A Plan Before the World Began
Salvation was not God's afterthought. Before there was a world, a garden, or a fall, God had already purposed to redeem sinners through His Son. Every Bible-believing Christian confesses that. Covenant theology goes a step further: it describes that eternal purpose as a covenant made between the Father and the Son, the first of its three theological covenants.
In covenant theology, an agreement made in eternity between the Father and the Son (with the Holy Spirit), in which the Father appointed the Son to be Mediator and gave Him a people to redeem, and the Son undertook to become man, obey the law, and die for them, with the promise of a people, a kingdom, and glory as His reward. It is also called the pactum salutis, Latin for the covenant of salvation, and the counsel of peace.
Everyone in this discussion agrees that God planned redemption before creation. The question is whether Scripture calls that plan a covenant, and whom the plan was made to redeem.
This study states the doctrine as its own teachers state it, looks at the texts they cite, affirms everything in it that Scripture affirms, and then explains where we stop short. Along the way it rejoices in the Son who came willingly to do His Father's will.
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For Deeper Study
- The Trinity and the Covenant of RedemptionAmazon J. V. FeskoReformed. A full defense (2016) of the doctrine's history, its exegetical basis in texts such as Psalm 2 and Psalm 110, and its place in theology, including answers to the worry that it divides the Trinity.
- The Economy of the Covenants Between God and ManAmazon Herman WitsiusReformed. The classic seventeenth-century treatment (1677) of the covenants of works, redemption, and grace. Read it to hear the doctrine at its most devout.
- The Extent of the Atonement: A Historical and Critical ReviewAmazon David L. AllenA non-Calvinistic Southern Baptist scholar makes the biblical and historical case that Christ died for all. Long and detailed.
- Whosoever Will: A Biblical-Theological Critique of Five-Point CalvinismAmazon David L. Allen and Steve W. Lemke, eds.Non-Calvinistic Southern Baptist scholars on election, the atonement, and grace. Close to the view taught here.
- 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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