This episode of the Upper Register podcast is a visual presentation that builds Meredith Kline’s Biblical Theological Grid from Eden to the New Creation. This is how Kline conceived of the organism of special revelation, the step-by-step building of the Lego set, if you will. This is based on Professor Kline’s own chalkboard drawings at Westminster Seminary California around 1993. It’s not an exact reproduction, and I did make some adjustments, but it is pretty close. Due to the highly visual nature of this episode, you will definitely want to watch the YouTube version.
Debates over ethical questions abound in the church, particularly around the question of how we should engage in cultural activity in this present age. We can debate specific verses until the cows come home, but unless we recognize the fundamental role of Biblical Theology, we will never get anywhere. In this episode, I illustrate the usefulness of Biblical Theology for the debate between contemporary North American Neo-Calvinism and the Klinean Two Kingdoms paradigm of cultural engagement.
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I mentioned some of the crucial Biblical Theological distinctions made by Kline. Here are the quotes with more context:
On the refracted cultural mandate:
“Common grace culture is not itself the particular holy kingdom-temple culture that was mandated under the creational covenant. Although certain functional and institutional provisions of the original cultural mandate are resumed in the common grace order, these now have such a different orientation, particularly as to objectives, that one cannot simply and strictly say that it is the cultural mandate that is being implemented in the process of common grace culture. It might be closer to the truth to say that the cultural mandate of the original covenant in Eden is being carried out in the program of salvation, since the ultimate objective of that mandate, the holy kingdom-temple, will be the consummate achievement of Christ under the Covenant of Grace .... As brought over into the postlapsarian world, the cultural mandate undergoes such refraction that it cannot be identified in a simple, unqualified way with either the holy or common enterprises. Nevertheless, when dealing with postlapsarian functions and institutions, both common and holy-redemptive, it is important to recognize their creational rootage and the kind of continuities that do obtain between them and the terms of the original cultural mandate” (Kline, Kingdom Prologue [KP], 156-57).
On structural dualism after the Fall:
“We are in agreement with the neo-Dooyeweerdians when they account for the religious antithesis evident in the life of the city by treating it not in terms of the structural nature of the city but as belonging to the direction of the response given to the city-mandate in the fallen situation. By relating the religious antithesis to the directional aspect and not to the structural aspect, the institutional legitimacy of the city can be properly affirmed. Unfortunately, however, in a philosophical zeal for an abstract structural monism apparently, the neo-Dooyeweerdians commit themselves to a view of historical reality within which the Creator himself would not be allowed to respond to the Fall with appropriate modifications of the institutional structuring of the original creation. Specifically, he would not be free to introduce a structural dualism in which there coexisted legitimately both holy kingdom institution and non-holy institution. Or, stated in other terms, the cosmonomic philosophy does not seem able to do justice to the impact of historical-eschatological developments on the created world-order” (KP 170).
On subjective sanctification of culture:
“We have considered the priestly mission of sanctifying culture as it comes to expression in the building of the holy people-house of God, but what would it entail with respect to the common city of man? Positively, it must be recognized that the whole life of God’s people is covered by the liturgical model of their priestly identity. All that they do is done as a service rendered unto God. All their cultural activity in the sphere of the city of man they are to dedicate to the glory of God. This sanctification of culture is subjective; it transpires within the spirit of the saints. Negatively, it must be insisted that this subjective sanctification of culture does not result in a change from common to holy status in culture objectively considered. The common city of man does not in any fashion or to any degree become the holy kingdom of God through the participation of the culture-sanctifying saints in its development. Viewed in terms of its products, effects, institutional context, etc., the cultural activity of God’s people is common grace activity. Their city of man activity is not ‘kingdom (of God)’ activity. Though it is an expression of the reign of God in their lives, it is not a building of the kingdom of God as institution or realm. For the common city of man is not the holy kingdom realm, nor does it ever become the holy city of God, whether gradually or suddenly. Rather, it must be removed in judgment to make way for the heavenly city as a new creation” (KP 201).
Systematic Theology draws a circle and examines the logical relationships between doctrines; Biblical Theology draws a line and traces the historical progress of special revelation. Biblical Theology does not replace Systematic Theology but it supports and strengthens it by helping us to see the true Scriptural basis of our doctrines. For example, how do we know there is such a thing as “the covenant of grace” and “the covenant of works”? Are these just logically derived theological constructs, or are they really taught in Scripture? Biblical Theology is useful for Systematics because it shows how doctrines are not ad hoc church dogmas supported by a handful of doubtful proof texts, but are deeply imbedded in the Organism of special revelation.
As Geerhardus Vos said: “Biblical Theology relieves to some extent the unfortunate situation that even the fundamental doctrines of the faith should seem to depend mainly on the testimony of isolated proof-texts. There exists a higher ground on which conflicting religious views can measure themselves as to their Scriptural legitimacy. In the long run that system will hold the field which can be proven to have grown organically from the main stem of revelation, and to be interwoven with the very fibre of Biblical religion” (Biblical Theology, 17-18).
I said Edmund Clowney’s gem of a book, Preaching and Biblical Theology (1961), was out of print, but I discovered afterward that it was reprinted by P&R in 2002.
Clowney writes: “If its [biblical theology’s] principle is grasped, it cannot be optional or superficial. Its approach is rather an essential step in the interpretation of the Bible .... In tracing the progress of revelation, biblical theology rests upon the unity of the primary authorship of Scripture and the organic continuity of God’s work in redemption and revelation. The Old Testament saints looked forward to Messiah’s day; they saw it and were glad. We, too, who know Christ’s finished work which brought in the end of the ages, look forward to the blessed hope of his appearing” (pp. 87-88).
