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.

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.

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

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:

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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]

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.

John’s privilege among prophets is somewhat analogous to Mary’s privilege among women. No prophet is closer to Christ than John. Christ did not call him the greatest of all the prophets and more than a prophet (Mt 11:9) because he was more complete in his eloquence, his wisdom, or even his sanctity, than any other prophet, but because he completed the whole era of prophets, the Old Law, or Old Covenant, in introducing Christ to the world. As Mary’s womb gave Christ to the world ontologically, John’s baptism gave Christ to the world epistemologically.

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

At the core of sin is hatred against God as our creator and lawgiver…. Sin rejects this relationship and replaces a humble, filial love with proud independence, so that natural love descends into the pit of self-deification. The image of God and the covenant with Adam engage man as God’s covenant servant according to the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. Sin twists man into a false prophet who refuses to receive God’s Word by faith and speaks lies; an unholy priest who pollutes God’s worship and seeks after created idols; and a rebellious king who transgresses God’s law and incurs liability to his sovereign retribution.

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 new covenant is made with them alone who effectually and eventually are made partakers of the grace of it. “This is the covenant that I will make with them… I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,” etc. Those with whom the old covenant was made were all of them actual partakers of the benefits of it; and if they are not so with whom the new is made, it comes short of the old in efficacy, and may be utterly frustrated. Neither does the indefinite proposal of the terms of the covenant prove that the covenant is made with them, or any of them, who enjoy not the benefits of it. Indeed this is the excellence of this covenant, and so it is here declared, that it does effectually communicate all the grace and mercy contained in it to all and every one with whom it is made; with whomsoever it is made, his sins are pardoned.

What we find in Colossians, then, is a theology that locates the origin of creation, the revelation of God, and the salvation of world in Christ. It recognizes the massive rupture introduced into the world through sin, and it sees the solution to this problem in the death of Christ. It requires a response of obedient faith to share in Christ and in the inheritance of eternal life. It offers no hope of a nice God letting everyone into heaven no matter how they live or what they believe. However, in spite of that, it holds before us a confident hope in the salvation of the whole creation. It is God’s covenant purpose that his world will one day be reconciled in Christ. For now, only the Church shares in that privilege, but this is not a position God has granted his people so they can gloat over the world. On the contrary, the Church must live by gospel standards and proclaim its gospel message so that the world will come to share in the saving work of Christ. This is the outline of the evangelical universalist theology I wish to commend to the reader.

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.

WHAT IS COVENANT THEOLOGY? The straightforward, if provocative answer to that question is that it is what is nowadays called a hermeneutic -- that is, a way of reading the whole Bible that is itself part of the overall interpretation of the Bible that it undergirds. A successful hermeneutic is a consistent interpretative procedure yielding a consistent understanding of Scripture in turn confirms the propriety of the procedure itself. Covenant theology is a case in point.

All of biblical history may be called a theology of the covenant,

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.

Union with Christ that is produced by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit because of electing grace is the only ground for any person being the object of any spiritual promise given to Abraham and his seed (Rom. 9:11, 23, 24). Both Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology either deny or totally ignore this clear biblical fact.

Reformed covenant theology seems to build its case on three main premises. Firstly, that the old covenant was revoked because Israel so thoroughly violated it (a punitive supersessionism). Secondly, the old covenant was in any event only ever temporary. Thirdly, the efficacy of the old covenant was not actually as Israel took it to be, at face value; rather than dealing with Israel’s transgression (as its practitioners would quite reasonably have supposed at the time) it was instead to remind her of her transgressions and point her to Christ to come.

The nation of Israel was under great privileges, but it was not under grace unless the people believed the gospel. They had great advantages, but they were neither under a covenant of grace nor in a separate spiritual category before God. Any theology that does not see those facts is simply not following Scripture.

Baptist growth has always been in proportion to the staunchness with which Baptist principles have been upheld and practised. So it ever has been with all religious bodies. Nothing is gained by smoothing off the edges of truth and toning down its colors, so that its contrast with error may be as slight as possible. On the contrary, let the edges remain a bit rough, let the colors be heightened, so that the world cannot possibly mistake the one for the other, and the prospect of the truth gaining acceptance, is greatly increased. The history of every religious denomination teaches the same lesson: progress depends on loyalty to truth. Compromise always means decay.

