# Lutherans and Mosaic Covenant



## Romans922 (Oct 30, 2015)

What do Lutherans do with the Mosaic Covenant? How do they treat it? What is it doing for them? #ignorantaboutlutherans


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## Contra_Mundum (Oct 30, 2015)

Lutherans don't use "covenant" in the same way the Reformed do.

Covenant is a structuring word for us. The covenant-concept describes God's condescension to man, as well as forming an explanation (for our benefit) of inter-Trinitarian, pre-creational (eternal) determination to bring about Redemption, see Heb.13:20; Is.42:6; cf. 49:1-6. Having an overarching conceptual structure (not simply a filter or splitter) leads to differentiation within the structure: an eternal arrangement, a pre-Fall covenant (Hos.6:7), post-Fall covenant (overarching and multi/economic). Which leads to other questions investigating the precise nature of the Mosaic covenant.

The grand Lutheran structural motif is Law-and-Gospel. I'm not implying their approach is simplistic, any more than a CoW/CoG binary is simplistic; it is not a matter of "this verse in this category; that verse in the other." But as the key hermeneutical instrument, it does not produce the same set of subsidiary questions that "covenant" does for the Reformed hermeneutical exercise.

A Lutheran is not likely to wonder whether the Mosaic covenant is "works" OR "grace," "law" OR "gospel." On the face of it, Moses is LAW; however, read as a witness to Christ-coming, there is the possibility of discovering PROMISE (gospel) buried within it. Lutherans affirm the moral law, and find the essence of it in the 10C of Moses, albeit with alternate numbering.

They will acknowledge the Law's "third use" in sanctification. But the exposition of the Law they may be more likely to put before the "plan of salvation" in a compendium of theology. (Compare that to the setting of the Law in either the WSC or HC.) This is because Moses comes before Christ in history and revelation, Jn.1:17. We might see in this historical-conditional approach that Lutherans are unavoidably _infralapsarian_.

The Reformed, by virtue of our curious devouring of "blueprint" theology (only that which found in Scripture already) have pushed the plan of Redemption into the foreground. Eschatological _purpose_ explains, gives meaning to, whatsoever comes to pass. This is God's decree, the end of our faith, even our salvation, 1Pet.1:9. This makes us no less curious than the Lutherans concerning the PROMISE embedded within Moses; but we tend to view Moses within the expanding covenant-motif (ala O.P.Robertson). Moses has to be seen by us 1) as part of the unfolding CoG; and 2) against the backdrop of the broken CoW--*in that order*.

The Reformed tend to oscillate between the _infralapsarian_ perspective, and the _supralapsarian_; an historia salutis and an ordo salutis stance; the conditional and the decretal; the chronological and the logical. Ideally, covenant theology forms for us something of a bridge with two ends: one in eternity, one in history.

Ours is simply not the Lutheran approach. They see the Mosaic covenant less a part of a grander "covenant-scheme" than it is a particular arrangement of nation/government/religion, disciplined/condemned by a strict law, until Messiah be brought forth.

Their focus on seeking Christ in OT particulars (a strength) probably makes them less susceptible (than our camp) to the temptation of looking for other "ideals" expressed in or by the Old Covenant society. A weakness in their approach (seems to me) is that grace or gospel is _accidental_ rather than _substantive_ to their understanding of Moses. The fault, according to Hebrews (8:8), was in _them_ (Israel); the covenant itself was not fundamentally legalistic, but only incidentally (though conspicuously) so.


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## mvdm (Oct 31, 2015)

Anthony Burgess summarizes the difference quite succintly:



> "Wee have confuted the false differences, and now come to lay downe the true, between the law and the Gospel taken in a larger sense.
> And, first, you must know that the difference is not essential, or substantiall, but accidentall: so that the division of the Testament, or Covenant into the Old, and New, is not a division of the Genus into its opposite Species; but of the subject, according to its severall accidentall administrations, both on Gods part, and on mans. *It is true, the Lutheran Divines, they doe expresly oppose the Calvinists herein, maintaining the Covenant given by Moses, to be a Covenant of workes, and so directly contrary to the Covenant of grace. * Inded, they acknowledge that the Fathers were justified by Christ, and had the same way of salvation with us; onely they make that Covenant of Moses to be a superadded thing to the Promise, holding forth a condition of perfect righteousness unto the Jewes, that they might be convinced of their owne folly in their self-righteousnesse."


 (Vindication of the Morall Law, 241)


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## yeutter (Oct 31, 2015)

Where is Kevin Guillory when we need him. The answer Bruce gave is excellent. I would still like to hear Kevin's response.


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## mvdm (Oct 31, 2015)

17th century Lutheran dogmatician Philip Quendstedt echoes Burgess on the difference:



> The question is not, whether of old and at the present time there is one way of salvation, one promise of grace, one God of the covenant, so much as the work unto justification and salvation (quantam ad justificationis & salutis negotium), and finally one faith and eternal life. This is in all respects, as it were, certain, and greatly conforms to Sacred Scripture, which is admitted by all. But between us and the Calvinists the controversy comes to these two : (1) Whether the Old Testament anywhere in sacred Literature (Literis) is taken for the that covenant of grace, which God made with the Fathers, Adam, Abraham, etc. (2) *Whether that covenant of grace which God made with the Fathers, is the same in substance with the New Testament. The Calvinists affirm this, and we deny it.*


 "The State of the Controversy".


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## Semper Fidelis (Oct 31, 2015)

http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/AsendorfLuther'sSmallCatechismAndTheHeidelbergCatechism.pdf


> At first it seems that there is hardly a
> difference between the catechisms. But if you
> look more carefully there are different presuppositions.
> Luther begins with the revelation of
> ...


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## yeutter (Oct 31, 2015)

I consulted the topical index of John Theodore Mueller's *Christian Dogmatics* Their is no listing for covenant.


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