Covenant theology

Reading Scripture by its covenants

Scripture is full of covenants, and covenant theology takes them as the framework of the whole Bible. Its main lines are three: the covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son before the world began; the covenant of works with Adam before the fall; and the covenant of grace in Christ after the fall. The covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses and David, and the new covenant, are read as the one covenant of grace unfolding through history.

At its centre stand two men. Adam and Christ are each the representative, the covenant head, of those who belong to them, which is why this theology is also called ‘federal theology’, from the Latin foedus, covenant.

For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

Romans 5:19

Above all, covenant theology stresses the unity of Scripture. Scripture "foretold the gospel to Abraham" (Galatians 3:8), and the law that came later "does not revoke the covenant previously established by God" (Galatians 3:17). After describing the administration of the covenant under law and gospel, the Westminster Confession concludes:

There are not, therefore, two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations.

Westminster Confession 7.6

So covenant theology sees Israel and the church as branches of one olive tree, understands baptism and the Lord's Supper as pointing to the Christ whom circumcision and the Passover foreshadowed, and teaches the Ten Commandments as the rule of a thankful life within the covenant of grace.

How the church came to say it

The idea of explaining Scripture's unity by covenant appeared early in sixteenth-century Zurich, with Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger, and grew in part as they defended infant baptism against the Anabaptists. Calvin taught that the covenant made with the patriarchs is one with ours in substance and differs only in its administration Calvin, Institutes 2.10–11. In the seventeenth century theologians such as Johannes Cocceius and Herman Witsius gave it systematic form Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants, and chapter 7 of the Westminster Confession made it the confession of the Presbyterian churches. The English Puritans preached and pastored by it.

Where the traditions differ

There are branches within covenant theology. Baptists who follow the Second London Confession confess the same framework but stress the newness of the new covenant, and so baptize those who profess faith Second London Baptist Confession; Presbyterian and Reformed churches, stressing continuity, practise infant baptism. Dispensationalism sees God governing history through distinct dispensations, reads Israel and the church as two distinct peoples, and expects the promises to Israel to be fulfilled literally in the future. Views that arose in the later twentieth century, such as new covenant theology, seek a way between, holding together the newness of the new covenant and the unity of Scripture. These are serious discussions among evangelicals, and all sides confess that in every age salvation is by grace through faith.

Lutherans make the distinction of law and gospel, rather than covenant, the key to reading Scripture; the Catholic and Orthodox churches, following the Fathers, explain the unity of the Testaments through the economy of salvation and typology. See the lessons Biblical and systematic theology and One covenant of grace in many ages.