The Grace of Law and the Law of Faith
Part 2 of the Mosaic Administration of the Covenant of Grace
In moving below the surface, into the depths of the Mosaic covenant, we will naturally be discussing more nuanced realities about the law. We saw that the law belongs to what is unique to the Mosaic administration, but that the substance of the covenant of grace—of which this is a stage of development—is still Christ and still of grace. That calls attention to the fact that the biblical speech about the law will have diverse senses, depending on what is being related to law.
Reid offers this helpful summary:
When narrowly considered, the law, abstracted from its broader context of redemption, promise, and sacrifice, serves a condemning function. Considered in its broader context, however, the law, by revealing sin, pointed the Old Testament believer to the various promises and sacrifices mentioned above as a means to facilitate communion with God.1
Some of Calvin’s opening words in his chapter on the purpose of the law (Institutes, II.7) are also instructive.
Moses was not appointed as a Lawgiver, to do away with the blessing promised to the race of Abraham; nay, we see that he is constantly reminding the Jews of the free covenant which had been made with their fathers, and of which they were heirs; as if he had been sent for the purpose of renewing it. This is most clearly manifested by the ceremonies. For what could be more vain or frivolous than for men to reconcile themselves to God, by offering him the foul odour produced by burning the fat of beasts? or to wipe away their own impurities by be sprinkling themselves with water or blood?2
One reason that both sides of this coin must be addressed is that minority views do have some historic precedence. We do not insist against today’s republicationists, neonomians, dispensationalists, and advocates of New Covenant theology, that our view is so universally orthodox, that “everyone” believed what we believed until recent years. Those with whom the Reformed orthodox waged polemical warfare at least held to forms of republication, neonomianism, and antinomianism (which contained the main elements of New Covenant theology), even if not dispensationalism.
The Grace of Law
This was a title to a book written by Ernest F. Kevan, The Grace of Law: A Study in Puritan Theology (1964). As the name suggests, grace and law are not opposing principles. Exodus 19 is crucial in this respect as well. The grace that preceded Mount Sinai was not simply that God had remembered Israel’s forefathers and was keeping covenant with them. God could now point back to his gracious redemption of these people. He was not only their Lord at this mountain; He was their Savior in Egypt. The pattern is that salvation is recalled before law is commanded.
You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (19:4-6).
Likewise, in the words immediately before those of the first commandment: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (20:2)
At the beginning of our course, we mentioned in passing that there are monocovenantal and bicovenantal views. In other words, there are those who see one fundamental covenant of grace running from cover to cover, without any covenant of works at the outset, and then the mainstream that divide between works and grace. Things can get even more complex when dividing between two and three, and so the labels dichotomist and trichotomist have been employed. A dichotomist view of the covenants holds that there are only two fundamental covenants in the biblical history—namely, works and grace—and a trichotomist view adds to these a third—namely, this Mosaic covenant, “subservient to the covenant of grace.”3
In recent years, a view called Republicationism has been articulated chiefly by the school at Westminster West.4 It is trichotomist in a sense, but not in every sense.
Two things should be clear so there is no straw man here. First, this school maintains that this republication is still “a part of the covenant of grace,”5 in which the Mosaic is an administration. Second, this school is not claiming that every element of the covenant of works with Adam is present here with Moses as well. Most obviously there is no “public person,” such as Adam, who functions as the covenant head in such a way that his performance counts in our place. It is only, as the authors of The Law is Not of Faith repeat, “in some sense,” that the original covenant is republished here at Sinai: that is, principally, in the “works principle.”6 However, many of its main features are repeated, though its terms are more drawn out than those in Eden.
