The Early and Medieval Church
We see some brief teaching from the ancient fathers of the church concerning the issue of covenant theology, particularly the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. This was in reaction to the heresy of Marcion, who rejected the Old Testament entirely.
"All things therefore are of one and the same substance, that is, from one and the same God;" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.9.1)
"For which [reasons the apostle] declared that this man was not only the prophet of faith, but also the father of those who from among the Gentiles believe in Jesus Christ, because his faith and ours are one and the same" (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.21.1)
"For none, even of the just men of old, could find salvation apart from the faith of Christ; nor unless He had been known to them could their ministry have been used to convey prophecies concerning Him to us, some more plain, and some more obscure." (Augustine, The Enchiridion, chapter 118)
Thomas Aquinas appeared to believe in the classic law-gospel antithesis, and held similar views to St. Irenaeus:
"No man ever had the grace of the Holy Ghost except through faith in Christ either explicit or implicit: and by faith in Christ man belongs to the New Testament." (Summa Theologica, Part 2.1, Q. 106, Art. 1, Reply to Obj. 3)
Reformation Theologians
Martin Luther taught the following things concerning God's covenants:
- OT saints were justified by faith in Christ (Lectures on Galatians, 1535, in LW 26:85)
- The moral law of the Ten Commandments was still binding on Christians (The Book of Concord, 351-54)
Heinrich Bullinger wrote a treatise titled The One Eternal Testament or Covenant of God. Bullinger viewed the substance of God's covenants as that which was given to Abraham in Genesis 17. Bullinger taught that all children within the visible church ought to be baptized, which is the sign of the Covenant of Grace.
John Calvin emphasized the unity of God's covenant of grace throughout redemptive history:
"All men adopted by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as obtains among us" (Institutes, 2.10.1)
“The covenant made with all the patriarchs is so much like ours in substance and reality that the two are actually one and the same. Yet they differ in the mode of dispensation.” (Institutes, 2.10.2)
Like most prior to him, Calvin taught the the new covenant does not nullify Christian's moral obligation to obey the Ten Commandments, that is, the moral law:
“We must now consider how the covenant is rightly kept . . . for as God binds himself to keep the promise he has given to us; so the consent of faith and of obedience is demanded of us.” (Calvin's Commentary on Gen. 17:9)
Reformed and Presbyterian Orthodoxy
The basic ideas of Reformed covenant theology continued in figures like Theodore Beza, Zacharias Ursinus, Caspar Olevianus, Robert Rollock, and William Perkins.
Reformed covenant theology can especially be seen in systematic form in the writings of Thomas Boston. Boston taught that there were two covenants: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The former shows our sinful state, and the latter the hope of the gospel offered in Jesus Christ.
Boston believed that the covenant of grace was established in eternity, in the counsel of the Trinity.
“The covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, are not two distinct covenants, but one and the same covenant. I know that many divines do express themselves otherwise in this matter; and that upon very different views, some of which are no ways injurious to the doctrine of free grace.” (The Works of Thomas Boston, 8:396-97)
"The writings of Reformed orthodox theologians such as Boston exhibit a peculiar tendency that is both a strength and a weakness: their treatment of the covenant revolved around the accomplishment and application of salvation, not the historical process of revelation. Reformed covenant theology generally focused on the gospel so much that it did not chart the unfolding of the covenant of grace in its progressive revelation over the course of history. That is the task of Reformed biblical theology." (Joel R. Beeke)
Particular Baptist Theologians
During the Puritan era of the 1600s, a number of Baptist theologians agreed with the majority of the principles of mainstream Reformed covenant theology, but did add some distinctions and nuances to their doctrine of the covenants that suited their view of the church in the New Testament. This view is expressed in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith:
"This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament (Heb. 1:1); and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2); and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and a blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency (Heb. 11:6, 13; Rom. 4:1– 2ff.; Acts 4:12; John 8:56)." (1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, 7.3)
While there are many similarities to the teaching of Reformed Presbyterianism (such as the affirmation that saints under both the OT and NT were saved in the same way, i.e. justification by faith alone), there is a very key difference: the Baptist confession does not state that the old covenant and the new covenant are two administrations of the one covenant of grace, but instead it views the progressive revelation of the gospel that is consummated in the new covenant, leaving the relationship between the two covenants undefined.
There were some different nuances amongst early Baptist theologians regarding covenant theology. While figures like Nehemiah Coxe and Benjamin Keach subscribed to what we might call "1689 Federalism" (the view of the London Baptist confession described above), there were others who nuanced it differently.
John Bunyan (The Works of John Bunyan, 1:524) and John Gill affirmed the classic Reformed view that the one covenant of grace had different administrations throughout history.
Dispensationalism
John Nelson Darby, a member of the Plymouth Brethren, is known for shaping a defining the theological system known as Dispensationalism. He likely had influence from the Roman Catholic priest and theologian Manuel Lacunza.
The key aspect of dispensationalism is that it emphasizes a sharp distinction between Israel and the Christian Church as two separate peoples of God. Rather than the promises made to Israel being fulfilled in the church, Israel exists separately and God has His own plan for it.
Dispensationalism also emphasizes the distinction between the Old and New Covenant. It recognizes seven different "dispensations" throughout redemptive history: (1) innocence; (2) conscience; (3) human government; (4) promise; (5) law; (6) grace; and (7) kingdom. It also affirms a pre-tribulation rapture.
New Covenant Theology
Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel affirm a theological system known as "New Covenant Theology" (NCT). While they acknowledge a "unity of God's purpose throughout the ages", they think it would be wrong to refer to this as the "covenant of grace", as Reformed theology does. "The implication for ethics is that no command of the Old Testament can inform us of our duty before God unless the same command is explicitly taught in the New Testament" (Joel R. Beeke)
Progressive Covenantalism
Recently, Stephen Wellum and Peter Gentry wrote a book titled Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants. They try to find a middle-ground between dispensationalism and Reformed covenant theology.
They do affirm the covenant of works, and that the OT promises given to Israel are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In this regard, they agree with Reformed covenant theology.
However, they teach that the church participates in this reality only by faith and union with Christ, and thus the essence of the New Covenant is not the same as that of the Old Covenant.
"Furthermore, progressive covenantalists argue that the Ten Commandments must be interpreted in their covenantal context and applied to us today as they are fulfilled in Christ. A major consequence of this approach is that the Sabbath is not seen as a universal moral law, but a foreshadowing of the Christian’s spiritual rest in Christ. However, progressive covenantalism does promote a practice of the Lord’s Day that is often similar to that of people believing that the fourth commandment mandates the Christian Sabbath" (Joel R. Beeke)
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