Not everyone in the covenant of grace is elect.\u201d In fact, it is due to this understanding of the covenant of grace that a covenant ecclesiology views the church, by nature, as a mixed community, which also lends support for the practice of paedobaptism. In principle, there is nothing objectionable in viewing unregenerate people as part of the covenant community and in applying to them the covenant sign, contra those in the believers-church tradition (and most within dispensational theology), who contend that baptism ought to apply only to believers\u2014that is, those who profess faith in Christ. At the heart of the difference between these two ecclesiologies is a larger covenantal debate regarding the similarity and difference between the old and new covenant communities.<\/p>\n
THE PARTIES OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE. Third, and related to the last point, to grasp covenant theology\u2019s view of the covenant of grace, we must also ask, who are the parties of the covenant of grace? Given the \u201cconditionality\u201d of the covenant of grace and the fact that not everyone in the covenant is of it, who exactly are the parties of the covenant? Does God covenant with the elect only, or does he covenant with \u201cbelievers and their children\u201d\u2014children who may or may not believe? It would seem that, given covenant theology\u2019s view of conditionality and given the mixed nature of the community, the answer would be the latter. Yet within covenant theology, there has been a significant debate on this question. For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith (7.3) and the Westminster Larger Catechism (question 31) opt for the first option, namely, that God covenants with only the elect in the covenant of grace. Cornelis Venema summarizes the confession\u2019s view: \u201cIn the strictest sense of the covenant as a saving communion with God, the parties of the covenant of grace are the triune God and his elect people,\u201d and the condition of entering that covenant is repentance and faith. All those who reject the free offer of the gospel stand outside the covenant of grace, and, it would seem to imply, they are also outside the covenant community.
\nIf this is so, then why do so many covenant theologians argue that the covenant of grace also embraces \u201call believers and their children\u201d\u2014children who, over time, do not necessarily believe and who thus show themselves to be the nonelect? The answer centers on a crucial discussion regarding the covenant\u2019s \u201cdual aspect.\u201d As Venema correctly notes, \u201cThese theologians, while acknowledging that the life and salvation promised in the covenant of grace are inherited only by the elect, argue that the covenant promise, together with its accompanying obligation, is extended to Abraham and his seed.\u201d How do we make sense of this seemingly contradictory answer? This is not a minor point. Theologically speaking, much of the argument for a covenantal view of the church and ordinances, especially its defense of paedobaptism, centers on this issue. In fact, a standard argument of paedobaptists is the following:<\/p>\n
The children of believers were always included in the covenant of grace under the older covenant administrations. In deference to this established biblical pattern, we must assume that, apart from explicit biblical warrant to the contrary, the children of believers are still included in the covenant of grace.<\/p>\n
Thus, infants, like their adult believing parents, are to be circumcised and now baptized because they are both members in the covenant community.
\nAt this point, regardless of whether this \u201cdual aspect\u201d of the covenant is biblical, especially in regard to the church (an issue to which we will return in part 3), what is instructive is how covenant theology understands the relationship between the biblical covenants to the one covenant of grace. The only way they can justify the \u201cdual aspect\u201d of the covenant, especially in regard to the church, is by viewing the covenant of grace (an overarching theological category) through the lens of the Abrahamic covenant (a specific historical covenant that includes within it national, typological, and spiritual aspects). That is why the genealogical principle\u2014\u201cto you and your children\u201d\u2014that is given in the Abrahamic covenant and linked to circumcision continues unchanged across redemptive history, even with the inauguration of the new covenant era. A common complaint against covenant theology is that it tends to reduce the national and typological aspects of the Abrahamic covenant to the spiritual aspects, which, in turn, become the grid by which all other biblical covenants are viewed, especially the new covenant. Thus, to speak of the covenant of grace is really to speak of the Abrahamic covenant reduced to its spiritual aspects alone. That is why in the discussion regarding the parties of the covenant, covenant theologians can speak of the \u201cdual aspect\u201d of the covenant, even though \u201cbelievers and their children\u201d is a genealogical formula specifically tied to the Abrahamic covenant. No doubt, the genealogical principle continues in later covenants, but, as we will argue, it is highly questionable whether there is no change to it with Christ\u2019s coming and new covenant inauguration. Also, at this point, covenant theology tends to marginalize the national elements of the Abrahamic covenant and to interpret them mostly in spiritual terms\u2014another point dispensational thought has criticized repeatedly.
\nIn covenant theology, examples of the equation of the covenant of grace with the Abrahamic covenant abound. For example, Louis Berkhof admits that, at least in theory, the Abrahamic covenant has both national and spiritual aspects to it; however, in reality the national aspects of the covenant fall by the wayside in his discussion, and the spiritual aspects are treated as primary. That is why he can say that circumcision is \u201cthe initiatory sign and seal of the covenant of grace\u201d (when in truth it is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant and not of every biblical covenant) and that \u201cthis covenant [Abrahamic] is still in force and is essentially identical with the \u2018new covenant\u2019 of the present dispensation\u201d with little regard for the redemptive-historical distinctions between the biblical covenants. Or, this is why John Murray argues that since \u201cthe new covenant is the fulfillment and unfolding of the Abrahamic covenant,\u201d and \u201cthe covenant made with Abraham included the infant seed, and was signified and sealed by circumcision,\u201d and since \u201cthat circumcision is the sign of the covenant in its deepest spiritual significance,\u201d we are under divine command, derived from the continuity of the covenant of grace, to baptize our infant children, thus making them full members of the church and members in the new covenant. In the end, what Berkhof, Murray, and covenant theology do is strip the Abrahamic covenant of some of its aspects, identify it as a pure gospel covenant, and then equate it, almost in a one-to-one fashion, with the new covenant.
\nBut the crucial question is whether covenant theology\u2019s understanding of the relationship between the biblical covenants to the covenant of grace is legitimate. Within covenant theology, this construction explains why there is continuity across redemptive history, foundational to ecclesiology and other doctrinal areas. But can it account for the biblical distinctions between the covenants that seem to entail key covenantal discontinuities, which have major theological implications, especially in ecclesiology? Before our evaluation, let us first explain covenant theology\u2019s view of the nature of the church as it relates to their understanding of the biblical covenants.<\/p>\n
COVENANT THEOLOGY AND THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH<\/p>\n
Covenant theology contends that in the administration of the covenant of grace, there are numerous people who are in the covenant, with all the privileges pertaining thereto, yet who are not of the covenant, or among the elect. For this reason, covenant theologians teach that the circle of the covenant people is wider than the circle of election. What is crucial to note is how their view of the nature of the church is organically tied to their understanding of the covenant of grace.
\nRelated to the unity of the covenant of grace, then, is the unity\/continuity of the people of God across the ages, especially seen in the Israel-church relationship. Instead of viewing the Israel-church relationship in ways that preserve covenantal continuity and discontinuity, covenant theology tends to emphasize the element of continuity at the expense of the latter, although it must be admitted that there are fine nuances within the system. Randy Booth, for example, asserts that a covenantal understanding of the people of God entails that \u201cGod has had one people throughout all the ages. Although this one church has developed through various stages, she is still the same church from age to age.\u201d Or Berkhof states it this way:<\/p>\n
The New Testament Church is essentially one with the Church of the old dispensation. As far as their essential nature is concerned, they both consist of true believers, and of true believers only. And in their external organization both represent a mixture of good and evil. Yet several important changes resulted from the accomplished work of Jesus Christ. The Church was divorced from the national life of Israel and obtained an independent organization. In connection with this the national boundaries of the Church were swept away. What had up to this time been a national Church now assumed a universal character.<\/p>\n
In underscoring the unity of God\u2019s people across the ages, most covenant theology today views the church as the fulfillment or redefinition of Israel, not as her \u201creplacement.\u201d Seeking to avoid any notion of \u201csupersessionism,\u201d Horton nicely captures the overall relationship: \u201cThe church does not replace Israel; it fulfills the promise God made to Abraham that in him and his seed all the nations would be blessed.\u201d In this sense, the church is the true, eschatological Israel, who receives all God\u2019s promises in Christ. For this reason, in contrast to dispensationalism, even if Romans 11 teaches a mass conversion of Jewish people in the future, this does not entail Israel\u2019s national-political restoration to receive some promises different from Gentile believers. The church, composed of believing Jews and Gentiles, is the one new man who lasts forever as the church.
\nFrom the way covenant theology understands the unity of both the covenant of grace and God\u2019s people, a number of ecclesiological entailments are drawn, but a key one is the theological warrant for paedobaptism. As often argued, if God in the old era included \u201cbelievers and their children\u201d in the covenant community (Israel), then nothing has changed in the new administration (in the church). Or as Booth states, \u201cSince God has not changed the terms of church membership, new covenant believers and their children are likewise included in his church.\u201d
\nThis stress on the continuity of the people of God across redemptive history reminds us of an earlier observation we noted regarding the nature of the church: covenant theology not only views Israel and the church as one people but also views the nature\/makeup of the new covenant church as reflecting Israel of old\u2014that is, she is a \u201cmixed\u201d people, comprising \u201cbaptized believers and baptized unbelievers.\u201d Thus, like Israel, the circle of the church is wider than the circle of true believers, who are born of the Spirit, are in faith union with Christ, are justified, and are sanctified.
\nAt this point in the discussion, covenant theology employs the famous \u201cinvisible-visible\u201d distinction so important to their ecclesiology. The invisible church refers to the church as God sees it, that is, the elect\u2014those from all times and places whom the Lord knows and who are his and his alone, perfectly and infallibly. In this sense, the church, whether under the old or the new covenant, is a spiritual entity, invisible to the natural eye\u2014the one people of God over time. Louis Berkhof states it this way:<\/p>\n
The Church is said to be invisible, because she is essentially spiritual and in her spiritual essence cannot be discerned by the physical eye; and because it is impossible to determine infallibly who do and who do not belong to her. The union with Christ is a mystical union; the Spirit that unites them constitutes an invisible tie; and the blessings of salvation, such as regeneration, genuine conversion, true faith, and spiritual communion with Christ, are all invisible to the natural eye\u2014and yet these things constitute the real forma (ideal character) of the Church.<\/p>\n
However, the invisible church also manifests itself in history in a visible, local form. As Murray reminds us, \u201cThe church may not be defined as an entity wholly invisible to human perception and observation. The church is the company or society or assembly or congregation or communion of the faithful.\u201d The church is a divinely created bond between God and his people and between other humans. It becomes visible in the ministry of the Word, in the practice of the sacraments, and in external organization and government. But as a visible entity, it is a \u201cmixture of regenerate and unregenerate people who are baptized.\u201d
\nHow does this view of the nature of the church lead covenant theology to draw the crucial theological entailment of infant baptism? As the argument goes, in the previous covenant administrations, beginning with Abraham, infants of believing households were included in the visible church (Abraham\u2019s family, Israel) by their circumcision and prior to a personal profession of faith, and by that act they were considered full members in the covenant community even though they were not yet regenerate members; since this was true for the old covenant community, the same is true under the new covenant. Hence, the rationale to apply the covenant sign of baptism to the infants of believing parents even though these infants have not yet exercised faith and even though this practice seems to disrupt the biblical order of baptism in the New Testament\u2014namely, first, repentance toward God and faith in Christ, and then, second, a confession of that faith publicly in water baptism.
\nCovenant theology\u2019s view of the nature of the church differs substantially from many in the dispensational tradition and from those who identify themselves as part of the believers-church tradition, such as Baptists. In a believers-church view, at least in the one we will defend, although there is only one people of God, there is a redemptive-historical difference, or better, a covenantal difference, between Israel and the church. As God\u2019s eternal plan has been brought to fulfillment in Christ, all the promises, types, and covenants have reached their fulfillment in him. One crucial entailment of Christ\u2019s work is that he, as the antitype of the previous covenant mediators\u2014and thus far greater than they\u2014not only fulfills what they typified but also inaugurates a new and unbreakable covenant, creating a community that is by nature different from Israel of old. In this unbreakable covenant, all those in it, not just some, will savingly know God, be justified, and be circumcised of heart. The difference between Israel and the church is that what was true only of a remnant of individuals is now true of the entire community in Christ. It is for this reason that baptism, as the sign of the new covenant, is reserved only for those who have savingly entered into the glorious blessings of the new covenant by God\u2019s sovereign work of grace in their lives. However, in contrast to this view, covenant theology argues for a mixed view of the church, tied to their understanding of the covenant of grace.
\nWhat evidence does covenant theology give for its view of the church? Proponents often cite at least four pieces of biblical and theological evidence.
\n1. The most foundational evidence is the appeal to the substantial\/essential continuity of the covenant of grace across redemptive history. For covenant theology, this entails two truths. First, it entails that there is only one people of God over time, which is not unique to their view. But second, it also entails that the nature of the covenant community is the same. Thus, what is true about the makeup of the covenant people with Abraham and his children and Israel is also true of the new covenant community, the visible church, which is constituted as a mixture of believers and unbelievers.
\n2. Covenant theologians also appeal to inaugurated eschatology and the \u201calready\u2014not yet\u201d tension to explain that the church, like Israel, is a mixed people. The reason for this appeal is due to the fact that a mixed view of the church seems to conflict with the Old Testament expectation that Messiah\u2019s people will be a regenerate people since they will all be born\/empowered\/indwelt by the Spirit, know God, and receive full forgiveness of sin. Covenant theologians admit that Jeremiah 31:31\u201334 anticipates such a people, but Richard Pratt, for example, argues that Jeremiah 31\u2019s anticipation of an entire people who are regenerate is realized only in the not yet. At present, the church remains a people constituted by true believers and sanctified unbelievers. G. K. Beale argues that at present the church is different from Israel because she is more \u201cdemocratized\u201d\u2014namely, there is no categorical distinction between priests and prophets and the rest of God\u2019s people. The church now remains a \u201cmixed\u201d people; her nature as an entire regenerate people awaits the not yet.
\n3. To further support this claim, covenant theologians appeal to the warning passages of Scripture, especially those that speak of the possibility of apostasy (e.g., Heb. 6:4\u20136; 10:28\u201330). Why are these warning texts cited as corroborative evidence? Because these texts seem to imply that it is possible for a person to be a member of the new covenant community (i.e., the visible church) but then, sadly, to depart from the faith, thus demonstrating that he or she never was a regenerate, believing person, despite being externally and objectively a member of the covenant community. Thus, whether one thinks of the nature of Israel or the church, they are essentially the same. That is why both communities may include the elect and nonelect, baptized believers and unbelievers\u2014that is, those who by receiving the covenant sign (circumcision or baptism) are externally and objectively brought into covenant membership but who may never exercise saving faith. Covenant theology then applies this understanding to infant baptism and contends that there is nothing objectionable in applying the covenant sign of baptism to infants and viewing them as full members of the church apart from explicit faith in Christ.
\nAt this point, someone could dispute this particular interpretation of the warning and apostasy passages. In fact, one could contend that this line of argument leads to the interpretation that it is possible for true, regenerate Christians to lose their salvation. After all, has not Arminian theology repeatedly argued this exact point from these texts? Needless to say, covenant theologians counter by arguing that the Arminian understanding of these texts is unbiblical as applied to the elect. The Bible does not teach that true Christians (elect) can lose their salvation. Ironically, however, they agree with the Arminian exegesis and conclusion as applied to full covenant members who are not the elect. Thus, for most covenant theologians, these texts do not imply that it is possible for the elect to lose their salvation; rather, they demonstrate that \u201cunregenerate members of the visible church can be covenant breakers in the new covenant\u201d and that the new covenant is a breakable covenant like the old. In commenting on the implications of the warning texts for understanding the nature of the church, Doug Wilson confidently asserts, \u201cThe elect and the covenant members are not identical sets of people.\u201d Hence, accordingly, the warning texts of Scripture corroborate their view that the covenant community across the ages is a mixed community. Wilson nicely summarizes this view when he writes,<\/p>\n
The baptistic assumption [those who reject a mixed view] is that the covenants are unlike in this respect. Some Old Covenant members were regenerate, some were not. All New Covenant members are regenerate. The paedobaptist [covenant theology] assumption is that the covenants are alike in this respect. Some Old Covenant members were regenerate, some were not. Some New Covenant members are regenerate, some are not. The paedobaptist holds that the difference between the covenants is that the promises in the New are much better\u2014meaning that the ratio of believer to unbeliever will drastically change. The history of the New Israel will not be dismal like the Old Israel.<\/p>\n
4. Further supporting evidence is found in the promise given in Acts 2:39\u2014\u201cfor you and your children\u201d\u2014as well as in the household theme across the canon and in the household baptisms in the New Testament (see Acts 16:15, 32\u201333; 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16). Covenant theologians are not bothered by the fact that there is no unambiguous example of infant baptism in the New Testament; rather, they are convinced that passages such as Acts 2:39, alongside the importance of family relations in Scripture and the recording of household baptisms in the New Testament, provide a strong biblical warrant to ground the practice of infant baptism. Why? Because it is almost unthinkable that infants would not be considered part of the church through the covenantal sign of baptism given the continuity of the covenant of grace and given the importance of households and family solidarity in the Old Testament. Infants, in the church, especially of Jewish-Christian parents, would naturally be regarded as subjects of baptism, just as they were of circumcision in the Old Testament. Since infants of believers were always included in the covenant under older covenant administrations, then we must assume that, apart from explicit biblical warrant to the contrary, infants of believers are still included in the church today. We do not need a specific command to baptize infants nor do we need an unambiguous example of infant baptism in the New Testament. The principle of continuity leads us to assume that infants are included in the church unless we are explicitly told that they are not. As noted above, ironically, this hermeneutical argument is similar to one that dispensational theology makes, though applied in different areas. Dispensational thought makes it in regard to the land promise, while covenant theology makes it in regard to the genealogical principle, both of which are tied to the Abrahamic covenant!
\nGiven what has been stated, it is not surprising that this question bears important implications for how covenant theology views the nature and function of the covenant signs since, given the continuity of the covenant of grace and the covenant community, it is assumed that the covenant signs (circumcision and baptism) signify the same realities. Let us now turn to this last point.<\/p>\n
COVENANT THEOLOGY AND COVENANT SIGNS<\/p>\n
Given the continuity of the covenant of grace and the covenant community, covenant theology also contends that the covenant signs carry essentially the same meaning. In fact, it is this understanding that constitutes part of the overall defense of paedobaptism, since the relationship between circumcision and baptism is one of replacement. No doubt, in replacing circumcision, baptism signifies that the promised era of the Old Testament has come to fulfillment in Christ. In this sense, the new covenant fulfills the old. However, the basic substantial meaning of circumcision and baptism is the same, namely, the covenant promise of God.
