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 
At last! I agree with Tom Van Dyke. Check out Sir Paul’s bass lines… And also Entwhistle.
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Y’all are sexists. Here’s some Tal
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The (Old Life) Kids Are All Right……….
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For Muddy Gravel and all the non-sexists out there…
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David R., come on, you can’t answer a question about your leading assertion — obedience is required? For what?
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David R., reading comprehension alert. Here’s the exact language of WLC 32:
Obedience is not a condition. It’s evidence, but this is precisely the problem that kept tripping Shepherd up.
If you can’t read the catechism aright, what about Calvin or Vos?
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Jeff to David R., “A second part of the confusion is that it is not obvious to me that Deut 28 is talking directly about eternal life. It looks like it’s talking about retaining the land (which we agree is a type of eternal life.) Can you explain why you think Deut 28 is talking about eternal life and not land?”
Exactly.
So it turns out that the critics of repub are confused? Wouldn’t have thought of that.
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Dr. Hart,
I do believe that your post above, where you describe the critical point and heart of the matter – obedience as evidence, and not as a condition – from WLC 32, defines the essence of the ongoing problem in Reformed circles today for pastors, elders, individual believers, and the church at-large.
Understanding the covenants is so critical:
Very quickly, our understanding of Christ’s finished and completed Work gets diluted, or diminished, if this is not thoroughly understood, and we are back to the Do This and Live basis of the Law………..and this is where it can get very tricky, depending on what each individual believer understands or knows:
– it can manifest itself as working to earn God’s favor or blessing in each believer’s personal life, or family, or church, or nation (especially the new Israel, the United States of America)
or
– it can, most probably, and most certainly does – fully morph into working for one’s salvation and Eternal Life
These are the ‘unspoken’ (until now) – and seldom, rarely/never taught – ‘theological points of distinction-instruction’ that practically never see the light of day in Reformed churches of today.
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Speaking of good bassists. Chuck Rainey:
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David Gordon—These various biblical covenants are not merely numerically distinct; they are different in kind, although they each contribute to God’s single purpose to rescue the human race in Christ, the last Adam. Covenants only conflict with each other if they propose different means for attaining the same ends; provided that their ends and means differ, there is no conflict.
David Gordon—People often say, for instance, that God “graciously” chose Israel to be a party to the Sinai covenant, when in fact God “sovereignly” chose them. But neither I nor the Israelites consider this sovereign election to be necessarily gracious. Recall that the Israelites thought they were better off in Egypt
:
Numbers 14:2 And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
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D.G.,
David R., come on, you can’t answer a question about your leading assertion — obedience is required? For what?
Because it is “the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he hath appointed them to salvation”? How’s that for reading comprehension.
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All of this arguing over the place of obedience in the life of the Reformed Christian (to the point that we’re naming Boys after the concept) seems moot. If we affirm election we affirm that some will receive the gift of faith in Christ from God and those who receive the gift of faith will in some measure life a life of obedience to God’s Commandments. Since faith precedes obedience, why make obedience the focal point? It makes no sense.
For those who clearly live lives of disobedience — to the point that their sins become gross and evident even to pagans — we have church discipline and barring from the Lord’s table.
If obedience is your warp & woof go back to the Arminian Baptists from whence you came.
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Erik, what about Xian economy? You’re advocating crop subsidies for carrot farmers and a policy that will put stick makers out of business.
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Warning, Turretin quote to follow (non-members of the fan club, beware):
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This is also the problem with attempting to carve out a portion of the law from the entire biblical context and create a “ministry” around it. You can’t help but distort it and create and idol. Some of the biggest idolaters in the church are the ones who at first glance appear to be the most pious.
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Chortles,
I possess a massive level of boredom with and immunity from various Presbyterian & Reformed stick makers (and stick carriers) of various stripes. They can do what they like with their sticks, but I do have a suggestion…
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The problem with all these movements is that they generally devolve to charismatic, authoritarian leaders with sycophantic followers and an eventual downfall of said leaders (usually involving sex), followed by sycophantic followers finding a new guru to follow. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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One more time:
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David R. joins the long line of Old Life detractors who have only one goal: to make us all question our salvation.
Well, if the most ‘biblical’ Richard Smith failed, what makes others think they’ll do better?
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David R., where’s the thanks? You wouldn’t have been able to quote LC 32 if I hadn’t brought it to your attention.
