What Is Covenant Theology? (eBook)

Why Do the Basics and the Blessings Go Together?

Knowing the basics of covenant theology brings great blessings with it. In fact, this book will show that the main blessings of covenant theology lie in its basic principles. Yet it is easy for the average reader to get lost in large tomes on the subject. Serving as a key for reading the entire Bible, “introductions” to covenant theology swell into many pages quickly. This small book aims to introduce readers to the basics of covenant theology in light of the blessings that covenant theology brings. Highlighting some of these blessings shows how covenant theology can strengthen our walk with God, making the path before us a bit smoother and easier. The basics and blessings of covenant theology are inevitably very personal as well.

A Personal Journey

Growing up in a non-Christian home, I knew nothing about the Bible. I did not know who the apostle Paul was until I started reading the New Testament, around the time the Spirit brought me to Christ at age sixteen or seventeen. The church I attended was dispensational, which taught that God had different plans for the Jews and for the church, resulting in a disjointed reading of the Old and New Testaments.1 Implicitly, I learned that Christians did not need to keep the Ten Commandments. Theoretically, I was “antinomian,” which describes someone who believes that those justified by Christ do not need to keep God’s law. However, the Holy Spirit often trains our hearts before straightening out our heads. Thus, reading Jesus’s application of the Ten Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount, I found myself praying, “Lord, make me like this!” even though I thought at the time that he was altering or removing the Old Testament law. Covenant theology was the blessing that I did not know I needed in order to read the Bible better and to live well for God’s glory. Gradually, I saw the Son (Jesus), his seed (offspring) in the church, and the sacraments (let’s say signs for now) as unifying themes in Scripture that helped me understand the parts.

Covenant theology came to me in two ways. First, the church I attended inculcated two vital practices: Christians read their Bibles every day, and Christians tell others about Jesus. Consistent Bible reading worked something profound in many people in that church. In my case, Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount started to sound a lot like what I was reading in Exodus and Leviticus. People began raising questions about God’s election, human free will, the depths of human sin, the Spirit’s work in people’s hearts, and, ultimately, how the Old and New Testaments fit together. Second, since this church could not answer most of these questions, people found resources like Ligonier Ministries, which led me to works like the Westminster Confession of Faith, Calvin’s Institutes, and Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology.2 Suddenly, I and others began finding answers. Whether such issues related to the unity of the Bible, to the work of the triune God in saving sinners, or to Christian living, covenant theology seemed to answer key questions. Jesus, who saved one church in both Old and New Testament, was the focal point of the Bible, and baptism and the Lord’s Supper drove these truths home vividly.

While covenant theology bears almost innumerable blessings, the breathtaking unity of Scripture, the glory of the triune God, and its implications for the Christian life stand out as central ones. In this introduction, I explain each of these areas briefly in a somewhat natural and disjointed way to introduce the plan for the rest of the book. These three blessings lead us to reflect on the basics of covenant theology as they revolve around Jesus Christ, as they affect his church, and as they come home to us in word and sacrament.

What Blessings of Covenant Theology Stand Out?

Covenant theology is a “big picture” issue, describing the relationship between God and his people throughout the ages. It is not merely about some parts of the Bible or specific theological and practical questions. It shows us how to see the unity of the Bible’s message, how to read the whole Bible, how to know God, and how to live. When embraced, it deepens our communion (or fellowship) with the triune God and with others in the church. How, then, is covenant theology a blessing?

First, covenant theology is a blessing because it shows the breathtaking unity of Scripture. From the first promise of the Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15) to one of the last promises of God’s heavenly dwelling with his people as their God (Rev. 21:3), covenant theology pulls together everything in between. The result is that we view the Bible more like a grand epic narrative than a collection of short stories. God’s promise to undo the ruin that Satan brought through sin is like a seamless thread that ties together all the pages of Scripture. In this light, the promise to Abraham that in his Seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18) fits both Genesis 3:15 and Galatians 3:14, in which “the blessing of Abraham” applies to believers now. The Seed of the woman’s suffering in the place of his people resurfaces in important passages like Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and Romans 16:20. Moses’s leading the people out of Egypt, and everything else he did, flowed from God’s remembering his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 2:24–25). David looked to God to forgive sins and change hearts (Ps. 51), and he pleaded that the Deliverer would come through one of his descendants (2 Sam. 7; Pss. 89; 132). Solomon celebrated God’s faithfulness in establishing his Seed (of the woman) over the ends of the earth, bringing blessings to all nations (Ps. 72). Peter urged believers to look to Christ’s return, teaching them that God preserves the world now for the sake of the elect, just as he did in Noah’s covenant in Genesis 6–9 (2 Pet. 3:8–9). Covenant theology is a blessing because all of Scripture, no matter what book we find ourselves in, reminds us of other parts. The entire book is about God’s covenant with his people, always pointing them to Christ (Luke 24:44–46). Not only does the Old Testament fit with the New but the New starts to look like an inevitable result of the Old, without which the story would be incomplete.

The breathtaking unity of Scripture should fill us with awe and wonder. Many people ask how the Bible can be God’s word when men wrote it. How can we expect any kind of unified message from men, who wrote parts of the Bible in different centuries, resulting in alleged contradictions? Yet seeing the theme of God’s covenant, which he placed clearly throughout Scripture, shows that allegations of contradictory messages by many authors stem largely from ignorance of what the Bible actually teaches. My favorite example was reading Isaiah 53, about the suffering “servant,” to a Muslim while I was in college. He rejected the idea that Christ was God and that he suffered in the place of sinners. Yet when I read the text to him, he thought I was reading from the New Testament, only to be surprised that Isaiah seemed to describe Christ’s sufferings more vividly, in some respects, than Matthew and Paul. God’s word is breathtaking. Whatever difficulties we perceive at first in particular parts of Scripture start resolving themselves when we understand how the parts fit into the whole. Christ is the central theme of God’s relationship to his church, in both Testaments. Sacraments like circumcision, the Passover, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper simply illustrate the point and drive it home. God’s consistency in the Bible is both spiritually breathtaking and invigorating.

Second, covenant theology is a blessing because it highlights the glory of the triune God. This point may take a while for many of us to appreciate. Whether or not we realize it, we come to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit (Eph. 2:18). Salvation is about the glory of the triune God, and covenant theology is the vehicle through which God reveals himself and his saving message. The Father saves us, through the Son, by the Spirit (Eph. 1:3–14) so that by the Spirit, through the Son, we come to the Father. Paul summarized the gospel in terms of God’s sending his Son to become man, whom the Spirit vindicated, so that we might believe in him (1 Tim. 3:16). We often undercapitalize on the vital importance of the Trinity in Christian faith and life because no one has taught us what to look for in the Bible. Yet covenant theology is like painting a verbal picture of God; the one God of Israel shows us over time that he is Father, Son, and Spirit, inviting us into intimate fellowship with himself.

How does covenant theology relate to the Trinity? The simple answer is that God’s story, which he tells through covenant relationships, is ultimately about himself. The gospel is about God, and the more fully we grasp the gospel, the more clearly we see God. An illustration can show how easily we lose sight of this fact. What often happens...