For some reason I have decided to tackle one of the thorniest issues in theology. Maybe I just like to solve problems. Or maybe I am a glutton for punishment. Either way, this is my attempt to summarize the debate over the role of the Mosaic covenant and provide what I think is the most biblical understanding of it.
Interpreting the Mosaic covenant is a challenge in large part because the New Testament appears to say both positive and negative things about the Mosaic law. Thus, there have been theologians in church history who have held that the Mosaic covenant is part of the covenant of grace, while others have held it is a covenant of works. Others have held the Mosaic covenant is a mix of the two, and others have held it is of another category entirely.
For our purposes here, we will assume the historic bicovenantal Reformed position that there was (1) a covenant of works between God and Adam in the garden in Genesis 1–3 (though some Dutch theologians and even Presbyterian John Murray deny this was a “covenant”), as well as (2) an overarching covenant of grace whereby God saves His elect in Christ, with different administrations of that covenant (Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New). This is Reformed covenant theology, in contrast to dispensationalism.
This article will survey the different views of the Mosaic covenant, defend the view taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith, examine the modern debate over Meredith Kline’s republication view, and then discuss how this all relates to the work of Christ.
Four Views of the Mosaic Covenant
After the Reformation, Francis Turretin (1623–1687) identified at least four views held by Reformed theologians regarding the Mosaic covenant’s relationship to the covenant of works and covenant of grace (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2:262). These four views address the “substance” of the covenant, which refers to the essential nature of the covenant. These views hold that the Mosaic covenant was in substance:
A covenant of works—Similar to Adam in the garden, the Mosaic covenant promised eternal life upon perfect, personal, and perpetual obedience.
A mixed covenant—The Mosaic covenant contained elements of both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.
A subservient covenant—The Mosaic covenant was distinct and neither a covenant of works nor a covenant of grace. It promised temporal life in Canaan upon condition of perfect obedience to the Mosaic law.
A covenant of grace—The Mosaic covenant was a covenant of grace, although it was uniquely administered to Israel at that time.
According to Robert Letham, view 1 was held by Robert Rollock (1555–1559), William Perkins (1558–1602), and Johannus Piscator (1546–1625) (Letham, Systematic Theology, 455). This is essentially the Lutheran view. Turretin himself notes that view 3 was held by John Cameron and Moses Amyraut of the Amyraldian school, though Joel Beeke and Mark Jones note that Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) and Samuel Bolton (1606–1654) also held this view (Beeke & Jones, A Puritan Theology, 287). (For a brief summary of these four views, see Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 90-91. For a longer discussion, see the 2016 OPC report on republication.)
Turretin argues against views 2 and 3 on the basis that Scripture only speaks of two covenants (grace and works), and “we are not to distinguish where the Scripture does not” (Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 2:264). Instead, Turretin sees the Mosaic covenant as having the same substance as the covenant of grace, and he thus defends view 4. The Mosaic covenant is added onto the Abrahamic promise, evidenced by Moses’ words that God would keep the covenant made with the patriarchs (Deuteronomy 7:11-12) and God’s covenant renewal at Horeb promising to be God of the people according to His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Deuteronomy 29:10-13) (2:264). Prior to receiving the law, the Israelites were already under the Abrahamic covenant—“Therefore they could not be under a legal covenant. For no one can be at the same time under two covenants distinct in their whole species” (2:265).
Likewise, Southern Presbyterian theologian Robert Lewis Dabney (1820–1898) argues that the Mosaic covenant renewed the Abrahamic covenant—“Moses, in confirming the Sinai-Covenant with Israel, tells them more than once, that they enter it as Abraham’s seed” (citing Deuteronomy 7:8, 9, 12; Exodus 3:6-7 and comparing Psalm 105:6; Isaiah 41:8). Thus, “whatever the covenant with Abraham was, that with Israel was a renewal of it” (Dabney, Systematic Theology, 455).
