Covenant Confusion – Part 1

For centuries, Christians have differed on the following questions:

• Should we baptize infants or believers?
• Should the church be for the saints, or should it also include non-believers?
• Do Christians need to keep the Sabbath or other Old Testament laws like not eating certain foods?
• Does the nation of Israel have any right to the ‘holy land’, and is there any future in God’s purposes for them?
• Will there be a literal 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth (the ‘millennium’) after His return?

Surprisingly, these diverse questions all have something in common: the question of the relationship of the Old and New Testaments. There are two different ways that Christians approach this question; one is called Covenant theology and the other Dispensationalism.¹ While many Christians have never heard these terms, most nevertheless (unwittingly) hold to one of these two views, and so give opposing answers to these questions. Covenant theology argues that there is a fundamental continuity between the Old and New Testaments, while dispensationalism argues that there are important differences between the Testaments.

As a result, covenant theologians teach that we should baptize infants because baptism is equivalent to, and a continuation of, the Old Testament rite of circumcision. They argue that the sign of the covenant has been changed, but the subjects of the rite remain the same: infants. They also teach that just as there were ungodly members of the Old Testament covenant community of Abraham and his family (many Israelites did not believe or obey God, both in the wilderness and in the land), so the New Covenant church should similarly include those who do not believe nor show any evidence of repentance (hence the millions of baptized, but functionally atheist, members of national churches). Covenant theology argues that many Old Testament worship practices should be continued in the New Covenant (a special class of priests, temples, liturgies) and that the moral elements of the Law of Moses remain the rule of life for believers now. They hold that the New Testament church is the continuation and fulfilment of Old Testament Israel and has thus replaced national Israel in God’s plans; they deny that Israel has any divine right to the land or that national Israel has any place in God’s purposes for the future. Finally, they argue that the complete fulfilment of the glorious Old Testament promises to Israel is the New Testament Church, not some future earthly millennial kingdom.

By contrast, dispensationalism argues that fundamental changes occurred with the coming of the Messiah, so that there are important distinctions between the two Testaments. As a result, dispensationalists teach that baptism is not for babies, but for those who have experienced new birth, and hold that the church is for the saints (not the unsaved or those living ungodly lives). They teach that Christians are not under the Old Testament Law (the Sabbath command is never repeated in the New Testament) and believe that God’s promises of a glorious future for national Israel in the Old Testament will be literally fulfilled during the millennial reign of Christ.

In this article, we will look more closely at what Covenant theology and Dispensationalism teach. In future articles, we will consider what dispensationalism and covenant theology get right, and then some of their errors we need to be wary of. Ultimately, we will see that, while we can learn lessons from covenant theology, nevertheless dispensationalism presents a better way of understanding the relationship between the two Testaments.

What is Covenant Theology?

Covenant theology teaches that there are three over-arching covenants (or agreements) behind the Bible’s storyline. First, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in eternity made a covenant of redemption, whereby the Father sent the Son to redeem a people for Himself and by the work of the Holy Spirit these people are finally brought to glory. Second, God made a covenant of works with Adam in the garden, whereby Adam was called upon to obey God’s commands and promised life if he did. Then, third, God made a covenant of grace that was progressively revealed through scripture, first to Eve, then to Abraham and others, whereby God graciously provides salvation through Christ.

There is debate over whether some of these covenants are explicitly referenced in the Bible (and therefore whether these covenants are real or are instead being artificially imposed). But we can all agree that the main concepts being taught in these three covenants are true, even if there are no Bible proof texts or even actual covenants. We are sinners who have failed to obey God’s commands and can only be saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ’s work, and all this was planned by God before time began, cp. Titus 1. 1, 2.