Venema explains,
The Mosaic law’s demand for perfect obedience in a passage like Leviticus 18:5 (cf. Luke 10:28, “do this and you will live”) ultimately serve to teach Israel the impossibility of inheriting the promise through obedience and pointed her to Christ, whose perfect obedience “under the law” is the only basis for securing the promise of eternal life. By means of this typological republication of the covenant of works, the Mosaic covenant taught Israel that blessings or curses in the land of Canaan depended upon her perfect obedience to the law. In this sense, the Mosaic covenant repeated Adam’s “probation” under the covenant of works and taught a “works principle” that grounded Israel’s land inheritance upon her obedience to the law’s requirements.7
So the republication is typological. In other words, it is not to achieve in reality what Adam had placed before him; but rather the same elements were placed before Israel to teach them (and us, by extension) that only Christ accomplishes this in reality for the church. We certainly agree with this typological part, but we beg to differ with the tendency to reduce the whole to this part. This tends to reduce the function of the law to the evangelical schoolmaster, and even Israel’s whole typological life to its analogue to the church, or holy community of the new covenant era. In such a tunnel-vision, the law and the historic people have no other good and gracious purpose for us.
J. V. Fesko leans on Calvin and Witsius in order to argue for two kinds of covenantal arrangements within the one Mosaic administration.8 It is one thing to distinguish between the substantial element of grace and accidental element of law, as to its basic covenantal identity; yet it is another thing to use such terminology for what is fundamentally two substances—two different arrangements to obtain the same ends. If this is the case, then we have more understanding of why certain Reformed theologians of the past few generations view ethical implications from the Old Testament with such suspicion—as if their action items would stand in competition with the gospel, as if their “republication” today from pulpits and in print would constitute an alternative to the new covenant community and its means of grace.
Bryan Estelle operates on that seeming tension in Paul between the positive and negative views toward the law in terms of gaining the inheritance; and he sets to work on the side of discontinuity, so that the two seemingly opposed principles were already operative within the revelation to Moses. Venema summarizes,
According to Estelle, these two passages “paradoxically” communicate what is required in order for believers to obtain entitlement to heaven or eternal life, though they set forth principles that are antithetical: a works principle that requires perfect obedience to the law in order for Israel to obtain life and a grace principle that reveals that eternal life can only be obtained through the perfect work and obedience of Jesus Christ.9
Those two passages in the Mosaic writings are Leviticus 18:5 and Deuteronomy 30:1-14. Each of these is then “interpreted” by Paul in a way that is said to favor this view. To the first text,
You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD (Lev. 18:5).
In and of itself, the sense of “live” is relative. Life can refer to life in the eternal state or life in the land before them. The latter has a prima facie contextual priority, and Estelle surely knows this. Paul mentions this passage in Romans 10:5, where he says, “Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them.” In Paul’s context, he clearly has the evangelical use in mind. At this point it is important to recall that the burden of proof for the Republicationist view is not merely to show that a text like Leviticus 18:5 has the evangelical use in view. Both sides can agree to that, as we maintain that this use is never contradictory to other uses. It is precisely an exclusively evangelical use that the Republicationist must show, otherwise his reference to Paul’s use is nothing to the point.
The larger passage from Deuteronomy 30 makes a promise of future restoration and it includes God’s enabling the peoples’ obedience. There is a sense in which the unconditional gracious element and the conditional legal element are both included in God’s “arrangement” with these people, but that the unconditional is more eschatological, whereas the conditional is the typological reality we find in the Old Testament historical account. Furthermore in Galatians 3, Paul seems to pit the language of Leviticus 18:5 against that of Habbakuk 2:14—a text he had also used in Romans 1:17 to set up his doctrine of justification by faith alone there—so that “do this and live” is juxtaposed to “I will do this and you will live.”
Again, it must be said that both sides can agree to these elements being communicated to this one people. However, this was not the precise question. The question is rather whether the entire Mosaic economy may be reduced to the conditional and legal and typological in such a way that its laws and examples perform no other function.
That is the reduction of the grace of law to only its evangelical use and typology only to its new creational use. But there is another reduction that has a foot in the Reformed tradition and, we fear, is making a bit of a comeback. That is the reduction of the condition of faith to a new law.
The Law of Faith
Paul uses the expression “law of faith” in Romans 3:27, not to mention “obedience of faith” in Romans 1:5. How does he do so? Here we find one of the subordinate ways that the words “law” and “faith” are both used.