Substantial vs. Administrative Republication
Though there are four views of the Mosaic covenant, for our purposes these can essentially be boiled down to two—substantial republication (views 1–3) and administrative republication (view 4). In other words, most Reformed theologians have seen some relationship between the Mosaic covenant and the covenant of works, but they disagree on the extent of that relationship.
The majority of Reformed theologians have rejected substantial republication and instead held that the Mosaic covenant is of the substance of the covenant of grace, not the covenant of works. While the essential nature of the covenant is gracious, it differs in “administration”—the outward means by which Christ’s grace is communicated. This position is summarized in Westminster Confession of Faith 19.5-6:
This covenant [of grace] was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel . . . There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations.
Thus, Turretin and the WCF agree that the Mosaic covenant is part of the covenant of grace. It had a sacrificial system that atoned for sin (and thus pointed to Christ) and was a gracious extension of the Abrahamic promise (Leviticus 26:40-46). God gave His law after redeeming His people (Exodus 20:2), not as a means of them earning anything before Him.
How Was the Mosaic Covenant an Administrative Republication?
Following the view that the Mosaic covenant was in substance a covenant of grace, this still leaves the question of exactly how the Mosaic covenant administratively relates to the covenant of works with Adam. The specific question that is often debated today is whether the Mosaic covenant was “in some sense” a republication of the covenant of works. Most Reformed theologians have said yes but have disagreed as to how the covenants relate. Even in acknowledging that the Mosaic covenant is a covenant of grace in substance, Reformed theologians have held at least three basic views of what is known as administrative (or accidental) republication:
Declarative republication—The republication of the covenant of works was declared (but not made) in the Mosaic covenant so as to convict of sin and lead to Christ.
Material republication (Restatement of the law)—The moral law (or matter) of the covenant of works was restated in the Mosaic covenant.
Misinterpretive republication—Israel misinterpreted/perverted the Mosaic law so as to turn it into a covenant of works.
The point in all of these views is that the similarities between the Mosaic covenant and the covenant of works was only in the administration or accidents of the covenant. These similarities do not go to the substance of the Mosaic covenant. In this sense, the term “republication” is probably not the best way to describe view 2 (material republication), since it only recognizes a limited relationship to the covenant of works, a restatement of the moral law.
The Westminster Confession of Faith adopts a form of view 2 (material republication) in chapter 19.1-3, as it connects the moral law to the law given to Adam in the covenant of works:
1. 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.
2. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.
3. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.
The Westminster Assembly’s position on the Mosaic covenant and restatement of the moral law was influenced by the views of John Ball, Heinrich Bullinger, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and John Calvin. (See the excellent discussion in Beeke & Jones, A Puritan Theology, 270).
The law of the covenant of works (19.1)—referred to as “this law” (19.2) and the “moral” law (19.3)—“was delivered by God” to Moses in the Ten Commandments (19.2). The 2016 OPC report on republication argues that while paragraphs one and two could potentially be read to allow for substantial republication, this is ruled out when paragraph three is taken into consideration. The report concludes, “[I]t no longer appears plausible to read the law delivered on Mount Sinai as offered as some form of a covenant of works, but rather as a rule of life.”
In other words, the moral law of the covenant of works was materially republished (or restated) in the Mosaic covenant, but the Mosaic covenant was not substantially a covenant of works. There is a moral law in both covenants, and the law “continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness” in the Mosaic covenant (WCF 19.2).
But the moral law also plays a different role in these covenants. In the covenant of works, Adam was to perfectly obey God’s law so as to gain eternal life according to the covenant promise. In the Mosaic covenant (as well as all administrations of the covenant of grace, including the new covenant), God’s people were to keep His law to express gratitude and live out their faith in response to God’s redemption, not to merit eternal life—Christ did that through His life, death, and resurrection. Thus, both the covenant of works and Mosaic covenant contained moral law in the administration of the covenant, but perfect obedience to the moral law is not an essential condition of the Mosaic covenant as it was in the covenant of works. Hence the Mosaic covenant contained the sacrificial system for the atonement of sin. It assumed imperfect obedience on behalf of God’s people.
