The Fullness Of Time
Chapter Four
The Law And The Covenants Of Promise
Have you ever wondered how an unchangably holy God could make unconditional promises of blessing to an idolatrous pagan? Such a thing seems inconceivable, but that is exactly what God did when he entered into a covenant relationship with Abram. This indeed presents a great problem, but apart from the giving of the law the full impact of this difficulty would never have been realized. Even though, as the apostle Paul has clearly shown in Gal 3:2-18, the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant could never have been granted through the law, i.e.,on the basis of the conditions of the Mosaic covenant, it was necessary that the Mosaic covenant be given and fulfilled before the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant could be fully realized. ". . . for Paul the law was not a dead end side trail but something lying squarely on the path of redemptive history" (Donaldson 1986,103). Paul, in Gal 3:13-14, indicates that there is an important connection between the redemption of Israel from the curse of the law and bestowal of the blessing of Abraham on the Gentiles. He writes, "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us, because it is written, 'cursed is everyone who has been hanged on a tree', in order that to the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham might come in Christ Jesus, in order that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, [i.e., the promised Spirit], through faith." In these verses and in others like them in the New Testament, the apostle seems to establish (or perhaps we should say recognize) an order in the historical accomplishment and application of redemption. One of the plain teachings of the Bible is that God never bestows grace on sinners at the expense of His own holiness. How, then, could God grant blessings to Abram and his offspring as guilty sinners? Was it Abram's faith that formed the basis of his justification? Was he declared righteous in God's holy sight because he was obedient to God's voice? Of course not!13
The Bible leaves no room for doubt concerning these questions. The only possible basis on which God could grant blessings to sinful Abram is perfect conformity to His holy will and full legal satisfaction for his sins. It is true that Abram was declared righteous in God's sight apart from personal obedience and apart from an acceptable sacrifice having been offered for his sins. He simply accounted God faithful to fulfill His promise of blessing, and God put it to his account for righteousness (Gen 15:5-6). But the basis of this promise of blessing had not yet been fully revealed. We could also say that the obstacles to the granting of these blessings had not yet been fully revealed. God's purpose in giving the Mosaic law was to magnify the barrier that sin had erected to the fulfillment of the promises, that He might demonstrate more clearly the gracious nature of the covenant that He had made with Abraham and his seed. It was this barrier that He purposed to remove through the seed in reference to whom the promises were given. On the one hand there was the barrier of the infinite holiness of God and the inflexible nature of His righteousness. On the other hand, there was the obstacle of the guilt and depravity of Abram. Though these obstacles were just as much a reality then as they are now, they had not yet been clearly defined
The Law Gave Definition to
Righteousness and Sin.
It was the purpose of the law, i.e., the Mosaic codification of the law, to give intricate definition to the concepts of righteousness and sin. Only in the light of this holy law would the true character of God and the sinful plight of man be clearly revealed. Once the law had been given, no Israelite had any reason to wonder what it would take to please God. The law leaves no question concerning what God loves and what He finds abhorrent. It leaves no question concerning what every sin deserves. It pronounces a curse on all who fail to render perfect, continual, inward obedience to its demands (Deut 21:23). It was not until God had fully revealed, in the context of the law that He gave to Israel, His absolutely holy character and the enormity of human guilt and depravity, that the universal blessings of the Abrahamic covenant could be fully realized.
The Law Demanded Full Satisfaction.
But, not only was it necessary for these truths to be fully revealed. It was also necessary for the law to be fully honored by perfect obedience and fully satisfied by an infinite sacrifice. In Christ's obedience alone was the holy character of God accurately reflected and fully honored. In His sufferings alone, under the penal sanctions of the Mosaic law, was the penalty for the sins of His believing people under the old covenant given at Sinai fully satisfied (Heb 9:15).
The Law Revealed the Guiltiness of the
Entire
Race, Using Israel as a Pattern.
Since they did not possess the law, the other nations of the world walked in darkness (Isa 9:2;60:2). God allowed them, during the period of Israel's tutelage under the Mosaic law, to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16). Paul refers to this period of their pagan darkness as "the times of this ignorance" (Acts 17:30). It is obvious that Israel enjoyed privileges that the nations of the world knew nothing about. But, along with these privileges came great responsibility. Israel as the servant of Jehovah had as her task to reflect the light and glory of the Lord to the pagan nations around them. One of the ways in which Israel was to function in this witness bearing capacity was to be dealt with by God as a representative sample, a sort of microcosm, of the entire race. T.L. Donaldson has made an important and insightful observation in relation to this function of the Mosaic law. He wrote,
Israel, the people of the law, thus functions as a kind of representative sample of the whole. Their plight is no different from the plight of the whole of humankind, but through the operation of the law in their situation that plight is thrown into sharp relief. Being under is a special way of being under , because only under the former can the true nature of the bondage to the latter be clearly seen (Donaldson 104,1986).
