Covenant Theology is Reformed Theology

The theme of covenant is something that is rooted deeply in the fabric of the biblical account from Genesis to Revelation.  Just a few days ago I shared with Dr. J. I. Packer the difficulty I have in communicating this alien idea to my contemporaries.  We are familiar with contracts that reflect a fallen “tit for tat” mindset.  We commit ourselves to others as long and they please us¸ satisfy us and give us pleasure.  We are used to disposable relationships.  Friendships end after the illusion fades just as quickly as romance ends in too many marriages.  Marriage is even more misunderstood since the confused decision of the five judges who redefined marriage as a relationship between two persons.  Marriage between a man and a woman till death do they part, as the traditional marriage pledge goes, is a glimpse of covenant.  It has no loopholes and is meant to create space for two very different people to know and share love in the arena of a covenant.  Covenant language goes like this:

I, _______, take you, __________, to be my wife; and I promise before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful husband; in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live. 

            Dr. Packer reminded me that ‘covenant’ is a word from the ancient world.  He alluded to his article in Concise Theology on the topic and quoted from memory the content contained here: “Covenants in Scripture are solemn agreements, negotiated or unilaterally imposed, that bind the parties to each other in permanent defined relationships, with specific promises, claims, and obligations on both sides (e.g., the marriage covenant, Mal. 2:14).”^[1]  In the ancient world the Suzerain made a covenant with his vassal, normally a conquered nation that had certain blessings if kept along with certain curses if broken.  But the astonishing thing is that many of the Old Testament covenants are simply one way.  God makes covenant, “cuts a covenant” is the language.  Dr. Packer writes, “When God makes a covenant with his creatures, he alone establishes its terms as his covenant with Noah and every living creature shows (Gen. 9:9).” ^[2]   In Gen. 12:1-3, the covenant with Abraham is establish in the same fashion and then commemorated in Gen. 15:17-18 through the sacrifice of a bull through which God passes to ratify the covenant.  God does something amazing. Rather than having Abraham walk through the divided pieces of the bull thus taking the curse of death upon him if he doesn’t fulfill his part; God, instead, walks through the pieces taking the curse upon himself.  Christ is the One who took that curse upon himself at the cross.  Dr. Packer puts it this way:

Jesus Christ, the mediator of the new covenant, offered himself as the true and final sacrifice for sin. He obeyed the law perfectly, and as the second representative head of the human race he became the inheritor of all the covenant blessings of pardon, peace, and fellowship with God in his renewed creation, which blessings he now bestows upon believers. The typical and temporary arrangements for imparting those blessings were done away with through the realizing of that which they anticipated. Christ’s sending of the Spirit from the throne of his glory seals God’s people as his, even as he gives himself to them (Eph. 1:13–14; 2 Cor. 1:22).^[3]

Scripture then reveals the mystery of God’s eternal covenant (Heb. 13:20).  It is rooted in God’s eternal commitment to know and love people to himself.   God did the work of securing our salvation before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:1-13ff).  Jesus Christ is my righteousness.  So when I praise God for being the God of covenant faithfulness and consider my half-hearted ways, and my sin, they do not disqualify me for Christ is mine by faith.  Packer explains further:

Salvation is covenant salvation: justification and adoption, regeneration and sanctification are covenant mercies; election was God’s choice of future members of his covenant community, the church; baptism and the Lord’s Supper, corresponding to circumcision and Passover, are covenant ordinances; God’s law is covenant law, and keeping it is the truest expression of gratitude for covenant grace and of loyalty to our covenant God.^[4]

After studying theology under Dr. Packer at Regent College and when I was examined by the Presbyterian Church in 1991 I was asked by one of the teaching elders Chet Dorsey, “What is covenant?”  I gave a text book answer.  Today, the theology of covenant is the driving force of Christ’s love working in and through me as I trust him for my salvation and pray through the work of the ministry as a pastor in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. 

            Covenant means we belong, and God will never let us go. Our modern time has very little patience with theology.  It claims to have no creed but Christ.  But I believe we are impoverished by just such a simplistic answer.  Christ is our faith and Jesus Christ is the covenant keeper. 

            Too often we feel alone and cut off in our modern world, adrift as solitary souls.  But through faith in Christ we are part of the elect of God: The Church – ecclesia.  We are those who are called out for relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who is love in community.  Covenant is the very core of the love we long for today. 

            There was a time when the Church was drench in the theology of the covenant.  The Westminster Divines wrote:

Under the gospel Christ himself, the substance13 of God’s grace, was revealed. The ordinances

of this New Testament are the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments

of baptism and the Lord’s supper.14 Although these are fewer in number and are administered

with more simplicity and less outward glory, yet they are available to all nations, Jews and

Gentiles,15 and in them the spiritual power of the covenant of grace is more fully developed.16

There are not then two essentially different covenants of grace, but one and the same covenant

under different dispensations.17

13. Gal 2.17, Col 2.17.

14. Mt 28.19-20, 1 Cor 11.23-25, 2 Cor 3.7-11.

15. Mt 28.19, Eph 2.15-19, see under figure 11 above, Lk 2.32, Acts 10.34-35.

16. Heb 12.22-28, Jer 31.33-34, Heb 8.6-13, 2 Cor 3.9-11.

17. Lk 22.20, Heb 8.7-9, Gal 3.14,16, Acts 15.11, Rom 3.21-23,30, Ps 32.1, Rom 4.3,6,16-17,23-24, Heb 13.8,

Gal 3.17,29, see context and citations under figure 10 above, Heb 1.1-2.

Is our theology better for its lack of understanding?  I think not.  I owe all I am to the blessed truth of the covenant spelled out in the scriptures and remembered by the Puritans who defined it so beautifully.  I have been resting in the reality that my life is secure because Christ bought me at the cross. He is my covenant keeper. 

            The Scottish theologian wrote of this covenant love in his hymn Love That Will Not Let me Go.  George Mattheson  was blind and the hymn was written when his sister who did all his reading to him announced that she was to be married to a man who lived the other side of Scotland.  These are his words:

1. O Love that wilt not let me go,
   I rest my weary soul in thee;
   I give thee back the life I owe,
   That in thine ocean depths its flow
   May richer, fuller be.
2. O light that foll’west all my way,
   I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
   My heart restores its borrowed ray,
   That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
   May brighter, fairer be.
3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
   I cannot close my heart to thee;
   I trace (George originally  had “I climb”) the rainbow through the rain,
   And feel the promise is not vain,
   That morn shall tearless be.
4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
   I dare not ask to fly from thee;
   I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
   And from the ground there blossoms red
   Life that shall endless be.

 God, I praise you for your covenant faithfulness that keeps me every day. 

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^[1] Packer, J. I. (1993). Concise theology: a guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

^[2] Packer, J. I. (1993). Concise theology: a guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

^[3] Packer, J. I. (1993). Concise theology: a guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.

^[4] Packer, J. I. (1993). Concise theology: a guide to historic Christian beliefs. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House.