The word law, Roberts tells us, is used in various ways, with enough diversity that it was worth a division between several different improper uses and proper uses. First, to the improper uses,
{1} The force, strength, or power of anything.
but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Rom. 7:23).
{2} The right, authority, rule, or dominion that one has over another.
For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage (Rom. 7:2).
{3} The manner, order, course, or condition of anything. 2 Sam. 7:19 and 1 Chronicles 17:17 both record David’s thanksgiving to God that He has dealt with him according to a “rank” or “order,” from a variation of תּוּר which is related to the legal word תּוֹרָה.
“More properly,” Roberts continues, law “is used for any ordination of a superior that has power and authority over others as inferiors, prescribing or prohibiting anything to be done, promising rewards to the obedient, threatening punishment to the disobedient.”10
As to the word faith, while it is often used as a gift of God and other times as a principle, that is, a way of relying on God’s gracious promise, it is also used in its most obvious sense as an act of the human will, as much as any other act is.
This focus was seized upon by Richard Baxter in an attempt to show what he regarded to be an inconsistency in those Reformed orthodox who denied that faith was a new law. He seemed to lament the lack of clear definitions:
One says it is just one act, and all other acts of faith he that looks to be justified by denies the doctrine of grace or true justification, and so leave men to despair because they can never tell what that single act is and how to escape the damning doctrine of justification by works.11
We will address that teaching when we come to the subject of the new covenant. For now, we must ask two questions about the saints under the Mosaic covenant: (1) how faith plays a role as a condition of the covenant; and (2) whether, and in what sense, they had faith.
To the first question, faith is a condition of the old covenant as well as of the new. Consider that when Abraham was told to walk before God and be blameless in Genesis 17, more conditions in the way of obedience were made evident than, perhaps, was the case in Genesis 12 and 15. But would we conclude that God was not still holding forth the promise to Abraham such that faith was not the obvious required response? And what else is such a requirement but a condition? Likewise with the saints under Moses. Now law is added with unprecedented specificity and comprehension; yet was not God holding out the same promise of eternal life through types and shadows? To believe God’s promises were as much a requirement under Moses as they were under Abraham. That an additional function was added of legal requirements so that the people could play their role on the new stage (Canaan) of the redemptive drama does not change that more fundamental reality.
Objection 1. Paul teaches that faith replaces the law: “But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian” (Gal. 3:25). Since faith is made characteristic as the condition of the new, law is characteristic as the condition of the old.
Reply to Obj. 1. What is characteristic and what is exclusive are two wholly different things. Recall that the substance of the covenant of grace remains the substance throughout the Mosaic administration, so that while law is characteristic, it belongs to the accidents of the covenant—that is, it is characteristic of how God was developing redemptive history through this phase. However, to call into question faith in Christ as the only means of justification, leads logically to one of two consequences: either these saints under Moses were in fact justified before God by some other means than faith, or else no saint under Moses was justified before God at all. Since neither of these conclusions can be squared with Scripture one must acknowledge that faith remains a condition of the covenant of grace under Moses.
Objection 2. But Paul is even more specific than that. He says,
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith (Gal. 3:23-24).
Not only is faith only “revealed” in the new, but he says that we are now justified by faith, so that they could not be justified by faith prior to this.
Reply to Obj. 2. Such an interpretation proves too much. Paul also says we with respect to the old covenant members and not they at the beginning of the passage. Does he include himself, or even all his readers, in that first class of people? Beyond that, the whole point of Galatians is for Paul to treat Jews and Gentiles under one rule of faith. It is much better to see Paul’s words here in light of those that follow, namely, about the law’s design as a schoolmaster in the course of redemptive history. The law under Moses took on an additional role of driving the offspring to Christ. It can do this without making itself an alternative means of justification.
To the second question regarding the faith of the old covenant saints, we have already seen that Abraham “believed the LORD, and [God] counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; cf. Rom. 4:3; Gal. 3:6; Jas. 2:23). One can certainly not argue against the possibility of faith in those under Moses on the ground that they came before Christ, as the Patriarchs came even earlier before Christ. One will have to argue on the basis of the nature of this covenant unique to Moses.
