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 
David R., the New Testament has no “do everything I have commanded or die.” Again, your reading skills are questionable.
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@ David: I don’t agree. Think about context … What passage are we in?
Calvin concludes that section with this: “But this is the peculiar blessing of the new covenant, that the Law is written on men’s hearts, and engraven on their inward parts; whilst that severe requirement is relaxed, so that the vices under which believers still labor are no obstacle to their partial and imperfect obedience being pleasant to God.”
So he is clearly talking about evangelical obedience. But now two things are of note, and one of them is crucial.
The first thing that is of note is that Calvin considers evangelical obedience to be a peculiar blessing of the new covenant. He doesn’t elaborate, and I haven’t seen that theme developed elsewhere, so I can’t say whether he means that absolutely.
If he does, your hypothesis is severely damaged.
But if not … And I’m assuming not … Then we would still have to say that evangelical obedience is limited to those who, as in the New Covenant, are in Christ.
And that’s the second and crucial point. In order for imperfect good works to be pleasing to God and receive reward, they must be covered by the merits of Christ. This is a sine qua non.
You by contrast have believers and unbelievers alike in Israel benefitting from a “lesser standard.” That’s not evangelical obedience, but something else entirely.
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Jack, is it not odd that David R. accuses Kline of importing law into grace, and then David turns around and says that WSC 88 is no different from Deut 26-28.
Can you believe this guy?
Drum roll —- I can’t.
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David R., “the standard of obedience (i.e., evangelical) accepted by God (and rewarded) from His children. . .”
I thought you said there was no merit in grace.
You’re all over the place.
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I have no problem with the Berkhof quote …
Good, then you now agree that the MC is the CoG. If you don’t, then further discussion of this issue is certainly futile.
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DR,
Have you considered that you might be making conversation futile by insisting on what I must believe (because you are so obviously “right”) or else? Fine. But some would say that’s not such a good way to win friends and influence people. cheers…
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Nick Batzig weighs in:
With so much confusion floating around at present about the precise relationship between the Covenant of Works, the Law and the Mosaic Covenant, I thought that it might be helpful to set out what Geerhardus Vos wrote about some of the related issues in his Reformed Dogmatics and in Grace and Glory. In his section in Reformed Dogmatics on “The Covenant of Grace,” Vos gave the following explanation about the relationship between the Covenant of Works, the Law and the Covenant of Grace:
http://feedingonchrist.com/covenant-works-law-sinai/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=covenant-works-law-sinai
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Jack, thanks. Here’s a quote from Vos (hold on to your seats for David R.’s spin):
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David R:
Good, then you now agree that the MC is the CoG.
This is unacceptably sloppy. The MC is not simple, but has two parts. The substance is CoG, and even there, not fully revealed. The accidents are not the CoG, but administrative of it. They are in fact a reflection or shadow of the CoW.
It is not possible to accurately (over)simplify this structure to “the MC is the CoG”
If you don’t, then further discussion of this issue is certainly futile.
Hmph.
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Jeff, an accident is not a “part.” It doesn’t change the essential nature of something.
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Unnecessary quibbling. The point is that certain sections of the Law are (1) a part of the MC and yet are (2) a part of the legal cloak and not the gracious substance. You yourself have said this.
So the MC is not identical to the CoG, but instead is an administration of the CoG. Jack is exactly right, and you are hassling him uncharitably. Not cool.
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More Vos via Nick:
“He then went on to explain why it was that God included the “content of the covenant of works” in the covenant of grace:”
When we say that it is a Covenant of Grace, then we must consider specifically the relationship of guilty man before God in this covenant. When one considers the Mediator of the Covenant, then naturally no grace is shown to Him. Considered in Christ, everything is a matter of carrying out the demands of the Covenant of Works according to God’s strict justice, though in another form. Grace never consists in God abandoning anything of His justice, taken in general. But He does in that He does not assert His justice against the same person against whom He could assert it. God shows grace to us when He demands from Christ what He can demand from us. Considered in Christ, everything is strict justice; considered in us, everything is free grace.2
“Picking up on the significance of Christ’s relationship to the Law in the Covenant of Grace as our Mediator, Vos noted:”
The Son, who as a divine Person stood above the law, placed Himself in His assumed nature under the law, that is to say, not only under the natural relationship under which man stands toward God, but under the relationship of the covenant of works, so that by active obedience He might merit eternal life. Considered in this light, the work of Christ was a fulfillment of what Adam had not fulfilled, a carrying out of the demand of the covenant of works.3
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D.G., you left out this from Vos:
Also, where does Vos imply in what you quoted that Israel was under a works principle for land inheritance?
