Part 2 is here.

See Witsius on this.

It may be that you do not read the comments section. That's probably wise. Here are some revised and expanded responses to some questions/objections

1. The doctrine of the republication of the covenant of works relative to the land promise and national covenant contradicts the WCF. Owen taught republication, ergo Owen contradicts the WCF.

Respondeo dicendeum: Petitio principii. Whether the doctrine of republication contradicts the WCF is what is in question. The major premise begs the question. One prima facie evidence against the major premise is the fact that the same sorts of folks who wrote the WCF and held to republication and used it as proof of the confession's doctrine of the covenant of works. A second piece of evidence is the language of WCF chapter 19 to which Thomas Boston appealed.

2. The doctrine of republication is implicitly Baptistic.

I don’t see how distinguishing the visible church from the invisible church helps the Baptists at all. Like Paul in Rom 2:28, the Reformed faith recognizes that there are those in the covenant of grace only visibly and those who have possession (or who will come into possession) of the substance of the covenant of grace. One of the great problems for those Baptists who would be Reformed is that, by trying to achieve an eschatological visible church in the semi-eschatological age, they muddle or implicitly reject the visible/invisible distinction. That's why they can't baptize children, because they can't be sure that a baby is regenerate. Pace Abraham Kuyper, that's why we don't baptize on the basis of presumed regeneration. We don't assume that only the regenerate may be baptized. God commanded that all sons of the covenant, even Esau and Ishmael, be circumcised on the 8th day. In the same way, we baptize babies on the basis of divine promise and command. God promised to be a God to us and to our children (Gen 17). That promise was repeated in Acts 2:39. God commanded that we initiate our children into the visible covenant community. The command to initiate children of professing believers into the visible covenant community still stands. Unlike the temporary and typological land promises and the temporary and typological national covenant given to Moses, the promises of Gen 17 are permanent.

It seems to me that that those who deny republication do so partly because, in reaction to the Baptist error, they conflate Moses and Abraham. In so doing they've actually agreed with the Baptists who do the same thing. What we want to say to our Baptist friends is that Moses is not Abraham. Moses is unique in important ways. One great Baptist assumption is that everything that happened in the typological period was Mosaic, that the NT expression "old covenant" refers to everything that happened before the incarnation/death of Christ. In fact, the expression 'old covenant' (2 Cor 3; Heb 7-10) does not refer to Abraham but to Moses.

Infant initiation, Baptists argue, was part of the "old covenant." The "old covenant" has expired, therefore infant initiation has expired. On this basis they oppose infant baptism. We (should) respond by saying that, "Not only does the expression 'old covenant' not refer to Abraham but Paul doesn't treat Abraham like an 'old covenant' figure. That's why he's the father of all who believe (See Rom 3-4; Gal 3-4). By distinguishing between Moses and Abraham we assign infant initiation to Abraham and not to Moses.

Because we distinguish between Moses and Abraham, and because we see that, relative to salvation and justification, Moses was an administration of the covenant of grace made with Abraham, we cannot agree at all with those Baptists (e.g. Paul Jewett) who argue that there was nothing spiritual about the Mosaic covenant. Hebrews 11 is clear that under Moses and David etc God saved his people sola gratia, sola fide, et solo Christo has he has always done since the fall.

Hodge is perfectly right to say that God made a temporary, national covenant with Moses. That temporary national covenant, which expired with the death of Christ, was the outworking of the land promises and the promise of a national people made to Abraham. The spiritual covenant, the covenant of grace, however, does not expire. The covenant of grace was temporarily administered through and alongside a national covenant. Paul seems to say something like this in Gal 3 doesn't he? The Mosaic covenant, insofar as it was a distinct covenant, was a national, external, temporary covenant. At the same time, however, the spiritual, internal, Abrahamic covenant of grace continued and those in the Mosaic covenant who were elect, were also children of Abraham as well as children of Moses.

God said to Abraham: I will be a God to you and to your children. Adding a visible national, temporary covenant to that immutable spiritual covenant (which was repeated in Acts 2:39 - “For the promise is to you and to your children” does not change that promise. The national, temporary, land promises were administered through Moses and expired when Jesus, the true Israel went down to Egypt, came up out of Egypt, obeyed God as the Israel of God, the natural (not adopted) Son and as the 2nd Adam. When Jesus was crucified, the Mosaic covenant was crucified with him. Seems to me that’s what Paul says in Colossians.

3. The doctrine of republication leads to antinomianism by making the Mosaic covenant merely temporary and typological

Unless one is a theonomist, antinomianism is denial of the abiding validity of the moral, natural law of God. That law was given in creation in the covenant of works. Our Lord Jesus summarized it in Matt 22:37-40. It came to expression in Israelitish terms in the decalogue. Unless one wants the national covenant today, one has to recognize that the Mosaic theocracy was temporary and typological. The Westminster divines certainly recognized that fact in ch 19. Does the fact that the national Israelite, Mosaic covenant was temporary and typological mean that we lose the decalogue and a reign of antinomianism is unleashed? No. That’s the beautiful thing about the Reformed faith. We don’t ground the decalogue purely in Moses. We ground it in nature. That’s why VanDrunen’s work on natural law is so important and useful. That’s why Barth’s and the theonomic/reconstructionist rejection of natural law is do damaging to Reformed Christianity. The substance of the decalogue persists because it is natural or creational and a reflection (analogue) of the divine nature. The land promises and saturday sabbath expired with Moses but the promise of heaven and the Christian sabbath persist because we live in a semi-eschatological age. The consummation is not here yet.

This is why the older Reformed theologians appealed to republication to prove the pre-lapsarian covenant of works; not relative to justification or salvation but relative to the national covenant. They believed in natural law. They frequently called the covenant of works a "covenant of nature." Maybe part of the problem some folk have today with republication and the covenant of works is that they no longer believe in nature/creation and the natural law thus they don't believe that the decalogue reflects the creational law? For the older Reformed theologians, the national covenant illustrates the covenant of works. If there could be a temporary, legal, national covenant, mutatis mutandis post lapsum then there could be a pre-lapsarian covenant of works.

It is odd that some who position themselves as staunch defenders of confessionalism are laying siege to one of the chief traditional proofs for the confessional doctrine of the covenant of works. Maybe our ostensible confessionalists are just that?

Samuel Rutherford, said it this way, in his book, The Covenant of Life Opened, "But the truth is, the Law as pressed upon Israel was not a Covenant of Works. The law as the Law or as a Covenant of Works is made with perfect men who need no mercy; But this covenant is made with sinners, with an express preface of mercy, I am the Lord thy God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt, &c. It is made with stiff-necked Israel Deut. 29 Deut 30.c. 31. c. 32. and that is called a covenant from the end and object, as motions are denominate from their end: for the end of the Lords pressing the law upon them was to bring them under a blessed necessity to seek salvation in their true city of Refuge Christ Jesus, who redeemed them out of spiritual bondage of sin."

To which I respond (with some minor modification):

It depends upon which use of the covenant of works is in view. It was widely (and rightly) held that the covenant of works was abrogated as an actual way of justification for sinners. When the older theologians spoke of republication I understand them to have been saying that the covenant of works was republished in the pedagogical use of the law to teach Israel the greatness of his sin and misery and drive him to faith in Christ. Thus, by "republication," they were saying the same thing Rutherford is saying in substance. Given the sense in which Rutherford used "covenant of works" (as in WCF ch 7 and ch 19)

I think we agree that the fall creates a major in change in the way Israel could relate to the law.