Lack of knowledge and trust in the Word of God leads men astray, to trust in the imaginations of men.

But deep as this glorious truth (that of the Lord's Supper) may be, it is not the bottom of the cup. Our vicarious burial into Christ's death is deeper still, plunging us ever deeper and deeper into the Savior's precious wounds. Our vicarious participation in Christ's death, our drinking of His cup, is no mere abstract and distant imputation of our sins to Him at the cross. Do we not believe that the cup which Jesus drank, and which we by grace drink with Him, is a cup filled with “wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation” against our sins? Do we not believe in that eye for eye, tooth for tooth, stripe for stripe, and blood for blood, God perfectly measured His unbearable wrath with exactitude, precisely meted out hell's fury against us, and poured the full measure of His indignation into the cup of our Savior's suffering? Do we not believe that the sufferings of Christ transcend His mere physical sufferings in Pilate's hall or upon Golgotha's hill? Do we not believe that in the hour and power of darkness, when the moon turned to blood and the sun to blackness as sackcloth of hair, that there beneath the ebony sun and crimson moon, a great transaction between the Godhead, a holy transaction too terrible for human eyes to gaze upon, and too wonderful for the minds of men and angels to comprehend? And it is in this moment of Christ's submersion into the dark and scarlet billows of Divine wrath that we see deeply, not only to the bottom of the cup, but also into the deepest meaning of immersion as the only accurate symbolic representation of Christ's horrific burial in the sea of God's wrath.

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.

Properly understood, Sola Scriptura means that Scripture alone is esteemed as the Word of God. It is His special revelation to man, revealing Him as Creator and Judge of all flesh and us as fallen creatures who deserve His wrath. The Bible reveals to us the hope of redemption that is possible in Christ Jesus alone, and in Whom alone there is safety from the judgment of God against sinners.

Instead of “confessionalism,” we need to promote and cultivate “something close to biblicism.” Instead of expending the bulk of our energies exegeting the Confession and the writings of Luther, Calvin, and the Puritans, we need to go back farther in history and find the answers and solutions to modern questions and problems as they’re provided in the writings of Moses, the Prophets, and the Apostles.1

The only good a book can do is to point back to the Scriptures, which focus on the Lamb of God who was slain to reconcile sinners to Holy God. To the degree books help us better comprehend God’s Truth, praise God – let us read! To the degree books distract us or, worse, lead us astray from God’s Truth – let us repent! Confessions or books, the same rules apply; undergirded by the reality that all works of man are influenced to some degree by the sin that has infected and affected every person in every generation of the human race.

Segal is probably right in suggesting that “scholarly reticence to ascribe spiritual experience to Paul may be rooted in theological embarrassment with the nonrational aspects of the human soul.”513 Paul is also a mystic, in Segal’s view, so it is a combination of Paul’s conversion experience and his mystical ascension that forms the basis of his theology.514 Paul’s “conversion” is not to be explained in intellectual categories alone, as the exchange of one set of religious facts and information for another: “Paul is not converted by Jesus’ teachings, but rather by an experience, a revelation of Christ, which radically reorients his life.”515

We do not deny that the church has many functions in relation to the Scriptures. She is: (1) the keeper of the oracles of God to whom they are committed and who preserves the authentic tables of the covenant of grace with the greatest fidelity, like a notary (Rom. 3:2); (2) the guide, to point out the Scriptures and lead us to them (Is. 30:21); (3) the defender, to vindicate and defend them by separating the genuine books from the spurious, in which sense she may be called the ground (hedraiōma) of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15*); (4) the herald who sets forth and promulgates them (2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 10:16); (5) the interpreter inquiring into the unfolding of the true sense. But all these imply a ministerial only and not a magisterial power.

We do not deny that the church has many functions in relation to the Scriptures. She is: (1) the keeper of the oracles of God to whom they are committed and who preserves the authentic tables of the covenant of grace with the greatest fidelity, like a notary (Rom. 3:2); (2) the guide, to point out the Scriptures and lead us to them (Is. 30:21); (3) the defender, to vindicate and defend them by separating the genuine books from the spurious, in which sense she may be called the ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15*); (4) the herald who sets forth and promulgates them (2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 10:16); (5) the interpreter inquiring into the unfolding of the true sense. But all these imply a ministerial only and not a magisterial power.

