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COVENANT THEOLOGY CORAM DEO Before the Face of God   C ONTENTS True Theology   20 20 |   44 |   10

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COVENANT THEOLOGY CORAM DEO Before the Face of God   C ONTENTS True Theology   20 20 |   44 |   10 2020 | $3 COVENANT THEOLOGY CORAM DEO Before the Face of God C ONTENTS True Theology 20 20 | 44 | 10 n a sermon on Hebrews 8:10 published on October 31, 1912, the English Baptist pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon declared: “The doctrine of the divine 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 mas- 4 20 ter of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make con- The Covenantal The Covenants cerning the doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard Hermeneutic in Scripture to the covenants of law and of grace.” Spurgeon was exactly right, and just as the eth A Mthson Robert Rothwell Ichurch at the beginning of the twentieth century needed to hear his words, the church in the twenty-first century desperately needs to hear them as well. The church in our day has largely forgotten, ignored, or denied many of the tenets of covenant theology. But to under- stand the unity of God’s Word rightly, we must understand covenant theology accurately. 8 28 The doctrine of covenant is foundational not only to our understanding of God’s prom- The Covenant Covenant Theology ises throughout history, but also to our understanding of everything—in Scripture and in History Applied in life. Covenant is not only a topic of theology; it is at the core of all theology. When we R Scott Clr 12 Donn Frederchsen talk about covenant theology, we are talking not only about one aspect of what we believe Covenant Dynamics as Christians, but we are also talking about that which constitutes part of the bedrock Gu Prentss Wters of everything we believe. If we fail to grasp the all-encompassing covenant theology of Scripture, we will fail to accurately grasp the Word of God, the character of God, the plan of God, the prophecies of God, the mission of God, and the redemption of God. While Christians may dier on our understanding of the nature of covenant theol- STUDIES COLUMNS ogy, all Christians must possess at least some basic understanding of covenant theol- 37 Into the Word 66 heart aflame ogy if we are to understand what it means to be a Christian. For if we do not grasp that Suffering with Christ 40 Worship Has a Context we are sinners who broke the covenant of works in our first father, Adam, and died in Jerem Wler Mr G Johnston our sin, we cannot grasp how Christ, the last Adam, fulfilled the covenant of works so 68 for the church that we might have life. What’s more, if we fail to grasp that aer our fall into sin we 46 Creation in Bondage Church Family and Fellowship en Jones deserved the eternal condemnation and wrath of God, we will be unable to understand Stephen J Adms 53 A Wildly Uneven Exchange the eternal significance of God’s covenant of grace that He established aer the fall. 70 city on a hill Covenant theology rightly understood is foundational to our faith, and those who Tm eesee Cherishing and Defending the Old Testament meddle with either the covenant of works or the covenant of grace will soon meddle 59 God Is Good Mtthew H Ptton Dvd Strn with the gospel of God, the assurance we have in God, and the full and final redemp- 74 last things tion that is ours in Jesus Christ. 65 Speech That Builds Up Abortion: Ministering to Mother, evn D Grdner Child, and Family Andre rzese is editor of Tabletalk magazine and serves as senior pastor of Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Fla. He is author of Why Do We Have Creeds? He is on Twitter at @BurkParsons. Abrhm nd Isc Crrng th Wood for th Scrfc, Gust ve Doré / Brdem n Im es Tbletl ( 009-013 1064881) s publshed monthl b Loner Mnstres, Inc, 421 Loner Court, Snford, FL 32771 Annul subscrpton prce (12 ssues) $2300 Perodcls poste pd t Le Mr, FL, nd ddtonl mln offces The dl Bble studes re coprht 2014, Loner Mnstres, Burk Parsons Thomas Brewer Kevin D. Gardner Inc Unless noted, ll Scrpture quottons re from The Hol Bble, Enlsh Stndrd Verson Coprht 2001 b Crossw Bbles, dvson of Good News and Robert Rothwell Aaron L. Garriott Joe Holland Publshers Used b permsson All rhts reserved Postmster Send ddress chnes to Loner Mnstres, 421 Loner Court, Snford, FL 32771 Metaleap Creative J.D. Bridges and Nathan W. Bingham O CTOBER by Keith A. Mathison s the Sermon on the Mount realize that we will have to do some work directly applicable to Chris- before we are prepared to read it. We will tians today? Is the Sabbath have to learn the language. We will have commandment still in eect? to learn something about the