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.

Thomas Goodwin Contra a Speech Act Theory of Justification

If you haven't gotten a load of the very enriching discussion between Dr. Lane Tipton and Dr. Michael Horton on "union with Christ" over at the Reformed Forum, you can get it here.

Dr. Horton's position, as ably analyzed and recognized by Dr. Tipton, owes much, if not primarily, to a sort of "speech act theory" applied to justification wherein God's illocutionary act of declaring the sinner as justified is the "ontological ground" of the subjective perlocutionary effect in the believer. Contra this position, Dr. Tipton argues that the sole ground of the believer's justification is not a floating fiat but union with Christ. In other words, the application of redemption in a believer's present, time-and-space existence (ordo salutis) is founded upon (or united to) the accomplishment of said redemption by Christ in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension (historia salutis).

Justification was the point of discussion, and so it must be said that as Christ Himself was justified, so the sinner, united to Christ by faith through the Spirit, is also justified through the imputation of the former's righteousness.

We can see, clearly evinced, in the Puritan Thomas Goodwin the same kind of aversion to a notion of "speech act theory" and an exaltation of the person and work of Christ in the following:

We must conceive, that the promises of forgiveness are not as the pardons of a prince, which merely contain an expression of his royal word for pardoning, so as we in seeking of it do rest upon, and have to do only with his word and seal, which we have to show for it; but God’s promises of pardon are made in his Son, and are as if a prince should offer to pardon a traitor upon marriage with his child, whom in and with that pardon he offers in such a relation; so as all that would have pardon, must seek out for his child; and thus it is in the matter of believing. The reason of which is, because Christ is the grand promise, in whom, ‘all the promises are yea and amen’ (2 Cor. 1:20), and therefore he is called the Covenant (Isa. 49:8). So that, as it were folly for any man to think that he has an interest in an heiress’s lands, because he has got the writings of her estate into his hands, whereas the interest in the lands goes with her person, and with the relation of marriage to her, otherwise, without a title to herself, all the writings will be fetched out of his hands again; so is it with all the promises: they hang all upon Christ, and without him there is no interest to be had in them. ‘He that has the Son has life’ (1 John 5:12), because life is by God’s appointment only in him (v. 11). All the promises are as copyhold land, which when you would interest your selves in, you inquire upon what lord it holds, and you take it up of him, as well as get the evidences and deeds for it into your hands; the lord of it will be acknowledged for such in passing his right into your hands. Now this is the tenure of all the promises; they all hold on Christ, in whom they are yea and amen; and you must take them up of him.