The Upper Register

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 8

The Alleged Necessity* of Christ’s Divine Nature, continued
(*for his merit)

The authors of MM claim that, in contrast with Adam’s “covenant merit,” only Christ’s merit qualifies as “strict merit.” This is because Christ’s merit is inherently infinite due to his divine nature. Here is how they put it:

For a work to be truly and properly meritorious, it must: (1) be absolutely perfect; and (2) be performed by one who is ontologically equal with God (i.e., infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being). Adam could satisfy the first condition, as he was created in original righteousness. But only Jesus Christ could satisfy the second, since he is both true man and true God, being the same in substance and equal with the Father (MM 106).

According to the authors of MM, only a divine being that is ontologically equal with God (i.e., infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being) can perform a work that is properly meritorious. By definition, the verb “to merit” is one that only God can be the subject of. Put more simply, only God can merit.

But if only God can merit, what does that say about their doctrine of God? In a proper doctrine of God, God is not a moral creature, bound under a covenant of works, and obligated to yield obedience to his own moral standard. He is the standard. He does not need to proffer obedience to his own standard, pass a probationary test, be deemed righteous, and merit a reward. To say God, as God, can obey his own standard and merit a reward from himself is to compromise the aseity and utter self-sufficiency of God. The very concept of obedience to the law and its consequent reward-ableness (i.e., merit) is applicable only to creatures made in God’s image under the law as a covenant of works. As the Westminster Confession teaches:

God hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself; and is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, nor deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting his own glory in, by, unto, and upon them. (WCF II.2)

The authors of MM have argued that meriting is something only God can do because only God is ontologically infinite. But this compromises the aseity and self-sufficiency of God. Thus, not only do the authors of MM seem to be operating with some questionable Christological assumptions, they also seem to have a defective doctrine of God.

This wraps up my response to their second argument under the topic of the merit of Christ. Their first argument was that the Republication Paradigm cannot affirm the necessity of Christ’s perfect obedience for his merit. That was based on a simple misunderstanding and so it was easily dispatched in a single post. Their second argument was that the Republication Paradigm cannot affirm the necessity of Christ’s divine nature for his merit. This was a little more challenging to respond to, and it took me seven posts to work through, beginning with this one. In my next post, I’ll turn to their third argument regarding the merit of Christ, namely, that the Republication Paradigm diminishes the singular glory of Christ’s meritorious obedience.

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 7

The Alleged Necessity* of Christ’s Divine Nature, continued
(*for his merit)

Christ’s satisfaction of divine justice in the law as a covenant of works involves two distinct but inseparable aspects:  bearing the curse of the law in our place (his passive obedience), and fulfilling the positive requirement of the law in our stead, thus earning for the elect a right and title to eternal life (his active obedience). Christ’s divine nature is necessary for him to satisfy the curse of the law for us but not to satisfy the positive requirement of the law in order to merit eternal life for us.

Christ’s divine nature is necessary for the first aspect, because the human nature could not have borne the wrath of God by itself. “It was requisite that the Mediator should be God, that he might sustain and keep the human nature from sinking under the infinite wrath of God” (Westminster Larger Catechism # 38). Were it not for the divine nature undergirding the human nature via the hypostatic union, the penal sufferings of Christ would have caused the human nature to sink under the infinite wrath of God. Since wrath-bearing was not part of the original mandate given to Adam under the covenant of works, it is not surprising that this would be something unique about Christ’s work. He must redeem sinners from the curse of the law, something not in view for Adam.

However, I do not see how Christ’s divine nature was necessary for the second part, the fulfilling of the positive requirement of the law. The reason, as I have argued previously, is that “Christ, the second Adam, assumes the covenant [of works] in behalf of his elect just as Adam left it” (A. A. Hodge). If the obedience demanded of Adam under the original covenant of works was human obedience, and if that human obedience, had it been rendered, would have been sufficient to earn the reward of eternal life, then the obedience Christ renders as the second Adam need not exceed Adam’s.

It is true that the person of the mediator adds to the glory, worth, and dignity of his obedience. The reason it does so, is because his obedience is the obedience, not of a mere human like Adam, but of a divine person, the Son of God. This gives his obedience greater glory, worth, and dignity. The dignity of the obedience is as great as the dignity of the person performing the obedience. Since the person is a divine person who has infinite glory, worth, and dignity, his obedience also has infinite glory, worth, and dignity, far exceeding the worth and dignity of Adam’s obedience.

But this added worth and dignity exceeds what was required of Adam. “The satisfaction of Christ was that of a divine Person, and hence was ... of infinite value ... of superabundant value” (A. A. Hodge). This superabundant worth, value and dignity, grounded in the uniqueness of Christ as a divine person, is not necessary for the satisfaction of the law’s positive requirement as the condition of eternal life. The divine person of the mediator enhances the dignity of his obedience but does not increase the merit of his obedience.

