I was introduced to Covenant theology by O. Palmer Robertson in his classic work Christ of the Covenants. After reading God of Promise by Michael Horton, alongside Meredith Kline's work on covenant theology, I modified my covenant theology a bit. Right now, I consider myself a Klinean to the core and agree with the WSC consensus on the law/gospel distinction, two kingdoms theology, etc. etc. Horton continues to state in his book that the Mosaic covenant is a republication of the covenant of works, and should be regarded strictly as a suzerain/vassal treaty consistent with the law principle. After recently reading John Murray's tract on the covenant of grace, I noted how he emphatically regards the Mosaic covenant as an integral administration of the covenant of grace in the history of redemption. My questions are both historical and theological. What do some of you guys think about this issue? 1) Is the Mosaic covenant strictly a covenant of works? 2) If so, does this confuse the law/gospel distinction and pose a threat to our soteriology, specifically justification and the alone instrument (faith) through which we are justified? 3.) Does Kline/WSC represent mainstream Reformed covenantal thinking, or do some of you think that Kline departs from historic Reformed covenantalism in significant ways? 4). Historically, is Reformed theology monolithic in its understanding of the Mosaic covenant, or are there differences of thought concerning whether the Mosaic covenant should be looked at through the lenses of law or gospel? I'm sure there are Klineans out there who will agree with WSC and Kline in their understanding of covenant theology. This is where I tend to lean. I'm sure there are also those who favor Murray's position and regard the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of grace in the history of redemption. I hold firmly to the law/gospel distinction, and fear that viewing the Mosaic covenant in both law and gospel categories might confuse these soteriological paradigms a bit. Nevertheless, I'm Reformed and always reforming, and only desire to allign my thought with solid Reformed confessional thinking. Thanks so much. I know this is a lot to answer, and I'm not interested in debating. I'm just curious as to what some of you might think about these issues. Grace and peace.

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Jordan Harris
Dickson City, PA
Faith Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP)
My Blog

Jordan,

The best I can do is to recommend a few puritan works:

Marrow of Modern Divinity:

The Marrow of Modern Divnity

John Flavel's work on the covenant of grace:

Vindiciæ Legis et Fœderis* - Rev. John Flavel

You will note in Flavel's work that the opponent is a certain Mr. Philip Cary, who was NOT a covenant theologian, but who held a view similar to what you're describing. You will note all of the puritans that Flavel sites as being against the view promulgated (if you are right about Horton) by Horton, Kline, WSC etc. if those views are similar to Mr. Cary's.

If you are right about what they are saying (the Mosaic covenant is a republication of the CoW), then this list of puritans was wrong:

MR. ALLEN,
MR. SEDGWICK,
MR. BAXTER,
MR. ROBERTS,
MR. SYDENHAM,
AND DR. BURTHOGGE

And the author himself, John Flavel. As you may undoubtedly know, these were some of the Post-westminster luminaries among the puritans. If I may be so bold, I think they adequately represent the teachings of the Westminster Assembly, and that Mr. Flavel's arguments bear out the teaching of the Confession quite nicely.

Categorizing the Mosaic covenant as a republication of the CoW is not Reformed theology, as far as Westminster is concerned. The implications of doing this are far reaching, and have led certain of this crowd to condemn the socio-political and ethical teaching of scripture as part of the CoW, and thereby make it irrelevant. Something the WCF does not do.

Happy reading!

Adam

__________________
Adam Brink, Grace Church of Pleasanton, PCA, Pleasanton, California

"Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

Antonio - The Merchant of Venice (Act 1, Scene 3)

I'm not equiped to contribute, but look forward to learning from this thread.

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Jim
1689 LBCF
Independent Bible Church
North Texas, USA

Horton's book is helpful in learning about the diversity of the covenants; Robertson's in seeing the thematic unity across Scripture. Horton responds and critiques Robertson, Robertson takes on the Dispy's (so to speak).

You are right on when you state that Horton holds the Mosaic to be a reproduction of the covenant of works. The Mosaic covenant is unique, similar to other covenants, but is distinct. I hold something of a balance between Robertson and Kline - the Mosaic is not all law, no grace; nor is it all grace and no law (obviously).

