Baptist Covenant Theologians
But first...Let's note what Covenant Theology is not:
- It is not a response to dispensationalism, for dispensationalism, in fact, did not even exist until the nineteenth century.
- It does not teach paedobaptism, covenant successionism, paedocommunionism, or baptismal regenerationism.
- It does not teach any particular kind of eschatology.
- It does not teach any kind of philosophy of education such as homeschooling or Christian schools.
- It is not sectarian, but has roots from the early church to all the branches of the Reformed church.
- It is not anti-Semitic nor “replacement theology”, but CT teaches 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.
- 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 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).
C. H. Spurgeon, a Baptist preacher, said, “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.”
1. The Covenant of Redemption.- It is an inter-Trinitarian covenant, especially the covenant between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world.
- It took place in eternity and is the plan by which election would be elective.
- Berkhof defines it this way, “the Covenant of Redemption is the agreement between the Father giving the Son as head and redeemer of all the elect and the Son voluntarily taking the place of those whom the Father has given Him.”
- And so the Father, foreseeing the fall which he ordained, in His grace effects a covenant with the Son in which He gives all the elect to the Son and the Son says I will take their place. (just a few places to read about this covenant is Psalm 2:7-9; 40:7-9; 89:3; John 5:36; Hebrews 10:5-7)
- Some theologians don’t call this a covenant but a decree. Covenant Theologians simply say, “You really can’t understand that decree, especially as it regards to our redemption, until you understand the covenant aspect of it.” It is that eternal covenant--that covenant which is prior to time, in which the Son undertakes to be our surety and our mediator and the Father undertakes to give to the Son all the elect because of the Son’s perfect obedience. Christ gives His word prior to Creation to purchase His bride with His own blood.
- So the Covenant of Redemption is the agreement beyond time and within the Godhead that the Father would appoint the Son Jesus Christ to live a perfectly acceptable substitutionary life and die an undeserved death on behalf of, and as a covenantal representative for, those who would sin but would trust in Christ as their covenantal substitutionary representative.
The next two covenants flow from the Covenant of Redemption.
2. The Covenant of Works
- The Covenant of Works refers to a pre-fall covenant relationship with Adam.
- It is a binding and blessed relationship initiated by God, in which God enters into fellowship with Adam, prior to the fall.
- This Covenant is asymmetrical in the sense that there are not two equal parties entering into a relationship. This is God, out of His goodness, entering into fellowship with Adam, promising certain blessings and requiring certain responsibilities. God sovereignly imposes those conditions on Adam. Adam was not given the option to say, “Well Lord, I really like that procreation ordinance, but the labor ordinance, I am really going to have to think about that one.”
- Adam is not a private individual according to Romans 5. He is a public person, acting as covenant head representatively for the entire human race.
- The requirement upon Adam was perfection, holiness and personal obedience. It promised life for obedience and death for disobedience.
- Berkhof notes: "Paul tells us explicitly in Rom. 7:10 that the commandment, that is the law, was unto life." In commenting on this verse Hodge says: "The law was designed and adapted to secure life, but became in fact the cause of death." This is also clearly indicated in such passages as Rom. 10:5; Gal. 3:13. (Berkhof, 214)
- Since Adams fall the Covenant of Works no longer continues in its ability to bless, but its curse is upon us all. God still demands of us all holiness and obedience. But we all fall short of it; by our nature and our actions we are morally incapable of obeying the laws of God’s Covenant with Mankind in Eden.
- How do we know that it is still binding? Because Jesus came and lived it as our substitute thus fulfilling the Covenant of Works for us, and died as our substitute to pay for our covenant breaking sinfulness.
3. The Covenant of Grace
- The Covenant of Grace is the overflowing of the Covenant of Redemption in time after the fall.
- Now, the Covenant of Grace is that covenant between God and the elect as they are in Christ.
