What is Covenant Theology?

Here is an excerpt of the excellent answer given by Ligon Duncan III PhD, Senior Minister of First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, to the question of what covenant theology is,

Covenant theology is the Gospel set in the context of God’s eternal plan of communion with his people, and its historical outworking in the covenants of works and grace (as well as in the various progressive stages of the covenant of grace).  Covenant theology explains the meaning of the death of Christ in light of the fullness of the biblical teaching on the divine covenants, undergirds our understanding of the nature and use of the sacraments, and provides the fullest possible explanation of the grounds of our assurance.

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

 When Jesus wanted to explain the significance of His death to His disciples, He went to the doctrine of the covenants (see Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, 1 Corinthians 11). When God wanted to assure Abraham of the certainty of His word of promise, He went to the covenant (Genesis 12, 15, and 17).  When God wanted to set apart His people, ingrain His work in their minds, tangibly reveal Himself in love and mercy, and confirm their future inheritance, He gave the covenant signs (Genesis 17, Exodus 12, 17, and 31, Matthew 28, Acts 2, Luke 22).  When Luke wanted to show early Christians that Jesus’ life and ministry were the fulfillment of God’s ancient purposes for His chosen people, he went to the covenants and quoted Zacharias’ prophecy which shows that believers in the very earliest days of  ‘the Jesus movement’ understood Jesus and His messianic work as a fulfillment (not a ‘Plan B’) of God’s covenant with Abraham (Luke 1:72-73). When the Psalmist and the author of Hebrews want to show how God’s redemptive plan is ordered and on what basis it unfolds in history, they went to the covenants (see Psalm 78, 89, Hebrews 6-10).

“The doctrine of the covenant lies at the root of all true theology.  It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, is a master of divinity.  I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture, are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenant of law and of grace.  May God grant us now the power to instruct, and you the grace to receive instruction on this vital subject.” Who said this?  C.H. Spurgeon — the great English Baptist preacher!  Certainly a man beyond our suspicion of secretly purveying a Presbyterian view of the sacraments to the unsuspecting evangelical masses.

Covenant theology flows from the trinitarian life and work of God.  God’s covenant communion with us is modeled on and a reflection of the intra-trinitarian relationships.  The shared life, the fellowship of the persons of the Holy Trinity, what theologians call perichoresis or circumincessio, is the archetype of the relationship the gracious covenant God shares with His elect and redeemed people.  God’s commitments in the eternal covenant of redemptive find space-time realization in the covenant of grace. [1]

Footnotes  

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[1]  Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, What is Covenant Theology, FPC Jackson Sermons.

Covenant Theology In Scriptures

In his excellent introduction to the reprint of the classic, "The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity" by Herman Witsius, renowned Anglican theologian J.I Packer enlists four features of the Bible, by which it forces its readers to covenantal thinking. They are :

First, by the story that it tells. The books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, are, as was said earlier, God's own record of the progressive unfolding of his purpose to have a people in covenant with himself here on earth. The covenantal character of God's relationships with human beings, first to last, has already been underlined, and is in fact reflected one way and another on just about every page of the Bible. The transition in Eden from the covenant of works to the covenant of grace, and the further transition from all that was involved in the preliminary (old) form of that covenant to its final (new) form, brought in through the death of Jesus Christ and now administered by him from his throne, are the key events in the covenant story. The significance of the fact that God caused his book of instruction to mankind to be put together with the history of his covenant as its backbone can hardly be overestimated. Covenant relationships between God and men, established by God's initiative, bringing temporal and eternal blessings to individuals and creating community among them, so that they have a corporate identity as God's people, are in fact the pervasive themes of the whole Bible; and it compels thoughtful readers to take note of the covenant as being central to God's concern.

Second, Scripture forces covenant theology upon us by the place it gives to Jesus Christ in the covenant story. That all Scripture, one way and another, is pointing its readers to Christ, teaching us truths and showing us patterns of divine action that help us understand him properly, is a principle that no reverent and enlightened Bible student will doubt. This being so, it is momentously significant that when Jesus explained the memorial rite for himself that he instituted as his people's regular form of worship, he spoke of the wine that they were to drink as symbolizing his blood, shed to ratify the new covenant -- a clear announcement of the fulfilling of the pattern of Exodus 24 (Jesus echoes directly the words of verse 8) and the promise of Jeremiah 31:31-34. It is also momentously significant that when the writer to the Hebrews explains the uniqueness and finality of Jesus Christ as the only source of salvation for sinners he does so by focusing on Jesus as the mediator of the new covenant and depicts him as establishing this prophesied relationship between God and his people by superseding (transcending and thereby cancelling) the inadequate old covenant institutions for dealing with sins and giving access to God. It is also momentously significant that when in Galatians Paul tells Gentiles that their faith in Christ, as such, has already made them inheritors of all that was promised to Abraham, he makes the point by declaring that in union with Christ, as those who by baptism have "put on" the Christ in whom they have trusted so as to become his own people, they are now the seed of Abraham with whom God has made his covenant for all time (Gal. 3) . . . the covenant that brings liberty from law as a supposed system of salvation and full fellowship for ever with God above (Gal. 4:24-3 1). Such Scriptures require us to interpret Christ in terms of God's covenant, just as they require us to interpret God's covenant in terms of Christ, and this fact also alerts thoughtful readers to the centrality of the covenant theme.

