Chapter 4: Common Grace After the Fall

Scripture Passages

Genesis 3:16-19
Genesis 8:20—9:17
2 Peter 3:1-13

Post-Fall Common Grace

Man fell into sin and the covenant of works was broken. The consequences of sin were judgment, expulsion from the garden, and the sentence of death. God, in his justice, could have ended everything right there. Adam and Eve could have been destroyed in judgment, and that would have been the end of the human race and the end of history. But in his grace, God had in view the wonderful plan of salvation through the coming Mediator, the Seed of the woman, and therefore, he did not execute Adam and Eve on the spot, but instead set up the order of common grace.

Common grace is God’s grace providing non-salvific benefits to mankind. “He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt 5:45), “giving [them] rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying [their] hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Common grace allows the human race, both the godly line and the seed of the serpent, to continue to marry, procreate, and labor as originally commanded in the cultural mandate (“Be fruitful and multiply,” etc.; Gen 1:28).

The Common Grace Modification of the Cultural Mandate

At first one might think common grace allows the pre-Fall cultural mandate to simply continue unaffected. But Kline sees both continuity and discontinuity between the pre-Fall and the post-Fall cultural mandate. There is continuity, because the cultural mandate is reissued after the Fall. Man is still to marry and procreate and fill the earth. But the cultural mandate as originally given to man before the Fall does not continue on as if nothing had changed. The main cultural tasks and functions remain, but the mandate itself is modified. We see this modification when we observe that man is now frustrated in his cultural efforts. This theme of frustration is quite prominent in the curses that God pronounces upon the woman and upon the man.

In Genesis 3:16, God tells the woman she will still bear children as part of the cultural mandate, but she will do so with great pain. The marital relationship will also become disordered. Her desire will be to usurp her husband’s authority, and he will rule over her in an oppressive manner. Marriage and childbearing, which ought to have been a delight, will be marred by pain and the distorting effects of sin.

In Genesis 3:17, God says to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” The man will continue to labor and work the ground in order to cultivate it and produce crops, just as Adam was commanded before the Fall. But now his labor will be a hard toil and the earth will produce fruit, but not to the same degree, and with the fruit it will also produce thorns and thistles. And at the end of it all, he will return to the dust of the ground from which he came: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). Death is the ultimate disruptor and frustrater of human culture.

Side-by-side with common grace, we also see common curse, since the curse affects both the just and unjust. It is not only the ungodly line but also the godly line who will have pain in childbirth and a curse upon the ground that yields thorns and thistles. This is most evident in Genesis 5 when the genealogy of the godly line is punctuated with the refrain, “and he died.” Kline calls this, “common grace and common curse,” since both the good and the bad are experienced by both the elect and the non-elect.

We can summarize the main point of discontinuity with the pre-Fall cultural mandate under the term “frustration.” Before the Fall, man could labor in the eschatological confidence that his cultural labors would yield good fruit, that he would succeed in bringing all creation under subjection. He would be able to build Megapolis, a city worthy of being glorified and ushered into the eschatological consummation. But after the Fall, man labors in vain. He labors under the shadow of death. He toils excessively, but his toil produces thorns and thistles, and he himself dies soon thereafter. There is no promise of eschatological consummation. Indeed, after the Fall, man’s cultural labors will not and cannot enter the heavenly city or Metapolis.

Common Grace Not Sabbath-Stamped

In addition to the frustration motif, Kline points to a telling piece of evidence that the cultural mandate in its post-Fall form has been stripped of eschatological hope. Kline points out that the ordinance of the weekly Sabbath rest is not renewed with Adam after the Fall. The non-renewal of the Sabbath sign shows that man’s cultural activity is no longer stamped with the eschatological Sabbath promise. Man must work, but he must work without the confidence that the works of his hands will have lasting, eternal significance.

Common grace culture is destined, not for consummation, but for termination. The Scriptures teach that “the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:31), that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Pet 4:7), and that “the world is passing away along with its desires” (1 John 2:7). Another way of putting it is this: common grace culture is not building Megapolis. The City of Man, even at its best, is not and never can become the City of God. This may sound depressing but it isn’t, for God is still going to achieve his grand eschatological kingdom of glory, the City of God—he’s just not going to do it through common grace culture.

To be sure, the City of Man has legitimacy, but it does not have sanctity. It is not holy but common. It has an ameliorative but not a redemptive function. Common grace functions as a restraint upon sin. It keeps fallen society from becoming as wicked as it would be apart from God’s restraining activity. He keeps alive within mankind a sense of right and wrong, a moral awareness imbedded in man’s conscience even apart from special revelation (Rom 2:14-15; 1 Cor 5:1). Common grace includes the establishment of civil government to maintain civil order and imperfect justice in society (Gen 9:5-6; Rom 13:1-7). Common grace secures non-holy, non-redemptive ends in this world. The effects of the Fall will not be overturned until the eschaton. But in this present age, by common grace, they can be ameliorated and off-set in a limited, temporary manner.