What About Leviticus 18:5?
But if there is only an administrative republication via restatement of the moral law in the Mosaic covenant, how do we deal with passages that seem to speak negatively of the law? Paul calls the Mosaic covenant a “ministry of death” and “ministry of condemnation” (2 Corinthians 3:7-9). This language can be explained by Paul’s comparison to the “ministry of the Spirit” and “ministry of righteousness” (3:8-9) now that Christ has come. The Mosaic covenant was glorious (3:10), but now that it has been “brought to an end” (3:11), turning to it as if Christ has not come makes the Mosaic covenant an administration of death and condemnation.
More challenging is Leviticus 18:5 and its citation in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12. The latter two are both cited in WCF chapters 7 and 19 regarding the covenant of works with Adam. And while some appeal to Leviticus 18:5 being cited in WCF 19.6 in reference to the law’s promises showing “God’s approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof,” it must be noted this was not part of the original proof-texts of the WCF. It was added later to the OPC’s edition of the WCF. Regardless, I do not think we should make too much of even original proof-texts, as they mostly tell us these passages are significant to a discussion of the Mosaic law. Here are the biblical texts next to one another:
You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord (Leviticus 18:5).
For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them (Romans 10:5),
But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them” (Galatians 3:12).
Entire essays have been written about how Paul uses Leviticus 18:5 in these two New Testament passages. However, it is important to at least note that the original context of Leviticus 18:5 was not about keeping God’s law as a way of meriting salvation, as some assume. Rather, Yahweh instructed Moses to tell Israel that He was their God and thus His people were not to live like the Egyptians and Canaanites, but they were to keep God’s law—“I am the Lord your God . . . You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord” (Leviticus 18:2-5).
Thus, the original context of Leviticus 18:5 is about those redeemed by God keeping His laws and thus having life by them, not keeping them in order to earn redemption. This passage in its original context does not teach that the Mosaic law was a covenant of works. As Cornelis Venema says, “In its original setting within the Mosaic economy, Leviticus 18:5 can scarcely be understood apart from other essential elements of the covenant of grace” (Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 108).
When we turn to the New Testament, there are two basic interpretations of Paul’s use of Leviticus 18:5 in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12. The first view is that Paul understands the Mosaic covenant as republishing the “works principle” of the covenant of works. Bryan Estelle, a proponent of Klinean republication (see below), argues this interpretation in The Law Is Not of Faith. According to Estelle, there is a “works principle” operative in the Mosaic covenant, and Paul in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12 contrasts the righteousness of the law with the righteousness of faith (132).
The second view is that Paul cites Leviticus 18:5 to show that the law becomes a covenant of works when separated from the gracious Mosaic covenant that it was a part of. Guy Waters defends this position in Covenant Theology (ironically containing content also found in his chapter in The Law Is Not of Faith), where he argues that Paul in Romans 10:5 only uses Leviticus 18:5 to respond to his opponents who erroneously sought to rely on the Mosaic law apart from God’s grace (90-92, 96, 169). Thus, Waters denies the substantial republication view—“Paul did not understand God to promulgate the Mosaic covenant to Israel as a covenant of works” (92). Rather, “When one removes the Mosaic legislation from the covenant in which it was promulgated, then one is left with the covenant of works . . . God has built into his gracious Mosaic covenant a testimony or warning against its misuse (Lev. 18:5)” (96).
Waters’ position is a common one within Reformed theology. Venema notes that Calvin, Turretin, and Witsius consistently interpreted Paul to address a “legalistic” abuse of Leviticus 18:5 (Christ and Covenant Theology, 109). John Murray, whom some of the authors of The Law Is Not of Faith heavily target, also held this view.
