Covenant Theology And Constructive Calvinism

By Tim J. R. Trumper[1]

[Tim J. R. Trumper is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.]

Having suggested in a previous review (WTJ 62 [2000]: 153-57, esp.156–57) that the contemporary preoccupation among Westminster Calvinists with a covenant of works (notably the Murray-Kline debate) is myopic, it may seem somewhat contradictory to return to the subject. My reasoning is straightforward. If read well, Jeong Koo Jeon’s volume could serve to dissipate the suspicion that has created unnecessarily a tension among those who really ought to be standing shoulder to shoulder in defense of federal theology. The following extended review serves then to publicize the fact that whether one is “of Murray” or “of Kline” (see 1 Cor 1:11–12) there is much to be gained from the reading of Jeon’s balanced and dispassionate yet largely descriptive treatment of the debate. If Jeon achieves nothing else, it is sincerely to be hoped that his study will encourage a lowering of the register of the debate, not least because for long enough it has served the cause of federal theology counter-productively in the broader Reformed community that extends far beyond the ranks of conservative Presbyterians. More of this later. Suffice to say for now that in what follows, my purpose is to summarize and analyze Jeon’s study with a view to drawing from it the clear implications that are but implicit in the volume itself.

I. The Account of the Debate

In the four lengthy chapters that constitute the study, Jeon first traces out the historical development of federal theology from John Calvin to Geerhardus Vos. In this overview Jeon includes Calvin (whose version of federal theology was a primitive form that lacked a covenant of works, but which nevertheless possessed a motif of natural law that became a pointer towards the future development of a covenant of works (foedus naturale, foedus legale, or foedus operum [pp. 27–28]); Caspar Olevianus (“the forerunner of the antithesis between the covenants of works and grace hermeneutics” [p. 31]); Robert Rollock (responsible for making the rubric of the covenant of works part of the staple of covenant theology [p. 34]); the Westminster Confession (the first Reformed confession to place the doctrine of the covenant in the foreground [p. 40]); John Owen (for whom the distinction between the covenants of works and grace was foundational [p. 54]); Francis Turretin (who deepened the hermeneutical principle to include redemptive history and applied it to the doctrine of justification by faith alone [pp. 56 and 66]); Charles Hodge (who defended the covenantal distinction between works and grace against rationalism [p. 69]); and Geerhardus Vos (who “characteristically developed his biblical covenant theology under the rubrics of eschatology and the Kingdom of God, responding to the Ritschlian moralistic Kingdom of God and the dehistoricization of biblical history represented by the Wellhausen School, which emphasized the dynamic historicity of the biblical epochs” [p. 79]). By introducing Vos at the end of his initial historical overview, Jeon prepares the way for his treatment of Murray and Kline (chs. 2 and 3): “It is evident,” says Jeon, “that both … were greatly influenced by Geerhardus Vos” (p. 79).

Reflecting on this preparatory historical overview, Jeon argues, contra the neoorthodox (p. 11), that for all the differences of expression between Calvin and the later Calvinists the reformer’s antithesis between Law and Gospel is really compatible with that between the covenants of works and grace (pp. 14 and 94). Accordingly, Jeon denies in orthodox-Calvinistic fashion the neo-orthodox claim that later Calvinists reversed the biblical order from grace and law to law and grace.[2] As we shall go into later, a more objective or, what we call at Westminster Seminary (Philadelphia), a sympathetic-critical (in that order!) reading of the history and theology of the tradition,[3] suggests that while Jeon is right, it is possible to see why neo-orthodoxy has understood the tradition in the way that it has.

Beginning with Murray, Jeon notes that he held to a modified version of the covenant theology found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF). As is well known, Murray’s modification was shaped by his reservations about the covenant of works (foedus operum, which he renamed Adamic administration) and, less significantly, the covenant of redemption (renamed “the inter-trinitarian economy of salvation” [p. 116]). Although Jeon does not make much of Murray’s rejection of the covenant of works (leaving aside the covenant of redemption), the similarities between the shape and sound of the federal theology of Calvin and Murray should not be lost on the observant reader. Far from making concessions to neo-orthodoxy, Murray’s unusual later-Calvinistic version of federal theology was an attempt to reflect biblical teaching more closely. It is small wonder then that his theology resembles that of Calvin, the exegete par excellence of the tradition. All Murray did was to state explicitly what Calvin’s biblico-theological sensitivity implies, namely, that a biblical-theological methodology does not necessarily prove either a covenant of works (pp. 103–4) or a covenant of works. Even if it proved a covenant, the term “covenant of life” (cf. WCF 7:2 and LC 20) would be a more appropriate designation (p. 105 n. 4). It seems then that Murray considered his understanding of an Adamic administration to be in accord with the spirit of Westminster Calvinism, if not strictly according to its letter (WCF 7:2). This may explain why he does not seem to have shared his views with the faculty before making them known (p. 106 n. 4 cont.). Neither do we appear to know (at least, at the seminary) whether he ever took an exception to the WCF in regard to this issue.

Nevertheless, Jeon defends Murray’s orthodoxy on the basis of his retention of the Law-Gospel antithesis (in that historical order [p. 111]). It is Murray’s unmodified retention of the unsuffused antithesis (pp. 148 and 158ff.) that leaves untouched his Protestant understanding of justification as well as his Reformed perspective on the third use of the Law (pp. 105, 143 n. 79 cont., 144ff.). That said, for all the importance Murray attaches to a forensic doctrine of justification, Jeon correctly notes his broader focus on union with Christ, which, in line with Scripture, and Calvin we may add, he perceived to be the governing principle of the application of redemption: “Union with Christ does not vitiate … the principle of justification by faith alone apart from good works …, because in his detailed discussion of justification, the Law and Gospel antithesis remains a vital reference point” (p. 163; cf. p. 175 n. 141; cf. also p. 22 on Calvin’s perspective on union with Christ). All this sets Murray apart from both Roman Catholic theology and the modern theology of the likes of C. H. Dodd and Emil Brunner.