The Covenant of Common Grace

The post-flood Noahic Covenant in Genesis 9 was the reiteration in covenantal form of the common grace order established immediately after the Fall. We’re specifically told it is a covenant: “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you” (Gen 9:9). It is called an “everlasting covenant” (v 16), meaning a covenant that is perpetual for long ages until the appointed end. And God’s covenantal commitment is further reinforced with a covenant sign: “I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Gen 9:13). Kline calls this covenant “the covenant of common grace.”

Importantly, the covenant of common grace renews the cultural mandate. Genesis 9:1: “And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’.” This repeats almost verbatim the language of the pre-Fall mandate but with one important difference—the word “subdue” is not repeated. This is because subduing the earth is no longer possible for fallen man. The non-repetition of the word “subdue” in Genesis 9:1 supports Kline’s thesis that the covenant of common grace doesn’t just repeat the creation ordinances, but modifies them as appropriate for a non-eschatological, common grace context.

Another key characteristic of the covenant of common grace is that it is universal. It makes no distinction believers and unbelievers, between insiders and outsiders, as the covenant of special grace does. The covenant of special grace is made with believers and their children. There are special tokens, such as circumcision or baptism, to mark out those who belong to the holy, redemptive covenant of grace.

The text of Genesis 9 makes clear that this covenant, unlike the covenant of special grace, is made with all mankind. Listen to the repeated emphasis of the text. This covenant is made …

• with “all flesh” (vv 11, 15)

• with “all flesh that is on the earth” (v 17)

• with “every living creature” (vv 10, 12)

• with “every living creature of all flesh” (v 15)

• with “every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (v 16)

The covenant of common grace is God’s promise to keep judgment in abeyance until the appointed time. Never again will God curse the ground or destroy all living creatures as he did in the flood (Gen 8:21). In his common grace, he will preserve the order of nature, “while the earth remains” (Gen 8:22). And this promise applies to all without distinguishing between God’s holy people and the seed of the serpent. This is precisely what makes it a covenant of common grace, because it is common to the elect and the non-elect. It’s not an administration of the covenant of special saving grace.

Post-Fall Culture Not Eschatologically Oriented

Consider the contrast between common grace culture and the culture of God’s holy temple-city. The latter is the eschatological end-product of the cultural mandate as taken up and fulfilled by Christ. It is a temple-city “made without hands.” It “comes down out of heaven from God.” As such, it is totally distinct from common grace culture. The one is holy; the other is common. The one is eschatological and will be consummated when Christ returns; the other is temporary and will be terminated when Christ returns. This leads to one of the primary practical implications of Kline’s thought, and that is his understanding of the changing relationship between cult and culture. (“Cult” means the sacred dimension of man’s life where he acts as a priest consecrating himself and creation to God.)

Before the Fall, cult and culture were integrated under the sovereign lordship of God. Culture was to be consecrated and set apart as holy as part of the cult. Adam was both a king and a priest, and his kingly duties with regard to culture were to be conducted in subordination to his priestly duties with regard to the cult. He was to make culture holy, to bring the fruits of his cultural labors into the temple and consecrate them to God.

But after the Fall, a major change has occurred: cult and culture have been temporarily separated by God himself. The covenant of common grace establishes a cultural realm that is not holy, that is, not bound for eschatological consummation in the eternal kingdom of God. Cult remains holy, but culture is now common. Saying it is common does not mean it is unholy or inherently sinful, but it is non-holy. All that means is that post-Fall culture is not destined to enter into the eschatological new creation, the kingdom of God. Post-Fall culture will end at the day of judgment. It is temporary and non-eschatological.

If you think about the three components of the kingdom of glory, the order of common grace lacks all three. There is no holy realm being bestowed on God’s holy people through God’s obedient king. During the time of common grace, the creation itself, which is destined to be renewed and transformed to be that holy realm, is being trampled on by an unholy people (the seed of the serpent) under the guilt and sin of God’s disobedient king (Adam). It is God’s common grace which permits the wicked to live and even sometimes prosper in a land that does not belong to them. But the seed of the woman also enjoy temporal benefits in creation. Both coexist together until the consummation of all things when the wicked will finally be removed and only the righteous will dwell there (2 Pet 3:13).