The third way in which Scripture directs us to covenantal thinking is by the specific parallel between Christ and Adam that Paul draws in Rom. 5:12-18; 1 Cor. 15: 21 f., 45-49). The solidarity of one person standing for a group, involving the whole group in the consequences of his action and receiving promises that apply to the whole group as well as to himself, is a familiar facet of biblical covenant thought, usually instanced in the case of family and national groups (Noah, Gen. 6:18, 9:9; Abraham, Gen. 17:7; the Israelites, Ex. 20:4-6, 8-12, 31:12-17 (16); Aaron, Lev. 24:8 f.;Phinehas, Num. 25:13; David, 2 Chr. 13:5, 21:7; Jer. 33:19-22). In Rom. 5:12-1 8 Paul proclaims a solidarity between Christ and his people (believers, Rom 3:22-5:2; the elect, God's chosen ones, 8:33) whereby the law-keeping, sin-bearing obedience of "the one man" brings righteousness with God, justification, and life to "the many," "all;" and he sets this within the frame of a prior solidarity, namely that between Adam and his descendants, whereby our entire race was involved in the penal consequences of Adam's transgression. The 1 Corinthians passages confirm that these are indeed covenantal solidarities; God deals with mankind through two representative men, Adam and Christ; all that are in Adam die; all that are in Christ are made alive. This far-reaching parallel is clearly foundational to Paul's understanding of God's ways with our race, and it is a covenantal way of thinking, showing from a third angle that covenant theology is indeed biblically basic.

The fourth way in which Scripture forces covenant theology upon us is by the explicit declaring of the covenant of redemption, most notably (though by no means exclusively) in the words of Jesus recorded in the gospel of John. All Jesus's references to his purpose in the world as the doing of his Father's will, and to his actual words and works as obedience to his Father's command (Jn. 4:32-34, 5:30, 6:38-40, 7:16-18, 8:28 f., 12:49 f., 14:31, 15:10, 17:4, I9:30); all his further references to his being sent by the Father into the world to perform a specific task (Jn. 3:17, 34, 5:23, 30, 36, 38, 6:29, 57, 7:28, 29, 33, 8:16, 18, 26, 9:4, 10:36, 11:42, 12:44, 13:20, 14:24, 15:21, 16:5, 17:3, 8,18, 21, 23, 25, 20:21, cf. 18:37); and all his references to the Father "giving" him particular persons to save, and to his acceptance of the task of rescuing them from perishing both by dying for them and by calling and shepherding them to glory (Jn. 6:37-44, 10:14-16, 27-30, 17:2, 6, 9,19, 22, 24); are so many testimonies to the reality of the covenant of redemption. The emphasis is pervasive, arresting, and inescapable: Jesus' own words force on thoughtful readers recognition of the covenant economy as foundational to all thought about the reality of God's saving grace.  [1]

Footnotes  

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[1]  J.I Packer, "The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man: Comprehending A Complete Body of Divinity". Herman Witsius. REPRENTED 1990. Escondido. California: The den Dulk Christian Foundation.

Comforting Covenant Theology

Covenant Theology is not just for theologians, it is for every single Christian. For it reveals the God of the covenants as the covenant keeping, faithful God. Pastors would do well in learning to apply covenant theology to their sermons, to not only show how the whole counsel of God hangs together, but also to bring forth the comfort of knowing the God of the covenants. Concerning the comfort of covenant theology, here is a brilliant excerpt from the Prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, who applied the truths of Covenant theology on his text from Genesis 7:16: 

The great door of Covenant faithfulness is shut behind the Believer and he is surrounded by the power and Grace of God, even as Noah was housed within the strong timbers of the ark. There is no crack nor cranny through which the floods of wrath can penetrate—Omnipotent Love has shut us in! And the Lord did this not only necessarily, but graciously. I call your attention to the change of the names in the text, a very significant change indeed—“They that went in, went in male and female of all flesh: as God had commanded him: and the Lord”—that is, Jehovah—“shut him in.” Elohim, as the Creator and Preserver, takes care of living things to preserve them, but the Lord, even Jehovah, the covenanting God, interposes in great mercy to protect His chosen servant!