Remember, this was your first try with LC 32:
Evidence of faith and thankfulness is a long way from “obedience is required for salvation.”
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David R., have you heard of the Bible? Paul?
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D.G., I get it. You don’t like Turretin, Warfield, Vos or the Larger Catechism.
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Beware the Bible decoder ring. If you’re supposed to believe Deut 28 doesn’t mean what it means and pretend the NT treats the Mosaic Covenant as highly as it speaks of the Abrahamic Covenant, well that’s a Bible decoder ring.
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MG – I’d prefer to call it pettifoggery.
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John Murray—The Covenant of Grace—-It may plausibly be objected, however, that the breaking of the covenant envisaged in this case interferes with the perpetuity of the covenant. For does not the possibility of breaking the covenant imply conditional perpetuity? . . . .
Murray– Without question the blessings of the covenant and the relation which the covenant entails cannot be enjoyed or maintained apart from the fulfillment of certain conditions on the part of the beneficiaries. For when we think of the promise which is the central element of the covenant. ‘I will be your God, and ye shall be my people’, there is necessarily involved, as we have seen, mutuality in the highest sense. Fellowship is always mutual and when mutuality ceases fellowship ceases. Hence the reciprocal response of faith and obedience arises from the nature of the relationship which the covenant contemplates (cf Gen. 18:17-19; Gen. 22:16-18).
Murray—The obedience of Abraham is represented as the condition upon which the fulfillment of the promise given to him was contingent and the obedience of Abraham’s seed is represented as the means through which the promise given to Abraham would be accomplished. There is undoubtedly the fulfillment of certain conditions and these are summed up in obeying the Lord’s voice and keeping His covenant. It is not quite congruous, however,TO SPEAK OF THESE CONDITIONS AS CONDITIONS OF THE COVENANT.. For when we speak thus we are distinctly liable to be understood as implying that the covenant is not to be regarded as dispensed until the conditions are fulfilled and that the conditions are integral to the establishment of the covenant relation. And this would not provide a true or accurate account of the covenant. The covenant is a sovereign dispensation of God’s grace. It is grace bestowed and a relation established. The grace dispensed and the relation established do not wait for the fulfillment of certain conditions on the part of those to whom the grace is dispensed.
Murray— How then are we to construe the conditions of which we have spoken? The continued enjoyment of this grace and of the relation established is contingent upon the fulfillment of certain conditions. For apart from the fulfillment of these conditions the grace bestowed and the relation established are meaningless. Grace bestowed implies a subject and reception on the part of that subject. The relation established implies mutuality.
Murray— But the conditions in view are not really conditions of bestowal. They are simply the reciprocal responses of faith, love and obedience, apart from which the enjoyment of the covenant blessing and of the covenant relation is inconceivable….viewed in this light that the breaking of the covenant takes on an entirely different complexion. It is not the failure to meet the terms of a pact nor failure to respond to the offer of favorable terms of contractual agreement. It is unfaithfulness to a relation constituted and to grace dispensed. By breaking the covenant what is broken is not the condition of bestowal but the condition of consummated fruition.”
John Murray—The covenant does not yield its blessing to all indiscriminately. The discrimination which this covenant exemplifies accentuates the sovereignty of God in the bestowal of its grace and the fulfillment of its promises. This particularization is correlative with the spirituality of the grace bestowed and the relation constituted and it is also consonant with the exactitude of its demands. A covenant which yields its blessing indiscriminately is not one that can be kept or broken. We see again, therefore, that the intensification which particularism illustrates serves to accentuate the keeping which is indispensable to the fruition of the covenant grace.”
mark—Would it be too simple to summarize Murray’s position as “the more conditionality, the more grace.” ?
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Jer. 31:31“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke</b?, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33"But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.…
Heb. 8:9 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
Even though the Mosaic covenant was a temporary administration of the covenant of grace, there was definitely something very different about the Mosaic covenant, and not the Abrahamic covenant, in contrast with the New covenant…
Scott Clark:
Finally, the book of Hebrews, chapters 7-10, explicitly describe the Mosaic covenant as the “old covenant.” The “better promises” of the new covenant are not contrasted with Abraham but with Moses and the Mosaic priesthood. Hebrews 8:5 makes this contrast explicitly. From 8:6 Hebrews interprets Jeremiah 31:
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
When v. 7 says “first covenant” it means the Mosaic, not Abrahamic covenant. This is confirmed by what follows:
For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
The writer to/pastor of the Hebrew Christian congregation gives us a divinely inspired interpretation (Heb 10:15 claims this explicitly) of the prophecy of Jeremiah. It speaks to the contrast and comparison between the old, Mosaic covenant and the new, better, covenant. The comparison and contrast is not between Abraham and the new covenant but between Moses and the new covenant. The covenant that God made with Abraham was a covenant of grace, the covenant he confirmed with the “blood of the eternal covenant” (Heb 13:20).
