Horton versus Kline on the Mosaic Covenant
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JTB.SDG
Puritan Board Junior
From what I understand from Ramsey's article and the OPC report, it is a modernized form of the Subservient View held by John Cameron and Samuel Bolton. In the Covenant of Grace, man is saved by faith apart from works, but adherents of this view say that in this covenant Israel was actually saved by works apart from faith. Though this salvation after-all was only temporal.
Does anyone hold this view? I'm not interested in killing men made of straw. I'd like to find out how actual adherents would respond to objections raised against this view.
Does anyone hold this view? I'm not interested in killing men made of straw. I'd like to find out how actual adherents would respond to objections raised against this view.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
T David Gordon, who is much like Kline and Horton, says he holds to the subservient view (articles can be found on his website). If one does the research, this view was not accepted by the Westminster divines.
TheOldCourse
Puritan Board Sophomore
This is my understanding of Horton as well though it's been years since I've spent much time reading him. Here's a section from his old covenant dogmatics series to that point:
In the broader context he compares Israel's "covenantal vocation" to man's unfallen obligations in the Garden. He, of course, bifurcates the Sinaitic covenant with respect to its national and individual applications, the latter of which being an administration of the covenant of grace so that element at least is still present. Perhaps he's moderated his views through the subsequent debates, but I haven't followed him closely enough to know if he's made any statements.
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Douglas P.
Puritan Board Freshman
I am a Klineian. And maybe I'm just not fully understanding how your'e stating it above, but the Mosaic Covenant never offered salvation in any eschatological sense of the word. Instead, the Mosaic Covenant offered temporal blessing in the land. This covenant was a Covenant of Works, meaning that the blessings or curses of the covenant we based on Israel's obedience to the Covenant.
Couple things worth checking out:
Kline has a multi-part lecture series going over his kingdom prologue book, it can be found here:
http://www.meredithkline.com/klines-works/mp3-files/
T. David Gordon has an 11 part lecture series that is also really helpful in trying to understand the Klineian vision. It's on the WTS media archive, which is a bit funky to search through but this should get you in the right starting place:
https://students.wts.edu/resources/media.html?paramType=search&category[]=5&keywords=Paul's+Understanding+of+the+Law&speaker=&ScrBook=&ScrChap=&ScrVerse=&ScrVerseEnd=&year=1990s&srch=search
Also, the course syllabus and papers for the lecture series above can be found here: http://www.tdgordon.net/courses/rel_488_sr_seminar/
Hopefully this is helpful. I really recommend T. David Gordon lectures, even if you ultimately disagree, i think it will be very helpful in understanding the other side.
Would you outline the case that this view is contrary to the Westminster Standards or point to any material that makes that case?
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Yes, I found this fairly helpful.
https://d3ecc98b-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites...uxFJMJiN_s49h_EDEH4PG5UWBR1mQ=&attredirects=1
https://d3ecc98b-a-62cb3a1a-s-sites...uxFJMJiN_s49h_EDEH4PG5UWBR1mQ=&attredirects=1
So your viewpoint would be that salvation as in eternal life and in a covenant relationship with God during that time was under the CoG, but that the Mosaic aspect of promise land blessings was under how close to the law one was walking, correct?
This would depend on if the spiritual or the physical blessings were in view here.
Douglas P.
Puritan Board Freshman
Yeah, that seems pretty close, obviously I'd qualify it a bit, but I think you're on the right track.
Is this still true today? Or has God changed? Could you receive the blessing if you were not saved? Sounds charismatic.