In light of the humility that covenant theology ought to instill in its students, the way in which believers have turned it into a battlefield is unacceptable. When the revelation and explanation of the mystery of Christ becomes a source of aggression and division between brethren, a diligent self-examination and repentance is in order for all parties involved. The mystery of Christ and His covenant is not a weapon of war, means of mischief, or source of schism. It is the gospel for the nations. It is union with God and communion with all His children in one Lord, one Spirit, one baptism, one covenant.

essential to the canonical horizon of biblical interpretation is the continuity between the promises of God and his fulfillment of those promises

There is nothing wrong, let me say at once, in thinking of the law in these three categories – moral, ceremonial and judicial. The trouble is – and what a trouble it is! – from Aquinas, through Calvin and so to covenant theologians, almost everybody nowadays accepts it as received wisdom that the law existed in these three distinct and stated parts. Yet these parts are neither ‘distinct’ nor ‘stated’ in Scripture. Nor is there any need to deduce the threefold division – it served no useful purpose except to uphold the pre-determined system of covenant theology. Nevertheless, covenant theologians (and almost everybody else), having assumed ‘the threefold division of the law’, then proceed to jettison two of the three parts, leaving the so-called moral law (or nine or nine and a half),[53], as the binding, perfect rule of life for believers. What an utterly unscriptural procedure! For a start, it is impossible to be consistent with the threefold division. More than that, Scripture will not allow such a neat segregation of the law. Scripture never talks in terms of the threefold division. Above all, to use the clever technique to get round Scripture, making it teach the direct opposite of what it does teach... words fail! For these reasons, the jargon of the threefold division of the law should be dropped. As I say, it serves no useful purpose. On the contrary, it grievously and utterly confounds scriptural teaching. The law in question is the law, the law of Moses, the law of the first or old covenant. The law, full stop.

Although the church before Moses did not have a written word, it does not follow that it can also do without it now. Then the church was still in its infancy and had not as yet been formed into a body politic, but now it is increased and more populous. Its position in former times was different from what it is now. In those times, the unwritten (agraphon) word could be more easily preserved on account of the longevity of the patriarchs, the fewness of the covenanted and the frequency of revelations (although it suffered not a few corruptions).

Although the church before Moses did not have a written word, it does not follow that it can also do without it now. Then the church was still in its infancy and had not as yet been formed into a body politic, but now it is increased and more populous. Its position in former times was different from what it is now. In those times, the unwritten (agraphon) word could be more easily preserved on account of the longevity of the patriarchs, the fewness of the covenanted and the frequency of revelations (although it suffered not a few corruptions).

The purpose of these narratives is not to demonstrate why and how our fruitful God always triumphs over infertility, opening what is closed and answering every petition. That is an understandable but misleading conclusion to draw. The purpose, rather, is to highlight God’s covenant faithfulness. He always upholds his side of the promise.

It is worth noting that the first statement of the salvation covenant speaks in terms of families rather than isolated individuals or nation-states. The heavenly Father, "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named" (Eph. 3:15), desires that the family structure, so basic to human society and yet now so marked by the effects of sin, should be a primary sphere for the revelation of the redeeming action of his grace. This family emphasis, so prominent in the Scriptures, has not always been adequately recognized in evangelical understanding of the plan of salvation.

The statement that Abraham's descendants shall "possess the gate of their enemies" is the promise of spiritual and cultural dominance of the godly covenant people.

We reject the Covenant Theology mantra, “Moses will lead you to Christ to be justified and Christ will lead you back to Moses to be sanctified.” That axiom would be appropriate if the tables of the covenant, or the Decalogue, were indeed the unchanging moral law of God. If such were the case, that would also mean that Moses is the ultimate authority in the conscience of a child of God. New Covenant Theology protests that such a view reduces Jesus to the status of servant in the house (Heb. 3:1-6), and not lord over the house. Christ then becomes a mere rubber stamp of Moses, who is the true and only lawgiver. We believe that the Scripture teaches that the ministry of the Spirit is to glorify Christ, not Moses.