The tenor of the OT is that Israel was exiled because she forsook God. There certainly was a conditional element to the Mosaic Cov't. Kline is dead on there. A question to consider is how is God portrayed in the Mosaic Cov't? He is jealous for worship from His people, and His glory. But There is a gracious element there as well, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the Land of slavery." So the Mosiac Cov't is founded on God's grace to his people, and his fore-loving (election) of Israel. The paradigm thus is grace-law-grace. Is that not how we preach? Israel did not remain in exile.

Regarding #3 and 4, Kline is certainly on one side of the reformed pendulum and Murray on the other. I think most reformed people hold a blend of the two, more of Kline than not. Many FV people claim Murray's Adamic Administration to be a premature synthesis of their ideas (though it is not). But a reformed Spectrum would look like:

Kline ---- Horton ---- ------ Robertson ----- Murray ----- --- all one cov't of grace (Protestant Reformed and others)

__________________
Pittsburgh, PA
Covenant OPC
Bible Teacher - Trinity Christian School
Blogger, Relentless Grace

Do I get to vote? Both.

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The man who is disposed to think of his sin as a great calamity, rather than as a heinous crime, is not likely either to reverence God or to respect His law. - John Kennedy, 1873
Meg
Blog
Member, Intown Presbyterian Church,PCA, Portland, OR

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Just so that you make a complete list that includes strong, solid and fully respectable in terms of their covenant theology (rather than the questionable ones like Baxter that you list above) you can add to the list John Owen, Herman Witsius, Peter Van Mastricht and Thomas Boston, among others.

It should be noted that those who saw a republication of the CoW in the Mosaic covenant did NOT see that as anything but a temporal device - there was never any indication in their writings that the Mosaic Covenant was in any way (salvifically speaking) a covenant of Works. They wrote clearly that the Mosaic Covenant was promulgated as one dispensation (to use the Westminsterian sense) of the ONE Covenant of Grace!

__________________
Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://semperubi.rtrc.net

"Many men, after a long conversion, see more of the workings of sin in their hearts than ever they did before or at their first conversion. Now, such men have not an increase of sin, but an increase of illumination and light" (Christopher Love)


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I think the question in the title of the thread makes answering difficult. "Mosaic Covenant: Law or Gospel?" Well, are you defining "law" and "gospel" in the dualistic Lutheran manner that WSC seems to follow? If so, I believe it's a false dichotomy. There is law and gospel in the Mosaic covenant ("I brought you out of the house of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; Thou shalt have no other gods, etc.") just as there is law and gospel in the new covenant ("Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more").

And if you want to be confessional, take note that the Westminster Standards never define "law" and "gospel" in the dualistic Lutheran sense. And what's more, the Standards are pretty clear that the Mosaic covenant is an administration of the covenant of grace, while saying nothing of it being an "administration" of the covenant of works (in any sense whatsoever). Seems to me that the doctrine of the republication of the covenant of works at Sinai is at best extra-confession and at worst contra-confessional (if the Westminster Standards are your standards).

__________________
Casey Bessette
Westminster OPC • West Suburbs of Chicago • My Blog: Paradise Regained

"It is part of the calling of the ekklesia to learn to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge and also to make known within the world of science 'the manifold wisdom of God' in order that the final end of theology, as of all things, may be that the name of the Lord is glorified. Theology and dogmatics, too, exist for the Lord's sake." — Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1, p. 46

Todd,

Yes, I was merely cutting and pasting from Flavel's book, which is why the list is not complete, nor (as you pointed out) as satisfying as it could otherwise be.

I was merely making the point that this was the puritan understanding, and the modern Moses = CoW promulgators are not reformed or puritan in this regard. They would be generally classified as John Flavel's enemies in this regard, who was a baptist.

Thanks for the extra names!

