a principle of works?
No, that would be vastly oversimplifying a complex situation. I would begin by saying that the visible church is “the church as man sees it”, and it is therefore administered according to outward forms that are intended to correspond to spiritual realities. Hence, synods have real spiritual authority, and yet are not infallible. The sacraments convey grace when partaken by faith, but not in the bare taking of them. As a result, some of the outward forms are of necessity administered on principles different from the corresponding spiritual reality.
In the case of membership, there are outward conditions that are antecedent to becoming a member: making a credible profession of faith on the one hand, or being born of visible church members on the other.
Are those works or meritorious? Inasmuch as they are antecedent conditions, I suppose so. They are certainly treated as such by non-believers. But even here, we see the pictorial element of grace. What does it mean that the “work” admitting a baby into the visible church is simply to be born?
It points to the inward spiritual reality: that to make a genuine (not merely credible) profession, one must first believe, which is the work of God alone and according to his election. Faith is then a posterior condition for the inward reality of being elect and regenerate, while profession of faith (or being born) is of necessity antecedent to becoming a visible member.
And does it also then follow that for you, the distinction between works (or merit) and grace does not correspond to the distinction between OT and NT, but rather to the distinction between the church visible and invisible?
This is then vacated, since the premise is false. The distinction between the two is that the antecedent conditions in the Old were everywhere and “intolerable” (as Turretin puts it, citing Colossians). They pointed to inability as well as to merit extra nos. By contrast, the antecedent conditions in the New are not administered so as to point to inability, but only to merit extra nos.
But, if put to it, churches certainly have the ability to turn church discipline into an intolerable yoke.
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So here’s a second layer of complexity to the inward/outward situation: God guards His glory. When circumstances warrant, independent of principles of grace or works, He acts.
I think this explains the deaths of Annanias and Sapphira, an event that I think we agree was unique in the NT economy. It might also explain Rev 2-3, but that’s a tentative hypothesis.
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Jeff, you agree then that the ground whereby Israel retained the land and the ground whereby church members retain their good standing is essentially the same?
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What is a “gracious covenant of works”? Does this paradox deny that God has a character that would make any idea of “intrinsic merit” possible? Does a “gracious covenant of works” mean that God arbitrarily (merely) values obedience only by (graciously) accepting obedience AS I that obedience was perfect (and enough to merit)?
Does God the Father accept the finished work of Christ as if it had merit?
Mark Jones—if we are also prepared to recognize the nature of Adam’s reward was disputed – then perhaps we will think carefully before impugning the orthodoxy of men whose views on the covenant of works would not be considered odd in the Reformed theological context of the seventeenth century. It’s easy to bring up Barth, Shepherd, or someone else as a convenient rhetorical maneuver to slander people, but not so easy to do the hard (but necessary) work of reading the primary sources. Mark Jones would like to thank the dozens of Reformed ministers (OPC [definitely no names will be given], PCA [only one cared enough], CREC [oops!], ARBCA [See, I love Baptists], TGC [errr…], APC [look them up], URCNA [wannabe Dutch], CANREF [wannabe Canadians], REF21 [wannabe TGC], MOS [wannabe nobody], RPCNA [wannabe hymn-singers]) who read this piece and all gave me the thumbs-up. The persons shall remain nameless, for now…)
– See more at: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2014/09/the-gracious-covenant-of-works-1.php#sthash.obi0fxN8.dpuf
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Using the word “merit”, without distinctions about condign and congruent, is not something odd in the Reformed tradition. God “must” reward the work of Christ because it would be unjust for God not do so so.
“It becomes God to return the love of the creature who loves Him; a loving God cannot not wish and do well to one beloved,” Johannes Heidegger
John Owen, A Dissertation on Divine Justice, chapter 13 (book 10, 587) answers Twisse who wrote “it cannot be maintained that God cannot forgive sins by his power, without a satisfaction.”
“For,” says Twisse, “if God by his might or absolute power cannot pardon sin, then it is absolutely impossible for sin to be pardoned, or not…it is evident that man not only can pardon, but that it is his duty to pardon his enemies when they transgress against him.”
Owen’s Answer: “. “If you say that God hath it in his power not to hate sin, you say that he hath the contrary in his power, — that is, that he can love sin; for if he hate sin of his free will, he may will the contrary. This Scotus maintains, and Twisse agrees with him. But to will good and to love justice are not less natural to God than to be himself. ”
“But it is manifest,” says Twisse, “that man not only can pardon, but that it is his duty to pardon his enemies; and, therefore, this does not imply a contradiction.”
