SRR #92 | Interview With Brandon Adams On Covenant Theology

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I do a podcast. I'm not interested in your podcast. The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone.
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When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield exposing the air and combating the air.
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We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so the next few statements that I'm going to make,
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I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
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We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style. I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing.
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It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible. Jesus said,
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Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
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It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. All right.
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I want to welcome everybody back to the podcast. This is Tim Shaughnessy, not to be confused with Timothy F.
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Kaufman, who is doing his own series on Simple Riff around the radio. Just a real quick plug for that is the
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Diving Board. And that's going to be an ongoing series. So I definitely want to recommend all of our listeners to check that out, especially if you're a
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Roman Catholic or if you know somebody who is a Roman Catholic. It is an outstanding series diving deep into history and theology.
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So be sure to check that out. So for today's episode, I almost want to say he's a guest because he hasn't been on in a long time.
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But Carlos Montijo is here with me. He's not a guest, but it feels like he's a guest.
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So, Carlos, welcome back to co -hosting the podcast with me. So, Carlos, you recently had a baby.
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And congratulations to you and Shea, little baby girl. Yeah, it's a baby.
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Angela Rose Rosa. She was a healthy baby girl.
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And we've been that's I think that's not that's actually my other daughter crying. Yeah, it's good to be back on the show.
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It's been very eventful, but obviously we've been very busy here.
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I know we've all been pretty busy, but I'm very excited about today's interview. Well, I am, too.
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And we are bringing Brandon Adams back on as a guest. And Brandon, let me just say it's a pleasure to have you on.
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And let me welcome you to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be back. So let me just go ahead and let our listeners know that I might be taking a step back from the podcast for a little bit.
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My wife and I are about to have our fourth child, but that's what's going on.
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And I'll be busy for a few weeks, so may not get to a podcast right away.
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Just hang in there, though, because Carlos and I are going to come back and do a couple of episodes. One of them is we are going to tackle the
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John Piper issue again. And the reason for this is because Carlos is about to publish part two of his article on John Piper.
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Part one was divided into two articles in the Trinity Foundation, so you can check that out.
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And this is in addition to all of the other stuff that we've published on Piper. We're not letting this go because it's a gospel issue, because it is the gospel that's at stake.
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And I find it interesting when everybody wants to label something as a gospel issue and it's not really a gospel issue.
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Well, rest assured, this is a gospel issue. So we're going to come back and we're going to tackle that.
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And then, Carlos, you wanted to also tackle the critical race theory stuff that's going on.
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And hopefully we can get to that, but Carlos and I are both very busy right now. So hopefully we can get those episodes out to you soon.
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But today we brought Brandon Adams back on to have a little bit of a post -debate interview.
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Now, this was actually a very popular episode on Thorn Crown Ministries. It got a lot of hits.
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I think it was the most popular episode that we've put out recently, actually.
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It's at the top of the chart, yeah. OK, it's at the top of the chart. And it was a debate between Brandon Adams and Pastor Patrick Hines.
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And, well, first of all, Brandon, I wanted to bring you on to give you an opportunity to respond to and acknowledge
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Pastor Hines' apology. Some of you may have heard in the Protestant Witness podcast, the one that Pastor Hines does recently, he spoke a little bit on the debate, and he issued an apology to Brandon for being harsh.
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And, Brandon, I know that you guys talked over the phone as well.
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So I just wanted to give you an opportunity to publicly acknowledge that. Give us your thoughts, and I'll let you comment on that.
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Yeah, I was very encouraged by Pastor Hines' video response there. He and I actually had a chance to chat on the phone for quite a while before that.
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And I was just very thankful for his apology and just for his willingness to continue discussing the issue.
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It's just a great encouragement, a reminder of God's mercy towards us that he can overcome differences that we have.
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And I'm susceptible to the same frustration and anger at times as well.
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So I certainly understand and gladly accept his apology there and hoping we can continue the dialogue as we move forward.
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He was very interested in—once he realized that I was saying something a bit unique and there was something to this, he was very interested in learning more about it.
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So he asked me for some book recommendations. So he bought a few of the books, and he's going to read through them when he gets time.
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And hopefully we can chat some more when he does. So, yeah, very thankful for that.
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Well, and that's really why we've brought you back on, because Hines, in the video, he admitted that he really doesn't understand your position.
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And you did recommend some articles, and you did recommend some books for him to look at.
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And you've also given those to us, and we'd be happy to put up whatever you give us in the show notes so that our listeners can read up on some of this stuff at their own time.
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But we thought it would be good to bring you back to sort of help alleviate that and maybe give you the opportunity to explain your position.
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I think that this would be helpful for our listeners. And I found that this was interesting because both you and Pastor Hines talked primarily about covenant theology when the discussion that was up for debate was over the issue of baptism.
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And I know that you both focused centrally on the covenant theology.
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And I felt like you really didn't... And this was maybe my fault, and I think
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I owe you an apology, because during the debate, and nobody really knows this because I edited this part out, but during the debate, you had stepped away from your computer for a little bit, and Pastor Hines and I just started chit -chatting and just talking about different things as we were waiting for you to come back.
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And Pastor Hines had actually let me know that he needed to leave about 30 minutes past the hour. And I know that we had tried several times to set up the discussion, and we just weren't able to make our times line up.
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And so I wanted to be sensitive to everybody's schedule. And when you came back, I failed to inform you of the time constraint.
