Merit Or 'Entitlement' in Reformed Covenant Theology: a Review
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The Journal of Northwest Theological Seminary Volume 24, Number 3 December 2009 1 “vita vestra abscondita est cum Christo in Deo”—Col. 3:3 KERUX: THE JOURNAL OF NORTHWEST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY For the Faculty: James T. Dennison, Jr. (Editor), Scott F. Sanborn, J. Peter Vosteen Typing and formatting: Tin L. Lee 1. Merit or ‘Entitlement’ in Reformed Covenant Theology: A Review.........3 James T. Dennison, Jr., Scott F. Sanborn, Benjamin W. Swinburnson KERUX is a publication of Northwest Theological Seminary and appears three times each year (May, September, December). Editorial offices are located at 17711 Spruce Way, Lynnwood, WA 98037-7431. Correspondence should be directed to the editor at this address. Subscription rates for one year are: $25.00 (U.S. and Canada); $30.00 (Elsewhere). All remittances should be made payable in U. S. Funds. KERUX is: abstracted in New Testament Abstracts, Chestnut Hill, MA, Old Testament Abstracts, Washingon, DC and Religious and Theological Abstracts, Myerstown, PA; indexed in ATLA Religion Database, Chicago, IL and the Elenchus of Biblica, Rome, Italy. Visit our Website: kerux.com ISSN 0888-3513 December 2009 Vol. 24, No. 3 2 [K:NWTS 24/3 (Dec 2009) 3-152] Merit or ‘Entitlement’ in Reformed Covenant Theology: A Review1 James T. Dennison, Jr., Scott F. Sanborn, Benjamin W. Swinburnson For the past thirty years, a shift in Reformed covenant theology has been percolating under the hot Southern California sun in Escondido. Atop the bluff of a former orange grove, a quiet redefinition of the Sinaitic covenant adminis- tration as a typological covenant of works, complete with meritorious obedience and meritorious reward has been ripening. The architect of this paradigm shift was the late Meredith G. Kline, who taught at Westminster Escondido (WSCal) for more than 20 years. Many of Kline’s colleagues, former students (several now teaching in Escondido) and admirers (Mark Karlberg, T. David Gordon, etc.) have canonized his novel reconstruction of the Mosaic covenant—it is “not of faith”, but of works and meritorious works at that, albeit ‘typological’. What may now be labeled the “Escondido Hermeneutic” or “Kline Works-Merit Paradigm” has succeeded in cornering an increasing share of the Reformed covenant market in spite of its revisionism and heterodoxy. This newfangled paradigm has managed to fly beneath the radar of most Reformed observ- ers, in part because of the aggressively militant demeanor and rhetoric of its advocates and defenders. Especially vitriolic have been attacks by the Kline acolytes upon Norman Shepherd and Richard Gaffin. Now comes the book under review and what has flown beneath the radar is on the table with the sponsorship of WSCal—which necessarily includes 1 Bryan D. Estelle, J. V. Fesko, David VanDrunen, eds., The Law is Not of Faith: Essays on Works and Grace in the Mosaic Covenant. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009. 3 the members of its Board of Directors, Faculty and student body (“We are also thankful for the institutional support we received from Westminster Theological Seminary in California,” “Acknowledgements,” ix). We have now, in print, a volume of essays dedicated to the revisionist Kline paradigm, articulated on all the controverted points to define the Mosaic covenant “in some sense” as a covenant of works. But not just a covenant with “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not” works codified; rather a covenant which “republishes” the Adamic covenant of works at Mt. Sinai. In other words, a major thesis of this book and the Kline reconstruction of the Mosaic covenant is a regression (as opposed to a progression) in the history of redemption—a regression to a prelapsarian works covenant. Kline and the advocates of the “Escondido Hermeneutic” consider Israel at Mt. Sinai as a re-embodiment of Adam before the Fall. That is, Mosaic Israel is in a covenant relationship with God as a probationary new Adam in the wilderness as the probationary old Adam was in the garden. Mosaic Israel (corrupted and polluted with Adamic transgression—for all are guilty of total depravity and total inability after Adam’s Fall, even all Israel under Moses at Sinai), according to this book’s theory of the covenant at Sinai, is to be viewed in the same light as sinless Adam in the garden—undergoing a desert probation on the basis of works and as capable of the (meritorious) reward of passing that probation as prelapsarian (unfallen) Adam in the gar- den.2 Readers of this volume must not minimize the parallel between sinless Adam in the garden and Israel at Sinai; the authors and “support”ers of this book do not want you to misunderstand this fundamental thesis of the Klinean “Escondido Hermeneutic”. Repeatedly, the principle is enunciated, defended and made a test of orthodoxy in these pages. Even those essays which may seem unengaged with the major thesis (Waters) must be regarded as endors- ing the thesis (“…the contributors…agreed to participate in this project… who submitted…their many theological insights into the Mosaic covenant,” 2 Kline even pushes merit earned from obedience back to Abraham and Noah. “…Abra- ham’s obedience functioned not only as the authentication of his faith for his personal justifica- tion but as a meritorious ground that earned a reward for others…” (Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven and Har Magedon [Wipf & Stock, 2006] 102). “...in the case of some of these grantees, including Noah, their righteous acts were the grounds for bestowing kingdom benefits on others closely related to them . ., just as in the case of Christ...” (ibid., 79) (our emphases). Cf. also Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Two Age Press, 2000) 113-14, 238-39, 325, all of which explain the works-merit paradigm fundamental to his construction of the pre-Patriarchal, Patriarchal and Mosaic eras. The architectural father of the thesis underlying and explicated by the book under review is clear: his primary documents explicitly claim works-merit for sinful persons in the OT era. 4 “Acknowledgements,” ix). To clarify this Israel-as-a-typological-new-Adam thesis, the book contains a pivotal essay with the subhead “Entitlement”3. An entitlement is that which is due or owed to a subject because the subject is worthy of that entitlement. Deserving the benefit of an entitlement, the recipient is owed that privilege because the one granting the entitlement has pledged it as an obligation on his part to reward the status of the recipient on their part. In other words, entitlement theology is works-merit theology.4 And that works-merit paradigm for Israel under the Mosaic covenant is vigorously de- fended by this book. That Israel, on account of its inclusion in Adamic depravity and inability, is incapable of works-merit is glossed over. According to the inspired apostle (Rom. 5:12ff.; 1 Cor. 15:44, 45), there are only two persons in the history of redemption capable of works-merit: the prelapsarian protological Adam and the postlapsarian eschatological Adam. In between Adam the first (protos) and Adam the last (eschatos) no lapsarian human or nation of humans is capable of works-merit because every lapsarian (fallen) human or nation of humans is in a state of works-demerit. And that, of course, means that all such fallen humans and nations between Adam and Christ require grace to remit their demerit. Grace after the Fall, grace for Abraham, grace for Israel at the Exodus, grace for Israel at Sinai in the wilderness—grace, grace, always and ever the gracious covenant of God, in Christ, by his Spirit to the undeserving, to those entitled only to damnation, to those whose works are incapable of any merit, to those infected by Adamic demerit and whose works are paid with the wages of sin, which is death. The construction of merit in the work under review skews and deconstructs this Biblical and Pauline paradigm. Deconstructs it in the interest of a novel hermeneutic which misreads primary documents,5 perverts the plain teach- 3 Bryan D. Estelle, “Leviticus 18:5 and Deuteronomy 30:1-14 in Biblical Theological Development: Entitlement to Heaven Foreclosed and Proffered,” 109-46. 4 “My thesis in this essay is…Lev. 18:5 and Deut. 30:1-14 . have the same final goal: entitlement to heaven” (ibid., 110, emphasis in the original). 5 “…like Calvin before him, Witsius believed that God set forth a legal covenant before the nation of Israel, one by which they could earn their salvation through their obedience” (J. V. Fesko, “Calvin and Witsius on the Mosaic Covenant,” 37). 5 ing of the Word of God, ignores the Augustinian-Calvinist tradition on grace and merit, translates all mention of a covenant of works at Sinai in previous Reformed theology into a Kline works-merit paradigm in spite of the fact that those writers never mention “covenant of works at Sinai” as a re-imaging of Israel as a prelapsarian Adam figure; pretends that the history of exegesis of Lev. 18:5 and related passages is only accurate where it agrees with their perverse exegesis. We conclude that “in some sense” this book defends the thesis that Israel at Sinai was capable of works righteousness. Because the thesis of this book is Meredith G. Kline’s antithesis between the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant (the Mosaic is not substantially or essentially a covenant of grace, contra Abraham), we can only conclude that Israel at Sinai is “in some sense” capable of works righteous and able to earn rewards from God on the meritorious ground of this works righteousness.6 These merited blessings may be temporal, but they are works righteous blessings and deserving of those meritorious (temporal) blessings. Hence to deconstruct the Mosaic covenant as “in some sense” a covenant of works means for the Klinean advocates of the “Escondido Hermeneutic” that Israel in the Mosaic era was capable of works righteousness and meritorious reward.