THE TALE OF TWO ADAMS - Meredith Kline

232 Pages·2008·0.97 MB·English

T T T A
HE ALE OF WO DAMS

C C
HRIS AUGHEY

MGK Press
Cedar Ridge, California
© 2002 by Chris Caughey

First published 2008

Published by MGK Press
[email protected] and taleoftwoadams.blogspot.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the
prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is
brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-0-615-24140-1

LCCN 2008907318

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is the author’s own translation
of the original Hebrew and Greek.

Scripture quotations marked "NKJV™" are taken from the New
King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard
Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by
permission.” (www.Lockman.org)

“New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of
Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All
rights reserved.”

Cover design: Rob Ryan
Contents

Introduction 1

1. What Are You Talking About? 5
2. In the Beginning: Covenant and Creation 45
3. Covenant Before Creation: The Covenant
Between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit 71
4. Grace to Everyone and Everything: The
Covenant of Common Grace 91
5. The Covenant of Grace: From Genesis
3:15 to Abraham to the Last Day 111
6. The Mosaic Covenant: The Old
Covenant of Law 135
7. The New Covenant: The Triumph of
the Last Adam 159

Appendix 1: We Confess 181
Appendix 2: Glossary 201
Appendix 3: Recommended Reading 209
Index of Scripture 215
Acknowledgments

I
NEED TO THANK my wife and children for all of their love,
encouragement and constructive criticism as I wrote this book.
They have been my biggest fans during this whole process. I
could not have done it without them. I am deeply grateful to God
for the privilege of learning everything about which I write in this
book from Dr. Meredith G. Kline. He was my professor and my
friend. If there is anything good or helpful in this book, the credit
needs to go to that brilliant scholar who was more passionate about
the Gospel than anyone else I know. My faith in, and devotion to
the Lord, the Last Adam, was only profoundly deepened under his
instruction. Very little (if anything) in this book is original. The
reader should consider it largely a distillation of Dr. Kline’s written
corpus and lecture material from his Pentateuch and Prophets courses.
The Lord called Dr. Kline home to the very upper-register which
saturated everything he said, did and thought on April 13, 2007. I
look forward to the day I will see Dr. Kline again in glory because of
the accomplishment of our Savior. Thanks are also due to the
Wilson family, especially Bob and Cameron. In many ways, this
book would not have been written without their kind help. I must
also thank Kevin Pischke, Rob Ryan and Dan Miller for their
technical expertise. This book would likely have stalled out without
them. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Matt and Kim Gilliland
of Woodglen Press for their patient help and advice.
Introduction

1
Introduction

2
“I am astonished that you are so quickly turning away from the one who
called you in the grace of Christ to another gospel, which is not another
Gospel—except that some are confusing you, and want to pervert the Gospel
of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from Heaven should preach to you a
gospel besides the one we preached to you, let him be damned. As we just
told you, so now I say it again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel besides the
one you received, let him be damned.”
The Apostle Paul, Galatians 1:6-9

Those are strong words. The Apostle Paul was obviously
concerned about the new Gentile Christians in Galatia who were
being seduced by the Judaizers. The Judaizers were a group of Jews
who taught that faith in Christ was indeed necessary for a person to
be right with God… but so was keeping at least parts of the Law of
Moses. They said, “If you are not circumcised according to the Law
of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1). What we know about
the Judaizers, we mostly infer from Paul’s letters and the kinds of
ideas he was arguing against. This much, at least, is clear: the
Judaizers couldn’t (or wouldn’t) distinguish clearly between works
and grace when it came to salvation.

Not much has changed. That is not because 21st century
culture is so much like the culture of the 1st century. Culture,
though good, is not where the “action” is, biblically speaking.
Instead, the Bible is concerned about the history of the revelation of
God’s kingdom by means of covenants. In that case, not much has
changed because since Adam broke the original covenant, sinners
have always wanted to contribute some of their own work to their
standing before God. That desire to contribute may be
understandable (in light of the Fall), but Paul says that any teaching
which promotes that contribution is damnable (in light of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ).

Yet some people are still promoting a confusion of works
and grace with respect to the Gospel. In light of what Paul said, I
3
Introduction

find it hard to believe that such people intend to blur the line
between works and grace. After all, it seems to be confusion in
thinking and reasoning that produces the muddling of works and
grace. Nevertheless, such confusion is being taught to the Church
at large by seminary professors who teach pastors who preach to
their congregations. Other people are being confused by what they
hear on the radio or read in popular books.

No matter where the confusion comes from, my purpose in
this book is to show that covenant theology and the Gospel of
salvation are inseparably joined together; however, if we
misunderstand covenant theology—and if we’re consistent with our
misunderstanding of covenant theology—we will misunderstand the
Gospel of salvation. Fortunately, however, though many teachers
and authors misunderstand covenant theology, yet because they
have not thought enough about the connection between covenant
theology and the Gospel, they still proclaim the same Gospel that
Paul so passionately defended and preached.

My labors in this book will be for the purpose of defending
the Gospel that Paul preached, against other “gospels” that would
compete with Paul’s. I will do this in somewhat the same way that
Paul did it in Galatians 3: by taking a look at the biblical covenants
and their relationships to each other. We will begin with the first
covenant that the Father made with creation and Adam, and we will
conclude with the New Covenant that the Last Adam mediated
between the Father and His covenant people. By studying
justification via an examination of all of God’s covenants from
creation to consummation, from beginning to end, this book will
also serve as an introduction to covenant theology. During our walk
through the main story line of the Bible—the tale of two Adams—it
should become clear that justification depends in various ways on all
of God’s covenants. But before we dive right in, some definitions
are in order.

4
Chapter 1

1

What Are You Talking About?

5
What Are You Talking About?

6