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And it was pretty apparent that later on in the discussion, you were caught off guard. And I think that you thought that you had more time to sort of walk these things out.
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And so let me first apologize to you, and let me just say that that's really why we want to bring you on today to walk out your views on covenant theology, which relate to baptism.
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Is that correct? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, no sweat that that happens. And it's a huge topic.
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So, you know, even if we had another 30 minutes, we couldn't address the whole thing. It winds up—baptism for Reformed theology, whether paedo -baptist or credo -baptist, is directly related to covenant theology.
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And covenant theology deals with the entirety of Scripture. So it's very difficult to have a concise dialogue about that.
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But, yeah, I focused on the issue of covenant theology in that debate because the
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Reformed paedo -baptist position starts from the covenants.
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That's the argument for infant baptism from the Reformed perspective is rooted in the continuity of the covenants.
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And so if that foundational aspect is shown to be unbiblical, then the whole practice of infant baptism falls along with it.
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So that's why I was focusing on the covenant theology there. Well, and maybe this is where you want to go.
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Maybe it's not. So I'm going to basically hand it over to you in a little bit to continue to make your case just so that our listeners are aware of where you're coming from.
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But during the end of the debate, you attempted to reference two articles— reference an article which addresses the republication issue.
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And I wanted to ask you a little bit about that, if you could talk about the republication issue.
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But Hines emphatically stated during the debate that he does not hold to the republication position.
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And towards the end of the debate, he had made the statements that he does not believe that the
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Mosaic covenant is part of the covenant of grace. And that's not a direct quote.
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I'm just paraphrasing what he said. And he said it twice. And so in my mind, that left no other option but republication because it was—I mean, in the
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Presbyterian view, you have the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. So if the Mosaic covenant is not part of the covenant of grace, then it would necessarily mean that it was a republication of the covenant of works.
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And there may be something to that. I'm not really sure. But he has—from what
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I understand, he's corrected himself on that in his episode. And so we want to give him credit for that.
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I think it was towards the end of the debate. And I know that he—it was late in the day for him.
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We want to acknowledge that he says he misspoke. And I think that's fine.
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We all do that. But this left a sort of a lingering question with Pastor Hines.
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He asked me on the phone, and I wasn't able to give him a satisfactory reply. And I know that he asked you and he asked
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Carlos, and he said that he wasn't able to really get a satisfactory reply from either of you. But it left a question as to what is the issue of republication or what does the
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Mosaic covenant really have to do with the issue of baptism? And I think that you were focusing on covenant theology, so I'm sure that this is linked in somehow.
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But I really wasn't sure where you were going with this discussion or where you were trying to lead.
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And so I'm wondering if the republication thing was just something maybe that you capitalized on, that you maybe saw a mistake or something and you just pointed it out indirectly of your argument, or was this the argument that you were trying to make?
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And if you could just lead us into what your view on covenant theology is and maybe how the
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Mosaic covenant connects to baptism or if it does connect to baptism. But I'm just going to let you respond, and feel free to take as much time as you need.
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Great, thanks for the lead in there, the intro. Yeah, like I said a minute ago here, the
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Reformed argument for infant baptism stems from the continuity of the covenants. And a lot of that started with,
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Bollinger was influential in starting that. There's one, you can point to many different articles,
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I just pulled up one here from Reverend Angus Stewart, articles titled
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Heinrich Bollinger, the First Covenant Theologian. He says, Heinrich Bollinger's, a brief exposition of the one and eternal testament or covenant of God was the first book devoted to the subject of the covenant in 1500 years of the
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Christian Church. He goes on to say, Bollinger, like Ulrich Zwingli, whom he succeeded in Zurich, was drawn to the study of the covenant in part in order to refute the
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Anabaptists who advocated the baptism of believers only and rejected the baptism of the seed of believers.
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From that day to this, covenant theology has been inseparably intertwined with family baptism. And then,
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Bollinger's basic argument was that there is one eternal covenant of God.
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And he was specifically comparing the old and the new covenants and arguing that they are the same covenant, made with the same people, upon the same conditions, for the same reward, and therefore we should baptize our infants.
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That wasn't his only point, but that was a main point. So the argument stems from the continuity, not simply of the
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Abrahamic and the new covenant, but from the old covenant and the new covenant. He says that, well, hang on here,
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Peter Lilbeck has an essay, I can't remember the exact title, something like Calvin's Covenantal Argument for Baptism, or something along those lines, and he notes,
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Calvin both presents his case for paedobaptism, as well as defends it against various attacks by employment of the covenant idea.
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His positive arguments build initially upon his already established point of the continuity of the old and new covenants.
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It is due to the continuity of the covenant with the Jews and with Christians that enables Christians to baptize their infants.
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So that was the argument that was developed in the Reformation against the practice of paedobaptism.
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And they argued that the old and the new covenant were in fact the same covenant in substance.
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So they differed in certain ways, but their essence was one.
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So Bollinger says it is certain that the nomenclature of the old and new covenant, spirit, and people did not arise from the very essence of the covenant, but from certain foreign and unessential things.
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So basically they would point to external aspects of the covenant that were temporary and that could change.
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So the sacrificial system in the old covenant, for example, that was unessential, that could be abrogated, yet the covenant itself would remain.
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And so they would point to the essence of the covenant as the conditions and the people and the reward.
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That's what makes a covenant what it is, and they would say that all of those things remain the same between the old and the new covenants.
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Same condition, same people, and same reward. So the reward is eternal life, the condition is faith in Christ, and the people are believers.
