Matt and List,


>Phil writes:

>>He radically asserted that God was NOT his Father in Eden. Sounds relevent
to the Kline vs. Murray question of grace in the garden doesn't it?<<

Matt writes:
'Sounds relevant and '*is* relevant' are two different things. The
disagreements between Murray and Kline on the covenant are many....but this
is certainly NOT one of then. Frankly, I don't know if the implied
conclusion here is a lack of understanding just what Kline says or rather an
admission that Kline's position has not been digested carefully.

PH:
The implied conclusion was not that Kline rejects the fatherhood of God, but
that the removal of the idea of condescending grace in the garden is
destructive
in that direction. If the idea of dependence and the more ultimate
condescending
filial (gracious) nature of the covenant is removed, you may as well deny
the
Fatherhood of God.

Matt writes:
At least in the case of Shepherd, Andy and I have actually attempted to back
up our criticism with some interaction with Shepherd's own words. So far
the only interaction with Kline's own work has been Andy's resending the
initial essay that Dr. Kline wrote for _New Horizons_ in the early
90's....and nobody that I've seen so far has attempted to respond to that
directly at all! These latest e-mails amount to nothing more than hearsay
about what one *thinks* Kline *might* be saying...unless you can back up
your claims with actual citations.

PH:
Will do. See below.

Matt writes:
To even imply that Kline denies that God was *not* Adam's Father in Eden
borders on the ludicrous.

PH:
Didn't intend to imply he does. The point is that if "simple justice" is
abstracted
from covenant, and absolutized, God's fatherly relationship with Adam AND
Christ would be excluded. There would be no dependence in either.
This would be an impersonal brute merit, not the one of Scripture.

Matt quotes Kline:
"Furthermore, though Adam could not enrich God by adding to his glory, it
was nevertheless precisely the purpose of man's existence to glorify God,
which he does when he responds in obedience to the revelation of God's will.
And according to the revelation of covenantal justice, God performs justice
and man receives his proper desert when God's glorifies the man who
glorifies him.

PH:
Who enables man to live and move and have his being? Who grants and
sustains his imago dei? Who upholds him in the palm of His hand within
this first covenant? The idea that man owes obedience and love to his
Father cannot be abstracted from the relationship of gracious
condescending provision which enables the freedom and ability
to keep the covenant.

Kline cont:
To be so rewarded is not an occasion for man to glory in himself against
God. On the contrary, a doxological glorying in God in recognition of the
Creator's sovereign goodness will become the Lord's creature-servants.

PH:
This is on the way to making my point for me. But it must needs also
be granted that the concept of a doxological glorying in God is not just
relational on the level of act-react or two dimensional relationship
responsive relationship. Rather, the only context in which glorying,
obedience, and existence can be intelligible requires a
condescending covenantally gracious God, necessarily the
Triune God, to establish and at all points uphold, maintain,
and hold together the dependent circumstances
wherein the covenant promises can and are be extended.

In other words, a brute merit is unintelligible. Covenant contexts are
created.
Both the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace are under the higher
category of gracious condescension to create and maintain and enable these
circumstances to exist. The differences are promise bound and bound to the
will of God and not to His nature (i.e. they are not necessary or
obligatory).

Kline cont:
> But if our concepts of justice and grace are biblical, we will not
attribute the
> promised reward of the creation covenant to divine grace.

PH:
So the question: Would we have worshipped Adam had he
fulfilled the demands? If there is not a more ultimate dependently
gracious aspect from above, and to uphold the covenants, we
would have an exclusive focus on Adam in the first had he
fulfilled it, and we would have a Christomonism in the second
given a necessary abstraction from dependence on and thus glory
as well to:
1.) the Father, and 2.) the Spirit.

What is in view here is of no small significance.

Kline cont:
> We will rather
> regard it as a just recompense to a meritorious servant, for justice
> requires that man receive the promised good in return for his doing the
> demanded good.

PH: I agree. As long as the promise and context is in view.

Kline cont:
> Indeed, if we do not analyze the situation abstractly but in
> accordance with the created, covenanted reality as God actually
constituted
> it, we will see that to give a faithful Adam anything less than the
promised
> reward would have been to render him evil for good.

PH:
My point is that to remove the actually constituted condescendingly gracious
character of the context IS to consider it abstractly. That real justice is
present
does not exclude the necessity of dependence upon God and the fact that
He Himself superintends and maintains all things personally and
relationally,
not impersonally. It is not necessary to abstract God's help from the
covenant to
maintain accountability (i.e. merit/demerit). That He grants what He
commands
is completely compatible with responsibility of man. The Pelagians deny
this.
The Augustinians have always upheld it. Adam being ordained to fail does not
remove his responsibility. Adam being ordained to succeed would not inpinge
upon the fact that it was he who obeyed and worked to receive the
eschatological
promise. Same with Christ. That it was foreordained that He should come and
redeem
His people in no way conflicts with His ACTUAL accomplishment in history and
having to REALLY provide an active obedience to be credited to us, even
though
all the while He was dependent upon the Father and baptized with the
empowering
Holy Spirit. The created circumstances (as with us) also were means to the
end of His
perfection.