- It is inaugurated in Genesis 3 with Adam, and especially in the word of curse against the serpent in Genesis 3:15, and the revelation of it progressively continues in the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. It is prophesied of in its fullest form in Jeremiah in the New Covenant and, it comes to realization in the New Covenant itself inaugurated by Jesus Christ.
- In Genesis 3 God reaffirmed all the covenantal aspects of the Covenant of Works (procreation, marriage, labor, government) and placed them within the Covenant of Grace with one new aspect = Christ the Savior!
- Jesus practiced economic subordination (Philippians 2) to the Father with voluntary willingness taking on the form of a servant, to be the covenant mediator.
- Jesus placed Himself under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that is the Covenant of Works.
- Jesus came to do what Adam failed to do, and did it because of His covenental agreement with the Father (Covenant of Redemption). That is why He often said that He had come to do His Father's will.
- So the Covenant of Grace is simply the Christ carrying out the Covenant of Works on behalf of the elect.
- The Covenant Grace thus promised eternal blessing for all people for trusting in the successive promises of God and ultimately for accepting Christ as a substitutionary covenantal representative.
- Since Christ me t the condition of the Covenant of Works, the redeemed can now reap the fruit of the original agreement by faith in Jesus Christ.
- And for those who do not get saved, the curse of breaking the Covenant of Works remains upon them -- Death. Although man has broken the covenant, the covenants remain eternal because they are God's covenants.
- No covenant of God has ever ceased or been nullified, but must all be interpreted in light of the Covenant of Redemption.
Here are a few of the many Baptist Covenant Theologians:
Tom Ascol
John Bunyan
Isaac Backus
Richard Barcellos
Rolfe Barnard
Alistair Begg
Richard Belcher, Sr.
Abraham Booth
James P. Boyce
W. T. Brantley
John A. Broadus
B. B. Caldwell
William Carey
Walter Chantry
David Charles
Gene Cook, Jr.
Nehemiah Coxe
John L. Dagg
Mark Dever
Richard Fuller
John Gill
Robert Haldane
James Haldane
Robert Hall, Sr.
Robert Hall, Jr.
Michael A. G. Haykin
R. B. C. Howell
Erroll Hulse
William B. Johnson
E. W. Jones
Benjamin Keach - (2nd London Baptist Confession, 1689)
Elias Keach - (The Philadelphia Confession of 1742)
William Kiffin
Hanserd Knollys
Henry Mahan
Fred Malone
Basil Manly, Sr.
Basil Many, Jr.
Albert Martin
Peter Masters
Patrick H. Mell
Al Mohler
Russell Moore
Tom Nettles
Roger Nicole
Robert W. Oliver
John Piper
Ernie Reisinger
James M. Renihan
Michael T. Renihan
Jason E. Robertson
L. R. Shelton
Randy Martin Snyder
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Tedd Tripp
Samuel E. Waldron
James White
William H. Whitsitt
Roger Williams
Posts
28 Spoke Up:
Feel free to submit names to the list of Baptist CT's. If the name is of a contemporary pastor or theologian, please provide a link or reference if possible to verify the information.
This list will be constantly updated as I have time.
Concerning the CT doctrines, this is not a post that intends to provide a comprehensive explanation of all there is to know about CT. We can debate the finer points in posts to come.
Thanks for the list Jason. It will be helpful in showing others what Covenant Theology is and along with your last list on Amillennialism my shake some people up, for the good.
I forgot to put this link to MP3s from the 2005 Founders
Conference Southwest which include some on Covent Theology.
John Piper holds to covanent theology?
http://www.desiringgod.org/library/theological_qa/law_gospel/disp_cov_ncov.html
I would guess Al Mohler fits the bill, but I can't substantiate that at the moment. Is it possible to have a strong-but-dim recollection? I have a strong sense but can't specify the facts behind thinking that Mohler is covenantal. Maybe I'll rummage around his site and see what I can find.