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So that's true in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. It's one way of salvation, one people of God, one church, one covenant.
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So that has been the historic argument for infant baptism. The question then becomes, well, then what do you do with the apparent difference between the old and the new covenants?
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And like I said here, Bollinger and Calvin and those following them said that that refers to the accidents, the unessential things.
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It does not refer to the condition. Let me read just a couple paragraphs here from a new book from Samuel Renahan.
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So he did his Ph .D. dissertation on covenant theology, specifically
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Particular Baptist Covenant Theology in the 17th century. But the first, I can't remember, 60 or 80 pages, provides a really helpful summary overview of the first 100 years of the
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Reformation and the development of covenant theology. So he notes, Reformed theologians were united in the doctrine of salvation or the dogmatic contrast between the law and the gospel and their accompanying conditions of works and faith.
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But their covenantal models did not develop uniformly. They branched out in diversity when discussing the law and the gospel covenantally by relating the law and the gospel to the covenants of redemptive history.
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The diversity of these strands should not be thought of as competing federal theologies or even separate federal theologies, but rather varying trends or shades within the context of Reformed orthodoxy.
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The most common area of divergence and diversity was the relationship of the Old Covenant, the covenant made with Israel through Moses, to the covenant of grace.
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As the substance logic of the law and the gospel was applied to the Mosaic covenant,
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Reformed theologians wrestled with whether the Mosaic covenant simply contained the law or whether it was a covenant founded on the law.
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For some, therefore, the Old Covenant was a part of the first administration of the covenant of grace. For others, it was a covenant substantially distinct from and dogmatically opposed to the covenant of grace.
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And the, let's see, there's a quote here from John Ball, one of the,
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I think he was possibly right before the Assembly, Westminster Assembly, but he was very influential on the
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Westminster Assembly with regards to covenant theology. Gerhardus Voss talks about that and a few others. Ball notes, most divines hold the
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Old and New Covenant to be one in substance and kind, to differ only in degrees. They hold the
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Old Testament, even the law, as it was given upon Mount Sinai, to be the covenant of grace for substance, though propounded in a manner fitting to the state of the people.
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It was so delivered as it might serve to discover sin, drive the Jews to fly to the mercy of God revealed in Jesus, but it was given to be a rule of life to the people in covenant.
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This I take to be the truth. So that's the view that the Westminster Confession ended up with.
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The Mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace, although more legally administered.
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And what that refers to is that the law is more prominently vocalized and revealed compared to the gospel, where the gospel is more clearly and prominently revealed.
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But the law was not the condition of the Mosaic covenant. Faith in Christ was the condition.
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If the law was not just contained somewhere in the covenant, but was actually the basis of the covenant, was the condition of the covenant, then it could not be the covenant of grace.
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It would be a separate and distinct covenant. So around the 17th century was really when a lot of this got worked out in a lot of different polemic writings back and forth, and the
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Westminster Assembly gathered had to decide what was the most consistent with their position.
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And they landed on the view that the Mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace. It's not a separate and distinct covenant.
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So the Old and the New really are the same covenant. So again, that's the argument for infant baptism.
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And so when it comes to the issue of republication, and I don't necessarily like that term.
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It can be confusing. You have to carefully define your terms. But really what republication is talking about is the idea that the condition of the
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Mosaic covenant was obedience to Mosaic law. If that is the case, if the condition of the
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Mosaic covenant was obedience to Mosaic law, then the Mosaic covenant was not the covenant of grace.
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If the Mosaic covenant was not the covenant of grace, then you cannot argue for infant baptism based on the continuity of the covenants and the continuity of the one people of God.
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Yeah, so this is really good stuff. Thank you for that. And I wanted to kind of back up a little bit and give my thoughts on the debate.
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I thought it was a really good debate. I thought it was excellent. You both argued very well for your positions.
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And I know Tim kind of introduced you as your view, sort of like your view, but not necessarily ours.
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But from what I understand, we pretty much agree on just about everything
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I've heard you talk about. So we're in substantial agreement with you on most of these things,
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I think. We're fellow Reformed Baptists. And speaking of that, I wanted to actually ask you if you were also a scripturalist.
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Hey, that's a good question. Yes, I would consider myself one. Cool. You know,
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I'm not as much as of a philosopher as others, but to the degree that I understand the issues, yes,
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I would consider myself one. Yeah, and that's what I suspected. So we have a lot in common.
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We have a lot more in common than not. So it's pretty exciting to run across somebody like us, because there's not that many of us out there.
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So it's exciting when you bump into somebody like that. But yeah, I was gonna ask -
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Carlos has been egging me on to get you on the podcast for a long time, man. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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You can tell how excited he is. And so you're still with, are you still writing at the
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Reformed Libertarian and scripturalism .com and all those places? Yeah, when I have time.
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I haven't written at scripturalism .com in a long time. Reformed Libertarian kind of comes in spurts when
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I've got something on my mind. Okay. Yeah, I've just been busy with work the last four or five months.
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But yep, still writing there when something comes to mind. Awesome. Yeah, so, and by scripturalism, for those of you who don't know, that's people who basically espouse the theology and philosophy of Gordon Clark.
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So that's, as the introductory song says, we are unabashed, unashamed, you know,
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Clarkians here. So the, yeah, that's really neat.
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And, you know, obviously we're not Presbyterian, which some people think it's funny because Clark was a
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Presbyterian, but there's a lot of the, so here's the thing.