Adam

Casey. Apologies if my wording was ambiguous. Nevertheless, I could have heard the same statement espoused by any Federal Visionist seeking to create a distinctly "Reformed" understanding of law and gospel in an attempt to revamp our confessional doctrine of justification. I'm not saying you're a federal visionist in any sense, I'm merely noting that the rhetoric is similar. Reformed scholasticism at its finest distinguished between law and gospel as fundamentally different soteriological paradigms. From Ursinius to Turretin to Shedd to Vos to Bavinck, the Reformed have always spoken of the law/gospel distinction as integral to Reformed systematics. Noteworthy is that when Beza hashed out the fundamental differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism, the law/gospel distinction nor justification by faith alone were ever listed as something fundamentally disagreed upon. The modern attempt to pit Lutheran formulations of law/gospel over and against a distinctly "Reformed" understanding of these principles has been a major contribution to the revisionistic heresies we're seeing in the NPP, FV, and Shepherd. I agree that we shouldn't attempt to flatten out the Mosaic covenant strictly into one particular principle like law/gospel or works/grace. Obviously, the Lord was patient and gracious with Israel in her continual apostasy, and grace abounded when blatant sin and idolatry were present within the nation. God's election of Israel as a nation was also a gracious act of condescension, along with the types and shadows which pointed to the person and work of Christ. Nevertheless, on a typological and national level, I think the works principle is there. It was the failure of the Mosaic Covenant to offer a salvific remedy for Israel's lawbreaking that constituted the need for the New Covenant, wherein the mind's and heart's of God's people are transformed from within as the law is written on their hearts.

As for Owen being included among the ranks of those who saw the Mosaic Covenant as a covenant of grace, I would beg to differ. Owen used the "republication" language when speaking of the Mosaic covenant. Owen viewed Israel's national and typological status, along with her physical blessings in the land as dependent upon obedience to the law, this reality reflective of the ethos of the covenant of works. In speaking of the Mosaic Covenant Owen writes...

"It revived the promise of that covenant, - that of eternal life upon perfect obedience. So the apostle tells us that Moses thus describeth the righteousness of the law, 'That the man which doeth those things shall live by them,' Rom x.5; as he doth, Lev.xviii.5. Now this is no other but the covenant of works revived. Nor had this covenant of Sinai any promise of eternal life annexed unto it, as such, but only the promise inseparable from the covenant of works which it revived, saying, 'Do this, and live.'" (XXII, p.78)

I think one has to be careful when categorizing earlier writers and cast them in the same shadows as WSC. I think their (WSC) approach is novel. I really believe that the earlier writers, even if they spoke to this and used some of the same language, would show that the giving of the law as a tutor to Christ is the only sense in which it was a republication of the CoW. In the sense of "do this and live," it was not, to the children of Israel, a promise of eternal salvation by their obedience. One of the key indicators that such a thing is not promised in the Mosaic covenant is that man, by his fall into sin, lost communion with God and was under His wrath and curse. If under wrath and curse, the only blessing, even though temporal, to be rendered to any of Adam's sons, is that of common grace. Yet, we would not consider God's relationship to Israel to be one of common grace, but of saving grace. If saving grace, then there is no room for law keeping as a means of grace or an instrument of justification.

Therefore, if there is any republication, it is only as a tutor. There is no getting around the fact that God will not tolerate anything other than perfect obedience, and that by faith. Further, He will not reward anything other than faith, without which none can please Him. If it is a republication in the WSC sense, then God would be rewarding those with saving graces who did not please Him by faith. Yet what does Hebrews tell us? God was pleased with some because of their faith, which was a gift to them by Him.

So, I can't see the republication in the WSC sense, and I do not believe that classic covenant theology agrees with them either.

In Christ,

KC

__________________
Heb 13:20-21

Kevin C. Easterday
Member of Ortega PCA, Jacksonville, FL
Husband to Tina (August 13, 1988), Father and Teacher to Kamden (16) and Kolton (14)
Federal Theology Website
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Come again? Where did you get the idea that Flavel was a baptist?

Ursinus notes in his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism:

This is just one quote of many that can be reproduced from the early Reformers who taught that eternal life was obtainable through the law for those who kept it in perfection.

I think it is proper, therefore, to say that a 'stream' of the covenant of works is found in the Mosaic economy. This is NOT to disparage the law of God per se (see Romans 3:31) but only to drive us to Christ.

In fact I would disagree that the Mosaic covenant is, by its very nature, a covenant of works though it does, at times, portray elements of it.

P.S. Let us refrain from speaking about the WSC view of the covenants because I don't think it is helpful. Do they really take Horton's position as a faith statement? I was taught Hebrew by a professor at WSC who disagreed with Kline's view of the Mosaic economy (though he no longer teaches there).