Similar to Waters, Turretin says Paul’s words that “the law is not of faith” in Galatians 3:12 are not to be “taken broadly and denoting the Mosaic economy, but strictly as taken for the moral law abstractly and apart from the promises of grace (as the legalists regarded it who sought life from it)” (Turretin, Institutes, 2:267-268). Thus, both Waters and Turretin interpret Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12 to teach a sort of “misinterpretive republication” (administrative republication view 3), meaning that the Mosaic law only served as a covenant of works when perverted by Israel, which Paul’s Judaizing opponents were doing with the law. The Judaizers misinterpreted the law so as to turn it into a covenant of works, even though the law properly understood was a covenant of grace.
In this case, there may be multiple components to the administrative republication of the covenant of works in the Mosaic covenant. According to the WCF, there was material republication via the restatement of the moral law in the Mosaic covenant, showing the perfect rule of righteousness. However, Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12 suggest there was also a misinterpretive republication, as Jews twisted the Mosaic covenant so that it became a covenant of works.
Meredith Kline and the Modern Republication Debate
This finally brings us to the modern debate over republication. The 2009 book, The Law Is Not of Faith: Essays on Works and Grace in the Mosaic Covenant (eds. Estelle, Fesko & VanDrunen), argues the position that the covenant of works was republished “in some sense” in the Mosaic covenant. In addition to this being a vague claim (to which the majority of Reformed theologians would affirm), the book also includes essays by several authors of different views and thus does a poor job focusing on the question at hand. Yet it is clear that at least some of the authors intended to promote the republication view of Meredith Kline (1922–2007), who taught at Westminster Seminary California (and thus many proponents of his views are associated with the seminary).
Kline’s republication view differs from those of past Reformed theologians in that he argues for a national-typological republication. Kline holds that the Mosaic covenant was in substance part of the covenant of grace, but he also argues that the covenant of works was formally republished in the Mosaic covenant typologically by requiring imperfect obedience of national Israel in order to retain the Promised Land. Thus, Kline holds that the Mosaic covenant at the individual level was part of the covenant of grace, but at the national level Israel had to merit the land of Canaan. And this merit typologically points to Christ’s meritorious active obedience that is imputed to the believer. Kline and his followers make a strong connection between the republication of the covenant of works and the imputation of Christ’s active obedience for His people, and they contend that without this republication, the gospel of Christ is compromised.
Thus, Kline’s view sees two strands within the Mosaic covenant: (1) grace at the individual level, and (2) works-based merit at the national level. However, Kline posits that God only required an imperfect obedience in order to merit the land before God. Thus, this is not strictly a republication of the covenant of works, as that required perfect obedience of Adam. (This also seems to distinguish Kline’s view from earlier forms of the subservient covenant view.)
Kline is notoriously difficult to read, so it should not come as a surprise that the 2016 OPC report on republication concludes that there are actually two different ways to read Kline—one that he held to a form of a “substantial” republication and one that he only held to an “administrative” republication. The report concludes that if Klinean republication is merely an “indirect, redemptive reenactment of Adam’s sin and exile,” then it is an additional form of administrative republication. Yet the report also concludes that even if Klinean republication is substantial, it would not necessarily be out of the bounds of the Westminster Standards, though it certainly would find tension regarding certain points. (See also the 2009 Kerux journal’s critique of Kline’s republication, which interacts heavily with the Reformed tradition.)
In his excellent review of The Law Is Not of Faith, Mark Jones contrasts Kline’s view of the Mosaic covenant requiring only imperfect obedience with that of the WCF’s view of the covenant of works:
The WCF clearly speaks of the prelapsarian covenant of works as demanding “perfect and personal obedience” (7.2; 19.1; WLC 20; WSC 12). Does it not follow that any covenant that does not require both “perfect and personal obedience” is not a covenant of works, even at the typological level? But, in two places (137, 301) we are informed that the obedience required in the Mosaic covenant was “imperfect/sincere obedience.” The WCF shows that the only covenant in which God accepts imperfect obedience is the covenant of grace (WCF 16.6).