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Regarding the debate, I thought it was really good, but there was some interesting stuff. And I thought you argued for your position very well.
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And I agreed with what you were saying by and large. I don't think there were, I think I have a few questions about certain things, but the issue of republication.
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So what happened with Pastor Hines, the first two times that he talked about the
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Mosaic Covenant, I think he said he had acknowledged the view that you just described, that the traditional
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Presbyterian view that the Mosaic Covenant is a part of the covenant of grace. But then towards the end of the debate,
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I think it was like the last 15 minutes when you started, I guess, cross -examining him, he sort of, when you started kind of asking him stuff, he ended up saying that the
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Mosaic Covenant was not part of the covenant of grace. And so I guess, and he kind of got himself there when he was arguing from Galatians and noticing the stark differences between the law and the promise, right?
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So he kind of starting, when he was sort of expounding those differences,
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I guess it kind of led him to say that the Mosaic Covenant is substantially law and not grace.
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And so at that point, I was like, I can't believe, whoa,
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I was like, because that's obviously not Presbyterian, traditional Presbyterian theology is, that's one of the major differences between Baptists and Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians is that they believe that all of the covenants outside of the covenant of works are essentially part of the same covenant of grace, including the new covenant.
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And so like, what was your train of thought at that point? Or what were you thinking there? And so Brandon, before you answer that,
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I know we already talked to Pastor Heinz about it and he already clarified, I think on his podcast that he doesn't hold to that view that the
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Mosaic Covenant is not part of the covenant of grace. He does affirm Westminster federalism that the
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Mosaic Covenant is a part of the covenant of grace. But it was funny because I was kind of joking around with him.
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I still thought that there was some hope there that he actually had more in common with us Reformed Baptists than he might've initially thought.
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But yeah, if you could just get your thoughts on that. When he made that concession, what were you thinking there?
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Yeah, so I was, you know, I didn't quite capitalize on it in the podcast. I give it more time,
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I would have. I was, I wanted to make sure I fully understood his view before I tried to capitalize on it so that there wasn't any misunderstanding.
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So that's why I kept asking him more and more questions to really get a clear answer. And I don't wanna say too much about his view right now without him here to defend himself.
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And he's said he's going to continue studying this. So I don't wanna necessarily comment too much on his, but if I can speak in general terms, a lot of Presbyterians today have not fully understood the
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Westminster position. So what happened is when Presbyterianism came to America, it underwent significant changes.
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You know, they had to modify the confession itself to remove some of the establishmentarian language regarding the civil magistrate.
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And simply to, and they became advocates of religious liberty by and large.
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And to do so, they had to understand the
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Mosaic Covenant differently. And there is, let's see if I can pull it up here.
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On the Reformed Libertarian website, I've got a long article explaining, it took a while to find, but there is an
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American Presbyterian who was arguing against a covenanter, right?
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So somebody who held to the original Westminster position regarding the establishment of the church. And he had come over to America, and these two factions had been kind of battling against each other.
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The covenanters were arguing that, you know, we can't be part of the United States and the federal government of the
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United States because it promotes religious liberty. And were opposed to that based on the covenants and the understanding of the
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Westminster Confession. And William Finley was the American Presbyterian who was a statesman.
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He was involved in Congress for a number of years. He said, it is presumed that no
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Christian believes that eternal salvation was promised in the Sinai Covenant, or in other words, that it was the covenant of grace.
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The Sinai Covenant, as has been shown before, was symbolical or typical of the kingdom of Christ, through which, as a glass darkly, true believers saw
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Christ's day and rejoiced. The author, the covenanter, however, takes no notice of the divine antitype who fulfilled every law that man had broken and made atonement for transgressions.
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Anyways, it's very interesting that in arguing against the original Westminster position, he saw that the
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Mosaic Covenant was central to the question of religious liberty and the whole system. And he said, no, the
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Mosaic Covenant is not the covenant of grace. So when Presbyterianism came to America, it really started undergoing a transformation.
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And as the years progressed, it became more and more actually congregational and conceded a lot of ground to Baptists.
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And that just kind of continued until you get to the point today where most Presbyterians don't quite understand the language of the
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Westminster Confession, what it means. So a lot of them will say, you get people like R.
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Scott Clark and others following Klein, and they'll say, well, yeah, the Mosaic Covenant was a covenant of works, and it was an administration of the covenant of grace.
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Not realizing that that statement is self -contradictory. To say that the
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Mosaic Covenant is an administration of the covenant of grace is to say that it is the covenant of grace, right?
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That was Westminster's point. That's what the substance accidents language means.
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If it is according to the Westminster Confession, they differ only in administration.
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So if the Mosaic Covenant is an administration of the covenant of grace, that means it is the covenant of grace. It's self -contradictory to say that the
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Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of works, and it is an administration of the covenant of grace. And so we've become, well,
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Presbyterians have become so far removed from the original context that they don't even realize the contradiction in what they're saying.
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So there are confessionally acceptable ways of talking about the aspect of the law with regards to the
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Mosaic Covenant, and there are confessionally unacceptable ways. So there's a way that you can talk about it that necessarily implies that it was not the covenant of grace, and there's a way that you can talk about it that would understand it to be the covenant of grace.
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So in the OPC report on republication, they talk about this as administrative republication versus substantial republication.
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So administrative republication just means that the law is a part of the
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Mosaic Covenant, but it's not the foundation, the essence, the condition, the substance of the
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Mosaic Covenant. And there's different ways that you can explain that. Declarative republication, the covenant of works broken with Adam is declared on Mount Sinai.