Kline cont:
> For we will appreciate
> the fact that man's hope of realizing the state of glorification and of
> attaining to the Sabbath-consummation belonged to him by the virtue of his
> very nature as created in the image of the God of glory. This expectation
> was an in-created earnest of fullness, to be denied which would have
> frustrated him to the depth of his spirit's longing for God and
> God-likeness.

PH:
"In-created ernest" and obedience from a nature in the image of God
cannot be considered in abstraction from the more ultimate and
sovereign Triune God Who creates and upholds
the covenant context in which the promise is extended, and that for
the purpose of His working out His one plan for history. There are
not only no facts in the universe that can be intelligibly considered
as absolutes, there are no groups of facts up to and including all of
creation, and that includes created covenants. God is working out
His perfect redemptive plan of redemption (pactum salutis).
There is NO autonomy in the universe nor has there ever been.
The existence of contrary choice in the garden as well
as the Covenant of Works (which I do believe in) do not constitute
ultimate autonomous contexts.

Kline cont:
> Whatever he might have been granted short of that for his
> obedience would be no blessing at all, but a curse..." (Kingdom Prologue,
p.
> 111-12)

PH:
Of course. God keeps His promises. But had he not made them, there would
be no merit. Merit cannot be considered apart from Him and His ongoing
all-merciful enablement and upholding of all things, including covenants.

Matt writes:
> Where is Kline even hinting that God was not Adam's father?

PH:
He's not Matt.

Matt writes:
> If anything, the fact that Adam is created in the 'image of God'
> is precisely THE reason that Adam *must work* in the first place.

PH:
This binds us now as well.

Matt writes:
> The pattern of God's work in the
> 'creation week' involves (a) the work performed and (b) the
> judicial-declaration of the work performed ("It was good"). This whole
> process eschatologically anticipates a Sabbatical rest after the *work*
has
> been performed. Adam's requirements in the garden are patterned after the
> requirement for man to reflect the 'working' performed by his heavenly
> Father.

PH:
No problems with this.

Matt writes:
>The heart of Kline's concern continues:

> "Marking this view that repudiates the works principle as a radical
> departure from the classic Reformed theology is its drastic revision of
the
> fundamental theological construct of federal-representative probation and
> forensic imputation.

PH:
The use of such bombastic language is striking in light of the fact that
no one involved denies the forensic imputation or federal headship of
both Adams. We must be careful that in
guarding these doctrines from enemies we do not ourselves exclude necessary
biblical elements or exalt certain elements to a more ultimate categorical
status than as they are given, required, or permissible in Scripture.
Covenants are of
the will of God. There is no instantiated justice imaginable or merit
possible in
abstraction from the presupposition of the biblical God present and
personally maintaining the circumstances wherein they can function,
and in mercifully granting the very obedience itself.


> According to the Biblical data, the probationary data
> of the two Adams called for a performance of righteousness that was to be
> imputed to the account of those they represented, serving as a meritorious
> ground for justification and inheritance of the consummate kingdom. What
> was in view was not merely the transmitting from the one to the many of a
> subjective condition of righteousness but the judicial imputation to the
> many of a specific accomplishment of righteousness by the federal
> representative. That decisive probationary accomplishment involved the
> obedient performance of a particular covenantal service, and accordingly
it
> is characterized as 'one act of obedience' (Rom. 5:18).

Exactly.

> This standard doctrine of probation and imputation is obviously not
> compatible with the position that disavows the works principle.

Disavowing a works principle is unacceptable.
Placing it in its rightful place is not. It is a dependent and covenantal
works principle, governed all the way through, even after established,
by the God of the Scriptures Who knows and loves and condescends
mercifully to His covenant people, Who walks with them in the garden,
Who gives them every reason to trust Him. It is not simply an
impersonal arm's length "transaction."
The extension of the opportunity for reward is not a necessitated act,
and thus in that sense an act of immeasurable grace.
Thus the Covenant of Works was not ITSELF a curse.
The promise to bless or curse is real, and God will do what he says.
But it is not simply a cold contractual relationship, though the legal
element is not to be denied. It is significant that God was with them.
Within the context of the Covenant of Works He made for man a woman,
He provided for them. He planted them a garden and gave it to them to
tend. He made animals for the man to rule over and "brought them
to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man
called a living creature, that was its name."
This is a most magnificent testimony to His goodness. There are
rivers and life overflowing. God has made man and in grace
condescended to him. The idea that there is not grace is far from the text.
The grace is not redemptive, given that there is no sin.
But the grace is the giving and maintaining of life; the granting and
continuing to allow to exist the ability to obey. And if Adam had obeyed,
though the credit/merit would have been his, he would have thanked
God and not himself after all for graciously providing the context
and the promise, the ability and the life to carry it out.
Given his sinless state, and in view of God and His gracious provision,
how could it be otherwise?
Simple justice is not an adequate description.
That there is more to be said. We must speak of God's grace
granted and governed from above. A grace which does not exclude
justice, which is the keeping of promise, but rather establishes it.