For many Murray’s impeccable credentials are obvious. For others, who have been hindered from objecting to Murray’s theology by the sacrosanct standing he occupies in the more recent tradition of Westminster Calvinism, the Shepherd controversy of twenty years past has provided a convenient foil by which to attack Westminster Seminary. Yet, Jeon helpfully, fairly and accurately notes that “Murray stands in the tradition of covenant theology by arguing that the antithesis between Law and Gospel and Letter and Spirit are interchangeable” (p. 187). Accordingly, the rumor that subtly hints that Murray is ultimately responsible for the so-called theological demise of Westminster Seminary just does not fit the facts. Such a thesis is not simply wrong. It is in fact shoddy in its treatment of Murray and his admirers. We may go further. It is Gemeingefährlich (dangerous to the public), because it downplays, for whatever reason (let God discern), the diversity that exists in the history of the Reformed tradition among theologians (whether Calvin or the later Calvinists) whose orthodoxy was unquestionable.[4] More of this later.

In the third chapter Jeon turns his attention to Kline, specifically his focus on covenant or kingdom theology (they stand or fall together). Contrary to those arguing that the covenant motif overshadows that of kingdom, Jeon tells us that according to Kline covenant hermeneutics must justify the kingdom motif (p. 191; cf. p. 194). Kline is therefore to be congratulated in his efforts to do justice to the kingdom motif in a tradition that has too frequently allowed the narrower concept of covenant to overshadow kingdom.[5]

Unlike Murray, however, Kline’s references to covenant recognize a covenant of works as well as a covenant of grace (labeled by Kline the covenant of redemption and including what has traditionally gone by the same name, only now renamed by Kline the Intratrinitarian covenant [p. 213]). In fact, it is at this very juncture that the stakes are increased, for whereas Murray could fully support his colleagues in the publication of material that countenanced a covenant of works (p. 106 n. 4 cont.), “Kline sees the modern rejection of the foedus operum as a serious theological deviation because it obliterates the antithetical principles of works and grace in subsequent covenants that impinge on the bestowal of the original eschatological kingdom goal” (p. 191). It is this antithesis that serves as the hermeneutical reference point for depicting the divine kingdom program in historia salutis.

For support of a covenant of works (which he prefers to call a covenant of creation [p. 196]), Kline draws together a wide range of ideas. Given that Jeon later describes Kline’s “extensive development of the original eschatology of the Garden” as his “distinctive contribution to covenant hermeneutics” (p. 272), it is worth summarizing in greater detail the description of Kline’s thought at this point. First, Jeon mentions that man’s creation in the divine image was intentionally covenantal. The relationship that existed between God and Adam was not, therefore, covenantal in a supplemental sense to that natural relationship that there evidently was. Thus, the creation account contains no disjunction between nature and covenant (p. 196). Accordingly, the Sabbath was a covenantal blessing patterned after God’s work in creation and indicative of the fact that God’s glorious work of creation was a process of covenant-making (p. 200). Other indicators of a covenant of creation include the awesome presence of the Glory-Spirit—a token of God’s sovereign and covenantal lordship over creation (p. 203) and an act of covenantal engagement (p. 204); the marriage ordinance, being covenantal or communal, reflecting the nature of the relationship between Adam and Eve and their Maker (ibid.); the eschatological sanctions, which focused on the tree and were understood in sacramental and probationary (conditional) terms respectively (Gen 2:9 and 3:22, and 2:16-17); and the primal parousia of the Glory-Spirit, which attended the fall of Adam and Eve, serving as a portent of “the day of the Lord”—a later reference to the divinely administered lawsuit against covenant-breakers (p. 212). If all these factors were not sufficient evidence of the covenantal nature of the relationship between Godand Adam, Kline points finally to the confirmation derived from the Old Testament’s use of creation motifs first encountered in the original Edenic order (p. 202).

With Kline’s confident defense of a covenant of works laid out, Jeon proceeds to unpack how he followed Vos in understanding redemptive history to be governed by an a priori establishment of the covenant of works. Thus, having briefly unpacked Kline’s case for the Intratrinitarian covenant (p. 214), Jeon then turns to a lengthier treatment of Kline’s view of the covenant of redemption (alias the covenant of grace). To those familiar with covenant theology, Jeon’s repeated reassurances that Kline is in the tradition of classic covenant theology seem overdone. Those in the Murray tradition do not doubt this. They simply object to the dogmatism of the mindset that Kline has fostered, which seems to imply that one has to be Klinian in order to be orthodox. Nevertheless, Jeon’s reassurances are intended for practical purposes. That is, to provide a readiness for his exposition of the discontinuity running parallel to the continuity of Kline’s understanding of the covenant of redemption: from the inauguration of the covenant of redemption through the prediluvian and postdiluvian Noachic covenants, the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic and New Covenants. In order to avoid implying that Kline’s talk of the discontinuity of the covenant is an incipient form of Dispensationalism, Jeon sets out to demonstrate that while there are discontinuities at a covenantal level between the various modi administrationis of the covenant of redemption (pp. 214–35), the continuities can be discerned from the ongoing unfolding of the typological kingdom throughout the old covenant. What discontinuity there is is rooted in the transition from old to new covenants: typological to antitypological kingdom. Even here, however, the discontinuity is bridged by the Christocentric motif (p. 239), which connects the typological to the eschatological fulfillment of the kingdom (p. 240). Thus, in the pages that follow Jeon explains Kline’s application of his scheme to classical, revisionist and half-way or progressive Dispensationalists respectively on the one hand (pp. 240–46), and Daniel Fuller, an American neoorthodox representative, on the other (p. 252ff.). Accordingly, he fairly arrives at the deduction that “if we carefully observe the substance of Kline’s thesis, then we cannot identify Kline with a Lutheran or dispensationalist position because Kline adopts and builds on classic covenant theology in his understanding of the Old Covenant” (p. 238).