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David R., but look at all that you left out.
And then you say that God rewards imperfect obedience but you deny a works principle. Which is it oh speaker who employs both sides of his mouth.
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Jeff,
You by contrast have believers and unbelievers alike in Israel benefitting from a “lesser standard.” That’s not evangelical obedience, but something else entirely.
It is a relative level of corporate obedience suitable for the symbolic purpose. But any obedience acceptable to God from sinners post-fall is wholly a matter of grace and not works.
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And then you say that God rewards imperfect obedience but you deny a works principle.
I’m tired of hitting softballs so I’ll just let this one pass.
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David R., sure let your assertion that WSC 88 is merely a reiteration of Deut 26-28.
If only all opposition to the truth were this easy.
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David R., sure let your assertion that WSC 88 is merely a reiteration of Deut 26-28.
Wow, that’s well beyond spin.
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David R.
Sound familiar?
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Jeff,
Unnecessary quibbling. The point is that certain sections of the Law are (1) a part of the MC and yet are (2) a part of the legal cloak and not the gracious substance. You yourself have said this.
No I haven’t said this, at least I didn’t mean that. It’s not that certain sections of the law are legal and others are not. The entire law is legal, revealing our sin and misery as well as the condition to be met by Christ as Mediator of the covenant. But under the veil of ceremonies, the gospel substance was revealed to the OT people of God, to be received by faith.
So the MC is not identical to the CoG, but instead is an administration of the CoG. Jack is exactly right, and you are hassling him uncharitably. Not cool.
To say that the MC is an administration of the CoG is to say that it is substantially the CoG. The same is true in the case of the NC. The NC is not the MC. But they are both the CoG. Analogously, Jeff standing is not Jeff sitting. But in neither case would I be incorrect to say, “That is Jeff.” And conversely, Jack would be incorrect to say, “That is not Jeff.”
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D.G., yup. And you read that as an “assertion that WSC 88 is merely a reiteration of Deut 26-28”? Interesting….
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D.G., you didn’t answer my question. Here, I’ll repeat it: Where does Vos say (in that section you quoted) that Israel was under a works principle for retaining possession of the land?
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David R.,
If the Mosaic Covenant involved inheriting the land, which it did, I don’t see how you can think — well, actually I can — that the Covenant with Israel did not involve a works principle. As has been said many times, the CofG involves a works principle — the works of a mediator who keeps the law perfectly. The MC also involves a works principle if it is going to show the Israelites that they can’t keep the law and sends them into exile for not keeping the law.
What exactly are you tilting at? Don’t you have errands to run?
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D.G., he doesn’t say it, and you know it (which is why you add your commentary).
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G Vos via David R: The Sinaitic covenant is not a new covenant as concerns the essence of the matter.
It’s a good thing that we all agreed to this point many years ago.
Now if we can only all recognize that we have all agreed to this point, the conversation has a chance of breaking the logjam and becoming genuinely edifying.
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JRC: The point is that certain sections of the Law are (1) a part of the MC and yet are (2) a part of the legal cloak and not the gracious substance. You yourself have said this.
DR: No I haven’t said this, at least I didn’t mean that.
!!!! You have said (1) and (2) multiple times in this conversation. !!!!
DR: It’s not that certain sections of the law are legal and others are not.
Of course not. It’s just that we have been discussing certain sections (Deut 28-30 e.g.) but not others. I was being specific, not exclusive.
However, the Mosaic Covenant is not coextensive with the law, either. It has both Law and Gospel within it. So again, the Mosaic Covenant is not the same as the covenant of grace. It is in substance the covenant of grace, with various legal accidents.
It is the covenant of grace in legal clothing. That’s irreducible simplicity.
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Jeff, again, to say that “the MC is not the CoG” is akin to saying “Jeff sitting isn’t Jeff,” or “Jeff with a haircut isn’t Jeff,” or “Jeff in Tahiti isn’t Jeff.” It’s simply not a true statement (assuming the MC is an administration of the CoG).
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If the sitting and standing are relevant to the discussion at hand, then one does not count for the other just because they are both “Jeff.”
