Covenant Theology Quotes

Indeed, a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don't need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of God. (p. 21)

For resurrection faith means courage to revolt against the "covenant with death" (Isa. 28:15), it means hope for the victory of life which shall swallow up and conquer life-devouring death. ~ p.14

I have suggested that the unity-within-diversity of the New Testament witnesses can best be grasped with the aid of three focal images: community, cross, and new creation. We can encapsulate the theological implications of these images for the church in a single complex narrative summary: the New Testament calls the covenant community of God’s people into participation in the cross of Christ in such a way that the death and resurrection of Jesus becomes a paradigm for their common life as harbingers of God’s new creation.

In the preaching of the kingdom, law and gospel come together. The coming of the kingdom is the coming of a King to enforce his law on a disobedient world, that is, to enforce his covenant against covenant-breakers. But the King who comes is full of love and forgiveness. So his coming is good news, gospel, not only because he judges the wicked, but because he brings redemption, forgiveness, and reward to his redeemed people.

A covenant differs from a contract almost as much as marriage differs from prostitution.

Creation exists to be a place for the covenant that God wants to make with man. The goal of creation is the covenant, the love story of God and man.

The promises of the Old Covenant were preceded by an “if” that made them conditional on man’s obedience, while the promises of the New Covenant were marked by a divine monergism:

The Holy Spirit has not only imputed Christ’s righteousness to us in justification but he is also imparting Christ’s righteousness to us in sanctification.

This reflects in the sphere of epistemology the wider point made by Cornelius Van Til that “covenant theology is the only form of theology which gives a completely personalistic interpretation to reality.”18

Biblical theology must follow a method that reads the Bible on its own terms, following the Bible’s own internal contours and shape, in order to discover God’s unified plan as it is disclosed to us over time.

One reason that change in God, no matter how small, is theologically devastating is that it would signify some alteration in His being or life and thus, to the extent that such change occur, destabilize human confidence in His covenant promises.

(Dennis says) "Hey, you're playing confuse-the-unbeliever again. I have never been able to get a straight answer on whether you guys have two deities or dozens, taken from any pantheon you feel like mugging in a theological dark alley. Which is it? Number one or number two?" "Yes," Juniper said, with all the other coven members joining in to make a ragged chorus...

...The words testament and covenant are virtually synonymous in their theological usage, the Latin definition of testamentum being "a covenant with God, holy scripture." Thus, the Old and New Testaments, as we commonly refer to them, are written testimonies or witnesses (the Latin testis meaning "witness") of the covenants between God and man in various dispensations.

From a theological perspective, marriage primarily involves a covenant-keeping relationship of mutual self-giving that reflects God’s love for us.

What assurance would be ours if, when we approached the throne of grace, we realized that the Father’s heart had been set upon us from the beginning of all things!”[18]

But biblical and other ancient Near Eastern sources do not share Enlightenment theology of sophisticated intellectuals (ancient and modern).

We were not just created and then given a covenant; we were created as covenant creatures—partners not in deity, to be sure, but in the drama that was about to unfold in history.

If we will be saved finally, it will not be because we are faithful to our understanding of the Bible or the tradition, but because God is faithful to us.

The covenant of works was contingent on the uncertain obedience of a changeable man, while the covenant of grace rests on the obedience of Christ as Mediator, which is absolute and certain.

But if the distinctiveness of the New Covenant is that of consummation, if when it abrogates it consummates, then its very discontinuity is expressive of its profound, organic unity with the Old Covenant.

There were, however, important disagreements regarding the doctrine of the church as well as that of baptism. These two doctrines could not be considered in isolation because they had basic theological implications. These implications are what we call covenant theology. The fact that the Puritans had different views on the church and on baptism is the result of a different way of understanding biblical covenants.

Jesus’s use of the phrasing “a new commandment” is frequently scanted in light of its implicit ramifications. Because Jesus at the Last Supper has executed the “new covenant” with his disciples, the Great Commandment itself now acquires an unprecedented meaning. Its new meaning belongs to this sudden revelation not merely about who God is but also about what love is. Previously the Great Commandment bade us to love God and our neighbor. Now this love can be comprehended only in an incarnational situation. Its incarnate presence is the activation of profound rhizomic relations that explode from the center toward the ends of the earth. We are commanded to be incarnational in relation to one another just as God at the cross was incarnational in Christ. . . . We are no longer simply Christ’s “followers" - the pre-Easter form of relation to a master-and-teacher that is conventionally called “disciple” - but also perpetual Christ incarnators . . .

Further, any exclusivistic claims for the sole propriety of some one mode of administering baptism are gratuitous. For any mode of relating the water to a person that is attested in the various biblical water ordeals would have biblical warrant.