\nWhat is the essential meaning of the two covenantal signs? The signs signify entrance into the covenant community and access to all the blessings pertaining thereto. Thus, for example, covenant theology argues that circumcision was the outward \u201csign and seal\u201d of entrance into the covenant of grace and the covenant community. It was a \u201csign\u201d in the sense that it signified something; it was a \u201cseal\u201d in that it confirmed the binding nature of the covenant, grounded in God\u2019s promises to his covenant people. Circumcision was administered to all infant male children when they were eight days old. However, circumcision was not effective on its own in any kind of ex opere operato way; it always had to be combined with faith. If it was not, one showed himself to be a covenant breaker instead of a covenant keeper. This explains why many Israelites who were circumcised externally proved in the end to be covenant breakers, as they failed to persevere in an obedient faith. Furthermore, it was for this reason that one could legitimately distinguish between the covenant members (those who were externally circumcised) and the spiritual remnant or elect (those who were externally circumcised and internally regenerated) within the covenant community of Israel.
\nWhat may be said about circumcision, so the argument goes, is also true of baptism. In the New Testament, baptism replaces circumcision as the covenant \u201csign and seal.\u201d In baptism, as with circumcision, we are brought into the visible church, identified with Christ, and considered full covenant members. But as with circumcision, baptism does not effect a saving union in and of itself. It is only by God\u2019s grace, when God\u2019s Spirit makes us alive, grants us faith and repentance, and unites us with Christ, that we experience true salvation\u2014the reality to which baptism points. That is why, parallel to the Old Testament, even if infants are baptized under the new covenant and considered covenant members, they are truly the remnant or part of the invisible church only if they exercise saving faith in our Lord and persevere in him.
\nFor our purposes, what is important to observe regarding this discussion of circumcision is that most of the argument attempts to demonstrate the spiritual meaning and significance of the rite. Why? Because central to the covenantal argument is the continuity of the covenantal signs\u2014a continuity that seeks to point to the spiritual realities of such things as regeneration, justification, union with Christ, and ultimately Christ\u2019s cross work. Hence, for baptism to replace circumcision, it must be shown that both circumcision and baptism signify the same thing. But to anticipate our argument in chapter 19, no one disputes the fact that baptism signifies spiritual realities won by Christ and applied to us as his people. The point of contention is whether circumcision, in its Old Testament covenantal context, conveys the exact same realities as baptism does in the New Testament. Does not circumcision also convey more\u2014for example, national, typological, and spiritual realities\u2014which minimally demands that circumcision and baptism are similar in meaning but not exactly the same? The only way to resolve this issue is to think through the relationships between the biblical covenants. As we do, we must be careful not to read new covenant realities into the old without first grasping the Old Testament rite in its own covenantal context and then carefully thinking through the similarities and differences of the covenantal signs.
\nIn covenant theology the spiritual meaning of circumcision is understood in at least three ways\u2014ways that ultimately link it to baptism under the new covenant, so that what may be said about circumcision may also be said about baptism.
\n1. At the heart of the Abrahamic covenant is the covenantal formula \u201cI will be your God, and you will be my people,\u201d which speaks to the blessing of union and communion with the Lord. As a sign of the covenant, circumcision signifies and seals this blessing. Objectively, it makes one a member of the covenant community. The same may be said of baptism, which signifies that the recipient has objectively entered into faith union with Christ in his redemptive work. This is not to deny that the recipient must still exercise faith before covenant blessings may be appropriated. Failure to respond in faith to one\u2019s baptism brings covenant curses instead of blessings. But note: like circumcision, baptism is viewed as a sign that promises and anticipates gospel realities; it does not affirm or testify that these same gospel realities have already taken place in the recipient.
\n2. Circumcision, as a physical act, signified the removal of the defilement of sin, the cleansing from sin, and it pointed to the need for a spiritual circumcision of the heart (see Ex. 6:12, 30; Lev. 19:23; 26:41; Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; 6:10; 9:25). Likewise, baptism is an outward sign of the inward, spiritual need for the grace of God in the heart of the covenant member\u2014\u201cit points to the necessity of spiritual regeneration\u201d; it does not testify that regeneration has already taken place.
\n3. Circumcision was the seal of the righteousness that Abraham had by faith while he was yet uncircumcised (Rom. 4:11). As such, in circumcision, \u201cGod signified and sealed the fact that he justifies believers by faith and considers us as righteous through faith.\u201d Circumcision is not a guarantee that Abraham has faith, nor even that Abraham (or anyone else, for that matter) has righteousness. Instead, \u201cwhat circumcision guarantees is the word of God\u2019s promise: that righteousness will be given on the basis of faith.\u201d The same is true of baptism. This is why both circumcision and baptism testify to God\u2019s promise to justify the ungodly by faith. This is also why one can circumcise or baptize an infant before faith is present. The covenant sign is simply a promise that righteousness will be given when a person believes the covenant promises of God.
\nThus, regarding the significance of circumcision and baptism, covenant theology insists that the two signs signify the same gospel truths, namely, regeneration (Rom. 2:29; Col. 2:11\u201312), union with Christ (Rom. 6:4; Gal. 3:27\u201329), and all the blessings related to that union (Acts 2:38). Because the signs signify the same meaning and application, if it is legitimate in the previous covenants to apply the sign to \u201cbelievers and their children,\u201d then the same is true in the new covenant era. This, however, raises an obvious question: If the signs signify the same truth, then why did circumcision end as a covenant sign, especially for the Jewish Christian? Most covenant theologians argue that the change was administrative due to the greater blessings of the new covenant, especially in extending more blessings to more people (e.g., Jew and Gentile). As noted above, as we move from previous covenants to the new covenant, we also move from promise to fulfillment. Now that Christ has come, some of the previous rites are changed to reflect the completed work of Christ. Baptism has replaced the bloody rite of circumcision, just as the Lord\u2019s Supper has replaced the bloody Passover lamb.
\nHere in summary form is the basic viewpoint of covenant theology, especially regarding how it conceives the nature and relationship of the biblical covenants and the implications this has for its ecclesiology. As with dispensationalism, covenant theology is a biblical-theological viewpoint that seeks to \u201cput together\u201d the canon of Scripture and grasp something of God\u2019s glorious plan. Although both views agree on many central truths of the gospel, they also disagree, especially in how they understand the nature of the biblical covenants and their (inter) relationships. In the next chapter, after a brief hermeneutical discussion about how we go about the task of reading and applying Scripture, we will return to these two theological systems by highlighting some of the key issues that need adjudication and why it is that we are convinced that kingdom through covenant, or progressive covenantalism, explains the overall biblical storyline better than the present two biblical-theological systems. In the remaining chapters we will seek to demonstrate this thesis and how it affects various doctrinal areas in systematic theology.<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
HERMENEUTICAL ISSUES IN \u201cPUTTING TOGETHER\u201d THE COVENANTS<\/p>\n
What does it mean to be \u201cbiblical\u201d? How do we rightly exegete biblical texts and draw correct theological conclusions from them? At the heart of Christian theology is the attempt to be biblical, to \u201ctake every thought captive to obey Christ\u201d (2 Cor. 10:5 ESV). But how do we know that our theological proposals are biblically warranted? Obviously, these questions are not new; they have been with us since Scripture was first given and interpreted. And, it must be admitted, these questions are not as easy and straightforward to answer as many assume. All of us have experienced diversity of opinion within the church, even among those of us who affirm Scripture\u2019s full authority. This has apparently led some to treat the Bible like a wax nose, twisting and shaping it at will to fit a variety of viewpoints, with the conclusion that it is impossible to demonstrate one\u2019s interpretation as better, or more biblical, than another.
\nFor this reason, it is necessary to reflect on the hermeneutical task, at least to describe how we are approaching Scripture, interpreting it, and drawing our theological conclusions. Given our thesis that progressive covenantalism explains the data better than the other dominant biblical-theological systems on the biblical covenants and their relationships, it is incumbent on us to state our basic hermeneutical approach. Our goal in discussing these points is twofold: first, to describe our hermeneutical commitments; and second, to provide a point of entry for discussing why and where we differ from dispensationalism and covenant theology.
\nThe debate between dispensational and covenant theology is complicated. In theological debates, it is difficult to adjudicate between viewpoints. As most admit, theological positions involve more than merely appealing to one or two texts; entire positions involve a discussion of how texts are understood in their context, how those texts are interrelated with other texts, and ultimately how the entire canon of Scripture is put together. We enter this discussion with a singular focus: a careful investigation of the nature of the biblical covenants and their relationships to each other, since we contend that it is this point that is central to the debate.
\nBefore the biblical covenants are expounded in part 2 and some theological implications developed in part 3, this chapter will focus on two broad areas. First, we will discuss how we are approaching, interpreting, and applying Scripture. Second, building on these hermeneutical points, we will revisit the systems of dispensational and covenant theology and discuss some of the key hermeneutical issues that separate them\u2014issues that require adjudication before we can evaluate which system is more \u201cbiblical.\u201d As we do this, kingdom through covenant will be contrasted with the other two systems and presented as better accounting for the Bible\u2019s storyline as unveiled through the progression of the biblical covenants.<\/p>\n
HERMENEUTICAL BASICS: READING SCRIPTURE AND DOING THEOLOGY<\/p>\n
Regarding hermeneutical basics, much could be said; we can only scratch the surface of the larger discussion. Furthermore, most of what follows is in agreement with a majority of approaches to evangelical hermeneutics, so, in one sense, we are not saying anything new. Yet it is still important to describe how we approach the task of reading and applying Scripture and thus how we move from text to theological formulation. Where we differ with dispensational and covenant theology is not over the larger issues of hermeneutics but over specific details and the application of those details, which we will discuss in due course.
\nLet us describe our hermeneutical approach by developing the following statement: In order to be \u201cbiblical\u201d in our theology, our interpretation and application of Scripture must (1) take seriously what Scripture claims to be and (2) interpret Scripture in light of what it actually is as God\u2019s unfolding revelation across time. Let us develop these two points before turning to some hermeneutical implications.<\/p>\n
THE SCRIPTURAL CLAIM FOR ITSELF: SCRIPTURE\u2019S SELF-ATTESTATION<\/p>\n
Being \u201cbiblical\u201d in our theology takes seriously what Scripture claims to be. What, then, does Scripture claim for itself? We cannot give a full-blown explication and defense of the doctrine of Scripture; many books have undertaken that task and have done it well. In agreement with historic Christian orthodoxy, we affirm that Scripture is God\u2019s Word written, the product of God\u2019s mighty action through the Word and by the Holy Spirit whereby human authors freely wrote exactly what God intended to be written and without error.
\nWhy has the church throughout the ages affirmed this about Scripture? The answer is straightforward: Scripture makes this claim about itself. The church does not confer authority on this book because she desires it to be God\u2019s Word; rather, Scripture itself testifies that it is God\u2019s authoritative Word, written through the agency of human authors, and that it is the product of the sovereign-personal triune \u201cGod who is there\u201d and is from \u201cthe God who is not silent.\u201d As such, Scripture both attests to and bears the marks of its divine origin and is thus completely authoritative, sufficient, and reliable. Not surprisingly, especially since the Enlightenment, some biblical scholars and theologians have challenged this claim, namely, that Scripture actually makes such a pervasive claim about itself. James Barr, for example, denies it. But when Scripture is read on its own terms, it can be shown repeatedly to make this claim and to exhibit, in the words of Sinclair Ferguson, a \u201ccanonical self-consciousness\u201d from Genesis to Revelation that Scripture is God\u2019s authoritative Word written. We will leave the reader to the literature in the footnotes for a development of this assertion. In what follows, we assume this view of Scripture in our interpretation of it.
\nHow does this view of Scripture affect our interpretation of it? Two answers may be given, consistent with historic Christian theology. First, because Scripture is God\u2019s Word, from the triune, sovereign, and omniscient Creator of the universe, we expect an overall unity and coherence between the Testaments, which, despite their diversity, together declare God\u2019s unfailing plan and purposes in this fallen world. Kevin Vanhoozer nicely describes Scripture this way: it is \u201ca unified communicative act, that is, as the complex, multi-levelled speech act of a single divine author,\u201d which leads us to view and interpret Scripture as a unified revelation. As we think through the progression of the biblical covenants, given our view of Scripture, we will not view the covenants as independent and isolated from each other, but as together, in all their diversity, unfolding the one plan of God, centered on our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:9\u201310).
\nSecond, since Scripture is God\u2019s Word through human authors, we discover God\u2019s intent through the writing(s) of the human authors by grammatical-historical-literary exegesis; hence the expression \u201cwhat God says, Scripture says\u201d (i.e., the biblical authors), and vice versa. Ultimately, this point leads us to a canonical reading of Scripture in order to discover how to interpret the meaning of specific texts. It is not enough to read Scripture in a \u201cthin\u201d manner, that is, as isolated texts apart from the whole. Instead, we must read texts in a \u201cthick\u201d way, that is, in light of the entire canon of Scripture. We discover God\u2019s intent through the writings of the biblical authors, but given the diversity of authors throughout time, we must interpret biblical authors in light of the entire canon. It is only by reading Scripture \u201cthickly\u201d that we discover its true meaning\u2014that is, God\u2019s intent\u2014and how Scripture applies to us today. This observation is another way of stating the important Reformation principle that \u201cScripture must interpret Scripture.\u201d
\nIt is also another way of speaking about the \u201cfuller meaning\u201d of Scripture, or what has been labeled the sensus plenior. This expression is understood in diverse ways, so it requires careful definition. We agree with G. K. Beale\u2019s understanding of the term when he argues that, for example, \u201cthe Old Testament authors did not exhaustively understand the meaning, implications, and possible applications of all that they wrote.\u201d As authors who wrote under divine inspiration, what they wrote was God given, true, and authoritative. However, they might not, and probably did not, understand where the entire revelation was going, given the fact that God had not yet disclosed all the details of his eternal plan. Thus, as more revelation is given through later authors, we discover more of God\u2019s plan and where that plan is going. It is for this reason that the New Testament\u2019s interpretation of the Old Testament becomes definitive, since later texts bring with them greater clarity and understanding. In other words, we must carefully allow the New Testament to show us how the Old Testament is brought to fulfillment in Christ. In this way, as Beale rightly acknowledges, the New Testament\u2019s interpretation of the Old Testament may expand the Old Testament author\u2019s meaning in the sense of seeing new implications and applications. However, given that we discover God\u2019s intent through the human authors, this expansion through later texts does not contravene the integrity of the earlier texts \u201cbut rather develops them in a way which is consistent with the Old Testament author\u2019s understanding of the way in which God interacts with his people\u201d in previous eras of redemptive history. Thus, Scripture as an entire canon must interpret Scripture; the later parts must \u201cdraw out and explain more clearly the earlier parts,\u201d and theological conclusions must be exegetically derived from the entire canon.
\nAlthough this point is widely acknowledged in biblical hermeneutics, it is a point of contention between dispensational and covenant theologians. On the dispensational side, it is contentious regarding how we think of the role of national, ethnic Israel in God\u2019s plan and how God\u2019s promises to Israel are fulfilled in Christ. On the covenant side, it is disputed regarding the perpetuity of the genealogical principle of the Abrahamic covenant and its fulfillment in Christ and the church.
\nFor dispensational theology, Israel, as a nation, has received specific promises, often captured by the land promise, which still awaits fulfillment to national Israel in the millennium and consummation. Since this promise is irrevocable and, as dispensationalism contends, has not changed across the biblical covenants, it must be fulfilled in a \u201cliteral\u201d way, which demands a specific future role for national Israel \u201cdistinct\u201d from believing Gentile nations. Conversely, for many within covenant theology, the New Testament helps us grasp that God\u2019s promise of land to national Israel must be understood in light of Christ and the new creation. In this way, in the Abrahamic covenant, the promise of land looks back to Eden and serves as a type of Eden\u2019s recovery and expansion in the new creation. Given the disagreement on this point, one crucial area needing resolution is how much the New Testament governs our understanding of the meaning of Old Testament texts and how those Old Testament texts find their fulfillment in the new covenant era. Grammatical-historical-literary exegesis needs to be set in the larger context of a canonical reading of Scripture; the parts must be read in terms of the whole.
\nFor covenant theology, the disputed point of how much the New Testament should govern our interpretation of the Old is illustrated in its use of the genealogical principle. For covenant theology, the genealogical principle in the Abrahamic covenant remains unchanged across redemptive history even though the New Testament seems to apply it differently than the Old Testament does. We will return to this point in later chapters. For now, we simply note the following observation: how one applies a canonical reading\u2014that is, the priority of the New Testament in our understanding of the Old\u2014is important in adjudicating differences between dispensational and covenant theology.
\nFurthermore, it is also important to stress that, given what Scripture is, a canonical reading is not an optional way to interpret Scripture. In fact, to read the Bible canonically is demanded by the nature of Scripture and its claim regarding itself. Thus, not to read Scripture in this way is to fail to interpret it correctly and is to be less than \u201cbiblical.\u201d As we will discuss below, how this hermeneutical principle is applied is where differences arise. At this juncture, we simply state how we approach Scripture in conjunction with its claim regarding itself. Let us now turn to the second point, namely, that in order to be \u201cbiblical,\u201d we must interpret Scripture in light of what it actually is as God\u2019s unfolding revelation across time.<\/p>\n
INTERPRETING SCRIPTURE ACCORDING TO WHAT IT IS<\/p>\n
What is Scripture? Here we are thinking not in terms of what Scripture says about itself but in terms of the actual phenomena of Scripture, or better, how God has chosen to give us his Word and disclose himself to us through human authors. Let us discuss the phenomena of Scripture by focusing on two points\u2014Scripture as a word-act revelation and a progressive revelation\u2014before we draw out some of the hermeneutical implications.<\/p>\n
Scripture Is a Word-Act Revelation<\/p>\n
A helpful way of describing the phenomena of Scripture is by viewing the Bible as a word-act revelation. What does this mean? It means that Scripture is God\u2019s own authoritative interpretation of his redemptive acts through the agency of human authors. Let us think about this in three steps.