Clearly other writers in the same period did speak of republication of the covenant of works. Indeed, it's republication was a major proof of the initial covenant of works. It's always, however, mutatis mutandis - with the changes having been changed.

I'm proposing that, because of her one-off, absolutely unique, typological, temporary, national covenant status, Israel had an additional, typological relation to the law relative to the land. As I tell our congregation, national Israel was a sermon illustration. Israel's relation to the land was a great drama and the formal, legal basis for his forfeiture of the national covenant was disobedience grounded in unbelief.

Israel was under a typological, not soteriological covenant of works. It's a post-lapsarian, typological covenant of works.

I think all civil entities are in an analogous covenant of works. I may be merciful to the city and not prosecute them for their every failure to discharge their duties, and a cop may let me drive 40 in a 35, but we could and do sometimes hold each other accountable on a works basis. If the city's failures become chronic, I take them to court. If I don't mow my yard, the city fines me and I have to pay up or go to jail. Now, is my relation to the city legal or gracious? Well, it's merciful (but not gracious -- it is withholding punishment but not imputing righteousness) right up to the point it isn't any more and I go off to jail or they have to begin performing their duties.

That's something like the way national Israel related to the covenant of works relative to their national status. In strict justice, God might have executed the sanctions of the covenant of works immediately against Israel but, for the purposes of the giant, historical, temporary, sermon illustration, he was gracious. Nevertheless, the type of covenant under which Israel lived as national entity was formally legal, it was a suzerain-vassal treaty. Those same families also lived under a royal grant covenant that was wholly gracious relative to salvation and justification.

This is a good way to account for all of the conditional legal language found throughout the Pentateuch and for the conditional language inherent in the 10 words themselves: "that your days may be long in the land..."

The national, legal covenant was a ritual. Jesus ritually re-enacted at least aspects of Israel's history. Unlike Israel, Yahweh's adopted son, the true Son Jesus did meet the qualifications to be under a covenant of works. Israel was 40 years in the desert, Jesus was 40 days (without food). Israel gave in to temptation to grumble, Jesus did not. Jesus was the true Israel. He went down to Egypt and "out of Egypt have I called my Son" (Matt 2). Israel (like Adam) polluted God's holy temple, but Jesus sanctified it and chased the devil out (twice!). Israel (like Adam) made false covenants with the nations and went after their gods. Jesus kept covenant with his father and called the nations to repent and believe. He fulfilled not only the terms of the covenant of works with Adam (as the last Adam) and the terms of the pactum salutis (John 17) but also the terms of the national covenant. He kept the law, he served and loved God with all his faculties and his neighbor as himself. He obeyed and offered a right sacrifice.

One other thing. I keep hearing that Meredith Kline invented the doctrine of republication. In a word: nonsense. He modified it but he did not invent it. Just recently someone wrote to me with a post that credited WSC with inventing the doctrine of the covenant of works too! (So, WSC faculty were the pseudonymous authors of Oecolampadius' theology, of Ursinus' Summa theologiae, Wollebius' Compendium, and WCF chapters 7 and 19?) Richard posted this nice bit from Hodge (who also antedates MGK and WSC):

It is to be remembered that there were two covenants made with Abraham. By the one his natural descendants through Isaac, were constituted a commonwealth, an external community; by the other his spiritual descendants were constituted into a church, [invisible of course, since, at that time, the only formal organization was that of the law.] The parties to the former covenant, were God, and the nation; to the other, God, and his true people. The promises of the national covenant, were national blessings; the promises of the spiritual covenant (i.e. the covenant of grace) were spiritual blessings, as reconciliation, holiness, and eternal life. The conditions of the one covenant [the old] were circumcision, and obedience to the law; the conditions of the other were, and ever have been, faith in the Messiah, as the seed of the woman, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. There cannot be a greater mistake than to confound the national covenant with the covenant of grace, [that is, the old covenant with the new] and the commonwealth founded on the one, with the church founded on the other. When Christ came, the commonwealth was abolished, and there was nothing put in its place. The church [now made visible] remained. There was no external covenant, nor promise of external blessings, on condition of external rites, and subjection. There was a spiritual society, with spiritual promises, on condition of faith in Christ." "The church is, therefore, in its essential nature, a company of believers, and not an external society, requiring merely external profession as the condition of membership. (Princeton Review, October, 1853)

Part three is here.

One of the interesting and useful features of the older (classic) covenant theology of the 17th century was the doctrine of "re-publication." It was widely held among 17th-century Reformed theologians that, in certain ways, the giving of the Law at Sinai was a "re-publication" of the Law given in the garden to Adam as part of the covenant of works (John Owen, Herman Witsius, Leonard van Rijssen, Johannes Marckius, Peter Van Mastricht and Thomas Boston taught it). They took the promulgation of the law at Sinai as evidence of the covenant of works in the garden with Adam. They thought this way because they had a doctrine of natural or creational law, i.e., there is a moral law that was given in the garden that is reflected in the law given at Sinai.

This re-publication of the Law was not a new "Dispensation" of salvation or way of being justified. Rather, the Mosaic national covenant with Israel was regarded by the Reformed as operating on multiple levels at the same time. As Paul says in Gal 3, the covenant of grace, the Abrahamic covenant is the administration of God's saving grace. It was and remains a covenant of grace. Paul's argument is that nothing about the Mosaic national covenant that changes God's promises made to and through Abraham. Hence Paul says that Abraham (Rom 3-4) is the father of all believers, circumcised and uncircumcised (i.e., Jew and Gentile) before Moses, during the Old Covenant, and since.

Thus, before, during, and after the Mosaic national covenant, all the elect were saved and justified by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (solo Christo). So what was unique about the Mosaic national covenant? Three things:

1) It was a national covenant. Neither the Abrahamic covenant nor the New Covenant were or are national. The Mosaic covenant had a civil and religious/ceremonial code embedded in it. The Mosaic covenant constituted Israel as a national people temporarily. The national covenant was very much about "insiders" and "outsiders." That's not to say that Gentiles could not be initiated. Quite to the contrary, they certainly were, but in so doing, they had to become ritually Israelite through circumcision. This national (civic and ceremonial) aspect distinguishes the Mosaic covenant from the Abrahamic and the New Covenants which were and are not national but trans-national.

One of the more important conclusions from this doctrine is one that our 17th century forefathers did not recognize very clearly is that the idea of a national covenant is defunct. God doesn't enter into national covenants with any national entity since the crucifixion. Christ's kingdom, expressed in his visible, institutional church through the preaching of the gospel, the adminstration of the sacraments, and the exercise of discipline, knows no national boundaries (Gal 3:28; Col 3:11; Eph 2). The dividing wall (the civil and ceremonial laws, circumcision) has been broken down in the body of Jesus, the true Israel of God. After the expiration of the national covenant, the kingdom of God has no civil administration. Attempts to resurrect the Mosaic civil administration whether in theocracy or theonomy are fundamentally misguided. It is a puzzle how we can see so clearly that the Roman attempt to resurrect the ceremonial aspect of the Mosaic covenant is wrong but some cannot see how wrong it is to try to resurrect the Mosaic civil administration?

2) It was a legal covenant not relative to salvation or justification but relative to Israel's status as the temporary national people of God. In Exod 24, Israel swore a blood oath that she, as a national people, would keep the law and it was on this legal basis that Israel was ultimately expelled from the promised land and on which basis she lost her status as the national people of God. Another layer of difficulty in this regard is that, as it seems to me, Israel broke this national covenant before the terms of the agreement were even delivered down the mountain! That pattern continued throughout her history so that the only reason that Israel retained the national covenant at all was the forebearance of God. Certainly Israel did not strictly merit retaining the national covenant. See Iain Duguid's chapter in CJPM.