The Mosaic covenant, the old covenant, is, in the language of 2 Cor, fading. According to Hebrews 8:13 it is “obsolete.” These things are not said about Abraham’s faith or the promise of salvation given to and through Abraham.
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Turretin:
Legal = meriting of life, cause of life, Do This And Live, not admitted unless perfect and absolute.
Gospel = possession of life, fruit of life, admitted if sincere even if imperfect.
The Mosaic Covenant was a covenant of grace wrapped in a legal cloak.
Does that mean that there was an accidental merit principle in the Mosaic Covenant?
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TBR, if the texts were actually THIS difficult, I’m pretty sure I’d quit and take up golf on sundays. Sacred text NOT being perspicuous is RC territory, and although that’s a heck of a lot more sincere than the adult high school group parading as church that I was compelled to attend this morning, thanks to my baptist relatives, it’s ultimately not worth the time either.
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Does that mean that there was an accidental merit principle in the Mosaic Covenant?
Jeff, yeah, I think that works.
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David R., well you did say LC teaches that obedience is required. If you interpret my pointing out that you misread LC 32 as my not liking the LC, then your interpretations look all the more dubious. But keep displaying your diminished reading skills. I give you credit for gumption.
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@ David R:
OK, good.
Now the accidental merit principle would then have the condition of obedience — perfect or relative? — and the promise of — eternal life? temporal life in the land? Other?
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Question: Does the Law hold forth a works principle only to those who receive it wrongly? Or does it hold forth a works principle to all, to be satisfied by Christ in those who believe?
We hold the latter, as did Ursinus and Calvin:
Ursinus, Comm Heid Catech, Qn 19.III, “In what the Gospel differs from the Law”
— Calv Inst 2.7.3, 6
So it is to be rejected as erroneous, the view that the merit principle of the Moral Law is a Covenant of Works only to those who receive it wrongly.
Rather, it must be correctly stated: The Moral Law presents and republishes a Covenant of Works, to be fulfilled in ourselves or by another. Having been fulfilled by the other, who is Christ, the Moral Law can now serve a different function, as a rule of life.
We must first die to the Law before we may live in Christ.
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Jeff,
Très Amen! Let’s hear that again:
So it is to be rejected as erroneous, the view that the merit principle of the Moral Law is a Covenant of Works only to those who receive it wrongly.
Rather, it must be correctly stated: The Moral Law presents and republishes a Covenant of Works, to be fulfilled in ourselves or by another. Having been fulfilled by the other, who is Christ, the Moral Law can now serve a different function, as a rule of life.
We must first die to the Law before we may live in Christ.
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Question: Are the temporal blessings and curses under the Old Testament Law of the same nature and type of the blessings and disciplines of believers under the New Testament? Or are they of a different nature?
Ans: They are of a different nature. For while it is true that God may bless our obedience or discipline our failure, His blessings and disciplines of us are not intended as a type of blessedness to come. And indeed, our obedience in the New Testament is attached not to blessing only, but to persecution and suffering. Further, when we pray for our daily bread, we are not promised it “if we have kept the Law, turning neither to the left nor to the right.” Instead, we appeal to God who is our Father by the Spirit of adoption.
— Calv Inst 2.11.3.
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D.G – We get it. You don ‘t like poor reading skills.
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Jeff,
Rather, it must be correctly stated: The Moral Law presents and republishes a Covenant of Works, to be fulfilled in ourselves or by another. Having been fulfilled by the other, who is Christ, the Moral Law can now serve a different function, as a rule of life.
I agree. I would just qualify that the republcation is material, not formal, but I agree with what you posted.
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Now the accidental merit principle would then have the condition of obedience — perfect or relative? — and the promise of — eternal life? temporal life in the land? Other?
Perfect obedience / promise of eternal life.