\nFirst, we affirm that all God\u2019s redemptive acts reveal him, his plan, and his purposes. God has disclosed himself in history through his mighty acts, what we often identify as special revelation, in contrast to God\u2019s revelation in the natural world. For example, in the Old Testament, the greatest revelatory redemptive act of God was his deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt (cf. Ex. 6:6\u20137). In the New Testament, proclaiming the gospel involves reciting God\u2019s acts in history (cf. Acts 2:22\u201336; 3:13\u201326; 10:36\u201343; 13:26\u201341; 1 Cor. 15:3\u20134). In fact, the supreme focal point of Scripture centers on what God has done in Christ Jesus. The New Testament continually proclaims that what God had promised in ages past, what the Old Testament prophets anticipated, God has now brought to fulfillment in the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus\u2014the greatest display of God\u2019s mighty acts. That is why expressions of fulfillment are everywhere in the New Testament (cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 4:21; Gal. 4:4).
\nSecond, as important as it is to affirm that God acts in order to reveal himself and to redeem his people, God\u2019s redemptive acts are never left to speak for themselves, and they never appear separated from God\u2019s verbal communications of truth. Word and act always accompany each other. Furthermore, just as redemption is historically successive, so also is revelation, for God\u2019s revelatory word interprets God\u2019s redemptive acts. For example, Exodus 15:1\u201318 interprets the events of the Red Sea crossing; they are never left as self-interpreting. As Geerhardus Vos said many years ago, borrowing a phrase from the philosopher Immanuel Kant but employing it differently, \u201cWithout God\u2019s acts the words would be empty, without his words the acts would be blind.\u201d
\nIn fact, word and act often follow a general order in Scripture: first comes a preparatory word, then the divine act, and finally the interpretive word. For example, in the giving of the old covenant, we first see a preparatory word (Exodus 19), then the divine act of giving the law (Exodus 20), and finally an interpretative explanation of the law (Exodus 21\u201323; 25\u201331). This same order may be observed of the Bible as a whole. The Old Testament is the predictive word that anticipates greater realities tied to the coming of Yahweh and his Messiah, the Gospels give the account of the redemptive-revelatory fact of the coming of God the Son incarnate, and the remainder of the New Testament unpacks the final interpretation of not only who the Son is but also the full implications of what he has achieved in the inauguration of the new covenant era and the fulfillment of the prophetic word.
\nThird, as a word-act revelation, Scripture is the product of God\u2019s own mighty actions. Scripture not only chronicles the activities of God\u2019s redemption in history, and it not only is a word that interprets God\u2019s redeeming acts, but it also is itself a product of God\u2019s own redemptive acts for the purpose of teaching, edifying, and instructing, and as such, it is fully authoritative and sufficient for our thinking and lives. Scripture is, as a written text in its final form, God\u2019s own divine interpretation, through human authors, of his own redemptive acts, which carries with it a true interpretation of his redemptive plan. Though it is not an exhaustive revelation, it is a true, objective, and first-order text. We thus read it as a complete canonical text on its own terms, according to its own structure and categories, in order to discern God\u2019s intent and redemptive plan\u2014a \u201cthick\u201d reading of Scripture. This point is further underscored by viewing Scripture as a progressive revelation.<\/p>\n
Scripture Is a Progressive Revelation<\/p>\n
Scripture as a word-act revelation also involves historical progression, since just as God\u2019s plan of redemption and mighty acts did not happen all at once, so the word-interpretation of those acts unfolds over time. Revelation, alongside redemption, unfolds in a progressive manner by unique twists and turns in separate but related epochs, largely demarcated by God\u2019s acts and redemptive covenants, which reach their fulfillment, telos (end\/goal), and terminus in the person and work of Messiah Jesus.
\nHebrews 1:1\u20133 beautifully describes this point. \u201cLong ago,\u201d the author reminds us, \u201cGod spoke to our fathers by the prophets,\u201d and he did so \u201cat many times and in many ways\u201d (ESV). God\u2019s word-act revelation took place over time, and as it was given, it pointed beyond itself to something more to come. In fact, this is the precise point that the author makes by his use of \u201cat many times and in many ways\u201d (polymer\u014ds kai polytrop\u014ds)\u2014namely, not only was the Old Testament revelation repetitive, it was also incomplete. In the progress of revelation, more of God\u2019s plan was disclosed to us, pointing forward to and culminating in the coming of Christ. As William Lane rightly notes, \u201cThe fragmentary and varied character of God\u2019s self-disclosure under the old covenant awakened within the fathers an expectation that he would continue to speak to his people.\u2026 The ministry of the prophets marked the preparatory phase of that history.\u201d But now, with the coming of the Son, the last days have dawned; the last days that the Old Testament revelation anticipated have now come to fulfillment \u201cin Son\u201d (en hui\u014d; 1:2), underscoring that in Christ the final, definitive, complete revelation has now come. In this way, the author of Hebrews, along with the entire New Testament, places the Son in a qualitatively different category than the prophets who preceded him. The effect of this is not to downplay the authority of the Old Testament prophetic revelation; rather, the point is that the previous revelation was incomplete and, by its very nature, was intended by God to point beyond itself to God\u2019s full self-disclosure in his Son. This is why the Son is more than a mere prophet (though he is the fulfillment of the entire prophetic institution): he is the one about whom the prophets spoke; he is the one who fulfills the previous, incomplete revelation. Even more, in the Son, all God\u2019s revelation and redemptive purposes culminate.
\nAll this is to say that Scripture as a word-act revelation is also a progressive revelation. This has important implications for how we read and apply Scripture, draw conclusions from Scripture, and warrant our theological proposals. Our reading of Scripture must trace out how Scripture unfolds God\u2019s plan of redemption, which is the task of biblical theology, discussed in chapter 1. Biblical theology attempts to give a theological reading of Scripture, grounded in exegesis, that grasps \u201cthe whole counsel of God\u201d in terms of its redemptive-historical progression. Scripture consists of many literary forms, which all must be interpreted carefully, but beneath all these literary forms is an underlying storyline, beginning in creation and moving to the new creation, which unfolds God\u2019s plan. It is crucial that we read Scripture in such a way that we do justice to the Bible\u2019s own presentation and respect its own categories, which, we contend, are tied to the progression of the biblical covenants.
\nMichael Horton stresses these exact points as he thinks through theological method. Given what Scripture is, Horton contends that the most \u201cbiblical\u201d theological method is one that is \u201credemptive-historical-eschatological.\u201d By these terms he is saying what we have just described. Given the authority of Scripture and how it has come to us, we are to interpret Scripture according to its own presentation and intrasystematic categories\u2014that is, on its own terms\u2014which Horton contends are captured by the terms \u201ceschatological\u201d and \u201credemptive-historical.\u201d
\nBy \u201ceschatological\u201d Horton means more than a mere doctrinal topic. Rather, it is a lens through which we read Scripture and do our theology. Scripture itself comes to us as a redemptive revelation, rooted in history, unfolding God\u2019s eternal plan worked out in time, and as such, the very \u201cform\u201d and \u201cshape\u201d of Scripture is \u201ceschatological.\u201d For this reason, Horton is uncomfortable with what George Lindbeck has labeled a \u201ccognitive-propositionalist\u201d approach to theology. Scripture is more than a storehouse of facts or propositions; Scripture unfolds for us a plot, a divine interpretation of the drama of redemption, which is eschatological at heart and Christological in focus, and as such, our reading of Scripture and our drawing of theological conclusions must reflect this plot. By \u201credemptive-historical,\u201d Horton is referring to Scripture\u2019s own presentation of itself as \u201cthe organic unfolding of the divine plan in its execution through word (announcement), act (accomplishment), and word (interpretation).\u201d Given that redemption is progressive and unfolding, so is revelation, as it is God\u2019s own interpretation of his action and of the human response in actual historical contexts.
\nHorton draws a number of important implications for our interpretation of Scripture and the doing of theology. We will focus on one of them. Our reading of Scripture and our doing of theology must attend to the historical unfolding of redemptive history that is organically related and ultimately centered on Christ. The very \u201cform\u201d and \u201cshape\u201d of Scripture reminds us that God disclosed himself not in one exhaustive act but in an organic, progressive manner, and in fact, it is this organic quality of revelation that serves to explain the diversity of Scripture. Theology, as a result, must be very careful not to proof-text without considering the redemptive-historical storyline and progression in Scripture and thus reading Scripture as a canonical text.<\/p>\n
\u201cPUTTING TOGETHER\u201d THE CANON: THE THREE HORIZONS OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION<\/p>\n
What does this discussion have to do with biblical covenants? The simple answer is everything. As we think through the progression of the biblical covenants, since God has disclosed himself not in one exhaustive act but over time, we must carefully think through every biblical covenant first in its own immediate context, then ask what has preceded that covenant, and then relate that particular covenant to what comes after it and to how it is fulfilled in Christ\u2019s new covenant. It is only when we do this that we begin to understand how each covenant relates to previous and later covenants and how all the biblical covenants relate to Christ. We must also be careful as we trace out the historical unfolding of God\u2019s plan as demarcated by the biblical covenants and their covenant heads\u2014Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, and then our Lord\u2014noting how the entire plan is organically related while at the same time preserving its diversity, and thus maintaining a proper balance between the continuity and discontinuity of God\u2019s plan as it culminates in the Lord Jesus.
\nOn this point, the work of Richard Lints is helpful. In laying out an evangelical theological method, Lints emphasizes the same points we have stressed, especially in regard to how we must interpret any text of Scripture. He rightly contends that biblical theology is foundational to the doing of systematic theology. He also proposes, given what Scripture is, that we interpret biblical texts according to three horizons: textual, epochal, and canonical. By emphasizing these three horizons, Lints helps us think through how to interpret Scripture properly\u2014in light of what Scripture is\u2014while also enabling us to avoid proof-texting. He also reminds us that, in biblical interpretation and theological formulation, context is king, and in fact, three contexts are crucial in \u201cputting together\u201d the entire Bible, including the biblical covenants. Let us briefly discuss each of these contexts for a proper biblical-theological interpretation of Scripture.<\/p>\n
Context, Context, Context<\/p>\n
THE TEXTUAL HORIZON. Our interpretation of Scripture begins with a specific text, what Lints calls the textual horizon, or the immediate context. This is an obvious point, but it still needs to be said; we cannot read the Bible all at once, so we must start somewhere, and wherever we begin is our first context. In this context, biblical hermeneutics has sought to interpret texts according to the grammatical-historical-literary method, seeking to discern God\u2019s intent through the human author\u2019s intent by putting the text in its historical setting, understanding the rules of language the author is using, and analyzing the syntax, textual variants, word meanings, figures of speech, and the literary structure, including its literary form and genre. By paying careful attention to the text, a reader discovers what authors are seeking to communicate. Standard books in hermeneutics work through these areas, and we assume all this in our exegesis of individual passages of Scripture. Yet our interpretation of texts does not terminate here, which leads to the second horizon of biblical interpretation.<\/p>\n
THE EPOCHAL HORIZON. The epochal horizon is the second context in which we interpret texts. Here we read texts in light of where they are located in God\u2019s unfolding plan. Since Scripture is a progressive revelation, texts do not come to us in a vacuum; rather, they are embedded in a larger context of what has come before them. As God communicates through biblical authors, these same authors write in light of what has preceded them. When Lints labels this context the \u201cepochal horizon,\u201d he does not intend to convey, nor do we, that the \u201cepochs\u201d embody different plans of God; rather, they simply remind us that God\u2019s revelation of redemption occurs over time. There is a unity within this development, but this fundamental unity should not lead us to minimize the differences among epochs\u2014hence the balance between continuity and discontinuity in Scripture.
\nFurthermore, locating texts in God\u2019s unfolding plan helps illuminate interbiblical, or intertextual, links between earlier and later revelation. As later authors refer to earlier texts, they build on what is given, and not only with a greater understanding of where God\u2019s plan is going; they also begin to identify God-given patterns between earlier and later events, persons, and institutions within the unfolding of God\u2019s plan\u2014what is rightly labeled typology. As more revelation is given, including the development of God-given patterns (types), God\u2019s plan moves forward and ultimately reaches its telos in Christ. Later authors do not arbitrarily make connections by referring to earlier revelation; rather, they develop these patterns in ways that God intends and that do not contravene earlier texts. It is only by reading texts first in their immediate context and then in relation to where these texts are in God\u2019s unfolding plan that we begin to grasp God\u2019s overall plan and purposes. Individual texts do not become fragmented, and the road from \u201ctext\u201d to \u201creader\u201d is not a matter of one\u2019s intuition, preference, or prejudice.
\nIs it necessary to be precise as to what the epochal differences are in Scripture? Probably not, yet it is crucial to read texts in light of what has preceded them in reference to God\u2019s redemptive actions and plan, as we will note below. This question is a major debate within biblical theology. Most agree that the major epochal division is between the Old Testament era and the fulfillment of God\u2019s plan in Christ. But there are also other crucial divisions, and Scripture divides history in a number of ways. For example, in Romans 5:12\u201321, Paul divides all human history under two heads: Adam and Christ. Under these two heads, Paul further subdivides redemptive history by the following epochs: Adam (5:12\u201313), from Adam to Moses (5:14\u201317), and from Moses and the giving of the law-covenant to Christ (5:18\u201321). Or in Acts 7:1\u201353, Stephen identifies three distinct periods: the age of the patriarchs (7:2\u201316); the Mosaic age, which included within it the time of the exodus and the conquest of the Promised Land (7:17\u201345a); and the age of the monarchy (7:45b\u201353). Or in the genealogy in Matthew 1, Matthew divides redemptive history into three distinct periods: Abraham to David (1:2\u20136a), Solomon to the exile (1:6b\u201311), and the exile to the coming of Christ (1:12\u201317).
\nIt is Matthew\u2019s epochal structuring of redemptive history that Graeme Goldsworthy follows. However, in addition to the three epochs from Matthew, Goldsworthy adds a prior epoch that includes creation (Genesis 1\u20132), the impact of the historic fall (Genesis 3), and primeval history (Genesis 4\u201311), thus speaking of the era of Genesis 1\u201311, prior to Abraham. Concerning the first epoch\u2014creation, fall, primeval history\u2014Goldsworthy argues that it provides the main theological presuppositions to all redemptive history, presuppositions that are then worked out as God\u2019s plan unfolds and ultimately culminates in Christ.
\nFor our purposes, what is crucial to note is that most, if not all, of these epochal divisions are tied to the biblical covenants, which is why we contend that the Bible\u2019s own way of making epochal divisions is by the progression of the covenants. For many like Goldsworthy, the unfolding of the \u201ckingdom\u201d is the backbone to the Bible\u2019s storyline, yet under closer examination, his epochal divisions can look a bit arbitrary. Ironically, in Christ-Centered Biblical Theology, Goldsworthy charges the Vos-Clowney approach to biblical theology with being arbitrary in its epochal structuring of redemptive history since \u201cboth Vos and Clowney nominate the period from Moses to the coming of Christ as the last great epoch of the Old Testament.\u201d However, as Goldsworthy notes, making the period from Moses to Christ the last great epoch of the Old Testament fails to account for the towering figures of David and Solomon and for the eventual failure of the kings that led to the exile. All these latter people and events play a central role in Old Testament history and in the Prophets. For this reason, Goldsworthy, following the Robinson-Hebert proposal, suggests a better way of dividing up biblical history: (1) creation to David (with subdivisions of creation, fall, flood, Abraham and the patriarchs, Moses and the exodus, and the era of David and the kings); (2) the prophets, who in light of the disobedience of Israel and the Davidic kings, look to the future when God will fulfill his promises and bring salvation; and (3) the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophetic hope in Christ in terms of inaugurated eschatology (already-not yet).
\nWe do not disagree with Goldsworthy\u2019s overall presentation. He has made many excellent points and has captured well the epochal divisions of Scripture. Yet building on him, our modification of his proposal is that the Bible\u2019s epochal divisions are better warranted by tying them to the progression of the biblical covenants. This allows for a nonarbitrary way to account for how the Old Testament is structured \u201con its own terms\u201d and how its epochs are divided. No doubt, kingdom is a crucial theme as one works across the canon, but if we follow the Bible\u2019s own \u201cintrasystematic\u201d categories, it is kingdom through covenantal progression that captures the Bible\u2019s own internal structure in a nonarbitrary way, and thus better grasps the various epochal divisions in God\u2019s redemptive plan.
\nAt this point, it is important to ask whether placing texts in their epochal-covenantal context is hermeneutically significant? Does Scripture give us warrant for this idea? Does thinking through where various texts are located in God\u2019s plan affect the conclusions we draw from Scripture, especially in how we understand the biblical covenants? The answer is yes. For example, in Romans 4, Paul argues that Abraham serves as the paradigm, for Jews and Gentiles, of one who was justified by grace through faith apart from works. Warrant for this claim comes from Genesis 15:6, where God declares Abraham righteous because Abraham believed the promises of God. But in order to demonstrate that God\u2019s declaration of justification is for both the Jew and the Gentile, Paul then argues that in the life of Abraham this declaration took place before he was circumcised (which occurred in Genesis 17, after Genesis 15), thus demonstrating that Abraham\u2019s justification was not tied to circumcision but came by faith alone in the promises of God. It is for this reason that Abraham can serve as the paradigm of faith for Jews and Gentiles in the new covenant. This is not to say that circumcision was not significant in the Old Testament; it certainly was, especially as it was given in the Abrahamic covenant and as it continued in the Mosaic covenant. But it is to affirm that one cannot draw the conclusion, which the Judaizers sadly did, that Gentiles, now that Christ has come and inaugurated the new covenant, must first be circumcised in order to enter into covenant relationship with Yahweh. Paul\u2019s argument against the Judaizers is that they misread Scripture. To claim that Gentiles must be circumcised to know God in the new covenant, first, is not even true of Abraham and, second, fails to grasp how circumcision pointed forward to our need for a circumcised heart. Now that Christ has come, circumcision\u2019s role as a covenant sign in the previous covenants is fulfilled (1 Cor. 7:19). Paul\u2019s argument works, however, only if circumcision is instituted after Genesis 15, thus illustrating the point that texts must carefully be interpreted in terms of what comes before and after them (and also by their covenantal location) in order to draw correct biblical conclusions.