3) It was temporary. The Mosaic national covenant was instituted about (depending on the date of the Pentateuch) 15 centuries before the Advent of Christ and it expired with the crucifixion of Christ. The New Testament makes clear (e.g., Acts 10; Acts 15; 2 Cor 3; the book of Hebrews!) the Mosaic Covenant is finished. It was, as Paul says in Gal 3, a "pedagogue," that is, a harsh school teacher (with a stick in his hand!). Its function was to drive the Israelites to Christ through the promulgation of 613 commandments. At every point in their daily lives the Israelites were reminded of their sin and need for a Savior. Corporately, Israel served as the world's largest and longest and most colorful sermon illustration. Thus the writer to the Hebrews (ch. 2) says that Moses worked for Jesus. Moses' whole reason for being was to serve as a pointer to Christ (and as a pointer to the ultimate realities in heaven; see Heb 11).

Finally, it has been argued by some (e.g., some of my friends on the Puritanboard) that the doctrine of re-publication is "unconfessional." To this I appeal to the logic implied by the grammar of WCF 19.1 and 2. 19.1 which reasserts the doctrine of 7.2, that God “gave to Adam a Law, as a Covenant of Works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it: and endued him with power and ability to keep it.” 19.2 says, “This Law, after his fall…was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments….” (Articles, 30–31). The phrase “covenant of works,” in 19.1, is appositive to the noun “Law.” Thus the “Law” is reckoned here as a covenant of works. Thus when, 19.2 establishes “This law” as the subject of the verb to be, “was delivered,” the antecedent of “this Law” can be none other than the “Law” defined as a covenant of works in 19.1. This reading of the confession caused Thomas Boston, in his notes in E. F., The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Books, n.d.), 58, to exclaim,

How, then, one can refuse the covenant of works to have been given to the Israelites, I cannot see.” These same theologians also held that Moses was an administration of the covenant of grace. The doctrine of unity of the covenant of grace and the doctrine of republication were regarded as complementary not antithetical.

I realize that what I'm offering here is a revision or expansion of the older doctrine, but what I'm saying here is certainly built on the foundation laid by a host of orthodox writers who advocated a version of the doctrine of re-publication. If you want to research this here are some leads:

See Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, trans. William Crookshank, 2 vols. (1803; Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1990), 1,336–337; Leonard van Rijssen, Compendium Theologiae (Amsterdam: 1695.), 89. John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. W. H. Goold, 7 vols., The Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 6.85. Johannes Marckius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae (Amsterdam, 1749), 345–346; Peter Van Mastricht, Theoretico-Practica Theologia, 3 vols (Utrecht: 1699), 3.12.23.

Part 2 is here.

More resources for those just beginning to study covenant theology.

15. What kind of a mediator and redeemer then must we seek?

One who is a true¹ and righteous man, ² and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, One who is also true God.³

¹1 Cor 15:21, 22, 25, 26. ² Jer 33:16. Isaiah 53:11. 2 Cor 5:21. Heb 7:15,16.

One of the more puzzling and overlooked features of the Barthian, neo-evangelical, and covenantal moralist (i.e. FV) denial of the doctrine of the pre-lapsarian covenant of works is that it tends to deny, or at least downplay, the righteousness of God and it basically re-tells the entire story of Scripture by changing the plot. Denying the covenant of works tends to make God appear to be arbitrary. To be sure, the God of Scripture is absolutely free to act according to his nature. We creatures are not authorized to determine in advance what God may or may not do except to say that he cannot deny himself and he cannot lie. He cannot be what he is not. Within those parameters there are a great number of things that God might do that we cannot predict. God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts. These are fundamental Scriptural data. To deny, however, that God is arbitrary is hardly to deny his freedom or, as some like to say, to "put God in a box."

We don't think of God as arbitary because we think of him as he has revealed himself in his Word. We don't think that he has revealed himself exhaustively, of course. We understand from Scripture (e.g. Deut 29:29) that he has revealed himself sufficiently to allow us to speak about him truly. We cannot explain all that he has done or will do in his providence but we do know him truly and we can correlate what he has done in redemptive history with what he said about himself in the canonical Word.

According to the Reformed reading of Scripture, the God of the Bible entered into a covenant relation with humanity in creation, before the fall. This covenant relation was bounded by a law: love God with all your faculties and love neighbor as yourself. It was expressed in terms of trees. Adam was free to eat from any tree, even the tree of life, but he was forbidden from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a commandment, a law. Our Belgic Confession calls this the "commandment of life." It seems undeniable that Adam was in a legal relationship with God. The law gave permission, "eat from any tree" and a restriction: "except for this one." There was implied blessedness for obedience and this blessedness was symbolized by the tree of life. The curse of law breaking was explicitly revealed: "the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die." Adam was in a covenant and it was a legal covenant. What was required of him was legal righteousness.

Of course Adam himself presents another great problem for modernity. We confess that Adam was an historical figure. We confess that because the Bible teaches it. The temptation of modernity has been to place ourselves in judgment over the narrative of Scripture and to say, in effect, "We know a priori that the Adam figure of the creation narrative, of the garden narrative, must be a mythic way of expressing a spiritual truth. Does the Bible tell us fables for the purposes of teaching moral and spiritual truths? No. We should be honest, modernity tempts to deny the historicity of Adam. Dame Moderna comes to us suggesting that if we will only renounce (like Barth) our allegiance to an historical Adam, we shall be regarded as ever so much more reasonable and hip. I keep saying "temptation" because that is exactly what it is. It's a covenant. If we will do x (renounce a historical Adam), Dame Moderna will do y (accept us as equals).

We must ask ourselves, "Is the bargain worth it?" What do we gain by accepting the proposed covenant? Is this the end of the deal or will Dame Moderna come to us with other, subsequent covenants? Will she stop at Adam or will she press relentlessly for us to "cash in" the rest of redemptive-history? Of course the story of modern theology answers the question. Dame Moderna is not a only a temptress she is a tyrant. She has not been satisfied with doing away with an historical Adam. Starting with Adam she has ridden through the history of redemption, as it were, with an eraser doing away with very existence of the "Hebrews," the Exodus, the flood (local or universal), and all forms of supernatural religion.

The other puzzling feature about the modern revision of Reformed theology is related to the first. It is an adaptation of the first. Just as the very idea of an historical Adam offends modern sensibilities, so too the idea of legal relation to God at the outset of human existence offends. The modern creed has a few basic tenets: the universal fatherhood of God, the universal brotherhood of man, and human progress. Implicit in the biblical story of a law-giving God and a law-breaking federal representative man is distinction. There is no reconciling the "law" story of the first man with the "grace" story of all men. If the first man was the legal representative of all humans and if he, and we in him, broke that original law, then it cannot be that all humans are now universally accepted by God. Indeed, according to Scripture the exact opposite is true. All humans are, in Adam, universally condemned by God.

Thus, to accept the biblical story as we have it is to place ourselves at odds with the whole sweep and spirit of modernity. For this reason we should be skeptical of anyone who, under the auspices of ostensibly being "more biblical" invites us to reject the reading of the Adam narrative as the story of a law-giving God and a law-breaking man.

To be continued

One of the more disturbing aspects of the Federal Vision program is its doctrine of final justification. Let's be clear here: Protestants have no such thing. We do not not equivocate (use the same word in two senses at the same time) when we use the word "to justify," it's too important.