Merit does not permit of degrees. Merit simply means that the condition of the covenant of works has been fulfilled and the reward has been earned. Either one has earned the reward or one has not. Either one has merit or one does not. But one cannot have degrees of merit. Thus, while it is true that Christ’s obedience has superabounding worth and dignity far exceeding Adam’s as a mere creature, this added glory is not what enables him to fulfill the positive requirement of the covenant of works so as to earn the reward of eternal life.

Having said that, I do think it was necessary for the active obedience of Christ to be that of a divine person—just not for his merit. As we have seen, the divine person of Christ, the eternal Son of God and second person of the Trinity, had no prior obligation to perform obedience to the positive requirement of the law. When he took a human nature into personal union with himself and was “made under the law” (Gal 4:4), he did so voluntarily and therefore vicariously.

The satisfaction of Christ was that of a divine Person, and hence was superogatory [sic; should be supererogatory], not due from himself, and free to be credited to others .... Christ, although a man, was a divine person, and therefore never personally subject to the Adamic covenant of works .... He was made under the law only as our representative, and his obedience under the voluntarily assumed conditions of his earthly life was purely vicarious (A. A. Hodge).

Therefore, although the divine person of the mediator was not necessary to make his obedience meritorious, yet it was necessary to make his obedience (in its inseparable active and passive aspects) supererogatory and “for us.”

(A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1983; originally 1879], 405, 413, 415.)

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 6

The Alleged Necessity* of Christ’s Divine Nature, continued
(*for his merit)

I said that the authors of MM seem to assume either that the obedience of Christ was performed in his divine nature, or that his human nature was deified by virtue of union with his divine nature. I think I have shown that the first possibility—that the obedience of Christ was performed in his divine nature—is clearly unbiblical. Christ’s obedience (both active and passive) was performed in his human nature, not his divine nature. But so far I haven’t really addressed the second possibility—that his human nature was deified or somehow made ontologically infinite by virtue of the hypostatic union with his divine nature.

With regard to this second possibility, the authors of MM don’t actually do this in their book, but one imagines they could borrow a page from Lutheran theology and utilize its doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum (communication of attributes). According to the Lutheran doctrine, the hypostatic union functions as a bridge that gets the divine nature into contact with the human nature, thereby imparting divine attributes to Christ’s human nature. Specifically, the authors of MM would need this doctrine of the hypostatic union to undergird the transference of the divine attribute of ontological infinity to the human nature.

Both the Reformed and the Lutherans affirm the doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum, but not in the same way. For example, the Westminster Confession affirms it in these terms:

Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself; yet, by reason of the unity of the person, that which is proper to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person denominated by the other nature. (WCF VIII.7)

Reformed Christology recognizes this linguistic communicatio idiomatum as one of the ways Scripture speaks, e.g., “the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28 NASB). This statement is not a mere figure of speech. It is a true statement, grounded in the hypostatic union. “By reason of the unity of the person” it is legitimate to speak this way, because Christ is God and Christ purchased the church with his own blood, even though we must add the qualifying statement that Christ’s blood was shed in his human nature.

Lutheran Christology affirms this linguistic aspect of the communicatio idiomatum but goes further and holds that some divine attributes are actually transferred from the divine nature to the human nature in order to enable the human nature to act above its creaturely limitations. Perhaps this is just what the authors of MM need.

Remember, the authors of MM argue that the contrast between Adam’s merit and Christ’s merit is that Adam’s merit is finite and creaturely, whereas Christ’s is infinite and divine. Adam was a mere creature, and so he could only have his obedience “counted as meritorious” on the basis of God’s voluntary condescension. But “because of his divine nature, only Christ’s obedience was inherently worthy of the reward of eternal life” (MM 57). They base this reasoning on the “great ontological chasm—an ‘infinite distance’ between God and man” (MM 51). They claim that Christ’s merit, because of his deity, is “inherently worthy” (MM 57), “intrinsically infinite” (MM 57) and “inherently obligating God” (MM 58).

But there’s a problem. Even Lutheran Christology would not give them enough gas to drive their car that far. According to Lutheran dogmatician Francis Pieper, Lutheran Christology limits or qualifies the communicatio idiomatum in two ways. First, only the operative divine attributes (such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence), but not the quiescent divine attributes (like eternity, immensity, and spirituality) are communicated to the human nature. Second, the manner of communication is dynamic rather than static—the human nature receives operative divine attributes so that the divine Son can work through the human nature to perform certain divine actions, such as miracles.