Douglas Moo seems to be sounding the same note when he writes, "Perhaps it is best to view Israel's experience with the law as paradigmatic of all nations (Moo 213,1988).
As will be shown below, the experience of Israel and the experience of the Gentiles is the same as far as their sinfulness is concerned. The difference is that Israel was being dealt with in terms of more specific and more clearly revealed requirements than those imposed on the Gentiles . Since the boundaries were more clearly defined for Israel than they were for Gentiles, she had greater responsibility.
The Law Has Been Removed as a Barrier.
As we hope to show in Chapter Six, Israel's sin took on a special character under the Mosaic law. Moreover, it made demands that were far more specific than any that had been revealed through nature. It was under the intricate requirements of that law that Christ was born. It was in obedience to these requirements that He lived. It was because these requirements had not been and could not be kept by His people that He died.
In Christ, the curse of sin (more specifically defined for those under the Mosaic economy as the curse of the law) has been fully satisfied for the believer, so that the covenants of promise might be fulfilled without compromising the holy character and righteous demands of God. The barrier to the fulfillment of the promises has been removed for God's believing people. Every condition of the Mosaic covenant has been fulfilled in Christ so that every spiritual blessing of that covenant might flow to His believing people, both Jews and Gentiles, in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.
The Law as a Conditional
Covenant.
There has been a great deal of discussion concerning the nature of the Mosaic covenant. Was it a covenant of works, a covenant of grace, i.e., a legal administration of the one overarching covenant of grace, or was it a third covenant, neither of grace or of works, having respect to Canaan and God's blessing there and having nothing to do with heaven, since that was promised by another covenant (Bolton 1964, 99)?
Are the Traditional Categories Valid?
Is the traditional understanding of the categories "covenant of works" and "covenant of grace" really biblical at all? Must it be assumed that because the nomenclature of Covenant Theology has been long used and widely accepted, it must have the imprimatur of heaven on it? Are its presuppositions somehow sacrosanct because stated so boldly in the Westminster Confession of Faith? Perhaps it should be asked whether God ever promised heaven or eternal life to Adam on the condition of perfect obedience. That Adam was constituted the federal head of the entire race and that he, together with all his posterity, would have continued to enjoy unending earthly bliss in paradise as long as he continued in his integrity,is clearly taught in Scripture. That he would ultimately have been confirmed in this integrity and granted eternal, heavenly bliss after a period of probation is nowhere stated in Scripture. If by insisting that the old covenant was but a different administration of the one covenant of grace the proponents of this position mean that God never offers eternal life to fallen sinners on any ground other than free and sovereign grace, then, certainly, no one who loves the grace of God would disagree for a moment. Of course, salvation has always been by grace alone. Who that has read the Bible could possibly disagree with such a clear proposition? But, this does not mean that the Mosaic covenant is but another administration of the "covenant of grace." The question that needs to be asked is whether or not it is wise to build a theological system on presuppositions that are not drawn from an exegesis of Scripture?
No Contradiction between
Law and Promise.
