Dr.
Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue, Lecture 7
© 2012, Dr. Meredith Kline and Ted Hildebrandt
Approbation missing
At that particular point they would have been beyond probation, and that would have been declared to them. There would have been the word of approbation. You talk about justification and so on and I’m afraid, I have this feeling at least, that even in our best discussions of justification, they don’t have everything in them that they should have in them, because they don’t seem to have in them this thought of approbation. They don’t seem to get beyond pardon, or the recognition of some righteous nature or something that you have. That you actually encompass the work that earns heaven for you, that seems to be missing. We’ll talk more about it. Approbation, that would have been the first thing.
Conferral
But
what else would have happened to them immediately afterwards? In order to be in
heaven with God forever, you can’t be in a condition such as Adam and Eve were
in at beginning. They were able to sin, or not able to sin. God can’t take
you to heaven and guarantee heaven to you forever under conditions where you
might become a devil? So before that can take place you have to be confirmed
in righteousness. Something has to happen. The Holy Spirit or the glory Spirit
that creates you in the beginning now has to do a new work in you. He would
have done it in the past during probation. He would have done it, he would
have confirmed them so that they could no longer sin. They would have been
confirmed in spiritual righteousness. Those two things would have happened to
them and within that context they would have fulfilled the mission of extending
the kingdom of God globally by populating the earth and subduing, and so forth,
until when? Until God said okay we’ve got enough. Here’s the predestined pleroma,
it exists now.
Beyond probation
Now we can move beyond this first age of conferral to the
second stage. Now we can move beyond spiritual confirmation to physical glorification,
and that would have been the history. That would have been the happy history of
a probation that was passed. It didn’t work out that way happily. However the
second Adam who does it right. So all of these good things happen to us, eventually
approbation and confirmation which is eternal life.
I put it this way, that if he had by-passed probation you would not
get to be in the fully eschatological state of going to be in heaven, but he
would be in sort of a semi-eschatological state, comparable but not exactly
like what you and I are in. We’re sort of in a semi-eschatological state. We’re
confirmed in eternal life already, but we’re not yet glorified. But we are
carrying on our lives within present history which does not have all the
effects of sin all around us.
It didn’t happen that way. God knew, God predestined, it wasn’t
going to happen that way. But it didn’t mean that Satan was going to be the
winner after all. No, from eternity God has an arrangement in view, a covenant
in view, whereby it was going to happen that his original purpose to create a
living temple of living human beings made in his image, as a loving place, as a
temple for himself, a community that could dwell in him as a temple. It works
marvelously in both ways. We are the temple in which he dwells and he is the
temple in which we dwell. This was God’s purpose from the beginning and it is
not going to fail. There is no company from the eternity in Christ who are
going to achieve that in spite of the fall of Adam. That’s the gospel. There was
a covenant that was made in eternity and that was predestined from the
beginning.
Intra-trinitarian Covenant
So
there are covenants of creation and the first one is this one. It’s been called
by a variety of people in the history of covenant theology, this eternal pact,
or so on, this intra-Trinitarian, this committing business that we’re talking
about. Covenants are divinely sanctioned commitments, with the persons of the
trinity making covenant with themselves in this case. That’s a covenant if
there ever was one. He binds and he sanctioned commitments.
But let’s concentrate now on what I think you want to take account of
the Spirit as well. But we can concentrate here on the Father and the Son in
this particular relationship and the Father’s covenant of works. Works again,
huh? That’s another thing where John Murray had to jettison the traditions of
covenant theology, because he couldn’t think in terms of a work’s arrangements
of the Father and the Son as a covenant with the Son.
Covenant of Works and Christ’s mission
Now
this one, was the creator’s covenant of works with Adam, as the representative
of all mankind. This covenant was the covenant with the Son, not as the
representative of all mankind, because we are not universalists, if he were
representative of all mankind everyone would be saved. But with the Son as the
representative of the elect, those take covenant together. The Son undertakes
to fulfill the mission, of course, the mission is to do this: what the first
Adam failed to do it. The Son’s mission is to enter into the world as the
second Adam, to undergo that probation to fulfill the particular probationary task,
which was to fight the battle of Armageddon and overcome Satan. That’s the
probationary task that earns heaven for you, to win the battle of Armageddon
and overcome Satan. Christ is going to come into the world, and he’s going to
do that. As a result of that the Father promises a grant to him the glory of
the kingdom, and the people as his bride for whom he’s going to come and do all
of this. So it is a covenant of works, very similar then to the one that was
made with Adam. You do this, and this will be your reward. It is merit, you
earn it, okay?
