Imperishable Inheritance

In the spirit of Pascal's Pensees, I'd like to write down my thoughts on covenant theology thus far while preparing to write it in my book: The Relation of the Covenants. I was suffering from writer's block last night so I want to just write out my thoughts, and if anyone would like to give feedback I'd like to hear it.

God's Main Purpose in History

1. God's main purpose in history is His Son Jesus Christ and by extension His elect.

Hermeneutics/Prophecy

1. The unfolding redemption of history is to be interpreted to the various covenants enacted by God.
2. God's enacted covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus.
3. The Scriptures should be interpreted with a redemptive-historical hermeneutic, and we utilize the Analogy of Faith.
4. The Old Testament contains prophecies of the New Covenant age.
5. Prophecy from the Old Testament may have 'double fulfillment' as illustrated by the New Testament writer's use of the Old Testament citations.
6. Some prophecies in the Old Testament were for ethnic Israel and others spiritual Israel.
7. Typology is a valid source of exegesis.

Abraham and His Seed

1. The true see of Abraham is Christ, and all the elect 'in Christ' are also the spiritual seed of Abraham and able to say that Abraham is their forefather.
2. Abraham had a natural seed that being his physical descendants, a spiritual seed which includes the elect of all ages, and the True Seed which is Jesus Christ.
3. God's covenant faithfulness stems from the Abrahamic promises.

The Identity of Israel

1. Jesus Christ is the true Israel and all who are "in Him" are a part of spiritual Israel or the Church Universal.
2. The church does supplant ethnic Israel, because it is enacted on a better covenant.
3. Members of the Church Universal (spiritual Israel) did exist before the time of the New Testament (referred to as the remnant) although it isn't to be understood as the church/ethnic Israel existed simultaneously.

The Covenants

1. The Scriptures are to be seen in three main stages: creation to Moses, Moses to Jesus, Jesus to consummation.
2. Conditional covenants were the Adamic and Mosaic with the Noahic, Abrahamic, and New Covenants all being unconditional.
3. All of the Pre-Mosaic covenants will find fulfillment in the eschaton.

Soteriology

1. There was a time, in the Garden of Eden, that man did not need regenerative grace, but after the fall redemption began and regeneration was needed.
2. Adam acted as the federal head for the human race, and Jesus served as the second, better federal head of the human race.
3. Every believer throughout history is saved by grace alone through faith alone.
4. Jesus Christ fulfilled the requirements of the Mosaic Law through His active obedience which is imputed to the elect when they are justified.
5. Man's depravity from the fall is total, God's election is unconditional, the substitutionary atonement is limited to the elect, God's grace is irresistible in regeneration, and true believers will persevere until the end.

The Mosaic Economy

1. The Mosaic Economy was temporal serving a pedagogical role pointing forward to Christ.
2. Israel was meant to accept the Mosaic Covenant.
3. The Mosaic Covenant and Law were specific to physical Israel. By obedience to the Mosaic Covenant Israel would retain material blessings in the land of Canaan. It was a conditional covenant like the Adamic.
4. The Mosaic Law was not a hypothetical means to salvation.
5. The Mosaic Economy does not annul the time of promise from "Adam until Moses."
6. The land of Canaan served a typological role in the history of redemption. It was meant to be a holy land where a holy people dwelt.
7. The land restoration promises will be fulfilled in the New Heavens/New Earth.

The Law of God

1. In the fulfillment of the Mosaic Law, Christ has freed us from the obligation of the Mosaic Law en toto.
2. New Covenant believers are to follow the "Law of Christ" which consists of commands issued by Christ and the apostles in the New Testament.
3. The eternal moral law of God is expressed both in the Mosaic Law and Law of Christ.
4. The Sabbath was typological in regards to the eternal rest gained in Christ. It is no longer binding on New Covenant believers.

The Kingdom of God

1. Jesus offered the Kingdom of God to the ethnic Jews to confirm the promises and was rejected, but the Kingdom was and is gradually accepted by spiritual Israel.
2. The David Covenant was fulfilled as Christ is now the stump from the root of Jesse ruling on the eternal throne promised to David.
3. The Kingdom of God is now but not yet. It will find fulfillment in the eschaton.
4. The "Church," "Kingdom of God" and "New Covenant" are rough synonyms.

Eschatology

1. The Christian faith is in essence eschatological. The New Testament remains this focus in the now/not yet eschatological tension.
2. Believers, before death, live in the resurrection; but they await the bodily resurrection at the end of this present evil age.
3. The millennium is to be interpreted with the lens of inaugurated eschatology. The millennium describes the now/not yet time that we currently live in.
4. Jesus Christ will return visibly to earth after the Gospel has reached all the nations for final judgement followed by the New Heavens/New Earth.
5. Jewish Israel will go through a time of mass conversion and be grafted into spiritual Israel before the return of our Lord.
6. The Church Universal will only come to completion in the New Heavens/New Earth as that will be the universal assembly of the elect.

The New Covenant

1. All members of the New Covenant are regenerate and therefore the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper should only be given only to the regenerate.
2. The work of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the time pre and post Pentecost. Pre-Pentecost the Spirit regenerated believers, but the indwelling of the Spirit wasn't common to all elect until post-Pentecost.
3. The temple is a sign of the presence of God with His people. It starts in the tabernacle to the temple then moves to Jesus and finally the Holy Spirit makes New Covenant believers the temple of God.