Our thought-experiment of imagining how the authors of MM could utilize Lutheran Christology to get to their desired destination has failed, for even the Lutherans do not go as far as they do in ascribing “inherently infinite” ontological status to the human nature of Christ. It would seem, then, that the authors of MM would need to adopt full-blown monophysitism, the fifth-century error rejected at the Council of Chalcedon that the human nature of Christ was completely deified by the hypostatic union so that it ceased to be truly human. That might give them enough gas to get to their destination, but it comes at a hefty price—going beyond the pale of Chalcedon.

(Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics [St. Louis:  Concordia, 1951], vol. 2, pp. 236-39.)

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 5

The Alleged Necessity of Christ’s Divine Nature, continued

So Christ’s obedience to the law is proper to his human nature, not his divine nature. Furthermore, Christ’s obedience to the law was not an obedience that he owed to God prior to his assumption of a human nature. The Son assumed a human nature into personal union with himself precisely in order to obey the law, not for himself, but for the elect. Let’s look at some Scriptural passages that back this up.

The author of the Hebrews reads Psalm 40 as implying that Christ’s obedience to the law was voluntary and a consequence of his incarnation.

When Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me .... Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book’” (Heb 10:5-7 ESV).

“A body have you prepared for me,” looks ahead to, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.” In other words, Christ became incarnate with a view to doing God’s will as written in the scroll of the book (the law).

Something similar is taught in Phil 2:5-11, whether it was composed by Paul or was a pre-Pauline creed or hymn. He says that the pre-incarnate Son existed in the form of God from eternity, but he voluntarily emptied himself by becoming a man, and it was as a man that he became obedient. 

[He] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:6-8 ESV).

In a related passage dealing with the incarnation, Paul implies that Christ’s obedience was an obedience that occurred “under the law”:

When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. (Gal 4:4-5 KJV)

It was by being “sent forth” and “born of a woman” (ESV) that he was “made under the law.” He was not “under the law” from eternity. He was “made” under the law. And he was made under the law, not to obey for himself, but “to redeem them that were under the law.” John Owen made much of this passage to argue that Christ’s active obedience was imputed precisely because it was voluntary. He acknowledged that Christ’s obedience was

the obedience of the person of the Son of God, however the human nature was subject to the law .... It was not for himself, not could be for himself; because his whole person was not obliged thereunto .... It was for us, and not for himself, that he assumed our nature .... He needed no obedience for himself .... Wherefore, the Lord Christ being made under the law for us, he yielded perfect obedience unto it for us; which is therefore imputed unto us. 

Owen’s point is that the pre-incarnate Son was not under a prior obligation to yield obedience to the positive precepts of the moral law, since he was divine and “needed no obedience for himself.” However, he voluntarily assumed a human nature, and became subject to the law and its requirement of obedience. But if he was voluntarily “made under the law,” then he must have done so in order to obey in our place, so that his active obedience might be imputed to the elect. Christ’s active obedience was only required of him by virtue of his voluntarily assuming a human nature that was subject to the law.

Thus the authors of MM are incorrect when they say “the value of his merit is rooted in his divine nature.” On the contrary, it is rooted in his human nature as the second Adam. The hypostatic union brings the two natures together in an intimate union, but it does so without confusing the two natures. Each nature retains its essential properties. The union does not cause the human nature to lose its finite, creaturely status, or transform it into a divine nature. As a result, the obedience and merit of the Son in the human nature remains what it is—a fully human obedience and merit. It is not divine obedience or divine merit. Just as Jesus did not die as God but as man, so Jesus did not obey the law as God but as man. Obedience is not “proper to” the divine nature, since God is not subject to the law as if he must obey his own law in order to merit a reward from himself. The obedience of Christ is the obedience of the fully human Son of God. And it is the Son’s obedience only because the Son has assumed a full human nature into union with himself which enables him, in that human nature and as the second Adam, to obey and merit the reward.

The authors of MM seem to be operating with questionable Christological assumptions. When they claim that Christ’s merit is “intrinsically infinite in worth and value because of Christ’s divine nature” (MM 56), they seem to assume either that the obedience of Christ was performed in his divine nature, or that his human nature was deified by virtue of union with his divine nature. Either interpretation is at odds with Chalcedonian and biblical teaching.

(John Owen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith, vol. 5 in The Works of John Owen [ed. William H. Goold; Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1990], pp. 256-58, 272-73).