With this Westminster Calvinists can agree. Kline’s straightforward hermeneutical distinction between the covenant of works and grace, being equivalent to the Law-Gospel antithesis, enables him to support a classic Protestant understanding of justification. Accordingly, the remainder of Jeon’s third chapter is taken up with Kline’s appropriate insistence that Protestants safeguard their heritage. There must be no mixture of Law and Grace (pp. 262–63). Given the Adam-Christ parallel, Christ’s meritorious obedience must imply that Adam could only have received justification on the same basis, namely the strict justice of merited obedience. Accordingly, there was, strictly speaking, no grace in Eden.[6]

The problem with Kline’s pioneering attempt to put covenant in the context of kingdom is not ultimately theological (although we are free to differ from him where necessary), rather it is methodological and attitudinal. Methodologically speaking, after a while the complexity of Kline’s perspective on the old and new covenants begins to challenge the perspicuity of Scripture! Not only so. Jeon’s criticism of Moise´s Silva for not fully elaborating Kline’s system (p. 250) suggests rather startlingly that every complex nuance of Kline’s schema has become in certain eyes a non-negotiable of Reformed orthodoxy. This assessment is apparently confirmed by the increasing rash of somewhat quick, easy and irresponsible accusations of neo-orthodoxy generally arising from the insistence that to be Reformed is to be Klinian. The Reformation application of the Humanist principle of ad fontes to both Scripture and the tradition suggests, however, in light of the renaissance in Calvin studies, that “jot and tittle” Klinians do not have a monopoly on what it means to be genuinely Reformed, as Calvin’s federal theology amply demonstrates.

In the fourth and final chapter, which is most crucial, Jeon draws together his findings, focusing particularly on three issues: the reaffirmation of the distinction between the covenant of works and grace respectively, the Mosaic covenant, and the doctrine of justification in the light of the Law-Gospel antithesis. As to the first issue, Jeon lauds Murray’s accent on divine sovereignty in his defining of the term covenant, but laments—from what appears to have been an a priori presupposing of Murray’s error—that the definition has only the covenant of grace in view; that is, a limitation of the covenant concept to the context of redemption (p. 286). He notes by contrast Kline’s broader definition, which incorporates both the covenants of works and grace respectively, and is also inclusive of the concept of kingdom and the supplementation of divine sovereignty with human responsibility (pp. 280–81).

In regards to the second issue, the Mosaic covenant, Jeon writes: “Murray seeks to revise, whereas Kline tries to mature and flower covenant theology in respect to the Mosaic covenant” (p. 307). Although both are agreed that believers in the Old Covenant were saved and justified by the principle of foedus gratiae they differ sharply about the inauguration of the Mosaic covenant in Exod 19–24. Whereas Murray understood it to have been unilateral and in continuity with the Abrahamic and New covenants—thereby channeling clear water between his brand of covenant theology and Dispensationalism (pp. 312–13)—Kline, as mentioned earlier, understands the inauguration as both continuous and discontinuous. This may explain why his intricate understanding of the Mosaic covenant appears to operate at two levels. In terms of the covenant-making process grace was operative, but in the limited terms of the administration of the typological nation of Israel the principle of law operated as a reapplication of the prelapsarian covenant of works (pp. 308–9, 311).

Despite Kline’s noteworthy emphasis on kingdom, further work is nevertheless warranted if Kline’s theology is to avoid the breeding of confusion. Jeon notes this also. If, on the basis of the reapplication of the covenant of works to the Mosaic covenant, the Israelites’ corporate obedience was necessary to merit continuation of their national blessings and security in the typological kingdom, the obedience required must have been perfect. As this was not possible, the word merit must be inappropriate here (pp. 313–14; cf. p. 333). Whatever, such are the intricacies of Kline’s position that one can but hope that his followers will come up with a less complex version, yet one that is substantive enough to demonstrate why it has not in fact been guilty of perpetrating an unwitting Dispensationalism, regardless of denials to the contrary.

In regard, finally, to the doctrine of justification, Jeon concludes that by virtue of holding to the Law-Gospel antithesis both theologians are in basic agreement (pp. 314 and 318).That said, given the new perspective interpretation of Paul (on E. P. Sanders in particular see the extensive n. 75 on pp. 314–18), with the challenge it presents to the Reformation doctrine of justification, those of both the Murray and Kline trajectories will have to justify their continued adherence to the all-importance of the Law-Gospel antithesis. Yet, it is to be hoped that in their shared commitment to both the Law-Gospel antithesis and the Protestant doctrine of justification the admirers of Murray and Kline may yet come to a glad appreciation of the fact that what unites them far outweighs that which divides them. Accordingly, Jeon’s work demonstrates that it is not too late for a united (even if not uniform) front in proclaiming and defending the riches of federal theology.

II. The Implications of the Debate

The great strength of Jeon’s account is its descriptive qualities, and the clarity with which the author has summarized the complex arguments. To have the covenantal theologies of the two theologians summarized in juxtaposition within the same volume is indeed helpful. Yet, the volume possesses in addition a fivefold significance of which even Jeon may not be aware.

First, by committing a passing factual error in referring to Murray as Kline’s predecessor (p. 191), the author draws the reader’s attention to the thought that only perhaps in the orbit of Westminster Seminary or conservative Presbyterianism in general could the thoughts of a systematic theologian and an Old Testament scholar be compared and contrasted! Although Jeon misses some of the all-important sub-text of what is going on in the theological reflection of conservative Presbyterians, it is worth noting that the reason for being able to deal with Murray and Kline together is that the former, as is well known, sought to inform his systematics with biblical theology, while the latter, as is not so widely recognized, desired to demonstrate somewhat apologetically how his Old Testament biblical theology coalesces with the teaching of Reformed orthodoxy (p. 192). All this is somewhat ironic, for whereas those of a Klinian bent have not been slow in suggesting that Murray was biblicistic ( Jeon included [pp. 286 and 331]), there has been inadequate recognition of the dogmatic construal that has influenced, however subtly, the multiple terms and nuances found in Kline’s exposition of Scripture. Thus, whereas Murray appears keen to maintain the credibility of the tradition’s theology by debunking more scholastic aspects of its form, Kline sets about the same goal by weaving into his biblico-theological reflections nuances more reminiscent of the traditional scholastic methodological structure of the theology of Westminster Calvinism. Whether intentional or not, Jeon unwittingly implies as much when he claims that “Kline’s biblical covenant theology brings to maturity classic covenant theology while maintaining the validity of the antithesis between the covenants of works and grace” (p. 279). The impact of these various approaches for their respective theologies as well as the future of Westminster Calvinism we shall consider below.

