The Differences between the Old and New Covenants

 

The terms "Old Covenant" and "New Covenant" can be taken in two sense: either broadly or strictly.

When the Old Covenant is taken in a broad sense, this denotes the entire history of time from Adam until Christ. When taken strictly, it refers to the Mosaic covenant and the ceremonies, taken apart from the promise of grace and deliverance through the Messiah. 

The New Covenant is also taken in this twofold sense. When taken broadly, the New Covenant refers to the general covenant of grace made throughout redemptive history, both before and after the coming of Christ. When taken strictly, it refers to the covenant of grace as administered after the time of Christ, which shall continue to the end of the world. 

You will see some Reformed theologians (such as Robert Rollock and Lucas Trelcatius) speaking of two covenants as though they were diverse in substance and completely separate (and sometimes use this sort of terminology). However, they took the old and new covenants in the strict sense, referring to their separate administrations, and not in the broad sense (in the way that the credobaptists do). These men are not in conflict with other Reformed divines (such as Calvin, Martyr, and Ursinus) who speak one covenant of grace under diverse administrations (when the term "covenant" is taken in the broader sense). This is an important distinction that helps us preserve unity in our doctrine of covenant. 

The Differences Between the Two Covenants

[1]. As to time - This is an obvious difference and clear to all. The old covenant was before Christ, while the new covenant is after Christ. The old covenant referred to Christ as the one to come in the future, the new covenant takes place after Christ was already manifested (cf. Luke 10:23-24). 

[2]. As to clarity - The promises of the gospel and the essential aspects of the covenant of grace are more clearly set forth in the New Covenant, while the Old Covenant had them under the veil of the types and shadows. "But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away....But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:7, 18)

[3]. As to easiness - The administration of the covenant of grace under the Old Testament is more burdensome and complex than it is under the New Covenant. Saint Augustine said "Thus the sacraments of the Old Testament, which were celebrated in obedience to the law, were types of Christ who was to come; and when Christ fulfilled them by His advent they were done away, and were done away because they were fulfilled. For Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfill. And now that the righteousness of faith is revealed, and the children of God are called into liberty, and the yoke of bondage which was required for a carnal and stiffnecked people is taken away, other sacraments are instituted, greater in efficacy, more beneficial in their use, easier in performance, and fewer in number." (Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Book XIX, Chapter 13)

[4]. As to sweetness - In the Old Covenant, the condition of perfect obedience was much more emphasized and urged, not to exclude the promises of the gospel, but to drive people (which is why the law is called a "schoolmaster") to Christ, seeing their need for His righteousness. On the other hand, the burden and yoke of the New Covenant is easier and lighter (Matthew 11:30), since we have the fuller manifestation and power of the Holy Spirit to empower us in the same. 

[5]. As to perfection - The Old Covenant administered the covenant of grace under the types and shadows, and in an obscure way.

[6]. As to freedom. The spirit of bondage (Romans 8:15) prevailed under the Old Covenant. Though it was a covenant of grace and the promises were administered then (albeit, obscurely, as said above), the people under that dispensation nonetheless had the threatenings and terrors of Mount Sinai constantly ringing in their ears, so to speak 

[7]. As to amplitude - The Old Covenant was primarily for the people of Israel (though Gentiles could still enter into that nation, Ex. 12:48; Lev. 19:34). However, the New Covenant takes place when the Gentiles are ingrafted into the people of God (both internally and externally); Acts 10:34-35; Col. 3:11. 

Deuteronomy 5 and the Unity of the Covenant

 

Many credobaptists cite the following passage to show that there is not a continuity in substance between the biblical covenants, and that therefore their unity cannot be alleged as a grounds for infant baptism. 

"The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." (Deuteronomy 5:2-3)

A few things may be said in response to this argument:

[1]. Many times in Scripture, something is said to be "made" in the sense of being renewed or made more clear. Paul says "Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." (Romans 16:25-26). Yet he also says that the gospel was preached to Abraham (Gal. 3:8), and that those under the Mosaic covenant also heard this same gospel (Heb. 4:2). Therefore, as Witsius says, "what God says here [Deut. 5:3] may be taken in the same sense; that he did not make this covenant with their fathers, namely, in the same manner and form, by speaking to them from the midst of thunderings and lightnings, giving them the law of the covenant written with his own hand, with an addition of so many ceremonies." (The Economy of the Covenants, 1:323)

[2]. The Mosaic covenant is founded on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant in terms of its essential substance and promises. This is shown clearly by passages such as Exodus 2:24, 3:6; Deuteronomy 7:12, 29:13. 