The key argument of Covenant theology is that there is one covenant of grace throughout the whole Bible. That is, from beginning to end, there is only one way to be saved, which is by grace through faith. There are not different ways of salvation in different periods of time. Covenant theologians go further and argue that the New Covenant is not really new; instead, it is rather just a fulfilling of the Old Covenant. So, Covenant theology stresses the unity, or continuity, of Old and New Testaments; there is also only one people of God, so that the church is the true Israel, the fulfilment of the promises made to Israel in the Old Testament. There is no distinct future for the nation of Israel in God’s plans except as Jews become part of the church. The unity of the Old and New Testament also explains why babies are baptized in Covenant theology, and why the covenant community (i.e., the church) includes children too, and others who are not saved or living godly lives but nevertheless are part of the church through baptism.²

Infant baptism and the inclusion of unbelievers in church membership are important parts of Covenant theology for historical reasons, because Covenant theology was formulated in the post-Reformation period³ as an attempt to refute the Anabaptists (i.e., Re-baptizers) who insisted that the New Testament taught that baptism was only for believers and that church membership was only for the saints.

Covenant theology also teaches that the Old Testament Law still applies in the New Testament, so that while its civil and ceremonial aspects have been fulfilled in Christ, and no longer apply, the moral law remains as the rule of life for the Christian.⁴ In fact, some extreme forms of Covenant theology teach that the civil law still applies, so that we should stone to death adulterers and rebellious teenagers, and keep the Sabbath day (Saturday) and other Old Testament rules.⁵

What is Dispensationalism?

Dispensational theology is more difficult to define, but only because it has been frequently misunderstood and mischaracterized. Some journalists depict dispensationalism as an American fundamentalist right-wing political movement that supports Israel because it is ‘anxious for Armageddon’ and wants to speed up the return of Christ by blowing the world up. Some say that dispensationalism is a new idea invented in the 1800s by J. N. Darby, who got the idea from the mystical musings of a teenage Scottish Pentecostal named Margaret McDonald (all of which is not true).⁶ Some have argued that dispensationalism teaches that people in the Old Testament were saved by works, while people in the New Testament are saved by grace, but, as every true Christian knows, all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory so that no one can be saved by their own works, but only through the work of Christ at the cross. These are not valid definitions of dispensationalism – they are attempts to caricature it by mixing some truth with falsehoods.

Some other attempted definitions of dispensationalism miss the mark. Some define dispensationalism as a system that divides the Bible into seven dispensations, that is, time periods in which God administered His purposes in different ways. But not all dispensationalists agree on these periods, nor is this really the central idea of dispensationalism. Some say that dispensationalists believe that a person can be saved even if his lifestyle shows no evidence of repentance from sin. However, few dispensationalists believe this, nor is it really what dispensationalism is about, for dispensationalism is not primarily about how people get saved. Some have argued that dispensationalists are antinomian – that is, they teach that Christians can be licentious and do not have to keep the moral law. But this too is a serious misunderstanding, as we shall see in a later article.

These inadequate definitions are like defining an Australian as someone who hangs corks off his hat and cheats at cricket. It might be true that some Australians have cheated at cricket or hung corks off their hats, but not all Australians do so. One cannot define anything by pointing to some isolated actions of a few abnormal people. Similarly, these attempted definitions of dispensationalism fail to address its essence.

There are three commonly agreed characteristics of dispensationalism.⁷ First, the key defining characteristic of dispensationalism is that there is a difference between Israel and the church, and, therefore, a difference between the Old and New Testaments. God is dealing with mankind in different ways in these two periods. As a result, second, dispensationalism has a distinctive view of future events. It holds that Christ is coming again before His literal reign on earth (premillennialism) and, significantly, it teaches a pretribulation rapture. That is, Christ is coming to take His church out of the world before the tribulation period. The third defining characteristic is that dispensationalism interprets the Bible by respecting the author’s original intent. Dispensationalists thus adopt a more literal approach when dealing with Bible prophecies because this is the sense in which the inspired authors meant to be understood. (Dispensationalists also acknowledge that the Bible uses figurative language in many places, such as poetic books). Covenant theology, by contrast, often vaporizes Old Testament promises and prophecies by reading mystical, allegorical, or spiritualized meanings into non-figurative texts. It also forces the New Testament to reinterpret the Old Testament to mean something very different from what the author originally meant in context. Dispensationalism is thus different in its view of Israel and the church, in its program of future events, and in the way that we should interpret the Bible. In the following articles we will show why dispensationalism is right to adopt these three positions.