The Redemptive Purpose of the Common Grace Covenant

The Covenant of Common Grace stands in contrast with the Covenant of Special Grace, with its distinction between the seed (or offspring) of the serpent and the seed of the woman (Gen 3:15), later called the seed of Abraham. In his common grace God permits the seed of the serpent to multiply, have families, and create culture (Gen 4:16-22), but he is working in a special way in the seed of the woman, the people of God who are in a Covenant of Special Grace with God. Common grace sets the context for the special work of God in setting up the holy Kingdom of God with Israel in the OT, starting with the Exodus, continuing in the conquest of the land under Joshua, and culminating in the building of the Temple under Solomon. The descendants of Abraham were formed into a holy nation, set apart from the common grace nations of the earth (Exod 8:22; 9:4-6; 10:23; 11:7; 19:4-6; Lev 11:44-45; Deut 4:32-40; 7:1-6; Ps 147:20; Amos 3:2). The nation of Israel was not a common grace civil government. It was a typological anticipation or intrusion of the eschatological kingdom of the new creation. Israel, like the eschatological kingdom, was a theocracy in which cult and culture were institutionally integrated. The culture of Israel was not part of common grace culture. Kline makes clear that it was cultically-oriented culture, marked with the Sabbath sign, and set apart as holy unto God and with the temple as its cultic focal point.

Common Grace, Patience and the Day of Judgment

Common grace is a result of the delay of judgment and consists in God’s giving non-salvific temporal benefits to both the righteous and the wicked. However, in his second epistle, Peter says people must not to assume that since the day of judgment has been delayed for so long, it will never come. Peter warns that in the last days scoffers will come saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Pet 3:4). Peter points out that this way of thinking is misguided because it is the same way of thinking that characterized the people living in Noah’s day. But they forgot that the world “was formed out of water and through water.” It was created with a built-in judgment mechanism, so that even though God delayed for many generations, he was able to trigger the pent-up water and bring sudden destruction upon the ungodly in the flood. The flood was a picture of the final day of judgment still to come. The heavens and the earth that presently exist are similarly “stored up” for an even greater, eschatological judgment, this time not by water but by fire. In this judgment, the ungodly will perish, just as in the flood. Even though the current delay seems long, a thousand years are as one day to God. The reason the day of judgment is delayed is because of God’s patience. He does not want anyone to perish, but desires that all should repent.

Yet the day of the Lord will come suddenly and unexpectedly, like a thief. When that day comes, it will involve a cosmic conflagration in which the world will be purified of all sinners and all sinful works, and out of the flames a new creation will emerge like the Phoenix from the ashes of its predecessor. And in this new creation, only righteousness will dwell. This passage is significant because it makes the point that God’s common grace seems eternal, but that is only because it has lasted so long, thousands of years, and so we feel it will never end. But it will surely end, and the flood is the warning sign that judgment is coming, just as it came in the days of Noah. In the meantime, God is patient with mankind, desiring that all should repent before time runs out. Every day that God delays judgment provides another opportunity for sinners to repent and be saved before it is too late. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance … According to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet 3:9, 13).

The Sign of the Rainbow

The covenant of common grace has a sign as well—the rainbow. It is a sign of God’s promise to never again destroy the earth by a flood. The rainbow shows up again in the eschatological visions of Ezekiel (1:28) and Revelation (4:3). This suggests that the rainbow has some connection with eschatology. But why would that be if the covenant of common grace is not eschatological? Common grace itself is not eschatological but it serves an ultimately eschatological purpose. For although God is delaying judgment, he is also working the hidden mystery of the kingdom like leaven to bring about the ultimate renewal of creation. The common grace order is not itself an administration of redemptive grace, but it does serve the purpose of advancing redemptive grace by providing the playing field on which God’s redemptive plan can unfold. The delay of the day of judgment provides for more generations to be born from which the elect will come.

The cultural mandate originally given to Adam in the garden was an eschatological task that would have led to the coming of the kingdom of glory in cosmic fulness. Adam’s failure under the probation of the creation covenant should have led to the termination of the eschatological train. But God in his grace has not let Satan’s temptation of Adam derail the train. The cultural task has been transferred to Christ as the second Adam. He has in principle subdued the earth by his death and resurrection. And he will finally subdue it at the end of history when he brings all things into subjection under his feet and ushers in the new creation. In the meantime, between the Fall and the new creation, he has established the order of common grace. When we see the bow in the rain, it is the sign of God’s promise to bring about the restoration of all things.

Kline References

Kingdom Prologue

Pages 153-160 (post-Fall common curse; Gen 3:16-19)

Pages 244-253 (the Noahic covenant; Gen 8:20–9:17)

“The Oracular Origin of the State.” Pages 132-141 in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies: Essays in Honor of William Sanford LaSor. Edited by Gary A. Tuttle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978. Reprinted in The Essential Writings of Meredith G. Kline.

Discussion Questions

How does common grace differ from redemptive grace?
What does it mean to say common grace does not have an eschatological goal?
What are some of the purposes of common grace?
What does the rainbow symbolize?