A Response to Gavin Ortlund on Infant Baptism

 

Those who are involved in the dialogue between Baptists and Presbyterians concerning whether or not infants ought to be baptized (I am a Presbyterian), know that the main argument for the baptism of infants is based on a continuity between the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Testament, which can be formulated as follows: "Just as children were circumcised under the Old Testament, so also children ought to be baptized under the New Testament."

There have been two typical responses given by credobaptists to this sort of theological reasoning. One type of response stresses discontinuity between circumcision and baptism, and between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. This is generally done by more modern Baptists.

However, the classic Baptist theologians of the 17th century granted that there was indeed unity between the Abrahamic covenant and the New Covenant. Such was the case with a writer like Nehemiah Coxe (d. 1688), and more modernly so with Paul K. Jewett (as found in his book Infant Baptism and the Covenant of Grace).   

Gavin Ortlund (whose videos on Roman Catholicism, I must commend to you) has offered a similar argument, under the assumption that there is indeed some connection between circumcision and baptism, but that even if this were granted, this couldn't prove that infants should be baptized, because the group of infants that were circumcised under the Old Covenant are not the same as the infants that being baptized under the New Covenant (in Presbyterianism). Here is how he formulates his argument:

"This appeal to continuity with circumcision is at the core of the Reformed paedobaptist argument....But this appeal to continuity raises a question. Who exactly were the proper recipients of circumcision? To whom is Warfield referring with the word children? Circumcision is given in Genesis 17:9 to 'you and your seed [offspring, descendants; Hebrew zerah] after you, for the generations to come.' The individuals in view here are the intergenerational descendants of Abraham. The faith of an Israelite child’s parents was not what determined the child’s right to circumcision; it was the child’s association with the nation of Israel. In other words, the lines of covenant throughout the Old Testament weren’t drawn around individual believing families, but around the national family of Abraham. It wasn’t the 'children of believers” who had the right to the sacrament of initiation, but the 'children of Abraham.' So, given paedobaptist presuppositions, why not baptize the grandchildren of believers, too? If we’re really building off continuity with the Old Testament precedent, why stop at one generation?" (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/why-not-grandchildren-an-argument-against-reformed-paedobaptism/)

Dr. Ortlund is very clear in saying that whether or not an Israelite parent was a believer or not was not what determined whether or not their children had a right to circumcision. This is the essential bottom line of his overall argument.

The problem with this argument (and many other credobaptist arguments) is that it overemphasizes the physical and ethnic aspects of the Old Covenant to the point where faith and/or loyalty no longer has any real significance in covenant membership within Israel. This is not the picture we see within the Old Testament. I will offer a couple pieces of evidences to show this.

Excommunication from the Old Covenant

In the Old Testament, we see many times that certain sins or actions of Israelites could lead to them being "cut off" from the covenant community:

"24 Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 18:24-30)

"A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:27)

"6 If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you." (Deuteronomy 13:6-11)

"2 If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones." (Deuteronomy 17:2-5) 

Each of these passages show that loyalty to the God of Israel was a key and important aspect of the Old Covenant people.

Dr. Ortlund responds by saying that this view of the Abrahamic covenant is not in agreement with the historic Reformed view, and John Calvin's commentary on Genesis 17 in particular (we will examine this point later).

