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16 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Vague Thesis, Sloppy Scholarship, February 6, 2009
The authors of the above-mentioned volume are clearly on the defensive. This is in stark contrast to the last volume published by this school of authors (entitled "Covenant, Justification, and the Pastoral Ministry"). The fact that the book opens with a four to five page "fictional account" of a young licentiate being questioned for holding to the views propounded in the book makes this fairly clear. Even in the preface, the authors note how the views propounded in this book are being sharply critiqued by their peers in the ecclesiastical and academic world.
Why all the fuss? What is the concern? The authors of this book collectively seek to defend the thesis that the Mosaic covenant was "in some sense" a republication of the covenant of works. Such an idea, they maintain, is not contrary to the Reformed Confessions. Indeed, in their treatment of the Westminster Confession of Faith, they seem to suggest that the Confession requires that one affirm such a notion. Neither is such a view "novel" to the Reformed tradition. While not all the authors agree on the specifics of the precise sense in which the Mosaic covenant republishes the covenant of works, they nevertheless all desire to defend this basic thesis that the Mosaic covenant in "some sense" republishes the covenant of works.
It is difficult to figure out how to review a book of this kind. Many different arguments, some minor, others major, are marshalled forth in defense of the view that is propounded. A thorough, page by page treatment would be too tedious for even the most interested reader. However, a brief, cursory treatment cannot do justice to the substance of the arguments brought forth. Our review will attempt to walk a middle ground by focusing (perhaps too lengthily) on two things. First, the vagueness of the basic thesis and the problems that seem to flow from it (at least to our mind), and secondly, their interpretation of the WCF. Most of our difficulties with the argument of this book stem from these two problems.
First of all, there is what seems to be an almost self-conscious attempt to formulate the thesis of the book in a vague way. The authors maintain that the Mosaic covenant was "in some sense" a covenant of works. But in what precise sense? There are few who would be able to deny that the Mosaic covenant is in some sense a covenant of works. Even Norman Shepherd and John Murray, the two marked arch-enemies of the views propounded in this book, could affirm that statement (as one writer even admits - pgs. 88-89). If that is the case, what is really being affirmed by the statement "the Mosaic covenant is in some sense, a covenant of works?" The essential vagueness of the thesis allows them to affirm truths that seem mutually contradictory and incompatible (see below). On the one hand, some of them want to try and affirm the distinctive Reformed doctrine of the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of grace, but then at the same time argue that it is also "in some sense a covenant of works." In our opinion, they should have paid more close attention to the absolute antithesis and incompatibility between the two expressed in Romans 11:6: "But if it is by grace, it is no longer of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace."
If we apply this kind of vague phraseology to the other essential doctrines of Calvinism, the problem with the thesis might become more clear. If I were to stand up and say, "justification is in some sense a forensic declaration," or "Jesus is in some sense both divine and human," or "Jesus in some sense was a substitute for me and died in my place on the cross," what would I be affirming? Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Socinians, and Neo-Orthodox theologians could all affirm such statements. The name of the game in theology, particularly sticky and debated points in theology, is precision. This book at times seems (at least to us) almost self-conscious in its avoidance of such precision.
This vagueness poses a number of problems for their discussion of the republication of the covenant of works at Sinai. The basic problem can be defined as follows. A covenant of works is a covenant that requires perfect, personal, exact, entire, and comprehensive obedience which serves as the grounds of one's justification. The Westminster Confession of Faith makes this clear in two places:
The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. (WCF 7:2)
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. (WCF 19:2)
This is the essential condition of covenant of works: perfect and personal obedience. If the obedience required in a covenant is not of this particular kind, it is not a covenant of works, nor is it the application of a works-principle (which, by definition, requires perfect and personal obedience).
However, when many of these authors discuss the so-called "works-principle" or "covenant of works" at Sinai, they define its application to Israel in a way that makes it impossible that it can rightly and properly be called a "covenant of works" or the application of a "works-principle."
This is evident in two ways. First of all, many of these authors define the works principle applied to Israel as requiring "national obedience" for earthly, typological blessings in the land. In this way, the Sinaitic "works principle" does not apply to individual salvation, but only to the national tenure of Israel in the land.
But in so defining things in that way, are not these authors (at least some of them - not all of them agree) essentially abandoning an essential element of a covenant of works or a works principle, which demands "personal" obedience to the law? In 17th century theology, the term "personal obedience" referred to the fact that the obedience required had to come from an individual person, and could not come from another (such as Christ, as in the covenant of grace). By making the obedience required from the Sinaitic works-principle national instead of individual, is that not saying that it is therefore not properly speaking, a covenant of works? To us, this seems to be an irreconciable contradiction in the argumentation of the book throughout.
The second essential element of a covenant of works, or the application of a works-principle, is that the obedience be "perfect." If it does not require perfect obedience, it is not a covenant of works, nor is it strictly and properly speaking, the application of a works principle. One author is quite explicit about the fact that the Sinaitic works-covenant or works-principle did not require perfect obedience. Speaking of the similarities and differences of the old and new covenant obedience, one author says this:
"The need for perfect obedience is there (as always) for gaining eschatological life. The need for grateful obedience (the so-called third use of the law) is still there and was there in the old covenant. But the demand for sincere obedience, relative obedience (albeit imperfect) which would showcase an appropriate measure of readable obedience before the surrounding nations, has passed."
According to this writer, the Sinai covenant and the "works principle" associated with it, required only "sincere...relative obedience (albeit imperfect)." If this is the case, the author has, by definition, rejected the idea that strictly and properly speaking, a works principle or a covenant of works was republished at Sinai. But at the beginning of the essay, the author spoke of "the republication of the covenant of works in the Mosaic covenant." We repeat: if it does not require perfect obedience, it is not a covenant of works. The requirement of perfect obedience is an essential element of such covenant, is it not?
Again, this author maintains that the unique obedience required at Sinai is simply sincere, imperfect obedience. Interestingly, this is exactly the way 17th century writers described the obedience required in the new covenant or covenant of grace. John Ball, writing at the time of the Westminster Assembly, expressed the Reformed consensus regarding the obedience required in the covenant of grace in this way:
"The Covenant of Grace calleth for perfection, accepteth SINCERITY, God in mercy pardoning the IMPERFECTIONS of our best performances...The faith that is lively to imbrace mercy is ever conjoyned with an unfained purpose to walke in all well pleasing, and the sincere performance of all holy obedience, as opportunity is offered, doth ever attend that faith, whereby we continually lay hold upon the promises of life (19-20)." The same basic issue is noted by another author on pg. 301, note 30.
The covenant of grace thus accepts sincere, imperfect obedience as part of the requirements of the covenant. In this, it stands in contrast to the covenant of works. But when this author describes the obedience required in the so-called Sinaitic works covenant (or works-principle) he describes it in exactly the same way. Is that not admitting that it is essentially the same as the obedience required in the covenant of grace?
So here's the problem: if a covenant of works must require perfect and personal obedience, how is it that the Mosaic covenant can require sincere (imperfect) and national obedience, and still rightly be called a "covenant of works" or the application of a "works-principle." In the judgment of this writer, it seems that the rules of basic logic...
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