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.

Westminster Wednesday: Intrusion Ethics

The Decalogue is Moral Law (henceforth, "Law"). It is the expression of God's moral will and is binding on every human being by virtue of the Covenant of Creation. When the reprobate is judged on the Last Day, he will be judged by virtue of his inability and failure to keep the Law perfectly, whereas the elect will be judged as righteous (keeper of the Covenant) by virtue of his union with Christ (the One who obeyed the Law perfectly for the elect and bore the penalty of their failure to keep it in the same way).

Given the binding nature of the Law (as an agent of damnation for the reprobate and as the means of manifesting existentially one's union with Christ through obedience for the elect), the particular instances in the Old Testament of seeming contraventions to it may cause confusion to some. What of the Canaanite genocide? Rahab's lie? Etc. Aren't these instances of the Law being broken, with God giving approval? This is where Meredith Kline's notion of "intrusion ethics" comes into play.

Developing on Geerhardus Vos' biblical theology (notably its deeply eschatological character) and Cornelius Van Til's ethics (notably "common grace"), Kline proposes that these instances of seeming law-breaking in the O.T. were actually in-breakings of the consummation (future kingdom) in the context of redemptive history that was functioning typologically.

So, in fact, the massacre of the Canaanites was a type of the future judgment and destruction of all the reprobate in hell.

Dr. Jeong Koo Jeon, in his essay entitled Covenant Theology and Old Testament Ethics: Meredith G. Kline's Intrusion Ethics, explains :

Pro-Choice Kebabs

This video production by Ray Comfort is worth the half hour:




What struck me off the bat was the sheer stupidity of the American youths interviewed. It could be argued that the sampling was too small to be indicative of the state of the American youngster. I sure do hope that that is the case. However, this inanity is something I see even in the local Filipino youth culture, which convinces me of a pandemic of stupidity among the younger generation.

Back to the point of this post and the video: the murder of human babies in the woman's womb. Meredith G. Kline has given treatment to this issue, and I've blogged about it in the past here.

It was from Kline's article where I first learned that the pagan Assyrians (with natural law coursing hot through their veins) had such a disgust for abortion that they made kebabs of the early, pro-choice, women's libbers among their ranks.

"As we observed at the outset, induced abortion was so abhorrent to the Israelite mind that it was not necessary to have a specific prohibition dealing with it in the Mosaic law. The Middle Assyrian laws attest to an abhorrence that was felt for this crime even in the midst of the heathendom around Israel, lacking though it did the illumination of special revelation. For in those laws a woman guilty of abortion was condemned to be impaled on stakes. Even if she managed to lose her own life in producing the abortion, she was still to be impaled and hung up in shame as an expression of the community's repudiation of such an abomination. It is hard to imagine a more damning commentary on what is taking place in enlightened America today than that provided by this legal witness out of the conscience of benighted ancient paganism!" (Lex Talionis and the Human Fetus).

Is there a place for giant-sized meat skewers in our day? I am inclined to answer in the affirmative.

Westminster Wednesday: The Artistry of Meredith Kline

I apologize for the delay of this week's Westminster Wednesday. However, it is my opinion that this week's offering all but makes up for the hold up, as it is a short but profound insight on a key character aspect of one of the giants of the Reformed faith—Meredith Kline the artist.

As an artist myself (I have some aptitude for drawing, drumming, and scribbling poetry), knowing of Kline's musical inclinations made me love him even more. But barring this commonality, art, if not in its creation but in its appreciation, should figure predominantly in the life of the Christian, most especially the minister, as T. David Gordon proposes, "In addition to studying the scriptures in the original languages, the reading of poetry is most helpful in cultivating literary sensibility," which most certainly is significant to the preacher's task.

So here, for your enjoyment and inspiration, do I repost Gregory Edward Reynolds's article on Meredith George Kline:

Meredith Kline on Abortion

"When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe" (Exodus 21:22-25).

The two sides of the abortion debate treat the passage above in quite distinct ways. Firstly, we must recognize two cases involved in the passage: The first being that no harm was caused (Case 1), and the second, that harm was indeed caused (Case 2).

The pro-abortionist sees both cases as involving a miscarriage, with Case 1 having only the fetus as dying and with Case 2 having both the fetus and the mother as experiencing the same fate. It is argued that since only a monetary compensation is prescribed for the loss of the fetus, Scripture does not treat it as already possessing the status of a full human, unlike Case 2, when the "Lex Talionis" principle is enforced for the death of the mother:

Common to Both the CoW and the CoG: Justice

"Grace is of course the term we use for the principle operative in the gospel that was missing from the pre-Fall covenant. Properly defined, grace is not merely the bestowal of unmerited blessings, but God's blessing of man in spite of his demerits, in spite of his forfeiture of divine blessings. Clearly, we ought not apply the term grace to the pre-Fall situation, for neither the bestowal of blessings on Adam in the very process of creation nor the proposal to grant him additional blessings contemplated him as being in a guilty state of demerit. Yet this is what Fuller and company are driven to do as they argue for a continuum between the pre-Fall and the redemptive covenants. Only by thus using the term grace (obviously in a different sense) for the pre-Fall covenant can they becloud the big, plain contrast that actually exists between the two covenants (cf. Rom. 4:4).

Not grace, but simple justice, was the governing principle in the pre-Fall covenant; hence, it is traditionally called the covenant of works. God is just, and his justice is present in all he does. That is true of gospel administrations, too, for the foundation of the gift of grace is Christ's satisfaction of divine justice. If you are looking for an element of continuity running through pre-Fall and redemptive covenants (without obliterating the contrast between them), there it is—not grace, but justice. Recognizing that God's covenant with Adam was one of simple justice, covenant theology holds that Adam's obedience in the probation would have been the performing of a meritorious deed by which he earned the covenanted blessings" (Meredith G. Kline, Covenant Theology Under Attack, italics original).

More here.