Here, the discussion at hand is the function of Law in the Mosaic Covenant. You have argued “The Mosaic is the Covenant of Grace just as is the New Covenant; therefore, obedience to the Law functions the same way in the MC as it does in the New, as evangelical obedience only.”
Jack replies, in essence, that the legal character of the Mosaic Covenant means that we may not assume that law and obedience function in the same way in both covenants.
In the context of our discussion, a “covenant of grace with a legal cloak” is to be understood differently from a “covenant of grace, end of story.”
If our covenant of grace is “legaling”, then it seems silly to argue that it’s actually “gracing.”
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On to better things. I think one of the issues here is found in this exchange:
JRC: Thanks. So in your revised answer, is Deut 28 a part of the gracious substance or the legal cloak?
DR: It’s part of the legal cloak, which is pedagogical. But for those who partake of the substance of the covenant, the law is a rule of life. Obviously Calvin, for one, understands the passage in terms of evangelical obedience (third use).
And there’s the problem. This will be hard to articulate correctly, so work with me. The issue is that a works principle and a grace principle are antonyms with regard to function, but not antonyms with regard to justice. In other words, “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.” (Rom 3.31).
You on the other hand have taken a works principle and a grace principle to be antonyms with regard to justice, so that if justice is demanded, then grace cannot be in operation. The problem, however, is that your argument is Fuller’s argument against the Law/Gospel distinction! He argues right down the line with you that Lev 18 is all about covenant obedience, and that this carries forward even to today. Clearly, since you don’t want to be there, then we have to distinguish your view from Fuller’s by something more than “all these arguments, but then Law/Gospel too.”
And what repub offers in the insight that law and gospel function side-by-side (never commingled) because of the way that Law and Gospel uniquely function. The Law demands. And the Gospel justifies because another fulfills those demands.
So let’s look first at the Decalogue.
* We agree that the Decalogue expresses and republishes the content of the CoW by way of material republication.
* We also agree that this material was not republished with the aim of Israel achieving their salvation by keeping the Decalogue, but rather that they would be driven to Christ.
* And we also agree that when Christ lived, He fulfilled the Law on our behalf.
* And we agree that this is the basis for our living under grace.
So how does the grace principle work? By resting on the works principle right there in the law! To be saved, there must be a merit principle — the merit of another.
That’s why every single Reformed Confession speaks of the “merits of Christ.” What were those merits? Well, he kept the Law. In so doing, he kept the CoW.
If there is no merit principle in the Law, then there is no merit of Christ for us.
So we must restate the idea that merit principle and grace principle are antonymic. It is better to say that we either receive reward on our own merit, or on that of another, and never both. We receive righteousness by faith or by works, but not by both.
Here’s where this matters: You have waffled on the notion of an accidental merit principle. First you denied, insisting that an “accidental merit principle” had to be a distinct covenant (Hiding Behind Kilts, p. 8); then you affirmed that there is an accidental merit principle in the MC (p. 3 of this thread); now you are denying again.
What is causing this back-and-forth? I think you have two incompatible goals.
(1) On the one hand you wish to affirm Turretin’s basic structure of “legal cloak = meriting, do this and live ; gracious substance = possession of life, obedience rewarded even if imperfect”
(2) On the other hand, you want to assert that a grace principle and a merit principle cannot coexist without two separate covenants.
One of those two desires must go unfulfilled. For Turretin is clearly saying that the legal cloak operates by a merit principle that coexists together with the grace principle — one at the level of accident, the other of substance. You cannot continue to hold to Turretin and at the same time continue to assert that an accidental merit principle is impossible.
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David,
You’ve also expressed reluctance to make a hard distinction between the national and the individual within the Mosaic Covenant. However, I think this distinction is both legitimate and also helpful.
It is legitimate because God treated the nation of Israel as a unit, regardless of the justified status of its citizens. I’ve mentioned Daniel a couple of times, so I won’t again. But consider also Israel during the time of Elijah and Ahab.
All of Israel was placed under drought by God, even though we know that 7,000 Israelites had never bowed the knee to Ba’al. Even those 7,000 were under the drought. Why? Because of the disobedience of Israel’s leaders. There is a federal solidarity of the nation under its king such that his behavior affects the whole nation (see also: David and the census, Mannasseh, Hezekiah, etc.).
That this is so is recognized by all of Vos, Berkhof, and Hodge.
But this national aspect of the covenant is also a helpful concept in addition to being true. It untangles much of our discussion.