Theologically, the demand for “circumcision” can take many forms, even today. It appears whenever one thinks along these lines: “Faith in Christ is fine as far as it goes, but your relation to God is not really right and your salvation not adequate unless…” It does not matter how the sentence is completed. Whenever such fine print is introduced to qualify trust/faith, there is “circumcision,” and Paul’s defense of the adequacy of trust/faith can come into its own again. The Galatian situation is never far; in fact, it is all too familiar.

Jesus became not only the faithful speaker, but the faithful hearer and doer of the Word of God. He not only commanded as the Lord of the covenant, but answered back faithfully as the Servant of the covenant—in our place. No wonder Christ is everything in this new covenant relationship!

The bicovenantal structure of the promise and administrative covenants provides the key for understanding the unity and diversity in God's covenantal dealings with men. Unity and continuity are founded on the promise covenants that secure it. The elements of diversity and discontinuity are found in the administrative covenants. But as explained [earlier], the discontinuity [within the administrative covenants] is not theological or ethical, but ceremonial and typological. The law of God, in terms of its ethical demands, does not pass away, nor is it abolished by a new administrative covenant.

The historical manifestations of the covenant of redemption can be categorized according to their specific emphases: Adam: the covenant of commencement Noah: the covenant of preservation Abraham: the covenant of promise Moses: the covenant of law David: the covenant of the kingdom Christ the covenant of consummation.

Just as Luther proclaimed the centrality and sufficiency of faith for justification, so he accentuated with new power the role of faith in the reception of the sacraments. He declared that a sacrament apart from faith is empty; in reference to baptism he said: “Unless faith is present, or comes to life in baptism, the ceremony is of no avail.”7

Neither the Ten Commandments nor the great commandment is revelatory if separated from the divine covenant with Israel or from the presence of the Kingdom of God in the Christ. These commandments were meant and should be taken as interpretations of a new reality, not as orders directed against the old reality. They are descriptions and not laws. ~ vol. 1, p.125

The genealogical principle of the Abrahamic Covenant has been brought to its climactic fruition. There is no longer any reason to continue it as a covenant principle since “the Seed” has come into the world. Christ is the last physical seed in Abraham’s covenant line to whom the promises were made. There is no other physical seed beyond Christ to whom these promises are directed.

Prophetic preaching and writing certainly does not follow the patterns of Aristotelian rectilinear logic so fundamental to our discourse in the Western world. Instead, the approach in ancient Hebrew literature is to take up a topic and develop it from a particular perspective and then to stop and take up the same theme again from another point of view. This patter is kaleidoscopic and recursive.

I mentioned that Jesus came to invade satan’s kingdom. When He did, the long period of time covered by the Old Testament permanently changed. Jesus brought a new covenant. When precisely did things change? Theologically, they changed on the cross. Paul explains this in some detail in Colossians when he says that the Father “has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Col. 1:13). He then goes on to say that we have redemption through His blood (Col. 1:14). The blood that Jesus shed on the cross defeated the enemy, or as Paul later says, “having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15). He declares that Jesus is the “head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:10).

Genesis 1 says that man was created in the image of God. In Genesis 2, he becomes the subject of a covenant with God. A person is meant to be a partner of God. He must discern and choose between right and wrong, life and death. Among all living creatures of the visible world, man alone has been chosen for communion with God. Every human person has a unique, exclusive, unrepeatable relationship with God himself.

Even the aspect of New Covenant consummation that Jeremiah does deal with he views from the limited eschatological perspective of an Old Testament prophet. He beheld the messianic accomplishment in that perfection which historically is reached only in the fully eschatological age to come, as the ultimate goal of a process which in the present semi-eschatological age of this world is still marked by tragic imperfection.

So in all our search after the mind of God in the Holy Scriptures we are to manage our inquiries with reference to Christ. Therefore the best interpreter of the Old Testament is the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the new. There we have the clearest light of the knowledge of the glory of God shining on us in the face of Jesus Christ, by unveiling those counsels of love and grace that were hidden from former ages and generations

the plan of salvation is no halfway fix-it job. God’s plan of restoration brings us back to the pristine state of Eden—in a world now much better and much greater. Augustine once said that he feared to entrust his soul to the great physician lest he be more thoroughly cured than he cared to be. God’s plan of salvation is absolutely thorough, and he is not going to be satisfied with some half job of reformation and renewal in our lives.

It was the empowering force that gave the saints of old the boldness and authority they needed to do both amazing and everyday things. The Spirit was the seal of God upon their lives.[42]  The Jews call this Spirit the Ruach.  Yes, the Jews do recognize the Holy Spirit.  In fact, you would be shocked to read how much pre-Messianic literature (Jewish writings before the time of Jesus) has in common with Christian theology, but I digress.