In addition to the confessional issues, Kline’s republication view seems to run contrary to Scripture. For one, Kline’s view relies on an erroneous view of merit. In 2014, three pastors who studied under Kline (Elam, Van Kooten & Bergquist) wrote a book critiquing his republication paradigm, Merit and Moses: A Critique of the Klinean Doctrine of Republication. This book does a good job showing that Kline developed this paradigm as an overreaction to the views of Norman Shepherd (who denies the imputation of Christ’s active obedience).
Elam, Van Kooten, and Bergquist argue that the traditional Reformed position holds that the same moral law given to Adam was restated in the Mosaic covenant in the Ten Commandments, not that the moral law was republished as a covenant of works (thus affirming the view of the WCF). There are similarities between the covenant of works with Adam and the giving of the law to Israel on Mt. Sinai, but Israel was not under a covenant of works—Kline’s “Republication Paradigm uses traditional language and concepts, but redefines them in the service of its own paradigm” (Merit and Moses, 82).
The authors also argue that true merit (strict merit) requires (1) moral perfection and (2) ontological equality. Christ merits salvation for us because He perfectly kept God’s law (moral perfection) and He is fully God (ontological equality). However, Kline’s republication view defines merit covenantally (merit ex pacto), not ontologically, with the result being “that God can accept less than perfect obedience as meritorious, as long as it is consistent with the state stipulation of the covenant” (137). Thus, Kline speaks of “merit” for both the Land Promise in the Mosaic covenant and for Christ’s work for His people, but these are fundamentally two different concepts that should not be confused.
Kline’s view changes the requirements of the covenant of works (perfect obedience) in its republication in the Mosaic covenant (imperfect obedience), leaving the question how exactly this is a republication of the covenant of works. Moreover, as Stephen Myers points out, Israel was to retain the Promised Land by God’s grace, not some lower standard of imperfect obedience:
In the Scriptural record, the supposed distinction between spiritual and symbolico-typical “levels” is nowhere to be found and God’s standard in the one Mosaic covenant is not a relative fidelity, but a perfect fidelity (e.g. Exodus 24:3-8; Leviticus 18:2-5; 20:22; Deuteronomy 5:1; 10:12-17; 27:26; 30:1-10) that produces a holiness analogous to His own (e.g. Leviticus 11:44; 20:7; 20:6). Israel was able to inherit and retain the Land not because they were meeting a lowered standard of relative fidelity, but because the God Who is merciful and gracious was restraining the judgment that ought to have consumed them (e.g. Psalm 78:38-39; 106; 136:16-26).
In other words, God gave Israel the Promised Land as a gift, and they maintained it by God’s grace. Israel did not “merit” the land by obedience. Israel could be (and was) exiled from the Promised Land by rebelling against Yahweh through idolatry and incurring His judgment. However, this does not correspond to some standard of imperfect obedience by Adam in the covenant of works. Further, Israel returned to the land after exile—by God’s grace—yet there was no such provision of restoration in the covenant of works. Myers adds:
In every respect, the Scriptures declare that Israel’s enjoyment of Canaan was not a result of their acquiring merit through a lowered covenantal standard; rather, it was a display of God’s power in electing; and His mercy in forgiving and sustaining, a people who rightfully deserved only His judgment (e.g. Deuteronomy 7:6-11; 9:1-6)! Israel made their home in Canaan not because Israel was relatively faithful, but because Israel’s God was entirely merciful. Within the Scriptures themselves, there is a compelling refutation of the republication paradigm.
Moreover, it is difficult to see how an imperfect obedience to retain the Promised Land is a type of Christ’s perfect obedience on behalf His people. As Richard Belcher states, “For a type to work, there must be a degree of correspondence between the type and the reality, but there are absolute differences between the obedience of Israel and the obedience of Christ.” Belcher then asks, “[I]f the land is typological of heaven, and the way to receive blessing in the land is through Israel’s works, how does that teach that the way to heavenly, eternal blessing is by grace through faith?” (Belcher, The Fulfillment of the Promises of God, 188-189).