When we say, "justify" we mean, "a divine declaration of righteousness." The basis or ground of this declaration is the actual, perfect, condign merit and perfect righteousness (active and passive obedience) of Jesus which is imputed to all those who believe, i.e., who are "receiving and resting" in Christ and his finished work for us. God is right to declare us righteous, because the terms of justice have been fulfilled by Christ. By the way, our doctrine of justification does not, therefore, make justification a "legal fiction" as the papists and moralists (i.e., the FV) like to say. We have a real, actual basis for our righteousness before God. It is not "grace and cooperation with grace" or Spirit-wrought sanctity within us. Christ's righteousness for us was and is real, actual, intrinsic, and perfect and it is imputed to all who believe sot that all believers are reckoned as perfectly righteous before God.

It's only a legal fiction if God does not have the right to impute Christ's righteousness to us, and clearly both the FV and the Papists believe in imputation -- though they might not realize it. The papists and moralists both teach a form of imputation in their doctrine of congruent merit. In medieval theology, merit was said to be congruent when a work was not wrought within one by the Spirit and therefore lacked perfection. In congruent merit, God is said to have covenanted to impute perfection to those who do their best, "to those who do what is in them, God will not deny grace" (facientibus quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam). The FV boys end up teaching a version of this when they try to include our good works into the ground of justification. They realize that our works aren't perfect, therefore they argue that God imputes perfection to them.

So, both critics of the Protestant doctrine of justification concede the fundamental point at issue: imputation. Thus, it's not a question whether imputation but what will be imputed and to whom. Protestants say that Christ's real, actual, perfect righteousness is imputed. Rome and the FV say that our best efforts are imputed.

This also means that R. C. Sproul was right (no pun intended -- the FV fellows have been hotly critical of R C for misleading the assembly by his speech) when he said on the floor of the PCA GA that imputation was at stake. It certainly is. In a short floor speech it's not really possible to spell all this out, but he was quite right to call the attention of the commissioners to this question. Thus, if both sets of critics concede some form of imputation, what's the fuss? Well, the fuss is that, in the case of the FV, like the papists, they want to separate "initial" and "final" justification. This revision has taken a couple of forms. In one form, an elder in the OPC proposed that we are justified in this life sola gratia, sola fide but at the judgment we are justified partly on the basis of Christ's righteousness imputed and partly on the basis of Spirit-wrought sanctity (or condign merit). This form of the revision is problematic enough. Though this elder was ultimately excused on the floor of GA after he repented, the OPC both in the Philadelphia Presbytery (where he was convicted) and at GA in the floor speeches, and later in the report on justification clearly condemned this view. This same view surfaced in the United Reformed Churches in sermon by the Rev Theo Hoekstra, "The Lion Won't Bite the Innocent." A complaint against this sermon was laid before his consistory, and the refusal of consistory and classis to act against it was appealed to Synod Calgary where the doctrine of the sermon was repudiated. In response, the URCs adopted a brief statement affirming the doctrine of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ.

The second form, however, is even more dangerous as it denies justification sola gratia, sola fide in this life and in the next! In the more virulent form, they say that we're conditionally elect, united to Christ, justified, adopted, etc at baptism. Thus we have initial justification, but our final justification is contingent upon grace and cooperation with grace. If we cooperate sufficiently with grace it will turn out that we were unconditionally elect but if not, then I guess we weren't elect. It goes from bad to worse. In this version of the Federal Virus, we are also said to be justified at the last day on the basis of intrinsic sanctity. Some of them have no time for imputation of any kind!

Well, the Protestants had an antidote for all this. They distinguished justification (as defined earlier) from vindication. This is the way the Reformed confessions consistently speak of the matter. At the last day, we shall be vindicated. This is the very distinction that James makes viz Paul. If we say we have faith, then we shall have evidence, i.e., works. Our works vindicate our claim to having faith, but they don't justify us before God. Luther, Calvin and the rest of the Protestants distinguished justification before men (coram hominibus) from justification before God (coram Deo).

Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 90 asks, “What shall be done to the righteous at the day of judgment?” Part of the answer says that, at the judgment, the “righteous…shall be set on his right hand, and there openly acknowledged and acquitted, shall join with him in the judging of reprobate angels and men…."

The phrase, "openly acknowledged and acquitted" refers to the Protestant doctrine of vindication before God and man at the last day. It is only the justified who shall be acknowledged and acquitted and they are just who are clothed with the perfect (condign) righteousness and merit of Christ. We dare not stand before God on the basis of anything wrought in us or anything done by us because it is all imperfect, it is all tainted, it is all corrupted and none of it meets the unbreakable standard of God's righteousness: "cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law" (Gal 3:10). This is why the Protestants universally rejected the notion of congruent merit, because it denies the divine righteousness. God does not overlook sin and he doesn't act arbitrarily. He acts according to his nature and his nature is just.

That is why Paul says, "having been justified" and "there is therefore now no condemnation...." Justification is done. Christ's righteousness is done. The latter is the basis for the former, and it is just and right for God to reckon it so and to reckon us righteous who trust in him who fulfilled all righteousness. Remember, the question isn't even whether we are to believe in imputation since both papists and moralists believe in imputation. The question is whether we're to confess the Protestant, confessional, and biblical version of imputation or some other.

Because we are righteous in Christ, we shall be vindicated at the judgment. There is no such thing as "initial" justification as distinct from "final" justification. We are justified now and we shall be vindicated then. To conflate or confuse the two is to confuse the gospel and that is a gross and unnecessary mistake.

Last week the study committee appointed by Synod 2007 to examine, by the Word of God and our Confessions, the teachings of the so-called Federal Vision and other like teachings on the doctrine of justification, met in Chicago.  Our committee is mandated to present to the next Synod [2010] a clear statement on these matters to the benefit of the churches and the consistories.

11 members met of the 14 assigned.  One had resigned due to taking a call, and 2 others were not able to be present at this meeting.  The chairman was Rev. Patrick Edouard, pastor of the Covenant URC of Pella, Iowa, and the secretary was Rev. Brian Vos, pastor of the Trinity URC of Caledonia, Michigan.

The committee studied and discussed justification, and the many other doctrines connected to the doctrine of justification, such as, the covenant, the sacraments, the church, assurance and good works.  The committee also studied the recent reformulations of these doctrines in the light of Scripture and the Confessions.  The committee was of one mind, and the discussions were very fruitful in bringing us forward to, Lord willing, a final report in the future.  The committee is scheduled to meet for a final time in March 2009 and to present a final report to the churches and consistories in July, 2009, as requested by synod.

If you're unfamiliar with this controversy/discussion start here. There are more resources here. 

The CC podcast is generally in two parts, a helpful survey of recent Reformed works and then a substantive discussion of some issue of interest to confessional Reformed folk. This 'cast has both and the second part is largely an interview with Lane, whose blog is largely devoted to discussing the FV and often with FV proponents.

There are two things about which I might quibble.

1) The CC 'cast is quite devoted to Richard (Dick) Gaffin's theology generally and particularly to his view union with Christ. To readers who are unfamiliar with Gaffin's career should understand that Gaffin defended Norm Shepherd's doctrine of justification by grace through faithfulness for about 30 years. As late as 2000 Gaffin endorsed Shepherd's book on covenant and justification. Not long after that he defended OPC elder John Kinnaird's fundamentally wrong-headed two-stage doctrine of justification. In more recent years, however, Gaffin, who served on the OPC justification committee, has distanced himself from Shepherd by supporting the OPC committee report. I haven't yet read his most recent book or his essay in Justified in Christ, so I don't know how those pieces fit into this puzzle yet but it seems fair to say that Dick's legacy on justification is mixed. I'm grateful for the CC fellows for their devotion to justification sola fide and I'm grateful for Dick's change of mind on justification but it seems to me that the history of the Shepherd controversy suggests that one should exercise caution in embracing Dick's formulation of the doctrine of union with Christ.

