Imperishable Inheritance

After being in the faith for two years, I have learned so much about Bib­li­cal and Sys­tem­atic The­ol­ogy that I decided I was ready to tackle the issue of under­stand­ing the rela­tion of the covenants. I approached the study with the pre­sup­po­si­tion of reformed Sote­ri­ol­ogy so I came out of the gate already dis­miss­ing most of those who do not hold to the five point reformed faith. This led to a lot of con­fu­sion for me, because I never inter­acted hon­estly with the posi­tions held by Dispensationalists.

The issue of Law/Gospel brought me a deal of respect regard­ing Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists focus on dis­con­ti­nu­ity which I felt was ignored with the tri­chotomized view of the Mosaic Law and the errors made by many clas­si­cal covenant the­olo­gians includ­ing bap­tism and theon­omy (although I’m not going to go there in this post). Dou­glas Moo, Tom Schreiner, and D.A. Car­son influ­enced me greatly in see­ing the amount of dis­con­ti­nu­ity present in the New Tes­ta­ment that I didn’t find with many Clas­si­cal Covenant The­olo­gians who wanted to find con­ti­nu­ity at all costs.

But I have to reject Clas­si­cal Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism out­right. I don’t want to through around the “H” word, but if you hon­estly believe that the Gen­tiles are a par­en­thet­i­cal work­ing in God’s plan despite such great New Tes­ta­ment wit­ness (Gal 3:8,9 for exam­ple) seemed appalling to me. Add on to the fact that extreme Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists believe that the Mosaic sac­ri­fices will be brought back in a mil­len­nial reign which to me found no con­nec­tion with these land restora­tion prophe­cies found in the major prophets. Also, deny­ing the fact that the King­dom of God is now seemed blas­phe­mous to me as well. I com­pletely, and out­right, reject clas­si­cal Dispensationalism.

But Pro­gres­sive Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism has done much to improve dia­logue between the two camps. By rec­og­niz­ing a degree of con­ti­nu­ity that wasn’t in the Scofield/Darby ver­sions is great progress. They also accepted inau­gu­rated escha­tol­ogy and the line between “Israel” and the “Church” was softer. Also rec­og­niz­ing that gen­tiles are indeed heirs to the Abra­hamic promises was an impor­tant step. For these rea­sons I would not use the “H” word for Pro­gres­sive Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ism. But non-the-less I still feel empty with a Pro­gres­sive Dis­pen­sa­tional stance.

Enter New Covenant The­ol­ogy. I have found relief in this posi­tion. It’s a shame that peo­ple like Reisinger throw straw men at both sides. In fact, I think that most New Covenant The­olo­gians have a long way to go in prop­erly deal­ing with argu­ments out­side their own. I do enjoy their explicit teach­ing on the Old/New dichotomy in the NT (2 Cor 3; Heb 8/10; Luke 22:20). I can’t accept many Dis­pen­sa­tion­al­ists inter­pre­ta­tion that Gen­tiles are just “par­tic­i­pa­tors” in the New Covenant, because it was ulti­mately promised to eth­nic Israel.

I do take issue of talk­ing of a “covenant of grace” in con­trast to a “covenant of works.” I don’t think that reformed fed­er­al­ism neces­si­tates a covenant of works. Nor do I see Adam in a “pro­ba­tion­ary” period as espoused by many clas­si­cal covenant the­olo­gians. I also think that speak of admin­is­tra­tions of one covenant is not help­ful either. Although, I under­stand why they do it, but I just don’t feel it would be the way any of the Bib­li­cal writ­ers would have talked about the unfold­ing rev­e­la­tion of God through an “over­ar­ch­ing covenant.”

I think that the debate over who Israel is is much sim­pler than we make it out to be. It is clear that Christ alone is the God’s true first born, and His “exo­dus” out of Egypt (Mat 2) and test­ing in the wilder­ness (Mat 4) typ­i­fied that Christ is the true light to the nations that Israel never held up to. I also see Peter claim­ing that the Church age is the true “holy nation.” This promise was given to the Israelites upon obe­di­ence to the Mosaic Covenant. It seems that the “Church” has inher­ited the promises given to Israel which would not be kosher to some­one like MacArthur. Eph­esians 2 also leads me to believe that ‘in Christ’ we are heirs, Jew and Gen­tile alike, to the true Israel of God. As Israel is “one who strives with God” (Gen 32) so any Jew/Gentile who seeks the bless­ing Jacob had is brought into the true Israel. I think also that Israel is giv­ing a mys­ti­cal mean­ing in Rom 2:29, 4:9–13, 9:6a; Gal 3:29, 6:16; Eph 2:14–16.

I strug­gle with Rom 11:26 to the point of agony. I can’t fig­ure out for the life of me what Israel is in vs. 26. I find it hard to believe that it is a mys­ti­cal Israel of Jews/Gentiles due to the texts after vs. 26 (see N.T. Wright and Calvin on this). I think Hoekema/Robertson’s posi­tion of elect rem­nant being brought in through­out time has some valid­ity, but from read­ing Sproul, Piper, Moo, Schreiner, Gill, Hodge, and oth­ers it seems to offer an inter­pre­ta­tion that there will be a wide­spread con­ver­sion of national Jews. This puz­zles me though, because with the destruc­tion of the tem­ple no one any­more can claim that they descend from a tribe of Jacob (hence they don’t per­form the Levit­i­cal sac­ri­fices any­more). No mat­ter what, I can’t see Paul con­nec­tion Rom 11:26 to a future rein­state­ment of a national Israel again in earthly Pales­tine. Nathan’s arti­cle does much to con­tribute to the under­stand­ing the impor­tance of Bib­li­cal typol­ogy which I actu­ally feel sad for Dispy’s whose flawed “lit­eral” inter­pre­ta­tion misses out on the great spir­i­tual truths as recorded in Scrip­ture. Study­ing Bib­li­cal Typol­ogy and the redemptive-historical hermeneu­tic (circa Graeme Goldswor­thy) has done won­ders for my spir­i­tu­al­ity and belief in the Bib­li­cal revelation.

I do still have ques­tions about all the land promises in the major prophets. So many of those pas­sages talk about lit­eral Israel being restored to a lit­eral land. Now I could see them being spir­i­tu­al­ized as is done in Heb 11 towards the Heav­enly Jerusalem (Rev 21), but it amazes me that the NT doesn’t expound upon these promises in depth. You would think it would be a focal point of inter­pre­ta­tion for the NT writers.

Any ref­er­ences by covenant the­olo­gians regard­ing the promises of land restora­tion in the major prophets would be appre­ci­ated. Included in that a def­i­n­i­tion and expla­na­tion of the fact that the New Covenant was to be made with the “house of Israel and Judah” would be appre­ci­ated. Wal­ter Kaiser aptly pointed me to the fact that the New Covenant was not made with the Church.