In the old covenant God faithfully remained with His people, accompanying them in a pillar of fire and cloud, then dwelling among them in the tabernacle and the temple. Under the new covenant, the only temple is the believing community itself, and God dwells not only among the community corporately (Matt 18:20; 1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 6:16), but also in each member individually (John 14:17; Rom 8:9–11; 1 Cor 6:19). This is the overarching thesis this book seeks to establish.

God is forbearing, gracious, and longsuffering, but he is also a God of holiness, wrath, and judgement.57 The wrath of God, unlike the love or holiness of God, should not be thought of as an intrinsic perfection of God; rather it is a function or expression of God’s holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath, but there will always be love and holiness. Where God in his holiness confronts his image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, otherwise God is not the jealous and self-sufficient God he claims to be, and his holiness is impugned.58

Paul was not a white, suburban, middle-class, liberal arts teacher, educated in the 1960s, and neither does every reference to Jesus as Kurios (“Lord”) automatically demand the antiphon, “and Caesar is not.” 45 Yet there can be no denying the theopolitical dimension to Paul’s theology and the counter-imperial implications of much of his thought. 46 If, as tradition tells us, Paul was executed in Rome, it was not because he practiced some kind of interiorized spirituality to the effect that “Jesus is Lord of my heart,” but something of his message and conduct brought him to the attention of the imperial authorities and warranted capital punishment in their eyes.

By rejecting the notion of a single covenant of grace under two administrations, the Baptists were in fact rejecting only half of this concept; they accepted, as we have previously seen, the notion of a single covenant of grace in both testaments, but they refused the idea of the two administrations. For the Baptists, there was only one covenant of grace which was revealed from the Fall in a progressive way until its full revelation and conclusion in the new covenant. This model is clearly expressed in Chapter 7, paragraph 3, of the 1689 Confession: “This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament.

All of our faith and practice arise out of the drama of Scripture, the “big story” that traces the plot of history from creation to consummation, with Christ as its Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. And out of the throbbing verbs of this unfolding drama God reveals stable nouns — doctrines. From what God does in history we are taught certain things about who he is and what it means to be created in his image, fallen, and redeemed, renewed, and glorified in union with Christ. As the Father creates his church, in his Son and by his Spirit, we come to realize what this covenant community is and what it means to belong to it; what kind of future is promised to us in Christ, and how we are to live here and now in the light of it all. The drama and the doctrine provoke us to praise and worship — doxology — and together these three coordinates give us a new way of living in the world as disciples.

We are bound to conclude, therefore, that the newness of the New Covenant cannot involve the elimination of the curse sanction as a component of the covenant and that this newness consequently poses no problem for the interpretation of Christian baptism as a sign of ordeal embracive of both blessing and curse. In confirmation of this conclusion we may recall that John the Baptist analyzed the work of the coming One as a baptism of judgment in the Holy Spirit and fire. Christ so baptized the Mosaic covenant community and he so baptizes the congregation of the New Covenant. Pentecost belongs to both the old and new orders. It was the beginning of the messianic ordeal visited on the Mosaic community. Those who received that baptism of Pentecost emerged vindicated as the people of the New Covenant, the inheritors of the kingdom. Pentecost was thus a baptismal ordeal in Spirit and fire in which redemptive covenant realized its proper end.

The Baptists argued that the Church of God should be a community of godly men; that faith is the gift of God, and not to be compelled by force of arms; that only those rites sanctioned or commanded by Christ and His Apostles are binding upon His people; and that the only Lawgiver of the Church is Christ Himself. Each party [Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians] had, therefore, its own reason for hating the Baptists; and as each had yet to learn the true nature of religious freedom, each oppressed and persecuted in turn.”9 Baptists protested that they were not Anabaptists, because they did not see baptizing believers who had been sprinkled as infants as re-baptizing and because they did not want the radical, anti-state label hung on them as earned by some Anabaptist and 5th Monarchy activists. It appears that after some time of such protests, in answer to the inevitable question, “If you're not Anabaptists, what are you?” 10 the name “Baptist” emerged.

In other words, the canon is inspired; the community is illumined to understand, embrace, interpret, and obey it. Jesus taught that there is a qualitative distinction between the prophets and the tradition of the elders who were Israel’s teachers after the Old Testament canon was closed (Mt 15:2, 6). Similarly, Paul distinguishes between the foundation-laying era of the apostles and the building-erecting era of the ordinary ministers who follow after them (1Co 3:11 – 12). Although Paul could appeal to no human authority higher than his own office, he encouraged Timothy to recall the gift he received at his ordination, “when the council of elders [presbyteriou] laid their hands on you” (1Ti 4:14). None of us, today, is a Moses. None is a Paul or a Peter. We are all “Timothys,” no longer adding to the apostolic deposit, but guarding and proclaiming it (1Ti 6:20). The apostolic era has now come to an end; the office was a unique one, for a unique stage of redemptive history, a period of time used by God for the drafting of the new covenant constitution.