2) Though it is mentioned, it is not always completely clear in this roundtable discussion that several ecclesiastical bodies have actually judged and condemned the FV as contrary to the Reformed faith.

Here it is useful to once again remind readers that over the last few years the FV has been studied and rejected by the faculties at WSC, MARS, Knox (in a previous incarnation). More importantly. it has been studied and rejected by the URCs, the OPC, the PCA, the OCRCs, the RCUS, and the RPCNA among others. In other words, this discussion is not just a intramural discussion among a group of friendly fellows sitting around smoking cigars. The FV controversy touches the most fundamental points of biblical and confessional doctrine. The FV doctrines of covenant and justification corrupts that doctrine, which according to Reformed theology, is of the standing or falling of the church and therefore the FV has been thoroughly and completely rejected by the Reformed churches. 

The FV doctrines of covenant and justification are not open questions. We may and should study them but the proponents of the FV are not mere dialogue partners. I agree with the CC fellows and Lane when they say that the apparent re-alignment of FV proponents to the CREC, which is fast becoming the home of the FV, will lower the temperature of the discussion, but it's not the case that we can return to the status quo ante the various ecclesiastical judgments. The stance of confessional Reformed folk toward the FV should be more consistent than the stance of the Netherlands Reformed Churches was toward the Remonstrants after Dort. Instead of holding firm and insisting on repentance of submission to canons adopted at Dort, the churches eventually relented and allowed impenitent Remonstrant ministers back into the churches and the NHK suffered grievously for this decision. 

On questions like "what is the gospel?" we must be absolutely ruthless or we will lose our churches. To the degree the FV boys partake of the same spirit that animates the theonomic/reconstructionist movement(s) it will likely never die. They believe that they have made a breakthrough in biblical exegesis and theology and that we just have not caught up with them. In some cases they believe that they are just too brilliant to be understood by mere confessionalist mortals. Consider the example of Norm Shepherd, one of the godfathers of the FV movement. His revisions of justification and covenant have wreaked havoc in congregations and Christian lives and cost hundreds of thousands of man hours in research and labor and committee meetings and given rises to thousands of people of documents. His theology has been explicitly rejected by numerous and well established Reformed churches and there's not a shred of evidence that he's the least bit penitent for having troubled the churches. His followers have the same spirit. Because they represent themselves as "Truly Reformed" they will keep winning converts and we shall have to continue to clean up after the FV as parents have to clean up after children.

The FV controversy isn't an Ivy League boxing match where, after the match, college fellows shake hands and buy beers all round for the boys. No, Reformed folks must realize that this is a covenant of works. The FV folk must repent of the FV utterly and demonstrate fruit worthy of that repentance or they must be excluded from confessional Reformed congregations, presbyteries, classes, denominations, and federations. Further, those ecclesiastical assemblies who harbor the FV should be judged to be at odds with God's Word as confessed by the Reformed churches. 

Statements and studies are only the beginning of the process. FV proponents continue to teach, preach, and exercise influence in the midst of confessional Reformed churches. If these persons and bodies are not disciplined and if that discipline is not made to "stick" then it will all have been just an academic exercise and we will have shown our confession to have been merely theoretical and mere theoretical orthodoxy is dead orthodoxy.

1. That Synod DECLARE that we stand in solidarity with our Reformed and Presbyterian brethren in rejecting as contrary to the Scriptures as summarized by our confessional standards the theological views that are generally associated with the movements identified as “the New Perspective(s) on Paul” and the “Federal Vision”.

2. That Synod REAFFIRM our commitment to the biblical, historical, and confessional, Reformed doctrine of justification– sola gratia, sola fide, solus Christus– which requires the imputation of the active obedience of Jesus Christ as an essential component of that righteousness which is the ground of our justification and is received by faith alone.

3. That Synod RECOMMEND to our ministers and members the study of the reports of the PCA, OPC, RCUS and Mid-America Reformed Seminary.

4. That Synod REQUEST our Sessions, Presbyteries, and other examination boards to be diligent in their examinations of potential office holders as to the critical areas of theology that are associated with the new views.

Committee:

Dr. Richard C. Gamble
Dr. Alan Noell
Rev. David Reese, Chr.
Rev. Scott Wilkinson

postscript: The cynic in me knows that the first reaction from the FV boys will not be, "Oh my, yet another NAPARC denomination has soundly rejected the FV and NPP." No, the immediate reaction will be, "They still don't understand us."

Wait for it. Five, four, three, two, Hold your ears, one....

postscript #2: Not that we're keeping score but so far the OPC, PCA, RCUS, URCNA, OCRC and now the RPCNA have all rejected the FV.

Don't know what this is about? Start here. More resources here.

Since Scripture says, "believe," (e.g. Acts 16:31) it seems that we are commanded to believe. If the command to believe is an imperative and an imperative is "law," and if the answer to the command "believe" is faith, then faith must be a type of obedience. If so, aren't faith and obedience essentially the same thing?

Ursinus wrote:

The chief and most important parts of the first principles of the doctrine of the church, as appears from the passage just quoted from the Epistle to the Hebrews, are repentance and faith in Christ, which we may regard as synonymous with the law and gospel. Hence, the catechism in its primary and most general sense, may be divided as the doctrine of the church, into the law and gospel.

First we must get our categories right. According to Ursinus repentance is a corollary to "law" or "do this and live" and faith is a corollary to "gospel," or "Christ has fulfilled the law for you who believe." According to Ursinus, there are ways in which the law and the gospel agree and ways in which they are opposed to each other:

The gospel and the law agree in this, that they are both from God, and that there is something revealed in each concerning the nature, will, and works of God. There is, however, a very great difference between them....

Both the command to "do and live" and the command "believe" reveal the will of God. They are both imperatives. What this means is that not every biblical imperative is "law." It is true that, in the controversy with the covenantal moralists (Federal Vision, NPP, Norman Shepherd) I have often said that the law says "do" and the gospel says "done." Strictly speaking that it is true but it is also true that one must use some language to communicate to another that, in view of the demands of the law, one must satisfy the law oneself or by another. The announcement that another, a Mediator, has satisfied the demands of the law is in the indicative mood. The call to believe, to receive, to accept for oneself, to rest in the truth of that announcement is in the imperative.

There is a false premise in the initial question. If all imperatives are "law" then the imperative "believe" is a law and the act of faith must be "obedience." The false premise is this: if imperative, then law. This doesn't follow. Yes, both the law and the gospel have conditions and imperatives but they are not the same conditions nor are they the same imperatives. The gospel offer is conditional: "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." The words "come to me" are in the imperative mood but there are fundamental differences. First,

The law was engraven upon the heart of man in his creation, and is therefore known to all naturally, although no other revelation were given. " The Gentiles have the work of the law written in their hearts." (Rom. 2:15.) The gospel is not known naturally, but is divinely revealed to the Church alone through Christ, the Mediator.

There is another major difference between them.

The law teaches us what we ought to be, and what God requires of us, but it does not give us the ability to perform it, nor does it point out the way by which we may avoid what is forbidden. But the gospel teaches us in what manner we may be made such as the law requires: for it offers unto us the promise of grace, by having the righteousness of Christ imputed to us through faith, and that in such a way as if it were properly ours, teaching us that we are just before God, through the imputation of Christ s righteousness. The law says, " Pay what thou owest." " Do this, and live." (Matt. 18:28. Luke 10:28.) The gospel says, " Only believe." (Mark 5:36.)