Owen’s Answer: The supposition is denied, that God may do what man may do. Divine and human forgiveness are plainly of a different kind. The forgiveness of man only respects the hurt; the forgiveness of God respects the guilt…. Although a private person may, at certain times, renounce his right and dominion in certain cases, and ought to do so, it doth not follow from that that God, whose right and dominion is natural and indispensable, and which he cannot renounce unless he deny himself, can do the same.
“But neither,” says Twisse, “can it be consistently said that God cannot do this because of his justice, if it be supposed that he cando it by his power. But Scotus reasons with more judgment and accuracy on this point. ‘The divine will is not so inclined towards any secondary object by any thing in itself,’ says he, ‘that can oppose its being justly inclined towards its opposite.”
Owen’s Answer: “We maintain that God from his nature cannot do this, and, therefore, that he cannot either by his power or his justice. To Scotus we answer: The divine will may incline to things opposite, in respect of those attributes which constitute objects to themselves, but not in respect of those attributes which suppose a condition of God’s character. For instance: God may justly speak or not speak with man; but it being supposed that he wills to speak, the divine will cannot be indifferent whether he speak truth or not.
“If, then,” says Twisse, “God must punish sin from a natural necessity, he must necessarily punish it to the extent of his power”.
Owen’s Answer: “That necessity from which God punisheth sin does not require that he should punish it to the extent of his power, but so far as is just. We do not conceive God to be a senseless, inanimate agent, as if he acted from principles of nature, after a natural manner, without a concomitant liberty. For God does all things freely, with understanding and by volition, even those things which by supposition he doth necessarily, according to what his most holy
nature requires.
But Twisse replies, “If God punish as far as he can with justice, — that is, as far as sin deserves, — then it must be either as far as sin deserves according to the free constitution of God, or without any regard to the divine constitution. If according to the divine constitution, this is nothing else but to assert that God punishes not so far as he can, but so far as he wills. If without any regard to the divine constitution, then without the divine constitution sin so deserves punishment that God ought to punish sin because of his justice. If disobedience deserve punishment in this manner, obedience will also, deserve a merited reward without the divine constitution.”
John Owen: “God’s right that rational creatures should be subject to him, either by obedience or a vicarious punishment, is indispensable.
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Lee Irons–Note the fundamentally voluntarist reasoning of the Westminster Confession’s opening statement on the covenants: The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant (WCF VII.1).
The covenant is the revelation of God’s justice. It follows, therefore, that Kline must reject the distinction between condign and congruous merit. The problem with this distinction is that congruous ex pacto merit becomes gracious when it is placed by way of contrast beneath condign merit as something less than full and real merit. Thus, grace inevitably enters the definition of congruous merit
Lee Irons—We must begin by questioning the doctrine of the the absolute power of God as it was formulated by the nominalists. God’s freedom must be maintained, but not at the expense of the divine perfections (i.e., wisdom, goodness, justice, holiness, truth, and rationality). God does not
act arbitrarily, for all his actions are expressive of and delimited by his attributes.
Click to access redefining_merit.pdf
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DR: Jeff, you agree then that the ground whereby Israel retained the land and the ground whereby church members retain their good standing is essentially the same?
“Same” in what way? Antecedent grounding? Yes. Administered legally as under a reflection of the CoW? No.
Again: the purpose of the land sanctions was typological. The purpose of visible church membership is not. The intent of the land sanctions was failure from a historia salutis perspective. The intent of church membership is not.
Trying to equate Israel the theocracy to individual church members is muddying the waters.
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There are different types of grace. There is the grace of the rain and the sun and the many providences bestowed upon all men. There is also the grace of forgiveness of sins and salvation. The covenant of works was gracious in that it was a condescension on God’s part to man to give him a reward for doing what was his duty anyway; but it still required perfect obedience.
Those are my two cents anyway. After 529 posts are we any closer to a resolution?
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Jeff,
You are one who said that “church disicipline is administered on the ground of lawbreaking (1 Cor 5) …” What I’m trying to find out is if you think Israel lost possession of the land on some other ground or on the same ground.
Again: the purpose of the land sanctions was typological. The purpose of visible church membership is not.
Of course my good man. But that’s not the question.
Trying to equate Israel the theocracy to individual church members is muddying the waters.
I agree, but that’s not the question either.
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David R.-
I think you’re reading too much into Jeff’s point. The session has to deal with the public witness of the church, in the members of the church. If the behaviour of a member is scandalous or brings the church into disrepute the session has to act. It’s not if a member sins he loses his privileges: all believers sin, every day. It’s when those sins become public and contradict the professor’s witness- and that of the church- that the session intervenes. And of course they are protecting the sacraments as well.