Now as the son fulfills that covenant of works and in history he
comes into the world in the incarnation. He fulfills the probation, he receives
that Father’s word of approbation, which is expressed in his words of
exaltation, which results in the resurrection and ascension to the right hand
of the Father. He’s up in that seventh day, that Sabbath rest, and the
heavenly throne at the right hand of the majesty on high in his exultation. He’s
given authority, a name which is above every name. He’s given the Holy Spirit,
as the promise of the Father. In turn then, he gives to his people on earth in
order to bring them to salvation and to himself.
The
Covenant of Grace
So
what I’m saying then is, that here is this eternal covenant, and as a reward
for carrying that out, for fulfilling the probationary task, as a reward for
that, as part of his exultation, the son is made now to be the Lord of the Covenant
of Grace. The son is, as a result of his obedience giving his life unto death,
he is given the position now of being the mediator of a Covenant of Grace
whereby he is able then to share what he has earned by grace with his elect people.
The
Covenant of Grace
So
that brings us then to the recognition of this second covenant which we have called
the “Lord’s Covenant of Grace.” Here I’m going to use the word “church.” This
is getting into some other things we will be talking about, I don’t use the
word “elect” at this point, I use the word “church,” covenant community,
because this covenant of grace is actually administered in history. It is
administered to a community, and we did say something about this last week. You
have the elect within it, but which has others than the elect within the
covenant community within the church. When you’re talking about the Covenant of
Grace, the New Covenant, let us say, you are not just talking about the elect
you are talking about all those who are within the New Covenant.
So it is as a reward for his fulfilling this covenant with the Father
that the Son is given the status of being the one who is the Lord of the Covenant
of Grace. Luke 22:29-30 I think is very helpful here, where Jesus says to his
disciples, “even as the Father covenanted,” now the word there is the verb from
which you get the word diatheke the word for “covenant.” So I’ll translate
it instead of the point of just translation “covenant.” Jesus said “even as
the Father appointed unto me a kingdom,” great is the reward for what I’m
doing, “even so now I covenant unto you.” So there are the two levels, as the Father
covenants unto me, and then in that covenant the son is the servant, and the
eternal covenant with the Father, son, the servant, the Father appointed unto
me, the servant, for your faithful service. So now in the position of the Lord
I appoint unto you that you should share with me so I can sit down in the
blessings of the covenant.
There is some confusion, in some of our formulations of these two
things in our own catechisms and so on. These two things get can confusingly
blended together, but that is a big mistake because they are totally different.
The parties are totally different, here’s the Father and then the Son, and the Elect.
Down here it includes others than the elect. The role of the Son is completely
different. There he’s the servant. Here he’s the Lord. The principle of
operation is completely different. There the principle is works, the Son gets
the reward not as an act of favor or grace on God’s part, he earns it the old
fashion way. He earns it by his active and passive obedience. So works is the
principle up there, but grace is the principle that characterizes this one, as
you and I get the reward not by our works but not apart from works either, but
the works are his. He has done it for us. He has done it for us and he gives it
to us by grace.
Christ’s role in the Covenant of Grace
That
Covenant of Grace then, alone, is the legal basis for it is in the fullness of time
when Christ has entered the world here in his incarnation. On the cross he has
won the battle of Armageddon. Then he is exalted unto heaven and from there as Lord
of the Covenant of Grace, he administers. But it isn’t just from that point on
we have the Covenant of Grace. Rather it’s this situation, Adam could fail or
couldn’t fail. As a matter of fact he did fail, but the Son of God could not
fail. It was absolutely certain that he would fulfill that covenant and earn
the blessings of the kingdom for his people. So certain it was that even before
it happened the benefits already were being bestowed. So here we come back to after
the fall of Adam and so on. Right from the beginning the Son of God, by the Holy
Spirit who was given at Pentecost. But the Holy Spirit was not operating in the
world it wouldn’t have been regeneration or any of these things. But the Holy Spirit
was given before and therefore the Covenant of Grace had been operating even
before Christ came. Of course, it continues to operate after he came to offer
after he had come on into the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit is given in a
fresh way from God.