Hebrews 11 is an insurmountable obstacle to anyone who would deny justifying faith to the saints under Moses. Note first the span of time that the chapter covers. It begins with that faith of Abel which God found acceptable, and moved through all the prophets. This faith was not simply for the most immediate material reward.
Beyond that, the author of Hebrews speaks of the connection between their faith and God’s own favor, not merely for things: “For by it the people of old received their commendation” (v. 2); “And without faith it is impossible to please him” (v. 6); and then most clearly with the example of Noah, “By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (v. 7). This is often neglected in such discussions, as if faith in Hebrews 11 is somehow taking on a radically different role than justifying faith. But there is also the futurity of the reward of faith. Note verse 13: “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar.”
Another proof that faith was always a condition for the covenant of grace with specific regard to justification is that when Paul corrects the way of works in his letters, and has the old covenant Israelites in view, you will notice that he never blames God’s communication, but always the Israelites interpretation of that communication. For example,
For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness (Rom. 10:3)
Then Paul very interestingly claims that the books of Moses teach about both principles. In other words, it doesn’t just teach about law and then leave it for the New Testament alone to introduce the faith principle. Both were held forth. Here is how he says it,
For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead) (Rom. 10:5-7).
Notice that Paul says “Moses writes,” and then he quotes from Deuteronomy 30:12-14 and therefore understands that passage to be cautioning against taking the law as the means of ultimate justification before God.
A Parting Principle for Parsing Paul
Among principles for parsing the New Testament teaching on this, first of all would be this: Let us always ask what is the precise object that is being held up for criticism. We understand this when it comes to the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus used the expression, “You have heard it said … but I say unto you,” the dichotomy is not between Moses and Jesus. If it was, then the correct interpretation would be that Jesus is disagreeing with those Old Testament commandments. Rather, the dichotomy is between a false reading of (or addition to) those commandments. That same kind of parsing is required with respect to how the law relates to either grace or faith.
Much of the complexity is owing to the profound depths with which the Apostle Paul treats the law, or even the way in which the author of Hebrews adds to the “negative” look toward the old covenant. The solution is to apply the principle: to distinguish whether this negative view really is toward the law or the Mosaic covenant as its object, or whether it is toward something else. It is encouraging to discover that our confusions over this are not new. There are places in the New Testament that assume that people have been wrestling with these very questions. For example, where Paul had asked, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Rom. 3:31). Clearly some were drawing the conclusion that the function of faith was to overthrow the law. Paul emphatically rejects this.
As to how the law of faith upholds the law, there may be a number of answers. Roberts gives two:
The law is established by the doctrine of faith … especially these two ways: [1] in the truth of it, the law threatened death and curse to every transgression. This truth is established as irrevocable, whilst Christ is made under the law for us, because a curse and died to satisfy God’s justice, according to the doctrine of faith. [2] In the righteousness of it, the law requires a perfect and perpetual obedience, as a legal righteousness. Faith holds forth Christ’s perfect passive obedience to satisfy the penalty of the law for man’s redemption, and his perfect active obedience to purchase man a right to the life it promises.12
We may add more, but these are often best viewed in light of answering objections to the doctrine.
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1. Reid, “The Mosaic Covenant,” in Covenant Theology, 153.
2. Calvin, Institutes, II.7.1.
3. Reid, “The Mosaic Covenant,” in Covenant Theology, 150, n.5.
4. cf. Bryan D. Estelle, J. V. Fesko, and David VanDrunen, ed. The Law is Not of Faith: Essays on Works and Grace in the Mosaic Covenant (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2009)
5. Estelle, Fesko, and VanDrunen, The Law is Not of Faith, 11.
6. Paraphrased in Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 40.
7. Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 42.
8. This is Venema’s reading—Christ and Covenant Theology, 46—of Fesko’s distinction—The Law is Not of Faith, 31-32.
9. Venema, Christ and Covenant Theology, 53.
10. Roberts, God’s Covenants, III:28.
11. Richard Baxter, A Breviate of the Doctrine of Justification, 12.
12. Roberts, God’s Covenants, III:141.
