One Covenant from the Fall to the End?
Covenant theologians love the unity of the Bible, and they are right to. Abraham, Moses, David, the prophets, and the apostles all speak of one God and one Savior. Covenant theology expresses that unity with a single covenant: after Adam fell, God made one covenant of grace with sinners, and every covenant after it, from Noah to the New Covenant, is that one covenant in a different form.
In Reformed covenant theology, the one covenant God made with fallen mankind after the fall, in which He freely offers life and salvation through Jesus Christ, requires faith, and promises His Spirit. It is administered differently in the Old and New Testaments, and it is the covenant now in effect.
The Westminster Confession (1646) puts it this way. Because Adam made himself incapable of life by the first covenant, “the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him” (7.3). It goes on to say that God promised to give His Spirit to all who are ordained to eternal life, to make them willing and able to believe.
Covenant theologians see this covenant first announced in Eden, when God promised that the woman's Seed would bruise the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15). It is the last of the three theological covenants in order, after redemption and works, and the most important, because it is the covenant now in force.
We agree wholeheartedly with what this doctrine is built to guard: there is one way of salvation in every age, by grace through faith, on the ground of Christ's death. What we question is folding the covenants God actually made into one. They have different parties, different terms, and different signs, and Scripture itself sets some of them against each other.
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For Deeper Study
- The Christ of the CovenantsAmazon O. Palmer RobertsonA respected Presbyterian presentation (1980) of the biblical covenants as one unfolding covenant. Reformed, not dispensational; read it to hear the view in its own words.
- Introducing Covenant TheologyAmazon Michael HortonA clear modern introduction (2006) to the covenants of redemption, works, and grace. Reformed.
- The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant TheologyAmazon Pascal DenaultCompares seventeenth-century Particular Baptist and Presbyterian covenant theology and shows why the Baptists' reading of the covenant of grace led them to baptize believers only. Reformed Baptist.
- Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the CovenantsAmazon Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. WellumThe major statement of progressive covenantalism (2012), a Baptist middle path between covenant theology and dispensationalism.
- There Really Is a Difference! A Comparison of Covenant and Dispensational TheologyAmazon Renald E. ShowersA dispensational teacher's side-by-side comparison, with chapters on the theological covenants and the biblical covenants.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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What Is Covenant Theology?
Covenant theology is the Reformed framework that reads the whole Bible as God's work of redeeming one people, organized under three theological covenants it believes Scripture implies: a covenant of redemption, a covenant of works, and a covenant of grace.
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