Notice please how Ursinus relates law and gospel in this instance. Both the law and the gospel "teach" us something but they teach us different things. The law teaches what is required but does not offer anything. The gospel teaches not what God demands but how we may be righteous before God. This is the distinction between "do" and "done."

There are other ways in which the law and the gospel are similar and distinct. The law has promises. It promises life to those who obey it perfectly. The gospel also has promises, but it promises life to those who trust in the person and work of the Substitute, Jesus. To sinners, the law, relative to justification, only kills. The gospel, relative to sinners gives life. As Ursinus says, "they differ in their effects."

The imperative "believe in Christ and in his finished work" is a gospel imperative. Ursinus acknowledged that the law requires a general sort of belief, "by requiring us to give credit to all the divine promises, precepts and denunciations, and that with a threatening of punishment, unless we do it" but the gospel imperative urges us to trust, receive, and rest in Christ and his finished work and out of that faith to "commence new obedience." The gospel imperative "commands us expressly and particularly to embrace, by faith, the promise of grace."

Thus, "do" and "believe" are both commands but they have different conditions and promises. This is why Witsius reminded us that faith is called a "condition" only improperly. Properly it is, as the Belgic Confession says, the "instrument" of justification. Faith is fundamentally a different response to the imperative "believe" than "obedience" is to the command "do."

The response to the command "believe" is to trust in the finished work of Christ. The answer to the imperative is to rest in and Christ and to receive him alone for righteousness (WCF 11; HC 21, 60; BC 22-24). The object of law-keeping is my obedience. This doesn't fundamentally change if we substitute the words "Spirit-wrought sanctity" or "grace and cooperation with grace." In other words if the terms of the condition refer, in any way, to my law-keeping or my obedience, even Holy Spirit-wrought obedience by grace and cooperation with grace, we're not talking about the gospel but rather we're talking about the law. This is how the Reformation understood the Roman soteriology of grace and cooperation with grace and "faith formed by love."

The object of faith, however, is Christ. The power of faith is Christ. The virtue of faith is Christ. Faith, per se, has no virtue (power). What Shepherd and the FV and the rest of the moralists do not understand (as Arminius and the Remonstrants didn't understand) is that the moment one fills faith with virtue, one has conceded the entire Reformation. This is the point of Bob Godfrey's essay in CJPM on sola fide v faith formed by love. The FV and the rest of that lot are selling "faith formed by love." In contrast, the Belgic Confession 24 says explicitly that we are not justified by faith formed by love, "for by faith in Christ we are justified, even before we do good works." In the language of the Reformation, "good works" stood for "Spirit-wrought sanctity" or "faith formed by love."

Because they do not understand the distinction between Christ's obedience for us alone for justification and his his work in us in sanctification, they continue to seek a way to build sanctification, Spirit-wrought sanctity and obedience, into faith in the act of justification. Having got on the papist treadmill of "covenant faithfulness" they shall never be able to get off because they have accepted a series of false premises. The Protestant refuses to get on the treadmill of grace and cooperation with grace, of justification by Spirit-wrought sanctity.

The Spirit works faith in our hearts through the preaching of the gospel. Faith is not a condition, it's an instrument. Faith does answer a command but faith isn't a work. It's an anti-work because it has no inherent goodness or righteousness or power. Faith, per se, in justification is nothing. Only Christ counts in justification. 

Another way to put this is to say that what makes faith "living" in justification is not Spirit-wrought sanctity but Christ, the object of faith. This is the answer to the repeated FV demand that faith be "living:" We do not accept your definition of living as sanctity. If my justification depends upon my sanctity I shall never be justified because I shall never be perfectly sanctified. The FV solution to this problem is to take us back to the medieval doctrine of congruent merit whereby God is said to impute perfection to our best efforts (facientibus quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam). We reject congruent merit utterly as an insult to the finished work of Christ. BC 22 says,

to say that Christ is not enough but that something else is needed as well is a most enormous blasphemy against God-- for it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a Savior. And therefore we justly say with Paul that we are justified "by faith alone" or by faith "apart from works."

Jesus' merits for us are perfect (condign). We do not stand before God in any way on the basis of anything other than the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to us and we receive that righteousness in no other way than by faith defined as resting, receiving, or trusting Christ and in his finished work.

That's why Protestants say "sola fide."

You can read more about this here and in Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry.

More resources here.

Update 24 June 08: comments are closed. I don't have time to police dozens of pro-FV comments. The HB is not a platform for the FV, for obfuscation of the gospel, fuzziness about justification or turning back the clock in the FV discussion. The URC's Nine Points are here.

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The question comes concerning the relations between Theonomy and the Federal Vision. There is reason to think that there is some connection between the two movements. Severall well-known theonomists are also proponents of the FV. One of the FV leaders recently described the current FV controversy as a renewal of the theonomy argument. Interpreters on both sides have seen connection between the two controversies and movements.

There are good reasons for seeing connections between the two movements. Both movements date to the mid-1970s. In the early phase of the argument, Norman Shepherd found much support among theonomists and the FV movement today finds considerable support among theonomists. There are ambiguities, however. There is open debate among theonomists about WWBD? (What would Bahsen do?) Would he support the Federal Vision? Support for Norman Shepherd is a point of connection between the theonomists and the Federal Visionists. In turn Shepherd, though not overtly identified with theonomy, shares their their neo-postmillennial eschatology. Further, not all theonomists are Federal Visionists nor are all Federal Visionists are theonomists. At least one theonomic denomination (the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the US, not to be confused with the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America) has been highly critical of the FV.

Though not identical movements, Theonomy and the Federal Vision movements are analogues. Both movements reflect a similar pathology in the Reformed corpus. Both reflect what I call the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty (QIRC). The FV does it by making the doctrines of covenant, justification, and perseverance, a little more "reasonable," by reducing the scandal of the cross and the offense of the gospel. As it turns out, according to the FV, it's not really filthy sinners that Christ justifies, but those who are sanctifed, who cooperate with grace. As we've seen, in the FV, the sentence "A justified man is sanctified" becomes, "A man is justified because he is sanctified." The elect, as it turns out, are those who have cooperated with grace. That's just a little more "sweetly reasonable" than the confessional Protestant alternative.

Theonomy represents another side of the same quest. It offers a kind of ethical precision and a kind of ethical authority that reduces ambiguities to certainties and, on its premises, makes Christian ethics a little more "reasonable." In contrast, non-theonomic ethics aren't nearly as attractive. First, we non-theonomists don't have any catchy slogans. Our ethic, like our eschatology, is paradoxical. Theonomy is attractive because it flattens out the tension between what is and what shall be. For theonomy there is a continuum between the now and the not yet. For non-theonomic amillennialism there is a sharp disjunction between "the now," or "this age," and the "not yet," or "the age to come." They are two different types of existence. The consummate state exists in heaven and is interjected into this life in small ways, but, for the most part none of us seems to have a plan to bring out the Kingdom of God on the earth. The theonomists definitely have a plan and Americans like a plan. Do most American Dispensationalists really understand the complicated eschatological charts? Probably not, but they do have implicit faith in their leaders that someone has figured out what the news means and what's going to happen.

In contrast, Non-theonomic, Amillennial, types confess that all 613 Mosaic laws were civil, ceremonial, and moral and at the same time, that the moral law, grounded in creation, continues to obligate all creatures before, during, and after Moses. That creational law is a set of general principles (embodied in the Decalogue and in the golden rule and taught throughout Scripture and revealed in nature [Rom 1-2]) not an extensive civil code. Thus, confessional Reformed folk must seek wisdom as they attempt to apply the moral/creational law to difficult civil problems, but without the certainty that any particular application is necessarily is the correct "Christian" application.