\nGalatians 3, a significant covenant text, illustrates this same point. Paul counters the Judaizers, who, like many conservative Jews, \u201csaw in the law given at Sinai not only a body of instruction but a hermeneutical key to the rest of Scripture.\u201d The Judaizers viewed the law-covenant as permanent and not as a temporary means to bring us to Christ and the inauguration of the new covenant. This is why they insisted that for Gentiles to become Christians, they had to obey the Mosaic covenant by circumcision. Paul rejects the Judaizers because they misunderstand Scripture. Paul argues that Christians are not under the law as a covenant. Rather, Jews and Gentiles are united to Christ by faith apart from the Mosaic law (3:1\u20136). Paul warrants his argument from Scripture. He first appeals to Genesis 15:6 to demonstrate that Abraham was justified by grace through faith (Gal. 3:6\u20139). True children of Abraham are all who have faith in Christ, regardless of their nationality. Also, Jews and Gentiles now receive all the promised blessings of Abraham because of Christ, who is Abraham\u2019s promised singular seed (3:16). Furthermore, God declared Abraham righteous before giving the Mosaic covenant (3:15\u201329). From this, Paul draws two further conclusions. First, the Mosaic law\u2019s coming after Abraham did not nullify the previous promise that Abraham\u2019s true offspring, identified as believing Jews and Gentiles, inherit the promised blessings via Christ. Second, given the placement of the law-covenant in God\u2019s plan, God never intended for it to save. What, then, was the law\u2019s purpose? Multiple answers are possible, but Paul focuses on one: the law functioned as a guardian over Israel until Christ came (3:21\u201324). Now that Christ has come, the law, as a covenant, is fulfilled, and in Christ, the Abrahamic promise is given to believing Jews and Gentiles together as heirs (3:25\u201329).
\nThese two texts illustrate how important it is to put together God\u2019s plan by locating texts and covenants in relation to what precedes and follows them. We risk theological error if we do not carefully think about texts in their epochal-covenantal location. We will fail to see how the parts of God\u2019s plan fit with the whole. In fact, this was one of the key failures of a Jewish reading of Scripture. Old Testament Jews, along with the Judaizers, did not interpret the law-covenant in relation to its covenantal location. If they had done so, they would have taught what the New Testament teaches: in God\u2019s overall plan the law-covenant is temporary, a crucial part of God\u2019s plan but also, along with all the covenants, prophetically pointing to Christ\u2019s coming and the dawning of the new covenant and the new creation. However, we must not end our reading of Scripture here: texts must also be read in terms of what comes after them, namely, the canonical horizon.<\/p>\n
THE CANONICAL HORIZON. The third and final context that must be considered in our interpretation of any biblical text is the canonical horizon. Given the fact that Scripture is God\u2019s Word and is a unified revelation, texts must be understood in relation to the entire canon. We cannot adequately interpret and apply Scripture if we ignore the canonical level. As Kevin Vanhoozer notes, it is only when Scripture is read canonically that we are interpreting it in a truly \u201cbiblical\u201d manner\u2014\u201caccording to its truest, fullest, divine intention.\u201d In fact, to read the Bible canonically corresponds to what the Bible actually is. That is why \u201cto read the Bible as unified Scripture is not just one interpretative interest among others, but the interpretative strategy that best corresponds to the nature of the text itself, given its divine inspiration.\u201d The canon may then be viewed<\/p>\n
as a great hall of witnesses in which different voices all testify to the Lord Jesus Christ. Over and above the laws and promises, the warnings and commands, the stories and the songs, is an all-embracing act, that of witnessing to what God was and is doing in Christ.\u2026 Thanks to their overarching canonical context, the smaller communicative acts are caught up and reoriented to the larger purpose of \u201cmaking wise unto salvation.\u201d<\/p>\n
As texts are placed along the storyline of Scripture and ultimately interpreted in light of the culmination of God\u2019s plan in Christ, we begin to read Scripture in the way God intended and thus \u201cbiblically.\u201d
\nWhat, then, does it mean to be \u201cbiblical?\u201d If we take seriously Scripture\u2019s claim for itself and what Scripture actually is, a three-horizon reading of the canon is the place to start\u2014a theological reading, which may be summarized as a grammatical-historical-literary-canonical method of interpretation and which attempts to read each biblical text within its threefold context. In the final analysis, this is the best way to read Scripture and to draw theological conclusions because it does justice to what Scripture is and how it comes to us as a progressive revelation. In this way, we are letting Scripture interpret Scripture; we are seeking to unfold how the Bible itself is given to us, in its own intrasystematic categories and storyline, so that in the end, we read, apply, and draw theological conclusions from Scripture according to God\u2019s intent.
\nAt this point, it is legitimate to ask, In what ways does Scripture itself link the canon together in terms of its own intrasystematic categories? Much could be said here, but Richard Lints is on track when he notes that, in the big scheme of things, \u201cessential to the canonical horizon of biblical interpretation is the continuity between the promises of God and his fulfillment of those promises.\u201d That is why one of the important ways that God has glued the diverse epochs of redemptive history together is by the promise-fulfillment motif. But note: it is impossible to think of God\u2019s promises apart from thinking through the progression of the covenants, since the triune God who makes promises to his creatures, in creation and redemption, does so by entering into covenant relations with them. In truth, unpacking the promise-fulfillment motif is another way of unfolding the biblical covenants, and this is why the covenants serve as the backbone to the Bible\u2019s metanarrative. By working through the progressions of the covenants, the biblical authors teach us both the continuity of God\u2019s plan (tied to his promises) and its discontinuity (how fulfillment in Christ brings with it God-intended changes). Lints states it this way:<\/p>\n
The biblical authors frame their writings with the assertion that God has been faithful to his promises in times past, and so he shall be faithful in the future. The promise-fulfillment model is a thread that secures the unity of the diverse collection of these writings. It provides meaning in the midst of present circumstances and hope for future deliverance.<\/p>\n
Thus, as we trace out the storyline of Scripture, as we move from promise to fulfillment through the biblical covenants, we are better able to see how Scripture hangs together and reaches its fulfillment in Messiah Jesus. We begin to appreciate even more that the diverse stories of Scripture are not randomly placed but are part of a larger tapestry that finds its fulfillment and terminus in Christ.
\nIn addition, Lints also suggests that closely associated with the promise-fulfillment theme is typology. In fact, one of the crucial means by which God\u2019s plan unfolds\u2014indeed, how the promise-fulfillment motif is developed through the covenants\u2014is the use of God-given typology. Typology, no doubt, is a disputed topic in biblical and theological studies, and it means different things to different people. As Paul Hoskins reminds us, \u201cStudies in biblical typology have been complicated by the use of the terms \u2018typology\u2019 and \u2018type\u2019 where no definitions of these terms are given.\u201d But regardless of the debate over typology, getting at the character of typology is crucial to adjudicating between the biblical-theological systems of dispensational and covenant theology. One of the reasons for the differences between these two views, as we will note below, centers on what typology is and how it works in the biblical covenants. For example, as noted in chapter 2, the way dispensational theology understands the future role of national Israel in the land, contra covenant theology, is related to typological debates. Furthermore, covenant theology\u2019s use of the genealogical principle, contra dispensational theology, is also related to typological debates. And related to such typological debates is how typology works in the progression of the covenants. So given the importance of this issue, we will discuss briefly how we understand typology, since our proposal understands and utilizes typology in a specific way.<\/p>\n
The Nature and Importance of Typology<\/p>\n
It is first crucial to distinguish typology from allegory. The major difference is that typology is grounded in history, the text, and interbiblical\/intertextual development, where various \u201cpersons, events, and institutions\u201d are intended by God to correspond to each other, while allegory assumes none of these things. In addition, since allegories are not grounded in authorial intent, which is (inter)biblically warranted, \u201callegorical interpretation\u201d depends on some kind of extratextual grid to warrant its explanation. As Vanhoozer notes, allegorical interpretation is represented by the interpretive strategy for declaring, \u201cThis (word) means that (concept),\u201d with that being determined by an extratextual framework. This is not what biblical typology is or how it functions in Scripture. In fact, when one investigates the six explicit New Testament texts that deal with typology (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 10:6, 11; Heb. 8:5; 9:24; 1 Pet. 3:21), a consistent picture emerges that clearly distinguishes it from allegory. What exactly is that pattern? Let us describe it by first starting with a definition of typology and then explaining its key features.<\/p>\n
DEFINING TYPOLOGY. We will employ Richard Davidson\u2019s definition of typology, but it also reflects what Paul Hoskins refers to as the traditional view. Typology is the study of the Old Testament redemptive-historical realities or \u201ctypes\u201d (persons, events, institutions) that God has specifically designed to correspond to, and predictively prefigure, their intensified antitypical fulfillment aspects (inaugurated, appropriated, and consummated) in New Testament redemptive history. There are two explanatory points to note from this definition.
\nFirst, typology is a feature of divine revelation rooted in history and the text. It involves an organic relationship or analogical correspondences between \u201cpersons, events, and institutions\u201d in one epoch (\u201ctype\u201d) and what they anticipate, or their fulfillment, in a later epoch (\u201cantitype\u201d). As Richard Lints reminds us,<\/p>\n
The typological relation is a central means by which particular epochal and textual horizons are linked to later horizons in redemptive revelation. It links the present to the future, and it retroactively links the present with the past. It is founded on the organic connection of God\u2019s promises with his fulfillment of those promises.<\/p>\n
Second, typology is prophetic and predictive and thus divinely intended. In other words, God planned for the type to point forward to its fulfillment, or antitype, in a later epoch of redemptive history. For this reason, typologies are recurrent patterns pointing forward to and culminating first in Christ and then applied to or appropriated by Christ\u2019s people, the church. Typology is best viewed as a subset of predictive prophecy, not in the sense of direct verbal predictions but more \u201cindirectly\u201d in the sense of predictions built on models\/patterns that God intends, which become unveiled or more clearly seen as later Old Testament authors reinforce those patterns, with the goal of anticipating their fulfillment in Christ. As God\u2019s plan is progressively revealed through the covenants, later Old Testament authors pick up the previous patterns, which then create a trajectory that New Testament authors rightly recognize as God-intended, predictive, and now coming to fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant age. As indirect prophecy, typology corresponds well to the Pauline sense of \u201cmystery\u201d (e.g., Eph. 1:9\u201310; 3:1\u201310). In speaking of \u201cmystery,\u201d Paul states that the gospel was hidden in the past but now, in light of Christ\u2019s coming, is made known and disclosed publicly for all to see. Simultaneously, then, Scripture says that the gospel was promised beforehand and was clearly revealed through the prophets (e.g., Rom. 3:21), while it was hidden in ages past and not fully known until Christ\u2019s coming (e.g., Rom. 16:25\u201327). How do we reconcile this tension? The answer will help explain both how those who read the Old Testament were indicted for not understanding it correctly and why so many failed to \u201csee\u201d and grasp the coming of the Lord of glory (see, e.g., John 3:10\u201311; 5:39\u201340; 1 Cor. 2:7\u20138). One crucial way to reconcile this tension is through typology. Given its indirect nature, not only does typology require careful exegesis in its immediate context, but it also may not be fully recognized as a type until later authors pick up the pattern and it becomes more clearly known. Yet in an ontological sense, typology is in the text, exegetically discovered, while in the epistemological sense, it is recognized for what it is only as later Old Testament authors pick up the pattern. Then in Christ, the veil is removed, and the pattern is finally seen in all its undiminished glory.
\nIt is important to note that this understanding of typology depends on a high view of divine providence and knowledge. How so? While the type bears significance for its own time, its greater significance is directed toward the future; it testifies to something greater than itself still to come. But the future antitype will surely come, not only because God completely knows that it will, according to his eternal plan, but also because God sovereignly guarantees that the prophetic fulfillment of the original type will occur in Christ. The relationship between type and antitype is not arbitrary, a mere analogy or a construction by the reader; rather, it is an organic relationship ordained by God so that specific types do in fact point beyond themselves to their fulfillment in Christ. Apart from this doctrine of God, the traditional view of typology makes no sense. As noted, this is not to say that everyone associated with the Old Testament type understood and knew the pattern to be pointing forward. Rather, it is to say that when the type is discovered to be a type (at some point along the trajectory of its repeated pattern in redemptive history), it is then rightly \u201cseen\u201d or viewed as such and as divinely intended.<\/p>\n
CHARACTERISTICS OF TYPOLOGY. Given this basic description of typology, how then does it work in Scripture? Typology exhibits a threefold character. First, typology involves a repetition of a person, event, or institution so that types are repeated in later persons, events, or institutions, thus allowing us to discover a pattern and trajectory. Yet ultimately the types reach their antitypical fulfillment first in Christ and then in his people. In this way, typological patterns have a Christological and eschatological orientation, given that Christ brings the last-days era of the prophets to fulfillment (Heb. 1:1\u20133). While not all typological patterns are directly Christocentric (e.g., the antitype of Peter\u2019s flood typology is not Christ but water baptism and final judgment, 1 Pet. 3:18\u201322), yet Brent Parker rightly insists that \u201call OT types have a Christotelic emphasis as they are qualified by their relationship to Jesus, his redemptive work, and the consummation of the new heavens and the new earth.\u201d All typological patterns, then, either converge in or are mediated through Christ and his work.
\nFor example, Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:21\u201349), the covenant head of the old creation. In God\u2019s plan, Adam anticipates the coming of Jesus, the last Adam, and the head of the new creation. How do we know this? In the immediate context of Genesis 1\u20133, there are exegetical clues that speak of Adam\u2019s significance, and through the covenants, \u201cother Adams\u201d appear who take on Adam\u2019s role (e.g., Noah, Abraham, Israel, David). Yet none of these \u201cAdams\u201d are the ultimate fulfillment, though they \u201cpredict\u201d the last Adam to come. Furthermore, in Christ, the last Adam, and his work, we as his people are restored to our Adamic role as image-sons in relation to God and the creation (Heb. 2:5\u201318). Thus, through the covenants, Adam, as a type, takes on greater definition until the last Adam comes.
\nOr think of the nation of Israel. Israel, as God\u2019s son (Ex. 4:22\u201323), not only takes on Adam\u2019s role in the world but also anticipates the coming of the true Son, the true Israel, the true servant, the true vine\u2014namely, Christ (see Isa. 5:1\u20137; Hos. 11:1; Matt. 2:15; John 15:1\u201317). Furthermore, since types find their fulfillment first in Christ and not in us, we as God\u2019s people participate in the typological pattern only by virtue of our relationship to Christ. Thus, in the case of Israel, Christ is first the \u201ctrue Israel,\u201d and in him, we, the church, are the eschatological people of God. The church is not the antitypical fulfillment of Israel in the first sense; Christ alone fills that role. Yet in Christ, the true Son\/Israel, we are the beneficiaries of his work. In relationship to Christ, we are adopted sons (Gal. 3:26\u20134:7), the \u201cIsrael of God\u201d (Gal. 6:16), Abraham\u2019s spiritual offspring (Gal. 3:29), restored to what God created us to be (Eph. 4:20\u201324). In this way, the new covenant promise given to the \u201chouse of Israel\u201d and the \u201chouse of Judah\u201d (Jer. 31:31) is applied to the church. Christ, as the antitypical fulfillment of Israel, takes on Israel\u2019s role, and by faith union with him, his work becomes ours as his new covenant people.
\nA second characteristic of typology is its a fortiori (lesser to greater) quality, or the fact that it exhibits escalation as the type is fulfilled in the antitype. For example, through covenantal progression, as one moves from Adam or David to the prophets, priests, and kings, and through the covenants to the last Adam, the true Davidic king, the Great High Priest, and so on, the antitype is always greater than the previous types. Yet escalation across time does not occur incrementally from the original type to each installment and then to Christ, as if there is a straight line of increase. Rather, escalation fully occurs with Christ\u2019s coming. The previous typological patterns point forward to the greater one to come (Rom. 5:14), but the greater aspect is realized only in Christ and then extended to his people. For example, Adam is a type of Christ, and \u201cother Adams\u201d arise, yet these \u201cAdams\u201d (e.g., Noah, Abraham, Israel, David) fail in their obedience and faith; there is really no increase in them. Yet all of them anticipate the last\/second Adam, who obeys perfectly. What is true of Adam is also true of other typological patterns, whether they are various persons (Moses, Israel, David, prophets, priests, kings), events (the exodus), or institutions (sacrificial system, tabernacle-temple).
\nThis observation is important for a number of reasons. Not only does the a fortiori quality of typology serve as an important means by which Scripture unpacks the unique identity of Christ, but it is also a key way that Scripture grounds or warrants the uniqueness of the new covenant era. When fulfillment arrives, legitimate discontinuity or change between the old and new in God\u2019s unified plan is warranted, as the triune God has planned from eternity. When the antitype arrives in history\u2014or better, when it is inaugurated\u2014not only are the previous types brought to their telos, but also the entire era introduced entails anticipated changes in many areas, which the Old Testament had already predicted. This is why the era of fulfillment inaugurated by Christ (the \u201calready\u201d), even though it still awaits the consummation (the \u201cnot yet\u201d), has introduced greater realities\u2014realities that are directly linked to the inauguration of the kingdom, the dawning of the new covenant era, and the arrival of the new creation.
\nA third characteristic of typology is that it develops through covenantal progression. In fact, to think through the development of typological patterns is to walk through the covenants. For example, Adam and \u201cother Adams\u201d are associated with the covenants of creation, Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. In these covenant heads, Adam\u2019s role continues, and each one anticipates Christ, who by his obedience secures our redemption. Or think of the promise to Abraham regarding his \u201cseed.\u201d As the seed promise unfolds, it does so in Isaac, Israel, the Davidic king, and ultimately Christ\u2014and then it extends to the church as Abraham\u2019s spiritual offspring. Or think of how Moses, who is foundational for the institution of the prophets and who inaugurates the priestly role under the old covenant, is developed in terms of an entire institution of prophets and priests that ultimately culminates in Christ. More examples could be given: David and his sons, the entire tabernacle-temple structure, the exodus event that eventually anticipates a greater exodus to come, and so forth. All these types are tied to the covenants; one cannot think of them apart from wrestling with how the covenants relate to each other and how the covenants are fulfilled in Christ and the new covenant. In this way, all biblical history is eschatological and prophetic, not merely in verbal predictions but also in types\/patterns associated with the covenants, which anticipate and predict the dawning of the end of the ages in the coming of the Lord of glory. This is why the entire New Testament is Christological in focus, since Jesus is the one whom the covenants and prophets anticipate (e.g., Matt. 5:17\u201318; 11:11\u201315; Rom. 3:21, 31). This is another reason why \u201cputting together\u201d the biblical covenants is the means by which we grasp the plan of God and thus understand the Scriptures. Apart from doing so, we fail to discern how the \u201cparts\u201d fit with the \u201cwhole,\u201d and we are less than \u201cbiblical\u201d in our reading of Scripture.