To suggest that the Mosaic covenant was a covenant of works in the sense that God now, in contradiction to the promise that He had made to Abraham 430 years earlier, intended to grant eternal life to sinful rebels on the basis of their own works rather than on the basis of promise would suggest either that God is a whimsical God or that God is not one, i.e., He has given two contradictory covenants to the same people, at the same time. Whatever the full meaning of that much discussed verse, Gal 3:20, may be, it clearly teaches the unity of God. Moses was the mediator of the old covenant. Israel was the one party in the covenant; who was the other? A mediator is not needed when there is only one party--"a mediator is not of one." The obvious answer is that God is the other party. It is God who gave the old covenant to Israel. Paul then logically asks. "Is the law then against the promises of God? May it not be!" In other words, God is not pursuing two separate purposes in giving the law and the promise. Such a thing is impossible. In fact it was through perfect obedience to the law that God intended to fulfill the promise. If there is an inherent contradiction between the promise made to Abraham and the law given to Israel, then God is not one. In that case, He has given two contradictory methods of justification--one by grace and another by the sinner's own works. In Gal 3:21, Paul argues the impossibility of righteousness ever coming to sinners on the basis of their own law keeping. If such a thing were possible, surely righteousness would have come by the law (3:21). It is important to understand at this point that this impossibility does not arise from the character of the old covenant (it, indeed, promised life on the basis of obedience) but from the sinful character of those to whom it was given. Not one of them could render the obedience that it demanded. What Paul is saying is that the law and the promise could not be contradictory since the law was never intended to do what the grace of God alone is able to accomplish. Although "operating in different spheres" (Kent 1976,102), they are moving in the same direction. Thus, we may say that God was gracious in giving the law to Israel in that the whole Mosaic economy was intended to prepare for the coming redeemer through whom alone the covenants of promise could be fulfilled. If rightly understood, the law shut out all hope of justification apart from the coming Messiah. But, it could never have fulfilled this function apart from being an inferior, conditional covenant. Indeed, it was the very inferiority of the old covenant that enabled it to perform its task so splendidly. The writer to the Hebrews argues, "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second" (Heb 8:7). This does not mean that there was anything wrong with the Mosaic covenant. It did everything that God intended for it to do, but having fully discharged its function, it was incapable of meeting man's most basic spiritual needs. It was just because the law (old covenant) could not meet these needs that it was so effective in pointing forward to the one who could.
Works, the Controlling Principle
of the Old Covenant.
The writers of the New Testament recognized that the principle of the old covenant was not a principle of grace at all, but a principle of works. What else could James mean when he wrote, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all" (Jas 2:10)? What does Paul intend for his readers to understand when he contrasts the "righteousness which is by the law" with the "righteousness which is by faith" in Rom 10:5-6? He writes,
For Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law, "the man who does those things shall live by them." But the righteousness which is by faith speaks in this way . . . if you shall confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved . . . .
Is Paul suggesting that there are two possible ways of justification, works of obedience under the law and faith in Christ under the gospel? Of course not! But what does Paul mean when He writes, "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified" (Rom 2:13)? Where is the grace in that? Does this not suggest that the law was a purely legal covenant? What does Paul mean when he writes, "Now the law is not of faith, but on the contrary the one who has done these things shall live by them" (Gal 3:12)? If the Mosaic covenant was but a different, legal administration of the one covenant of grace, how can the writer to the Hebrews argue that the new or gospel covenant which has now been ratified by the death of Christ, the mediator of that covenant, is not like that old covenant? He writes,
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he says, behold the days come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, says the Lord. . .In that He says, A new covenant, He has made the first old. Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away (Heb 8:7-13).
It seems clear that the writer, in describing the new covenant, is depicting not merely a different administration of the same old covenant, but a "brand new" covenant that totally replaces the old. The old covenant is described as "decaying, through old age and near destruction and abolition." That doesn't sound like a covenant that continues under a new administration, does it?
Paul also speaks of that old covenant as "being abolished" in contrast to the new covenant which remains (2 Cor 3:11). In that passage he describes the old covenant, not as a gracious covenant, but as "the letter that kills" (v.6), "the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones" (v.7), and "the ministration of condemnation" (v.9). Does that sound like a gracious covenant to you?
An important fact that should not be missed (though it often seems to be) is that the blessings promised to Israel under the Mosaic covenant are conditioned upon Israel's obedience to the voice of the LORD and her keeping of His covenant (Exo 19:5). Jehovah told Moses to speak to Israel and say, "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: . . ." Is this not plainly the language of a conditional covenant--if you do this, then I will do that?
John Murray has argued that, despite the evidence that apparently points in the other direction,14 the Mosaic covenant is not in a different category from the Abrahamic or the new covenant. In thus arguing, he discussed the following four propositions:
The Mosaic covenant in respect of this condition of obedience is not in a different category from the Abrahamic. `And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations' (Genesis 17:9).
The Mosaic covenant, no less than the Abrahamic, contemplates a relation of intimacy and fellowship with God epitomized in the promise `I will be your God and ye shall be my people' (cf. Exodus 6:7; 18:1; 19:5-6; 20:2; Deuteronomy 29:13). Religious relationship on the highest level is in view. If the covenant contemplates religious relationship of such a character, it is inconceivable that the demands of God's holiness should not come to expression as governing and regulating that fellowship and as conditioning the continued enjoyment of its blessings.