“The method of biblical-theological preaching involves simply the proper use of these principles in the explanation of the sermon text. Its perspective clarifies the meaning of the text, emphasizes its central message, and provides for sound application” (p. 88).
STEP ONE: “Relate the text to its immediate theological horizon,” (p. 88), to the particular moment of redemptive history in which it is located.
STEP TWO: “Relate the event of the text, by way of its proper interpretation in its own period, to the whole structure of redemptive history; and in that way to us upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (p. 88).
Clowney is quoting 1 Cor 10:6, 11: “These things took place as examples (typoi) for us … These things happened to them as an example (typikōs), but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”
“The objective unfolding of the events must be understood in unity with the subjective response of faith or of unbelief, and this in terms of the stage of redemption and revelation which has been reached” (p. 88). “The Israelites are examples, not as an ancient people whose experiences happened to resemble ours in certain respects, but as the people of God, occupying a particular place in the plan of the ages, that is, in the history of redemption” (p. 79).
Applying these principles to the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17): “These two elements fit in perfect harmony. The theological interpretation, the redemptive-historical interpretation, is on David’s own lips as he goes into battle …. By the unction of the Spirit, David had insight into his own role in redemptive history. He understands the nature of Israel and the purpose of the existence of this nation. He also understands the nature of the covenant God, his omnipotence, and his faithfulness. Further, he understands his own position as an instrument of the Lord. His power is of the Lord who saves not with sword and spear, for the battle is his. Do we not perceive that David’s possession, in a measure, of this insight was necessary to his role in redemptive history? Indeed, is not this the issue in the rejection of Saul and the establishment of the kingdom in David’s hands?” (p. 83).
“In David’s later testing through the persecution of Saul, it is this principle in his own understanding that is repeatedly challenged by circumstances and embraced by faith. The true theocratic King must be one whose glory is the name of God, who comes not in his own name but in the name of the God who sends him” (p. 83).
“The real ethical and religious issues in David’s own experience are in perfect congruity with the significance of the redemptive history, for David himself perceives the nature of those issues, and his stature and usefulness in the history of redemption depend upon the fact that he does so. Saul, of course, has a negative role in the history of redemption because of his failure to perceive the issues; but the connection between the ethical and the redemptive-historical is the same” (p. 84).
“In connecting our experience with David’s we need only to understand that we upon whom the ends of the ages are come are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. [‘The feeblest among them shall be like David,’ Zech 12:8 ESV]. Each of us has official responsibility to exalt the name of the Lord of hosts before the people of God and the world” (p. 84).
“When we thus approach the Scriptures, ready to appreciate the [mental] grasp of the ‘redemptive-historical figures’ upon the principles of redemption, we are using a scriptural method. We have only to recall the descriptions of Abraham and Moses in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews to see that this is so. These men were not only actors in the great redemptive-historical movement that culminated in Christ. They themselves looked for Christ, and they possessed this Christian hope not as a bare prophetic enigma but as a living hope, full of meaning for their daily consciousness and experience. It conformed to the deepest realities of their religious life as they hungered and thirsted for God. They saw and greeted the promises from afar. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth – even as we, who have here no abiding city – and they desired that heavenly country, that city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God” (p. 84).
Meredith Kline: “The human dimensions of the Old Testament are to be duly appreciated, but it is supremely important that we apprehend in faith the Old Testament’s claim that God is its primary author. If we do, we will see the Old Testament as more than an anthology of various types of literature produced by a series of authors across a span of centuries. We will understand that it all issued ultimately from the throne room of Israel’s heavenly King and that all its literary forms possess a functional unity as instruments of Yahweh’s ongoing covenantal oversight of the conduct and faith of his vassal people” (Structure of Biblical Authority, p. 46).
Geerhardus Vos defined Biblical Theology as the subdiscipline of Exegetical Theology that focuses on the history of special revelation. But it is not simply rehearsing the historical events of sacred history in order; it is a theological discipline that seeks to understand the organism of special revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity. Here are seven principles that characterized the Reformed variety of Biblical Theology.
(1) Division
Reformed Biblical Theology makes a crucial distinction or division between pre-redemptive and redemptive revelation. Redemptive revelation is a concept we are more familiar with—the promises of the gospel, the prophecies of the Messiah to come, the ministry and teaching of Jesus as he reveals the will of God for our salvation.
However, pre-redemptive revelation is distinct from redemptive revelation. Pre-redemptive revelation has to do with the special relationship between God and Adam before the Fall, in which he placed Adam on probation and offered him the hope that, if he passed the test, he would be able to receive a higher life than he had at creation. Pre-redemptive revelation is before the Fall, and redemptive revelation is after the Fall. Adam failed to keep the probation and broke covenant with God, and as a result, God responded to that by making the first promise of the gospel in Genesis 3:15.
Now I just said “God responded,” but that is not technically correct. God is absolutely sovereign and above time. He is immutable and impassible, and does not “respond” to his creatures. And yet, from a biblical theological perspective, as we are looking at the history of special revelation, we see something that appears from our creaturely point of view to be a divine response. In response to the Fall, God makes the first promise of the gospel concerning the Messiah to come, the Seed of the woman who will crush the Serpent’s head.
