Covenant Light on Justification - Part 1: Abraham
The nature of the covenant, conditional and unconditional; a summary of Norman Shepherd's the Way of Grace
Norman Shepherd, a theologian who has been embroiled in controversy for nearly fifty years, is thought by some to be a brilliant and clear thinker. Others, such as John Robbins at the Trinity Foundation, consider him to be a heretic. As a matter of record, he was a teacher at Westminster Theological Seminary in the seventies, and questions came to the front as to whether his formulation of the doctrine of justification was in line with the Westminster Confession of Faith. His opponents accused him of denying the doctrine of sola fide.
After many debates, hearings and papers sent back and forth, over the course of several years, he was exonerated by the board of Westminster Theological Seminary of charges related to his views on justification in 1981. This decision was based on a report by a special committee that was appointed to review the matter. Unfortunately for him, political pressure by donors who still suspected him of heterodoxy forced him to resign. He became a minister soon afterwards and was still caught up in similar controversy. He left the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and joined the Christian Reformed Church in North America.
The controversy has not stopped. Given the charitable reading of Shepherd’s view by various advocates of the Federal Vision debate, in some ways he has become more known than ever and “the cancer… has metastasized”.
Frankly, I am a total outsider to these debates, not being a Presbyterian or having any formal adherence to the Westminster Confession of Faith (though I generally would consider my views to be very similar to that confession). That said, I have great respect for men like James Jordan and Doug Wilson, who have both, at times, fairly or unfairly, been associated with Shepherd and his views.
For that reason I have read the two books that Shepherd published in order to see if I could understand what he was explaining, what he was trying to explain and just generally have a fair understanding of what he taught “from the horse’s mouth”.
It is fascinating to me that such ink has been spilled over Shepherd’s views, when the reality is that they are not easy to get ahold of. The two books I found are the only two books I am aware of in which his views are published in his own words. The lectures that he gave in the seventies have some very low-quality audio and a handful of letters and clarifying statements circulate on the internet.
I am going to attempt to summarize the views of Shepherd in this article without rendering judgment as to whether they are correct or incorrect. This is partially an exercise for me in comprehension, but also hopefully it will provide context for a reader who is unfamiliar or who wishes to get a sense of what was said.
The first book he wrote, The Call of Grace, is broken into two halves: Covenant Light on the Way of Salvation and Covenant Light on Evangelism.
He breaks the first half into four chapters, where he separately analyzes four of the “covenants” regularly pictured as part of the Covenant of Grace: the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and the New. In each he endeavors to explore the nature of the covenant, whether conditional, unconditional, or both, as well as explain the purpose of the covenant and how it relates to the ones that came before. He claims that the central defining feature of so-called “Reformed” theology is not Calvinism or justification by faith as such, but Covenant theology.
He also believes that looking at the word through the lens of covenant helps to diffuse some of the confusion of so-called “problem passages” that some formulations of Reformed theology leave in their wake, as well as point to a potential route forward to resolving the tension between Protestants and Catholics.
Part 1: Covenant Light on the Way of Salvation
Shepherd starts off by pointing out the severe moral crisis that has erupted in the West over the last few decades and points out that various formulations of joint resolutions by Protestants and Catholics that re-ignited the perennial question of whether Protestants and Catholics are truly members of the same religion or not.
He doesn’t enter into that debate directly, but he does claim that there are legitimate exegetical issues that the Protestant Reformation left unresolved. The stark difference between the reformers and the Catholics was the question of whether we are saved by works of merit in the sacramental system, as the Catholics of that age taught, or whether we were saved by the grace of God, through faith alone. While the fundamental insight that justification is by faith and not by works is absolutely true, the unresolved questions have left room for the Catholics to remain unconvinced of this.
Some of these same exegetical questions plagued the Protestants themselves. The Lutherans and Reformed tradition were sharply divided on the role and purpose of the Law. In a more modern era, the arguments and debates over Lordship Salvation would seem to point to some kind of divide even within the Reformed camp.
Antinomianism and Legalism
Shepherd points to the twin issues of “legalism” and “antinomianism” that appear as tendencies that the church often falls into. He defines antinomianism as the view that obedience and the commands of Christ, while a good idea, are in no way connected to your salvation or your eternal security. For the antinomians, “your eternal destiny has nothing to do with how you live your life”.
The strength of antinomianism is its appeal to what is the heart of the Protestant Reformation: salvation by grace through faith, not by merit through works.
Opponents of antinomianism are quick to point to the book of James which teaches “faith without works is dead. Such faith is of no use. It will not save.” Christ himself focused on the need for repentance, teaching his disciples “to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins to all the nations”. This same language of “repent and believe” is prominent in the book of Acts and Paul writes similar things.
Many Reformed folks have no problem with preaching of repentance unto salvation, since the Bible speaks so often in those terms. Their own catechisms remind us that “those who do not turn from their ungrateful and impenitent ways” may “by no means” be saved.
The fear is that pressing the need for obedience and repentance might turn one to legalism and heading back to Rome with its doctrine of meriting salvation by ones good works.
He ends the introduction to this first part by asking the questions: “How can we preach grace without suggesting that it makes no difference how you live your life?” and “How can we preach repentance without calling into question salvation by grace apart from works?” He believes that the doctrine of the covenant provides these answers.