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 4

The Alleged Necessity of Christ’s Divine Nature, continued

At this point that we need to delve into Christology—the doctrine of the two natures of Christ—in relation to the merit of Christ. I believe the authors of MM are operating with some questionable Christological assumptions. Consider what they say:

The traditional paradigm affirms that Adam’s merit was considered to be covenant merit in distinction from strict merit. In other words, Adam’s perfect obedience, as a creature, is being contrasted with Christ’s obedience as the God-man. On the one hand, Adam’s obedience was counted as meritorious on the basis of the covenant that had been established as an expression of God’s voluntary condescension .... Adam’s finite works of obedience could never be considered as valuable as the infinite gift of eternal life. On the other hand, Christ’s obedience could be counted as strictly meritorious since it was inherently worthy of receiving such a reward (MM 66).

The value of his merit is rooted in his divine nature. In other words, Christ’s merit is determined ontologically .... Christ’s merit is “strict” and “proper” merit because it does not require such condescension, as it is intrinsically infinite in worth and value because of Christ’s divine nature .... Because of his divine nature, only Christ’s obedience was inherently worthy of the reward of eternal life (MM 56-57).

According to the authors of MM, Adam’s merit was only “counted as meritorious on the basis of the covenant that had been established as an expression of God’s voluntary condescension.” It is therefore only covenant merit, not strict merit. But Christ’s merit, in contrast with Adam’s, is strictly meritorious. What is the difference between Adam and Christ? The difference is ontology: Adam’s “finite works of obedience” are performed by one who is a mere creature. Christ’s merit, however, is “intrinsically infinite in worth and value” because his works of obedience are performed by one who is divine. “Because of his divine nature, only Christ’s obedience was inherently worthy of the reward of eternal life.” Notice how they speak of Christ’s obedience as being “inherently worthy.” Adam, by contrast, being a mere creature, could only have his obedience “counted as meritorious” on the basis of the covenant, which was an expression of God’s gracious, voluntary condescension.

Notice the underlying Christological assumption behind this argument. They seem to assume one of two things: either the obedience of Christ was performed in and by the divine nature of Christ, or the human nature of Christ was given the divine property of ontological infinitude. They write: “No mere creature can perform a work by which he can inherently obligate God” (MM 58). But Christ, being very God of very God, is no mere creature; therefore, he can “obligate God” by his “inherently worthy” obedience. In order for this reasoning to work, they must assume either that the divine nature of Christ is the locus of his obedience, or that he obeyed in a deified human nature.

But such assumptions are counter-intuitive at best and unorthodox at worst. Surely, the obedience of Christ (both in its active and passive aspects) is an obedience that was performed by the Son in his human nature. Everyone believes that about his passive obedience, unless they hold to the heresy of Patripassianism. The divine nature of Christ is impassible, i.e., incapable of suffering and death. Accordingly, the church confesses that he suffered and died in his human nature. If that’s what we believe about the passive obedience, shouldn’t we say the active obedience was also performed in his human nature? After all, part of his active obedience involved resisting temptation (Matt 4:1-11; Heb 2:18; 4:15; 5:7-8). But just as God cannot die, so “God cannot be tempted with evil” (James 1:13). Therefore, the active obedience of Christ was performed in his human nature, the only nature in which he could experience temptation.

This is just good old-fashioned Chalcedonian Christology. The Council of Chalcedon, following Scripture, taught us that some activities are proper to his human nature—like being born, eating, sleeping, weeping, suffering, being tempted, and dying. Other activities are proper to his divine nature—like turning water into wine, stilling the storm, healing the sick, forgiving sins, executing judgment, and receiving worship. The famous Tome of Leo, which was read and approved at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), made this crystal clear. Reiterating Leo and Chalcedon, the Westminster Confession affirms that “Christ, in the work of mediation, acts according to both natures, by each nature doing that which is proper to itself” (WCF VIII.7). 

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 3

The Alleged Necessity of Christ’s Divine Nature, continued

Why didn’t Kline accept the ontological definition of merit, the view that strict merit requires ontological equality between the one obeying and the one obeyed, or between the value of the obedience and the value of the reward? Kline didn’t accept this use of ontology rather than covenant to measure merit because in his view it leads to a dangerous asymmetry in biblical theology. It skews the two Adams structuring of federal history. For if the merit of the second Adam is the only proper and strict merit, based on ontological equality, then the merit of the first Adam is reduced to an improper merit that is only possible because of God’s gracious, voluntary condescension.

One might object that seeing asymmetry between the two Adams can’t be totally wrong. After all, there are a number of important differences between them. The most obvious is that the first Adam was human, but the second Adam is the God-man. Paul himself spends a good portion of his famous Rom 5:12-21 passage highlighting the differences between Adam and Christ. Twice he says “the free gift is not like the trespass” (vv 15-16). And twice he uses an a fortiori argument:  if Adam’s disobedience brought death, “much more” did Christ’s obedience bring grace, righteousness, and life (vv 15, 17). Asymmetry indeed.