So that is the distinction between pre-redemptive and redemptive revelation. And the boundary line is the Fall. Sometimes we biblical theologians wish we had a term to cover the entire organism of special revelation, and sometimes we use the term “redemptive history” to cover that. But that is not technically correct, because redemptive history begins at Genesis 3:15. Everything before that point—creation and Adam’s probation—is the pre-redemptive revelation, and cannot be included under the label “redemptive” revelation, because the Fall has not yet happened and redemption has not yet been put in motion. That is why we use the more cumbersome label “the history of special revelation.” Sometimes we use another label, “covenant history,” because that is broad enough to include both the covenant of works in the garden and the subsequent unfolding of the covenant of grace. Either phrase, “the history of special revelation” or “covenant history,” is suitable as the most comprehensive label that covers both pre-redemptive and redemptive special revelation.
The principle of division is very important, because if we don’t understand the distinction between pre-redemptive and redemptive, if we smoosh everything together, making it seem like redemptive revelation begins before the Fall, or that there is no difference between pre-redemptive and redemptive, then we end up with Pelagianism. Pelagius denied the Fall and said that when Adam sinned, he was just sinning as an individual. Adam sinned and broke covenant with God, but we come along after Adam as the sons of Adam and we are in the same position as Adam. We can choose to sin or not to sin. If we choose not to sin, we can obtain eternal life by our obedience. According to Pelagianism, there is no distinction or division between the pre-redemptive and the redemptive plan.
(2) Eschatology
Reformed Biblical Theology holds that redemptive special revelation can only be understood in light of the pre-redemptive revelation that was part of Adam’s probation before the Fall. Immediately after the Fall, God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall crush your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). When we hear that first promise of the gospel, we must interpret it in light of the pre-redemptive revelation that was part of Adam’s probation. By making this promise, God was promising to do something—he is going to create enmity between these two seeds. He is going to bring in the Seed of the woman who is going to crush the Serpent’s head. What God is essentially promising is that he is going to bring about, through Christ, the original eschatology that was offered to Adam in the garden. At the very end of Genesis 3, as God is about to expel Adam and Eve from the garden, God made this a very important pronouncement: he said, Let us cast man out of the garden “lest he reach out his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22). In saying this, God is making clear that the Tree of Life held forth a promise to Adam that he would be able to advance from the life in which he was created, which was mortal, to immortality—that he would be able to achieve an eschatological advancement.
When you turn to the New Testament, at the very end of the Bible, in Revelation 22:2, the Tree of Life appears once again in the midst of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, and it is given for the healing of the nations so that the curse might be removed—the curse that came into the world because of Adam’s sin. So that connects the dots and shows us that the plan of redemption is that God is promising to bring about, through Christ, through a Redeemer, through a second Adam figure, the original eschatology that was offered to Adam in the garden.
This is connected to what I said in a previous episode, about how Biblical Theology focuses on the organism of special revelation. There is an organic connection between these things: the pre-Fall and the post-Fall, the pre-redemptive and the redemptive, are connected. Not that they are the same—the Fall changes everything, and the plan of redemption is different from the original promise of the eschatology that was offered to Adam on the basis of his obedience. But in spite of that, in spite of this major difference, in spite of the major structural division that occurs between pre-redemptive and redemptive, there is also a connection, because God is bringing about what he had originally offered to Adam in the garden. The plan of redemption, then, is a remedial plan, that is, it is intended to remediate the situation and to bring about that which was originally promised and that which was originally hoped for.
(3) Movement
The third principle is the principle of movement. Reformed Biblical Theology holds that redemptive revelation is characterized by an overarching movement, in the history of special revelation after the Fall, from promise to fulfillment. Redemptive revelation is not static. It is not simply that God is doing one thing the whole time. Rather, there is movement, there is progress, and that movement and that progress is essentially a movement of promise to fulfillment.
This is so clear when you turn to the New Testament. When Jesus comes on to the scene, we read in Mark 1:15: “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.’” He is saying, “Here it is; this is the time when all the promises that have been communicated to God’s people in the old covenant are going to come to fruition in me.” Paul said the same thing very clearly in 2 Corinthians 1:20: “All the promises of God find their Yes in Christ.” Are there any promises you can think of in the Old Testament? Indeed, there are many promises all over the place. Well, whatever promise you can think of, they all find their Yes in Christ. He is the fulfillment of all the promises of God.
(4) Continuity
The fourth principle is the principle of continuity. Reformed Biblical Theology is absolutely committed, as one of its key distinctives, to affirming the continuity of the one people of God throughout redemptive history. It is not as though there are two different peoples of God—the descendants of Abraham which become Israel, and then the church which includes the Gentiles. No, there are not two different peoples of God but one. Yes, they undergo change. Yes, there is process of development from the Old to the New Covenant. But it is one people of God. In Romans 11, Paul makes this doctrine absolutely crystal clear by saying that there is only one olive tree. There are not two olive trees, one for Israel and one for the church. There is only one olive tree, and although it is true that some of the branches in that olive tree had to be removed from the tree because of their unbelief (Paul is referring there to Jewish people who rejected Jesus as the Messiah and did not believe in him), yet in spite of that seeming failure, God is grafting in the wild branches, that is, the Gentiles who believe in Jesus, into that one olive tree. And so together, both Jewish believers and Gentiles who have come to faith in Christ form together one olive tree.