It was Jehovah who entered into solemn league and Covenant with His servant, Noah, that He would preserve him in the ark and float him into the new world in it. And as Jehovah, the Covenanting One, He shut Noah in.There is no security like that which is given us by the Covenant of Grace. The hand which was lifted to swear our safety has also been outstretched to effect it! The everlasting Covenant, ordered in all things and sure, guarantees salvation to all who are represented by the great Head and Surety of that Covenant, even our Lord Jesus. Love and power cooperate with faithfulness and truth to keep the chosen from all danger. Dwell much upon the Covenant and note the immutable pledges by which it is secured and the immortal principles upon which it is founded! Try to suck out the delicious sweetness which is to be found in the hive of the Covenant, for if you are an advanced child of God, no form of the Truth of God can be more nourishing or refreshing to your mind.

The doctrines which spring out of the Covenant are peculiarly comforting to believing minds. The promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus and can never fail nor change, since the Covenant stands fast forever and ever. Its tenure is free and Sovereign Grace and it cannot be disannulled. Here is a line of it, “I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me.” With such a promise does Jehovah shut us in with Christ Jesus in matchless kindness and unspeakable love. [1]

Footnotes  

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[1]  C.H Spurgeon, Shut In Or Shut Out, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, August 14, 1881.

An Exegetical Response to D.A Carson

Theoblogy highly recommends D.A Carson, for he is a fine exegete, scholar and preacher. He is Reformed, Baptistic and above all very passionate about being gospel-centered in all things. God be praised for gifting the church with such a blessed leader.

However Carson’s exegesis of Matthew 5:17-48 is considered by many as undermining the traditional Reformed view of the passage, and then the fact that most New Covenant Theologians appeal to Carson’s exegesis as the exegetical basis for their teachings have made things only worse. 

It is important to note here that Carson does not belong to the NCT camp.  Two aspects of Carson as an exegete may tempt his listeners to think he is promoting NCT. They are :

1. When it comes to exegetical discussions, Carson is critical of using the tripartite division of the Law as Moral, Civil and Ceremonial, as a textually warranted division.

This however does not mean he does not believe in this classification. He rather wants to consider the historic development of this thought and calls it as rightly developed by Thomas Aquinas. In his lecture on the OT use in NT, he does say that the classification of Law like this and especially the category of Moral Law, is an important one and to be considered, especially in discussions after we have done our exegesis. He says, ‘that part of revelation of God which undergoes minimum change over the plain of redemptive history can be a posteriori defined as Moral Law.' Carson is however hesitant to consider moral law as an a priori category in his exegetical discussions.

2. His exegesis of "fulfillment" language in Matthew 5:17-48

When it comes to understanding the word “fulfill” (πληρόω, plēroō), Carson makes a case in showing that Jesus is speaking of Him being the eschatological fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. Carson feels that the reading of Scripture in classic Reformed exegesis, where you see the command to not hate embedded in the command to not murder is a bit flat. He rather opts for a prophetical overshadowing of the teachings of Christ, where the command to not murder did envision an eschatological abolition of hatred too.

Now the noteworthy thing is, Carson himself admits that in terms of moral and ethical consequences, there is little difference between the two readings. In other words he is not denying the use of moral law for Christians. He does not do that. He rather feels he is making some cases for a more textually faithful reading of scriptures within the framework of redemptive historical trajectory model. Unlike an NCT guy, Carson does not criticize the use of Decalogue for the Christian or promote any Law-of-Christ alone for Christians.

In spite of these reasons, Carson’s exegesis of Matthew 5 is still the intellectual and exegetical foundation for the NCT movement. This alarming reality calls for a response from exegetes who favor the traditional Reformed view.

Dr. Greg Welty, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, has written a very thorough and fair response to Carson, where he shows how Carson’s exegesis can only be considered as a “conceptual innovation”, and thus defends the classic Reformed exegesis of the passage. After critiquing Carson, Welty closes by providing a positive account of Mt 5:17-48 which both incorporates one of Carson’s key insights from v. 17, and yet retains the traditionally Reformed interpretation of the antitheses.  He argues that it is precisely because Jesus is the eschatological fulfillment of the law and the prophets, that we would expect Him to confirm the Mosaic laws He treats in the antitheses, and to defend such laws from Pharisaic distortion and misinterpretation. The paper has an Appendix which then addresses the slightly different view of NCT exegete Fred Zaspel, in light of the preceding discussion.

Eschatological Fulfillment and the Confirmation of Mosaic Law  Read

Covenant Theology

Covenant theology is an interpretative framework for understanding the structure of divine revelation in the Bible. It is thus the hermeneutics of viewing the unfolding history of redemption in Scriptures through the theological concept of covenant.  This hermeneutical grid has basically three overarching theological covenants — the covenants of redemption, of works, and of grace.

