Category: Biblical Studies

Part Nineteen 6. By assuming, without sufficient warrant, that the New Testament must be used to [re]interpret the Old Testament, CT in practice denies to the OT its own perspicuity, its own integrity as inspired revelation, and creates a “canon within a canon.”  To paraphrase George Orwell, in CT “all Scripture is inspired, but some Scripture [the NT] is more inspired than others [the OT]”. The actual covenants of God which are recorded in the Old Testament dictate, or ought to dictate, …

Part Eighteen Looking Deeper into the Problems with Covenant Theology (4) 4. CT deals with everything it meets in the pages of Scripture using these false covenants. From my point of view as a non-covenant theologian it is bad enough that the three theological covenants of Covenant Theology share scarcely a scrap of textual warrant between them. What is worse, though, is how much these made-up covenants dictate the rest of what the Bible can and cannot be allowed to …

Part Seventeen Looking Deeper into the Problems with Covenant Theology (3) 3. CT relies upon covenants found nowhere in Holy Writ. If I were to challenge you to locate the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Phinehas, Moses, and David it would not take you very long. But what if I issued a challenge to find the covenants of redemption, works, or grace? And what if I told you that you could not run to any passage where the covenants to do …

Part Sixteen Looking Deeper into the Problems with Covenant Theology (3) 2. CT starts its reading of the Bible in the wrong place. In Part Two of this series I said that for CT’s having the NT to interpret the OT is like the introduction of color televisions to replace the old black and white screens. Whereas for people like myself it is better compared to a deconstructionist interpretation of a classic novel which all but ignores what the novel …

Part Fifteen Looking Deeper into the Problems with Covenant Theology (2) I started out in this series by making this point and I believe it has been established. When one reflects on the main assumptions of Covenant Theology it becomes clear that the entire edifice is constructed, not upon what the Bible really says, but upon pious but still autonomous inferences. These inferences are deductive in character, and provide the cast into which the mind of CT approaches the text …

Part Thirteen The Eschatology of Covenant Theology (2) The millennial options available to those who filter their Bible interpretation through the Covenant of Grace are, Amillennialism; Postmillennialism; and, what is sometimes referred to as Covenant (or Historic) Premillennialism. These options will now be reviewed below. Option One: Amillennialism: Amillennialism is the eschatological viewpoint which, among other things, insists that there will be no literal thousand-year Messianic kingdom upon earth. Louis Berkhof admitted that the Amillennial point of view was, “as …

Part Twelve This and the next installment uses material from my article “The Eschatology of Covenant Theology,” originally published in the Journal of Dispensational Theology, 10:30 (Sep 2006). The Eschatology of Covenant Theology (1) As well as encompassing the explicit scriptural covenants like the Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New Covenants, due to its extensive character, the “Covenant of Grace” basically flattens out these more easily identifiable covenants and merges them into one. This can be seen in the following excerpt, …