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Material republication refers to the 10 Commandments were part of the Mosaic Covenant. But commenting on, you get to Galatians 3 and 4 and you see this strong contrast, what this necessarily entails is what the report refers to as the misinterpretation principle.
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They define that as the notion that Paul, in texts such as Galatians 3 and Romans 10, 4 through 5, is refuting a
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Jewish misinterpretation of the law namely that the law, Mosaic law, contained a substantial republication of the covenant of works.
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And so this goes on to say that the idea that the covenant of works is, this means, sorry, the misinterpretative republication refers to the idea that the covenant of works is not actually republished in a substantial sense in the
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Mosaic Covenant, but is present only in the misunderstanding of those who opposed Paul's teaching of a substantially gracious covenant.
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Mosaic Covenant. Hence the language of contrast between the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants rest in the minds of Paul's opponents, but not in Paul's actual theology.
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All right, so that's directly from the OPC report there. So that is how historically
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Presbyterians would explain Paul's language of the difference between the law and the promise, the
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Mosaic Covenant and the Abrahamic Covenant. Paul was not saying that they are two different covenants, two different types of covenants in essence.
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He was responding to the Judaizers misunderstanding of the
34:11
Mosaic Covenant. They thought it was a covenant of works. They thought that they could obey the law to earn eternal life.
34:17
But, and so he makes an ad hominem argument. He adopts their premises and then leads it to their conclusion.
34:24
But that's not really what the Mosaic Covenant was. It was not founded on law. Yeah, so I wanted to ask you a few things here now.
34:34
We're obviously talking about the substance of the topic, no pun intended, but republication, right?
34:40
So now with respect to the reason I brought up the point with Pastor Hines, when he conceded that point, which he already,
34:50
I know he says he doesn't agree with it now, but the reason I brought that up was because, and Tim touched on this earlier, that when you say that, if you're a
35:03
Presbyterian, right? And you say that the Mosaic Covenant is not a part of the covenant of grace, then the only other option you really have is that it's part of the covenant of works.
35:14
And so I guess with that being the issue, the issue with that,
35:19
I suppose, is that you get stuck in a weird situation in which grace can't really operate in the way that it's intended to.
35:29
And so, but now that's sort of like an extreme form and it doesn't seem to be,
35:36
I don't even know if I know of anybody who really takes that view. But I wanted to ask you about, so the
35:44
OPC report on republication and going back to this whole issue, I listened to R.
35:52
Scott Clark, his episodes on republication. And so he makes a pretty compelling case that Presbyterians historically did believe that the
36:02
Mosaic Covenant has sort of a mixed bag. It's like there is an element of law, but it's also part of the covenant of grace.
36:13
And so he quoted a bunch of people. He quoted Robert Shaw, he quoted Charles Hodge, transcontinental theologians,
36:19
Herman Witsias. They basically all say that the
36:25
Mosaic law was republished in some form of the moral law tied to the covenant of works.
36:36
And so there was like quotes from Thomas Boston as well.
36:44
And so I know there's an interesting dynamic there because it gets a little confusing because I remember in his blog, he has one post where he quotes a theologian,
36:56
I forget what the theologian's name was, but he says that there is a substantial identity with the law in the
37:04
Mosaic covenant, the moral law, that there's substantial identity. And so how can you be substantially law and substantially grace?
37:12
That doesn't really, that almost seems, that does seem like a contradiction. And so what's your take on that?
37:20
My take is that it's a very complicated issue. So if somebody is interested in what the historic views were,
37:30
I would recommend that they don't just read quotes on R. Scott Clark's blog, but they go back to, they take that quote and then go back to the original source and read the entire context, the entire essay.
37:44
So with the quotes there, you're talking about, well, they said it's in substance, the law. Well, that's one example where they can say that's known as material republication.
37:53
So the Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, the
37:58
Lenten Baptist Confession in 19 .1, and 19 .1, 19 .2
38:04
all agree that the law, the moral law was given to Adam in the covenant of works and the moral law was also given to Israel.
38:16
So there is substantial identity between the two, right? So what's known as natural law, the law written on the heart is substantially identical to the 10 commandments.
38:28
That in and of itself does not mean the Mosaic covenant was a covenant of works, right?
38:34
We would argue that the same moral laws written on the hearts of believers in the new covenant, right, there is substantial identity in that law.
38:44
The moral law continues throughout. So that was Westminster's position, the same commandments, the same law was given.
38:54
The question then is, or the issue then, is the distinction between the law and the law as a covenant of works, right?
39:03
So Westminster 7 .1, Lenten Baptist Confession 7 .1 refer to God's condescension in the covenant of works.
39:14
And that refers to the fact that obedience to the law itself could never merit eternal life.
39:22
So I think you guys talked about this in your episode on, potentially on your episode of the, excuse me, the
39:30
Adamic covenant of works. So God gave to Adam the law written on his heart.
39:36
And then he promised in addition to that, if you obey the law perfectly, you will earn eternal life.
39:44
That reward was something added by way of covenant. So it's possible to say that same law was given to Israel, but not as a covenant of works.
39:56
It was simply given to them as a rule of obedience for image bearers to know how to obey the law in the same way that the law is written on the hearts of new covenant believers as a rule to guide our obedience.
40:10
So that would be how the Westminster position understands that the law was given to Israel as a rule of life.