Not only is holiness, as expressed concretely and practically in obedience, demanded by the covenant fellowship; we must also bear in mind that holiness was itself an integral element of the covenant blessing. Israel had been redeemed and called to be a holy people and holiness might be regarded as the essence of the covenant blessing.
Holiness, concretely and practically illustrated in obedience, is the means through which the fellowship entailed in the covenant relationship proceeds to its fruition and consummation. . . . In all of this the demand of obedience in the Mosaic covenant is principally identical with the same demand in the new covenant of the gospel economy. The new covenant also finds its center in the promise, `I will be your God and ye shall be my people.' The new covenant as an everlasting covenant reaches the zenith of its realization in this : `Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people' (Revelation 21:3). But we must ask: Do believers continue in this relationship and in the enjoyment of its blessing irrespective of persevering obedience to God's commands? . . . Believers under the gospel continue in the covenant and in the enjoyment of its privileges because they continue in the fulfillment of the conditions; they continue in faith, love, hope, and obedience. True believers are kept unto the end, unto the eschatological salvation; but they are kept by the power of God through faith (cf. 1 Peter 1:5). (Murray 1971,197-8).
There are many points that Murray makes in these paragraphs with which we are certainly in hearty agreement. It is a truth plainly revealed in the New Testament Scriptures that no professing Christian will be saved at the last apart from that holiness which expresses itself in persevering obedience to Christ (Heb 12:14). It is clear that God would never enter into a covenant relationship with anyone and pledge Himself to be their God without expecting holiness from that covenant partner. When God entered into covenant relationship with Abraham, His command to him was "walk before me and be perfect" (Gen 17:1). He expects no less of the heirs of the new covenant (see Matt 5:48).
Murray's argument would be convincing apart from the following considerations:
In comparing Abraham and the heirs of the new covenant with Israel under the Mosaic covenant, he is comparing apples and oranges. He assumes that the Israelites addressed in Exo 19:5-6 were on the same spiritual footing with the spiritual heirs of the Abrahamic covenant, referring to them as those who had been "redeemed and called to be a holy people" (see #3 above). But, it must be asked, "In what sense had Israel been redeemed and called to be holy?" Had all the members of that nation that God was now establishing a covenant relationship with been justified freely by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The answer is no! The grand majority of those who were "redeemed" out of Egypt, perished in the wilderness in unbelief. Their "redemption" was physical and temporal in nature. The only relationship it bears to the eternal redemption of God's spiritual people by the blood of Christ is that of type to antitype. While it is to be expected that God's redeemed and regenerate people will evince, by holy behavior, their true natures as those who have been taken into an intimate covenant relationship with God, the same should not be expected from Israel, that rebellious and unregenerate nation with whom God entered into covenant at Mt. Sinai. The relationship that they sustained with God was nothing like (in the true spiritual sense) the relationship between God and His justified people. For them, it was not a matter of giving evidence of a regenerate heart. It was not a matter of persevering in faith and holiness. They had no faith or holiness in which to persevere.
Under #4 above, Murray states, "Believers under the gospel continue in the covenant and in the enjoyment of its privileges because [emphasis mine] they continue in the fulfillment of the conditions; they continue in faith hope, love, and obedience." It seems that it would have been better to have said, "Believers under the gospel continue in the covenant . . . as they believe, obey, etc." Even though Murray later writes, "We readily see, however, that the attainment of the goal is not on the meritorious ground of perseverance and obedience, but through the divinely appointed means of perseverance (Ibid. 1971,200), his words here make it sound as if the believer's continual enjoyment of the blessings of the new covenant is conditioned on his obedience. If that were the case, there would be no enjoyment of blessings or privileges at all, for if God demands obedience as a condition of enjoying the blessings of the covenant, the obedience which He demands must be perfect obedience.
We would never deny that those who are the true heirs of the new covenant will certainly evince their new covenant status by "walking in step" with the Spirit who has been sent into their hearts as a special blessing of that covenant. It is, nonetheless, true that even the genuine heirs of the new covenant fail, at times, in faith, hope, love, and obedience. Do they, at such times, sever themselves from the bonds of the covenant and forfeit the enjoyment of its blessings? No! They continue in the covenant and the enjoyment of its privileges because of the faithfulness of Christ, the surety of that covenant. However lax their obedience may become or however grievously they may fall into sin, it will never be said of the true heirs of the new covenant as it was said of natural Israel, ". . . they continued not in my covenant and I regarded them not, saith the Lord." (Heb.8:9). No wonder God said, "I will make a new covenant . . . not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers. . . ." (Heb 8:8-9). One of the glorious differences between this covenant and the Mosaic covenant is that there are no unfulfilled conditions in the new covenant. Christ has fulfilled every condition necessary for the blessings of that covenant to flow to His believing people.
