In Evangelical thought there are two poles which pull at the fabric of our thinking. The Dispensational Pole and the Covenantal Pole. (OK, there are lot’s of other pushes and pulls but let me keep it simple).
Dispensationalism has been so thoroughly debunked that anyone who still holds to it has to be some sort of obscurantist (please note that put-downs are banned on this site unless they hide behind long words) . Since few users of this site will be interested in the Dispensational view I think it might be more useful to challenge some of the assumptions of our covenant theologians.
I first heard of Covenant Theology when my Anglican vicar used it to justify baptising babies; you know the argument :
(1) Baby boys were circumcised to show they were children of the Old Covenant;
(2) Baptism is roughly equal to circumcision so we therefore baptise baby boys (and girls) into the New Covenant.
It sounded forced then and it still does.
The Anglicans have an extra layer of incredibility with the role of God-parents who contribute faith by proxy on behalf of the baby being wetted.
For all that supposedly glorious history I think that Covenant Theology has been about the need to justify various hangovers from the mediaeval Roman mess. These hangovers are state “churches”, infant baptism, and unregenerate congregations. The Covenant guys venerate the memory of the “magisterial reformers” who were in reality far too much creatures of their own times to complete the process of Reformation by God’s Word.
I also believe there is a nostalgia for the time when men like Knox, Zwingli and Calvin were a force in the land and the voice of the “Church” echoed in the corridors of power.
In fact, they were all failures in that the institutional churches they created have long since decayed. The derided anabaptists and their spiritual heirs are still here whereas Presbyterianism only really thrives as an argumentative bunch of sects in North America.
Anglicanism is healthy where a baptist-like churchmanship dominates in some ex-colonies and it is sick where Catholic or Reformed Anglicans are in charge. The only white dominated overwhelmingly evangelical diocese of which I am aware is New South Wales, Australia which has been blessed by the congregational ecclesiology of Moore College for many years.
Those of us who disbelieve covenant theology are likely to be considered pietists who lack a sense of history. We are told we fail to see that the unity and consistency of God demands that there can be only one covenant between God and Man.
Few of us deny that, since God and Human Nature remain the same, there will inevitably be commonalities in the way He has related to us but to claim that there is really only one covenant of grace seems to be going beyond what is written or even logical.
I believe that we have been weakened by this one-eyed view more than we realise. The radical nature of the New Covenant has been downplayed and the revolutionary way in which the People of God are now defined by the work of the Holy Spirit is often obscured. The incarnation and death/resurrection of Jesus has changed everything and some things have even been abolished.
My belief is that the healthiest expression of church life is only possible where there is a baptistic understanding of the church as gathered by the Spirit to the Son of God through faith and repentance created by the Word of God.
Presbyterian/Anglican theology obscures the Divine process of Church Building and leads to a bureaucratic, institutional or cultural model of church life. It “objectifies” the people of God into a sociological grouping and downplays the supernatural nature of conversion and faith. The work of the Spirit is regarded as essential but virtually undetectable.
The result is that congregations can not be trusted with decision making so church officers and synods and presbyteries must manage them. The New Israel has been numbered and gathered into an organisational net to appear more like Old Israel.
No one denies there is continuity between the two ages but it is a continuity of relationship. Many of the Covenant promises and requirements addressed to Israel are now addressed to the whole world rather than the institutions called churches and the regenerate are now gathered by the voice of their Shepherd into congregations of those who are being redeemed.
We do not need to multiply covenants like the dispensationalists but we also need to recognise that the New Covenant has truly superceded the old way of the Legal Code. Instead of being defined as the Children of God by a fence of laws, rites and traditions we are defined by the presence of Christ in the Gospel by the Holy Spirit as the centre around which we gather in churches.
Another problem of the covenantal denominations is their tendency to dominate national life. This has led to reactions in places like Switzerland, England, Holland and Scotland where eventually this domination has been overthrown by populations seeking liberation from overbearing churchmen. Nearly everyone was glad to see the back of the squabbling Puritan Jihadists in 1660.
Both Covenantal Calvinism and Roman Catholicism have some responsibility for the aggressively secular climate we are now in. Even the two categories of “Church” and “State” in which so much thinking is still expressed are deceptive and unbiblical.
We are sometimes stuck behind the start line when it comes to thinking about the world we live in.
I pray that the Lord, the God of Israel, will bless this website so that we can do some positive reflecting on His Word.