JTB.SDG
Puritan Board Junior
The question boils down to: Is the covenant at Sinai simply another administration of the Covenant of Grace, or is it something different? The Westminster standards answer this question in the affirmative: “There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.” (WCF 7:6). But proponents of the Subservient view often answer in the negative, speaking of the covenant at Sinai as something being “different in substance” from the Covenant of Grace. Owen says it was “a distinct covenant, and not a mere administration of the covenant of grace.” (Works, 22:17; cited from Patrick Ramsey's article, p11). It's also noteworthy what John Ball had to say. B.B. Warfield wrote of Ball that “no one was probably more highly esteemed as a judicious divine by the fathers of the [Westminster] Assembly” (cf. Ramsey, p12). With that in mind, it's significant what Ball writes of the Subservient view: “by this explication it appears, the Divines of this opinion [IE, the Subservient view], make the old Covenant differ from the new in substance, and kind, and not in degree of manifestation, as also did the former [IE, the Republication view]. [Whereas] Most Divines hold the old and new Covenant to be one in substance and kind, to differ only in degrees” (Ball, p95). Even the adherents of this view themselves made it clear that their view did not indeed understand the Mosaic Covenant as being one in substance with the Covenant of Grace, which is explicitly what the Westminster Confession asserts. As the OPC Report states, “It seems clear that proponents of the subservient covenant view did not view themselves as advocating a version of View 4 outlined below (i.e., that the Mosaic covenant is in substance a covenant of grace with a unique administration). . .Assembly member Samuel Bolton distinguishes the subservient covenant view from the idea that the Mosaic covenant was in substance a covenant of grace. . .Bolton saw the idea that the Mosaic covenant was in substance a covenant of grace (which he elsewhere identifies as the majority view) as categorically and taxonomically distinct from his own.” (OPC Report, Chapter 5, II, C).
This seems to be an issue that Reformed baptist and Presbyterians differ on as to what actually the Mosaic Covenant was and its intended purpose.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
To be clear, "Reformed baptist and Klineans AND Presbyterians differ..." On this issue, I have found that Klineans really hold to a 'Reformed-esque (Use of reformed language) New Covenant Theology (Moo, Thielsen, Carson, etc.).'
If they really do hold to the theology of the NCT, not really reformed in the traditional accepted use of that term.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I am not a Klinean, but my reading of Horton in Kline is that the Israelites continued stay in the land was on obedience, as the blessings/curses were typological of heaven or something.
They failed miserable to obey the lord, as just shown by how many times God allowed other nations to take them over and move them out.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
The Klinean would say that is the point, which illustrates why we can't obey the Covenant of Works.
Only Jesus could ever been able to do that.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
That's the whole point of the Klinean paradigm.
Romans922
Puritan Board Professor
Yes, it is the effects of how they get to that point that really is where the problem lies.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Certainly. I'm not a Klinean, though.
psycheives
Puritan Board Freshman
I believe the OPC study committee's report should be a helpful resouce here. They ruled Klinean Republication to be out of bounds and that includes subservient covenant theology. You can also listen to Reformed Forumn with Lane Tipton on this. I believe Dr Clark has since agreed that he needs to be more careful with his CT. Dr. VanDrunen already taught us to be very careful not to ruin Moses as a COG.
At Westminster Seminary CA, I was warned Horton (at least his earlier God of Promise) stated things with such a contrast as to imply/suggest/undermine the fact that Moses was a COG because the emphasis was SOOO strongly that it was a COW (at the typological level). Also he set Moses very strongly against the New Covenant, which is dangerous considering the Dispensationalists did this and had Law/Gospel issues and run-away antinomianism.
The Reformed generally do not set Moses up this strongly as a COW or set it against the New Covenant very strongly. They aren't opposite types of covenants but BOTH COG. We must be careful.
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The Mosaic Covenant was a temporal based relationship though with the nation of israel, as all of the saved among that nation was under the CoG, and those who were even not saved were included under that relationship, to be blessed based upon how they responded to obeying the law of the lord.
I don't quite understand that, as no one was able to be saved by keeping the Lord as God intended save for Jesus Himself.
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RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Exactly, it is to show you that you can't keep the law. Or so the Klineans say.
the scriptures teach that to be true also.
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