Thoughts on the Mosaic Covenant
Understanding the relationship of the Mosaic covenant to the overall working of God with his people in history is a difficult task. Dispensationalists view the relationship between the Abrahamic and Mosaic dispensations as being sharply distinguished. Some classic dispensationalists have even suggested that Israel should never have agreed to the Mosaic terms since they were under a better situation in the Abrahamic era. Being dissatisfied with this type of approach, other covenant theologians smooth out the differences. O. Palmer Robertson is a moderate example of making the progression to the Mosaic administration a little more flat. Theonomists are perhaps the “flattest” by incorporating the most continuity. Theonomists try to maintain the Mosaic law in all its moral aspects as well as the civil aspects that have not been explicitly repealed in the New Testament.
For those who have been struggling with the issues of these systems, Meredith Kline presents an interesting alternative as he understands the Mosaic administration on two levels. For Kline, the covenant operates on a national and then on an individual level. At the national level, the covenant can be seen as a republication of the Covenant of Works. When Israel breaks the covenant, they are eventually exiled from the land just as Adam was exiled from the garden. The nation is God’s typological son and called to perfect, perpetual and personal [in some sort of national sense] obedience. This can be seen as continuous with the Adamic administration and discontinuous with the Abrahamic.
It is on the individual level that you get more of the continuity with the Abrahamic covenant. Here we find the remnant and individuals such as Daniel who experience exile because the nation has failed its test of obedience. But while Daniel is in exile, he is still faithful and experiences God’s favor.
Whether or not you agree with Kline’s proposition, he offers an interesting structure that warrants examination. This leads me to the following thoughts. It appears the law’s powerlessness (cf Gal 3:21) resides in the fact that all men are already sinners in Adam. The law does not have the power to save not only because men (as sinners) cannot keep it, but because they are already condemned under Adam. However, if the Mosaic law is a republication of the Covenant of Works, we should say that it could offer eschatological life to one who would keep it completely (Rom 7:10) so long as they were not already condemned under Adam.
But did the Mosaic administration have the power to confer eschatological life? Others suggest that its benefits are inextricably linked to the particular land blessings for the nation. If that is the case, the Mosaic covenant did not have the power to bestow eschatological life. Rather, the Mosaic administration functioned strictly in a typological fashion pointing forward to the New Covenant while looking back at the Covenant of Works. Adherents to this view see the two covenants that can impart eschatological life (the Adamic and the New) as covenants operative with reference to the actions of a single federal head. The Mosaic Covenant does not fit this schema, and though it is a crucial element of the overarching covenant of grace, cannot be seen as a direct recapitulation of the Covenant of Works by which one could merit eschatological life.
Regardless, Christ in his perfect obedience fulfills both the Mosaic and Adamic economies/administrations and can then institute a new covenant in his blood that would redeem those fallen in Adam and provide them with the eschatological life that was originally offered in the garden. This really demonstrates why it is so important to affirm the imputation of Christ’s active and passive obedience. Affirming the imputation of the passive only does not secure eschatological life. Truncating Christ’s active obedience from imputation withholds the fullness of the gospel message and the inheritance we have in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ our new covenant head.
Books by Meredith Kline:
I appreciate you highlighting Kline’s view, Camden. Thanks for pointing out the typological character of the covenant of works under Moses, too. It certainly would be problematic to have sinners in a position where they could (even hypothetically) merit eternal life.
I would just point out, in light of your statement (attributed to Kline’s view) “The nation is God’s typological son and called to perfect, perpetual and personal [in some sort of national sense] obedience,” that Kline rejected the adjective “perpetual” in this context. If my memory serves me, that was a Murray-accretion. It was not that Kline thought that God’s just requirement would ever change or end, but rather that probation precludes the possibility of perpetual works that are not recompensed one way or the other.
Oops! “Perpetual” appears in the Confession 19:1 and Larger Catechism Q&A 20. My apologies. My only excuse is that I am more familiar with the 3 Forms.