It should also be noted that the Land Promise was tied with the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 15), and the Mosaic covenant renewed and extended this promise. Thus, the Land Promise was not primary to the Mosaic law. As Turretin says, “The promise of the land of Canaan given to the people was not primary and principal, but only secondary and less principal” (Turretin, Institutes, 2:269).
In his critique of The Law Is Not of Faith, Venema adds the additional argument that Klinean republication tends to undermine the view that the law is a gracious guide to holy living—“[T]he tendency to identify the holy law of God with the covenant of works, or what the authors of TLNF term the ‘works principle’ of covenant inheritance, creates an instability with respect to the Reformed view of the third use of the law” (Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 143). The law was given to Israel as a guide for holy living (third use), not as a covenant of works for meriting land or eternal life.
Was There a “Works Principle” in the Law?
This brings us the issue of modern theologians using the phrase “works principle” for the Mosaic covenant. Kline uses this phrase for national Israel in relationship to the Promised Land, and the authors of The Law Is Not of Faith also consistently use this phrase (e.g. Estelle’s treatment of Paul’s use of Leviticus 18:5 in the New Testament). However, a recent book was published by Richard Belcher, The Fulfillment of the Promises of God, in which he rejects Klinean republication but still affirms a “works principle” present in the Mosaic covenant. By this, he means there is a continuing principle in the Mosaic covenant that requires perfect obedience to God’s law. Belcher explains his position as follows:
The Mosaic Covenant should not be identified with the Covenant of Works as a covenantal administration, but the requirement of perfect obedience set forth in the Covenant of Works is an abiding requirement . . .
there is a works principle still operative in the Covenant of Grace in a secondary sense related to the second use of the law which is particularly evident in the Mosaic Covenant . . .
There is continuity with the Covenant of Works in the second use of the law showing that the requirements of the law still need to be met for there to be salvation. But the Mosaic Covenant is not the Covenant of Works because there was no provision in the Covenant of Works for salvation if the law was broken (Belcher, The Fulfillment of the Promises of God, 92-93).
Thus, Belcher’s position is that, based on Leviticus 18:5 (and its use in Romans 10:5), the “works principle” of the covenant of works requiring perfect obedience for salvation is operative in the Mosaic covenant, and Jesus fulfilled this for the salvation of all who believe in Him. Belcher understands Paul to teach that the “righteousness based on the law” in Romans 10:5 is a way to “earn righteousness before God” by law-keeping (92). Thus, Belcher seems to adopt Estelle’s interpretation of Leviticus 18:5 and Romans 10:5 regarding this “works principle.” However, this is confusing for two reasons. First, Belcher only cites Waters’ work on the subject, who holds a different view from Estelle. And second, Estelle uses this interpretation as the basis for Klinean republication, which Belcher rejects.
Belcher states that he is following the view of the Westminster Standards based on the Scripture proof-texts for WCF 7.2 and 19.2 (92, 143-144), but I do not think we should read that much into these citations. Moreover, Belcher critiques John Murray for holding that Leviticus 18:5 (as quoted in Romans 10:5) “does not refer to legal righteousness as opposed to grace, but occurs in a redemptive context” and thus understanding its context to be sanctification and not justification (143). (It is unclear whether Belcher is aware that Murray follows Calvin and Turretin on this point.)
Belcher says the third use of the law as a guide for holy living is primary to the Mosaic covenant, but he also holds there is a “works principle” related to the second use of the law (that the law convicts us of sin and points us to Christ) seen when Israel sinned. In failing to keep the law, we see that there is a perfect requirement of the law, which was also part of the covenant of works. Thus, Belcher seems to hold to a form of an administrative republication via the restatement of the moral law.
