Tiptonian Recapitulation vs. Meritorious Republication (And the Effectiveness of Gesticular Pedagogy)

I would liken Dr. Lane Tipton's lecture (entitled "Redemptive History, Merit, and the Sons of God") at the 2014 Reformed Forum conference to Dream Theater's stint at the Budokan—technical, precise, and O, so nice!

He invoked nuanced readings of portions of Meredith Kline's last published work, "God, Heaven, and Har Magedon," to bring home the point that Israel's role in the Mosaic administration of the Covenant of Grace as the typological son of God (contrasted with Adam as protological and Christ as eschatological) was not grounded on a republication of a meritorious Covenant of Works but a recapitulation of Adam's sin, fall, and exile, acting pedagogically to further manifest the utter necessity of the appearance of the eschatological Son of God!

"There's a distinction between the recapitulation of the sin-fall-exile of Adam on the one side and the republication of a merit principle for maintaining the land in Canaan on the other side...The problem with Israel was not that it violated a republished Covenant of Works that was given to Adam, nor was it that Israel violated a covenantal arrangement totally devoid of grace at the national level. The problem lies in the fact that Israel reenacts the sin and fall and exile of Adam by apostasy from the Covenant of Grace." (Lane Tipton, 'Redemptive History, Merit, and the Sons of God')

Abraham typified Christ positively by virtue of the reward of a holy people on account of the former's evangelical obedience.

Israel typified Christ negatively by virtue of the forfeiture of the holy land on account of the former's lack of evangelical obedience.

As the substance, Christ's person and work merited a holy people and a holy land, i.e., the glorified elect living in a New Earth.




What does all of this mean to me, this side of Christ's resurrection and ascension? It does highlight the fact that evangelical obedience, as incumbent upon the people of God and far from being an affront to the all-sufficiency of Christ's person and work, is actually a natural outworking of my union with Him.

It also means that when D. G. Hart mockingly refers to the "Obedience Boys," he actually honors them. Hehehe.

The Cost Is Everything

I would like to believe that every Christian family man shares my dilemma.

I love my wife and children more than myself, but I must love Christ above them.

I often find myself wondering what my reaction would be if God, in His sovereignty, decides to take back His gift of any member of my family. I do not know my heart well enough.

But the witness of men of God of ages past must instruct me. Job tearfully exclaimed, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). Abraham went through the same convulsions of soul, and the following by Edmund Clowney on the former's convictions serves as wise encouragement:

Abraham was ready to give everything in devoted obedience. Because he feared God, he would pay the price. The Angel stayed his hand. On the mount, Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a bush. He took the ram and offered it in the place of his Isaac. Abraham called the place 'The Lord Will See (to It).'

The cost to Abraham was everything, yet as he clung to the Lord in faith, the cost was nothing. He declared that the Lord would provide, and the Lord did provide. Abraham’s obedience was the obedience of faith. Isaac was given to Abraham a second time. He was his by birth and his by redemption. The offering of the sheep symbolized not only consecration but atonement in the blood of a substitute.

In the total commitment of faith the cost is everything, but in the simple trust of faith, the cost is nothing. Abraham worshiped as God renewed his covenant with him.

The demand that the Lord made of Abraham is not unthinkable. He makes that same total demand of you. Jesus asks it of everyone who would follow him. Whoever loves father, mother, son, or daughter more than the Lord is not worthy of him. Indeed, only as we are ready to receive our own death sentence and take up our cross do we receive everlasting life (Matt. 10:37-39). Much as we need the power of his grace to deny ourselves and follow him, his demand has not changed. Look at the cost: it’s everything. (Preaching Christ in All of Scripture [Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2003, 75, emphasis mine)

The Heart Disease of the Justified

An enlargement of the heart, that peculiar muscle that pumps life-giving, oxygen-rich blood throughout the body, is a symptom of its disease. Precipitating factors have caused it to over-exert itself, and just like any muscle found in the body, it has compensated for the load by increasing in size. Eventually, it will just give out due to fatigue and the host body will die.

Interestingly, this is not the case for the soul of man, his heart—the seat of his emotions, motivations, inclinations, and intellect. Its enlargement is, conversely, an indication of health—spiritual vigor and life—borne out of the nature of Christ that the Spirit has wrought in him. He is a new man, with a heart pumping the eternal life-giving blood of the Lamb, by which immortality is his as he is forever connected to the Vine.

Abraham was such a man, one with an enlarged heart. Can you picture him bartering with God for the souls of a few men, who in his mind could perhaps be entangled in the web of wickedness and debauchery that is Sodom and Gomorrah, with themselves abhorring their current predicament and desiring the righteousness of God? Why would Abraham feel so strongly about this so as to engage the God of Unapproachable Light, knowing himself to be but a worm? Perhaps it is because the light of life that is his heritage as one who has been counted righteous in the sight of God has opened up his eyes to the extent of his own radical depravity, his own unworthiness, and therefore as a justified sinner he feels an affinity with those that are as yet unjustified. "What separates me from them?", he may have asked himself. "What is it in me that I should have been treated so well, and these little ones, forsaken?" He came face to face with grace and his heart was enlarged.