In any community, there is a tension between a task-oriented culture and a relational (or covenantal) culture. Both are integral to a healthy community. Tasks need the organizational structures of committees, agendas, and regulated, efficient actions. And actions, committees, and structures need to be grounded in, and responsive to, dynamic covenant relationships that are always in process. Most communities, however, have an overwhelming tendency to focus on tasks and structures, and the churches I have served are no exception to this rule. The New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, for example, is awash in tasks, such as serving the homeless and the mentally ill, tutoring inner-city teenagers, and tending to our members. We expend an enormous amount of energy engaging these tasks. In fact, tasks consume most of our time and energy. Thus, relationship building is not easy because it is most often done in and around our activities (our tasks). All of this is to say that relation building, if it is to be foundational to communal life, must be intentional and focused, for tasks can be all-consuming.

The theological meaning of events in history is always filled with ambiguity, whether their significance is supported by centuries of tradition or is fresh in the minds of contemporaries. John, however, saw no such ambiguity. To him the meaning of the destruction of the temple was patent, demonstrable, indubitable. Yet his interpretation ignored one signifiant fact - the continuing existence of Jewish communities that, by their very way of life, demonstrated that their loss of the temple and the city of Jerusalem had not severed the covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And within his own congregation there were Christians who lived as though the Law of Moses were still in force. Though these Judaizers were a minority, they were living testimony that the Jewish way of life had not lost its legitimacy. For reasons discussed in this book, John could take seriously neither the way of life of the Jews nor the claims of the Judaizers among the Christians. He saw no way to acknowledge the ongoing reality of Israel without calling into question the truth of the Christian faith. That John's view won out is significant for the later history of Christianity for it has shaped all Christian thought about Judaism since his time; but that is no reason why it should be our own view.

See? I long to be your spiritual guide. I really do, and I will. Love is my motive, rather than any elevated belief in my own knowledge, contemplative work, experience, or maturity. And may God correct what I get wrong. For he knows everything, and I only know in part.1 Now to satisfy your proud intellect, I will praise the work of contemplation. You should know that if those engaged in this work had the linguistic talent to express exactly what they’re experiencing, then every scholar of Christianity would be amazed by their wisdom. It’s true! In comparison, all theological erudition would look like total nonsense. No wonder, then, that my clumsy human speech can’t describe the immense value of this work to you, and God forbid that the limitations of our finite language should desecrate and distort it. No, this must not and will not happen. God forbid that I would ever want that! For our analysis of contemplation and the exercise itself are two entirely different things. What we say of it is not it, but merely a description. So, since we can’t define it, let’s describe it. This will baffle all intellectual conceit, especially yours, which is the sole reason I’m writing this letter. I want to start off by asking you a question. What is the essence of human spiritual perfection, and what are its qualities? I’ll answer this for you. On earth, spiritual perfection is only possible through the union between God and the human soul in consummate love. This perfection is pure and so sublime that it surpasses our human understanding, and that’s why it can’t be directly grasped or observed. But wherever we see its consequences, we know that the essence of contemplation abounds there. So, if I tell you that this spiritual discipline is better than all others, then I must first prove it by describing what mature love looks like. This spiritual exercise grows virtues. Look within yourself as you contemplate and also examine the nature of every virtue. You’ll find that all virtues are found in and nurtured by contemplation with no distortion or degeneration of their purposes. I’m not going to single out any particular virtue here for discussion. I don’t need to because you can find them described in other things I’ve written.2 I’ll only comment here that contemplative prayer, when done right, is the respectful love and ripe fruit that I discuss in your little Letter on Prayer. It’s the cloud of unknowing, the hidden love-longing offered by a pure spirit. It’s the Ark of the Covenant.3 It’s the mystical theology of Dionysius, the wisdom and treasure of his “bright darkness” and “unknown knowing.” It takes you into silence, far from thoughts and words. It makes your prayer very short. In it, you learn how to reject and forget the world.

