I’m so committed to the doctrine of republication that I’m republishing a series of posts from the old HB from Jan ‘07 beginning with this one.
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As Mike Horton acknowledges in his recent work on covenant theology, one of the more difficult issues in covenant theology is how to relate the Mosaic covenant to the earlier Abrahamic and the New Covenant. Complicating matters is the old Dispensational doctrine that there are different ways of salvation under different “dispensations.” I recognize that the more modern Dispensationalists abandoned that doctrine but the damage has been done. Not only is it virtually impossible, rhetorically, for Reformed folk to use the word “dispensation” (even though we used to use it regularly and it’s quite useful word in describing the progress of redemptive history) without creating suspicion and confusion but there are lots of folk out there who read the Bible atomistically (chopping it up) and who think that we Christians have nothing to do with Abraham! Dispensationalism has also created a layer of difficulty by generating a reaction against Dispensationalism which has caused reluctance among some Reformed folk to recognize any differences between the Old (Moses) and New (Christ) Covenants. In their own ways, both the Dispensationalists and those who react against it flatten out the hills and valleys of redemptive history. The short story is that the continuity in the Bible is not so much between Moses and Christ (2 Cor 3; Heb 4-7) but between Abraham and Christ. Moses belongs in that continuity insofar as those under the Old Covenant also participated in the covenant of grace.

One of the interesting and useful features of the older (classic) covenant theology of the 17th century was the doctrine of “re-publication.” It was widely held among 17th-century Reformed theologians that, in certain ways, the giving of the Law at Sinai was a “re-publication” of the Law given in the garden to Adam as part of the covenant of works (John Owen, Herman Witsius, Leonard van Rijssen, Johannes Marckius, Peter Van Mastricht and Thomas Boston taught it). They took the promulgation of the law at Sinai as evidence of the covenant of works in the garden with Adam. They thought this way because they had a doctrine of natural or creational law, i.e., there is a moral law that was given in the garden that is reflected in the law given at Sinai.

This re-publication of the Law was not a new “Dispensation” of salvation or way of being justified. Rather, the Mosaic national covenant with Israel was regarded by the Reformed as operating on multiple levels at the same time. As Paul says in Gal 3, the covenant of grace, the Abrahamic covenant is the administration of God’s saving grace. It was and remains a covenant of grace. Paul’s argument is that nothing about the Mosaic national covenant that changes God’s promises made to and through Abraham. Hence Paul says that Abraham (Rom 3-4) is the father of all believers, circumcised and uncircumcised (i.e., Jew and Gentile) before Moses, during the Old Covenant, and since.

Thus, before, during, and after the Mosaic national covenant, all the elect were saved and justified by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide), in Christ alone (solo Christo). So what was unique about the Mosaic national covenant? Three things:

1) It was a national covenant. Neither the Abrahamic covenant nor the New Covenant were or are national. The Mosaic covenant had a civil and religious/ceremonial code embedded in it. The Mosaic covenant constituted Israel as a national people temporarily. The national covenant was very much about “insiders” and “outsiders.” That’s not to say that Gentiles could not be initiated. Quite to the contrary, they certainly were, but in so doing, they had to become ritually Israelite through circumcision. This national (civic and ceremonial) aspect distinguishes the Mosaic covenant from the Abrahamic and the New Covenants which were and are not national but trans-national.

One of the more important conclusions from this doctrine is one that our 17th century forefathers did not recognize very clearly is that the idea of a national covenant is defunct. God doesn’t enter into national covenants with any national entity since the crucifixion. Christ’s kingdom, expressed in his visible, institutional church through the preaching of the gospel, the adminstration of the sacraments, and the exercise of discipline, knows no national boundaries (Gal 3:28; Col 3:11; Eph 2). The dividing wall (the civil and ceremonial laws, circumcision) has been broken down in the body of Jesus, the true Israel of God. After the expiration of the national covenant, the kingdom of God has no civil administration. Attempts to resurrect the Mosaic civil administration whether in theocracy or theonomy are fundamentally misguided. It is a puzzle how we can see so clearly that the Roman attempt to resurrect the ceremonial aspect of the Mosaic covenant is wrong but some cannot see how wrong it is to try to resurrect the Mosaic civil administration?

2) It was a legal covenant not relative to salvation or justification but relative to Israel’s status as the temporary national people of God. In Exod 24, Israel swore a blood oath that she, as a national people, would keep the law and it was on this legal basis that Israel was ultimately expelled from the promised land and on which basis she lost her status as the national people of God. Another layer of difficulty in this regard is that, as it seems to me, Israel broke this national covenant before the terms of the agreement were even delivered down the mountain! That pattern continued throughout her history so that the only reason that Israel retained the national covenant at all was the forebearance of God. Certainly Israel did not strictly merit retaining the national covenant. See Iain Duguid’s chapter in CJPM.

3) It was temporary. The Mosaic national covenant was instituted about (depending on the date of the Pentateuch) 15 centuries before the Advent of Christ and it expired with the crucifixion of Christ. The New Testament makes clear (e.g., Acts 10; Acts 15; 2 Cor 3; the book of Hebrews!) the Mosaic Covenant is finished. It was, as Paul says in Gal 3, a “pedagogue,” that is, a harsh school teacher (with a stick in his hand!). Its function was to drive the Israelites to Christ through the promulgation of 613 commandments. At every point in their daily lives the Israelites were reminded of their sin and need for a Savior. Corporately, Israel served as the world’s largest and longest and most colorful sermon illustration. Thus the writer to the Hebrews (ch. 2) says that Moses worked for Jesus. Moses’ whole reason for being was to serve as a pointer to Christ (and as a pointer to the ultimate realities in heaven; see Heb 11).

Finally, it has been argued by some (e.g., some of my friends on the Puritanboard) that the doctrine of re-publication is “unconfessional.” To this I appeal to the logic implied by the grammar of WCF 19.1 and 2. 19.1 which reasserts the doctrine of 7.2, that God “gave to Adam a Law, as a Covenant of Works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it: and endued him with power and ability to keep it.” 19.2 says, “This Law, after his fall…was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments….” (Articles, 30–31). The phrase “covenant of works,” in 19.1, is appositive to the noun “Law.” Thus the “Law” is reckoned here as a covenant of works. Thus when, 19.2 establishes “This law” as the subject of the verb to be, “was delivered,” the antecedent of “this Law” can be none other than the “Law” defined as a covenant of works in 19.1. This reading of the confession caused Thomas Boston, in his notes in E. F., The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Books, n.d.), 58, to exclaim,

How, then, one can refuse the covenant of works to have been given to the Israelites, I cannot see.” These same theologians also held that Moses was an administration of the covenant of grace. The doctrine of unity of the covenant of grace and the doctrine of republication were regarded as complementary not antithetical.

I realize that what I’m offering here is a revision or expansion of the older doctrine, but what I’m saying here is certainly built on the foundation laid by a host of orthodox writers who advocated a version of the doctrine of re-publication. If you want to research this here are some leads:

See Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, trans. William Crookshank, 2 vols. (1803; Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1990), 1,336–337; Leonard van Rijssen, Compendium Theologiae (Amsterdam: 1695.), 89. John Owen, An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. W. H. Goold, 7 vols., The Works of John Owen (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1991), 6.85. Johannes Marckius, Compendium Theologiae Christianae (Amsterdam, 1749), 345–346; Peter Van Mastricht, Theoretico-Practica Theologia, 3 vols (Utrecht: 1699), 3.12.23.

Part 2 is here.

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