However, Belcher’s language of a “works principle” can also sound like he holds to a form of substantial republication (though he does not). In fact, the language of a “works principle” is associated with Kline’s republication view. Cornelis Venema ties this phrase to Kline and says he is not aware of writers of the orthodox Reformed period using it (Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 72). Thus, Belcher uses Kline’s language of a “works principle” but rejects its application to an imperfect national typology. Yet this is the only way Kline says such a works principle applied in the Mosaic covenant—“The works principle in the Mosaic order was confined to the typological sphere of the provisional earthly kingdom” (Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 321).
In the end, I do not think the phrase “works principle” is helpful language, as works are a part of all covenants, including the new covenant. While Adam’s works and Jesus’ works both play an important role, there is a major difference—Adam’s works would have gained him eternal life via God’s promise in the covenant of works (meritum ex pacto), but Jesus’ works merited eternal life via strict merit, as the God-man who perfectly kept God’s law.
Thus, Belcher is correct to affirm that the requirement of perfect obedience to God’s law continued in the Mosaic covenant. However, I do not think this has to be rooted in Paul’s use of Leviticus 18:5 in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12. Instead of speaking of a “works principle” (which is strongly associated with Kline), we should stick to the traditional Reformed language that the moral law of the covenant of works was restated in the Mosaic covenant, and Jesus kept that law.
Was Christ Under a Covenant of Works?
The reason the relationship of the Mosaic covenant to the covenant of works is so hotly debated is because it has implications for how we understand the work of Christ. Many theologians, even non-Klineans, speak of Jesus being under a covenant of works, in that the Mosaic covenant was a covenant of works for Christ. In his chapter on the Mosaic covenant in Covenant Theology, Nicholas Reid seems to reject Kline’s republication view, yet he still says that “the Mosaic administration of the covenant of grace was a covenant of works for Christ.” Thus, Reid says that Christ “fulfilled the covenant of works for his people” and justified His people “through his active and passive obedience” (169, 154).
Some may confuse this language of Christ being under a covenant of works as communicating that the Mosaic covenant was substantially a covenant of works (rather than that Christ was under the moral law of the Mosaic covenant, which was an administrative restatement of the moral law of the covenant of works). So it is important to clarify what we mean here.
The Bible never says Jesus was under the same covenant Adam was under when He kept the Mosaic law. However, in keeping the Mosaic law, Jesus did meet the moral requirement of the covenant of works—namely perfect obedience—and thus He fulfilled the covenant of works. Whereas Adam failed to obey God’s law, Christ perfectly kept God’s law on our behalf and thus brings us to the tree of life. I think this is what Belcher is trying to get at. Turretin is helpful here in explaining how Jesus fulfilled the covenant of works:
Thus what was demanded of us in the covenant of works is fulfilled by Christ in the covenant of grace. Nor is it absurd that in this way justification takes place by works and by faith—by the works of Christ and by our faith. And thus in sweet harmony the law and the gospel meet together in this covenant. The law is not administered without the gospel, nor the gospel without the law. So that it is as it were a legal-gospel and an evangelical-law; a gospel full of obedience and a law full of faith. So the gospel does not destroy the law, but establishes it (Rom. 3:31) by giving us Christ, who perfectly fulfilled it (Turretin, Institutes, 2:268).
The law was not contrary to the gospel but part of the gospel. The law requires perfect obedience, and Jesus succeeded where Adam failed. Adam broke the covenant of works, but Jesus kept the Mosaic covenant—and thus brings us salvation through the covenant of grace. Thus, Turretin adds that the “law in itself” had “the form of a covenant of works,” but the “Sinaitic covenant” had the “lively oracles” (Acts 7:38) and “contained the saving promises of the grace of Christ” (Turretin, Institutes, 2:269).
Dabney makes a similar point in contrasting the old and new covenants and discussing the “obligation of works” reenacted in the Ten Commandments:
The truth is, both dispensations are precisely alike, in having two sides to them: a law which condemns those who will persist in self-righteous plans; and a gospel which rescues the humble believer from that condemnation. The obligation of Works, (which was reenacted in the Decalogue,) is perpetual, being found on the very relations between man and God, on all except those who are exempted from it by the substitutionary righteousness of the Mediator (Dabney, Systematic Theology, 458).