(5) Multiformity
The fifth principle is the principle of multiformity. Reformed Biblical Theology balances the emphasis on continuity with a simultaneous recognition of the multiformity of the organism. Remember Vos’s longer definition of Biblical Theology: “The exhibition of the organic progress of supernatural revelation in its historic continuity and multiformity.” He didn’t just say “historic continuity.” Yes, there is continuity and organic progress in supernatural revelation, but this supernatural revelation manifests both continuity and multiformity. There is sameness and also difference. There is one olive tree, but that tree goes through a lot of different changes. The way in which God administers his Kingdom varies from epoch to epoch.
In his book The Structure of Biblical Authority, Meredith Kline said, “The covenant order [is] not static but correlated to historical movement and change” (SBA 95). So there is continuity, one people of God, but there is also historical movement and change. In the context, Kline is talking about the Ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties. In the Ancient Near East, you had a suzerain and vassal, and Kline is using that as a model to understand God’s covenant relationship with his people. Just as the ancient suzerain had the authority as the sovereign to change the terms of the covenant as he saw fit and the vassal simply had to submit, so also in God’s relationship with his people as he administers his Kingdom from one epoch to the next, he can sovereignly make changes. God can redefine how things should be set up and how God’s people are to interact with the world around them.
Continuing in that same section of The Structure of Biblical Authority, Kline writes that God “directs and forwards redemption’s eschatological development by decisive interventions, initiating distinctive new eras and authoritatively redefining the mode of his kingdom” (SBA 96).The Kingdom is the same, the people of God are the same. But God has the authority to redefine the mode of that Kingdom from one epoch to the next. God himself intervenes. When God came at Mount Sinai and intervened and brought in the covenant order that would lead to the establishment of the Israelite theocracy in the land, that was something unique, something distinct from what had gone before. When he intervened again in sending his Son in the fullness of time, that again brought about a change in the mode of the Kingdom of God.
You see this very clearly for example in the contrast between the way God’s people related to the world in the time of the patriarchs versus in the time of the conquest of Canaan under Joshua and beyond. In the time of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were pilgrims and sojourners. Yes, the land was theirs by promise; God promised, “To your seed I will give this land,” and yet they didn’t possess it. They made treaties with the Canaanite inhabitants of the land. Abraham even purchased a plot of ground from one of the Canaanite tribes in order to have a plot of ground to bury his wife. That was pilgrim politics.
Notice how different that is from conquest politics. In the time of Joshua and beyond, the people of Israel are not allowed to make treaties with the Canaanites. In fact, they are to go in and wipe them out. This is like an intrusion of the day of judgment. It is holy war. They are bringing to bear the principles and powers of the age to come into this plot of ground that they are now going to inherit as a possession not as sojourners.
(6) Covenants
The sixth principle is very closely connected to multiformity, and that is the principle of covenants. This is one of the most distinctive elements of Reformed Biblical Theology that sets it apart from other varieties of biblical theology. Reformed Biblical Theology sees covenants as the key instruments by which God shapes the organism of special revelation.
One of the most important things to observe here is that not all covenants are the same. There are different types of covenants in Scripture. There are unconditional covenants like the covenant of common grace in Genesis 9, which is made with all of creation, with both believers and unbelievers. There is no condition in this covenant. If mankind is more or less rebellious against God, it is not going to change the nature of this covenant, which is that God is promising to delay the day of judgment and to provide a common background or context for both the seed of the woman in the seed of the serpent to live together and to cooperate and to exist in this fallen world prior to the day of judgment.
But there are other covenants in the Bible, like the Adamic Covenant (the Covenant of Works) and the Mosaic Covenant, also called the Old Covenant. These are both legal covenants in which there is a condition—blessings are conditioned upon obedience, and curses are conditioned or threatened upon disobedience. That is a very different type of covenant from the unconditional covenant of common grace. Adam and Israel have to obey and if they don’t, they are going to receive the curses of the covenant.
And then there are yet again other types of covenants—there are promissory covenants. This type of covenant is most clearly seen in the Abrahamic Covenant in the New Covenant, which are just two administrations of the Covenant of Grace. Promissory covenants do have a condition in the sense that they require faith, but that requirement is not a legal requirement. It is not like you have to provide faith and then God provides the reward or the blessing of the covenant in return. The “condition” of faith is simply a receptive condition that rests upon the promise. It is the empty hand that receives the promise and receives it by faith alone.
So there are unconditional covenants, legal covenants, and promissory covenants. These are different instruments that God uses to do different things that are needed to shape the organism of special revelation as it unfolds from one stage to the next.
(7) Christocentrism
The seventh principle is the most glorious of all and that is Christocentrism. Reformed Biblical Theology holds that all redemptive special revelation from Genesis 3:15 on is Christocentric. It is all preparing the way for and leading us to the revelation of the Seed who was promised in Genesis 3:15. He shall crush the Serpent’s head. He will obey where Adam disobeyed. He will bring in the eschatology that Adam failed to achieve. He will bring us to the Tree of Life—in fact, he is the Tree of Life, and if we feed upon him we receive that higher state that immortality that was promised to Adam in the garden. So Christocentrism is the point of the whole thing. Of course, we don’t want to be Christomonists and say Christocentrism applies to the pre-redemptive revelation as well. That is not correct. We want to say Christocentrism is the point of the redemptive plan from Genesis 3:15 on.
I love that verse in Galatians, where Paul says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal 4:4-5). It is as if all of the time that was leading up to Christ was this promise phase in which we are just waiting for and groaning and longing for Christ, and then when the fullness of time had come, Christ appears.