Nevertheless this administration of the Covenant of Grace is
something that the Son was doing right in the beginning of a long way. That’s the
Covenant of Grace, that whole long thing, which then as you read through your Bible
you see subdivided into a series of covenants. So here’s the New Covenant, and
there was the Mosaic Covenant, along with the old covenant and before that
there was the Abrahamic Covenant. In fact before that the Old and the New
covenant are two stages of the fulfillment of that. Before that there were the
covenants that go all the way back to the Sethites and so on. So it becomes a
further question now to analyze all these Covenants of Grace and all these seven
administrations of the Covenant of Grace.
Mosaic administration of the Covenant of Grace
We
think of them and let me just say that this will be the closing thing. This is where
we will end leading to a big discussion. When you come to Moses and the Old Covenant,
you encounter a new organization of things. You have a theocratic organizing
of the kingdom where by the ultimate goal of heaven gets intruded on the earthly
scene. Now today the kingdom of God is not outwardly expressed anymore. Before
Moses came in the patriarchal period, the covenant community didn’t have the
form of an external kingdom. But it’s in the Mosaic period that you get sort of
a second layer. Here is the covenant, here is the principle of grace working for
salvation all the way through the one principle of salvation by grace and in
Christ. That’s the bottom there--the Mosaic covenant. It goes all the way
through. There’s a second layer whereby the kingdom of God was typologically
present. So there is this typological kingdom. Here’s where it’s difficult and
a very much debated thing is going on.
Paul and law and grace
What
principle was operating on that second level? How is it that Paul in the New Testament
can say the law is not of faith? We will be looking at all the passages, Jeremiah
31 for a prophecy and then Romans 10 and then Galatians 3 and Galatians 4 and 2
Corinthians 3 and all these other passages where Paul emphatically insists that
there’s the gospel and there’s the law and that there’s a big contrast between
them. The law is not of faith, there’s a work principle he insists: “do this
and you will live”--Leviticus 18:5. Paul says, “do this and you will live” is
what characterizes this Old Covenant and it is the opposite of the gospel. He
says there was a works principle operating there. Getting this straight and
working your way through the exegesis and seeing that you have to end at that
conclusion. But then also it is necessary to see how it is that Paul can say
that although this is a covenant of works it did not annul the promise that
came those centuries before?
So Paul was able to say both things. He’s able to say this covenant
was a covenant of works over against faith and yet it didn’t annul the gospel
of faith and grace. How could that be? I submit to you that the way I have come
up with this two way concept is the only way you can do it. Paul was not a dispensationalist.
He believed in the continuity of the covenant of grace.
So he would have held that there was a bottom line, as far as individuals
getting to heaven are concerned, that was a matter of grace. But simultaneously
he was affirming that as far as corporate Israel was concerned, they were
holding onto the land of Canaan only if they came through and fulfilled the
works of the covenant. Because they didn’t, that is why they were destroyed!
That’s why that covenant went down the tubes in 70 A.D. It wasn’t consummated
in glory it was terminated in doom—the 70 A.D. the desolation of Jerusalem. The
wrath of God had come upon them to the uttermost, the loss of election. You
can’t account for it if you say that the old covenant is grace at both levels.
The only way you can remain a Calvinist and account for the loss of Israel’s
national election which they have lost is to recognize that that wasn’t a
matter of sovereign grace that’s a matter of works. That’s the kind of thing that
we have to mull over and talk through.
Principle of works
So
this whole principle of works then as we encountered in the Old Covenant and
as we encountered in the covenant with Adam is one that we’ll have to discuss.
It is associated with Fuller Seminary with Dan Fuller of Fuller Seminary. The
books that he has written and those who are his followers like John Piper is
supposed to be a great Calvinistic preacher and so on. He hates the idea of the
covenant. He hates the ideas of works and so he is destroying the gospel in the
stuff that he writes. Whatever good things he’s saying in some books makes me urge
upon people not to read him. Things are mixed up. He proposes this stuff that
undercuts the gospel of saving grace because he says there’s no room for the
ideas of works. That means there’s no room for the idea of Jesus’ works either as
the meritorious ground of your salvation. So there is Fuller and Piper and at
Westminster Seminary of Philadelphia there was Norman Shepard so we fought that
case from 1970 to the present. So this is a very current thing.