\nWhat does it mean to be \u201cbiblical\u201d? How do we rightly move from text to theological conclusions? We have only scratched the surface in terms of a full-orbed answer in our description of how we are approaching the hermeneutical task and the theological interpretation of Scripture. Yet it was important to do so since we are attempting to argue for a via media position on the covenants. With these basic points in mind, let us now turn to the second portion of this chapter and revisit the biblical-theological systems of dispensationalism and covenant theology by discussing some of the key hermeneutical issues that divide them in order to better assess their overall fit with Scripture. As we do so, we will begin to sketch out how kingdom through covenant serves as an alternative position, which we will explain in more detail in the chapters to follow.<\/p>\n
KEY HERMENEUTICAL ISSUES SEPARATING DISPENSATIONAL AND COVENANT THEOLOGY<\/p>\n
In terms of basic theological convictions, dispensational and covenant theology agree on more than what divides them, so one should not exaggerate their differences. Yet as described in the previous chapter, on some crucial points, specifically the Israel-church relationship and its linkage with each position\u2019s view of the biblical covenants, substantial differences remain that affect how these two different biblical-theological systems put together the Bible.
\nWhat, then, are some of the key hermeneutical differences that separate dispensational and covenant theology? Our reflections will draw on the helpful discussion by John Feinberg in the fine work Continuity and Discontinuity, which probes these issues in detail. Feinberg, in describing the core hermeneutical distinctives of dispensational theology, or what he labels \u201csystems of discontinuity,\u201d perceptively captures some of the differences between dispensational and covenant theology. Specifically, we will focus on three areas of difference in his discussion: the priority of the New Testament over the Old Testament, the nature of the biblical covenants, and the nature and use of typology. These areas will help us better grasp the core of dispensational theology and enable us to compare and contrast dispensational and covenant theology while we outline our approach to these same issues, which later chapters will develop in more detail.
\nAs we think through these three areas, it is first important to note how interrelated they are and how each point stands not on its own but requires and assumes the other points. This should not surprise us since these three points take us to the core of each system. Furthermore, all these points, as noted in chapter 2, are rooted in a specific conception of the Israel-church relationship, which in turn is related to each system\u2019s view of the covenants and their interrelationships. Specifically, there is debate over typology, what constitutes a type, and how types reach their antitypical fulfillment in Christ. Furthermore, there is debate regarding the content of God\u2019s promises to national Israel and how or whether these promises are fulfilled in Christ, the church, and the new covenant. Since dispensationalism and covenant theology view the Israel-church relationship differently, these central points help us grasp the key differences between the views. Let us now turn to these three areas incrementally, fully aware that all three of them together are necessary to comprehend the core differences between each view and to better understand how each system puts together the biblical covenants.<\/p>\n
THE PRIORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT OVER THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE PROGRESS OF REVELATION<\/p>\n
A key hermeneutical difference between dispensational and covenant theology, Feinberg asserts, is the priority given to the New Testament over the Old Testament, especially in conclusions drawn regarding the role and future of national, ethnic Israel in God\u2019s plan. Feinberg correctly rejects the false claims that only dispensationalists consistently apply a \u201cliteral\u201d hermeneutic in their interpretation of Scripture and that covenant theologians interpret the Bible nonliterally or spiritually. This way of distinguishing the views, though often voiced by dispensationalists, is inaccurate, especially given the fact that covenant theologians claim that they interpret the Bible \u201cliterally,\u201d in the sensus literalis use of the term. As Feinberg observes, \u201cBoth sides claim to interpret literally, and yet they derive different theological systems. This suggests that the difference is not literalism v. nonliteralism, but different understandings of what constitutes literal hermeneutics.\u201d Feinberg is correct. But where, then, do the differences lie?
\nFeinberg proposes that the first difference lies in how each view understands \u201cthe progress of revelation to the priority of one Testament over the other.\u201d Both views take seriously progressive revelation and recognize that the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament, but there is a basic disagreement over whether the New Testament can be used to \u201creinterpret\u201d the Old Testament. For example, as Feinberg contends, dispensational theologians often begin with the Old Testament, \u201cbut wherever they begin they demand that the OT be taken on its own terms rather than reinterpreted in light of the NT.\u201d On the other hand, Feinberg argues that nondispensationalists (i.e., covenant theologians) begin \u201cwith NT teaching as having priority, and then go back to the OT,\u201d so that the Old Testament is reinterpreted in light of the New Testament teaching. The reason they do so, Feinberg insists, is because covenant theology views the Old Testament as provisional in God\u2019s unfolding plan, whereas the New Testament is permanent and final. Hence, the rationale to view the New Testament as having priority over the Old Testament and the tendency to argue that whatever the New Testament does not explicitly affirm is no longer in force in the new covenant era.
\nIn stressing this point, it is crucial to observe, and perhaps even ironically, that Feinberg, along with other dispensationalists, does not disagree with the application of this hermeneutical rule in most places. For example, he affirms, in agreement with covenant theology, that the sacrificial system, the food laws, the priesthood, and so on, were provisional and temporary in the Old Testament era and that these things now, in light of Christ\u2019s coming and the progress of revelation, have reached their fulfillment and terminus. As Feinberg accepts, \u201cIf the NT explicitly rejects an OT institution, etc., it is cancelled.\u201d All Christians, then, regardless of whether they are dispensational or covenantal, agree that the New Testament has \u201cpriority\u201d over the Old Testament. However, this is not Feinberg\u2019s primary concern. After all, he is discussing the core differences between the two systems, which, as we have argued in chapter 2, are centered on different understandings of the Israel-church relationship and the relationships between the covenants. Hence, Feinberg\u2019s real concern is not with the priority of the New Testament over the Old Testament per se but with how covenant theology applies this hermeneutic to the specific relationship he is concerned about, namely, the Israel-church relationship, and specifically the future role of national, ethnic Israel in God\u2019s plan.
\nIn other words, Feinberg and dispensational theology contend that at this specific point, it is illegitimate to prioritize the New Testament and to read it back on the Old and to view national Israel as something provisional\/shadowy or as merely a type of the church in God\u2019s plan. Instead, one must first work from the Old to the New Testament before appealing to the New to overturn the perceived teaching of the Old regarding the role of national Israel in God\u2019s plan. Even more to the point, Feinberg is concerned about how covenant theology appeals to the priority of the New Testament in order to reinterpret the land promises to national Israel in a spiritual or typological fashion. How so? Given that the New Testament lacks a detailed treatment of the land promise, covenant theology has argued that the future land promise for national Israel is not explicitly affirmed in the New Testament and is thus no longer in force. But, Feinberg responds, this is the problem with covenant theology: it has wrongly appealed to the priority of the New Testament and has not done justice to the Old Testament\u2019s teaching regarding this specific promise and the role of national Israel in God\u2019s plan. As Feinberg asserts, one must first allow the Old Testament to speak on its own terms, especially in regard to national Israel and the land promise, before one appeals to the New Testament to determine the issue.
\nIn Feinberg\u2019s criticism of covenant theology, he raises a key issue that everyone must address: how do we know \u201cwhether something in the OT (especially prophecy about Israel\u2019s future) is still binding in the NT,\u201d especially if the New Testament does not explicitly deal with the issue or promise? Feinberg responds in a twofold way. First,<\/p>\n
If an OT prophecy or promise is made unconditionally to a given people and is still unfulfilled to them even in the NT era, then the prophecy must still be fulfilled to them. While a prophecy given unconditionally to Israel has a fulfillment for the church if the NT applies it to the church, it must also be fulfilled to Israel. Progress of revelation cannot cancel unconditional promises.<\/p>\n
Second, and related to the first point, if the New Testament has not explicitly or implicitly overturned the land promise, that does not mean that it is no longer in force, since it is grounded in God\u2019s unconditional promise. In this response, Feinberg raises some important issues regarding the priority given to the New Testament over the Old. Covenant theology, according to dispensationalism, tends to read the Old Testament in terms of the New and does not let the Old Testament speak on its own terms, especially in regard to the future role of national Israel and the unconditional land promise. A dispensational hermeneutic wants to let the Old Testament speak on its own terms first, and unless the New Testament explicitly or implicitly abrogates it, what is unconditionally promised in the Old Testament era is still in force today.
\nWhat are we to think of this charge? Is Feinberg correct in his observation? What can we learn from this discussion for our purposes? This charge is certainly a common one made by dispensationalists against covenant theologians, yet it demands deeper reflection. Let us offer two thoughts that we hope will advance the discussion and illustrate how we approach this hermeneutical issue\u2014the priority of the New Testament over the Old. First, we agree that there is some truth in Feinberg\u2019s charge, but, second, we do not think that he is completely accurate. In fact, it is our conviction that, ironically, both dispensational and covenant theology follow the same hermeneutic in appealing to the Old Testament and drawing theological conclusions, yet they do so in different areas central to their theological systems. But before we unpack this latter point, let us first focus on what is right about Feinberg\u2019s assertion.<\/p>\n
Reading New Covenant Realities Back into the Old Testament<\/p>\n
As we will argue in part 3, we agree that in specific areas central to covenant theology\u2014primarily in ecclesiology and the ordinances (which are related to their understanding of the covenants) but not limited to these areas\u2014covenant theology tends to read new covenant realities and blessings back into the Old Testament and vice versa. In these areas, they do so without sufficiently thinking through the progression of the covenants, the nature of the covenant communities under their respective covenants, and how the covenantal signs function in their specific covenantal contexts, and without then wrestling with how the covenants, communities, and signs are brought to fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant. On this specific point we agree with Feinberg\u2019s basic criticism of covenant theology. However, we disagree in the area that he is most concerned about: Old Testament promises of a future role for national Israel in the millennium and of a consummation \u201cdistinct\u201d from believing Gentiles or \u201cdifferent\u201d from what we now have in the church, tied to the land promise. We are not convinced that dispensational theology has rightly understood the role of national Israel in God\u2019s plan, how Israel functions in covenantal progression as a corporate Adam, and how Israel functions as a type that is fulfilled in Christ, the true Israel and King. Moreover, we are not convinced that dispensationalists have correctly understood the meaning of the land promise in the progression of the covenants. Instead, we think that a better example of Feinberg\u2019s criticism of covenant theology is found in his own treatment of how Scripture speaks of the multiple senses of the terms \u201cIsrael\u201d and the \u201cseed of Abraham.\u201d
\nFeinberg is correct, contrary to most dispensational polemics, that covenant theology does distinguish between Israel and the church yet that it tends not to recognize the multiple senses of terms such as \u201cIsrael\u201d and \u201cthe seed of Abraham.\u201d For example, covenant theology views the Abrahamic covenant as substantially the same as the new covenant yet different in its administration. In so doing, covenant theology tends to flatten the Abrahamic covenant by reducing it primarily to spiritual realities while neglecting its national and typological aspects. This is why covenant theology is able to take the genealogical principle operative in the Abrahamic covenant\u2014\u201cyou and your seed\u201d (Gen. 17:7)\u2014and apply it in exactly the same way across the canon in the new covenant. In fact, this is why covenant theology argues that the covenant signs of circumcision and baptism signify the same thing and that baptism is only an administrative change, not a substantial one. In addition, even though covenant theology argues that the church is the fulfillment of Israel, given the unity of the covenant of grace, the two communities are by nature the same\u2014namely, a mixed community, constituted by believers and unbelievers. Even though the prophets seem to anticipate some kind of change in the new covenant community, given the unity of the covenant of grace and the unchanged genealogical principle from the Abrahamic covenant to the new, covenant theology insists that \u201cbelievers and their children\u201d are included in the church exactly as they were in Israel of old, which we contend is a mistake.
\nAs Feinberg rightly observes, the problem with covenant theology at this point is that it reduces the Abrahamic covenant primarily to its spiritual aspects, thus neglecting its national and typological aspects. But to do so is to read new covenant realities into the old era too quickly and in this way to prioritize the New Testament over the Old without first doing justice to the Old Testament in its own textual and epochal-covenantal context. We must first understand the Abrahamic covenant in its own immediate context before we relate it to what has now come in Christ. No doubt, everyone agrees that the Abrahamic covenant ultimately leads us to the new covenant, but we must ask, what is the nature of that covenant first in its own setting? As dispensational theology has rightly argued, the Abrahamic covenant is much more diverse than covenant theology often presents it since it encompasses not only spiritual elements but also national and typological elements that result in significant discontinuity as the covenants progress and reach their fulfillment in Christ. This is best illustrated by the different senses Scripture gives to the \u201cseed of Abraham.\u201d Feinberg argues for four senses. First, there is the biological, ethnic, and national sense. Second, there is a political sense that refers to the entire nation. Third, there is a spiritual sense, which can apply to the redeemed\u2014that is, people who are properly related spiritually to God by faith. Fourth, there is the typological sense, in which Israel can function as a type of the church.
\nFor Feinberg, and for dispensational theology in general, not to distinguish these diverse senses of Abraham\u2019s seed illustrates how covenant theology tends to reduce the Abrahamic covenant to its spiritual aspects. On the other hand, what distinguishes dispensational thinking is that all these diverse senses are viewed as operative in the New Testament and \u201cthat no sense (spiritual especially) is more important than any other, and that no sense cancels out the meaning and implications of the other senses.\u201d Thus, Feinberg contends that by prioritizing the New Testament over the Old Testament in this area and by reading new covenant realities back into the old era, covenant theology tends to emphasize only a spiritual sense and downplays the national sense of the \u201cseed of Abraham.\u201d For Feinberg, this tendency explains why covenant theology fails to distinguish Israel from the church and why it \u201creinterprets\u201d the land promises to national Israel in either a spiritual or a typological fashion. As already noted, we will not follow Feinberg on this specific application for reasons discussed below, but his basic point, we believe, has some merit. Yet in our view, his point is better illustrated in explaining why covenant theology can take the sign of the Abrahamic covenant (circumcision), downplay its primary significance of marking out a natural seed who is supposed to function as a priestly, royal people devoted to Yahweh, interpret it in terms of its spiritual significance, and then argue that circumcision signifies the same reality that baptism signifies under the new covenant.
\nRegardless of the specific example, in terms of Feinberg\u2019s overall observation we are in basic agreement that covenant theology tends to read new covenant realities back into the old era too quickly, without first letting the Old Testament context be understood in its own epochal-covenantal context\u2014before relating it to its fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant. That is why we have emphasized the necessity of the three horizons in the theological interpretation of Scripture. Each covenant must first be interpreted in its own immediate context (textual horizon), then in terms of what has preceded it (epochal-covenantal horizon), and finally in terms of the entire canon (canonical horizon). When we follow this reading of Scripture, we contend that the New Testament does have priority over the Old Testament. The New Testament\u2019s interpretation of the Old is definitive in interpreting the details of the Old but not in such a way that contravenes the earlier texts. This is why we must carefully allow the New Testament to show us how the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ, while also doing justice to texts in their Old Testament context. Given the progressive nature of Scripture, we must carefully unfold the interbiblical\/intertextual development of texts and covenants first within the Old Testament and then in terms of an entire canonical theology. Scripture must interpret Scripture.<\/p>\n
Recognizing Nuances in Covenantal Hermeneutics<\/p>\n
Although we agree with Feinberg\u2019s overall point, we are convinced that he is not fully accurate in two areas. In fact, we are persuaded that discerning why this is the case is important in setting our view over against dispensational and covenant theology. Let us look at each of these two areas in turn.
\nFirst, Feinberg is not completely accurate in charging covenant theology with prioritizing the New Testament over the Old such that it fails to respect the original Old Testament context and instead reinterprets that context in light of the New Testament. In fact, we contend, ironically, that dispensational and covenant theology actually follow the same hermeneutic in appealing to the Old Testament, yet they do so in different areas central to their theological systems. Also, we are persuaded that both systems, in their own respective areas, fail to grasp the interbiblical\/intertextual development of the unfolding covenants that ultimately culminates in Christ, the dawning of the new covenant, and the application of God\u2019s promises to the church. Let us focus on two examples that take us to the heart of each theological system.
\nFor dispensational theology, on the one hand, the point of contention is their view of the Israel-church relationship. Specifically, the debated issue regards the future role for national Israel \u201cdistinct\u201d from believing Gentiles, centered on the land promise given in the unconditional Abrahamic covenant. This promise, they contend, demands that national Israel, in the future, as a believing nation, must live in a specific place, namely, the Promised Land, and that this promise is unique to Israel as a nation, \u201cdistinct\u201d from believing Gentile nations. For covenant theology, on the other hand, the point of contention also pertains to the Israel-church relationship but not in terms of a specific future role for national Israel \u201cdistinct\u201d from Gentile believers. Rather, covenant theology appeals to the same, unconditional Abrahamic covenant in terms of the genealogical principle\u2014\u201cto you and your children.\u201d For covenant theology, given the unity of \u201cthe covenant of grace,\u201d the two covenant communities, Israel and the church, remain by nature the same, that is, a mixed people, and the two covenant signs, circumcision and baptism, remain the same in terms of their spiritual significance across the covenants.
\nHowever, it is important to observe that at work in both systems is the same hermeneutic, only in different places. Both views appeal to understanding the Old Testament on its own terms and to not letting the New Testament interpret how the specific points of their system are brought to fulfillment. What, then, will we argue? We will disagree with both views because they follow the same hermeneutic! Instead, we will insist that biblical texts and covenants must be interpreted and theologized in light of the three horizons. We must understand the role of national Israel in God\u2019s plan and the genealogical principle first in its immediate and epochal-covenantal context and thus do justice to the Old Testament on its own terms. Next, we must ask how these two issues interbiblically\/intertextually unfold across the covenants with special focus on development within the Old Testament itself. Finally, we must let the entire canon inform how these two issues are fulfilled in Christ and applied to the church. By these means we are seeking to let all Scripture tell us the precise relationships between the covenants, including the role of national Israel and the development of the genealogical principle as they reach their fulfillment, telos, and terminus in Messiah Jesus.