(3) Theology of Exodus: A Covenant People “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God” (Exod 6:7). When God first demanded that the Egyptian Pharaoh let Israel leave Egypt, he referred to Israel as “my … people.” Again and again he said those famous words to Pharaoh, Let my people go.56 Pharaoh may not have known who Yahweh was,57 but Yahweh certainly knew Israel. He knew them not just as a nation needing rescue but as his own people needing to be closely bound to him by the beneficent covenant he had in store for them once they reached the place he was taking them to himself, out of harm's way, and into his sacred space.58 To be in the image of God is to have a job assignment. God's “image”59 is supposed to represent him on earth and accomplish his purposes here. Reasoning from a degenerate form of this truth, pagan religions thought that an image (idol) in the form of something they fashioned would convey to its worshipers the presence of a god or goddess. But the real purpose of the heavenly decision described in 1:26 was not to have a humanlike statue as a representative of God on earth but to have humans do his work here, as the Lord's Prayer asks (“your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” Matt 6:10). Although the fall of humanity as described in Genesis 3 corrupted the ability of humans to function properly in the image of God, the divine plan of redemption was hardly thwarted. It took the form of the calling of Abraham and the promises to him of a special people. In both Exod 6:6–8 and 19:4–6 God reiterates his plan to develop a people that will be his very own, a special people that, in distinction from all other peoples of the earth, will belong to him and accomplish his purposes, being as Exod 19:6 says “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Since the essence of holiness is belonging to God, by belonging to God this people became holy, reflecting the character of their Lord as well as being obedient to his purposes. No other nation in the ancient world ever claimed Yahweh as its God, and Yahweh never claimed any other nation as his people. This is not to say that he did not love and care for other nations60 but only to say that he chose Israel as the focus of his plan of redemption for the world. In the New Testament, Israel becomes all who will place faith in Jesus Christ—not an ethnic or political entity at all but now a spiritual entity, a family of God. Thus the New Testament speaks of the true Israel as defined by conversion to Christ in rebirth and not by physical birth at all. But in the Old Covenant, the true Israel was the people group that, from the various ethnic groups that gathered at Sinai, agreed to accept God's covenant and therefore to benefit from this abiding presence among them (see comments on Exod 33:12–24:28). Exodus is the place in the Bible where God's full covenant with a nation—as opposed to a person or small group—emerges, and the language of Exod 6:7, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God,” is language predicting that covenant establishment.61

The story of the Bible is not the story of the covenant of grace; nor is it the story of Israel. The Bible is the story of God’s work in history to sum up all things in Christ. New Covenant Theology strives to keep this one plan of God—centered in Jesus Christ—primary.

It is essential to love that it be, not a focus of two persons on each other, but of two persons on the same thing external to them both. Although it has always been on offer, God's love cannot really be experienced unless or until one works side by side with him at transforming the world--unless or until one has confronted real affliction with him ("suffer[ed] with him,' Paul says in Romans 8:17) while tackling the task of remodeling the world (in what Paul calls, again in Romans 8:17, being "joint-heirs with Christ"). Love, in other words, has to be understood as more than a mere emotion; it is a way of being together in the world or, better, a way of working together to change the world. What begins as a kind of instrumentality--I hope only to be a toll in God's hands--eventually becomes a very real partnership, ideally bound by covenant.

It is essential to love that it be, not a focus of two persons on each other, but of two persons on the same thing external to them both. Although it has always been on offer, God's love cannot really be experienced unless or until one works side by side with him at transforming the world--unless or until one has confronted real affliction with him ("suffer[ed] with him,' Paul says in Romans 8:17) while tackling the task of remodeling the world (in what Paul calls, again in Romans 8:17, being "joint-heirs with Christ"). Love, in other words, has to be understood as more than a mere emotion; it is a way of being together in the world or, better, a way of working together to change the world. What begins as a kind of instrumentality--I hope only to be a tool in God's hands--eventually becomes a very real partnership, ideally bound by covenant.

New covenant Christians are no longer under the old covenant era of law, but are now under the new covenant era of grace inaugurated by Christ himself.

The prominence of offspring as a central motif of God’s blessing in Genesis might seem to emphasize the importance of human beings marrying and having children as the essential means to realize and effect God’s blessing upon the world. Instead, the emphasis is that the offspring of the covenant that ultimately mediates God’s blessing to the world is ultimately a provision of God himself rather than of human initiative. It serves to underscore the theological reality of our full dependence upon God for the provision of all the blessings he wishes to bestow.

a covenant is a solemn agreement with oaths and/or promises, which imply certain sanctions or legality.

The indwelling of the Spirit is God's favorable presence abiding with those who enjoy His merciful establishment of a covenant relationship. John Frame explains, “God is not merely present in the world; he is covenantally present. He is with his creatures to bless and to judge them in accordance with the terms of his covenant.

If old covenant believers were regenerated by the Spirit, what is new about the new interiority promised in Jer 31:31–34? The newness does not consist in the Spirit's regenerating ministry of enabling people to hear God's word and believe. What is new is the indwelling ministry of the Spirit and the spiritualized view of the temple.

When Moses saw the glory of God on Mount Sinai so terrifying was the sight that he trembled in fear (Heb. 12:21). But that was God in covenant: God in grace. What Christ saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised (Zc. 13:7; Mt. 26:31). The sight was unbearable. In a few short hours, he, the Last Adam, would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world (2 Cor. 5:21).. . . Consequently, to quote Luther . . . “No one ever feared death so much as this man.”10

John Owen, who states, “[…] we may consider that Scripture does plainly and expressly make mention of two testaments, or covenants, and distinguish between them in such a way, that what is spoken can hardly be accommodated to a twofold administration of the same covenant.”115

Calvin was correct when he wrote, “It is quite certain that the primary promises, which contained that covenant ratified with the Israelites by God under the Old Testament, were spiritual and referred to eternal life.