Consider the question of judicial law, which you’ve been reluctant to touch. Why is it that the judicial law operates strictly according to behavior?
Take two men in Israel, one a believer and one not. Both steal two sheep from their neighbors. Does one receive a different penalty than the other because his sins are forgiven in Christ? Not at all. Both receive justice, according to the demands of the law.
(That’s according to the command, although we both know that the law was poorly administered in Israel).
How do you account for this function of the law, a strict merit pactum principle?
I account for it like this: Since both men are citizens of the nation of Israel, they are subject to the outward, legal stipulations of justice required of the nation of Israel. The penalty received by each has nothing to do with justification or evangelical obedience.
Without that national/individual distinction, I can see no reason why the justified man and the unjustified receive the same treatment under the Divine Law. Under a human law, I could understand. But under the Divine Law?
With the national/individual distinction, the fog is cleared: justified individuals operate coram deo according to a principle of evangelical obedience. Thus Naomi and Ruth. Meanwhile, the nation operates according to a legal principle, never with respect to justification but only with respect to outward and typological elements, always with the goal of pedagogy.
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Jeff, thanks and Amen. Very clear, much clearer than I could ever be.
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David R., If it’s simply “not a true statement (assuming the MC is an administration of the CofG),” then how does Paul come up with “the law is not of faith”? So far, you have not addressed Paul. Lots of Turretin, Fisher and blah blah blah.
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Jeff: a works principle and a grace principle are antonyms with regard to function, but not antonyms with regard to justice. In other words, “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.” (Rom 3.31).
mcmark: because they don’t have the same function, works and grace don’t contradict each other
Ephesians 2: 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, in order to create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 in order to reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
In Ephesians 2, Paul is not dividing the Mosaic covenant from its curse, or saying that the curse of the Mosaic covenant has been abolished. What has been abolished is “the law of commandments expressed in ordinances”. The Mosaic covenant itself has been abolished. Paul speaks in Ephesians 2 the opposite of the way he would have to speak if he thought that the curse and the Mosaic covenant were two different things.
Romans 3:31 accentuates the curse function of the Mosaic covenant, The emphasis in Ephesians 2 is the Mosaic covenant itself.
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Machen: “The law itself brought about death … Since Chrisst died that death as our representative, we too have died that death. Thus our death to the law, suffered for us by Christ, far from being contrary to the law, was in fulfillment of the law’s own demands. “
It is impossible to maintain that only the curse divides the two groups in Ephesians 2, since both groups are under the curse. The curse divides God from humans. What stands between jew and gentile is the covenant mediated by Moses. Think of the parallel in Colossians 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
The “record of death” against us is the same as the “legal demands” against us. It is difficult to see how the Mosaic covenant and its curse can be separated, when the Apostle integrates them together in this way. The demands are hostile to us. It is more than the removal of the curse that Christ’s law-work at the cross achieves. The cross brings about in some sense the abolition of the Mosaic covenant itself.
The curse does not attach only to the Mosaic ceremonies. Rather, the ceremonies picture the way out from the curse. If you say that “law” in these texts is only the ceremonies, then you have ceremonies that damn rather than ceremonies that prefigure Christ and the cross.
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@ Mark: Right. The curse of the Law is not God’s wrath against shellfish eaters.
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Francis Watson’s “Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith” (2004):
Paul is acutely aware of the tension between the unconditional Genesis promises and the conditional offer of “life” that derives from the law given at Mount Sinai. In the promise, God commits himself unconditionally to future saving action on behalf of Abraham and his seed — an action that will bring blessing to the entire world. In the law, “life” is now conditional on observance of the commandments. (pp. 276-77)
http://www.upper-register.com/blog/?p=95
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I have said that Kline in his mature thought did not believe that the New Covenant threatened any curses. In response someone may object, “But isn’t excommunication a covenant curse?” The mature Kline would say, “No, because the New Covenant is not a covenant of works in which blessings and curses are conditioned upon obedience or disobedience.” The church’s act of putting someone outside of the visible church is not itself a punitive act, or a covenant curse, or the exercise of the wrath of God. It is merely a fallible judgment that a particular community of believers does not regard this person as a fellow believer. If the church’s judgment is correct, the person in question will indeed face covenant curse and divine wrath at the day of judgment — but not from the New Covenant per se…
… So excommunication from the church of the New Covenant is not a covenant curse. It is merely an administrative act of being removed from the New Covenant by the officers of the visible church. Barring repentance and restoration, such apostates will indeed suffer an eschatological curse, but the curse comes from a separate covenant, the Adamic covenant of works. The New Covenant has Christ as its mediator and surety (Heb 7:22; 8:6); therefore, properly speaking, it threatens no curses, but offers nothing but blessings. Even an excommunicated person may repent and return to the covenant fold, lay hold of Christ and his righteousness, and receive the blessings. In a covenant of works, by contrast, restoration is impossible once the covenant has been violated. In the New Covenant, the message is grace, grace, infinite grace. It is ever and always a message of blessing offered freely to all who will believe — even to the poor, the wretched, the repeat offender, and yes, even to the apostate:
“The one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37).