As true as that may be, there is one point at which asymmetry must not be introduced, namely, at the point of merit. Introducing asymmetry between the merit of the two Adams is problematic, because it undermines the concept that the salvation of the elect is founded upon the satisfaction of the justice of God. The justice of God is not bypassed but satisfied in salvation, because the merit of Christ as the second Adam is accepted by God as a substitute, on behalf of the elect, for the merit that the first Adam should have but failed to achieve. But if the merit that the first Adam should have achieved was only an improper merit based on God’s gracious voluntary condescension, then there is no necessity for the satisfaction of justice by the merit of the second Adam. There is a tension between these two things:  between ontology and satisfaction, between using ontology rather than covenant to measure strict merit, and the wonderful truth that salvation is grounded in the satisfaction of justice by a substitute (Rom 3:25-26). If we value the latter (satisfaction), we need to rethink the former (ontology).

As Kline said, “heaven must be earned” (KP 107). This is based on the Lev 18:5 principle, which may be paraphrased: “Only the doers of the law are righteous before God and will be rewarded with eternal life” (combining Rom 2:13; 7:10; 10:5). Obedience to the demands of the law (as a covenant of works) is recognized by God as righteousness, and righteousness is the necessary ground of the reward of eternal life. As applied to Adam as the federal head of the human race, the reward of eschatological advancement originally held out to Adam in the pre-Fall covenant of works was conditioned upon his obedience and righteousness. This is what God demands of all of us, either in ourselves or in our federal representative, if we would go to heaven.

But the obedience required of Adam for his eschatological advancement, and which God would have deemed as meritorious as the ground of that eschatological advancement, was not the obedience of a divine person who was ontologically equal with God. The obedience required of Adam (and of us, in Adam) is human, creaturely obedience. It is the human obedience of actively obeying the positive precepts of the moral law and passing the probation of the covenant of works. Therefore, the obedience that God accepts in place of the failure of Adam is not the obedience of Christ as divine, but the obedience of Christ as fully man, as the second Adam. In this way, the justice of God is satisfied in salvation. Heaven is earned, not by ourselves, but by Christ who earned it in our place.

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 2

The Alleged Necessity of Christ’s Divine Nature

After applying their first criterion of merit to the merit of Christ in the Republication Paradigm, they proceed to apply their second criterion to the merit of Christ. According to their second criterion, for obedience to be meritorious (in the strict sense) it must be offered by one who is ontologically divine. Here is how they explain this:

Within an Augustinian-Reformation paradigm, merit in the “strict” or “proper” sense is possible only for Christ. In his sinless, pre-fall condition, Adam was only capable of an improper “covenant merit.” This was a “lesser” category of merit because it required God’s voluntary condescension. Christ’s merit is “strict” and “proper” merit because it does not require such condescension, as it is intrinsically infinite in worth and value because of Christ’s divine nature .... Because of his divine nature, only Christ’s obedience was inherently worthy of the reward of eternal life .... No mere creature can perform a work by which he can inherently obligate God—“who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” (MM 57-58).

But Kline rejects such an ontological definition of merit. He thinks the covenant, not ontological considerations, reveals God’s justice and defines what obedience would be meritorious in his sight. Here is a quote by him where he addresses a related ontological argument. The particular ontological argument he is responding to here did not claim that only a being that is ontologically equal with God could attain strict merit, but it did claim something very similar, namely, that only an act of obedience that is ontologically equal with the reward could be considered as strictly meritorious:

Another form of the attack on the Covenant of Works doctrine (and thus on the classic law-gospel contrast) asserts that even if it is allowed that Adam’s obedience would have earned something, the disproportion between the value of that act of service and the value of the proferred blessing forbids us to speak here of simple equity or justice.  The contention is that Adam’s ontological status limited the value or weight of his acts .... The disproportionality view’s failure with respect to the doctrine of divine justice can be traced to its approach to the definition of justice.  A proper approach will hold that God is just and his justice is expressed in all his acts; in particular, it is expressed in the covenant he institutes.  The terms of the covenant—the stipulated reward for the stipulated service—are a revelation of that justice.  As a revelation of God’s justice the terms of the covenant define justice.  According to this definition, Adam’s obedience would have merited the reward of eternal life and not a gram of grace would have been involved. Refusing to accept God’s covenant word as the definer of justice, the disproportionality view exalts above God’s word a standard of justice of its own making. (KP 114-15)

The authors of MM are right, then, when they say Kline does not agree that the one offering the obedience (or that the act of obedience itself) must be ontologically equal with God in order for his obedience to be intrinsically meritorious. The authors of MM then draw out an implication from Kline’s non-ontological, covenantal definition of merit that supposedly shows that Klinean Republication is guilty of serious theological error. They argue that because of his non-ontological, covenantal definition of merit Kline is unable to affirm the necessity of Christ’s divine nature.

Ontological considerations have been removed from the definitions of merit and justice. The infinite, eternal character of God’s being no longer play[s] any role in our understanding of justice, merit, or (by implication) sin.  If God is free to “covenantally” define merit in such a way that Adam’s finite obedience could be truly worthy of an infinite reward, what absolute need is there for Christ to be truly God? (MM 115).

Their charge is that the Republication Paradigm can only affirm the weaker statement that Christ’s obedience was the obedience of a divine person, not that it had to be the obedience of a divine person in order for it to be meritorious.

How shall we respond? Well, to begin, let’s remind ourselves of the reason why Kline didn’t believe ontological equality with God is necessary for merit. The reason is fairly straightforward: if it were true that only a being that is ontologically equal with God can merit before God, that would mean Adam, by definition, could not have merited the reward of eternal life by passing the probation. (Indeed, the authors of MM admit this and say Adam, if he had obeyed, would only have achieved “covenant merit” not “strict merit.”) But if that is the case, then we have a very odd situation:  we must deny the merit of the first Adam and only admit the merit of the second Adam. But why was it necessary in the first place for Christ to merit as the second Adam? Because the first Adam failed to obey and merit the reward of eternal life! But if the merit of the first Adam was impossible to begin with, what need was there for the vicarious, substitutionary merit of the second Adam?

The whole point is, “Where the first Adam failed, the second Adam prevailed,” as the ditty goes. But if the first Adam wasn’t supposed to merit in the first place, indeed was ontologically incapable of meriting, then Christ’s role as the second Adam is left hanging without a foundation or rationale. It is not clear how the first Adam could serve as “a type of the one who was to come” (Rom 5:14), or why Paul would call Christ “the last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45). As Kline argued:

What is true in the covenant arrangement with the second Adam will also have been true in the covenant with the first Adam, for the first was a type of the second (Rom. 5:14) precisely with respect to his role as a federal head in the divine government. Accordingly, the pre-Fall covenant was also a covenant of works and there too Adam would have fully deserved the blessings promised in the covenant, had he obediently performed the duty stipulated in the covenant .... The parallel which Scripture tells us exists between the two Adams would require the conclusion that if the first Adam could not earn anything, neither could the second. But, if the obedience of Jesus has no meritorious value, the foundation of the gospel is gone. (Meredith G. Kline, “Covenant Theology Under Attack,” New Horizons 15.2 [Feb 1994]: 3-5.)

Merit and Moses: The Merit of Christ, Part 1

I took a break for three weeks, and now I am back. I have been evaluating Part 3 of Merit and Moses, in which the authors argue that Klinean republication is “an unstable theological paradigm” (MM 82).

The first major area of instability is that republication brings the works principle back after the Fall. As a result, it is contended, “grace and works have been combined as opposing principles in a single covenant in a ‘tug of war’ kind of tension with one another” (MM 101). I answered this sub-charge under the general instability charge in three posts beginning with this one.

The second major area of instability is that republication creates “spiritual schizophrenia” (MM 125) in the piety of the Old Testament saints. I answered this sub-charge in three posts beginning with this one.  

The third major area of instability, to which we now turn, has to do with the merit of Christ. Recall that the authors of MM sought to establish that for obedience to be deemed strictly meritorious, it must have two qualities: (1) it must be perfect, and (2) it must be offered by a being who is ontologically equal with God. Since Adam could only offer perfect obedience, but was not ontologically equal with God, his obedience would have been “covenant merit” but not “strict merit.” Christ’s obedience is the only obedience that has “strict merit,” because he satisfies both conditions by offering perfect obedience and by doing so as one who is ontologically equal with God. The authors of MM then take these two criteria for obedience and use them to raise three objections about the nature of Christ’s obedience in the Republication Paradigm, arguing that by redefining merit as being “whatever God says it is,” and not according to their two criteria, this creates theological problems for the Republication Paradigm in its view of Christ’s merit.

The Necessity of Christ’s Perfect Active Obedience

Their first charge relates to their first criterion—perfect obedience. The authors of MM claim that, in the Republication Paradigm, God is free to reward works tainted with sin as meritorious. This can be seen in the Klinean view that Israel’s works, thought tainted with sin, are deemed to be meritorious in God’s sight, at least for the purpose of obtaining temporal rewards. Therefore, since God is free to deem sinful works as meritorious, sinless perfection is not a necessary requirement for merit. This can then be applied to the obedience of Christ. Although the Republication Paradigm affirms that Christ’s obedience was perfect, it “does not require Christ’s obedience to be perfect by definition” (MM 114, emphasis theirs). Their charge is that the Republication Paradigm can only affirm the weaker statement that Christ’s obedience was perfect, not that it had to be perfect as required by the justice of God.

This charge is based on a major misunderstanding of Kline, one that I have already dealt with in an earlier post. It is not true that, for Kline, God is free to deem the sin-tainted, imperfect works of sinners as having true merit. (I use the phrase “true merit” to distinguish it from “typological merit.”) Kline agrees with the authors of MM that the justice of God requires obedience to be perfect in order for it to be truly meritorious. This is clearly the case for Adam before the Fall and for Christ as the Second Adam. In both of these cases, their obedience must be perfect in order to be meritorious, because the justice of God demands it. In the case of the obedience of those ordained by God to be types of Christ, the obedience was not perfect, since all after the Fall are sinful (e.g., Noah, Abraham, David, Israel as a nation). But their obedience had typological merit, not true merit.

Therefore, it is simply not true that Republication Paradigm can only affirm the weaker statement that Christ’s obedience was perfect, not that it had to be perfect as required by the justice of God. The Republication Paradigm affirms that Christ’s obedience had to be perfect, just as Adam’s had to be. This is because Kline has a robust understanding of the absolute perfection required by the justice of God. In fact, this is precisely why Kline affirms the necessity of Christ’s active and passive obedience as the satisfaction of the law and the justice of God. God requires perfect righteousness for those who would gain a right and title to heaven. “Heaven must be earned” (KP 107). The righteousness by which we are deemed righteous and qualified to obtain the eternal inheritance is the righteousness of Christ as provided in his vicarious obedience as the Second Adam on behalf of the elect. 

KP = Kingdom Prologue (2006)

Merit and Moses: Spiritual Schizophrenia? Part 3

But what about the average Israelite? Here things are a little different, since it is doubtful that he would have been conscious of being a type of the Messiah. He would have been more conscious of his failure to keep the law. In that case, he would confess his sins and avail himself of the sacrificial system.

The typological covenant of works functioned as a pedagogue to lead the ordinary Israelite to Christ as he was present sacramentally in the types and shadows of the ceremonial law. The repetition of the covenant of works showed them their sin, and when the Israelites sinned, they were directed to the sacrificial system and mediation of the priests to provide atonement for the nation and for the individual, thus freeing them from the curses of the covenant. Just as there is an interlocking relationship between the law and the gospel, which meets in the provision of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ who fulfills the positive demands of the law and bears the curse of the law, so there was in the spiritual life of ancient Israel an interlocking relationship between the typological covenant of works and the sacrificial system of the temple.

The sacrificial system is the form that the underlying Abrahamic covenant of grace took during the Mosaic economy. The entire Mosaic economy (both layers taken as a whole) was like a nuclear fission reactor. The works principle at the typal layer is like the intensely hot (both thermally and radioactively) nuclear reactor core. By itself, the typological covenant of works would in itself be nothing but destructive due to the inevitable presence of sin after the Fall. But the nuclear reactor core did not exist by itself. It was shielded, contained, and held at bay by the control rods that absorb the destructive power of the neutron radiation. The whole reactor was surrounded by a massively thick vessel or container. The container is the Abrahamic covenant with its principle of substitutionary curse-bearing in the form of the sacrifices offered by the mediation of the priests, all a foreshadow of the priestly office and once-for-all sacrifice of Christ. The entirety of the Mosaic economy, or old covenant, is this reactor core of the typological covenant of works contained with the absorbing vessel of the sacrificial system.

This analogy was physically displayed in the most important institution that Israel possessed—the temple. The nuclear reactor core is the holy presence of God (symbolized by the Glory-Cloud) dwelling within the container of the temple, a relationship made possible only because of the continual sacrifices offered via priestly mediation. The sacrificial system in the temple made it possible for the holy God to dwell in the midst of an unholy people:

And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst .... Thus [the high priest] shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses (Exod 25:8; Lev 16:16 ESV).

The godly Israelite did not look to his own righteousness to absorb the curses of the covenant. He did not think that he was entitled to temporal blessings merely by his own obedience unaided by grace. Rather, in faith, he confessed his sin to the priest and received the atoning benefit of the sacrifices as they pointed ahead to the final sacrifice of the Messiah to come. In response to God’s grace, he also lived a life of thankful obedience as the outflow of his faith, an evangelical obedience that was flawed and imperfect, but when viewed collectively under the federal headship of a godly Davidic king was graciously accorded typological significance pointing ahead to the heaven-earning obedience of Christ.

