[T]hough we are not little Adams we still have many cultural responsibilities here and now. God does not call Christians to take up the original cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26-28 per se, but calls them to obey the cultural mandate as given in modified form to Noah in Genesis 9. Through the Noahic covenant God formally established the common kingdom and commissioned all people — believers and unbelievers alike — to be fruitful and multiply and to exercise dominion on earth. The goal of this commission is not to provide a way to earn or to attain the new creation but to foster the temporary preservation of life and social order until the end of the present world.
David VanDrunen
Living in God’s Two Kingdoms, pg. 164-65; italics original.
A few observations from this quote,
1.) What DVD and other R2K acolytes are advocating here is the codifying of a particularly virulent strain of amillennialism as the definition of Reformed orthodoxy. If R2K is allowed its head then all postmillennial strains and many strains of amillennialism will be read out of the canon of Reformed orthodoxy. We observe this as true regarding postmillennialism because the assumption contained in the DVD quote is that any eschatology that promotes the idea of Christianity going from triumph unto triumph, as exhibited in every area of life, so that cultures are conformed to Christ, just as individuals are, is a eschatology that is out of bounds for R2K orthodoxy. If God has, in the words of DVD, “formally established the common Kingdom,” then any and every theology that understands that the common Kingdom was not formally established as the common Kingdom is by definition a theology that has woven sin into its essence and is a theology that is working against God’s intent.
We observe this as true regarding variant strains of amillennialism contrary to militant R2K amillennialism because of the insistence of many strains of amillennialism that cultural advance is to be made in terms of Christianizing the Nations.
Here is one such sentiment from amillennialist Geerhardus Vos,
“The thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the unrestricted dominion, which of right belong to all true religion. It proclaims that religion, and religion alone, can act as the supreme unifying, centralizing factor in the life of man, as that which binds all together and perfects all by leading it to its final goal in the service of God.” (page 194)
Geerhardus Vos
The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church
Read the DVD quote and the Vos quote back to back. Notice the distance between these two quotes. If DVD and R2K has its way there will not be room in the Reformed Church for amillennialists like Dr. Geerhardus Vos.
2.) R2K advocates like to say that they do not believe in Christian culture. This is, at best, a deceptive move on their part, even if unintentional. R2K advocates do believe in Christian culture. R2K believes that Christian culture is the absence of Christian culture. Any position on culture that advocates that the common square should be explicitly Christian is, per R2K, a non Christian position. According to DVD and R2K if culture is to be Christian it must remain non Christian.
3.) DVD’s reading of the Nohaic covenant is strained, at best, and twisted at worse. Keep in mind that,
a.) Noah was chosen as a new Adam, because “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Does Noah sound, in that phraseology, to be a representative of all mankind or a representative of God’s elect?
b.) Noah offers sacrifice upon departing the Ark. Are we to understand that Noah is offering sacrifice to God as a representative, not of the Redeemed, but as a representative of all mankind?
c.) DVD misreads the whole context of the Nohaic event. God floods the earth because of his dissatisfaction with mankind and raises up Noah to be another Adam. God saves this second Adam through judgment and establishes him in a cleansed garden Mountain sanctuary in order to be God’s representative. As God’s subsequent representative Adam placed in a new post flood Eden, God repeats the same great commission given the first Adam before his own fall (Genesis 1:26-28). This great commission first given to Adam, and then to Noah is also given repeatedly to subsequent covenant heads throughout the book of Genesis thus connecting the story-line of God’s redemptive activity.
A small Whitman’s sampler of Genesis texts wherein the Adamic cultural Mandate (Gen. 1:26-28) becomes part and parcel of the Redemptive History as given to subsequent covenant contexts. Notice the repeated themes in the following texts of,
(1) God Blessed them
(2) Be fruitful and multiply
(3) fill the earth
(4) subdue the earth
(5) rule over … the earth
And take especial note that the Nohaic covenant, contra DVD, shares the language of the cultural Mandate that we find in subsequent Redemptive history unique unto God’s people, thus proving that the Noahic covenant was not a covenant that is unrelated to God’s Redemptive covenantal activity.
Genesis 1:26-28
English Standard Version (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 9:1, 7
English Standard Version (ESV)
9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth… 7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
Genesis 12:2-3
English Standard Version (ESV)
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 17:2, 6, 8
English Standard Version (ESV)
2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly….6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you…. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis 22:17-18
English Standard Version (ESV)
17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Genesis 26:3-4
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. 4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,
Genesis 26:24
English Standard Version (ESV)
24 And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.”
Genesis 28:3-4
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 God Almighty[a] bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!”
Genesis 28:13-14
English Standard Version (ESV)
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it[a] and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Genesis 35:11-12
English Standard Version (ESV)
11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty:[a] be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.[b] 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”
This cultural Mandate, first found in Gen. 1:26-28, and reiterated in Gen. 9:1, 7, to Noah, is a theme that winds its way throughout Redemptive history. For a Doctor of the Church to try to advance the idea that the Noahic covenant is firm ground to introduce the idea that God desires the hyphenated life is at best a contrived reading of the text and strains credulity to the breaking point. If, with the Noahic covenant, God established the common Kingdom, then that common Kingdom was established as well in the Abrahamic covenant as it too includes the themes of,
(1) God Blessed them
(2) Be fruitful and multiply
(3) fill the earth
(4) subdue the earth
(5) rule over … the earth
4.) Contra DVD, no Reformed eschatology teaches that we earn or attain the Kingdom as if the Kingdom has not already been freely given.
Aside from the the implications that you state regarding the R2K interpretation of the Noahic covenant, it is noteworthy that none of DVD’s or Kline’s writings ever actually provide exegetical justification for the delineation of the common and redemptive kingdom. It is merely assumed. Merely assuming something doesnt prove anything.
Also, in the recent conference on Christ and culture, DVD actually chose not to provide any justification, simply saying that he “won’t get into it right now.”
Finally, one of our church members took an OT class at RTS Washington, in which Dr Peter Lee (no relation) is a big Kline fan, and he has mentioned this several times in class. I asked my fellow church member whether Dr Lee ever exegeted Gen 9 during class to prove this kingdom delineation. She told me that he never did.