40:21
And very, very interesting point there. Trying to pull it up here.
40:27
If you compare the Westminster confession with the London Baptist confession on 19 .2,
40:35
there's a very interesting difference there in Westminster. It says that the, after the fall, the law, the moral law continued to be a rule of obedience.
40:46
I forget the exact language there, but a rule of obedience, right? Guiding to what is right and wrong. And as such, it was given to Israel on Mount Sinai in the 10 commandments.
40:58
So the Westminster position is it was given to them, not as a covenant of works, but as a rule of obedience.
41:05
If you look at the London Baptist confession in 19 .2, the words as such are removed.
41:13
So it's not necessarily the case that the law was given to Israel as a guide for obedience.
41:22
Westminster closes the option for the law given to Israel as a covenant of works.
41:29
They say, no, it was not given as a covenant of works. It was given only as a rule of obedience. The London Baptist confession opens up that possibility to say it was given to Israel as a covenant of works.
41:41
So the distinction between law and law as a covenant is important here.
41:48
So if you hear that quote, for example, saying there's substantial identity in the law, they're likely only referring to the content of the commandments.
41:59
You mentioned some other people like Charles Hodge and Thomas Boston. Yes, you can point to many people who would say things that sound like republication.
42:11
The question is, are those statements consistent with the Westminster confession? Thomas Boston departed from the
42:18
Westminster confession on this point. Charles Hodge departed from the Westminster confession on many of these points. And people would say, well, no, they were still
42:24
Presbyterians. They held to it. Well, that gets into the question of subscription and how you hold and what exceptions you can take and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but.
42:34
Yeah, no, right, right. No, I see what you're saying, but I think, so I honestly,
42:41
I think I agree with Scott Clark on this because he, and it's not just Scott Clark.
42:47
So I guess we need to set up the context a little bit. This appears to be an issue between Westminster East and West.
42:58
And have you read Carl Burke's critique of the republication report? I have.
43:04
Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. So yeah, what I was gonna mention is that, so, and I know republication is a slippery word, like you said, that it can mean different things and you have to be careful with what you mean by it.
43:21
It seems like in generally in Reformed history, the theologians generally agree that there is some legal aspect, a works principle built into the
43:32
Mosaic covenant, but it's not necessarily the identical to the covenant of works in the garden.
43:38
And so a lot of them say that it's temporal blessing. It's actually similar to the Reformed Baptist view from what
43:44
I can gather. But, and some of them argue, so R.
43:50
Scott Clark, for example, he does argue and I think Thomas Boston did as well on chapter 19 of the confession, section two, where it says, at first it describes
43:59
God gave to Adam a law as a covenant of works. And then in section two, it says, this law after his fall continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness.
44:08
And as such was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai and 10 commandments and written in two tables. So that they argue is kind of a form of republication that the confession affirms.
44:20
And so now before I get your comments on this,
44:26
I wanted to kind of get, so here's my take on this. When I read Karlberg's, I haven't read the full
44:32
OPC report on republication yet. But when I read Karlberg's critique of it,
44:38
I can kind of see something about the OPC that seems very characteristic of the
44:44
OPC. And it reminded me a lot of the Clark -Van Teel controversy. And here's why.
44:50
So based on what Karlberg was saying, that the issue became tied to sort of an issue, a dispute between Westminster East, which is in Philadelphia and West, which is in California.
45:02
And West would obviously be like Klein, R. Scott Clark, J .B.
45:08
Fesco, those guys, they all basically agree that the Mosaic Covenant is a part of the
45:13
Covenant of Grace, but there is a legal aspect to it. There's a form of republication tied to it.
45:19
And so they even published a book called The Law is Not a Faith, I think. And it's basically from, mostly from professors from Westminster West.
45:27
And so Karlberg describes the issue stemming with John Murray.
45:35
And incidentally, this is really funny because when we were talking to New Covenant theology guys about this issue, they claimed,
45:43
I've heard several of them claim that John Murray denied the Covenant of Works. And that's actually not true, that what he denied was that the
45:52
Mosaic Covenant was a Covenant of Works in any sense. And so Klein describes this as originating from the
46:00
Puritans, post -Westminster Puritans, that I guess this view started to develop or become more popular where they were basically saying that the
46:10
Mosaic Covenant has no legal, there's no works principle at all tied to the
46:15
Mosaic Covenant. So it's basically just a Covenant of Grace. It's a part of the Covenant of Grace. And so that created the problems that kind of set up the stage,
46:23
I guess, for the problems that you have with Shepherd and Gaffin, at least according to Karlberg, that the issue is now that if you don't believe that there's any legal aspect or works principle tied to the
46:37
Mosaic Covenant, then that means that the law is grace, that you're confusing law and gospel.
46:44
And so you're sort of stepping out of bounds there. And so that he was saying, Karlberg was saying that because of that, so this is why it seems so characteristic of the
46:54
OPC because they went after the wrong guy. They went after Klein, they criticized Klein, who seemed to take the more conservative reformed view that the
47:03
Mosaic Covenant has a legal component tied to it, but it's still a part of the Covenant of Grace, whereas John Murray basically outright denied any works principle tied to the
47:12
Mosaic Covenant. And apparently this may have been setting the stage for the Shepherd controversy, the justification controversy, and confusing law and gospel, et cetera, et cetera.
47:22
So what's your take on that? Yeah, I really appreciate the question because it's extremely important.