The Abrahamic Covenant
He begins by briefly defining the concept of a covenant:
A covenant [is] a divinely established relationship of union and communion between God and his people in the bonds of mutual love and faithfulness… [He] promis[es] them his love and requir[es] the same response from them.
He first indicates that the Abrahamic covenant is often seen as the covenant “of promise”. He indicates some of the promises that were made to him, the promise of the covenant itself, of land, of offspring, and especially that he would be his God and his descendants would be God’s people.
Conditionality
However, it is not strictly accurate to say that the Abrahamic covenant was unconditional. While it was made without Abraham looking for it, many passages remind us of conditions that God makes on the covenant.
First of all, there was the condition of circumcision attached for Abraham and his children (Gen 17:9-14). As the remainder of the Old Testament makes clear, circumcision was never primarily about the physical act, but a “circumcision of the heart”. Essentially this encompasses an entire covenant obedience and incidentally becomes the basis for future baptism. As the Old Testament, we learn, associates circumcision of the flesh with circumcision of the heart, we are not surprised to see Christ associate baptism with “teaching them to obey all I have commanded you” (Mt 28:18-20).
Secondly, faith itself was a requirement. In fact, that faith was credited as “righteousness”, meaning righteousness itself was a requirement for the Abrahamic covenant, and was fulfilled by his faith. Shepherd is unclear as to whether the quality of faith was such that it “counted as” full righteousness, or whether he is merely pointing out that Abraham received the gift of “being counted righteous” through faith. His previous agreements with the Westminster Confession imply that he means the second. The paragraph in question follows:
We must not discount faith as a condition to be met for the promise. In fact, Genesis 15:6 says Abraham’s faith is so significant that it was credited to him as righteousness! If so, then righteousness was a condition to be met and faith met that condition.
At first glance, Shepherd seems to be claiming that the faith itself was of such high quality that it means he was a righteous man. However, the interplay of faith and righteousness is such that merely being super duper faith-filled is not enough to make a person “righteous” in any judicial or forensic sense. The record of sin would still stand against you. But make your own determination about what is meant.
Thirdly, this faith was not some “mental assent”. Both James and Hebrews indicate that Abraham’s faith was demonstrative and included action to “back up” his faith. This demonstrates our principle that “faith without works is dead” (Jas 2:26). Shepherd’s point is that the faith itself has a qualitative characteristic of being “living and obedient”.
Fourth, Abraham is commanded by God to walk blamelessly:
Gen 17:1-2 …walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.
The “walking blamelessly” is directly connected to the confirmation of the covenant. Gen 26:3-5 makes this clear:
3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your seed I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. 4 And I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and I will give your seed all these lands; and by your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; 5 because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”
Fifth, the entrance to the Promised Land, the “unconditional” promise to Abraham was in fact conditional for the specific people involved. The leading to the promised land was specifically regarded as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant:
Deut 7:8 but because Yahweh loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your fathers, Yahweh brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
However, if this promise was indeed unconditional, we’d expect the Israelites to enter no matter what they did. That was not the case:
Heb 3:17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.
The connection is made between their disobedience and their unbelief, as unbelief is manifested in disobedience.
Lastly, the final fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant was in Christ, through his obedience:
Gal 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ.
Phil 2:8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore, God also highly exalted Him…
Non-Meritorious
However, the conditionality of the covenant in no way implies that the covenant was meritorious, or that Abraham earned the blessing through his works.
This is demonstrated in a few ways, but one of the most memorable is Hagar. This represented Abraham’s “human effort” to bring about the promise, and it did nothing but bring about grief for him.
The obedience that leads to the fulfillment of the promise is totally different. It is the expression of faith and trust in the Lord, not the expression of confidence in human effort.
Secondly, the way the promise was actually fulfilled to Israel was expressly described as non-meritorious:
Deut 9:4 “Do not say in your heart when Yahweh your God has driven them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh is dispossessing them before you. 5 It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to confirm the oath which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
6 “So you shall know it is not because of your righteousness that Yahweh your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Shepherd summarizes the idea like this:
Moses was saying in the clearest possible way that the inheritance does not come because of human achievement or merit. Israel had not made herself worthy of receiving what was promised to Abraham. The land was a free gift of God’s grace, but it could only be received by a living and active faith.
To Be Continued…
Next time I will continue this discussion with Shepherd’s reflections on the Mosaic Covenant. While I hesitate to draw conclusions from the discussion of the Abrahamic Covenant only, what I am seeing here is a juxtaposition of the necessity of grace as the motivation and initiation of the covenant with the necessity for obedience. This obedience is not the ground of the covenant, nor does it in any way earn what is being offered. Nevertheless, the Abrahamic Covenant is not so “unconditional” as for its fulfillment to be given regardless of the individual’s response to it. He considers obedience to be an expression of faith and thus entirely wedded to faith and arising from faith, but nevertheless indivisible from faith.
I will not at this time draw any parallels or assumptions about how this applies to the New Covenant, and therefore to salvation, at this time because he has not made those links explicit and the book continues to a discussion of the New Covenant.