> On that
> position, a declaration of justification and conveyance of eschatological
> blessings in consequence of a successful probation, whether of Adam or
> Christ, would be an exercise of grace, not of simple justice.

That's right. But not redemptive grace. Covenantal grace. Sustaining grace.
A grace that upholds existence at all times. That grants consciousness,
that beats our hearts, that lights our path, that says God is our help in
time
of need. The Father, the Holy Spirit and the angels were sources of
Christ's strength. He was dependent upon them and not abandoned until
the Father turned away at the cross. What is the purpose of the Jordan event
on the simple autonomous justice model? How do we explain the angels
ministering after the temptation? Why did Jesus pray if He did not depend
and live by the grace provided by the Father. From where did His help come?
The answer is not simply from His "in-created" nature. Even the Covenant of
Works was not simply a self-help covenant. There was merit. There was
works principle. These are significant and unchangable, but not above or
outside but within and administered by the sovereign care of the same
God Who has now saved us from the consequences of our failure therein
to His glory. The Covenant of Grace does not take grace FROM the covenant
of works. What I mean is, the covenant of grace being good does not make
the covenant of works evil of itself. The evil was our sin, NOT the
arrangement.

> But if there is no meritorious accomplishment possible, the
> rationale of the imputation arragement in general becomes
> obscure, if the whole point of it is not in
> fact lost.

That there is merit (possible only through the promise) and that God
rewards it does not mean that this must be the ultimate foundation.
The foundation is God Himself working out His plan. His covenants
are never set in motion apart from His sovereignty and condescending care.

> In the case of the gospel, if there is no meritorious
> achievement of active obedience on the part of the part of Christ to be
> imputed to the elect, then the cardinal doctrine of soteric justification
in
> its historic orthodox form must be abandoned.

Everyone here confesses active obedience that is imputed.

> Our finding is that under God's covenant with mankind in Adam attainment
of
> the eschatological kingdom and Sabbath rest was governed by a principle of
> works. Adam, representative of mankind, was commissioned to fulfill the
> probationary assignment; he must perform the one meritorious act of
> righteousness. This act was to have the character of a victory in battle.
> An encounter with Satan was a critical aspect of the probationary crisis
for
> each of the two Adams. To enter into judicial combat against this enemy
of
> God and to vanquish him in the name of God was the covenantal assignment
> that must be performed by the servant of the Lord as his "one act of
> righteousness." And it was the winning of this victory of righteousness
by
> the one that would be imputed to the many as their act of righteousness
and
> their claim on the consummated kingdom proffered in the covenant."
(Kingdom
> Prologue, pp. 116-117).

> To summarize, the real heart of the concern is not so much of what happens
> in the case of Adam as what ultimately happens when you predicate that to
> the relationship to the 'Second Adam.'

My point exactly. We have to maintain a Trinitarian working out of our
salvation.
One where dependence yields victory. Not autonomous self-reliance.

> If Adam could not merit his ultimate
> reward, then it stands difficult to posit how the Christ as the last Adam
> could merit any reward either.

Could either have foreseeably done it on their own without help from above?
The obedience of Christ is an unmistakably dependent not independent act.

> And this is something that is not 'read into
> the text' but something that Paul is intimately concerned with in Romans
> 5:12ff. Where does Paul posit any disproportionality between the work of
> the First and Last Adam's in Romans 5:12-21?

You are beating the air.

> He doesn't precisely because
> the Last Adam *merited* what the First Adam *demerited* -- in both cases,
> each 'Adam' is judicially judged in accordance to his *work.*

I think everyone agrees with this. But not everyone reduces to only this.

> In Adam's case, he earned death; in Christ's case, he earned life -- but
in both
> cases, the issue is always strict justice.

An issue. An issue without which not. But not the issue. An issue.
What is subordinate is not contrary.
History is subordinate to the decree.
History is the working out of the decree.
Covenants with man are created and historical.
Thus they are subordinate to the decree.
The Pactum Salutis is an umbrella over and behind creation
and is the controlling principle governing all subsidiary covenants with
man, giving purpose to part and whole of creation.

Bottom line: To begin with the Triune God is to end with the working
out of the pactum in history.
No part of history is exempt for this is its telos.
It can be no other way.

Phil Hodson
"To take God as source and end of all that exists and happens,
and to hold such a view suffused with the warmth of genuine devotion,
stands not only related to theology as the fruit stands to the tree:
it is by reason of its essence a veritable theological tree of life."

John Murray