We can work
together on it and come to some conclusions. The Covenant of Grace all the way
through is how individuals get to heaven. Now we come to the Mosaic covenant
and we get a more complicated situation with another layer. It’s a kingdom.
What principles govern the tenure of Israel within this?
So it is a principle of works that gets introduced into this
arrangement and that leads Paul when he speaks of the Old Covenant. What is
really remarkable is the way Paul looks at that and he talks as if the whole
thing were only the second layer sometimes. So the law is not okay and yet everything
else he’s saying, of course, he’s telling us and he is quite aware that the
gospel he was preaching was continuous with everything that was included in the
prophets and Moses. So there’s a bottom there.
[Student Question: I’m a little confused on approbation and
you talked about glorification. ]
Kline’s answer: Yes, okay, it all involves the thought that
the probation itself involves a specific task. It isn’t just in Adam’s case
that he would just continue sort of indefinitely refraining from the fruit of
this tree. It’s something much more specific than that, it’s that he is to
encounter the enemy. In heaven, the real Armageddon in the heights of heaven, hell
has broken loose and Satan’s rebellion is against God. God knows and has arranged
that Satan’s challenge against his reign in Armageddon will express itself in Eden.
God assigns to Adam the task of being heaven’s warrior. He is to guard, and
that’s part of Genesis 2:15. He’s to guard the garden, that’s not to keep the
weeds out, it’s to keep Satan out. He is to challenge him and to damn him when
he’s appears on the scene and to win the battle of Armageddon, because that’s
what Satan is doing. Satan is intruding in the presence of God’s reign as if
this is where he first belonged and this was his mountain. Adam should repudiate
that. So there was a specific task and if he had accomplished it then God would
have pronounced the words “good job my good and faithful servant” a word of approbation.
“You have earned heaven and you are on your way.”
Student question: how did approbation connect with the
notion of conferral?
Kline’s answer. The conferral of all the blessings, whether
in God’s covenant in terms of the covenant from the beginning as expressed in
the tree of life and in the Sabbath itself. So symbolically from the outset God
had expressed what the reward would be. He had verbalized what the penalty
would be: “in the day you eat thereof you will die.” He had symbolized what the
reward would be in the tree of life. Included in all of that then was the idea
of both of the confirmation eternal life and the physical glorification. Only I’m
saying these two things are folded into two stages for the reasons that I gave
that the cultural mandate had to be a pre-glorified thing. Does that make
sense?
Then Jesus comes in as the second Adam and he does it. He wins the
battle of Armageddon at the cross. He sees things falling from heaven and he
himself is exalted there. He proceeds to confer the blessings now on his
people. The conferral of the blessing starts already beforehand and he gives
the Holy Spirit in the lives of those in the Old Testament.
Student
question:
Kline’s response: The typology is there. So here is the
picture of heaven and if you are going to enjoy occupying this prototype of
heaven, then it is a matter of fact that you must maintain these works. The
fact that Israel doesn’t comes to expression first of all in the exile to Babylon.
What it is is apostasy sets in.
Now clearly you didn’t have the absolute demands that you have for
getting into heaven that would be sinless perfection. But what you have here
is you have to keep the message legible. What’s the message? Here’s the
picture of heaven, who belongs to this realm of prosperity-- the godly the
pious. So that’s the picture. The pious occupy heaven. But if Israel is
completely failing on the side of piety by failing service of Yahweh for the
service of Baal especially if their leaders are doing that. Then the picture
that God wants to present to the world of what heaven is like is no longer
legible. Now it looks like the wicked. So they are under that principle of
works to maintain a proper level of covenant fidelities and then they will
continue in the land. If they fail in that they will be cut off . They are cut
off in the Babylonian captivity. In an act of mercy God puts them back into
the land--once again under Moses and under the law, therefore under works.
Once again more tragically they fail and kill the prophets, now here’s the son
let’s kill the son and get the inheritance for ourselves. So they fail even more
miserably and so 70 A.D. is the last word. There is a return from Babylon but there
is no return to the theocratic order, the typological order is past history.
Time to go home?
Transcribed
by Rianna Bazzinotti
Rough edited by Ted Hildebrandt