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Alexander,
I hear you but it seems to me that Jeff sees essential continuity wrt the ground but discontinuity in that one case is typical and emphasizes law; whereas the other case isn’t typical and emphasizes gospel. If that’s what Jeff is saying then I’m not sure where we disagree.
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Mike Horton—In the federalism of the Westminster Standards on this point, the divines speak of God’s relationship to Adam in terms of “voluntary condescension.” However, this is not the same as grace; a term that would have been used if that is what was intended. The divines knew exactly what they were doing (and Ursinus defended every one of their points before the Assembly ever met). “Voluntary condescension” is hardly grace. Why is that so? In the first place, the former simply means that God was not compelled by any necessity to create: it was a free act. Second, by pronouncing his benediction (“It is very good,” not just “good”), God was approving Adam’s standing. But upon what basis was Adam currently acceptable before God? On precisely that basis indicated by the benediction: his intrinsic worthiness as a loyal son and servant.
Third, to conflate “voluntary condescension” and “grace” is to empty grace of its most precious scriptural meaning. Scripture nowhere speaks of this relationship as gracious, and with good reason: grace happens to sinners. Friendship, condescension, familiarity, goodness: these in no way entail graciousness on God’s part, since the relationship was not yet marred by sin. Grace is not treated in scripture as merely unmerited favor, but as demerited favor, God’s favor toward sinners despite their having deserved the very opposite. In that sense, grace and mercy are interchangeable terms, just as the “covenant of grace” has sometimes been called the “covenant of mercy.” God cannot be regarded as gracious or merciful to creatures who as yet do not deserve otherwise,. “Goodness” and “condescension” are not equivalent to grace and mercy. http://spindleworks.com/library/CR/horton.htm
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I’m not sure whether to play or not. You know that your line of reasoning will muddy the waters but you pursue it anyway?
IF we stipulate that national Israel is not directly comparable to individuals under the NC,
IF we stipulate that the land sanctions were administered by God against sins actually committed, while excommunication is administered by people against sins judged to have been committed,
IF we stipulate that the land sanctions were typical, while visible church membership is not,
IF we stipulate that neither has to do with the third use of the law,
THEN yes, both are in their own sphere conducted on the antecedent ground of disobedience.
What did that get us?
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IF we stipulate that national Israel is not directly comparable to individuals under the NC …
Though it IS directly comparable to the visible church of the NT. You would agree that making direct comparisons between the visible church under the MC and that under the NC is not muddying the waters, right? That would certainly have to the case if the MC is the covenant of grace.
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David R.,
Is a mixed covenant position allowable by Westminster?
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DR, it’s necessary to keep the day holy. Do you think it’s necessary to be saved?
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Jeff, you now have a flat history of redemption.
Hallelujah!
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I want a thesis. Where are we going?
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And just to be clear, the theocracy is not exactly the same as the visible church. During the exile, there was no theocracy, but there was the visible church. Post-Solomon, the theocracy was split into two kingdoms, but not so the visible church (despite the effort to set up a second site at Dan).
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Joel, I don’t know if I am familiar enough with that view to answer, but if what you mean is that the MC was a CoW for the unregenerate, then I think 19.1-2 strongly suggests a “no” answer.
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That is good you acknowledge the existence of WCF 19.1 expanding down the rest of the paragraphs
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kent, care to elaborate?
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Yes, you’ve summarized it well enough, though I have no idea how you could say that 19.1-2 contradicts it. Do you think a divine like William Strong was just confused on the subject?
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Joel, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure I recall reading recently a critique of Strong’s position to the effect that what he should have said was that what had been established by God as a CoG had been falsely perverted by the unregenerate into a CoW.
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How does 19.1-2 contradict a mixed covenant? Have you read the pertinent sections of Strong?
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Jeff,
The thesis I’ve been trying to defend (but not w/o getting sidetracked), starting a few weeks ago when I began commenting, has been simply that a works principle is inconsistent with the Mosaic covenant.
I conclude this from the fact that a works principle is, by definition, inconsistent with (any administration of) the covenant of grace. But we agree that the Mosaic covenant was (an administration of) the covenant of grace. Ergo …
A related thesis, and one that also follows from the MC being an administration of the CoG, is that the MC principle of inheritance was by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone. Period. (D.G., your problem is with the Reformed tradition.)
I would be interested to see you or someone else who also holds the MC to be an administration of the CoG try to refute these pretty basic arguments.
Regarding the question of whether this is the historic Reformed consensus, we have already looked at Turretin, Vos, Berkhof (I realize you disagree with me wrt these), Calvin and Calquhoun; now let’s take another look at Calvin.