Theonomy, however, under the slogan, "abiding validity of the law of God in exhaustive detail," seems to offer "the" Christian answer to difficult problems. Unsure about "the general equity thereof" in a given case? Put the quarter in the slot, pull the handle and out comes the correct ethical and civil answer to one's particular question. They even have ready-made civil code in Theonomy in Christian Ethics and in the Institutes of Biblical Law.

That both movements came to prominence in conservative Reformed circles at the same time, during the years of post-Nixon, post-Haight-Ashbury period, the time of disco and cocaine propelled self-indulgence, during the moral "malaise" of the Carter administration, suggests that they may both reactions to the same stimuli. Neither movement was driven by the Reformed confession. Rather, when these movements were born attention to the Reformed confessions was at a nadir. In an autobiographical passage in his essay, "In Defense of Something Close to Biblicism," John Frame comments that his seminary education wasn't marked by sustained, focused attention to the Reformed confessions. The attitude of the period seemed to be that as long as one had a high view of Scripture and divine sovereignty, everything else was negotiable. I remember reading things from the period that said, in effect, "we all know what we believe about justification," let's get on with applying the Scriptures to every area of life.

Both Theonomy and the Federal Vision are theologically and socially conservative. Both movements have in common a deep concern for the collapse of the culture and our place in it. Some versions of theonomy/reconstructionism envision the culture being gradually regenerated through Christian influence and some expect a cataclysm out of which arises a Reconstructionist phoenix. The FV wants to regenerate the culture through sacerdotalism (baptismal union with Christ whereby all baptized persons are, ex opere operato (Rich Lusk has spoken this way), temporarily, historically, conditionally united to Christ). Both are visions aimed at the restoration of Christendom. One is primarily ecclesiastical and the other primarily civil. These common attitudes, interests, and approaches, however, help explain why so many theonomists have been attracted to the FV and vice-versa.

Update on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 01:12PM

I'm editing a chapter on Olevianus' Pauline commentaries for a collection of essays on the Reception of Paul in the 16th Century. As part of that project and others, I'm working through Olevianus' commentary on Romans. There some interesting comments about natural law and the natural knowledge the same.

“Indeed, there was one moral law from all times written on the hearts of men, and then consigned to letters.” (Olevianus, In Epistolam Ad Romanos Notae, Ex Gasparis Oleviani Concionibus Excerptae, 3).

All humans have had "ab Adamo" (since Adam) a natural knowledge of the difference between “honest and dishonest dealings” (honestarum et turpium), ibid.

UPDATE 17 June 2008 The collection of essays on the reception of Paul in the sixteenth-century is to be published around Christmas by Brill. The case for analyzing the pathologies in the Reformed body in terms of QIRC and QIRE is to be published this fall by P&R as Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice.

Since this post first appeared, the FV theology has been roundly rejected by most of the major NAPARC denominations/federations including the PCA, the OPC, the URCNA, the RCUS, and the OCRCs. For an orientation to the FV controversy start with the essay, "For Those Just Tuning In." There are more FV related resources on my WSC site. For a brief popular explanation of the FV doctrine of baptismal union with Christ see this booklet. For a more thorough treatment of the controversy see Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry.

I once heard someone say (or write) that the Law was also "graceful" because at least in this God's case, He was letting His subjects know what was expected and wanted from them.

I appreciate the intent of the sentiment. There are two problems here. First is the semantic problem. The English language is a little limited here. We use gift, grace, and favor, as synonyms. If we could distinguish "gift" from "grace" and "favor," then we might be able to speak that way. What we need is a word that connotes something freely given that is isn't necessarily saving and, in some cases is beneficial but not all. The word "benefit" does this.

The second problem is the pervasive and persistent problem that some Reformed and would-be Reformed folk have, in reacting to antinomianism, of conflating grace and law. This is the more serious 

Rather than speaking of the grace of the law, it would be better to speak as the Westminster Confession does. The Westminster divines (theologians) did not confess that the covenant of works was "a covenant of grace," or "a covenant of favor," nor did they say that God "graciously" instituted the covenant of works. Rather they said (7:1) that God established the covenant of works by "voluntary condescension." In other words, rather than appealing to the nature of the law they appealed to God's exercise of his free will.

WCF ch. 16 summarizes the Reformed doctrine of good works and there we do not find the law called a grace or gracious. Chapter 19 is devoted the the Law of God. If the confession is going to speak of the grace of the law anywhere, it would be there. Yet, in WCF 19.3, it says that God "was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age...." As in chapter 7, they appealed to traditional Reformed language concerning the will of God.

WCF 20.7 is a model for relating grace and law when it says,

Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.

Here grace and law are related closely and carefully without being identified. The law isn't called a "grace" or even "gift." It does say that the law is complementary to the gospel. There's no doubt that the moral law is a benefit to Christians inasmuch as it is that Word God the Spirit uses, in its first or pedagogical use, to teach us the greatness of our sin and misery and to drive us to Christ. It does this before we come to faith and it does it after we come to faith (HC 2-3, 115). In its civil use, it is a benefit inasmuch as it reveals, in the second table, God's moral will for civil, public life. It is a benefit to believers in the third use as it guides our new lives in Christ. To deny the third use of the law is antinomianism. To conflate the law with the gospel is moralism. If we read God's Word with the Reformed churches it isn't that difficult to avoid both of these pitfalls.

Since Christ has delivered us believers from the curse of the law it no longer terrifies us relative to our righteousness before God. Since we are free from the curse and condemnation we are free to delight in God's law and to see its wisdom and perfections.

Nevertheless, in this life we still sin and suffer the consequences and subjective effects of sin. We rightly feel guilty and ashamed of our continuing sins and sinfulness and the law offers us no remedy for sin, its guilt, or its consequences nor does it sanctify. Only the gospel provides those remedies. Only the gospel sanctifies.

Thus, as much as we might be tempted to react to antinomianism by speaking of the "grace of the law," we should not. It's better to speak of the benefits of the law. It is notable that the Westminster Divines, who also faced a significant threat of antinomianism in their day, did not react by conflating "grace" and "law," not even to make a rhetorical point. In that case we should follow the example of the divines and exercise the same degree of self-control and continue to make the same distinctions.

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Revised and re-posted from May of '07

For those just getting started in covenant theology I recommend:

“A Brief History of Covenant Theology.”

God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology. It is biblical, accessible, clear, and the state of the art.

For more advanced reading, one of the classic texts is Herman Witsius,Economy of the Covenants.

For more on the history of covenant theology see R. Scott Clark, Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ.

There are more resources here and here.

Good morning,

I hope this finds you well. I just finished Covenant, Justification and Pastoral Ministry and was blown away by your chapter on Law and Gospel. In 13 years of pastoral ministry, I've not seen this emphasized and I've personally paid scant attention to this most crucial distinction. Just wanted to say thanks for work well done!

Tim

Tim Blackmon
Pastor
River Rock Church (CRC)
1145 Sibley Street
Folsom, CA 95630

Thanks Tim!