Secondly, Jeon exposes the unnecessary polarization of the debate. Kline must take considerable responsibility for this. While well-meaning no doubt, it was he, according to Jeon, who set the regrettable precedent of placing Murray in a so-called “revisionist tradition” (p. 254 n. 120). While it is true that Murray was a revisionist in his understanding of the Old Covenant, it is a signal unfairness to him to rank him alongside the neo-orthodox such as Daniel Fuller in America, Karl Barth in Switzerland, and James and Thomas Torrance in Scotland.[7] It is to the detriment of Kline’s reputation that neither he nor his followers have corrected this slur. We are grateful to Jeon, then, for belatedly correcting Kline when he notes that “Fuller, however, unlike Murray, does not explain the covenant of grace in the light of the antithesis between Law and Grace” (ibid.). It is important that Jeon has done so, for in doing so he makes inexcusable any further charges of neo-orthodoxy against Murray and those sympathizing with him.

Thirdly, Jeon draws our attention to the fact that Westminster Calvinism, far from being a complete or closed system, contains much scope for development, especially the shaping of a consensus on issues not yet settled by either the Westminster Confession or the history of the tradition, and which may not be subject to tight dogmatic definition in Scripture either:

(1) In all the debate about the Edenic scenario there has been little attempt to define the meaning of grace.[8] It is to Kline’s credit that he has made the attempt. However, we could have wished that he not made orthodoxy to hang so definitely on the assumed correctness of his particular understanding of grace. In terms of contemporary discussion among Westminster Calvinists, Kline has had the first word on grace, not the last. It is inappropriate then for either Kline or his admirers to deduce somewhat dogmatically that the positing of grace in Eden must inevitably forma denial of Reformation doctrine.[9] To be consistent the same would have to be said of Calvin (and quite probably the WCF as well [see 7:1]), but who is going to make that charge?

(2) Also unresolved is the related question of Adam’s status in Eden. Was he a son or a subject of God, or both? While the question has considerable significance for the positing of grace in Eden the absence within the tradition of a definition of divine Fatherhood has, on the rare occasions when the matter has arisen (such as in the Candlish/Crawford debate of the 1860s), prevented a definitive resolution of the matter.

(3) Debate continues as to the very definition of the term covenant. Jeon notes not only the difference of opinion between Murray (“a sovereign administration of divine grace and promise” [p. 286]) and Kline (“a particular administration of God’s kingdom” [p. 194]), but also the mediating definition of O. Palmer Robertson (“bond in blood sovereignly administered” [p. 281]).

(4) A fresh examination is required as to how essential a covenant of works is for the maintenance of the Law-Gospel antithesis. It is one thing to be persuaded that Scripture unpacks the Edenic scenario in explicit covenantal terms; it is quite another to argue that this is the only permissible interpretation that guarantees the legitimacy of the language of Law and Gospel.[10] Certainly Murray appears not to have thought so. He was in good company, for from the little we can glean from Calvin’s less detailed brand of covenant theology he does not appear to have thought so either.[11] Why, then, has it become essential in later Calvinism for Law and Gospel to be understood against the backdrop of a covenant of works? Why could not God’s encounter with Adam have been rooted in natural law (the law written on his heart) rather than in a relationship understood explicitly as covenantal? Unless, of course, Adam could exercise no representative headship of the human race without that relationship to his posterity being defined in explicitly federal (foedus) terms. Or is the choice that stark? Is it possible that the Edenic scenario was non-covenantal, yet contained pre-covenantal (that is, anticipatory) emblems? We merely pose the question. Nevertheless, it determines whether a covenant of works is a non-negotiable of federal theology, which, of course, Klinians insist it is. If so, the issue is settled as to whether the covenant of works was an improvement on Calvin in the historical development of federal theology.[12] While these matters are not new, they are worthy of being revisited in the fresh light of the contemporary study of Calvin.[13]

Fourthly, Jeon exposes the need of caution against the overload of extrabiblical theological terminology. While our tradition needs to follow Kline’s example in investigating how the motifs of kingdom and covenant connect, a more preachable version ismuch to be preferred. That said, we realize the complexities of interrelating the concepts of covenant and kingdom, but Klinians ought to hesitate before charging Murray with biblicism. The charge that Murray’s “covenantal theological logic is biblicistic in that it causes him to overlook the rich biblical-theological evidence for the covenant of works such as man as the imago Dei, the Sabbath motif and others” (p. 286) is an accusation that cuts both ways, for much that is biblical in Murray’s thought will inevitably appear biblicistic when governed by a perspective liable to the charge of dogmatically construing Scripture. It was precisely because Murray wished to work within categories and concepts obviously rooted in Scripture that he was drawn to an expression of federal theology more reminiscent of the biblical-theological expression of Calvin’s federal theology than that of later Calvinism.

Why, then, should Murray’s theological credentials be any more suspect than Calvin’s? After all, the reformer subsumed all redemptive history under the covenant of grace as is clear from his vague reference to “all men [being] adopted [cooptat ] by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted [ foederatos] to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as obtains among us.”[14] To be consistent Klinians must surely conclude that Calvin fell as far short as Murray of the impeccable standards they have set for Reformed orthodoxy. This is possible, for Calvin was fallible, but it is also plausible that the standard set is inappropriate.

The time has come for some generosity on the part of Kline and his epigones. Before dismissing those of the Murray tradition with misplaced suggestions of neo-orthodoxy, in the name of Christian charity there may be some mileage in investigating whether in fact Murray was influenced by sixteenth-century Geneva rather than twentieth-century Basel. That said, those sympathetic to Murray will need to think very clearly about how a biblical dogmatic can give greater attention to the kingdom motif alongside that of covenant while maintaining much of the beautiful simplicity of his exposition of Scripture. Fifthly, implied in these methodological issues is not simply the defense of federal theology and with it the doctrine of justification, but the manner in which such an apologia is undertaken. This is no small matter. Our chosen apologetic approach will determine for many the credibility of Reformed orthodoxy for years to come. A mere repetitive banging of the forensic drum, for instance, is proving ineffective in persuading multitudes of the reformers’ understanding of justification. This cardinal doctrine is set firmly in the biblical context of paternal grace and love, as it is in Calvin. Thus, while Kline’s references to both the forensic and familial aspects of scriptural teaching are in principle reminiscent of Calvin, contrary to Kline, Calvin sets law very much in the context of grace.