Another analogy I like to use is the analogy of a play. You have different acts in the play—Act I, Act II, Act III, and so on. The final act in the play is the revelation of the hero. It is Christ himself. He steps out onto the stage in his incarnation and resurrection from the dead, and all the spotlights of the theater are shining upon him alone. Everyone is looking to him. The point of Reformed Biblical Theology is to see the Christocentric focus of redemptive special revelation.
Why is Hodge concerned about this issue? He is concerned because he is noticing a rise in moralism among Protestants, specifically in connection with the beginnings of liberalism or modernism. American Protestantism had not entered the fundamentalist vs. modernist controversy – that would be a couple of decades after Hodge wrote this in the opening decades of the 20th century. But Hodge was already seeing the signs of the coming struggle. Some Protestants were devaluing the doctrine of free justification and emphasizing the importance of moral living. They were reducing Jesus to a moral example and making void the cross. They were making the classic moralist argument that preaching justification leads to moral laxity; therefore, we must make justification less free, we must condition it upon our faith and our obedience in some way. But Hodge sees this as a fundamental betrayal of the Reformation. Even making faith a condition for receiving justification is misguided. Hodge argues we must be assured of our justification in order to grow in our sanctification. We can only pursue holiness and evangelical obedience if we are already confident that we are forgiven, justified, and accepted by God.
There is an unhappily significant tendency observable among many modern preachers and writers to ignore, if not positively to deny, the absolute necessity of a gratuitous justification as an essential precondition of the very beginnings of all moral reformation …. It is evident that the modern rationalistic moral legalism … makes the cross of Christ of none effect by their traditions …. Without antecedent reconciliation men cannot be truly sanctified. (pp. 318-320)
The … characteristic mark of Protestant soteriology is the principle that the change of relation to the law signalized by the term justification, involving remission of penalty and restoration to favor, necessarily precedes and renders possible the real moral change of character signalized by the terms regeneration and sanctification. The continuance of judicial condemnation excludes the exercise of grace in the heart. Remission of punishment must be preceded by remission of guilt, and must itself precede the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Hence it must be entirely unconditioned upon any legal standing, or moral or gracious condition of the subject. We are pardoned in order that we may be good, never made good in order that we may be pardoned. We are freely made co-heirs with Christ in order that we may become willing co-workers with him, but we are never made co-workers in order that we may become co-heirs. These principles are of the very essence of Protestant soteriology. (p. 311 emphasis added)
We return to the title: “The Ordo Salutis: or, Relation in the Order of Nature of Holy Character and Divine Favor.” What in Hodge’s view is the relation between “holy character” (transformative) and “divine favor” (forensic)? The forensic is the cause of the transformative. Divine favor is the cause of holy character. To say that God first gives us a holy character and then on that basis we obtain the divine favor is legalism and moralism. The Protestant Reformers recaptured the distilled gospel truth that God first blesses us with his favor by freely imputing the righteousness of Christ to us, and then as a result we are regenerated and thereafter progressively transformed in holy character. We are not justified only to the degree that we are sanctified, as Rome would have it. Rather, we first have our legal standing with God established for the sake of Christ and his righteousness, and only on that basis are we regenerated and progressively sanctified.
We have seen that Hodge argues for the causal priority of the forensic to the transformative, and that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the elect is the antecedent cause of regeneration. He offers three arguments in support:
First, justification “by faith” refers to subjective justification
The first argument is not so much a positive argument for his thesis, as it is a response to the exegetical argument appealing to the language that we are “justified by faith.” In this argument, Hodge essentially distinguishes between active/objective justification (aka imputation) and passive/subjective justification. Imputation is the cause of regeneration which is the cause of faith. Passive or subjective justification (not imputation) is what Paul has in view when he says we are justified by faith.
The biblical phrase, “justified by faith,” applies strictly, of course, to our relations to God as these are realized in the sphere of human consciousness. Faith is at once the act whereby we apprehend Christ, and the effect of our being antecedently apprehended of him. The act of faith is the one thing we do, but it is preceded in the order of causation by the impetration of salvation by Christ, and by the first stages of the work of the Holy Spirit in applying it. Faith is the organ whereby we recognize Christ as meriting our salvation, and the Father as reconciled for Christ’s sake; but, of course, the salvation was merited and the Father was reconciled, and both were long since engaged with the Holy Spirit in carrying on the work of the personal application of grace, or we could not recognize them as so doing. (p. 314)
Second, the analogy of the imputation of Adam’s sin
If the previous argument was more of a rebuttal, this is a positive argument for the thesis at hand. In my view, it is the decisive argument. The argument is, if we believe that Romans 5:12-21 teaches the immediate imputation of Adam’s sin, then by parity of reasoning we must also believe it teaches the immediate imputation of Christ’s righteousness. A transformative act (either of making us inherently corrupt and sinful, or of making us inherently righteous) does not intervene in either the imputation of Adam’s sin to all mankind or the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the elect. Indeed, in both cases, the change of nature is the effect or result of the change of legal status.