“We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God!” (2 Cor 5:20).
“Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost” (Rev 22:17).
Indeed, so far from being a covenant curse, excommunication may even be the means that God uses to reclaim the offender and bring them back to the fold.
http://www.upper-register.com/blog/?p=44
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Jeff,
G Vos via David R: The Sinaitic covenant is not a new covenant as concerns the essence of the matter.
It’s a good thing that we all agreed to this point many years ago.
Now if we can only all recognize that we have all agreed to this point, the conversation has a chance of breaking the logjam and becoming genuinely edifying.
Now if we can all not just claim to agree with it, but also actually speak consistently with our claim to agree with it, then yes, the conversation genuinely has that chance….
Jack replies, in essence, that the legal character of the Mosaic Covenant means that we may not assume that law and obedience function in the same way in both covenants.
In the context of our discussion, a “covenant of grace with a legal cloak” is to be understood differently from a “covenant of grace, end of story.”
You roundly rebuked me over my rejection of Jack’s formula, “The MC is not the CoG,” accusing me of being “uncharitable,” and asserting that Jack was “exactly right.” I responded that for one to affirm that “The MC is an administration of the CoG” is to implicitly reject the (contradictory) proposition that “the MC is not the CoG.”
I don’t think you’ve dealt with this (and I’m not asking for an apology) but you’ll need to do so more adequately if we’re to make progress. To affirm that the covenant of grace when clothed with the form of a covenant of works “is not the covenant of grace” is to affirm a falsehood. Just as it is not true that marble clothed with the form of a human being is not marble, and it is also not true that Jeff poised over his keyboard is not Jeff; in like fashion it is not true that the MC was not the CoG. (Sorry to belabor this but I think it’s important.)
Of course, this will also have implications for how we understand the (moral) law to have functioned during the Mosaic period, to wit, precisely as it functions under all administrations of the CoG.
Otoh, if you want to deny that the MC was the CoG; you’re welcome to do so, but then you will have (by implication) adopted a “third covenant” position (and we can then argue over the ramifications of that if we wish….).
You on the other hand have taken a works principle and a grace principle to be antonyms with regard to justice, so that if justice is demanded, then grace cannot be in operation.
No, I do not hold that position (assuming I understand you). In the CoG, Christ as Mediator fulfills the terms of justice so that we sinners can be received on gracious terms. (You affirmed this in what followed and I completely agree with everything you said in those paragraphs.) So I would certainly not say that “if justice is demanded, then grace cannot be in operation.” In the gospel, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psalm 85:10). As Francis Roberts put it:
(I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the broader repub contingent are really just wanting to affirm the above thought rather than repub proper.)
The problem, however, is that your argument is Fuller’s argument against the Law/Gospel distinction! He argues right down the line with you that Lev 18 is all about covenant obedience, and that this carries forward even to today.
But I hold that Leviticus 18:5 speaks in terms of legal obedience (not evangelical), that it restated the terms of the CoW in a manner subservient to the CoG. I also hold to a stark law-gospel antithesis between the principles of works/grace inheritance.
And what repub offers in the insight that law and gospel function side-by-side (never commingled) because of the way that Law and Gospel uniquely function. The Law demands. And the Gospel justifies because another fulfills those demands.
No, it’s not repub that offers that insight. That insight is actually offered by standard Reformed covenant theology. Repub offers something else, namely, the notion that Israel was under a works principle demanding relative corporate obedience for land retention.
So we must restate the idea that merit principle and grace principle are antonymic. It is better to say that we either receive reward on our own merit, or on that of another, and never both. We receive righteousness by faith or by works, but not by both.
As you now will have seen, I agree with this.