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For while it is true that God may bless our obedience or discipline our failure, His blessings and disciplines of us are not intended as a type of blessedness to come.
Agreed. As you’ll recall, this was on my list of things not in dispute.
And indeed, our obedience in the New Testament is attached not to blessing only, but to persecution and suffering.
But this was true for OT saints as well. Think of Joseph in Potiphar’s prison, Daniel in Babylon purposing to remain faithful, Jeremiah the “weeping prophet,” etc. And we’ve already looked at the OT background to Romans 8:36.
Further, when we pray for our daily bread, we are not promised it “if we have kept the Law, turning neither to the left nor to the right.” Instead, we appeal to God who is our Father by the Spirit of adoption.
But likewise, this was true for OT saints as well.
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D.G.,
David R., well you did say LC teaches that obedience is required.
So your view is that the LC teaches that obedience is not required, correct?
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Jeff,
So it is to be rejected as erroneous, the view that the merit principle of the Moral Law is a Covenant of Works only to those who receive it wrongly.
No one denies that the moral law republishes the matter of the covenant of works. But what is being criticized is the view that God actually entered into a covenant of works with Israel (or any other sinner(s)). Which is why it is pointed out that the Confession and catechisms characterize the moral law not as a CoW but as a “perfect rule of righteousness” with several uses, among them the pedagogical.
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Amish, gong.
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DR, you brought up LC 32 in support of the idea that obedience is required. LC doesn’t come close to affirming what you say, unless you put on some kind of neonomian spectacles, you know the kind Shepherd wore.
And you have yet to explain how your general and unnuanced insistence that obedience is required is orthodox. Please do remember the old adage about glass houses.
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David R., again, reading comprehension alert. Who says God ACTUALLY enters into a covenant of works with sinners. Repub is all about a “works principle” — follow me here, that is not C-O-V-E-N-A-N-T-O-F-W-O-R-K-S — and the Mosaic Covenant is a republication “in some sense” — follow me again — that is not A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y.
Tilt at windmills much?
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David R: I’m glad that we’re back in a season of agreement.
So in our Hiding Behind Kilts days, you said this: If what you are saying is that Deut 28-30 presents the demands and sanctions of the covenant of works, then yes! I agree. If you take Deut 28-30 in and of itself, apart from its redemptive context, it is the covenant of works. If you enter into a covenant with God with Deut 28-30 as your charter, then you are under a covenant of works. But, as I thought you had agreed with me above, Deut 28-30 is not is not the charter of the covenant and only those who ignored the true end (pedagogue unto Christ) and devised a false one (covenant of works) found themselves under a works principle.
Alright, more questions. Again, this is not “gotcha”, but trying to get a clear picture. I myself am long past thinking that I understand all of the ins and outs here, so I’m just going to poke.
Based on your statement that Deut 28-30 presents the demands and sanctions of the CoW,
(1) Do you believe that Deut 28-30 is part of the gracious substance or of the legal cloak?
(2) Does Deut 28 promise land retention or eternal life, or both in different ways?
(3) How does relative obedience as a requirement for land retention figure in here? Does Deut 28-30 taken as a whole require strict obedience or relative?
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D.G., you didn’t answer the question.
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David R., again, reading comprehension alert. Who says God ACTUALLY enters into a covenant of works with sinners. Repub is all about a “works principle” — follow me here, that is not C-O-V-E-N-A-N-T-O-F-W-O-R-K-S — and the Mosaic Covenant is a republication “in some sense” — follow me again — that is not A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y.
That might be crystal clear if it weren’t self-contradictory. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and–follow me–where there’s a works principle, there is A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y a covenant of works “in some sense.”
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@David R.
I’ve always understood the relationship between obedience and salvation to be like gray hair and age. Gray hair is not required in order to get old, but when we get old our hair goes grey.
Obedience is something that we do as a consequence of our sanctification rather than something that causes our sanctification…or so I’ve understood. Are you saying that obedience is causal?
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sdb, I completely agree. But how do you understand the relationship of our obedience to our glorification?
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@David R.
Thanks for the clarification. I’m just trying to get a handle on where the disagreement really lies. I’m just a layman, so I’m sure there are all kinds of subtleties I’m missing here. Is the crux of the matter glorification then? My understanding is that glorification is when our obedience will be perfected and our flesh utterly and completely mortified.
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