47:29
You've touched on kind of the heart of the modern dispute here. So a few things, you mentioned Thomas Boston in identifying this law was given to Israel.
47:38
Again, that goes back to the distinction between the law and the law as a covenant of works. Boston did not understand or articulate or agree with the distinction there, and neither does
47:48
R. Scott Clark. It's foundational to Klein's theology where he does not distinguish between law and law as a covenant of works.
47:57
And again, I would encourage people to go and read Strimple's memo to the faculty. He says, he's specifically addressing
48:04
R. Scott Clark here, and he says, the meaning of 19 .1 -2 is so clear that I do not understand why any question concerning that meaning should ever have arisen.
48:13
To state that meaning, I can use no clearer words than the words the divines used. God gave to Adam a law as a covenant of works.
48:20
This law after his fall continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and as such was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai.
48:26
That law does not continue as a covenant of works for us and was not delivered upon Mount Sinai as a covenant of works for the children of Israel.
48:35
This is what the Confession teaches. It may not be what some of our faculty like it to teach, but it is what the
48:40
Confession teaches. So Boston's view and those who are leaning on it do not understand or do not agree with the
48:48
Westminster Confession's view, first of all. With regards to Karl Berg and Klein there,
48:54
Klein's view is definitely contrary to the Westminster Confession. There is a Westminster Confession acceptable way to understand the legal aspect of Mosaic law in a confessionally unacceptable way.
49:12
Klein's view was to argue that the Mosaic Covenant was substantially a covenant of works, right?
49:18
The principle, the governing principle, the condition of the Mosaic Covenant was obedience to law.
49:24
It was works. That is confessionally unacceptable because the
49:30
Westminster Confession says that the Mosaic Covenant is the covenant of grace.
49:35
So if you want to be in line with the Westminster Confession and you wanna talk about the unique legal aspect of the
49:43
Mosaic Covenant, you have to talk about it in terms of the accidents of the covenant, right?
49:48
The way in which the law was promulgated, right? It was in the midst of a cloud and storm and lightning and thunder, very, very scary.
49:58
It doesn't mean that the law was the condition of the Mosaic Covenant, but it was given in a very frightening manner.
50:07
The sacrifices, those were, emphasized the law, the legal character. So those are ways that you can talk about it.
50:14
Klein departed from that and said, Leviticus 18 .5, the one who does the law shall live by them was actually the condition of the covenant.
50:24
And so, yes, he rightly recognizes a works principle from my perspective, but he's contrary to the
50:31
Westminster Confession there. And so with regards to Karlberg and Klein, I would really highly recommend people read an essay written by D.
50:40
Patrick Ramsey titled In Defense of Moses. In a lot of ways, that's what started the modern debate over republication is what really turned up the heat on it.
50:52
It's a very well -written essay. I disagree with Ramsey's views, with his interpretation of scripture, but his grasp of the historical theology and his ability to articulate it is very, very helpful.
51:07
It's much better, much more reliable than our Scott Clark or Karlberg. So I'd encourage people to read that.
51:15
It's a very important essay and it really does help explain the issue here. So the question then is with John Murray, where does that fit in?
51:25
So it's not, you mentioned Karlberg trying to argue that it was sometime after the Westminster Confession, they started emphasizing the gracious character of the
51:33
Mosaic Covenant. No, that was Westminster's position. That's not a development that happened later. That was
51:38
Westminster's position. The question then is, as we've kind of addressed here, how can you understand
51:47
Paul's quotation of Leviticus 18 .5? If the
51:53
Mosaic Covenant was the covenant of grace and Paul is quoting
52:01
Leviticus 18 .5 and the Westminster Confession points to Galatians 3 .12
52:07
and Romans 10 .5 as proofs for the Adamic covenant of works, right?
52:15
So how do we reconcile all of that? How can Leviticus 18 .5, as quoted by Paul, prove the
52:25
Adamic covenant of works if the Mosaic Covenant was a covenant of grace and the condition of the
52:30
Mosaic Covenant was not law? And so, go ahead. So you're saying that Klein went against the
52:41
Confession because he said that the do this and live was a covenant of works like a temporal covenant of works tied to the
52:51
Mosaic Covenant? Well, specifically, he said do this and live was a principle contrary to faith, right?
52:58
So he says they're contrary principles. And then he said this works principle 18 .5
53:05
was the basis of the Mosaic Covenant. That specifically is contrary to the Westminster Confession.
53:10
So in their proof text for the Adamic covenant of works, it's very worth noting that the
53:17
Westminster Confession cites Galatians 3 .12 and Romans 10 .5, but it does not cite
53:23
Leviticus 18 .5. So, okay, so this is, man, this is really interesting.
53:29
And it's really funny. I know we're probably going to offend some people here. We're bound to offend somebody because there's obviously two pretty strong sides to this story, but it's really helpful.
53:41
So what I wanna know is how is it that Westminster federalism, so you're saying
53:48
Westminster federalism does not hold to any works principle tied to the
53:53
Mosaic Covenant? Well, it depends on how you define works principle. The OPC report affirms that there is a works principle in the
54:02
Mosaic Covenant, but they deny that it is contrary to the principle of faith, right?
54:09
They're not antithetical. They would say the obedience required in the Mosaic Covenant was the obedience required of believers, regenerate believers.
54:18
And they would say it's the same obedience, the same works principle required of believers in the new covenant.
54:25
They would say that Israel's exile from the land was a form of corporate church discipline for their failure as redeemed people to obey the law.