Here’s where this matters: You have waffled on the notion of an accidental merit principle. First you denied, insisting that an “accidental merit principle” had to be a distinct covenant (Hiding Behind Kilts, p. 8); then you affirmed that there is an accidental merit principle in the MC (p. 3 of this thread); now you are denying again.
No, I have not waffled on this. When you initially claimed (if I understood you) that the notion that Israel was under a works principle for land retention was “accidental merit,” I denied that this is possible on the grounds that a works principle cannot exist apart from a legal covenant (and that principle would be of the substance of that covenant). But when you later asked (if I understood you) whether the law’s demand for perfect obedience, in its pedagogical use, could be construed as an “accidental merit principle” in relation to those whom it drove to Christ for salvation; I responded that, yes, I thought that might be true. (And btw, this would be true in the New Covenant as well, as I think you’ve sort of acknowledged.) These are obviously two different things.
(2) On the other hand, you want to assert that a grace principle and a merit principle cannot coexist without two separate covenants.
I think this is for the most part true. Most Reformed theologians speak of Christ’s merits in terms of the pactum salutis (or covenant of redemption), a covenant distinct from the CoG (different parties, conditions and promises), and they then understand the CoG to be the historical administration of the PS. But even if you would prefer not to divide these into two covenants, you are still dealing with three distinct parties, God, Christ as Mediator, and man, each of them bound by differing stipulations. So the principle would still hold that the same party can’t be under both a grace principle and a works principle in the same covenant.
You’ve also expressed reluctance to make a hard distinction between the national and the individual within the Mosaic Covenant. However, I think this distinction is both legitimate and also helpful.
I happily acknowledge a distinction such as you describe, but what I want to guard against is the idea that there are two distinct covenants being worked out rather than the one covenant of grace, which, though outwardly administered to the entire visible church, was substantially entered into only by the elect. “For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel.”
All of Israel was placed under drought by God, even though we know that 7,000 Israelites had never bowed the knee to Ba’al. Even those 7,000 were under the drought. Why? Because of the disobedience of Israel’s leaders. There is a federal solidarity of the nation under its king such that his behavior affects the whole nation (see also: David and the census, Mannasseh, Hezekiah, etc.).
The temporal sanctions were simply the mode, during that period of redemptive history, by which (1) the promise of the heavenly inheritance, (2) the possibility of exclusion from it, and (3) the connection between righteousness/holiness and consummate blessedness, were revealed to the people of God. Today, under the gospel, that promise of eternal reward is proclaimed freely, but during that period it was communicated by means of a typological “intrusion” (Kline’s term I believe) of heavenly realities. This however does not entail a works principle of inheritance.
In terms of the principle of corporate solidarity you mention, I agree that the federal relation of leaders and people typified that of Christ and the elect.
Btw, here is a way that this period of redemptive history connected with Eden: In both situations, by means of a typological “holy land” (Eden and Canaan respectively), the promise was communicated of eschatological consummation to be attained via the obedience of a federal head (Adam and Christ respectively). This is one reason Vos observed that the doctrine of last things is an older strand of revelation than is the doctrine of salvation.
Consider the question of judicial law, which you’ve been reluctant to touch.
Well, we haven’t discussed it much, but that needn’t necessarily indicate reluctance….
Why is it that the judicial law operates strictly according to behavior?
This was an additional aspect of the same typological phenomenon I attempted to describe above. To be “cut off from [one’s] people” by death typified final judgment (as you know), much as did the national exile from Canaan.
How do you account for this function of the law, a strict merit pactum principle?
This isn’t pactum merit (which was only possible for man in the state of innocence).
With the national/individual distinction, the fog is cleared: justified individuals operate coram deo according to a principle of evangelical obedience. Thus Naomi and Ruth. Meanwhile, the nation operates according to a legal principle, never with respect to justification but only with respect to outward and typological elements, always with the goal of pedagogy.
I agree. I just deny that this legal principle entails merit or a works principle (as I explained above).
Let me know if I missed something here you’d like me to comment on….
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D.G.,
So far, you have not addressed Paul. Lots of Turretin, Fisher and blah blah blah.
You’ve forgotten already? Let me help:
“The covenant of Sinai was essentially the same as that established with Abraham … The reason why it is sometimes regarded as an entirely new covenant is that Paul repeatedly refers to the law and the promise as forming an antithesis, Rom. 4:13 ff.; Gal. 3:17. But it should be noted that the apostle does not contrast with the covenant of Abraham the Sinaitic covenant as a whole, but only the law as it functioned in this covenant, and this function only as it was misunderstood by the Jews.”
