COVENANT THEOLOGY PART 1 - AN INTRODUCTION THE WHYS Why are we doing a podcast? We have gathered and grown in our first year as a church plant. We've gathered others to this church plant and we've grown together as one people. And now we're entering into this next stage of life where we can do more together and continue to grow from a church plant into a church. The "more" ministry we want to do is to simply pursue the means of grace a little more. The ministry of the church is not a complicated thing. And that’s because Jesus Christ, the King of the church, appoints a simple way of ministry. Ministry is simply about devoting ourselves to the means of grace that Jesus has given us in dependence on the Holy Spirit. The means of his grace are the Bible, prayer, the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and fellowship. The main avenue and the most frequent and regular avenue where we practice and devote ourselves to these means is Sunday morning worship. And, in addition to that main avenue of Sunday worship we have to pursue a church life filled with 1) prayer and 2) fellowship and 3) teaching the Bible outside of Sunday morning worship. Hence, this podcast. Why are we talking about Covenant Theology? We just started a new church. So let’s look at the beginning of the story of how we even got to the church. To put it most concisely, the church is a covenant people. Which ​ ​ means if we want to understand the church we’ve got to take a look at covenant theology. That’s the beginning of the story of the church. 1 Covenant Theology is arguably the most important framework for understanding the Bible, the whole story of salvation, what Jesus did, what grace is, Jesus' love for you, and our relationship with each other and with the world. RESOURCES This series of lectures is based on and in many instances taken directly from the works of Meredith Kline, Lee Irons, Gordon Hugenberger, Rick Lints and many conversations with pastor friends and fellow covenant theologians. I am in their debt and I thank Jesus for them. For further reading: Introductory Brown, Michael G. and Zach Keele, Sacred Bond: Covenant Theology Explained. ​ ​ Grandville, MI: Reformed Fellowship Inc., 2012. Kline, Meredith G, Genesis: A New Commentary. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson ​ ​ Publishers, 2016. Intermediate Report of the Study Committee (28th GA, June 2000). http://pcahistory.org/pca/studies/creation/report.pdf Advanced Caughey, Chris and Lee Irons, The Glory-Cloud Podcast. ​ ​ https://glorycloudpodcast.libsyn.com/ Irons, Lee, The Upper Register. https://upper-register.com/papers.html ​ ​ ​ Kline, Meredith G, God, Heaven and Har Magedon: A Covenant Tale of Cosmos and ​ Telos. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006. ​ Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview. Overland ​ Park, KS: Two Age Press, 2001. THE BEGINNING 2 We begin at the beginning. And the big question we are trying to answer is, what does the beginning of the Bible tell us about the beginning of God’s people. Read Gen 1:1. One big point the Bible affirms in Gen 1 is that God is the Creator of all creation. The first verse in the Bible, Gen 1:1, says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens ​ and the earth. Meredith Kline writes in Genesis, A New Commentary, that “God stands ​ ​ ​ at the beginning of Scripture, the Eternal and there is none else...Creator of everything visible and invisible. This truth is the foundation of all knowledge…” (9). God is the Architect of creation, which must mean that there is a specific design to creation. And what Gen 1 also affirms is that there is a specific design to the way God reveals his design for creation. That is, Gen 1, which is the revelation of God’s design for creation, itself has a specific design. THE REALMS/KINGDOMS OF CREATION Read Gen 1:2-13. What are some general descriptions that could help us see a theme developing? What is the big picture? Day 1, vv.3-5, God creates light and dark, day and night. And it says God SEPARATES the day and the night. Day 2, vv6-8, God creates water and sky. AGAIN, it says God SEPARATES the waters and the sky. Day 3, vv.9-13, God creates the dry land. AGAIN, it says God SEPARATES the dry land from the waters. Is there a theme developing? Yes! Days 1-3 describe the SEPARATING and the bounding of these vast entities. Earth is separated and structured into three realms: Day 1 is the realm of day-and-night. Day 2 is the realm of the sea and the sky. Day 3 is the realm of dry land. THE RULERS/KINGS OF CREATION 3 Read Gen 1:14-31. Do we see this theme being further developed? BIG HINT - We are tipped off at the development of this theme in vv.16 and 18 with the repeated word, “RULE.” Days 4-6 describe different RULERS. Days 4-6 are about the appointment of RULERS over the REALMS of Days 1-3. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Day 4 Rulers, the sun and moon, rule over their Day 1 realm of day and night by regulating the day-night cycle (cf Ps 136:7-9). (Side note: the stars are NOT divine rulers, like you read about in pagan mythology. The stars themselves are creations of God, serving mankind with illumination and calendar signs (cf 104:19-23)). Day 5 Rulers, the birds and the creatures of the sea (v.20-23, 26,28,30), rule over their Day 2 realm of the sky above and the waters below. How do birds and fish rule and have dominion over the sky and sea? V.22 says that God blessed them and that their dominion was that of occupying their realm through multiplication, and it’s God who blesses them with that blessing of fertility. (Side note: This is a nature parable foreshadowing the kingship of mankind - God gives mankind a similar blessing-commission in 1:28; cf.2:5; 5:2)). Day 6 Rulers, the animals and mankind, are given dominion and rule over their Day 3 realm of the dry land. THE DESIGN OF GENESIS 1 Gen 1 affirms that there are kingdoms and there are kings in God’s creation. Gen 1, ​ ​ ​ ​ by design, is not organized chronologically. It is not intended to be understood as, “God somehow made light and night on the first day and then days later on the fourth day he finally made the sun and moon and stars to make that light and night that he made back on the first day.” It is not meant to be understood sequentially. That misses the point! Gen 1, by design, is organized THEMATICALLY. AND, Gen 1 really happened. It’s true. BUT, the question remains: what is Gen 1 saying? Gen 1 is not strictly Hebrew prose, 4 historical narrative and it’s NOT strictly Hebrew poetry. The literary genre of Gen 1 is the epic tradition. The ESV Literary Study Bible explains the literary genre of Gen 1 is the epic tradition. “A ​ long narrative having the following characteristics or ingredients: expansiveness and grandness; the story of a nation or group (nationalistic emphasis), not simply an individual; a unifying hero; motifs of warfare, conquest, kingdom, rulership; presence of supernatural characters and events (what literary critics have traditionally called ‘the marvelous’); exalted style. Epics are very important to societies; in fact, they sum up what a whole culture wants to say about itself and about life.” ​ What is being portrayed in Gen 1 are ordinary days with their evenings and mornings. That’s the language, that’s the picture being portrayed. These are regular days, not ages. But the question is: is this picture of a week of normal days as a whole to be understood literally or figuratively; is the whole thing a figure? This picture of a normal week is NOT to be understood literally but figuratively. Think of the parable of the sower, Mt 13, Mk 4, Lk 8. What’s the literal picture there that Jesus paints for us? The literal picture is that the farmer goes out with real seed and he sows the seed and some of the seed falls on the path = birds eat it; some falls on rocky ground = the sun scorches the seeds; some falls on thorny ground = the thorns choke the seedlings; but some seed falls on good soil and produces a crop. Is Jesus talking about agriculture? Is agriculture the point of his parable? No. Literally, that’s the picture that he paints for the people listening but the point of that whole parable is the Son of God going forth and preaching the gospel. It’s not about agriculture at all. Back to Gen 1 - What is the literal picture? A week of days. But the bigger question is this: is that intended to be understood literally or figuratively? The biggest contextual tell is that the seventh day never ends - it’s still ongoing! THE FRAMEWORK INTERPRETATION Gen 1 is not legendary, it is not mythical. It is history, but it’s told in epic style. Gen 1:1-2:3 intentionally has a very particular structure to it, a very particular design, a very particular framework to it and it’s a work of genius. Its particular framework is a figurative framework. This is what’s known as the Framework Interpretation of Creation.