We would claim for our reply that it is a defense of the enduring laws of God contained in (but not exhausted by) the Ten Commandments, expounded and expanded by our Lord Jesus Christ, the new lawgiver, in his ministry and later through the inspired epistles of the New Covenant Scriptures. Our basic disagreement with Barcellos has nothing to do with whether the revelation of God’s will for his people comes in clear and concrete commandments, or whether the Ten Commandments are a vital part of that revelation applicable to a child of God today. Our difference is (1) whether Moses is the greatest lawgiver that ever lived, including the Lord Jesus Christ himself, or (2) whether Jesus replaced Moses as the new prophet and lawgiver in the very same sense that he replaced Aaron as the new high priest. These two contrary principles underlie the two positions. New Covenant Theology defends Jesus Christ as the new, greater, full, and final lawgiver who replaces Moses. We insist that the laws of Christ, given to the children of the kingdom of grace, make higher demands than those given by God to Israel at Sinai.

The New Covenant has objective absolutes, but it is not law centered. It is Christ centered, as he is the covenant (Isa. 42:6; 49:8; 1 Cor. 11:25; Heb. 9:12; 13:12, 20). The New Covenant believer is under the rule of the entire New Covenant Scriptures, including the interpretation and application of the Ten Commandments given by Christ and the apostles. New Covenant Theology’s position in no way downgrades the Ten Commandments. We have no fault to find with them. They functioned well in fulfilling the preparatory phase in God’s scheme of redemption (Heb. 3:5).

For this reason, the rainbow may represent the bow (weapon) of God and that it has been placed at rest in the clouds as a symbol of God’s rest from judgment (see Deut. 32:23, 42; Pss. 7:12[13]; 18:14[15]; Hab. 3:9). It is also worth noting that the rainbow is a feature associated with the throne of God and the divine presence: “Like the appearance of the [rain]bow in the clouds on the day of rain, so is the appearance of the brightness around him” (Ezek. 1:28). This theme is picked up in the book of Revelation, where the clouds and the rainbow attend the divine presence: “And I saw another strong angel coming down from heaven clothed with a cloud and the rainbow was around his head” (Rev. 10:1; see 4:3). Perhaps the rainbow represents God’s royal presence as the one who rules this world and sustains the covenant of common grace.55 We know that Yahweh sits enthroned over the flood,

It is the covenant that gives formal articulation to the stages of the relationship between God and his people; it is the promise of God that he will make such a relationship possible; it is the Torah that governs how people may live in the presence of God and sustain relationship with him; and it is the kingdom of God that expresses his role in the cosmos and in which we participate as we live out our relationship with him.

These ideas stand in stark contrast to Israel’s ancient Near Eastern environment and to our own modern, secular environment. In the ancient Near East, people were merely slaves to the gods; in secular humanism, we are merely slaves to ourselves. Those in the covenant and in Christ are the people of God, members of the kingdom of God, conferred with holiness, and called by his name; we are slaves no longer.

The Old Testament provides a basic understanding of human identity that remains true today. All humans are dust; they are mortal and frail. Just as all people were made to be more than dust by virtue of the conferred image of God, Israel was elevated to yet a higher status by virtue of the covenant. It continued to function as God’s image, but God also intended it to function as priests, caretakers of the divine presence. Our Christian theology identifies us as all of the above and more.

