Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 73:2 (Fall 2011)
Article: Israel’s Recapitulation Of Adam’s Probation Under The Law Of Moses
Author: David VanDrunen

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WTJ 73:2 (Fall201 1) p. 303

Israel’s Recapitulation Of Adam’s Probation Under The Law Of Moses

Biblical Studies

David VanDrunen

David VanDrunen is the Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary California.

Reformed theologians have long debated the precise role and purpose of God’s giving the law to Israel at Sinai. They have widely agreed that the covenant of grace and hence salvation in Christ were administered during this era and also that God dealt with his people under Moses in ways unique to their place in redemptive history. Understanding the functions of the law with respect to both salvation in Christ and the distinctiveness of the Mosaic epoch has been deemed important for a number of overlapping reasons. Reformed theologians have always had a high view of the law of God and have sought to organize their theology around the biblical covenants, for example, and the Mosaic revelation has a great deal to say about these topics. Another significant matter is that NT books that have contributed disproportionately to the development of Reformed soteriology—notably Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews—explain and defend doctrines of justification and the atonement interwoven with explanations of the Mosaic law and its unique and temporary purposes. To understand salvation properly, it seems, we need to understand what God designed the Mosaic law to accomplish.

A recent collection of essays by Reformed theologians, The Law Is Not of Faith, explored such issues from historical, exegetical, and systematic angles.1 A central concern of the book was an idea popular among many older Reformed theologians, namely, that God in some sense republished the Adamic covenant of works through giving the law at Sinai, not as a viable alternative way to eternal life but as a pedagogical tool to advance his broader purposes of salvation by grace through the coming Messiah. Given the perennial Reformed debates about the place of the Mosaic law, and given the eclipse of the republication idea from the sight of most recent Reformed theology, it is no surprise that the book generated reviews expressing a wide range of opinion. Two of the most critical reviews, published by the in-house journals of two Reformed seminaries and written by their president and academic dean respectively, are exceedingly long. One makes implicit accusations of antinomian tendencies among the contributors, and the

WTJ 73:2 (Fall201 1) p. 304

other bizarrely raises the specter of Pelagianism.2 Whatever the other accomplishments of the book, simultaneously promoting Pelagianism...

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