The Mosaic Covenant as a temporal republication of the Covenant of Works in light of Deuteronomy 9

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Me Died Blue

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I'm still studying various presentations of the viewpoints on the Mosaic Covenant as a republication of the Covenant of Works. In light of the fact that that historic viewpoint held by various Reformed theologians throughout history is certainly not a Dispensational rendering of the Mosaic Covenant as a salvific republication, but rather a temporal one concerned with the people's blessings in the land, what would those who hold that view say about Deuteronomy 9:1-12?

Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, 'Who can stand before the sons of Anak?' Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the Lord your God. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, 'It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,' whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.'
 
There's no doubt that the doctrine of the Sinaitic Covenant as a republication of the covenant of works was well established and widely adopted in the period of Reformed orthodoxy.

Nevertheless, it has always been understand and acknowledged, as Dr Horton does in his recent work on the covenants (see his response to the criticisms by Rev Wynia in the pages of Christian Renewal) that there are difficulties with this view or problems inherent.

It seems clear from this passage and others like that, otoh, Israel's relations to the land were neither purely legal nor purely gracious.

As Deut 9 makes clear, they could not have entered the land except for the grace of God. They violated the covenant before the Moses made it to the foot of the mountain. Nevertheless, we must also account for the various legal passages such as Deut 27 and 28 where Israel's standing as a national people and their tenure in the land is conditioned upon their obedience. 28:1-14 seems clear that if they obey, they will be blessed. 28:15-29:1 seems equally clear that if they do not obey, they will be cursed. 29:1 is explicit that such was the nature of the Israelite covenant. This is why Paul was so careful to distinguish the Israelte/Mosaic/Old Covenant in Gal 3 from the Abrahamic promise/covenant.

Regarding the Mosaic/Old/Israelite covenant, perhaps it is the case that, RELATIVE TO THE LAND AND TO THEIR STATUS AS A TEMPORARY, TYPOLOGICAL PEOPLE ONLY Israel might be said to have entered by grace and stayed in by works? Of course, even that is not fully true since God was gracious to them and did not eject or bring upon them the covenant curses they earned almost from the moment they entered the land. Yet, finally, the formal, legal ground of their expulsion from the land and the end of their role in redemptive history as the peculiar, national people seems to have been their disobedience (borne of unbelief of course).

The pedagogical function of this entire epoch, in this respect, would seem to be to show the futility of law-keeping by sinners as a way to gain or retain anything from God.

The entire Israelite/Mosaic epoch was a giant, 1500 year, sermon illustration pointing to him who entered "the land" by works, who kept the holy garden pure, who obeyed the law, who is the true Israel of God.

Thus it is that, by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus the Israel of God, we also (Heb 4) enter into the rest which the obedient Second Adam has purchased for us.

rsc
 
This is how I would put it. God was gracious towards the people of Israel according to the Abrahamic covenant, but Mosaic Law it self was a typological national covenant of Works. Deut 9 is another example of God's grace towards Israel according to the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant (verse 5). The Law of Moses was a covenant overlay upon the underlying substratum of the Covenant of Grace, to serve as school master to bring us to Christ. (Gal 3:23-35) Making the Law-Gospel distinction clearly discernable.

VanVos
 
This is Meredith's scheme, as I understand it, in a well-expressed nutshell.

It is a good general scheme for accounting for the soteriological relations between Moses and Abraham, but what to do with the gracious language about the land? If the biblical language about Israel's tenure in the land was exclusively legal, then the case would be easier, but as Deut 9 shows, the language about the land isn't exclusively legal.

Could there be more interpenetration between the Mosaic and the Abrahamic than the scheme as expressed suggests?

rsc


Originally posted by VanVos
This is how I would put it. God was gracious towards the people of Israel according to the Abrahamic covenant, but Mosaic Law it self was a typological national covenant of Works. Deut 9 is another example of God's grace towards Israel according to the promise of the Abrahamic Covenant (verse 5). The Law of Moses was a covenant overlay upon the underlying substratum of the Covenant of Grace, to serve as school master to bring us to Christ. (Gal 3:23-35) Making the Law-Gospel distinction clearly discernable.

VanVos
 
I think quite a bit also stems from Hosea's commentary on how the Isrealites broke the covenant (which one?) in the same manner that Adam (oh that one!) did.

Hosea 6:7, "But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me."

And so,

Romans 7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet."

Hmmm, hard, but good stuff. We're so terrible, but its a blessing to have a covering.

Psalm 32:2 Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit.
 
I believe most of the older theologians, who maintained that the law was delivered to Israel as a covenant of works, would never have asserted that the promissory aspect of the covenant was to be "earned" by either Adam or Israel. Hence even under the "mixed covenant" paradigm, the land could not be possessed because of personal righteousness.

The older theologians stay away from maintaining that the CofW was "republished." It was only promulgated so as to drive the people to the CofG. So the Marrow of Modern Divinity. Hence there is no pure CofW in the Sinaitic arrangement.
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
This is Meredith's scheme, as I understand it, in a well-expressed nutshell.