In book three of the Institutes, chapter 17, Calvin reconciles the conditional promises of the law with the gracious promises of the gospel (Institutes 3.17.1-3). He does this in response to a Romish objection to the doctrine of justification sola fide on the grounds that the MC promises the inheritance to the obedient. He does not solve the problem by arguing for a works principle in the MC wrt the typical inheritance that gives way to a grace/faith principle in the NC wrt the antitypical one (though if he believed this was the case, it would have been the perfect place to give that explanation). Instead, he demonstrates that in both cases (MC and NC), and wrt the one inheritance (though revealed typically in the MC) the promises that the law makes to obedience are, by virtue of the gospel, received by grace alone. To summarize his explanation (which comes from sections 1-3, you’ll have to scroll):
1. The promises of the law are only granted on the condition of perfect obedience.
2. Since post-fall sinners are unable to render such obedience, the promises of the law are null and void, and all humanity is left under the curse.
3. In the gospel, God mercifully grants what was promised in the law to those who receive the imputed righteousness of Christ by faith alone.
4. Once God freely justifies and accepts believers on account of Christ alone, he also accepts their works, pardons their imperfections and rewards them with the blessings promised to those who perfectly keep the law.
This, I take it, is essentially Calvin’s answer to your question about Deuteronomy 28.
You have been accusing me of muddying things by likening Israel’s situation to ours under the NT, but the alternative is that you are muddying things by overly differentiating.
Your objection: Under the MC, both the righteous and the wicked enjoyed the land inheritance, and when the nation apostatized, they all went into exile together, the righteous with the wicked. This shows that the land inheritance wasn’t retained by grace throughout faith, but rather by relative corporate obedience.
My response: (1) While it is true that many reprobate temporarily enjoyed the land inheritance, ultimately they were purged from it, never to be restored. (2) The OT saints who enjoyed the land inheritance knew that it wasn’t their final destination, viewed themselves as aliens and strangers and fixed their sights on the heavenly city. (3) The OT saints who were deprived of the land inheritance willingly suffered the reproach of Christ, knowing that there would be a future restoration (typical/antitypical).
Therefore, the fact that the nation corporately retained or lost temporal blessings does not prove that the principle of inheritance in the MC (retention as well as reception) was not by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone.
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Hi David,
Thanks for laying out the thesis clearly. It is clear to me that you track pretty closely with Dennison et al, so I am interested in your responses to my Quiz over at the “Flattening” thread.
Here is my refutation: The claim that “a works principle is inconsistent with the Mosaic covenant” ignores the many, many Reformed sources that treat with the Mosaic covenant as having an outward administration according to the Covenant of Works.
To be precise, your thesis as stated fails to distinguish between substance and accidents. If it were true that a works principle were in fact incompatible with a works principle, period, then there could be no works principle, period, not even in the accidents.
Since I know from previous discussion that you have held to such a distinction, I wonder whether this is an oversight or a retreat. I assume oversight?
But I am in some doubt, for in your treatment of the land sanctions, I see a failure to consistently work out the substance/accident distinction to its proper conclusion. The Reformed sources tend to do this.
Chief among those is Turretin. Now that I have him in hand, I am positive that you have not grasped the significance of the “legal cloak”, and I will develop this idea at a future time.
Here is one example of a Reformed source who places the works principle within the MC:
— Fisher’s Catechism on the WSC, Qn 40.
Notice that Fisher comes pretty close to a “sub-cov” view, but speaks of the one “Sinaitic Transaction.” He does not agree with you that the Mosaic Covenant is incompatible with a works principle, but rather that the works principle is in operation in a different sense from the grace principle.
DR: Your objection: Under the MC, both the righteous and the wicked enjoyed the land inheritance, and when the nation apostatized, they all went into exile together, the righteous with the wicked. This shows that the land inheritance wasn’t retained by grace throughout faith, but rather by relative corporate obedience.
This is close, but misses the meat of the argument on the one hand, and is imprecise on a crucial point on the other.
The meat of the argument is that those who are justified are not destroyed, as the theocracy was; those who are not justified cannot be rewarded under grace.
Your view has the unjustified being rewarded under grace, while the justified are treated just as if they broke the covenant.
The point on which you are imprecise is to say that “This shows that the land inheritance wasn’t retained by grace throughout faith, but rather by relative corporate obedience.”
I distinguish: The requirement articulated for the land sanctions was perfect obedience. The enforcement of that requirement was not according to stipulation, but was softened on behalf of mediators. The net effect was that God accepted relative obedience, but not because the requirement was relative obedience.
DR: the fact that the nation corporately retained or lost temporal blessings does not prove that the principle of inheritance in the MC (retention as well as reception) was not by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone.
The fact that the theocracy was destroyed proves absolutely that the theocracy was not justified on account of the merits of Christ alone. I will go to the stake for this point.
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