Considering how Dispensational and Reformed Theologians each respectively understand the Mosaic Covenant helps us to identify a key point of difference.
For the majority of the Reformed, every biblical covenant after the fall is said to share substantial unity with The Covenant of Grace. ‘The unifying substance of the covenant of grace was a way of speaking of the exclusive way of salvation through grace, of justification by faith, not human works.’[1]
This is the unifying principle that organically connects the individual biblical covenants and runs throughout redemptive history. The emphasis here is one of Continuity. This is good to emphasize.
But at the heart of much dispensational concern, is their observation of a biblical tension. A discontinuity, contrast, or antithesis that seems to make the Mosaic Covenant look very different to the Abrahamic and New Covenants. They think the Mosaic Covenant was a different kind of covenant. To use Reformed terminology, the Mosaic Covenant seems to differ in substance with the Covenant of Grace. Dispensationalists typically understand the Mosaic Covenant to be a bilateral and conditional covenant. Translating that into Reformed categories, it looks more like a covenant of works than a covenant of grace. In a word, it appears as ‘law’. It speaks the language of ‘Do this and live’ (Leviticus 18:5).
In contrast with the Mosaic, Dispensationalists understand the Abrahamic and New Covenants as unilateral and ultimately unconditional. While Dispensationalists wouldn’t typically speak in terms of a ‘Covenant of Grace’, this Reformed concept fairly represents their thinking here. The Abrahamic and New Covenants appear to be covenants of promise and grace. In a word, they appear as ‘gospel’ covenants. They speak the language of ‘Live and do this’.
The biblical data they would use to support this claim would be passages like Galatians 3-4, Hebrews 7-9, and 2 Corinthians 3. These areas of scripture all indicate a strong contrast between the Mosaic and New Covenant.
Looking at 2 Corinthians 3 as one example, Charles Feinberg speaks of the contrast evident in the text by saying, ‘The ‘Law brings death; grace gives life, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). The one is a ministration of death; the other, the ministration of the Spirit. The former is the ministration of condemnation; the latter, the ministration of righteousness (2 Cor. 3:7-9).’
And to further underscore his point he says, ‘That is nowhere so well portrayed as in the events occurring at the giving of the law and those at the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Of the former it is written that there fell of the people of Israel that day about three thousand men (Exod. 32:28). Of the latter it is stated that the same day there were added to the Body of Christ about three thousand souls (Acts 2:41).’[2]
To the Dispensationalist, and this is no small detail, the contrast is also evidenced by the differing covenant ceremonies. In the Abrahamic Covenant God’s repeated phrase ‘I will’ is understood to characterize its nature (Genesis 12:1-3). And this is nowhere more clearly illustrated than when God alone passed through the cut animals during the oath ceremony and swore by His own name to bring about what He promised (Genesis 15:17). When the Mosaic Covenant was ratified, it differed in that it was made with the people and conditioned on their obedience. The Israelites stood at the foot of Mt Sinai and Moses, ‘took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient!” (Exodus 24:7).
The difference in the covenant ceremonies is said to correspond to two different types of covenants.
Because of these types of differences, the dispensationalist believes there is warrant for a sharp discontinuity as one moves from the Old Testament to the New. This, they would conclude, is the witness of the biblical data.
In response, many covenant theologians immediately raise a valid theological concern. What about the continuity of salvation by grace throughout redemptive history?
Salvation in the Old Testament was by grace, through faith. The example and pattern of Abraham could not be any clearer (Genesis 15:6). But if the Mosaic Covenant is a conditional covenant or a covenant of works, as Dispensationalist’s claim, then any Israelite living under that covenant would surely need to be saved by works. One Reformed pastor put it this way, ‘Pelagius would have a smile on his face.’
As Dispensationalists, we need to understand this.
But it was for this reason, that many in the Reformed tradition insist that orthodoxy is maintained when the Mosaic Covenant shares ‘substantial unity’ with the Covenant of Grace.[3] They understand that the Mosaic Covenant may have conditional aspects that function at the level of administration or accidents, but at the level of substance or essence, they insist it must be a gracious covenant.
For the Reformed, dispensationalism is too radical and is somewhat akin to believing in a substantial republication of the covenant of works. Francis Roberts pointedly condemns any hint of this type of thinking by speaking of, ‘The many misapprehensions of this Sinai-Administration… that have occasioned so many mistakes and errors… especially that grand misapprehension, that the Sinai-Covenant was a Covenant of works, not of Faith and Grace’[4] For the Reformed this is a cardinal sin. Nothing less than the continuity of salvation by grace is at stake. A substantial republication of the covenant of works must be rejected as an impossibility and is simply out of the question.
From the Reformed perspective, the same problem has been described like this, ‘Sometimes the New Testament employs a law-gospel contrast to describe the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant. For example, John 1:17 reads, “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”. Then the author asks, ‘How, then, can the old and new covenants be different in terms of law-gospel contrast, while at the same time coordinate parts of the covenant of grace? This is what I am calling the problem of antithesis.’[5]
And this brings us to the heart of the problem.
The dispensationalist is looking at the biblical data and concludes that the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of works. The Reformed Covenant Theologian, on the other hand, knows that this simply cannot be the case. Salvation under the Mosaic Covenant must be by grace.
What I am trying to highlight here is that those holding to a conditional Mosaic Covenant are in danger of eliminating any possibility of grace during the Mosaic economy. While those holding to the Mosaic Covenant being substantially gracious, typically do so at the expense of compromising the integrity of the works principal and the biblical passages that emphasize a sharp discontinuity. Both methods run the risk of not comprehending all that is at stake. Both approaches to the Mosaic Covenant need to proceed very carefully.
The crux of the problem can be summed up by this question,
How can the Mosaic Covenant be considered a Covenant of Grace and a Covenant of Works at the same time? How can one covenant be both legal and gracious simultaneously?
We will get to some answers in following articles.
[1] Mark W. Karlberg, Reformed Interpretation of the Mosaic Covenant, p16, WSJ Article.
[2] Millennialism, Charles Feinberg, p218
[3] OPC Report of the Committee to Study Republication, 2016, The Conclusion details the specific, “Views of republication which are theologically inconsistent with our standards”. [104]
[4] OPC Report of the Committee to Study Republication, 2016, refer to footnote [278].
[5] The Law is Not of Faith, Essays on Works and Grace in the Mosaic Covenant, Edited by Bryan D. Estelle, J. V. Fesko and David VanDrunen, p81
Dispensational Federalism 