The details of Isaac’s birth were the opposite of Ishmael’s. Isaac’s mother represents the unconditional covenant of grace revealed to Abraham. Isaac was born (1) supernaturally, (2) by the free woman, and (3) according to the promise. In a sense, these characteristics are true for all those who have been born again by the Spirit into the covenant of grace.

Personal obedience to commands is a radically different basis for an inheritance than faith in a promise. While the Scriptures uphold the moral law as the abiding way of life for God’s redeemed people, it can never be a way to life. Every covenant has two parties, and we assume the responsibilities of faithful partners, but the basis of acceptance with God is the covenant-keeping of another, the Servant of the Lord: and because of his faithfulness, we now inherit all of the promises through faith alone, as children of Sarah and citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem.”[

Interestingly, paedobaptists often appeal to Romans 4 to argue that circumcision, as a sign and seal of Abraham's faith, is applied to infants as a sign and seal to them as well, which is then carried over in baptism.128 But this is not Paul's point in this text. Instead, Paul is presenting Abraham as the paradigm for all believers, both Jew and Gentile. To Abraham and to him alone, circumcision was a covenantal sign attesting that he had already been justified by faith apart from circumcision.

Israel, as a nation, is a type of the church. But this is the case, not because the church is merely the replacement of Israel, but because Christ, as the true seed of Abraham and the fulfillment of Israel, unites in himself both spiritual Jews and Gentiles as the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). There is continuity, but also important discontinuity. Now that Christ has come, only those who have faith and have experienced spiritual rebirth are his people and part of his family.

paedobaptists often appeal to Romans 4 to argue that circumcision, as a sign and seal of Abraham's faith, is applied to infants as a sign and seal to them as well, which is then carried over in baptism.128 But this is not Paul's point in this text. Instead, Paul is presenting Abraham as the paradigm for all believers, both Jew and Gentile. To Abraham and to him alone, circumcision was a covenantal sign attesting that he had already been justified by faith apart from circumcision. The text is not giving a general statement about the nature of circumcision for everyone who receives it.

Let us also think of the appendix that the Baptists joined to the publication of the Second London Confession of Faith where, several times, they express their desire to maintain good relations with the paedobaptists regardless of their divergences of opinion on the question of baptism:

this promise had already been in place prior to the announcement in Genesis 3. He states in Titus, “in the hope of eternal life that God, who cannot lie, promised before time began, and has in His own time revealed His message in the proclamation that I was entrusted with by the command of God our Savior (Titus 1:2-3):[7]

Although it is true that it is a covenant, to confuse this covenant with the Mosaic covenant could set a person on his or her way towards Replacement Theology and miss the purposes that remain for Israel in the Millennial Kingdom. The

To put it another way, Covenant Theology is the Bible’s way of explaining and deepening our understanding of: (1) the atonement [the meaning of the death of Christ]; (2) assurance [the basis of our confidence of communion with God and enjoyment of his promises]; (3) the sacraments [signs and seals of God’s covenant promises — what they are and how they work]; and (4) the continuity of redemptive history [the unified plan of God’s salvation]. Covenant Theology is also an hermeneutic, an approach to understanding the Scripture — an approach that attempts to biblically explain the unity of biblical revelation.[15] A

Yet in one sense they can miss it: that is, by failing to focus on it, even when in general terms they are aware of its reality.

Typology is the study of how OT historical persons, events, institutions, and settings function to foreshadow, anticipate, prefigure, and predict the greater realities in the new covenant age. The

I will be your God," is an unconditional undertaking on God's part to be "for us" (Rom. 8:31), "on our side" (Ps. 124:1-5), using all his resources for the furthering of the ultimate good of those ("us") to whom he thus pledges himself.

Because Christ is the last Adam and the true Israel, the true and literal seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16), all of God’s promises to Israel (which includes the nations) are fulfilled in Christ and inaugurated in the church. God has not replaced Israel by the church; instead, he has brought Israel’s role to its fulfillment in Christ and to Christ’s people.

Reformation theology historically has argued that man’s sin is not an ontological but a moral-ethical problem. Man is a covenant breaker. He is redeemed by meeting a stranger—Christ, who redeems him. Grace redeems nature. The difference is not between nature and grace but sin and grace.5 Moreover, man encounters this stranger within a context, namely, that of covenant.

If Westminster federalism can be summarized as “one covenant under two administrations,” that of the 1689 would be, “one covenant revealed progressively and concluded formally under the new covenant.