culture in the Should Christians baptize their which it was written. We will have to find infants? How we answer these out what genre of literature it is. When we and many other questions depends on the see an ancient scroll, we recognize that it COVENANTAL interpretive assumptions we have before isn’t the same kind of thing as a modern we even open the Bible. We all come to the novel. What if that ancient scroll has al- HERMENEUTIC Bible with certain ideas about how it should ready been translated, however? What if be read, but herein lies the problem. If we it has been translated and published in a bring these assumptions to Scripture, where modern book format with nice leather did we get them in the first place? Are we covers? What if you grew up with that deriving our assumptions from Scripture or book and were somewhat familiar with bringing them in from the outside? the contents? Such familiarity could lull When we talk about the methods and you into thinking that this book is to be principles we use to interpret the Bible, we read with the same cultural assumptions are talking about hermeneutics. All of us we bring to contemporary written works. practice hermeneutics every day, but we are These are some of the issues we have usually unconscious of it. If we are reading to think about when we read the Bible. works written in our own culture, in our The Bible is a collection of ancient books, own native language, and in our own time originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and period, we usually don’t have to give a second Greek. The books of the Old Testament were thought to the rules of interpretation. If we written by numerous authors who lived pick up a book that begins with the words in the ancient Near Eastern world with its once upon a time . , for example, we know own customs and assumptions. The books that we should not read it as we would read of the New Testament were written during an encyclopedia article. We automatically the height of the Roman Empire. Those recognize that opening line as an indicator are not the worlds in which we have lived that this writing belongs to the genre of our lives. If we fail to understand the kind “fairy tale.” We are also familiar with our of books found in the Bible, we can eas- own culture’s way of referring to people, ily misidentify genres, which leads to a places, and things. If we are reading an au- misapplication of historical-grammatical thor who says he visited “the Big Apple,” hermeneutics. We can forget these things we know he is referring to New York City because our Bibles have already been trans- and not a giant piece of fruit. New York lated out of the ancient languages. Our Bi- City is what the author literally means by bles have also already been taught to us using this figure of speech. and read by us along the lines of certain But what happens when we pick up a hermeneutical systems we inherited, and book written thousands of years ago in a some of these are more faithful to the text dierent language? If we were to see this than others. Knowing which of these we book on a fragile papyrus scroll with the bring to Scripture and why is important. original letters of the ancient language in Over the last century and a half, two sys- which it was written, we might stop and tems of interpretation, covenant theolo- , / gy and dispensationalism, have been the For more than a century, dispensation- or the gospel. Is that the way the authors dominant alternatives among evangelical alism has been a widespread and popular of the New Testament dealt with the Old Christians. Covenant theology was in seed hermeneutical system among evangelicals. Testament? Certainly not. form in the writings of the church fathers, Although it is best known for its distinctive In recent decades, a number of Baptist but it saw significant developments during eschatological views, dispensationalism’s theologians who were dissatisfied with the the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. most important element is its distinction older options have oered alternatives that It grew out of a recognition that the Bible between two separate peoples of God: Israel they believe provide a middle way between The covenantal reveals God as dealing with His people by and the church. Because of its understand- dispensationalism and covenant theology. hermeneutic recognizes means of covenants. At its most basic, a ing that God has two distinct plans for two Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, a number and proclaims the one covenant is a formal arrangement between distinct peoples, dispensationalism divides of dispensationalists, for example, began gospel of Jesus Christ.
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