Since the evolution of the human race shifted from a mother-centered to a father-centered structure of society, as well as of religion, we can trace the development of a maturing love mainly in the development of patriarchal religion. In the beginning of this development we find a despotic, jealous God, who considers man, whom he created, as his property, and is entitled to do with him whatever he pleases. This is the phase of religion in which God drives man out of paradise, lest he eat from the tree of knowledge and thus could become God himself; this is the phase in which God decides to destroy the human race by the flood, because none of them pleases him, with the exception of the favorite son, Noah; this is the phase in which God demands from Abraham that he kill his only, his beloved son, Isaac, to prove his love for God by the act of ultimate obedience. But simultaneously a new phase begins; God makes a covenant with Noah, in which he promises never to destroy the human race again, a covenant by which he is bound himself. Not only is he bound by his promises, he is also bound by his own principle, that of justice, and on this basis God must yield to Abraham's demand to spare Sodom if there are at least ten just men. But the development goes further than transforming God from the figure of a despotic tribal chief into a loving father, into a father who himself is bound by the principles which he has postulated; it goes in the direction of transforming God from the figure of a father into a symbol of his principles, those of justice, truth and love. God is truth, God is justice. In this development God ceases to be a person, a man, a father; he becomes the symbol of the principle of unity behind the manifoldness of phenomena, of the vision of the flower which will grow from the spiritual seed within man. God cannot have a name. A name always denotes a thing, or a person, something finite. How can God have a name, if he is not a person, not a thing? The most striking incident of this change lies in the Biblical story of God's revelation to Moses. When Moses tells him that the Hebrews will not believe that God has sent him, unless he can tell them God's name (how could idol worshipers comprehend a nameless God, since the very essence of an idol is to have a name?), God makes a concession. He tells Moses that his name is 'I am becoming that which I am becoming.' 'I-am-becoming is my name.' The 'I-am-becoming' means that God is not finite, not a person, not a 'being.' The most adequate translation of the sentence would be: tell them that 'my name is nameless'. The prohibition to make any image of God, to pronounce his name in vain, eventually to pronounce his name at all, aims at the same goal, that of freeing man from the idea that God is a father, that he is a person. In the subsequent theological development, the idea is carried further in the principle that one must not even give God any positive attribute. To say of God that he is wise, strong, good implies again that he is a person; the most I can do is to say what God is not, to state negative attributes, to postulate that he is not limited, not unkind, not unjust. The more I know what God is not, the more knowledge I have of God. Following the maturing idea of monotheism in its further consequences can lead only to one conclusion: not to mention God's name at all, not to speak about God. Then God becomes what he potentially is in monotheistic theology, the nameless One, an inexpressible stammer, referring to the unity underlying the phenomenal universe, the ground of all existence; God becomes truth, love, justice. God is inas much as I am human.

Since the evolution of the human race shifted from a mother-centered to a father-centered structure of society, as well as of religion, we can trace the development of a maturing love mainly in the development of patriarchal religion. In the beginning of this development we find a despotic, jealous God, who considers man, whom he created, as his property, and is entitled to do with him whatever he pleases. This is the phase of religion in which God drives man out of paradise, lest he eat from the tree of knowledge and thus could become God himself; this is the phase in which God decides to destroy the human race by the flood, because none of them pleases him, with the exception of the favorite son, Noah; this is the phase in which God demands from Abraham that he kill his only, his beloved son, Isaac, to prove his love for God by the act of ultimate obedience. But simultaneously a new phase begins; God makes a covenant with Noah, in which he promises never to destroy the human race again, a covenant by which he is bound himself. Not only is he bound by his promises, he is also bound by his own principle, that of justice, and on this basis God must yield to Abraham's demand to spare Sodom if there are at least ten just men. But the development goes further than transforming God from the figure of a despotic tribal chief into a loving father, into a father who himself is bound by the principles which he has postulated; it goes in the direction of transforming God from the figure of a father into a symbol of his principles, those of justice, truth and love. God is truth, God is justice. In this development God ceases to be a person, a man, a father; he becomes the symbol of the principle of unity behind the manifoldness of phenomena, of the vision of the flower which will grow from the spiritual seed within man. God cannot have a name. A name always denotes a thing, or a person, something finite. How can God have a name, if he is not a person, not a thing? The most striking incident of this change lies in the Biblical story of God's revelation to Moses. When Moses tells him that the Hebrews will not believe that God has sent him, unless he can tell them God's name (how could idol worshipers comprehend a nameless God, since the very essence of an idol is to have a name?), God makes a concession. He tells Moses that his name is 'I am becoming that which I am becoming.' 'I-am-becoming is my name.' The 'I-am-becoming' means that God is not finite, not a person, not a 'being.' The most adequate translation of the sentence would be: tell them that 'my name is nameless'. The prohibition to make any image of God, to pronounce his name in vain, eventually to pronounce his name at all, aims at the same goal, that of freeing man from the idea that God is a father, that he is a person. In the subsequent theological development, the idea is carried further in the principle that one must not even give God any positive attribute. To say of God that he is wise, strong, good implies again that he is a person; the most I can do is to say what God is not, to state negative attributes, to postulate that he is not limited, not unkind, not unjust. The more I know what God is not, the more knowledge I have of God. Following the maturing idea of monotheism in its further consequences can lead only to one conclusion: not to mention God's name at all, not to speak about God. Then God becomes what he potentially is in monotheistic theology, the nameless One, an inexpressible stammer, referring to the unity underlying the phenomenal universe, the ground of all existence; God becomes truth, love, justice. God is inasmuch as i am human.

Men with power are prone to misuse it, and it is nowhere more damaging to good order than when the power of the state is wedded to a perceived religious authority. And when a few children of God desire to walk as they see fit in Scripture, the religious authorities inevitably take actions to stop it and try to bind the consciences of the “rebels.” The danger of state churches is clearly demonstrated by history, as man cannot rule as God does. So having each congregation be autonomous is the only acceptable way; and it has the benefit of aligning with Scripture. So the congregation and each saint therein stands before God with, as Luther put it, a conscience bound only by the Word of God.

Only the Spirit can grant us understanding of Scripture, but it is Scripture alone that is the authority, not men (not even Puritans), not popes, not Councils, not tradition, not Confessions. Now it is that last – Confessions – that is the sticking point. It is, in my view, the fundamental difference between covenant theologians and new-covenant theologians. Both parties claim Scripture as their authority, but as I have observed, time and again, when it comes to facing the Scriptures on the issues involved in new-covenant theology, covenant theologians almost invariably – invariably, in my experience – fall back to the Confession or the system.

My concern with this is not about who owns the trademark. If a label is used chiefly to lionize “us” and demonize “them,” we’d be better off without it. Rather, my concern is that the richness and breadth of Reformed faith and practice are being reduced to a few doctrines. In the process, even those doctrines lose much of their supporting rationale. In fact, their meaning changes at crucial points. For example, I believe that the doctrine of election is inextricably bound up with covenant theology and with the covenantal life that is shaped in the New Testament by the means of grace. As I have argued, even “eternal security” is different from the doctrine of perseverance.

Similar evidence is found in Malachi, when the Lord says, “The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?” (Mal. 3:1–2). Here again the one speaking (“the LORD of hosts”) distinguishes himself from “the Lord whom you seek,” suggesting two separate persons, both of whom can be called “Lord.

Thus, our main point to make here is that there is not only a crucially vertical (God-humanity covenant) and eschatological (new exodus) aspect to the enacted parable of the Last Supper, but there is equally a horizontal, new covenant community aspect.

For Christians, especially postmodern Christians bereft of any consensus, sexual difference is a similar category. We will not know what it means until we allow God to tell us what it means. The tradition has claimed that we do not know who we are and what it means to find ourselves differentiated as men and women until we allow the premises and practices of revelation to unfold. In the tradition, stretching from Augustine to John Paul II, sexual difference is not mute, inert, nonexistent, or indifferent. In this tradition, God brings man to woman and tells the two sexes something they would not otherwise know: that their creation is good, that their creation as two sexes is for the sake of enabling a church and a covenant, and that, despite their fallenness, their twoness can in itself become a witness to reconciliation and redemption through marriage. Marriage gives this aspect of our creation the power to testify, and the nonmarried offer supporting testimony through their chastity, which creates the social ecology supporting marriage.

Thus there is an ancient Christian tradition, from Augustine to John Paul II, which has believed and argued that sexual difference is significant. With varying degrees of explicitness, the greatest theologians in the Christian West have been relatively cohesive on the point that sexual difference, which enables biological procreation and which humans share with animals, has more than physical and animal significance. To synthesize, based on the material we have examined in this book, I propose the following theological significance for sexual difference: The same God whom we know in Christ has, in his goodness, created us as male and female. To be male or female, then, is to be blessed, for it is to be something that is good. To be this sexually differentiated creature is to be something that will be redeemed, and redeemed as it was made and not as some other creature; in other words, sexual difference is not something human beings should attempt to ignore or deplore. Sexual difference is something humans should embrace and welcome, for to do that is to honor creation and anticipate redemption. Such a way of life, to which Christ calls all human beings, means to love the neighbor and enable the neighbor to be what he or she is meant to be in the sexual sphere.

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

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.

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.

It is the especial duty of all churches, and of all believers, to search diligently into what God finds fault with, in his word, and to be deeply impressed with that, so far as they find themselves guilty. Lack of this is what has laid most churches in the world under a fatal security. Therefore they say, or think, or carry themselves, as though they were “increased in goods, and had need of nothing,” when indeed “they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” To consider what God blames, and to affect our souls with a sense of guilt is that “trembling at His word” which He so approves.

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.