The analogy of the imputation of Adam’s sin to us and of our sins to Christ must be borne in mind when reflecting on the conditions of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us. However much various schools of theologians may differ as to the grounds and nature of our union with Adam … the whole Church has always maintained that the depravity of moral nature innate in his posterity is the penal consequence of his first sin …. The imputation of the guilt (just liability to punishment) of Adam’s apostatizing act to his whole race in common leads judicially to the spiritual desertion of each newborn soul in particular, and spiritual desertion involves inherent depravity as a necessary and universal consequence …. The imputation of Christ’s righteous to us is the necessary precondition of the restoration to us of the influences of the Holy Ghost, and that restoration leads by necessary consequence to our regeneration and sanctification …. If the imputation of guilt is the causal antecedent of inherent depravity, in like manner the imputation of righteousness must be the causal antecedent of regeneration and faith. (pp. 314-315 emphasis added)
Third, the case of those regenerated in infancy
As I argued in Part 9, another argument that enables us to see that imputation is the ultimate cause of faith rather than faith being a condition of imputation, is the case of those who are regenerated in infancy—whether elect infants dying in infancy, or elect covenant children who grow up to adult Christian faith without remembering a day when they did not believe.
This is obviously true in the case of a person regenerated in infancy, as must be true of all who dies in infancy, and of many others whose early regeneration is attested by their subsequent life. In their case the unquestionable order was as follows: The guilt of Adam was imputed at birth, and they at once lost original righteousness and became spiritually dead. Then the righteousness of Christ was imputed, and they were regenerated and in due course sanctified by the Holy Ghost. In the justification, therefore, of that majority of the elect which dies in infancy personal faith does not mediate. It cannot, therefore, ever mediate in the justification of any of the elect as an element absolutely necessary to the thing itself. In the case of the adult, faith is the first and invariable exercise of the regenerate and justified soul, whereby the righteousness of Christ imputed and the justification it effects are consciously received and appropriated, and the organ through which the Holy Spirit subsequently acts upon the soul, now spiritually alive, in, promoting its progressive sanctification. (pp. 315-316 emphasis added)
Here Hodge uses an analogy to make the point clear. He uses the analogy of the minor heir, whose possession of the inheritance goes through two phases: phase one, from birth, he has a legal right to the inheritance; phase two, upon reaching maturity, he comes into actual possession of the inheritance with all the powers of ownership.
As long as [the new-born elect child] is under age the will secures the inchoate rights of the heir de jure. It provides for his education and maintenance at the expense of the estate in preparation for his inheritance. It determines the previous installments of his patrimony to be given him by his trustee. It predetermines the precise time and conditions of his being inducted into absolute possession. His title rests from first to last upon his father’s will. He possesses certain rights and enjoys certain benefits from the first. But he has absolute rights and powers of ownership only when he reaches the period and meets the conditions prescribed for that purpose by the will. The force of this analogy is not weakened, but rather augmented by the fact that the peculiarity in the case of the elect heir of Christ’s redemption is that all the conditions of full possession are themselves free gifts, equally with the possession secure by the will, and parts of the inheritance itself. Hence the satisfaction and merit of Christ are imputed to the elect man from his birth, so far as they form the basis of the gracious dealing provided for him in preparation for his full possession. When that time has come, they are imputed to him unconditionally to that end, the consequence being that the Spirit, who had previously striven with him, and finally convinced him of sin, now renews his will, and works in him to act faith, whereby he appropriates the offered righteousness of Christ, and actually and consciously is received into the number, and is openly recognized and treated as one entitled to all the privileges, of the children of God. To this consummating and self-prevailing act of God theologians have assigned the title ‘Justification’ in its specific sense. It is a pronounced judgment of God, raising the subject into the realization of a new relation, yet one long purposed and prepared for. From the first, God had regarded and treated him as an heir of Christ’s righteousness. Now he regards and treats him as in the actual possession, and if an adult, he by the gift of faith brings him into conscious possession. The imputation to him as an heir and the imputation to him as in actual possession do not differ so much on God’s side as it differs in its effects and consequences in the actual relations and experiences of the subject. (pp. 317-318 emphasis added)
To summarize: Hodge argues that imputation is the cause of regeneration, regeneration is the cause of faith, and by that faith we come to the subjective appropriation of Christ’s righteousness already given in imputation. The main basis for this is Federal Theology, with all that involves: the pactum salutis, Paul’s two-Adams construct in which God deals with mankind through two federal heads, and the doctrine of immediate imputation. The case of those regenerated in infancy further solidifies the point that imputation cannot be conditioned upon conscious faith and that therefore imputation is the cause of regeneration and faith.
The following is a detailed summary of the incredibly important essay by A. A. Hodge, “The Ordo Salutis: or, Relation in the Order of Nature of Holy Character and Divine Favor,” published in The Princeton Review 54 (1878): 304-21. A condensed version of the same material may be found in his Outlines of Theology [1879 enlarged edition], pp. 517-518.
Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823–1886) was the son of the great Charles Hodge. From 1864 to 1877, he held the chair of systematic theology at Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. In 1877, he was called from Western to serve at Princeton Theological Seminary as an associate professor of systematic theology. The following year, the elder Hodge died, and the younger Hodge took up his father’s distinguished chair of systematic theology at Princeton. Note that the date of this essay (1878) coincides with these significant events in his personal life and career as a professor.
The Question
The question that A. A. Hodge proposes to deal with in this essay pertains to the ordo salutis, the logical ordering of the principal acts of God in the application of redemption. More specifically, he poses this question:
In the application of redemption to the individual sinner, which, in the order of nature, precedes and conditions the other—justification or regeneration? (p. 304)
These two terms—justification and regeneration—cover the two main benefits of salvation, the forensic and the transformative. And, as Hodge points, it is a distinctive mark of Protestant soteriology to make a clear distinction between these two benefits, in contrast with Roman Catholic soteriology which conflates them.