I share the surpise at Piper being included. I thought he had distinguished Fuller's and his position as a third way between classical covenant theology on one hand, and the recent dispensational (it's ALL recent, relatively)theology on the other. If I misunderstood his position or if he has adjusted his thinking, I welcome correction. Thanks for a helpful post.
Is this list inclusive of NCT as well as CT?
Just CT.
Hey you guys might want to check out the inteview with Jason on 08/10/2006 it can be heard here....
www.unchainedradio.com/freedownload/nm08102006.mp3
O. K.
Bunyan was neither Baptist nor CT (although he could be broadly categorized that way inthe same way that current NCTer's can).
The Doctrine Of The Law And Grace Unfolded
John Piper is reluctant to put himslef in a box as you can see from the link provided by chh above.
Bunyan is NCT, not CT. Just a note here, NCT is not a new kind of CT. It is a theology of the NC itself.
Tom Nettles, B.H. Carroll and Timothy George could be added to your list.
Those claiming Bunyan for NCT should read him more carefully. The Sabbath against which he argues is the 7th day Sabbatarian view of some Baptists at that time.
I'd add to the original article that CT is not uniform in its linguistic classification scheme with respect to the covenants. Some have denied the covenant of works in language but not in principle. Some have denied the covenant of redemption in language but not in principle. That is, they see the order of decrees and their outworking (which is what the Covenant of Redemption is about) but view it as an expression of a greater inter-trinitarian relation about which we know little. As to the Covenant of Works, some, like Robertson call it the Covenant of Creation and the Covenant of Grace they call the Covenant of Redemption. So, you have to be careful, because different writers use different terms to express the same concepts. One of the weaknesses, speaking from a historical standpoint, is this lack of uniformity across the theologians. I'd recommend Golding's book on the history of CT to help folks understand who says what and what they mean.
John Bunyan in his earlier days taught that the sabbath was a creation ordinance and therefore binding. He knew better as he got older.
Gene,
It's not the anti-sabbatarianism, but the anti-legalism that brings Bunyan more in line with NCT views than those of CT.
I'd probably not put him into either camp conclusively, but if it's the role of Law that separates NCT and CT, then Bunyan is definitely not CT and leans more NCT.
I would see myself in the same category as Bunyan. If he is CT then I have misunderstood CT and am in fact, CT.
Iranaeusii said John Bunyan in his earlier days taught that the sabbath was a creation ordinance and therefore binding. He knew better as he got older.
we are praying the same for you.
John Bunyan affirms the following principles:
1. The sabbath command was never given to Adam.
2. The sabbath command was not a moral command but a ceremonial one.
3. The sabbath command was given to Israelites only, never to gentiles.
Does this issue alone not remove him completely from CT?
Iren,
I am CT and non-Sabbatarian. So what was your point?
Well, his arguments are a little more than those three one liners. You would have to look at his writings. To put him in the CT category is not accurate.
You said:
"for dispensationalism, in fact, did not even exist until the nineteenth century."
Covenant theology, in fact, is a post-Reformation development. In their criticism of dispensational theology, covenantal thinkers give the impression that their system is much older than dispensationalism. One of their most common accusations against dispensationalism is that it is too new to be accurate. The fact is that the system of covenant theology is only about one hundred years older than the dispensationalism system. Covenant theology does not appear in the writings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or Melanchthon, even though they discussed at length the related doctrines of sin, depravity, redemption, and so on. They had every opportunity to incorporate the covenant idea, but they did not. There were no references to covenant theology in any of the great confessions of faith until the Westminster Confession in 1647, and even then covenant theology was no where near fully developed. The covenant theory arose sporadically and independently late in the sixteenth century. Francis Turretin was the first to attempt to synthesize (though incompletely) a covenant theology with his “Institutes of Elenctic Theology” in 1696.
The idea that “whoever was first in the Systematic Theology line wins” is not a valid criterion for determining biblical accuracy.
My thoughts exactly.
Keep up the good blogging.
-Sean
__________________
www.SeanDietrich.com
"All my music is free."