The Abrahamic covenant, the Sinaitic covenant, and the Davidic covenant were not the covenant of grace, nor administrations of it; however, the covenant of grace was revealed under these various covenants. The Epistle to the Hebrews seems to sanction this understanding, particularly this passage: “For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant” (Heb. 9:15).

This period of time between Pentecost and the destruction of Jerusalem was the time when a great transition from circumcision to baptism was being accomplished. During this period, Gentiles were being included into fellowship with the believing Jews, but Jewish infants were not being excluded. Those outside the Christian church were pagans and false Jews—Jews who apostatized from the covenant by rejecting Christ. We know that within the church were believing Gentiles and believing Jews, as well as the infants of believing Jews. The infants of believing Jews were given the sign of circumcision, which, even though it was an ordinance that was fading away, still had profound spiritual and covenantal significance. This obviously brings us to the interesting and pertinent question of the baptism of Jewish infants. The first thing we must show is that circumcision and baptism have the same theological and doctrinal import.

The church in the present age is called not only to experience God’s blessing through the work of the Spirit, but to be a blessing by the power of the Spirit. Through the ministry of reconciliation afforded us in the gospel, we are called to pronounce the reality of God’s kingdom come in Christ, thereby expanding God’s covenant blessings promised to Abraham—the reception of “the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). Peter exhorts the church to “bless, for to this you were called” (1 Pet. 3:9), with the result of receiving a blessing. The body of Christ is to mediate the blessings of God to the present age through lives no longer shaped by the passions of the surrounding culture (1 Pet. 2:11–12), but as those who know the reality of God’s kingdom blessings, even in the midst of—indeed, fueled by—suffering and trials. Peter writes, “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet. 4:13–14). By the Spirit, we bless and experience blessings, anticipating the day when the glory of Christ will be revealed. Instead of wealth and power revealing Christ’s kingdom to the world, Peter explains, when we come to know the blessings of the kingdom in the midst of trial, we thereby bless those around us by allowing our lives to bear witness to the reality of Christ’s kingdom.

However, God’s deliverance from Egypt is not out of mere covenant obligation to a place—he is bringing his people to himself!2 Ex. 4:23: “Let my son go that he may serve me.” Ex. 6:6–7: “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” Ex. 19:4: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Ex. 20:24: “In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.

So seriously did the Puritans take the duty of family worship that they regarded the neglect of family devotion and catechism to be covenant-breaking with God, and betraying the souls of their children to the devil.

If Paul was not reacting to a legalistic Judaism which understood salvation to be dependent ultimately on human achievement, then what was he reacting to? Sanders himself saw Paul’s reaction to be essentially confused. But James Dunn argued that the new perspective shed light on Paul’s theology by allowing us to see that its polemical thrust was directed not against the idea of achieving God’s acceptance by the merit of personal achievement (good works), but against the Jewish intention to safeguard the privilege of covenant status from being dissipated or contaminated by non-Jews. Paul was reacting primarily against the exclusivism which he himself had previously fought to maintain. In particular, he was reacting against the conviction (shared by most other Christian Jews) that ‘works of the law’, such as (or particularly) circumcision and laws of clean and unclean, continued to prescribe the terms of covenant relationship for Gentiles as well as Jews. It was in and from this conflict that Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith alone achieved its classic expression (Gal. 2:1–21). (p.10)

This progressive revelation started with Adam, proceeded to Noah, then continued with Abraham and his descendants. Thus, the Baptists could state that the old covenant did not give salvation, all the while affirming that salvation was given under the old covenant.

This understanding can be summarized in this way: salvation was given under the old covenant, but not by virtue of the old covenant; during the time period of the old covenant, but not by the old covenant.

Let us review. Because no man has been saved in any way other than through the grace of God since the fall, the Reformed considered that there had been only one covenant of grace in the whole history of redemption. The covenant of grace was the substance by which seventeenth-century theologians united the Bible, from whence came their paradigm: one covenant under several administrations. In establishing a distinction between the internal substance and the external administration of the covenant of grace, the Presbyterians managed to maintain the unity of this covenant while admitting a certain disparity between

This sanction belonged not only to the positive precept to which it was expressly annexed, but also to the law of nature; the demerit for transgressing this law is known to man by the same light as the law itself is known to him. This is made good by the experience of mankind even in their fallen state, who do not only find some remaining notions in themselves of the difference of good and evil, and some sense of their duty to embrace the one and eschew the other, but also have a consciousness of punishment due to the transgression of these dictates of their reason. These notions are connatural5 to them and therefore are to be observed both in those that have not and in those that have the light of a written law to guide them (Romans 1:32; 2:15). If this is so with fallen man regarding the law itself, then its sanction was also perfectly and distinctly known to Adam in his upright state. His conscience was pure and his mind irradiated with a clear light, being perfectly free from those dark fumes of sensual lust with which the reason and judgment of his lapsed offspring is darkened and perverted.