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Mark writes,

Unless you are removing James from the Bible, the Catholic view and the Protestant view are not so far apart... We Catholics consider Faith without Love to be useless except to give a chance that the sinner might repent. When we hear "sola fides", we are hearing "faith without works", which is of course "dead", according to James. As to the anathema, remember that Luther _added_ the term "alone" to his translation of Romans and said that James was an "epistle of straw", so that at Trent the assumption was that he really did mean that Faith without Love (and Hope, for that matter) could save. I am certainly no expert on Lutheran theology, so I can't tell you whether that assumption is correct, but the assumption is what brought about the anathema. Catholic moral theology would hold that a person guilty of a mortal sin loses all supernatural Love in his soul, but retains his Faith and Hope, unless he has sinned directly against those virtues.

The problem seems to be that Romans tends to use the term "faith" to mean "Faith formed by Love", while James uses the term in the current Catholic sense. The point is that we have to understand one another, then determine where there is commonality and difference, rather than simply attacking. Christ wanted us to be one (John 17), and we have to try to understand to make that possible.

Well Mark, do you assume that the 16th and 17th-century Protestants were unaware of these options or that they did not address these questions? See Calvin's lecture/commentary on James in which he argues at length that Dikaioo in James 2 does not mean "to make righteous" (the Roman view) or even "to declare righteous" but rather that James 2 and Paul have different audiences in view. Paul, e.g. in Romans, has in view righteous with God and James has righteousness "before men" in view. On this see my essay on double justification in Protestant theology in Westminster Confession into the 21st Century vol 2.

Second, Luther modified his appraisal of James in his later preface.

Yes, Luther added "allein" to his transl. of Galatians and defended that translation quite eloquently!

What the protestants rejected and continue to reject is justification by love or justification through sanctification. Rome teaches exactly what we reject.

If you follow the Protestant relation of justification to sanctification (that justification is a legal declaration by God that results in sanctification) rather than the Roman arrangement (sanctification leads to justification) then Paul and James make perfect sense.

James is saying, "You people claim to have faith but I see no evidence." He's preaching the law to them to show them the greatness of their sin and to drive them to trusting in Christ and in his finished work. Paul is proclaiming the gospel of free righteousness with God through trusting in Christ and in his finished work which righteousness necessarily produces sanctity in those who believe.

Not assuming that the Protestants were unaware, but rather that Catholics and Protestants spend more time yelling at one another than listening.

Most places in the Bible, "faith" seems to refer to an intellectual agreement with the truths revealed by God, without reference to how those are put into practice in life. Paul himself differentiates faith, hope and love, and declares that love is the greatest of these. Catholics don't teach justification through love alone, but through faith informed by love. Indeed, in Catholic theology, it is impossible to have theological love without faith.

As you point out, there are still large differences in Catholic and Protestant theology. This was made very clear after the Joint Declaration on Justification, to which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith added a statement about the Catholic understanding of the terms of the declaration, so as to avoid any false ideas that the problems of the Reformation had been totally overcome. My point is that the two positions are closer than one might imagine by the anathema for "sola fides".

As you are aware, the Catholic position has sanctifying grace infused into the soul at Baptism. This brings with it the three theological virtues, whose exercise is the spiritual life. The initial grace of conversion is a free gift of God and cannot be earned in any way.

If we are to obey the wish of Christ "that they be one", we all need to listen to one another with respect and try to work through the theological differences to come to the truth that Christ revealed to us.

Mark,

The ecumenical appeals to John 17 seem to beg the question, they seem to assume that we all agree that Jesus had in view visible, institutional unity and that confessional Protestants and the Roman communion are or represent the visible church of Christ in the same sense. According to the confessional Protestants, the Roman communion represents the visible church of Christ in about the same way as the Cathars did in the 13th century. Having eternally condemned the blessed Gospel of our Lord in session 6 of Trent (1547), Rome has done exactly what the Apostle Paul said could (morally) not be done, i.e. to reject Apostolic doctrine (see Galatians) and thus by her own actions, has brought herself under the divine and apostolic anathema. That Roman communion has repeatedly re-affirmed the Tridentine doctrine of justification (see the Catechism of the Catholic Church) magisterially and informally (John Paul II and Benedict XVI both publicly re-affirmed the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent in their papacies) has only intensified the problem.

The question, in recent years, hasn't been listening to each other respectfully, the question has been whether "evangelicals" and other alleged Protestants (e.g. Lutheran World Federation) will be faithful to the Protestant understanding of Scripture. My first beef here isn't with Rome. She is what she is. Cardinal Cassidy (and now Cardinal Kasper in another context) has been doing his job, trying to get those (in Rome's view) wayward evangelicals to come back "home."

My job is the same as Cassidy's, trying to get those wayward evangelicals who ware much too impressed with Cassidy's personal religious experience to come back home to the Reformation.

As to pisteuo in the NT we shall have to agree to disagree. Even some contemporary Roman commentators (e.g. Fitzmyer) agree with Luther and Calvin and the Protestant confessions that Paul in Rom 3-4, as he interprets Gen 15, does not define faith as an infused virtue. It is more like the "certain knowledge and hearty trust" of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) or "receiving and resting" of the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) than it is the Roman virtue.

Abraham was not justified with God because he was sanctified! That would be a bizarre reading of the life of Abraham. Indeed, none of the patriarchs was particularly sanctified. Yet Paul calls unsanctified Abraham the faith of all who believe. How is that? He believed God and his faith was imputed to him for righteousness.

One other thing to think about. It's not as if Rome has never taught a doctrine of imputation.

We confessional Protestants teach that Christ's perfect, actual, condign righteousness and merits are imputed to us. We have a real basis for the divine declaration of justification.

Rome recognizes that your sanctity will never be sufficient hence the doctrine of congruent merit, which Thomas taught quite plainly. Meritum de congruo nothing but a doctrine of imputation but it has no real basis. More recently, Pius X, in Ad Deim Illum Laetissimum, para. 14 re-affirmed a doctrine of meritum de congruo (in reference to merits of the BVM!) in 1904.

So, the question is not whether merit will be imputed but rather the question is whose merit and on what basis. We say that righteousness with God is on the basis of the condign merit of Christ accomplished once for all and imputed to all those who believe (i.e., those who have knowledge, assent, and trust) in Christ and in his finished work alone for righteousness. Rome proposes another scheme entirely. These two schemes are not reconcilable.

Yes, we must talk, but sometimes dialogue entails not mutual concession but a call to repentance. Think of Protestants as the Apostle Paul calling the Apostle Peter to repent for his denial of the gospel (see Galatians again) when he stopped eating with the Gentiles. Peter repented and was restored to fellowship. Our prayer too is that "Peter" (granting the connection between Peter and the Roman see and magisterium only for the sake of this analogy) will once again repent and be restored to the apostolic fellowship.

I agree entirely with Michael in the sense that he’s using “conditions.” I’ve defended that sense of “conditions” myself. If you would read the other things I’ve written on conditionality and the covenant you would see that. See, e.g., the last two chapters in my book on Olevian. See the stuff on the fv/npp page.

What I reject in this very brief, popular intro to the FV controversy is the sort of conditionality proposed by the FV, i.e. we are in by grace and stay on condition of faithfulness.

Yes, there are conditions in the administration of the covenant of works, but we are justified unconditionally. Jesus met the conditions of the covenant of works for us. We who believe are in a covenant of grace, not a covenant of works.

We can even speak improperly of a condition of justification, i.e. faith — receiving and resting in the finished work of Christ. Witsius warned that it’s better, however, to speak of faith as the sole instrument of justification.

You’re (the writer of this blog) not trying to give readers the impression that Horton supports the FV are you? If so, you’re quite mistaken! He’ll get quite a laugh out of this piece when I mention it to him about 45 minutes from now.

UPDATE: So we did talk about it before the taping of WHI tonight. As I said. There's no "there" there.