R. Scott Clark has recently stated that Kline held to a baptist understanding of the Abrahamic Covenant.
In short, Abraham was not Moses. The Abrahamic covenant is not the Mosaic. The Abrahamic was in no sense a covenant of works. It was a covenant of grace.1
1. Here we must not follow my beloved professor and colleague Meredith Kline when he writes, “Though not the ground of the inheritance from heaven, Abraham’s obedience was the ground for Israel’s inheritance of Canaan.” Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 325. Here Kline did the very thing to which he rightly objected: taking a Baptist position. He has turned Abraham into Moses. Abraham was given the seed and land promises in Genesis 12 and 15 and gracious grants from a sovereign King, God the Lord. The Obedience that God required of Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, and 17 was a consequence of the grace received not a prior or antecedent condition in order to receive.
The ensuing Twitter discussion between R. Scott Clark & Chris Caughey is worth reading.
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 1: Murray and Shepherd
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 2: Typological Merit
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 3: Royal Grant Proposal
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 4: Contradiction
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 5: Glory Cloud Podcast
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 6: 1689 Federalism
- Kline’s Abrahamic Covenant of Works 7: R. Scott Clark
Contrast 
Would you know if Dr. Clark is the only current paedobaptist scholar who has come to the same conclusion (i.e. Kline has taken a Baptist position)?
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Not sure. Critics of Clark told him he was giving in to the baptist view when he promoted Kline & republication: https://heidelblog.net/2008/07/republication-of-the-covenant-of-works-2/#comment-2098
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Thanks for the link. The dialogue between RSC and his paedobaptist critics is particularly interesting.
I have a question for you based on a recent article that you wrote on Charles Hodge’s view of the visible/invisible church. RSC stated the following:
“What would Hodge say (today if he were here)? He would teach some form of republication and he certainly thought that the church is both spiritual and external or organism and organization. Hodge wasn’t an idiot.”
Would you agree with that statement or would you argue that RSC is misinterpreting Charles Hodge?
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Typical over-the-top rhetoric from Clark that misses important distinctions and nuances. Hodge certainly believed that there was an external aspect to the church, but not in the way that Clark does. Hodge said that the church is visible/external to the extent that true believers are visible/external, and no more. The external organization that we form, that includes regenerate and unregenerate, is not the church.
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