Dabney affirms that the “obligation of Works . . . was reenacted in the Decalogue,” thus affirming that God always requires perfect obedience (what Belcher calls a “works principle,” but what has traditionally been described as a restatement of the moral law). Dabney does not hold to a substantial republication, yet he still affirms the imputation of Christ’s righteousness (contrary to the concerns of the Klineans)—“Since Christ steps into the sinner’s stead, to fulfil in his place the whole Covenant of Works, He must, in order to procure to us full salvation, both purchase pardon for guilt, and a positive title to favour and life” (Dabney, Systematic Theology, 625). Christ “undertook to stand in our lawstead; and do for us, what the Covenant of Works demanded of us for our eternal life” (626).
Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) says that in addition to Christ being subject to God’s law as the rule of life, “Christ related himself to the law in still a very different way, namely, as the law of the covenant of works. Adam was not only obligated to keep the law but was confronted in the covenant of works with that law as the way to eternal life, a life he did not yet possess. But Christ, in virtue of his union with the divine nature, already had this eternal and blessed life. This life he voluntarily relinquished. He submitted himself to the law of the covenant of works as the way to eternal life for himself and his own” (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 3:379). While Bavinck could be understood as saying Jesus was substantially under the covenant of works, I think a careful reading shows he meant Christ was under the restatement of the moral “law” of the covenant of works, thus placing his view under the administrative republication view.
The same goes for Geerhardus Vos (1862–1949)—“[T]he Son, who as a divine Person stood above the law, place[d] Himself in His assumed nature under the law, that is to say, not only under the natural relationship under which man stands toward God, but under the relationship of the covenant of works, so that by active obedience He might merit eternal life. Considered in this light, the work of Christ was a fulfillment of what Adam had not fulfilled, a carrying out of the demand of the covenant of works” (Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:86).
It is not that the Mosaic covenant was a substantial republication of the covenant of works, but rather that in keeping the moral law of the Mosaic covenant, Jesus satisfied the demand of perfect obedience found in the covenant of works. In this way, Jesus fulfilled the covenant of works that Adam broke, and He merited eternal life on behalf of His people.
Conclusion
In summary, since the Reformation, there has been extensive debate over the role of the Mosaic covenant and its relationship to the covenant of works and covenant of grace. While there were four basic views of the Mosaic covenant during the post-Reformation period, these really boil down to whether the Mosaic covenant was a substantial or administrative republication of the covenant of works. The Westminster Confession holds that the Mosaic covenant was part of the covenant of grace, thus rejecting substantial republication.
Yet the Confession still affirms a sort of administrative republication, affirming that the moral law of the covenant of works was restated in the Mosaic covenant. This makes best sense of the Bible’s teaching, as the law was given to a people already redeemed and under the Abrahamic covenant. The same is true today—the law is a good thing for God’s people, so long as we seek to keep it out of gratitude and faith as those saved by Christ (third use).
There has been much debate over Meredith Kline’s view that, while the Mosaic covenant was part of the covenant of grace on the individual level, there was a typological republication of the covenant of works with Israel at the national level. Kline’s view is complicated and innovative—it redefines merit, requires only an imperfect obedience on Israel’s part (contrary to the perfect obedience required in the covenant of works), and bases Israel’s presence in Canaan on merit rather than God’s grace. But in rejecting Kline’s republication view, we do not reject Christ’s fulfillment of the covenant of works.
In living under the Mosaic covenant, Christ perfectly kept the moral law (and ceremonial and civil law) that was also found in the covenant works, becoming the spotless lamb on the altar and granting us law-keeping status through our union with Him through faith. Thus, unlike Adam, Jesus obeyed God in the covenant of grace, fulfilling the demand of the covenant of works and bringing us to the tree of life—access to which was cut off after Adam’s disobedience (Genesis 3:22-24).