\nSecond, and related to the above point, we are convinced that Feinberg is not fully accurate in his charge against the hermeneutic of covenant theology, especially in relation to the future role of national Israel. In our view, his discussion of the issue somewhat begs the question, but before we are too hard on him, we need to concede another point: he rightly acknowledges that more needs to be said than merely that covenant theology prioritizes the New Testament over the Old. Feinberg also admits that, to make his charge stick, other assumptions about the nature of the covenants and especially the role of typology have to be addressed, subjects to which we now turn.<\/p>\n
THE NATURE OF THE BIBLICAL COVENANTS<\/p>\n
In adjudicating theological systems, Feinberg is fully aware that more than one issue is involved. As he builds on his previous point, he rightly admits that a second issue of disagreement between the two views centers on each one\u2019s \u201cunderstanding of the covenants,\u201d specifically how each view understands promises made to national Israel. Astutely, Feinberg observes that the debate is not \u201csimplistically that OT covenants like the Abrahamic and Davidic are viewed as conditional by nondispensationalists and unconditional by dispensationalists,\u201d since that is not true in all cases. Instead, the debate centers on whether unconditional land promises were made to national Israel in the Old Testament. If this is the case, Feinberg insists, regardless of how the New Testament applies Old Testament texts concerning Israel to the church, not only must the original meaning of these texts remain the same vis-\u00e0-vis the promise of land to national Israel, but also we must think in terms of \u201cdouble fulfillment\u201d\u2014an initial application and fulfillment to the church but an ultimate fulfillment to national Israel in the future. One cannot, Feinberg argues, do what covenant theology often does, namely, treat the New Testament application of these texts to the church as proof that they are now being completely fulfilled spiritually in the church. For dispensationalists, this interpretation not only overturns the unconditional nature of these promises and the meaning of the Old Testament texts but also illegitimately views Israel and the church as basically the same communities. Instead, as Feinberg and dispensational theology argue, the church must be viewed neither as the replacement nor as the continuation of Israel but as something unique, which requires that we think of national Israel as distinct from the church, \u201cdespite the fact that spiritual aspects of the kingdom are now being applied to the church.\u201d
\nFor our purposes, this discussion highlights two important issues. First, it reminds us that properly discerning the nature of the biblical covenants and their relationships is crucial in adjudicating differences between dispensational and covenant theology. This involves determining whether the covenants are unconditional or conditional and asking to whom these promises were made. Second, we must also think carefully about the Israel-church relationship as tied to the covenants. Should we understand unconditional promises to Israel as promising a distinct future for national Israel tied to the land promise? And does this understanding hold not only in the Abrahamic covenant but also in the Abrahamic covenant as located in context with the entire covenantal progression from Adam to Christ? Or is it better to view the role of Israel in terms of the entire sweep of redemptive history and see that all God\u2019s promises are fulfilled in Christ and the church? In relation to covenant theology, should we view the Israel-church relationship in terms of the two communities being the same in their nature and structure? Or is it better to view Christ\u2019s fulfillment work as inaugurating a new and better covenant that results in the church being different in nature than Israel? Answering these questions takes us to the heart of the differences between dispensational and covenant theology, but what is our alternative proposal at these points?
\nOn these issues, in the following chapters, we will defend at least two points. First, we will argue that dividing up the biblical covenants in categories of unconditional versus conditional is incorrect. Instead, the Old Testament covenants blend both aspects and, in an unfolding way, tell a story of God\u2019s glorious promises, his unilateral action to save, and the demand for a covenant mediator who, unlike his Old Testament counterparts, obeys perfectly and thus accomplishes our redemption. In other words, in the coming of our Lord Jesus, we find God\u2019s promise brought to pass by his own sovereign action through an obedient Son, who by his life and triumphant cross work achieves and secures our redemption on unshakable grounds by inaugurating a new covenant. Underneath this conviction is the truth that the Bible presents a plurality of covenants that progressively reveal God\u2019s one plan for his one people. It is best to think of the progression of the covenants as the means by which our triune God reveals his glorious plan and to recognize that each covenant, in its epochal-covenantal location, contributes to the entire plan, now seen in light of its fulfillment in Christ.
\nSecond, we will argue that what is missing in the covenantal discussion, especially the Israel-church relationship, is a stronger emphasis on Christology. This is not to say that dispensational and covenant theology do not focus on Christ! Instead, we contend that in order to grasp God\u2019s plan through the progression of the covenants, we must see that all the covenants, including the various covenant mediators, find their antitypical fulfillment in Christ, who then applies his work to the church. The church, then, is not directly the \u201cnew Israel\u201d or her replacement. Rather, in Christ, the church is God\u2019s new creation, composed of believing Jews and Gentiles, because Jesus is the last Adam and true Israel, the great Davidic king, who inherits all God\u2019s promises by his person and work (Eph. 2:11\u201321). \u201cAll God\u2019s promises\u201d includes the land promise. Just as Israel\u2019s role must be viewed in light of the progression of the covenants, so also must the land. If we do so, we discover that Israel\u2019s land is a type or microcosm of creation and the garden-temple sanctuary of Eden and that it anticipates its antitypical fulfillment in the new creation, which Jesus himself brings to pass by his incarnation and work. In Christ and his church, the international people of the new creation are created, and at the consummation, Christ will culminate his work by creating a place for us in a transformed new heavens and new earth (Revelation 21\u201322). All this is to say that the church, in union with Messiah Jesus, is God\u2019s new covenant, new creation people in continuity with the elect in all ages, and these people are the inheritors of God\u2019s promises yet are different from Israel in her nature and structure.
\nSo contra dispensational theology, Jesus is the antitypical fulfillment of Israel and Adam, and in him, all God\u2019s promises are fulfilled for his people, including the land promise realized in the new creation. Or contra covenant theology, Jesus\u2019s new covenant people are not a mixed community but a people who are united to Christ by faith and are partakers of new covenant blessings, which minimally include the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Spirit, and heart circumcision. Thus, in contrast to Israel, the church is constituted as a believing, regenerate people who all savingly know God. Across the covenants, then, the genealogical principle from the Abrahamic covenant does not remain unchanged. Rather, in Christ, it is transformed so that what circumcision pointed forward to\u2014namely, the circumcision of the heart\u2014is now true of the entire community. Our relationship to our covenant head and mediator, our Lord Jesus, is one of spiritual rebirth and not one of natural relations, such as to \u201cyou and your children,\u201d as important as families remain until the end.
\nIn sketching out our position on these points, we are convinced that another crucial point of division between dispensational and covenant theology concerns the nature of typology and how typological structures interbiblically\/intertextually develop by covenantal progression. In fact, this is the third area that Feinberg argues is a point of division between the two biblical-theological systems, and as such, we want to address it briefly as we conclude this section.<\/p>\n
THE NATURE OF TYPOLOGY AND ITS USE IN DISPENSATIONAL AND COVENANT THEOLOGY<\/p>\n
In dispensational theology, typology is often utilized (although not in a uniform manner), but Israel, as a nation, is not viewed as a type in the predictive, greater-fulfillment sense affirmed by the traditional view, which we hold. Robert Saucy captures the dispensational view well when he writes,<\/p>\n
If a type is understood as a shadow pointing forward to the reality of its antitype, then Israel is not a type. For it would mean, as with the sacrifices of the old covenant, that the coming of the reality in the antitype brings the type to an end. On the other hand, if a type is more loosely defined simply as a general historical and theological correspondence, then the many analogies between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament people of God may well be explained by seeing Israel as a type without necessitating its cessation as a nation and the fulfillment of the promises related to its future.<\/p>\n
In covenant theology, typology is repeatedly employed, but it is rarely applied to the genealogical principle or to circumcision across the covenants so that the relationship of Christ to his people in the new covenant is the antitypical fulfillment of previous covenant relationships, and circumcision of heart, not baptism, is the antitypical fulfillment of circumcision, which now characterizes the entire believing, regenerate community. Often, covenant theology rightly views Christ as the antitypical \u201ctrue Israel,\u201d but it also maintains a direct typological relationship between Israel and the church without any a fortiori escalation, hence the reason why the two communities are substantially the same. But in moving too quickly from Israel to the church without first thinking how Israel as a type leads us to Christ as the antitype, covenant theology fails to see why the church is different in nature from Israel; this approach minimizes the greater, unbreakable nature of the new covenant, tied to Christ\u2019s finished work and the universal distribution of the Spirit to the entire covenant community. For this reason, covenant theology argues that the mixed nature of Israel and the church is basically the same, that the genealogical principle remains unchanged over time, and that the covenant signs\u2014circumcision and baptism\u2014signify the same realities. What is missing is a careful analysis of the progression of the covenants\u2014from Israel (rooted in Adam) to Christ and then to the church\u2014which results in a transformed \u201cgenealogical\u201d relationship of Christ to his people and in differences in the nature of the church and the significance of the covenant sign, namely, baptism.
\nTo say it another way, dispensational and covenant theologians employ typology in many places and often with similar results. For example, they mostly agree that such persons as Adam, Moses, and David, in addition to other prophets, priests, and kings, point forward to and reach their fulfillment in our Lord Jesus Christ. They generally agree that the sacrificial system, tabernacle, and temple are fulfilled in Christ, who brings these types to an end, and that the exodus anticipates a greater redemption in Christ. However, we contend that both views do not employ typology (as defined above) to those areas that are central to their system, yet these are precisely the issues that must be decided biblically. Let us illustrate this point by once again returning to each theological system in turn.
\nIn the case of dispensational theology, if proponents viewed Christ as the antitypical fulfillment of Israel, and if in him all God\u2019s promises are fulfilled and applied to the church, including the land promise in the new creation, then their view, at its core, would be incorrect. Why? Because it is in Christ, as the last Adam, true Israel, and great Davidic king, that Israel\u2019s typological role is fulfilled. This interpretation does not entail that the Jewish people have no future, but it does entail that their future, along with anyone else\u2019s, is seen in relation to Christ. In Christ, Jewish and Gentile believers equally and fully inherit and receive all God\u2019s promises as revealed through the covenants (Eph. 2:11\u201322). This also includes that to which the land promise ultimately pointed, namely, the new creation. In the progression of the covenants, the land functions as an actual place but also as a type, which anticipates something greater. The land is a type that looks back to Eden and, in light of God\u2019s redemptive plan, forward to the new creation, which is Eden as coextensive with the entire new creation (Revelation 21\u201322). Christ, as the antitype of Adam and Israel, is the first man of the new creation, and in his bodily resurrection, he inaugurates the new creation, first in his people and then in the consummated glory of the new creation.
\nHowever, this way of viewing things, Feinberg and dispensationalism reject. It is not surprising that Feinberg, in his discussion of typology, not only adopts a different view of typology (than that outlined above) but also argues that Christ is not the antitype of Israel and that the land is not a typological pattern. Let us look at each of these areas in turn to clarify our point.
\nFirst, Feinberg recognizes that a common way to view typology, such as we affirm (though we would state it differently), is that the \u201ctype is shadow and the antitype is reality\u201d; thus, the implication is that \u201cthe meaning of the antitype supersedes and cancels the meaning of the type in its own context.\u201d Yet as he admits, dispensational theology rejects this view. He says dispensationalists \u201cdo not think types necessarily are shadows, and they demand that both type and antitype be given their due meanings in their own contexts while maintaining a typological relation to one another.\u201d Furthermore, he endorses the view of David Baker that typology is not \u201cin\u201d the text and discovered by exegesis and thus is not intended by the author. Instead, typology rests on analogies between two persons, events, and institutions that are identified only retrospectively. Types do not prefigure something in the future, since that future thing would have a different meaning from what was apparent in the original context. Even if the New Testament interprets the Old Testament typologically, unless the New Testament antitype explicitly cancels the meaning of the Old Testament type, the meaning of the Old Testament text is still in force. As Feinberg summarizes, a<\/p>\n
proper understanding of typology informs us that even if the NT interprets the OT typologically and even if we are to do so, that does not allow us to ignore or cancel the meaning of the type or substitute the meaning of the antitype for it.\u2026 [Types] are concrete historical events, persons, promises. They look to the future, but not in a way that makes their meaning equivalent to the antitype.\u2026 NT antitypes neither explicitly nor implicitly cancel the meaning of OT types.<\/p>\n
From this discussion it is obvious that we differ from Feinberg on typology, which leads to a second observation.
\nWhy does Feinberg argue in this way? The answer is found throughout his entire discussion of what is essential to dispensational theology. He is convinced that national Israel is not a type of Christ, who has a people, composed of believing Jews and Gentiles, who forever receive all God\u2019s promises, including the land, equally and fully. Instead, Feinberg is persuaded that, if he were to accept that Israel is a type of Christ, it would undermine a future role for Israel as a nation, receiving specific promises (associated with the land) \u201cdistinct\u201d from believing Gentile nations. He is convinced that God\u2019s promise to Abraham can be fulfilled in only one way to national Israel, which is still future. Yet his (indeed, the general dispensational) interpretation of these points begs the question since for this view to stand, it must demonstrate that Israel is not a type of Christ (at least in the traditional view of typology) and that in Christ, the church receives all God\u2019s promises and inherits the new creation.
\nHowever, as we will argue in our exposition of the covenants, the Bible\u2019s storyline begins in creation with Adam as the head of the human race, and all the other covenants unfold from this starting point. In creation, Eden, as the garden-temple sanctuary, is the archetype that the land later typifies and that, as a type, anticipates the recovery of the new creation by the last Adam. Furthermore, Adam, as the covenant head, is a type of the last Adam to come, and as the covenants progress, Adam\u2019s role is picked up in Noah, Abraham and his seed, and the nation of Israel, and is epitomized in the Davidic king whom the Prophets say will rule over the entire creation (e.g., Psalms 2; 72). In fact, through the progression of the covenants, there is interbiblical development of the typological patterns, so that when the new covenant era is inaugurated by the last Adam and the true Israel\u2014our Lord Jesus Christ\u2014these types reach their antitypical fulfillment in him (in an already-not yet way) and are applied to the church. Ultimately, our disagreement with dispensational theology is not merely over specific details but over how the Bible\u2019s entire storyline unfolds, beginning in creation and moving to the new creation through covenantal progression that is fulfilled in Christ. We are convinced that progressive covenantalism, at least on these points, is a more \u201cbiblical\u201d rendering of Scripture\u2019s metanarrative.
\nWhat about covenant theology? Where do we differ with them in their use of typology and understanding of the interrelationships between the covenants? Two points will illustrate our differences. First, we are persuaded that their understanding of the genealogical principle is flawed, especially in regard to Christ\u2019s relationship to his people under the new covenant. It is a mistake to think that the genealogical principle of the Abrahamic covenant is not transformed as we move through covenantal progression. For example, under the Old Testament covenants, the genealogical principle\u2014that is, the relationship between the covenant mediator and his seed\u2014was biological and natural (e.g., Adam, Noah, Abraham, David). In the Abrahamic covenant (and then the old covenant), the sign of the covenant, circumcision, was applied to the flesh to indicate that the circumcised individual and his family were consecrated to God\u2019s priestly service of establishing God\u2019s kingdom within the covenant relationship. However, in these covenants, as John Meade explains, \u201cThe sign of circumcision of the flesh did not indicate the thing signified\u2014devotion to Yahweh as king-priests.\u201d In fact, \u201cthe sign of circumcision in the flesh under the Abrahamic and old covenants did not and could not bring about the reality signified\u2014a truly devoted covenant member.\u201d It is only when God himself, by his Spirit, circumcises the people\u2019s hearts that what circumcision signified will actually be the case (see Deut. 30:6; Ezek. 36:25\u201327). In the Old Testament, the sign of circumcision in the flesh becomes a type that points forward to the need for the circumcision of the heart.
\nHowever, as redemptive history unfolds, the Prophets anticipate a day when the Messiah will come and all his people will experience heart circumcision by the Spirit. What is promised is that all the people of the new covenant will have the inward reality of a new heart, who in relation to Christ, the covenant head, and by the Spirit, will live in service and obedience to God. In other words, under Christ\u2019s mediation, his seed\/people are born of the Spirit, and all those in Christ are regenerated, are justified, savingly know God, and await their certain glorification at Christ\u2019s return. It is for this reason that the sign of the new covenant, baptism, is applied to only those who are in fact the spiritual seed of Abraham\u2014that is, those who have professed faith in Christ and have been circumcised of heart. As we will argue, this is precisely what the Prophets anticipated in the dawning of the new covenant (e.g., Jeremiah 31), namely, that the Lord would bring about a spiritually renewed covenant people, all of whom would know him, in contrast to the mixed, disobedient nation of Israel. In other words, in failing to grasp the progression in the covenants across redemptive history, specifically in terms of the relationship between the covenant mediator and his seed, covenant theology has failed to understand correctly how the genealogical principle has changed from Abraham to Christ. Their emphasis on the continuity of the covenant of grace has led them to flatten the newness of the new covenant community.
\nSecond, we are also convinced that, as strange as it may appear, covenant theology does not consistently work out the implications of Christ being the antitype of all the covenant mediators, especially Israel. This criticism is similar to our evaluation of dispensational theology but for different reasons: both systems are not Christological enough! In the case of covenant theology, contra dispensational theology, it views Christ as the \u201ctrue Israel,\u201d but it moves too quickly from Israel to the church without first thinking how Israel as a type leads us to Christ as the antitype, which then has important ecclesiological implications. As noted above, this is why covenant theology tends to flatten the differences between the covenant signs and communities. However, a better way of conceiving these relationships is by noting how, as we move from type to antitype, from covenant heads such as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses\/Israel, and David to Christ, we must view Israel first in relation to Christ rather than in relation to the church. This is why we will argue, contra covenant theology, that it is incorrect to view the church as by nature the same as Israel or as a kind of \u201crenewed\u201d instantiation of Israel. Instead, the church is new in the redemptive-historical sense. Because of her identification with Christ, the antitype of Israel and the head of the new creation, the church is a \u201cnew man\u201d (Eph. 2:11\u201322) and is by nature different from Israel since she is no longer a mixed community. Moreover, all this is true because Christ Jesus has fulfilled all the previous covenants, inaugurated the new covenant, and brought about God-intended covenantal change. And we, as God\u2019s new covenant people, receive the benefits of his work in only one way\u2014through repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ\u2014which then, by God\u2019s grace and power, transfers us from being \u201cin Adam\u201d to being \u201cin Christ,\u201d with all the benefits of that union. Furthermore, the New Testament is clear: to be \u201cin Christ\u201d and thus \u201cin\u201d and \u201cof\u201d the new covenant entails that one has experienced a heart circumcision, since the New Testament knows nothing of one who has been transferred from Adam to Christ who is not effectually called of the Father, born of the Spirit, justified, holy, and awaiting glorification (see Rom. 8:28\u201339). In these specific areas, we part company with covenant theology and argue for what we believe is a more biblical alternative.<\/p>\n
SUMMARY STATEMENT<\/p>\n
We must now turn to the detailed exposition of the biblical covenants and their progression in redemptive history. In so doing, we will follow the hermeneutical method as outlined above. Each biblical covenant will first be placed in its own immediate context and will then be understood in terms of what comes before it in its epochal-covenantal context and finally in terms of what comes after it in light of the entire canon and Christ\u2019s coming. It is only by following this procedure that we are able to do justice to the Old Testament context on its own terms, unpack the interbiblical development within the Old Testament, and then discover how all the biblical covenants find their fulfillment and terminus in Christ. In addition, as each covenant is treated and then related to the whole, we will also note how legitimate typological patterns are developed through covenantal progression, with special focus on crucial points of difference between dispensational and covenant theology. Specific attention will be given to (1) the various covenant heads and their relation to Christ; (2) the covenant signs and how they are unfolded across the canon and related to the new covenant; and (3) the important role of national Israel in the biblical covenants and how Israel is a corporate Adam who functions as a type and pattern of the greater Adam, Israel, and Davidic king, who is the only true and fully obedient covenant keeper and who achieves for us what we could never achieve\u2014namely, our eternal redemption\u2014by his life, death, and resurrection for us as our covenant head.
