Imperishable Inheritance

I’ve learned more of dis­as­so­ci­at­ing myself with the broad stance of Covenant The­ol­ogy, because it is often mis­con­strued as being that of the Pres­by­ter­ian vari­ety. That view of Covenant The­ol­ogy errs in a few major ways, and this is why I reject it. First, it strives to hard, and stretches the text, to include a “covenant community” in the New Tes­ta­ment. This is largely to sup­port the prac­tice of pae­dobap­tism (infant bap­tism), because they see it as a replace­ment for cir­cum­ci­sion as a sign of entrance into the covenant with God.

Sec­ondly, I see many Pres­by­ter­ian covenant the­olo­gians down­play­ing the impor­tant dif­fer­ences between the covenants. They want to fit it all in a “Covenant of Grace.” While I wouldn’t deny the con­cept of a covenant of grace, I also wouldn’t deny that the admin­is­tra­tions (or dis­pen­sa­tions if you will, but that does not mean I’m a dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ist) do change. God does add onto and even­tu­ally replace the Old Covenant. Hebrews 8 tells us that the Old Covenant has been washed away.

But now He [Christ] has obtained a more excel­lent min­istry, by as much as He is also the medi­a­tor of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been fault­less, there would have been no occa­sion sought for a second. For find­ing fault with them, He says, “BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CON­TINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD. “FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. “AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERY­ONE HIS FELLOW CIT­I­ZEN, AND EVERY­ONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’ FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREAT­EST OF THEM. “FOR I WILL BE MER­CI­FUL TO THEIR INIQ­UI­TIES, AND I WILL REMEM­BER THEIR SINS NO MORE.” When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obso­lete. But what­ever is becom­ing obso­lete and grow­ing old is ready to dis­ap­pear.
Hebrews 8:6-13 (empha­sis added)

The impor­tant thing to notice is that every­thing in the Old Covenant points to Christ who is the ful­fill­ment of all the promises. Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists with their flawed hermeneu­tic (that is, lit­eral as pos­si­ble) want to throw this promise of land some­where so they throw it into the mil­len­nium (Rev 20). That is to say they believe that God is not done with ethnic Israel, but that the Church was put in as par­en­thet­i­cal to punish Israel. They also claim that the Church started at Pen­te­cost (Acts 2), but the truth is that the Church didn’t start then because it began back in the Old Covenant. That is to say that the Church today has taken the place of Ethnic Israel. That is why Paul makes such as state­ment as, “But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all chil­dren because they are Abraham’s descen­dants, but: ‘THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCEN­DANTS WILL BE NAMED’ (Romans 9:6-7).

Paul even pro­claims the believ­ers now have Abra­ham as their fore­fa­ther, because we have the faith (and impu­ta­tion) that Abra­ham had.

For what does the Scrip­ture say? “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CRED­ITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Is this bless­ing then on the cir­cum­cised, or on the uncir­cum­cised also? For we say, “FAITH WAS CRED­ITED TO ABRA­HAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” How then was it cred­ited? While he was cir­cum­cised, or uncir­cum­cised? Not while cir­cum­cised, but while uncir­cum­cised; and he received the sign of cir­cum­ci­sion, a seal of the right­eous­ness of the faith which he had while uncir­cum­cised, so that he might be the father of all who believe with­out being cir­cum­cised, that right­eous­ness might be cred­ited to them, and the father of cir­cum­ci­sion to those who not only are of the cir­cum­ci­sion, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abra­ham which he had while uncir­cum­cised.
Romans 4:3, 9-12

I got a book enti­tled, The Unfold­ing Mys­tery: Dis­cov­er­ing Christ in the Old Tes­ta­ment by Edmund P. Clowney, and I have a feel­ing it is going to be a great book in explain­ing the pur­pose of the Old Tes­ta­ment sto­ries. That being largely to serve as moral lessons and give redemp­tive analo­gies for the coming of the Messiah.

I affirm that bap­tism has changed, the cer­e­mo­nial law has been washed away (but not the moral), that the Holy Spirit works in a dif­fer­ent way (but still did regen­er­a­tion in both covenants), and that “Israel” is used as a term for the elect of God gen­er­ally (Gal 6:16). Also, the New Tes­ta­ment is the means in which we are to inter­pret the Old. So the over­all plan of elec­tion and the redeemed doesn’t mold into dis­tinct bodies, but they’re are more dif­fer­ences between the covenants than most clas­si­cal covenant the­olo­gians would like to admit.

A couple of my friends down in sem­i­nary are being influ­enced by Thomas Schreiner’s New Covenant the­ol­ogy (although it’s not of his cre­ation), and I have yet to decide on exactly to what extent the law is still man­i­fest today; and that is the major dif­fer­ence between a clas­si­cal and new covenant the­olo­gian. I did find this great para­ble where Jesus explic­itly taught about the ram­i­fi­ca­tion of the in bring­ing of the Gen­tiles and the com­plain­ing that the ethnic Jews would do.

“For the king­dom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morn­ing to hire labor­ers for his vine­yard. When he had agreed with the labor­ers for a denar­ius for the day, he sent them into his vine­yard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others stand­ing idle in the market place; and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vine­yard, and what­ever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others stand­ing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been stand­ing here idle all day long?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vine­yard too.’ When evening came, the owner of the vine­yard said to his fore­man, ‘Call the labor­ers and pay them their wages, begin­ning with the last group to the first.’ When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denar­ius. When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denar­ius. When they received it, they grum­bled at the landowner, saying, These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorch­ing heat of the day.’ But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denar­ius? ‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envi­ous because I am generous?’ So the last shall be first, and the first last.”
Matthew 20:1-16

Note: The Textus Recep­tus, in vs. 16, has the phrase “for many are called, but few chosen” (πολλοι γαρ εισιν κλητοι ολιγοι δε εκλεκτοι) at the end, and I think it does explain what is being said but it seems aber­rant from the tone of the parable.