With the Protestants, justification is a forensic act of God, declaring that the law as a covenant of life is satisfied, and that the subject is no longer subject to its penalty, but entitled henceforth to the rewards conditioned upon obedience. Regeneration, on the other hand, is a subjective change in the moral character of the subject, the gracious commencement of his complete restoration to the moral image of God, effected by the Holy Spirit in progressive sanctification. (p. 311)
The question that Hodge wants to answer in this essay is: What is the relationship between the forensic and the transformative, between justification and regeneration? Is there a causal ordering of them in the ordo salutis? Of course, Hodge clarifies that the “question is obviously one as to order, not of time, but of cause and effect” (p. 313). The technical term used by Protestant scholastics to refer to this kind of order (logical or causal order) was “the order of nature.” In other words, to refer back to the title of the essay, Hodge is seeking to investigate the “relation in the order of nature of holy character [transformative] and divine favor [forensic].”
Hodge’s Answer
Hodge’s answer is that the forensic has logical or causal priority to the transformative. He quotes from Dr. Dorner’s History of Protestant Theology in support:
It is evident that God must himself already have been secretly favorable and gracious to a man, and must already have pardoned him in foro divino [in the divine court], for the sake of Christ and his relation to human nature, in order to be able to bestow upon him the grace of regeneration. The vocation of the individual to salvation could not result unless God had already, in preventing love, previously pardoned the sinner for Christ’s sake. In fact, viewed as an actus Dei forensis, there is a necessity that it should be regarded as existing prior to man’s consciousness thereof—nay, prior to faith. (p. 316)
Hodge does not say this, but I would like to point out the eminently biblical character of Dorner’s beautiful statement here. Paul always places the love of God back of the effectual calling by which we are brought into the conscious enjoyment of the blessings of salvation (adoption as sons, the indwelling of the Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, etc.):
“In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ … in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph 1:4-7). “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us … made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:4-5). “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood,” etc. (Rom 5:8-10).
God loved us before we even knew it. The forensic has causal priority over the transformative. God’s forensic imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us, his setting his love on us for Christ’s sake, is the cause of faith, not vice versa.
The Problem
But there is a problem. The problem is that Paul clearly teaches that we are justified by faith. “So we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ” (Gal 2:15; cp. 3:24; Rom 3:28; 5:1). If we Protestants know anything, we know that we are justified by faith. But the problem is that faith is itself a gift of God. Reformed soteriology makes clear that faith is the result of sovereign monergistic regeneration. Regeneration is the cause of faith. Through effectual calling, we hear the word of the gospel and by the working of the Spirit in regeneration our hearts are changed so that we can now exercise faith. Putting that doctrine together with the previous one, since regeneration is the cause of the faith by which we are justified, it is evident that regeneration or effectual calling must go before justification. That seems to contradict Hodge’s thesis that justification in the order of nature has causal priority over regeneration.
The Solution
To deal with this problem, Hodge appeals to Federal Theology. Federal Theology refers to the overarching two-Adams structure of God’s dealings with mankind per Paul’s teaching in Romans 5:12-21. Just as the Creator made a covenant of works with the first Adam, conditioning his attainment of eschatological advancement on his obedience, so the Father made a covenant of works with Christ as the second Adam (aka the pactum salutis). Christ’s work as the second Adam merits not only the benefits of redemption but even the details of the way in which those benefits are applied in time to each of the elect.
The solution of this problem is to be found in the fact … that Christ by his obedience and suffering impetrated* for his own people, not only the possibility of salvation, but salvation itself and all it includes, and the certainty and means of its application also. This he did in the execution of the provisions of a covenant engagement with his Father, which provides for the application of the purchased redemption to specific persons at certain times, and under certain conditions, all which conditions are impetrated* by Christ, as well as definitely determined by the covenant. (pp. 316-317) [*Impetrate: “to obtain by request or exertion,” Oxford English Dictionary]
Relying on the distinction between redemption accomplished and redemption applied, Hodge argues that both redemption accomplished and redemption applied are definite and have the elect in view. The application of redemption is founded on, purchased by, or “impetrated” by Christ in the accomplishment of redemption. The gift of faith in regeneration was purchased or merited by Christ for the elect according to the terms of the pactum salutis. Therefore, even though justification is by faith and faith is a gift of God effected by regeneration, regeneration itself was merited by Christ and therefore the forensic is ultimately the causal ground of the transformative. “The satisfaction and merit of Christ are the antecedent cause of regeneration” (p. 313).
Herman Bavinck on Active and Passive Justification
The following quotes are from the English translation of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics (ed. John Bolt; trans. John Vriend), vols. 3-4 (Baker, 2006, 2008).