Ortlund's other response is as follows:

"Throughout the Old Testament, apostate, unbelieving Israelites still fall under the appellation “my people.” The rite continues generation after generation, at times so far apart from inward appropriation that the prophet laments, “all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart” (Jeremiah 9:27)....This is not to say that exclusion from the covenant community was impossible, or that Gentiles could not be grafted in. Unfaithful Israelites could be killed or banished from the land of Israel for a variety of sins. Similarly, non-Israelites sojourning among the people could enter into the covenant community, partaking of the nation’s laws and ordinances, eating the Passover meal, etc.—and in such cases they and their offspring were circumcised (e.g., Exod 12:48). Thus, it is not exactly right to say the offspring of Abraham simpliciter received circumcision—it was the nation that this offspring comprised, into which people enter, and from which people could be excluded. But excommunication or extermination from Israel occurred in response to specific and high-handed acts of rebellion like witchcraft, sorcery, blasphemy, particularly egregious forms of idolatry, etc. (e.g., Lev 20:27, 24:16, Deut. 17:2–5). It is unwarranted to infer the necessity of personal faith simply because someone has avoided the specific sins for which one will be stoned or banished. Membership in the nation of Israel had cultural, national, economic, and social dimensions, and huge numbers of Israelites remained Israelites without any evidence of personal faith in the God of Israel (think how many wicked kings throughout Samuel–Kings, for example, remained kings over God’s people despite their rejection of God’s laws).Thus, the conditions of excommunication introduced by the Mosaic law hundreds of years after the institution of circumcision did not redefine the Abrahamic covenant as “those who believe and their children,” as would be necessary to establish continuity with contemporary paedobaptist practice. Rather, God’s people were a national and inter-generational body, in line with Genesis 17:9–15; this was the entity from which one was excommunicated, or into which one was grafted. “Stone the sorcerer among you” is a far cry from “examine the credibility of their profession.” With regard to membership and excommunication among the people of God in the old and new covenants, we must say as we have said with circumcision and baptism: similar but not identical." 

The key assertion made by Ortlund which I want to focus on is his claim that "excommunication or extermination from Israel occurred in response to specific and high-handed acts of rebellion like witchcraft, sorcery, blasphemy, particularly egregious forms of idolatry, etc. (e.g., Lev 20:27, 24:16, Deut. 17:2–5). It is unwarranted to infer the necessity of personal faith simply because someone has avoided the specific sins for which one will be stoned or banished."

Granted, excommunication for some sins (such as sexual immorality [Lev. 18], or necromancy [Lev. 20:27]) would not necessarily prove in and of itself the necessity of personal faith for inclusion in the substance of the covenant community. But, what about the texts which speak of excommunication for worshipping other gods? If that is not an act of "faithlessness", I don't know what is. 

Faithful Non-Israelites in the Covenant

Another piece of evidence which shows that faithfulness and obedience was a key aspect of the Old Covenant is the presence of non-Israelites within that covenant, undoubtedly being Gentiles who worshipped the true God of Israel. We see an example of this in how the liturgy of the Passover is described:

"48 If a stranger shall sojourn with you and would keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised. Then he may come near and keep it; he shall be as a native of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat of it. 49 There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you." (Exodus 12:48-49)

Notice that even for the faithful non-Israelite, all of his children are considered members of the covenant ("let all his males be circumcised"). 

Another point to note within all of this is that the argument for paedobaptism on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant is not based on Israel's history altogether (a ton of which is failures and apostasy from God), but rather on the design of that covenant as it was instituted in Genesis 17. 

Other Objections

Gavin also brings up Joshua 5 as an argument:

"It is difficult to imagine, for example, the parents in Israel being lined up at Gilgal in Joshua 5:2–8 to be examined concerning whether they professed faith, in order to determine whether their children were eligible for circumcision. No, Joshua 5:8 records that the entire nation was circumcised because—as specified by Genesis 17—circumcision was for the entire nation, not just for believers and their children within the nation"

However, in this context, any Israelite could have declined to be circumcised and then left Israel (Genesis 17:14). Not only that, the act of circumcision is physically painful. Thus, it would seem reasonable to assume that a willingness to undergo circumcision would imply at least some form of a profession of faith and loyalty in the party who is being circumcised. 

Dr. Ortlund also asks for evidence for a "believers and their children" ecclesiology within Scripture. While Acts 2:38-39 is the text that would immediately jump to mind for most Presbyterians, I would also point out that the OT carries a form of this ecclesiology as well:

"Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children" (Psalm 90:16)