3. Although it is quite true that doing is expected of the heirs of every covenant which God has made with men, i.e., God expects holiness and obedience from all his believing people, the order in which that doing is expected is not the same in every covenant. The relationship between justification (living)15 and obedience (doing) under the old covenant was clearly, "Do and live" (Lev 18:5; Rom 2:13;10:5; Gal 3:12). The relationship under the new covenant is "live and do." Life is granted freely and without condition on the basis of the doing and dying of Christ under the demands of the Mosaic covenant. Doing will inevitably follow as an evidence of the reality of that spiritual life, but never as a condition of "continuing in the covenant and the enjoyment of its privileges." In the old covenant God said, "if you will, then I will (Exo 19:5-6). In the new covenant He says, "I will and they shall" (Heb 8:10-12).
Murray cites such verses as Heb 3:14 and Col 1:22-23, in support of the idea that continuance in the covenant and in the enjoyment of its privileges is conditioned on one's perseverance in faith, hope, love and obedience. In the case of Heb 3:14 ("We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end"), it is clear that the writer is setting down a confident, persevering, confession of Christ to the end, not as a condition of being made a partaker of Christ, but as an evidence of it.
In Col 1:22-23, it is also the reality of faith that is in question. Paul writes,
But now He has reconciled you in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight, assuming that (condition of the first class--assumed to be reality) you remain in the faith, having been grounded and settled and not being moved away from the hope of the gospel which you have heard . . .
Continuing in the faith is not a condition which one must fulfill in order that he might be presented holy, unblamable, and unreprovable in Christ's presence. The conditions necessary for that have all been met in the reconciling work of Christ. The question that Paul raises concerns whether his readers are actually numbered among those who have been reconciled by the death of Christ. There is one way to know for sure. If (assuming that, i.e., Paul assumed on the basis of their profession that they would continue in the faith) they continue in the faith, they will give evidence that they are among those who have been reconciled. Not one believer will be saved without persevering in the faith, yet not one will be saved because of it.
It should be evident from these considerations that the continuity is not as great between the Mosaic covenant and the Abrahamic and new covenants as Murray has judged.
Walter Chantry has charged those who see the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works with espousing a "neo-dispensationalism." Moreover, he charges dispensationalists, both old and (allegedly) new, with teaching "that Moses was propounding a way of salvation by works" (Chantry n.d.,12). Although, there is a note in the Scofield Reference Bible that implies that men under the Mosaic covenant were offered salvation on the condition of obedience,16 it is unlikely that either C.I. Scofield or any reputable dispensationalist after him truly believed that salvation was ever granted through man's works. Certainly, no modern dispensationalist believes that justification has ever been granted to sinners in any other way than through faith in the promises of God (perhaps we should say in the God of the promises). What a prodigious misrepresentation it is to suggest that these "new dispensationalists" whom he describes as, "former 'Reformed Baptists' who are now the avowed enemies of the Reformed faith . . .the new breed of 'Calvinistic Baptists' who deplore the 1689 confession" (Ibid. 11), are really suggesting that "Moses' teaching was 'The way to heaven is by keeping the Ten Commandments' (Ibid.,12). What Moses did plainly teach is that if anyone is ever going to get to heaven through the old covenant, he will only get there through keeping the law perfectly. It is a legal covenant from start to finish.
In saying that the old covenant was a legal and conditional covenant and therefore not an installment of the covenant of grace, we are not denying that God was gracious in giving this covenant to Israel. Certainly, God was gracious in revealing the infinite holiness of His character. He could have justly left men in total darkness, with no revelation of Himself at all. It was gracious of God to grant to Israel, in the sacrificial system of the old covenant, a typical foreshadowing of the work of the great priest and redeemer of His people. What we are saying is that the old covenant itself granted no redemptive grace, in the sense of eternal blessing, to its subjects. Even the forgiveness that was experienced under the old covenant was only ceremonial and typical (see Heb 10:1-4) of that forgiveness which is found in Christ alone.17 As Isaac Watts has written,
Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away the stain:
The Principle of Solidaric Union.