“If it is true that the very first benefit of grace already presupposes communion with the person of Christ, then the imputation and granting of Christ to the church precedes everything else …. A bond was already forged between the mediator and those who were given him by the Father in eternity, in election, and more precisely in the pact of salvation (pactum salutis). Then, in the divine decree, a mystical union was concluded between them, and substitution occurred …. The whole church, comprehended in him as its head, has objectively been crucified, has died, been resurrected, and glorified with him. All the benefits of grace therefore lie prepared and ready for the church in the person of Christ. All is finished: God has been reconciled; nothing remains to be added from the side of humans. Atonement, forgiveness, justification, the mystical union, sanctification, glorification, and so on—they do not come into being after and as a result of faith but are objectively, actively present in Christ. They are the fruits solely of his suffering and dying, and they are appropriated on our part by faith. God grants them and imputes them to the church in the decree of election, in the resurrection of Christ, in his calling by the gospel. In God’s own time they will also become the subjective possession of believers.” (3.523, emphasis added)
“Regeneration, faith, and conversion are not preparations that occur apart from Christ and the covenant of grace nor conditions that a person has to meet in toto or in part in his or her own strength to be incorporated into that covenant. Rather, they are benefits that already flow from the covenant of grace, the mystical union, the granting of Christ’s person. The Holy Spirit, who is the author of these benefits, was acquired by Christ for his own. Hence the imputation of Christ precedes the gift of the Spirit, and regeneration, faith, and conversion do not first lead us to Christ but are taken from Christ by the Holy Spirit and imparted to his own.” (3.525, emphasis added)
“The imputation of the person of Christ along with all his benefits, therefore, preceded the gift of the benefits. Justification, in other words, did not occur as a result of or by faith, but with a view to faith. Before the elect receive faith, they have already been justified. Indeed, they receive this faith precisely because they have already been justified beforehand. This objective and active justification was made known in the gospel from Genesis 3:15 on and in the resurrection of Christ (Rom 4:25), but had actually already occurred in the decree of election when they were given to Christ and Christ was given to them, when their sin was imputed to Christ and his righteousness was imputed to them …. [Maccovius] treats the benefits in the following order: active justification, regeneration, faith, passive justification, good works; but he nevertheless continues to distinguish justification from its decree in eternity.” (3.583, emphasis added)
“A covenant of grace, a mystical union between Christ and his church, existed long before believers were personally incorporated into it—or else Christ could not have made satisfaction for them either. The imputation and donation of Christ and all his benefits by God takes place before the particular persons come to believe. Specifically, that imputation and donation takes place in the internal calling, and regeneration is the passive acceptance of this gift of grace. God also had to give that gift in order for us to be able to receive it. The very first gift of grace given us already presupposes the imputation of Christ, for Christ is the only source of grace, the acquisitor and distributor of the Spirit, who is his Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.” (4.214, emphasis added)
“Now to maintain this perfect righteousness of Christ and the full riches of the gospel, Reformed theologians, in speaking of actual justification, made a distinction between active and passive justification …. The acquisition and the application [of redemption] are so tightly connected that the former cannot be conceived or exist apart from the latter and vice versa. The acquisition necessarily entails the application. Christ, by his suffering and death, also acquired the astonishing blessing that all his benefits, hence also the forgiveness of sins, would be applied personally and individually to all his own. As Savior, Christ not only aims at objective satisfaction but also at the subjective redemption of his own from sin. Now this redemption is fully achieved, not by an objective justification in the divine decree or in the resurrection of Christ, but only when, both in terms of reality and of the consciousness of that reality, human beings are freed from sin and hence regenerated and justified. It is of this justification that Scripture continually speaks, and it is this justification, as Comrie acknowledges, that is ‘the communication and actual impartation.’ “However, under the influence of Remonstrantism and Saumurian theology, of Pietism and rationalism, there gradually arose a conception of this ‘actual justification’ such that people first had to believe and repent, that in the court of heaven God subsequently sat in judgment and—on the basis of the believer’s faith in Christ, one’s unity with Christ, and one’s ‘faithful’ activities or good works—acquitted the believer; and that on earth, in the court of the individual self, God by his Spirit announced this verdict in the hearts of believers. “Now the distinction between active and passive justification served to escape this nomistic pattern. Active justification already in a sense occurred in the proclamation of the gospel, in the external calling, but it occurs especially in the internal calling when God by his word and Spirit effectually calls sinners, convicts them of sin, drives them out toward Christ, and prompts them to find forgiveness and life in him. Logically this active justification precedes faith. It is, as it were, the effectual proclamation of God’s Spirit that one’s sins are forgiven, so that persons are persuaded in their hearts, believingly accept … that word of God and receive Christ along with all his benefits. And when these persons, after first, as it were, going out to Christ (the direct act of faith), then (by a reflex act of faith) return to themselves and acknowledge with childlike gratitude that their sins too have been personally forgiven, then, in that moment, the passive justification occurs by which God acquits believers in their conscience …. While there is here a priority of order, it is coupled with simultaneity of time …. Active and passive justification, accordingly, cannot be separated even for a second.” (4.218-19, emphasis added)
“The logical distinction between active and passive justification therefore offers an assortment of advantages …. “In the first place, it enables us, against all forms of nomism, to maintain the rich and joyful content of the gospel that God is gracious and abounding in steadfast love and that in Christ he has brought about a complete righteousness in which we can rest both in this life and in death and that in no way needs to be augmented or increased by us …. “In the second place, this distinction explains that from which the believer derives the freedom and boldness to appropriate this benefit …. In later times, when the religious vitality of the Reformation declined, many people in fact chose the path of self-examination in order thus to be assured of the genuineness of their faith and salvation. In this way the focus of the believer shifted from the promise of God to the believer’s own inner experience. But if we rightly understand the meaning of active justification, the whole subject appears to us in a different light …. The basis of faith exists outside of us in the promise of God. “In the third place, the above distinction makes it possible for us to regard faith as simultaneously a receptive organ and an active power. If in every respect justification comes after faith, faith becomes a condition, an activity that has to be performed in advance and cannot be purely receptive.” (4.220-21, emphasis added)