\nWe readily admit that the debate between dispensational and covenant theology is a complicated one but important in its own right. Although we stand on the shoulders of giants in both camps, our goal is to propose a mediating position\u2014kingdom through covenant, or progressive covenantalism\u2014which we believe better accounts for the Bible\u2019s overall storyline, centered on the glory of our triune God, who is graciously and sovereignly accomplishing his plan and purposes for his glory and the good of the church. Let us now turn to that task.<\/p>\n
PART 2<\/p>\n
EXPOSITION OF THE BIBLICAL COVENANTS<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
THE NOTION OF COVENANT IN THE BIBLE AND IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST<\/p>\n
Those who have lived during the past forty years have experienced enormous changes and shifts in culture and society. I am certainly no expert in government, politics, or society, and cannot provide a profound study of changes in our culture and the reasons for them. I may, however, be allowed a nonexpert opinion based on my own experience, observations, and reading over the years. At least two factors appear to be fundamental in the changes in culture and society in North America.
\nFirst, relationships in family and society are no longer characterized by generosity, love, and trust. Instead, everything is measured out precisely. The cost of every little thing is detailed, and we must pay for everything. When a person is hired, every minute duty and responsibility of work is specified in many, many rules so that if anything goes wrong, the business knows the situation exactly. Nothing is presumed. For example, about forty years ago a ministry in Canada called Christian Horizons fired a worker because that worker was having homosexual relations. The employee took the matter to court, and the judge upheld the complaint of the worker because the employer had not spelled out in any document that those employed by this Christian mission could not be homosexual. Homosexuality is not the point of this illustration. The point is that what was formerly sufficient as \u201cunderstood\u201d now has to be detailed in writing. A basic distrust lurks behind almost all business relations. Thirty years ago I bought a house in Toronto. I did not hire an inspector. I checked the house out myself, believed what the former owner related verbally about the condition of the house, and proceeded to purchase it. Some twenty years ago, when we moved to Louisville, the people who bought our house in Toronto did not believe the information we provided about the house. They hired an inspector. I had informed them that the basement was dry, but they did not believe me. The inspector measured the humidity. He told them the basement was dry. In Louisville, we had to hire a house inspector and a termite inspector, and we had to look at the disclosure agreement signed by the former owner. One can still be cheated after all that.
\nSecond, North America is becoming fragmented by individual and regional interests. What our countries are all about\u2014the larger plan, the overall purpose, what draws a people together as a nation\u2014is absent. This is partly due to the spirit of our times and the central character of our society today. A major change and shift is taking place. For the last two centuries, civilization was dominated by reason. Reason was king. Everything could be worked out by reason, and everything could be conquered by science. In the past, people were not interested in stories, because stories are not always logical and ordered and scientific. Today, reason is no longer king, and people are keenly interested in stories, as we can easily see from the amount of energy, money, and time spent on movies or at theaters. But people are not interested in the \u201cBig Story.\u201d Why? Because big stories attempt to explain all the little stories, and when you propose an explanation that covers everything, you are bigoted. You are forcing your opinion on someone else. You have committed the unpardonable sin of being intolerant. Alternatively, there is so much information that the task of adducing a big story that encompasses it all seems too daunting or even hubristic.
\nThe question of relationships is handled in the Bible by one concept, one word: covenant. And the question of an overall plan is handled by the sequence of significant covenants.<\/p>\n
COVENANTS IN THE BIBLE<\/p>\n
The idea and notion of covenant as found in the Bible and biblical world, and likely even in the term, is foreign to our culture, society, and thoughtworld today. A brief overview of covenants in the Old Testament and in the ancient Near East, along with definitions, will begin to adjust our perspective to that of the Bible.<\/p>\n
COVENANTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT<\/p>\n
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for covenant is b\u0115r\u00eet. The same word is used in Scripture for a wide diversity of oath-bound commitments in various relationships. It is used to refer to international treaties (Josh. 9:6; 1 Kings 15:19), clan alliances (Gen. 14:13), personal agreements (Gen. 31:44), national agreements (Jer. 34:8\u201310), and loyalty agreements (1 Sam. 20:14\u201317), including marriage (Mal. 2:14).<\/p>\n
International Treaties<\/p>\n
In Joshua 9, when Joshua led Israel into the land of Canaan and attacked the Canaanites who were living in the land at that time, Israel was deceived and tricked by the Gibeonites into making a treaty with them. This was a peace treaty between two nations.
\nIn 1 Kings 5:12, Hiram, king of Tyre, a city in ancient Phoenicia, and Solomon, king of Israel, made an international treaty. There were peaceful relations between the two countries and agreements for commerce and trade.<\/p>\n
Clan\/Tribal Alliances<\/p>\n
In Genesis 14:13, powerful nomads of the desert formed an alliance to help each other in case of attack by enemies. This was essentially an alliance between clans or tribes.<\/p>\n
Personal Agreements<\/p>\n
After years of attempting to best and outwit each other, Laban and his nephew Jacob finally made an agreement not to harm each other (Gen. 31:44). This was a private agreement between two individual persons.<\/p>\n
National Legal Agreements<\/p>\n
In Jeremiah 34:8\u201310, King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people to proclaim freedom for all the slaves. Although this may seem somewhat similar to a legal agreement or contract, it was different in character from contracts and legal documents of today. Since the covenant was made between king and people, it operated at a national level.<\/p>\n
Loyalty Agreements<\/p>\n
Jonathan, the son of King Saul, developed a deep friendship with David during the years when Saul sought to get rid of David and kill him. This friendship was formally solemnized twice by agreements of loyalty (1 Sam. 18:3; 23:18).<\/p>\n
Marriage<\/p>\n
The marriage relationship is a particular kind of loyalty agreement formally solemnized by a vow before God. This is clearly indicated by Proverbs 2:17 and Malachi 2:14.<\/p>\n
What this evidence demonstrates is that the Hebrew word b\u0115r\u00eet is used for a wide variety of relationships, and therefore, we should be careful about definitions that are too narrow.<\/p>\n
DEFINITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS<\/p>\n
Defining the term \u201ccovenant\u201d (b\u0115r\u00eet) is difficult, but for heuristic purposes the following may be used as a place to start. Gordon Hugenberger\u2019s definition is brief and clear:<\/p>\n
A covenant, in its normal sense, is an elected, as opposed to natural, relationship of obligation under oath.<\/p>\n
The following description, adapted from Daniel C. Lane, is similar but fuller:<\/p>\n
A covenant is an enduring agreement that defines a relationship between two parties involving a solemn, binding obligation (or obligations) specified on the part of at least one of the parties toward the other, made by oath under threat of divine curse, and ratified by a visual ritual.<\/p>\n
Hugenberger, who produced an extensive and scholarly treatment of marriage as a covenant, notes that in the history of Israel a covenant always entails (1) a relationship (2) with a nonrelative (3) that involves obligations and (4) is established through an oath. Thus, a b\u0115r\u00eet is a relationship involving an oath-bound commitment.
\nIt should be noted, however, that in Scripture the relationship between parents and children is considered covenantal, and this relationship is not with a nonrelative, nor is it a relationship one chooses. In Proverbs 3:3, a father commands his son to \u201clet love [\u1e25esed] and faithfulness [\u2019\u0115met] never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart\u201d (NIV). Normally the objects of the pair of words \u201cbind \u2026 write \u2026\u201d are the individual commands or instructions of the covenant. Here in Proverbs 3:3, however, the third-person masculine plural pronoun clearly refers to \u1e25esed and \u2019\u0115met. Kindness and faithfulness speak of the character\/manner of the obedience of children to their parents, that is, the quality or way of performing covenant responsibilities. Thus Proverbs 3:3 is equivalent to the parallel passages, but the emphasis here falls on the manner in which children render obedience to their parents: the motivation for obeying parents is covenant loyalty, not duress.
\nIn brief, the definition of covenant must be short and simple to cover all instances in Scripture: it is a relationship between two parties involving permanent and serious commitments of faithful, loyal love, obedience, and trust. Covenants differ considerably from business contracts or marketplace agreements.
\nScholars debate whether b\u0115r\u00eet \u201ccan denote a relationship between parties, or simply the obligation one party takes upon himself.\u201d This debate seems to be based upon a false dichotomy. Fulfilling an obligation between human parties involves them formalizing some understanding between them, and no relationship between human parties is without obligations unless it functions at a merely animal level.
\nExtensive studies of the etymology or origin of the word b\u0115r\u00eet have not been particularly illuminating as to its meaning. In the branch of the Semitic family to which Hebrew belongs, b\u0115r\u00eet is attested as a loanword in Egyptian texts as early as 1300 BC. This fact indicates that the use of the word was already well established before that time. Later we will see that examples and usage help us understand the term better than etymology does.
\nJohn Davies instructively notes that \u201cthe fundamental image behind each of the applications of \u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea [b\u0115r\u00eet] is the use of familial categories for those who are not bound by ties of natural kinship.\u201d Thus by a ceremony or (quasi-) legal process, people who are not kin are now bound as tightly as in any family relationship. Marriage is the best example of this pattern. A man and a woman, who are not previously related, are now bound closer than any other bond of blood or kinship.<\/p>\n
COVENANTS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST<\/p>\n
We must not think that the kinds of agreements or covenants described in the Bible were entirely unique to the nation of Israel. Covenants or treaties either identical or similar to those mentioned in the Old Testament were common all across the ancient Near East, in lands and regions known today as Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Two types of treaties in the ancient Near East are especially noteworthy: (1) the suzerain-vassal treaty and (2) the royal charter or land grant. The first type is a diplomatic treaty between a great king, or suzerain, and client kings, or vassals. The focus of these treaties was to reinforce the interests of the suzerain by arguments from history and oath-bound affirmations of loyalty on the part of the vassal states, backed up by divine sanctions. The second type of treaty involved a grant of property or even a privileged position of a priestly or royal office given as a favor by a god or king. These treaties focused on honor and the interpersonal relationship.
\nIn an important study, Moshe Weinfeld describes the differences between the vassal treaty and the royal grant in this way:<\/p>\n
While the \u201ctreaty\u201d constitutes an obligation of the vassal to his master, the suzerain, the \u201cgrant\u201d constitutes an obligation of the master to his servant. In the \u201cgrant\u201d the curse is directed towards the one who will violate the rights of the king\u2019s vassal, while in the treaty the curse is directed towards the vassal who will violate the rights of his king. In other words, the \u201cgrant\u201d serves mainly to protect the rights of the servant, while the treaty comes to protect the rights of the master. What is more, while the grant is a reward for loyalty and good deeds already performed, the treaty is an inducement for future loyalty.<\/p>\n
In addition to the differences between the two, there are important similarities as well:<\/p>\n
While the grant is mainly a promise by the donor to the recipient, it presupposes the loyalty of the latter. By the same token the treaty, whose principal concern is with the obligation of the vassal, presupposes the sovereign\u2019s promise to protect his vassal\u2019s country and dynasty.<\/p>\n
John Davies nicely summarizes the differences between grant and suzerainty treaties as follows:<\/p>\n
If a difference is to be observed, it will be in terms of the fact that a suzerainty treaty places the emphasis on the interstate relationships (expressed in terms of the monarch\u2019s personal dealings), while the grant treaty has its focus more on the interpersonal relationships, and the favour of the greater king to the lesser.<\/p>\n
Scholars have found it helpful to compare and contrast biblical covenants in form and structure to treaties in the ancient Near East. For example, the book of Deuteronomy is almost identical in form (but not in content) to the international treaties in the ancient Near East, especially to the suzerain-vassal treaties of the Hittites from the second millennium. Discussion of the biblical covenants in this work will benefit from noting both differences and similarities between the major covenants in the Old Testament and those in the nations surrounding Israel. Two important points have frequently eluded scholars as they have attempted to use models or patterns of treaties in the ancient Near East to analyze and characterize those in the Old Testament. First, it may be that the biblical treaty in question is an adaptation of a genre or literary model in the ancient Near East and not necessarily a consciously close imitation of the literary structure in all aspects, so that one need not \u201cdiscover\u201d every feature of the genre or model in the biblical example. Second, although one may distinguish these two types of treaties, they represent different emphases on a continuum rather than polar opposites. Thus, rather than categorizing a treaty as either suzerain-vassal or royal-grant, it may be that a covenant in the Old Testament bears features of both types, and it would diminish the communication of Scripture to represent the covenant solely in terms of one model.<\/p>\n
MAJOR COVENANTS IN THE BIBLE<\/p>\n
While there are a great number and variety of covenants or treaties described in the Old Testament, certain covenants between God and other parties\u2014be they groups or individuals\u2014stand out in the plot structure of the narrative as determined by the canon of the Old Testament. Table 4.1 concisely lists the major covenants.<\/p>\n
Table 4.1 The Major Covenants
\nCovenant
\nMain Scripture Texts
\n1. The covenant with creation
\nGenesis 1\u20133
\n2. The covenant with Noah
\nGenesis 6\u20139
\n3. The covenant with Abraham
\nGenesis 12; 15; 17; 22
\n4. The covenant at Sinai
\nEx. 19:3b\u20138; 20\u201324
\n5. The covenant with David
\n2 Samuel 7; Psalm 89
\n6. The new covenant
\nJeremiah 31\u201334; Ezek. 33:29\u201339:29<\/p>\n
Some debate exists as to what should or should not be included in a list such as this. Not all are persuaded that the features portrayed in Genesis 1\u20132 can be labeled a covenant. Some would add to this list covenants such as the covenant with Levi (Num. 25:6\u201313; cf. Mal. 2:1\u20139). At least the six covenants in this list, however, need to be discussed and studied.<\/p>\n
THE DOCUMENTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT<\/p>\n
At first glance, what we call the Old Testament seems to be an odd assortment of texts of various genres, or literary types. Manuscripts that transmit the Hebrew Old Testament demonstrate different arrangements of the individual literary pieces included in the collection. There are, in fact, approximately seventy different arrangements in the manuscripts. These arrangements can be classified according to three types: (1) chronological, that is, in the order in which it is thought they were written; (2) liturgical, that is, in the order in which passages are read in synagogue services; and (3) literary-rational, that is, in an arrangement based on literary principles.
\nThe literary-rational order divides the documents into three groups: (1) Torah (instruction or law), (2) Prophets, and (3) Writings. Table 4.2 shows this arrangement. Each group or section contains history or narrative plus another genre of texts. The name for each section is derived from the \u201cother genre,\u201d so that the Torah consists of history plus \u201cinstruction,\u201d the Prophets consist of history plus \u201cprophecy,\u201d and the Writings consist of history plus various other \u201cwritings.\u201d There is also a guiding principle for the arrangement of the books within each section: the history books are arranged according to the chronology of the events narrated and the nonhistory books are arranged in order of size. This is what is meant by a literary-rational arrangement.
\nThe chronological and liturgical arrangements are later and secondary, based on minor rearrangements of the literary-rational order according to either chronology or liturgical requirements in Jewish worship. The literary-rational arrangement is the original one. The arrangement of the books in our English versions today is derived not from the Hebrew canon but from Christian manuscripts of the Greek translation that rearrange the texts according to genre.<\/p>\n
Table 4.2 Old Testament Canon: The Twenty-Four Books
\nThe Law
\nThe Prophets
\nThe Writings
\n1. Genesis
\n6. Joshua
\n14. Ruth
\n2. Exodus
\n7. Judges
\n15. Psalms
\n3. Leviticus
\n8. Samuel
\n16. Job
\n4. Numbers
\n9. Kings
\n17. Proverbs
\n5. Deuteronomy
\n10. Jeremiah
\n18. Ecclesiastes
\n11. Ezekiel
\n19. Song of Songs
\n12. Isaiah
\n20. Lamentations
\n13. The Twelve Prophets
\n21. Daniel
\n22. Esther
\n23. Ezra-Nehemiah
\n24. Chronicles<\/p>\n
Historical evidence shows that the arrangement in the Hebrew canon certainly dates from the second century BC and probably even earlier, from Ezra and Nehemiah in the late fifth century BC. This arrangement was accepted and adopted by Jesus and his apostles in the New Testament (see Luke 24:44). The arrangements in Christian manuscripts of the fourth century AD show a failure to preserve this tradition.
\nOne can see from the arrangement in the Hebrew canon that the first nine books and the last four are historical or narrative. Sandwiched in between are nonnarrative books that form a commentary on the historical\/narrative section.
\nImportant questions arise from observing the collection of documents known as the Old Testament. Is this just an anthology of texts, or is it a single text? Is it a book and not just a library of books? The apostles taught that the Scriptures are not only human in origin but also divine. Thus, although a wide variety of authors are involved from the human standpoint, there is only one author from the divine standpoint. This suggests that the collection should be considered a single text.
\nThis book focuses on the Hebrew canon and Old Testament since this is the part of the Christian Bible where the major texts relating to the covenants are located and also where the literary plot structure of the whole is established. Obviously, we consider the documents of the New Testament to be integral to the canon of the Christian Bible as a whole and essential and vital to this biblical theology.<\/p>\n
THE MAJOR COVENANTS AS THE FRAMEWORK OF THE BIBLICAL METANARRATIVE<\/p>\n
What, we may well ask, in literary terms, is the plot structure of the Old Testament or even the entire Bible as a single text? The thesis of this work is that the covenants constitute the framework of the larger story. They are the backbone of the biblical narrative.
\nThe biblical story begins with the fact that there is only one God. He has created everything and especially made humankind to rule under him. In this context, God is the center of the universe, and we humans find our purpose in having a right relationship to God and to one another. The first man and woman, however, rejected this way. Now, what happens when God is no longer the center of our universe? Who steps in to take his place? Why, we do. I want to be at the center of the universe. Will this work? No, because you want to be there too. And so, chaos and evil have reigned since the rebellion of Adam and Eve, because from then on, we no longer had a right relationship with God and did not treat each other as genuinely human.