54:38
And they would say it's the exact same as an unregenerate member of the new covenant failing to obey the law and being excommunicated from the church and broken off from the new covenant today.
54:51
Right. Right, so that's how they blend the two. So they affirm there's a works principle in the
54:56
Mosaic Covenant, but that necessarily means there's also a works principle in the new covenant. So then for new covenant believers, if they don't abide by this works principle, they would lose status within the new covenant in the same way that Israel was kicked out of the land?
55:15
Right, and they would say that, well, because they believe in a mixed new covenant. It's not just made up of regenerate believers.
55:21
It's made up of the unregenerate as well. They would say that the regenerate will obey the law and therefore will not be cut off.
55:29
Unbelievers will not have faith and therefore will not obey the law. And so they will be cut off. They will be excommunicated.
55:35
It's the issue of apostasy is how they would interpret it. Okay. And so, but going back to John Murray here,
55:47
John Murray was a very gifted systematic theologian, right? There is a lot of logical consistency in his writings.
55:56
In my study of the issue, so first of all, I actually disagree with you.
56:01
I believe that he did reject the covenant of works. He did reject it. He said that it was not a covenant, right?
56:08
He called it the Adamic administration, but more importantly, he specifically denied that it operated upon a principle of works.
56:18
And it was a gracious reward. If Adam had obeyed the law, eternal life would have been a gracious gift.
56:24
It would not have been due to him as a matter of justice. It would have been given as a gracious gift.
56:29
And so there was no works principle involved. And so Murray did reject the covenant of works.
56:36
He also rejected that the Mosaic covenant operate upon a condition of works.
56:43
The reason why he did that is because he was trying to reconcile this inherent contradiction in the
56:51
Westminster Confession. How do we deal with Leviticus 18 .5?
56:56
How do we explain that? If the Mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace,
57:03
Leviticus 18 .5 must be a condition of the covenant of grace. These are my laws and commandments.
57:12
The one who does them shall live by them. So that right there is a condition of the covenant of grace.
57:18
It's referring to a redeemed people obeying the law, faith, spirit, works of obedience.
57:25
If that's the case, then we go to Galatians 3 .12 and Romans 10 .5. As we already said, the way that Westminster has, and those who hold that tradition have explained those passages is with the misinterpretation principle.
57:43
So Paul is not saying that Leviticus 18 .5 teaches a
57:48
Mosaic covenant of works. He's saying that the Judaizers misinterpreted it to teach that. And so he adopts their premise and then shows the logical conclusion.
57:57
Well, if you think that, then you have to obey the law perfectly. You don't obey the law perfectly, therefore you're condemned. Well, if Paul is only responding to a
58:05
Judaizer misunderstanding of the law, then how can we use that misunderstanding as proof for an
58:13
Adamic covenant of works? Paul is, you can't use that text to teach an
58:19
Adamic covenant of works because Paul is only teaching a responding to their misunderstanding. Does that make sense?
58:27
Yeah, yeah. It can't be a positive proof for the Adamic covenant of works because he is adopting their misunderstanding of the law.
58:33
That's an ad hominem. So Murray, in my opinion, was trying to iron out this inconsistency.
58:39
And he said, well, that doesn't prove an Adamic covenant of works. It doesn't prove a works principle.
58:45
And if that doesn't prove a works principle, if Galatians 3 .12 does not prove a works principle in any covenant in scripture, then there must not be a works principle in any covenant in scripture.
58:57
And so that's why he argued that God's offering to Adam, eternal life in the garden, was not based upon a principle of works.
59:06
This is interesting because I thought, and I'm gonna have to go back and listen to this because I thought
59:12
I heard Sam Waldron argue that Murray did not deny the covenant of works.
59:20
So this is really interesting. Yeah, and now I'm even more curious because when you read the report,
59:28
I read through the introduction at least and they give the impression that Murray is still sound, that he's still within the bounds of Westminster orthodoxy.
59:37
And I mean, if he denies the covenant of works and that's obviously not, you don't subscribe to the confession plainly.
59:47
So I guess I was kind of misled by what the report says. Yeah, well, it gets super, super complicated.
59:55
So part of the issue is a matter of subscription. And I've got all this worked out in an article we can link to so people can read it in more detail.
01:00:02
But it comes down to the matter of subscription. Are you allowed to take exceptions to parts of the confession and still remain orthodox and part of the
01:00:11
OPC? And so thus far, it has been the case. So ever since the original
01:00:17
Westminster confession, theologians were allowed to take exception. And that goes back to the historical context of it being a national model for churches.
01:00:28
But even J .B. Fesco, right, who is completely opposed to Murray's theology in an essay that he has about the nature of subscription says, yeah,
01:00:37
John Murray denied the covenant of works, but he still held the confession just fine because you can do that.
01:00:44
So that's part of it. The OPC report, so a lot of those guys follow Murray and they have tried to use
01:00:52
Westminster 7 .1 to say, to really emphasize the gracious aspect and to try to say that's all
01:01:00
Murray meant, but they're leaving out Murray's argument regarding the works principle specifically.
01:01:08
And they're neglecting the fact that even though it was a condescension on God's part, it was still a covenant of works.
01:01:14
It was still founded upon covenantal obedience, covenantal merit. And that's what
01:01:20
Murray specifically denied. This is Tom Giuditis, president of the
01:01:25
Trinity Foundation. Thank you for listening to Semper Reformanda Radio. For more information on the
01:01:30
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01:01:36
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