These three covenants are called theological because they are not explicitly presented as such in the Bible but are thought to be theologically implicit, describing and summarizing the wealth of Scriptural data. Within historical Reformed Christian systems of thought, covenant theology is not merely treated as a point of doctrine, neither is it treated as a central dogma. Rather, Covenant is viewed as the structure by which the biblical text organizes itself. [1]

In particular, covenant theology teaches that God has established one, eternal covenant, under different administrations.[2] Having created man in His image as a free creature with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, God entered into a covenant of works whereby the mandate was "do this and live" (Romans 10:5, Galatians 3:12). "Like Adam, they have trespassed the covenant" (Hosea 6:7**) is the classic reference to the covenant of works; Hebrews 8:6; 9:15; 12:24 the reference that explains God's work of redemption in the Covenant of Grace.[3]

Covenant of redemption

The covenant of redemption is the eternal agreement within the Godhead in which the Father appointed the Son Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit to redeem his elect people from the guilt and power of sin. God appointed Christ to live a life of perfect obedience to the law and to die a penal, substitutionary, sacrificial death as the covenantal representative for all who trust in him.

Covenant of works

The covenant of works was made in the Garden of Eden between God and Adam who represented all mankind as a federal head. (Romans 5:12-21) It promised life for obedience and death for disobedience. Adam, and all mankind in Adam, broke the covenant, thus standing condemned. The covenant of works continues to function after the fall as the moral law.

Covenant of grace

The covenant of grace promises eternal life for all people who receive forgiveness of sin through Christ. He is the substitutionary covenantal representative fulfilling the covenant of works on their behalf, in both the positive requirements of righteousness and its negative penal consequences (commonly described as his active and passive obedience). It is the historical expression of the eternal covenant of redemption. Genesis 3:15, with the promise of a "seed" of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, is usually identified as the historical inauguration for the covenant of grace.

The covenant of grace became the basis for all future covenants that God made with mankind such as with Noah (Genesis 6, 9), with Abraham (Genesis 12, 15, 17), with Moses (Exodus 19-24), with David (2 Samuel 7), and finally in the New Covenant founded and fulfilled in Christ. These individual covenants are called the biblical covenants because they are explicitly described in the Bible. Under the covenantal overview of the Bible, submission to God's rule and living in accordance with his moral law (expressed concisely in the Ten Commandments) is a response to grace - never something which can earn God's acceptance (legalism). Even in his giving of the Ten Commandments, God introduces his law by reminding the Israelites that he is the one who brought them out of slavery in Egypt (grace). [4]

Of these Biblical covenants, the New Covenant is anticipated with the hopes of the Davidic messiah, and most explicitly predicted by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 31:34). At the Last Supper, Jesus alludes to this prophecy, as well as to prophecies such as Isaiah 49:8, when he says that the cup of the Passover meal is "the New Covenant in [his] blood." This use of the Old Testament typology is developed further in the Epistle to the Hebrews (see especially chs. 7-10). Jesus is the last Adam and Israel's hope and consolation: he is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17-18). He is the prophet greater than Jonah (Matt 12:41), and the Son over the house where Moses was a servant (Hebrews 3:5-6), leading his people to the heavenly promised land. He is the high priest greater than Aaron, offering up himself as the perfect sacrifice once for all (Hebrews 9:12, 26). He is the king greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42), ruling forever on David's throne (Luke 1:32). [5]

As a framework for biblical interpretation, covenant theology stands in contrast to Dispensationalism in regard to the relationship between the Old Covenant with national Israel and the New Covenant in Christ's blood. That such a framework exists appears to be, at least, feasible since, from the earliest time of the Church, the Jewish Bible has been known as the Old Testament (or Covenant) in contrast to the Christian addition which has been known as the New Testament (or Covenant). Regarding the theological status of modern day Jewish people, covenant theology is often referred to as "supersessionism," or "replacement theology" by its detractors, due to the perception that it teaches that God has abandoned the promises made to the Jews and has replaced the Jews with Christians as his chosen people in the earth. Covenant theologians deny that God has abandoned his promises to Israel, but see the fulfillment of the promises to Israel in the person and the work of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who established the church in organic continuity with Israel, not a separate replacement entity.[6]

Among Reformed Christians, based on their understanding of the sacraments (or ordinances), there are two types of Covenanters, namely Peadobaptist Covenant theologians and Credobaptist Covenant theologians. Below are two links from each such Covenanters teaching Covenant theology from their perspective.

A Peadobaptist Covenant Theology by Tom Browning

A Credobaptist Covenant Theology by Fred Malone

Footnotes

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[1] Covenant Theology Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Westminster Confession of Faith. vii, 5,6.

[3] M.E. Osterhaven, Covenant Theology in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, Walter Elwell, ed. 279-80.

[4] Covenant Theology Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid