Republication is a debated topic today and is often misunderstood. The idea is not that the Adamic covenant of works was republished for Israel at Sinai without change. Kline argues that national Israel was “under probation in a covenant of works” (Kingdom Prologue, 352), not “the” covenant of works. That is why I pefer to speak of “typological republication.” The key to making sense of this is to recognize that the Mosaic economy was complex. More things are going on there than simply administering the one covenant of grace. According to Kline, “The old covenant order was composed of two strata,” and “The works principle in the Mosaic order was confined to the typological sphere of the provisional earthly kingdom which was superimposed as a secondary overlay on the foundational stratum” (KP 321). The foundational layer, the one covenant of grace, continues unbroken from Genesis 3:15 on. But at the secondary layer, a works principle is reenacted with national Israel in order to set the covenantal context for the exile and the coming of Christ, who was born under the law that he might perfectly fulfill it and win the eternal inheritance for us.
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