Rather than seeing Adam under a "covenant of works" and then trying to squeeze everything else into the "covenant of grace," it seems far better to think in terms of the more biblical concept of representative headship. In reality, all mankind, in Adam as a representative head, are under a conditional covenant. It is impossible for the sons of fallen Adam to ever get to heaven without perfect conformity to the revealed will of God. Unless they bear the unsullied image of God, they cannot and will not be accepted into God's holy presence. They cannot be accepted as long as they continue to fall short of His glory (Rom 3:23). The major purpose of the law was to demonstrate, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that no child of Adam could ever enter the presence of a holy God and see the face of that God in peace on the basis of his own works. If any child of Adam would be justified by the law, then he must keep the law perfectly, continually, and inwardly; a task which not one of the descendants of Adam has either the inclination or the ability to perform. Do you see how this differs from saying that "Moses was teaching that the way to heaven is by keeping the Ten Commandments?" What Moses was saying is that if any who are "in Adam" ever expect to get to heaven through the law covenant, they will do so only through perfect obedience to that law.
The covenant of promise, fulfilled in the new covenant, on the other hand, is established with all those, but only those, who are "in Christ." They, too, can get to heaven only through perfect obedience to the law. It was, therefore, necessary for Christ, their head and representative, to be made of woman, under the curse that God placed on all creation after the fall of the first Adam. It was also necessary for Him to be made under the law in order that He might, on behalf of His people, obey it in all of its intricate detail. Then, under the penal sanctions of that law, He suffered the curse of the law that His sinful people had merited for themselves through their disobedience to its precepts. In this way, He complied not only with God's righteous standard revealed in nature but also with that same standard, revealed in a stricter way, in the old covenant. It is the "faithfulness of Christ" in fulfilling every demand of the old covenant as a covenant of works, as the representative of His people, that provides the sole ground of their acceptance in the presence of God.
13 This is not to deny that Abram's obedience sprang from his faith in God (accounting God faithful) to fulfill His promises. Nor is it to deny that Abram was declared righteous before God through faith alone. Faith was the means of his justification. It is to deny that either faith, or the obedience that flowed from it, formed the ground or cause of his justification. It was through faith and obedience that he was justified, not because of it.
14 "How, we might ask, does the condition of obedience comport with the provisions of an administration of grace? If grace is contingent upon the fulfillment of certain conditions by us, then surely it is no more grace. Hence, it may well be argued, this conditional feature of the Mosaic covenant requires that it be placed in a different category" (Murray 1971,197).
15 It is true that under the old covenant, "live" involved the idea of "survival and prosperity." Yet, Paul, in contexts in which he discusses justification, cites Lev 18:5 in support of the idea that "doing" was the controlling principle of the old covenant. It seems that what Paul is doing is related to his understanding of typology. Surviving and prospering as a member of the typical people of God, corresponded typically with justification (surviving and prospering spiritually) before God as a member of the true, spiritual people of God.
16 C.I. Scofield wrote,"As a dispensation, grace begins with the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom. 3:24-26; 4:24,25). The point of testing is no longer legal obedience as the condition of salvation, but acceptance or rejection of Christ, with good works as the fruit of salvation (John 1.12-13;3.36;Mt.21.37;22.42;John 15.22,25;Heb.1.2; I John 5.10-12)" (Scofield 1945.1115). This statement is usually objected to on the ground that it suggests that there was ever a time when salvation was offered to sinful men on some other basis than the grace of God. Although the statement that Scofield made was erroneous, it has been attacked at the wrong point. Scofield did not believe that anyone ever earned salvation by keeping the Ten Commandments. He made it clear in other notes that he believed that salvation is (and always has been) by the grace of God alone. The problem with his statement is that it suggests that legal obedience is no longer the condition of salvation. The truth is that legal obedience has always been the condition of salvation. It is the "doer of the law that shall be justified" (Rom 2:13). This was true under the old covenant; it is true under the new. Apart from the faith[fulness] of Christ in fulfilling the law and rendering a perfect satisfaction to its legal demands, there would be no bestowal of salvation by grace in any age. In other words, Scofield's error was not in seeing that salvation was conditioned on legal obedience under the old covenant. It was in supposing that under the new covenant, faith in Christ replaced legal obedience as the condition of salvation.
17 This is not to deny that true believers under the old covenant were truly justified on the ground of the obedience and righteousness of Christ. It is to deny that this forgiveness was granted as a blessing of the old covenant.