It is a good general scheme for accounting for the soteriological relations between Moses and Abraham, but what to do with the gracious language about the land? If the biblical language about Israel's tenure in the land was exclusively legal, then the case would be easier, but as Deut 9 shows, the language about the land isn't exclusively legal.

Could there be more interpenetration between the Mosaic and the Abrahamic than the scheme as expressed suggests?

rsc

I don't believe that the land it's self is the defining issue by which one can determine whether or not the Mosaic Law was exclusively legal. The land is in a sense neutral to this inquire. What we do have is two covenants that are polarized from one another Gal 3:12,4:24. The first (Abrahamic) is based on the principle of Grace/Gospel, and the second (Mosaic) is based on the principle of Works/Law. Although they weave in and out throughout the Old Testament scriptures their identity and purpose is maintained and preserved.

VanVos
 
Originally posted by VanVos
I don't believe that the land it's self is the defining issue by which one can determine whether or not the Mosaic Law was exclusively legal. The land is in a sense neutral to this inquire. What we do have is two covenants that are polarized from one another Gal 3:12,4:24. The first (Abrahamic) is based on the principle of Grace/Gospel, and the second (Mosaic) is based on the principle of Works/Law. Although they weave in and out throughout the Old Testament scriptures their identity and purpose is maintained and preserved.
VanVos

I take note of the Gal. 4:24 reference. This is speaking of the household of Abraham. The son of the bondwoman was externally in the covenant of promise with Abraham. The children of Israel were externally in the same covenant too.

Consider Thomas Boston's scheme:

"The unbelieving Israelites were under the covenant of grace made with their father Abraham externally and by profession, in respect of their visible church state; but under the covenant of works made with their father Adam internally and really, in respect of the state of their souls before the Lord. Herein there is no absurdity; for to this day many in the visible church are thus, in these different respects, under both covenants. Farther, as to believers among them, they were internally and really, as well as externally, under the covenant of grace; and only externally under the covenant of works, and that, not as a covenant co-ordinate with, but subordinate and subservient unto, the covenant of grace: and in this there is no more inconsistency than in the former." (Works 7:196, note n.)
 
Perhaps I misunderstand your argument, but if you're arguing that the "older theologians" (which ones?) did not use Sinai as proof for the covenant of works and as a sort of covenant of works itself (which is why I was trying to delineate how it is and isn't) then (assuming such an understanding) I reply (from the forthcoming volume on covenant and justification):

Following the mainline of Reformed orthodoxy, Peter Van Mastricht (1650"“1706) appealed to the republication of the covenant of works at Sinai as proof of the foedus operum (Van Mastricht, Theoretico-Practica Theologia, 3 vols. (Utrecht: 1699), 3.12.23).

See also Wollebius, Compendium, 1.21.17. It was widely held among the Reformed orthodox that the Decalogue was a republication of the covenant of works. To give but a few examples, John Owen, Herman Witsius, Leonard van Rijssen, Johannes Marckius, Peter Van Mastricht and Thomas Boston taught it. 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 Didactico-Elencticae (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 Didactico-Elencticum (Amsterdam, 1749), 345"“346; Peter Van Mastricht, Theoretico-Practica Theologia, 3 vols (Utrecht: 1699), 3.12.23. Pace D. Patrick Ramsey, "œIn Defense of Moses: A Confessional Critique of Kline and Karlberg," Westminster Theological Journal 66 (2005): 395, Boston appealed to the logic implied by the grammar of WCF 19.1 and 2. 19.1 which reasserts the doctrine of 7.2, that God "œgave 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, "œThis Law, after his fall"¦was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments"¦." (Articles, 30"“31). The phrase "œcovenant of works," in 19.1, is appositive to the noun "œLaw." Thus the "œLaw" is reckoned here as a covenant of works. Thus when, 19.2 establishes "œThis law" as the subject of the verb to be, "œwas delivered," the antecedent of "œthis Law" can be none other than the "œLaw" defined as a covenant of works in 19.1. This reading of the confession caused Boston, in his notes in E. F. The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Books, n.d.), 58, to exclaim, "œHow, 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.

rsc



Originally posted by armourbearer
I believe most of the older theologians, who maintained that the law was delivered to Israel as a covenant of works, would never have asserted that the promissory aspect of the covenant was to be "earned" by either Adam or Israel. Hence even under the "mixed covenant" paradigm, the land could not be possessed because of personal righteousness.

The older theologians stay away from maintaining that the CofW was "republished." It was only promulgated so as to drive the people to the CofG. So the Marrow of Modern Divinity. Hence there is no pure CofW in the Sinaitic arrangement.
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
Perhaps I misunderstand your argument, but if you're arguing that the "older theologians" (which ones?) did not use Sinai as proof for the covenant of works and as a sort of covenant of works itself (which is why I was trying to delineate how it is and isn't) then (assuming such an understanding) I reply (from the forthcoming volume on covenant and justification):

I am saying that these theologians regard it as "mixed," hence not a pure republication of the CofW. It was published subservient to the covenant of grace, as Thomas Boston notes in the quotation above. I do hope the article you reference qualifies this point.
 
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