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.