\nGod judged the entire human race and made a new start with Noah. This too ended up in chaos and evil, as is clear from the story of the Tower of Babel.
\nThen he made a fresh start with Abraham. He would restore a creation and humanity ruined by pride and rebellion by using Abraham and his family as a pilot project. The people of Israel would be an example, a light to the world of what it meant to be properly related to God and to treat each other according to the dignity of our humanity. We may call this the Mosaic covenant, set forth in Exodus and restated in Deuteronomy.
\nBut the people of Israel did not keep the Mosaic covenant. They were to be blessed for obedience, cursed for disobedience. That is why the biblical story ends up by talking about a new covenant. This time it would be possible to keep this covenant.
\nThis summary of the biblical story illustrates that in less than three hundred words\u2014the amount of space allowed for a dissertation abstract\u2014the covenants adequately account for the literary or plot structure of the Bible as a text. The Jewish scholar Rabbi Richard Elliott Friedman has recognized this:<\/p>\n
With the Noahic covenant promising the stability of the cosmic structure, the Abrahamic covenant promising people and land, the Davidic covenant promising sovereignty, and the Israelite covenant promising life, security, and prosperity, the biblical authors and editors possessed a platform from which they could portray and reconcile nearly every historical, legendary, didactic, folk, and the like, account in their tradition. If we could delete all references to covenant\u2014which we cannot do, precisely because it is regularly integral to its contexts\u2014we would have an anthology of stories. As it is we have a structure that can house a plot.<\/p>\n
The claim here is that the covenants are the key to the larger story of Scripture, the biblical metanarrative. While the claim is based on the idea that the canon is a single book and not just an anthology of texts, it is not the same as discovering a plan to the arrangement of the books, although that is in part related. It is a question of the literary plot structure of the metanarrative as a whole, even though, strictly speaking, not every part is narrative. Even genres that are not narrative have at base a larger story that provides the framework for understanding them. Thus the nonnarrative genres are based on the story.
\nNor is this claim the same as the goal pursued by the biblical theology movement of the twentieth century, where the aim was to find a \u201ccenter\u201d for, as an example, the Old Testament. Thus Walther Eichrodt, in his magisterial Theology of the Old Testament, proposed that \u201ccovenant\u201d was the central idea or notion on which a biblical theology could be constructed. Our claim is not that covenant is central to a biblical theology of the Old Testament but rather that the covenants (plural) are at the heart of the metanarrative plot structure.<\/p>\n
A COMPARISON OF CONTRACT AND COVENANT<\/p>\n
In our culture in North America, the biblical understanding of a covenant relationship is disappearing and being replaced by the notion of contract or marketplace-style agreements. In table 4.3, Elmer Martens provides a comparison and contrast between covenant and contract that clarifies and sharpens our understanding of the biblical idea of a covenant relationship.<\/p>\n
Table 4.3 Comparison and Contrast between Covenant and Contract
\nCategory
\nContract
\nCovenant
\nForm \/ literary structure
\n1. Date
\n2. Parties
\n3. Transaction
\n4. Investiture
\n5. Guarantees
\n6. Scribe
\n7. List of witnesses
\n1. Speaker introduced
\n2. History of relationship
\n3. General command
\n4. Detailed stipulations
\n5. Document statement
\n6. Witnesses
\n7. Blessings and curses
\nOccasion
\nExpected benefit
\nDesire for relationship
\nInitiative
\nMutual agreement
\nStronger party
\nOrientation
\nNegotiation Thing-oriented
\nGift Person-oriented
\nObligation
\nPerformance
\nLoyalty
\nTermination
\nSpecified
\nIndeterminate
\nViolation
\nYes
\nYes<\/p>\n
Various categories help to highlight the similarities and differences between contract and covenant and so enable us to appreciate the significance of the loyalty aspect in covenant. The most obvious difference between contract and covenant is the form or literary structure. We have many contracts in Egyptian Aramaic from the fifth century BC. A consistent format gives the date, lists the parties, describes the transaction, and is followed by guarantees and witnesses. This format differs markedly from that of the covenants or treaties, whether of the second or first millennium BC. Yet beyond the aspect of form there are other fundamental differences. Martens comments helpfully on these as follows:<\/p>\n
The occasion for contract is largely the benefits that each party expects. Thus for a satisfactory sum one party agrees to supply a specified quantity of some desired product for the other party. The contract is characteristically thing-oriented. The covenant is person-oriented and, theologically speaking, arises, not with benefits as the chief barter item, but out of a desire for a measure of intimacy. In a contract negotiation and arrival at a mutually satisfactory agreement is important. In a covenant, negotiation has no place. The greater in grace offers his help; the initiative is his. \u201cGift\u201d is descriptive of covenant as \u201cnegotiation\u201d is descriptive of contract. Both covenant and contract have obligations, but with this difference. The conditions set out in a contract require fulfillment of terms; the obligation of a covenant is one of loyalty. A covenant, commonly, is forever; a contract for a specified period. A ticking off of terms in check-list fashion can reveal a broken contract, and the point of brokenness can be clearly identified. A covenant, too, can be broken, but the point at which this transpires is less clear, because here the focus is not on stipulations, one, two, three, but on a quality of intimacy. Of all the differences between covenant and contract, the place in covenant of personal loyalty is the most striking.<\/p>\n
At the heart of covenant, then, is the relationship between parties characterized by faithfulness and loyalty in love. In the Hebrew of the Old Testament, a word pair is consistently used to express this notion: \u1e25esed and \u2019\u0115met. Neither word has a convenient and simple equivalent in English. The first, \u1e25esed, has to do with showing kindness in loyal love. The second, \u2019\u0115met, can be translated by either \u201cfaithfulness\u201d or \u201ctruth.\u201d As a word pair, one cannot easily reduce the meaning of the whole to the sum of its constituent parts, just as current speakers of English cannot explain the meaning of the expression by and large by analyzing by and large individually. This word pair operates, then, within covenant relationships and has to do with demonstrating faithful, loyal love within the covenant context.<\/p>\n
REFLECTIONS ON COVENANT RELATIONSHIP<\/p>\n
An excellent illustration of the word pair \u1e25esed and \u2019\u0115met is found in Genesis 47:29\u201330:<\/p>\n
When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, \u201cIf I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness [\u1e25esed and \u2019\u0115met]. Do not bury me in Egypt, but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.\u201d
\n\u201cI will do as you say,\u201d he said. (NIV)<\/p>\n
Jacob, also called Israel, is asking his son Joseph to bury him in Canaan and not in Egypt. A covenant relationship binds father and son here, since family relationships are covenantal in the Old Testament. The stronger party, Joseph, bears an obligation to help the weaker party, Jacob. The fulfillment of this obligation is referred to as showing \u1e25esed and \u2019\u0115met\u2014faithful, loyal love. We can summarize these elements as follows:<\/p>\n
1. Covenant relationship
\n2. Obligation to help weaker party
\n3. Fulfillment of obligation demonstrates faithful, loyal love<\/p>\n
Concerning \u1e25esed, Leon Morris notes, \u201cIn men it is the ideal; in God it is the actual.\u201d When Solomon dedicated the temple, he affirmed in his prayer, \u201cThere is no God like you, in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart\u201d (1 Kings 8:23 ESV). The comment of Francis I. Andersen is also significant:<\/p>\n
Contrary to what some commentators have inferred, this statement does not define \u1e25esed as covenant keeping. Rather \u201ccovenant and \u1e25esed\u201d (hendiadys) identify the Lord\u2019s covenant as one of \u1e25esed as distinct from say, a political treaty or a commercial\/marketplace contract. Much of the discussion of biblical covenants in recent decades, arising from the observations of G. E. Mendenhall, has inverted the real order of things by placing \u1e25esed in the framework of the formalities of covenant-making instead of placing the biblical covenant on the basis of \u1e25esed. In particular, what is celebrated here is the fact [that] the Lord kept his promise, and to that extent one might say, fulfilled an obligation. But it was self-imposed. The giving of the promise was the foundational act of \u1e25esed. The promise formalized the undertaking. Keeping the promise is not itself a subsequent and dependant act of \u1e25esed, it is simply \u201ckeeping\u201d \u1e25esed and in that sense, God is reliable.<\/p>\n
The groundbreaking study of \u1e25esed by Nelson Glueck in 1967 has been challenged, and the meaning of \u1e25esed has been refined in a number of significant studies since that time, mainly by Katharine D. Sakenfeld, Francis I. Andersen, and Gordon R. Clark. Andersen reacted to Glueck\u2019s study by attempting to defend that \u1e25esed means \u201ca quite spontaneous expression of love, evoked by no kind of obligation.\u201d In a helpful analysis, John Meade distinguished between ontological and functional \u1e25esed in the being of God; God freely demonstrates \u1e25esed because it is his nature to do so. Stephen Dempster developed the distinction of Meade following the key literary markers in the text. The key passage in the Old Testament for the ontological-functional understanding of \u1e25esed is the revelation given to Moses in Exodus 34:6\u20137.
\nIn the context, Moses asks Yahweh to show him his glory. Yahweh responds in Exodus 33:19\u201323:<\/p>\n
And he said, \u201cI will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name \u2018The LORD.\u2019 And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,\u201d he said, \u201cyou cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.\u201d And the LORD said, \u201cBehold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.\u201d (ESV)<\/p>\n
Then, after Moses cuts another two tablets and ascends the mountain, Yahweh descends in the cloud and proclaims the name of the Lord (Ex. 34:6\u20137), as shown in tables 4.4 and 4.5.<\/p>\n
Table 4.4 Yahweh Yahweh (Hebrew)
\n\u2019\u0113l ra\u1e25\u00fbm w\u0115\u1e25ann\u00fbn
\n\u2019erek appayim w\u0115rab \u1e25esed w\u0115\u2019\u0115met
\nOntology
\nn\u014d\u1e63er \u1e25esed l\u0101\u2019\u0103l\u0101p\u00eem
\nn\u014d\u015b\u0113\u2019 \u2018\u0101w\u00f4n w\u0101pe\u0161a\u2018 w\u0115ha\u1e6d\u1e6d\u0101\u2019\u00e2
\nFunction +
\nw\u0115naqq\u0113h l\u014d\u2019 y\u0115naqqeh
\np\u014dq\u0113d \u2018\u0101w\u00f4n \u2019\u0101b\u00f4t \u2018al b\u0101n\u00eem w\u0115\u2018al b\u0115n\u0113 b\u0101n\u00eem \u2018al
\n\u0161ill\u0113\u0161\u00eem w\u0115\u2018al ribb\u0113\u2018\u00eem
\nFunction \u2212<\/p>\n
Table 4.5 Yahweh Yahweh (English, ESV)
\na God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness
\nOntology
\nkeeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin
\nFunction +
\nbut who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children\u2019s children, to the third and the fourth generations
\nFunction \u2212<\/p>\n
The revelation begins by repeating the name Yahweh. This is the only instance in the entire Old Testament where the name is repeated twice. The repetition means, \u201cPay attention!\u201d The number two is also the key to the literary structure. There are three pairs of qualities of the divine nature, and the first pair forms a chiasm with the last revelation of that nature, in Exodus 33:19b, which was a preview for Moses:<\/p>\n
\u05d5\u05b0\u05d7\u05b7\u05e0\u05b9\u05bc\u05ea\u05b4\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b8\u05d7\u05b9\u05df \u05d5\u05b0\u05e8\u05b4\u05d7\u05b7\u05de\u05b0\u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05d9 \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b2\u05e8\u05b7\u05d7\u05b5\u05dd\u05c3<\/p>\n
And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. (ESV)<\/p>\n
Thus in Exodus 33:19b, we have \u201cgracious\u201d and \u201cmerciful,\u201d whereas in Exodus 34:6, we have \u201cmerciful\u201d and \u201cgracious\u201d (a\u2013b::b\u2032\u2013a\u2032). These two qualities stress the incredible grace and compassion\u2014completely unmerited\u2014in Yahweh. The next two stress his qualities of forbearance (slowness to anger) as well as his overflowing faithful loving-kindness.
\nThese ontological qualities then flow into incredible positive functions that form a chiasm with the negative functions: he guards \u1e25esed. The word n\u014d\u1e63\u0113r (\u201cguard\u201d) is chosen because of its assonance with n\u014d\u015b\u0113\u2019 (\u201cforgive\u201d) and also because it is more active than just \u201cdo.\u201d The usual expression in the Hebrew Bible is \u201cdo \u1e25esed.\u201d To \u201cguard \u1e25esed\u201d is stronger\u2014God earnestly maintains and preserves \u1e25esed. As we can see from Exodus 20:5\u20136, \u201cthousands\u201d does not mean thousands of people but specifically stands in contrast to \u201cvisiting iniquity to the third and fourth generations\u201d and hence means thousands of generations. This is an outflow of the divine nature. Second, this \u1e25esed issues in a comprehensive forgiveness but a forgiveness that nonetheless still takes sin very seriously (he does not acquit the guilty)\u2014in other words, this is a costly forgiveness. There is a tension here within the divine nature, caused by human sin, but that will one day be resolved.
\nAnd this incredible and matchless revelation is what it means to see Yahweh\u2019s back. Imagine looking him full in the face!
\nAnother wonderful illustration is Psalm 117:<\/p>\n
Praise the LORD, all you nations;
\nextol him, all you peoples.
\nFor great is his love [\u1e25esed] toward us,
\nand the faithfulness [\u2019\u0115met] of the LORD endures forever.<\/p>\n
Praise the LORD. (NIV)<\/p>\n
This is the briefest and shortest hymn in the whole of Israel\u2019s songbook (Psalms). According to the standard format for a hymn, there is a call to praise Yahweh followed by the reason for praise. In Psalm 117, verse 1 is the call to praise, and verse 2 is the reason for praise. In the section giving the reason for praise, the word pair \u1e25esed and \u2019\u0115met is split over parallel lines. Thus, the reason for boasting about the Lord is his faithful, loyal love in his covenant with his people Israel. In fact, the celebration of this quality summarizes the entire Psalter.
\nWhen a budding scholar completes a doctoral dissertation, the dissertation must be summarized in three hundred words. This is called a dissertation abstract. And Psalm 117 is the dissertation abstract for the entire book of Psalms. It summarizes in just a very few words all the laments, hymns, and songs of thanksgiving in Israel\u2019s hymnal, including the enormously long Psalm 119. The Lord is worthy of the worship of his people Israel because he demonstrates faithful, loyal love in the covenant relationship.<\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
THE COVENANT WITH NOAH<\/p>\n
The Toronto Star is a major newspaper in the largest city in Canada. This newspaper published an article in November 1996 announcing that Mr. Jean Chr\u00e9tien, the prime minister of Canada at that time, had fulfilled 78 percent of his election promises. By contrast, the God revealing himself in a progression of covenants has fulfilled his promises to Noah and to the entire human race as entailed in the covenant with Noah 100 percent for several thousand years. The proof is in the alternating progression of seasons experienced up to the present.<\/p>\n
THE CONTEXT OF THE COVENANT WITH NOAH<\/p>\n
Whether or not a covenant per se is entailed in Genesis 1\u20133 is debated. The first occurrence in the Bible of the word \u201ccovenant\u201d (b\u0115r\u00eet) is in Genesis 6:18 and is in reference to the covenant with Noah. God says to Noah, \u201cBut I will establish my covenant [b\u0115r\u00eet] with you\u201d (NIV). Consequently, Genesis 6\u20139 and the covenant with Noah will be examined first, and only then can (and will) the issues raised by Genesis 1\u20133 be considered.
\nFirst, we need to consider the context in which God makes this statement to Noah (in Gen. 6:18) and the meaning of the language used in this text. In the previous verse, God informs Noah that he is going to destroy all life on the earth\u2014all human and animal life in the entire world. The means of destruction will be a cataclysmic event: floodwaters covering the entire earth. God instructs Noah, however, to construct a big \u201cbox\u201d that will be the means of deliverance from the destruction of the flood.
\nThe earlier part of chapter 6 explains why God had apparently given up on the human race and decided upon such a cataclysmic course of action. In verse 5, we are told, \u201cThe LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time\u201d (NIV). A bit further on in verses 11\u201313 we read,<\/p>\n
Now the earth was corrupt in God\u2019s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, \u201cI am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.\u201d (NIV)<\/p>\n
Verse 5 describes the human situation as \u201cbad,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d or \u201cwicked,\u201d and traces this to the condition of the human heart, the center of our being where we feel, reason, and make decisions and plans. In verses 11\u201313, two terms in particular stand out: \u201ccorrupt\u201d and \u201cviolence.\u201d The first word occurs three times and the second word twice, so that the cumulative effect is pronounced. It is difficult for the reader to miss the message! The term \u201ccorrupt\u201d shows that a beautiful and good situation is now ruined, spoiled, and twisted. Frequently, not many hours after opening presents on Christmas Day, children manage to ruin and spoil beautiful and intricate toys so that they are damaged in appearance and function\u2014a picture of corruption. The term \u201cviolence\u201d (\u1e25\u0101m\u0101s) refers specifically to social violence and conditions in human society where social justice is lacking.
\nThe evil of the human heart resulting in corruption and social violence brings a response from God, according to verses 6\u20137:<\/p>\n
The LORD was grieved that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, \u201cI will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created\u2014humans and with them the animals, the birds, and the creatures that move along the ground\u2014for I am grieved that I have made them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some translations speak of God \u201cregretting\u201d or \u201cfeeling sorry\u201d that he had made man on the earth. It is important to note that the divine response refers to God\u2019s consistent opposition to injustice, social violence, and wickedness and does not indicate that he is changeable or capricious. Bruce Waltke\u2019s comment is helpful:<\/p>\n
We see many cases in Scripture that show that if God plans to do evil and the people repent and do good, the evil will not transpire, and vice versa (e.g., Jer. 18:5\u201311). God regrets precisely because he is unchangeable. Paul House notes, \u201cGod\u2019s regret means action must be taken, not that a great cosmic mistake has been made.\u201d In other words, God\u2019s motives are always good and just.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not everyone in the covenant of grace is elect.\u201d In fact, it is due to this understanding of the covenant of grace that a covenant ecclesiology views the church, by nature, as a mixed community, which also lends support for the practice of paedobaptism. In principle, there is nothing objectionable in viewing unregenerate people as … <\/p>\n