Thus, there was no “spiritual schizophrenia” in the piety of the average godly Israelite. The works principle at the typological layer was able to operate without causing confusion because it was imbedded within a gracious context. It had a pedagogical purpose within the old covenant order, not merely in the historical sense of preparing the nation of Israel for the coming of Christ, but in the sense of directing the elect Israelites to Christ as he was present sacramentally in the types and shadows of the sacrificial system. 

Merit and Moses: Spiritual Schizophrenia? Part 2

Second, I now want to drill down and examine the piety of the OT believers. I want to divide this analysis into two sub-questions: How did the special leaders of Israel experience their relationship to God under the Law? How did the average Israelite experience his relationship to God under the Law?

With regard to the first class, it is apparent that there is a sense in which they knew themselves, in their role as (typological) federal heads, to be able to obey as the basis or ground of national felicity. David was able to speak of his “merit” or “entitlement” in some sense:

“The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness;
    according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me.
For I have kept the ways of the LORD 
    and have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all his rules were before me,
    and from his statutes I did not turn aside.
I was blameless before him,
    and I kept myself from guilt.
And the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
    according to my cleanness in his sight” (2 Sam 22:21-25 [= Ps 18:20-24]  ESV).

Does this mean David thought he was without sin? Certainly not. The Psalms contain plentiful evidence that David recognized his sinfulness (Pss 25:7, 11; 32:5; 38:1-4, 18; 51:1-19) and praised God for his forgiving grace (Ps 32:1-2; 103:3, 10). So when David speaks of his righteousness and cleanness of hands, he is not claiming sinless perfection. Commentators have pointed out that in such passages (there are many others) there is always a contest between the righteous anointed king and the wicked who assail him. The wicked are persecuting God’s anointed and seeking to condemn him on false charges, but the anointed one calls out to God for vindication. Thus, when David appeals to his own righteousness and integrity as the reason for God to vindicate him, he is speaking in a relative sense in the face of the false charges brought by his enemies.

Such prayers were composed for a person who was in the right in comparison with the antagonist. They are the expressions of a good conscience before hostility and opposition …. The innocence claimed by the petitioner was not an absolute righteousness but a rightness with respect to the charges (James Luther Mays, Psalms [Louisville: John Knox, 1994], 64, 433).

Yet, in the context of the typal sphere, his limited righteousness “with respect to the charges” had typological significance. Since he was God’s anointed king, his obedience pointed ahead to the obedience of Christ. David’s vindication pointed ahead to the vindication of Christ at his resurrection, when he received a God-approved righteousness. And just as David’s vindication was not his vindication as a mere private person but in his public role as the anointed representative of the people, so Christ’s vindication took place in his role as our federal head, so that his righteousness is now reckoned as ours in union with him.

At the same time, David recognized God’s grace in being the recipient of the Davidic covenant and being appointed as a type of the Messiah to come:

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O LORD God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O LORD God! And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O LORD God! Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it” (2 Sam 7:18-21 [= 1 Chron 17:16-19] ESV).

Kline recognized that if OT leaders like King David are to be seen or regarded as having any “merit” at all in the post-Fall redemptive context, it must be typological merit, that is, it must be merit that is based on God’s “gracious favor” (GHHM 128) by which he appointed them to function as types of the Messiah’s active obedience and “invested” (KP 237) their imperfect obedience with symbolic and typological significance. Any outstanding works on the part of such leaders could have such typological merit only because they were graciously “accorded by God [as having] an analogous kind of value with respect to the typological stage represented by the old covenant” (KP 325).

This means that just as the Mosaic economy as a whole has two layers, so the obedience of these OT leaders who functioned as types of the Messiah’s obedience can be viewed from two aspects. From the lower-layer ordo salutis point of view, their obedience is the obedience of faith. It is flawed and imperfect and graciously accepted by God through the covenant of grace. From the upper-layer typological, redemptive-historical point of view, their obedience has been invested with greater meaning and can be seen as symbolically “meritorious,” that is, functioning as the ground of reward.

Similar considerations apply to other OT saints whose obedience was invested by God with typological significance. For example, with regard to Abraham’s act of obeying God by not withholding his only son, and God’s rewarding him with the future Israelite kingdom (“because you have done this,” Gen 22:16-18), Kline wrote:

From the perspective of Abraham’s personal experience of justification by faith, this act of obedience validated his faith (Jas 2:21ff.; cf. Gen 15:6). But from the redemptive-historical/eschatological perspective, Abraham’s obedience had typological import. The Lord constituted it a prophetic sign of the obedience of Christ, which merits the heavenly kingdom for his people. (GHHM 102)

There is no tension or schizophrenia because Abraham and David knew that it was by God’s grace that their imperfect obedience was invested with typological significance as a “prophetic sign of the obedience of Christ.”

KP = Kingdom Prologue (2006)
GHHM = God, Heaven, and Har Magedon (2006)