Steve,
You are terribly mistaken in your understanding of the history of CT. Just because certain terminology is new does not mean that the teaching is new. The most notable example is the doctrine of the "Trinity". Or if your argument is credible then I guess John Calvin wasn't a Calvinist since he didn't use that term nor was Calvinism systematized until later.
But nice try. Oh, and by the way, follow this link for a brief overview of CT in early Christianity:
http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/apologetics/Covenant%20Theology%20&%20Justification/briefoverview.htm
Jason,
You too, nice try, but not quite. I like your biting style, you dog.
You must be responding to some other comment because I addressed CT as a system, not the terminology used to describe it nor how new or old the individual theological concepts of CT are.
It does not matter much how new or old certain terminology might be and there is no doubt that some of the core ideas of CT were held by some very early church thinkers. The article you linked to was pretty good and I basically agree with it.
Notice carefully, I said “the system of covenant theology is only about one hundred years older.” This is true, but the basic ideas have been there since the early church, as have the basic ideas of dispensational theology.
DT as a system and CT as a system are both post-Reformation developments and both of their core ideas have been held since the early church – whatever the terminology might have been that was used to describe them.
So, scratch those fleas and ticks out of your ears because you didn’t quite hear me right the first time.
Steve, Acts 20:32
Steve, thanks for the clarification. On your technical point about systematizing of theology, you are true. But I think you would find that most orthodox scholars would not agree with you that the "core ideas" of dispensationalism has existed since the early church.
Covenant theology does not appear in the writings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or Melanchthon, even though they discussed at length the related doctrines of sin, depravity, redemption, and so on. They had every opportunity to incorporate the covenant idea, but they did not.
It does in Zwingli and Calvin. Just because terminology is not mature doesn't mean the doctrine isn't there. Covenant Theology used to be called Federal Theology (a better name, when the subject is systematic theology rather than biblical theology), and Federal Theology better highlights the soteriological aspects of classical covenant theology you'll find in a Calvin, et al.
Francis Turretin was the first to attempt to synthesize (though incompletely) a covenant theology with his “Institutes of Elenctic Theology” in 1696.
It seems to me Witsius' Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, widely regarded as the best overall work on classical covenant theology, appeared before then. And Turretin isn't so incomplete in his covenant theology. Neither are the Westminster Standards...
The fact is, Covenant (or Federal) Theology IS systematic theology. And all-inclusive biblical systematic theologies were just starting to be written in the 15th century. Each era of the history of redemption has different needs and brings forth different efforts. Peruse R. Scott Clark's website for the history of covenant theology. There are many good resources there.
>were just starting to be written in the 15th century.
Make that the 16th century.
I have recently published the authorized biography of Roger Nicole, entitled Speaking the Truth in Love: The Life and Legacy of Roger Nicole. It is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or the publisher, Solid Ground Christian Books.
There were no references to covenant theology in any of the great confessions of faith until the Westminster Confession in 1647, and even then covenant theology was no where near fully developed.
>>Since this is often read many months later, I will respond.
This is demonstrably false, as you can find the covenant of works in the Irish Articles of 1611 and the works of Archbishop Usher. It can also be found in the work of Robert Rollock in 1596. Cocceius was discussing a covenant system long, long before Turretin. Voetius and Witsius did not dispute the covenants and their relation. That dispute was about making biblical theology - which is always in flux - "the" way to do theology. The Voetians won that dispute. Systematics generally takes priority in Reformed thought, biblical theology is rather fluid.
>>Covenant theology does not appear in the writings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or Melanchthon, even though they discussed at length the related doctrines of sin, depravity, redemption, and so on. They had every opportunity to incorporate the covenant idea, but they did not.
Au contrare, it is found in Calvin and Zwingli. Zwingli discusses the covenantal unity of the testaments. It is also found in the works of Ursinus in Summa Theologica, 1592. Bullinger is also an advocate of the covenant idea.
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