Accordingly, we cannot but infer that Kline’s setting of grace in the context of law is the perpetuation of a reactionary mindset shaped by the Reformation and post-Reformation need to defend the forensic nature of justification. Such a defense was (and is) extremely necessary, but its weakness lies not in what it says of the law of God, but in the manner in which it allowed an apologetic emphasis on the forensic nature of justification to overshadow the grace of God in the gospel as manifest in the forgotten themes of the Fatherhood of God and the adoption of his sons and daughters. In fact, it may be claimed with some warrant that our failure to do justice to the grace of God from within a biblical framework was what gave rise in the first place to aberrant attempts to balance law with grace. These attempts may very well account for either the reversal of Law and Gospel (Gospel-Law, as in Barth) or the suffusion of one with the other (Law in Gospel and Gospel in Law, as is characteristic of legalistic and antinomian systems of belief). The fact that these attempts ended up diluting the forensic element of the gospel should not blind us to the imbalance they sought to correct. Our point in all this is that the strength of Kline’s endeavor to protect the place of law proves to be its very weakness. In this he but continues the apologetic inadequacies of the later Calvinism of the preceding centuries.[15]

Yet awareness of the extent of these implications is absent from Jeon’s monograph. To be fair to him, his omitting of much comment on the broader relevance of the Murray-Kline debate is really a reflection of the truncated nature of the covenantal and soteriological discussions of later Calvinism. Accordingly, Jeon’s volume makes certain assumptions that require substantiation in the current climate. These include the very defining of the Law-Gospel antithesis as well as the understanding of that to which it refers. A uniform definition and a convincing warrant for its hermeneutical usefulness is particularly requisite if the Protestant community is to remain persuaded that the antithesis is indeed a yardstick of orthodoxy. In short, Jeon’s volume would have proven more useful had he not assumed so many first principles which, while acceptable to Murray and Kline and their admirers, are not necessarily so to the contemporary reader.

III. The Limitations of the Debate

With insufficient exposure given to the motives prevalent among the neoorthodox for their rejection of federal theology, Jeon’s worthy ecumenical endeavor to reduce the tension of the Murray-Kline debate restricts the relevance of his work to Westminster Calvinists. The volume has little if anything to say to the Reformed community at large, which provides further evidence that contemporary debates among Westminster Calvinists have become but a sideshow in the context of the broader Reformed tradition. This is to an extent our own doing. Our incapability of discerning the kernel of truth in the neoorthodox protest has proven costly to the welfare of Westminster Calvinism. Had we taken the trouble to listen to our critics we could have responded in such a way as both to defend and advance the cause of Westminster Calvinism. As things stand, however, the acceptance of the validity of aspects of the neo-orthodox protest has become tantamount to the rejection of federal theology, when, in reality, conceding the kernel of truth may be the very means of resuscitating the credibility of federal theology in the mainstream of Reformed thought. Take, for instance, the fundamental issue of the Law-Gospel antithesis. Simply rejecting as illegitimate attempts to modify its formulation does nothing to address the underlying concerns that have led to the discarding of it. As these usually include a concern to reflect more proportionately the biblical profile of the paternal grace and love of God our community would do well to listen before arriving at judgment. For to pre-judge the issue does nothing to improve either the exposition or the defense of the Reformed faith. What is needed then is a fresh approach to the Law-Gospel hermeneutic that does justice to both the forensic nature of justification on the one hand and, on the other hand, to the paternal grace and love of God to which the doctrine points. Stated otherwise, we ought not to expect a diminishing of the criticisms leveled against Westminster Calvinists until we begin to do justice to the familial, gracious and loving nature of the gospel, yet without falling prey to the Roman Catholic and neoorthodox rejection of much that is forensic.

While the great strength of the Law-Gospel antithesis is the emphasis it gives to the objective nature of the atonement, rooted as it is in the strictly judicial principle of meritorious obedience, there is something unsatisfactory about the glib manner in which the hermeneutic is appropriated. What is apparent from Jeon’s discussion is that the Law-Gospel antithesis has become a catchphrase for the essential core of the gospel, which, if used excessively encourages a reductionist approach not only to the content of the gospel but to its wonder as well. We need to guard ourselves, therefore, from referring to the Law-Gospel antithesis as if all we have in mind is a mechanical legal process. Four reasons account for this possibility.

First, the historical prioritization of the Law-Gospel order (law in Adam, gospel in Christ) does little to accent the divine causation of the gospel. When understood causally we may more readily and more fully understand why there must have been either grace in Eden (contrary to Kline’s later teaching [p. 287]), or at least graciousness. However this grace or graciousness is understood to have emanated from God (revealed as either Judge, Father or both), it is clear that it set the context for the operation of divine justice in the garden. Such a description of life in Eden goes some way to expressing the encircling or encapsulating of the forensic core of the gospel with a biblically commensurate emphasis on the grace and love of God. Thus, by the language of encircling or encapsulation we may affirm the teaching of the WCF when it says that the gospel began with a voluntary condescension of God (7:1). We may add that it also culminates in the descension of God through a rejuvenated heaven to its terrestrial counterpart (Rev 21:1–5). In this sense we must ensure that any shorthand references to law and gospel imply a gospel that is all of grace—from protology (predestination) to eschatology (consummation), from election to glorification. By doing so we will balance the forensic workings of the gospel with a more explicit focus on the gracious intent of God, often unwittingly downplayed among later Calvinists.

As things stand, Kline’s strong defense of orthodoxy is in danger of making but implicit the explicit lavishness of God’s saving grace. In other words, the Klinian emphasis on strict terms of justice may express the fullness of the Reformation principle of sola fide, but not necessarily sola gratia! The question then is not the validity of the Law-Gospel antithesis per se, or the order of it (Gospel- Law), nor indeed the suffusion of it (Law in Gospel/Gospel in Law), but the way in which the Law-Gospel antithesis requires encircling or encapsulating from first to last with divine grace. It is this grace that has so ordered things that with the failure of the first Adam to merit eschatological blessing a second and last Adam was ordained to succeed.

In a similar vein, it follows, secondly, that the Law-Gospel antithesis provides little explicit systematic expression of the love of God. The hermeneutical principle shifts our attention from the gospel as a remarkable placarding of the love of God, to the strict justice that must prevail if a forensic view of justification is to be protected. Safeguarded it must be, but a portrayal of the gospel that does not leave us overwhelmed by the superlative love of God in providing us with a meritorious Savior, is tantamount to a heresy of silence. Thus, the problem with our later Calvinism is not what it says about strict justice, but what it does not say about the abundance of divine love. However the relationship between God and Adam is defined (whether as a covenant of creation or as an Adamic Administration), shining through the condescending grace of God was a love so extravagant that upon Adam’s failure to merit the blessedness and reward of obedience “the Lord was pleased [no judicial sanction or reticence here] to make a second, commonly called the Covenant of Grace” (WCF7:3). In this Covenant of Grace God “freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.”

Get the picture? God in love so throws himself into saving his people that he found a way by which, in his unsurpassable wisdom, he could both save the apples of his eye and yet retain the integrity of his justice; only, however, at a personal, extortionate yet payable cost: the death of the God-man! To fall back on Anselm’s theory of satisfaction: As God, he alone could pay the price, as man he alone ought to pay it. Again, then, we see that the Law-Gospel antithesis is encircled not simply by a gracious condescension—for that need not necessarily imply a knowledge of those upon whom God looks—but with a love that conspires to find a way in which the unholy and the unlovely may yet be in relationship with the Holy One.

Thirdly, a bare exposition of the Law-Gospel antithesis is inadequate to express the familial tenor of the gospel. To date, there has been little concern that it should do. There are signs, however, that things are slowly changing. As they do, the difficulties of introducing into the picture the complementary notions of the Fatherhood of God and the sonship of believers will become apparent. Such has been the sensitivity to protect all that is forensic that any belated concern to retrieve these notions will sound to ears bred on the juridical atmosphere of later Calvinistic theology like either a throwback to Victorian liberalism or a concession to the current distaste for the forensic in salvation. The truth is that there is no reason ex necessitate why such fears should prevail, especially given the precedent set in the tradition by no less a figure than Calvin. Whereas these fears may yet prove to be unfounded, glaringly obvious has been the past and present failure of the persistent one-dimensional approach to the defense of Reformed orthodoxy. The exclusive pre-occupation with the forensic aspects of the gospel has neither succeeded in stemming the hemorrhaging of the Westminster Community (notwithstanding the successive generations of newcomers to the Reformed faith), nor in reflecting the familial tenor of both New Testament teaching, the WCF (ch. 12) or the Calvinism of the Reformation era. Whether in the exposition or the defense of Westminster Calvinism, the assumption remains that the gospel terminates on the sinner’s freedom from condemnation and not his reception into the family of God.

Fourthly, and briefly, the glib, inadequate and yet convenient structure of the Law-Gospel antithesis does not express sufficiently the third use of the law in Christian living. In which case, we may legitimately speak of Law-Gospel-Law, or, given the preceding paragraph even Gospel-Law-Gospel-Law. To this it may be objected that the hermeneutical principle has to do with salvation. This being so, what is to guard us from antinomianism? After all, was not one of the purposes of the principle to guard us from antinomianism and not solely legalism? On the other hand, the purely theoretical description Gospel-Law-Gospel-Law would leave us with the impression that Gospel begins with grace but ends in legality. Thus, to express the fact that the gospel begins with grace but ends with glory we might want to settle for a Gospel-Law-Gospel-Law-Gospel definition.

Now, of course, all this is becoming somewhat bizarre and a confusion of grace and gospel. But perhaps this is the very point. While the current discussion of the Law-Gospel antithesis requires more definition and qualification, there is a problem. Are we to accept unquestioningly the glib manner in which the hermeneutical tool is currently appropriated? If not, how far is it possible to go in defining the principle more rigorously before it becomes unwieldy. Let us be clear. We do not question its validity; what is questionable is the extent to which it has been pressed into service with seemingly little clear-cut consensus concerning its very definition.[16] Although a warranted expression of the essential core of the gospel, the antithesis’s shorthand ought not to be considered the gospel’s full ambit. Accordingly, the admirers of Murray and Kline may continue to go back and fore about how best to state the Law-Gospel antithesis, but in a climate of less suspicion they may feel freer to consider issues besides strict justice and the meritorious obedience of Christ. In making this point, we would not want to say that the gospel is less than strict justice, but we do want to say that it is a lot more. It is a matter of the grace and love of God, displayed in the adoption of his own, having met through the obedience of Christ the demands of divine justice.

While all this may seem increasingly far afield from the concerns of Jeon’s volume, it is our belief that what is genuinely significant about the Murray- Kline debate can only be rightly understood in a broader historical, theological and ecclesiastical context. Such a context relativizes the importance of the debate itself, specifically the disagreement over a covenant of works, while heightening the significance of the fact that these two recent theologians, against all the influences at work in the broader Reformed community, considered federal theology worthy of both exposition and defense. Were today’s up and coming federal theologians to reassess the importance of the more basic lesson emerging from the Murray-Kline debate then perhaps we could have greater hopes for a unified defense of federal theology. As things stand, however, this is unlikely. Readings of the history of our theology that are intended to forge a uniform approach to federal theology are, at present, far too monolithic to give way to a more nuanced understanding of the tradition conducive to a genuine unity on the non-negotiables of federal theology.

We owe it to future generations of Westminster Calvinists to reduce the debate to a discussion of the issues based on the acceptance of the orthodoxy of Murray and Kline and geared toward the joint defense of the non-negotiables of federal theology. In this way we may finally move beyond the current impasse, a stalemate that is destructive to the internal harmony of Westminster Calvinism and so counter-productive to an apologetic defense of federal theology within the broader Reformed community.

We may begin looking to the future by asking whether it is possible for unwarranted charges of Barthianism and Torrancianism against Murrayite sympathizers to be dropped?[17] Certainly Jeon’s work begs such a question, but so does a fresh consideration of the current landscape of Reformed theology.

Accusations of neo-orthodoxy so easily arise because it is generally perceived that in the Reformed community of the English-speaking world two parties (broadly speaking) operate: those who accept the WCF as an acceptable and workable creed and those who do not (Westminster Calvinism and, what I have elsewhere called, revisionist Calvinism respectively [see below]). In the context of discussions of federal theology the logic runs as follows. To deny a covenant of works is contrary to the confession, therefore the one denying the Edenic covenant does not accept the confession. Consequently, such a person must belong to the neo-orthodox (revisionist Calvinistic) wing of the Reformed tradition. However such logic appears to the reader, it was probably what determined Kline’s erroneous lumping of Murray with Daniel Fuller in a revisionist tradition. In other words, if Murray’s teaching of the Adamic administration was not clearly a Westminster Calvinistic position he must have been, by default, a revisionist Calvinist. While such a deduction appears plausible and has been repeated in numerous other instances by Kline’s followers, Jeon’s work makes clear that Murray did not have neo-orthodox leanings. How then are we to understand his place in Westminster Calvinism?

What is increasingly apparent from the parallel debates over subscription, creation, the Sabbath, worship and so on is that among Westminster Calvinists (that is, those accepting the WCF as an acceptable and workable creed) two parties now operate: what we may call orthodox and constructive Calvinists.[18] While this distinction is by no means absolute, and is subject to the general problems endemic in the use of labels, we may say in this context that whereas orthodox Calvinists are traditional later Calvinists seeking to be faithful to the form and content of the WCF, constructive Calvinists are usually the product of later Calvinism and in sympathy with it, yet wish to see the moderate scholastic form of Westminster Calvinism recast in the biblical-theological approach to theology of Scripture and, in the Reformed tradition, of Calvin most notably. Thus, constructive Calvinists differ from orthodox Calvinists on issues of method, a difference that gives rise to modest theological and attitudinal variations within the realm of Reformed orthodoxy.

Whatever the drawbacks to this distinction, it nevertheless gives valid expression to what is going on in Westminster Calvinism today. Had Kline recognized the distinction within Westminster Calvinism between orthodox and constructive Calvinism he may never have created such a culture of suspicion in which Murray or his admirers could become perceived as neo-orthodox. In fact, within the orbit of Westminster Seminary we may say that Murray was the Father of constructive Calvinism. Being a Westminster Calvinist through and through, yet influenced by Calvin’s more biblical-theological approach he occupied a center-right position vis-à-vis neo-orthodoxy (revisionist Calvinism). Remaining loyal to Reformed orthodoxy, constructive Calvinists who follow Murray’s example nevertheless often discern justification for some of the neoorthodox concerns; but, being in sympathy with orthodox Calvinism, they will demur from neo-orthodox solutions to the theological issues at stake in Westminster Calvinism. It is in this sense that the difference between orthodox and constructive Calvinism is in the final analysis methodological and attitudinal, as is seen, for example, in the Murray-Kline debate.

By desiring to place the Law-Gospel antithesis in a broader and fuller context of redemptive history, the constructive Calvinist seeks to uphold the idea of strict justice while nevertheless giving bolder expression to the gracious, loving and familial nature of God’s relationship to his people. While the attempt to balance the juridical and familial expression of the gospel entails a modification of the form of Westminster Calvinism, necessarily involving a modest and sound knock-on effect on its content, what is essential to the federal theology of Westminster Calvinism ought not only to be maintained but also enhanced by a fresh tenor resonating with that of Scripture. If constructive Calvinists succeed in this then we shall not only have answered the Barthian and Torrancian (revisionist Calvinist) critics of federal theology, we shall have terminated years of theological sterility among Westminster Calvinists (traditional orthodox Calvinists), brought on by an understandable yet shortsighted mindset that has proven unable in recent centuries to see beyond the defense of Westminster Calvinism.

IV. Conclusion

All in all, then, Jeon’s work is useful. It gives a thorough overview of an important debate within our tradition. As his sympathies evidently lie with Kline, speaking methodologically mine lie with Murray, although I remain open to benefit from Kline. What criticisms I have made of Kline have been intended to reduce the level of acrimony among Westminster Calvinists and not to aggravate it.[19] But there can only be genuine unity in the defense of federal theology if it is made to rest on the Law-Gospel antithesis itself and not on a covenant of works in se (p. 329). Therein lies the issue. Our response will be determined by whether we consider a covenant of works to be the regulating principle of federal theology. But that is an investigation for another day.

Notes

1. A review of Jeong Koo Jeon, Covenant Theology: John Murray’s and Meredith Kline’s Response to the Historical Development of Federal Theology in Reformed B.AXSY||Thought (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1999. X + 363 pp. $57.50, cloth).
2. For a brief and partial explanation of the terms orthodox Calvinism, revisionist Calvinism and constructive Calvinism see below.
3. The term “sympathetic-critical” was used by Klaas Schilder. See R. B. Gaffin, Jr.’s citation of the phrase in his essay “The Vitality of Reformed Dogmatics,” in The Vitality of Reformed Theology: Proceedings of the International Theological Congress June 20-24th 1994, Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands (ed. J. M. Batteau, J. W. Maris, and K. Veling; Kampen: Uitgeverij Kok, 1994), 21.
4. For newer members of the faculty the controversy at the seminary concerning the doctrine of justification that surrounded the teachings of Norman Shepherd is just not our frame of reference. In fact, some of us have been working from the premise that what we did not know about we could not be accused of. We have since learnt that regardless of the facts, where there is a will to make accusations there is a way. The truth is, however, that only with the publication of Norman Shepherd’s book The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2000) have we been faced with first-hand access to his thought. Talk then of the Shepherd-Gaffin teaching or theology is calculated to mislead and is therefore insidious.
5. See the comments of Herman Ridderbos, e.g., in The Coming of the Kingdom (ed. Raymond O. Zorn; trans. H. de Jongste; Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1962), 22–23.
6. For Kline’s own comments see his volume Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Overland Park,Kans.: Two Age Press, 2000), 107–17. Kline’s point is that the principle of works in Eden is governed by either merit or demerit, determined judicially by performance of either covenant obedience or disobedience. Thus, to introduce the idea of grace (unmerited favor) into Eden is inappropriate. “If we appreciate the forensic distinctiveness of grace we will not thus confuse the specific concept of (soteriological) grace with the beneficence expressed in the creational endowment of man with his ontological dignity” (ibid., 114).
7. After hearing Professor James B. Torrance lecture in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the late 1990s, this reviewer asked him whether he would regard Professor Murray as being of his school of thought. Professor Torrance’s reply was, as those who know the Torrances would expect, a swift “no.” Why? Professor Torrance’s answer was unsurprising; it was because of Murray’s belief in definitive atonement. The purpose of relating this tale is to demonstrate how far apart the Torrances and Klinians generally are in what makes a thoroughgoing federal theologian. Klinians may believe that a covenant of works is the definitive gauge of where one lies on the theological spectrum, but the Torrances do not. For them the crucial issue is the extent of the atonement. Thus, when Westminster Calvinists continue the dispute about the covenant of works they do but give credence to the Torrancian claim that a covenant of works is the regulative principle of federal theology. Our forefathers did not necessarily think so, and we need not either. See, e.g., the perspectives of Hugh Martin (The Atonement: In its Relation to the Covenant, the Priesthood, the Intercession of our Lord [Edinburgh: Knox Press, 1976], 29, 39) and John L Girardeau (Discussions of Theological Questions [ed. George A. Blackburn; The Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1905; repr., Harrisonburg, Va.: Sprinkle Publications, 1986], 68–69). Both authorities on federal theology understood its regulative principle to be union with Christ.
8. This helps explain other debates in the tradition such as the ongoing reservations about the term “common grace” among the Protestant Reformed.
9. Kline assumes that the positing of grace in Eden goes hand in hand with “the mischief “ that “the covenant that ordered man’s existence could not be a covenant of works” (Kingdom Prologue, 114). On the basis of the denial of a covenant of works, he then assumes the denial of the Law- Gospel antithesis by a “blurring [of ] the concepts of work and grace,” which in turn involves “the blurring of works and faith in the doctrine of justification” leading, of course, “to the subversion of the Reformation message of justification by faith alone.” Now while Kline’s concern for the preservation of the gospel is most welcome, the logical leaps that bring him to the conclusion that the positing of grace in Eden is ex necessitate the result of a Romeward drift (ibid., 115) are simply counter-productive to the maintenance of a genuine unity among orthodox Protestants. Only on the basis of a consensual agreement with Kline’s definition of grace may we readily accept this conclusion.
10. One may readily agree with E. J. Young (cited p. 280 n. 1) that a covenantal understanding of Eden can alone do justice to the scriptural data, but that is a far cry from the assertion that a noncovenantal understanding of Eden is by definition neo-orthodox. Nothing confirms this more than what we now understand afresh of Calvin’s brand of federal theology.
11. For a recent overview of Calvin’s covenant theology see Peter Lillback’s volume The Binding of God: Calvin’s Role in the Development of Covenant Theology (Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post- Reformation Thought; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 126–41.
12. Later Calvinistic federal theologians, shaped by the moderate Protestant Scholasticism of the seventeenth century, have assumed that it was. See the comments, for instance, of John L. Girardeau, The Federal Theology: Its Import and its Regulative Influence (ed. J. Ligon Duncan III; Greenville, S.C.: Reformed Academic Press, 1994), 15. Yet, the contemporary challenges of biblical theology and the renaissance of Calvin studies re-opens the question.
13. Westminster Calvinists would do well, however, not to assume that the renaissance of Calvin studies has been hijacked by those with a Barthian agenda. To do so would not be true to the facts, although it is true to say that the divisions within the Reformed community, broadly perceived, are reflected in the study of Calvin as well as in perspectives on Westminster Calvinism. Furthermore, to brush off completely the implications of the study of Calvin for Westminster Calvinism would only exacerbate the complacency that has consistently hindered an overdue sympathetic-critical yet, nonetheless, self-critical assessment of Westminster Calvinism. What has been inadequately realized to date is that, humanly speaking, the future of Westminster Calvinism very much hangs on a fresh approach that takes into account the methodological alternative to the moderate scholasticism of the Westminster Standards that the biblical theology of Calvin presents.
14. Inst. 2.10.1 [CO 2 (30): 313].
15. For an unpacking of this see part two (especially chs. 6 and 7) of my unpublished doctoral dissertation “An Historical Study of the Doctrine of Adoption in the Calvinistic Tradition” (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 2001). In short, it was the ongoing necessity to defend the doctrine of Justification that kept Protestants pre-occupied with the forensic elements of the faith, with the result that the emphasis on law came increasingly to predominate over grace (especially a familial portrayal of grace). Much of what follows below is, then, a continuation and an outworking of the implications of the history of the doctrine of adoption in the Calvinistic tradition.
16. It is worth noting that in discussions of Law and Gospel divorced from the Murray-Kline debate there has been far less interest in the Edenic scenario. See, e.g., John Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Law and the Gospel (ed. Don Kistler; New York: Wiley and Long, 1835; repr., Morgan, Pa.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1999), 3–25 excepted. In fact, the evidence of the tendency of inferring as much theological data from the age of Adam as from the age of Christ suggests that despite our understanding of the progressive nature of revelation (the lessons of Rom 5:12–21 and 1 Cor 15:21–22 notwithstanding) there has been, in the process of appropriating the Adam-Christ parallel, a flattening out of the contours of redemptive history. Accordingly, there is a very real present danger of implying that the biblical parallel between Adam and Christ must produce equal quantities of theological data. While not denying the necessary details that we learn from the Edenic scenario, this is by no means automatically possible without running the danger of dogmatically construing the early chapters of Genesis.
17. In this context it ought to be said that those intent on keeping alive the controversy surrounding Norman Shepherd do so precisely because that sad episode in the seminary’s history appears to provide plausibility to what is otherwise a weak argument. But it is not the weakest. Arguments to the effect that past and present members of the faculty who have lived and studied in Scotland have thereby tacitly imbibed neo-orthodoxy are simply not worthy of refutation or explicit mention. Enough to say that while such innuendo may reflect on those against whom it is directed, for those abreast of the issues it reflects more directly and more negatively on the credibility of the apologetic orientation of Kline’s theology. Most regrettable and ironic of all, it reflects poorly on the Westminster Calvinistic case for federal theology.
18. Brief reference was made to these three terms of self-perception—orthodox Calvinism, constructive Calvinism and Revisionist Calvinism—in my article “Westminster Systematics: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” in the Westminster Bulletin (Winter 2002), but the origin and context and definition of these terms is found in my doctoral dissertation (see n. 15 above).
19. We could have wished that Kline had undertaken this endeavor, for he has an ongoing responsibility to curb those charges brought by a fringe element among his many admirers that have neither the force of truth nor the motivation of love. That he has been silent in this regard is regrettable, not simply because he has a duty to the community, but also because his credibility as a theologian is being overshadowed by the belligerency of a few of his most zealous advocates. It would be to the detriment of Westminster Calvinism were the longevity of Kline’s influence to be cut short as a result of his failure to demonstrate to his admirers the necessity and possibility of irenic discussion on matters relating to federal theology.