__________________
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
Church Blog

"there is no creature, either in heaven or on earth, who loves us more than Jesus Christ"
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KC

Thanks for the reply. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Like I said, I'm a Klinean to the core and view WSC as representing one particular school of historic-Reformed covenantal thinking.

One clarification. Kline and his followers never claim that the conditionality of the Mosaic covenant entails obedience upon reward of salvific blessing. No one is saying that Israel's obedience to the law yields any salvific benefit. Individual Israelites are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Kline is simply arguing that Israel's national and typological enjoyment of physical blessing is strictly dependent upon obedience to the law, as seen in the suzerain-vassal context in which the covenant is dispensed. "Do this and live", for Kline, constitutes the essence of the Sinai covenant.

Daniel,
Apologies if my statements about WSC flatten out the differences that might exist between the profs. In fact, Iain Duguid seems to differ from Horton in his essay in CJPM. I'm sure there are other differences as well. I'm thinking specifically of guys like Horton and Clark who seem to follow Kline's covenantalism.

No problem; I wasn't angry about it.

Duguid was the one whom I had in mind (as contrary to the Klinean position).

And I am not certain how much Godfrey espouses the Klinean view (if at all). I know that WSC has also been lumped in with an anti-Kuyperian bent but as someone pointed out on another thread, Godfrey, for example, has a high view of Kuyper. And then you have the resident Puritan advocate on staff, Hywel Jones. Just a few more examples to show the variety that exists among the faculty.

One thing is certain, though: NPP and FV will not find a home at WSC while these men are teaching there (thankfully and - hopefully - never!).

Amen!

My bad!

Flavel's enemy was a baptist

That's what I meant to say.

Cheers,

Adam

Boy, I never thought I'd be compared to the Federal Visionists for wanting to defend the Confession. So, you mean I have to accept your law-gospel dualism (which is nowhere taught in the Confession) to be "confessional" and thus not employ Federal Visionist rhetoric? Honestly, I've been thinking the gymnastics done in WCF 19 to force a "republication" doctrine into the Confession seems to be far more in line with the antics of the Federal Vision camp.

Klineans like to quote from numerous Reformed theologians of the past to support their republication doctrine, their two-kingdoms doctrine, and their law-gospel dualism (whether these are valid appeals to these Reformed authorities is another question). That's fine. I could go ahead and pull up Calvin quotes regarding the Sabbath. But if I held Calvin's view of the Sabbath, I wouldn't be confessional anymore, would I? In other words, just because you can dig up a heap of Reformed theologians who have held your position, it does not mean that it's the confessional position today. I'm not minimizing the usefulness of respected Reformed theologians from the past. But I am saying that the Confession has more authority than them and ought to be read and interpreted in its own right. History only assists our interpretation of the Standards, it doesn't define our interpretation of the Standards. If Calvin (or any other number of Reformed theologians) held to a particular view, that doesn't mean the Confession does.

I think there's a reason Klineans rarely quote from the Westminster Standards when it comes to supporting their view of the Mosaic Covenant, the "two kingdoms," and their law-gospel dualism. Quite simply, these teachings aren't there. (It would be interesting to see just exactly how many times Horton references the Westminster Standards in his book.) I really can't understand how you can honestly read the Lutheran view in the Westminster Standards, it's just not there. If you want to ask, "Which views have been acceptable in the Reformed tradition in the past?" That's one question. And I believe that question is different from, "Which view is the confessional view?" Also different from, "Which view is the biblical view?" I believe the Westminster Confession of Faith is an accurate representation and summary of the Bible's teaching. But I do not believe the republication of the CoWs at Sinai, the radical two-kingdom dualism, or the radical law-gospel dualism are either biblical or confessional.

Disagree? Please prove from the Westminster Standards: (1) the republication of the CoWs at Sinai (answering this post); (2) the law-gospel dualism (answering this post); and, (3) the radical two-kingdom view. Please do this only using the Westminster Standards, that is, if you want to determine which is the actual "confessional" view. And according to RSC, the confessional view is the Reformed view.

(Presupposed in this post of mine is that we subscribe to the Westminster Standards -- I understand that the Three Forms of Unity may be more ambiguous or more exact on different points in comparison with the Westminster Standards.)