Sound neonomian to you?
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JRC: And what repub offers in the insight that law and gospel function side-by-side (never commingled) because of the way that Law and Gospel uniquely function. The Law demands. And the Gospel justifies because another fulfills those demands.
DR: No, it’s not repub that offers that insight. That insight is actually offered by standard Reformed covenant theology.
… which explains why I believe that republication is, in fact, standard Reformed covenant theology.
DR: Repub offers something else, namely, the notion that Israel was under a works principle demanding relative corporate obedience for land retention.
To be precise, I have offered the notion that Israel was under a typological, pedagogical works or merit principle demanding what amounted to relative corporate obedience for land retention.
As we unpack this, it appears that you hold to the notion that Israel was under a typological, pedagogical legal principle demanding relative corporate obedience for land retention.
Yes?
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David R: [Is it the case that] the law’s demand for perfect obedience, in its pedagogical use, could be construed as an “accidental merit principle” in relation to those whom it drove to Christ for salvation; I responded that, yes, I thought that might be true.
JRC: (2) On the other hand, you want to assert that a grace principle and a merit principle cannot coexist without two separate covenants.
DR:I think this is for the most part true.
This is entirely opaque to me. You clearly agree with Turretin that the legal cloak operates on a merit principle. You clearly believe that the grace principle and merit principle cannot coexist without two covenants. You clearly believe that the Mosaic Covenant is one covenant and not two. You very definitely believe that the Mosaic Covenant is the Covenant of Grace simpliciter.
How can all four of these things be true at the same time? How can the first three be true at the same time?
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As we unpack this, it appears that you hold to the notion that Israel was under a typological, pedagogical legal principle demanding relative corporate obedience for land retention.
Yes?
Rather, I would say that the pedagogical legal principle promised eternal life on the grounds of perfect and personal obedience. There was nothing typological about it (except that the promised reward was typified by land). The same pedagogical legal principle is operative under the NT (as explained in WLC 95 and 96).
However, the principle by which the nation retained the typological inheritance via relative corporate obedience was gracious. As witnessed by Calvin, “Consequently, ‘to walk in the commandments of God,’ is not precisely equivalent to performing whatever the Law demands; but in this expression is included the indulgence with which God regards His children and pardons their faults.”
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David R., Paul?
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Jeff, your heavenly crowns are becoming more numerous and shinier as you interact.
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D.G.,
How can you possibly this:
And then you say that God rewards imperfect obedience but you deny a works principle. Which is it oh speaker who employs both sides of his mouth.
and then this:
Jeff, your heavenly crowns are becoming more numerous and shinier as you interact.
without employing both sides of your mouth?
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DR:I think this is for the most part true.
This is entirely opaque to me. You clearly agree with Turretin that the legal cloak operates on a merit principle. You clearly believe that the grace principle and merit principle cannot coexist without two covenants. You clearly believe that the Mosaic Covenant is one covenant and not two. You very definitely believe that the Mosaic Covenant is the Covenant of Grace simpliciter.
How can all four of these things be true at the same time? How can the first three be true at the same time?
Okay, I think maybe I see what the problem is. I am viewing the covenant in terms of its essence, i.e., parties, promise and condition. What you are calling an accidental works principle, I view not as something that is truly part of the covenant (substantially), but rather something that is simply the mode of dispensing the covenant. It has actual “existence” only within its own covenant, that is, the covenant of works. But the law functions pedagogically in all administrations of the CoG, not just the Mosaic. I don’t know, does that help?
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David R., Paul?
You mean where he says that Israel could merit land by imperfect obedience?
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David, how do you deconstruct John 1?
“For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
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Muddy, why would I need to deconstruct? How does John 1 prove a typological works principle for land inheritance? Why not rather understand it in terms of the standard Reformed view that at Sinai the law was delivered as a perfect rule of righteousness, declaring “the will of God to mankind, directing and binding every one to 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 oweth to God and man: promising life upon the fulfilling, and threatening death upon the breach of it”?
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David R., I didn’t say Jeff’s good works are required for his salvation. You’ve repeatedly asserted that obedience is required for salvation.
I don’t suspect you to see the difference. Either you were jilted by a Klinean or you can’t think.
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