Yet some Particular Baptists helpfully clarified that what the old covenant itself did offer upon the condition of works was life and blessing in Canaan.

The Abrahamic, Sinaitic, and Davidic covenants were seen only as different administrations of the covenant of grace revealed to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:15.

of the sacraments. It is in our doctrine of the church.” 2

The Baptists believed that before the arrival of the new covenant, the covenant of grace was not formally given, but only announced and promised (revealed). This distinction is fundamental to the federalism of the 1689 Confession. Nehemiah Coxe, the likely editor of this confession of faith, firmly maintains this distinction between the revelation and the administration:

Westminster federalism can be summarized as “one covenant under two administrations,” that of the 1689 would be, “one covenant revealed progressively and concluded formally under the new covenant.

This distinction (revealed/concluded) summarized the difference between the covenant of grace in the Old Testament and the covenant of grace in the New Testament. In the Old, it was revealed; in the New, it was concluded (“fully revealed,” according to the expression of the 1689). John Owen comes to exactly the same understanding in his exegesis of Hebrews 8:6.

Nothing that precedes justification, neither faith nor works, would merit the grace of justification; for “if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace” (Rom 11:6). —Council of Trent

Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant, which is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Jesus as the final covenant Mediator brings significant typological advance.[48] What Covenant Theology tends to miss is the determinate role of the mediatorial head of the covenant. For example, Covenant Theology teaches that the sign of the covenant is applied to the believer’s offspring rather than to the mediator’s offspring. Israel circumcised the offspring of Abraham, and the church is to baptize the offspring of Christ.[49] As R. Fowler White writes, “The genealogical principle continues without revocation, but not without reinterpretation under the new covenant.”[50] Inclusion within the covenant community can no longer be decided by interpreting the genealogical relationship between the covenant community and the covenant head in physical terms. The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ the new covenant Mediator necessitate a spiritual relationship between the covenant community and the covenant head.[51] In other words, Christ has no physical offspring. He has no grandchildren. One becomes “of Christ” through union with Christ, which is appropriated through faith and baptism (Rom 6:4; Gal 3:27-28).

This idea is extended in the contrast between the new and the old covenant. The old covenant of Law consisted of commands written on tables of stone, which could only declare the will of God but not provide the power to sinful women and men to obey God’s will. Therefore, even though it was glorious, the written code condemns them as sinners and places them under the judgment of death. “The written code kills,” whereas what people need is life (2 Cor. 3:6).

For our purposes, most importantly, the First London Baptist Confession is not structured around Covenant Theology. It contains no command to keep the Sabbath and does not advocate a tripartite distinction of the Law. Its focus is decidedly Christ-centered. The call is not to obey the Law of Moses, but to “presseth after a heavenly and evangelical obedience to all the commands, which Christ as head and king in His new covenant hath prescribed to them.

What a vast difference is there between the first covenant and the second! In the first covenant it was, if you commit sin you die; in the second it is, if you confess sin you shall have mercy.

Covenant Theology insists that the covenant at Sinai was a gracious covenant made with a “redeemed” by which they mean “justified” people. It totally ignores the big “if” and the “then” in verse 5.30 They fail to see the covenant at Sinai was a conditional covenant. Israel was indeed a people redeemed by blood, but it was not spiritual redemption by Christ’s blood. It was a physical redemption from Egypt by animal blood. Israel becoming a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation” was totally dependent upon their keeping the covenant terms of Exodus 20, which they never did. The covenant at Sinai was without question a legal covenant of works conditioned on Israel’s obedience to the covenant terms. The words “if you will obey” and “then I will” cannot be made to mean “I will whether you do or not.” The covenant at Sinai was without question a conditional covenant. Language cannot be more explicit. God said, “If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then [and only then] … you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” They did become a “holy”31 (meaning separate) physical nation, but they did not become a “holy,” (meaning spiritual) nation where all of the members in the nation were regenerate saints.

the covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel and the way Yahweh shone his light of blessing in Israel’s life was designed to become a revelation to other peoples, a means of opening their eyes and releasing them from darkness.

The Word of God – alone! – demands and warrants our full allegiance. While we have disagreements, let Holy Writ be our foundation and wisdom as we test all things and hold to that which is good.

The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus was our Passover (1 Corinthians 5:7), showing us the Passover is not a continuing observance, but a ceremonial shadow or type that pointed God’s people to the promised seed who would save His people from their sin. The Lord’s Supper has connections to the Passover, but is itself the sign of a better covenant (Luke 22:20 & Hebrews 8:6). As the infant Hebrew nation was saved by the blood of the Passover lamb being shed only once, so the New Covenant was ratified and made effective for the salvation of all the elect by the one-time sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus. The Passover was a type of the Lord’s Supper, something temporal pointing to something eternal.