I have been asked to explain in this essay how the theological system of the Second London (1689) Confession of Faith frames our understanding of Scripture in contrast to several competing theological systems which frame their alternate understandings of Scripture. Let me begin by saying that I regard each of these other systems as orthodox in that they do not “evert the foundation” (as the 1689 says at 26:2) of the Christian faith. (“Evert” is an old English word that may mean to turn inside out or to overthrow.) This is not to say that consequential issues are not at stake in the debate of which this essay is a part. I believe there are very important issues at stake. I only mean to affirm that this is a conversation among Christians and ought to be conducted in a way appropriate to that truth.
Let me also say that I do believe the 1689 does present a distinct theological system in contrast to other views. Of course, not everything that I will mention with regard to this is in contrast with each of the other views. But taken together, the affirmations of the 1689 do present a distinctive system of thought which contrasts with each of the other views.
How do the major biblical covenants (e.g., Abrahamic, Mosaic, New) relate to each other and find their fulfillment in Christ?
The 1689 presents the biblical covenants in the overall context of two major covenants: the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. The Covenant of Works is assumed in chapter 7 of the Confession and is explicitly mentioned in 19:6 and 20:1. The Covenant of Grace is mentioned at 7:2, 14:2, and 17:2.
The Scriptures do not speak explicitly of a covenant of works. Nor is it necessary to defend this exact name for the idea. The more important issue is whether the concept of such a covenant is scriptural. This is surely the case. The contrast between Adam and Christ, or in other words, the Adamic Administration and the Messianic Administration is plainly taught in Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, 44-57. The contrast between these two covenants is the foundation of the crucial biblical contrast between law and gospel (and works and grace). To quote the 1689 the concept of justifying faith is grounded in the covenant of grace and the implied contrast with the covenant of works. At 14:2 it affirms: “the principal acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving and resting upon him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.”
It is in this basic contrast between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace that the 1689 speaks of the other biblical covenants. The key statement with regard to the other biblical covenants is found in 7:3. Speaking of the covenant of grace, it says:
This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament; and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect;and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency.
The reference to the other biblical covenants is not explicit, but it is clear, I think, that the statement regarding “farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament” is a reference to such covenants. Several crucial observations with regard to this view of the biblical covenants must be made.
First, the essential feature of these covenants is its revelation of the gospel promise. I assume here that central to the revelation of the promise were the divine covenants including the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic.
Second, this gospel promise was given, first of all, to Adam after the Fall. The 1689 here affirms that the protoevangelium was contained in the revelation made to Adam after the Fall. Genesis 3:15 affirms: “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” The Confession is correct. Here is implied the principle of grace alone: God gave the promise freely and graciously and not in response to any work of Adam. Here is implied the principle of faith alone: The promise given must be embraced by faith. Here is implied the principle of Christ alone: The promise focuses on the deliverance to be wrought by the Messianic seed of the woman.
Third, this gospel promise was progressively revealed throughout Scripture in connection with the biblical covenants. The “farther steps” clearly involve the successive revelations made in connection with the Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic Covenants. This does not necessarily imply that each of these covenants reveal the gospel in the same way; nor that they are redemptive covenants. The Noahic Covenant may be regarded as a covenant of common grace preserving creation for the plan of redemption. The Mosaic Covenant was both a shadowy revelation of the grace of the gospel, but also a clear revelation of the law of God.
Fourth, the “full discovery” of this promise was made in the New Testament. The question has been discussed among those who subscribe the 1689 whether this means that the New Covenant is the Covenant of Grace. I have come to that opinion myself. It is only in the New Covenant that the types and shadows pass away and the Redeemer and His redemptive work are accomplished. The difficulty with this view is that it seems to say that the covenant of grace was not in operation during the Old Testament. Since the 1689 plainly says that people were only ever saved by the grace of the Covenant of Grace, this is a problem. The response of those who equate the New Covenant with the Covenant of Grace is, however, satisfying. It is simply that the grace of the New Covenant was applied retrospectively by God in the Old Testament.
Fifth, it is only by believing this gospel promise that anybody has ever been saved. This affirmation is, in fact, one of the core assertions of the 1689. It is repeated at 8:6, 11:6 and 20:1-4. It is here that the 1689 rejects the confusion and obscurity on this issue often fostered by Dispensationalism.
What is the relationship of the Christian to the Law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments?
The great affirmation of the New Testament is that Christ has come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17-20). It is clear that this fulfillment is not a simple matter, but a complex one. It is not simple in the manner of Dispensational and New Covenant presentations in which Christ simply abolishes the law of Moses including the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments, they say, are only for the Christian insofar as they are re-instituted by the Lord in the new economy. The New Testament, however, confronts the Christian with a more complex presentation than this.
The Book of Hebrews, for instance, can speak of the passing away of the shadows of the law and obsolescence of the Old Covenant (Heb. 10:1; 8:13). At the same time, the Apostle Paul can cite the Ten Commandments and other parts of the Old Testament ethical teaching as authoritative for the Christian where they stand in the Old Testament (Eph. 6:1-4; 1 Cor. 14:34; Rom. 7:7-12; 13:8-10; 2 Tim. 18-11). Clearly, a more nuanced and less irresponsible account of the Christian’s relation to the Law of Moses is needed than the old, outmoded, and one-sided assertion that the Christian is not under the law.
And this is exactly what the 1689 (in concert with the Westminster and Savoy) give us. It provides a more nuanced and responsible account of the Christian’s relation to the law of Moses. It does so in 19:1-4. After showing that the Scriptures closely relate the Ten Commandments to the natural law written on the hearts of men (Rom. 2:12a, 14-15), it goes on to distinguish the moral law revealed in the Ten Commandments from the ceremonial and civil law of Israel.
The Puritan threefold division of the law has been widely ridiculed today. Opponents have scoffed that the Jews themselves would never have recognized such a distinction. But this ridicule is entirely unwarranted. Rather, the Old Testament itself lays the foundation for the New Testament’s constant citation of the Ten Commandments as relevant to the Christian by plainly distinguishing between the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law of Moses.
The unique position and importance of the Ten Commandments is indicated by the facts that they alone were spoken by the voice of God, they alone were written by the finger of God, they alone were placed in the ark of God (Exod. 25:16, 21; Deut. 10:5; 1 Kings 8:9), they alone were accompanied by the terror of God on Mount Sinai, they alone were inscribed in stone. They are distinguished from the (other) commandments, statutes and judgments of the Mosaic law (Deut. 4:12–14; 5:1–3; 5:30–6:3).
The actual structure of Exodus lends support to this classification. In Exodus 20 the moral law is given; in Exodus 21-23 the civil laws, in Exodus 24 the Covenant is ratified; and in Exodus 25 and the following chapters, ceremonial laws regarding the construction of the Tabernacle are given. While the Ten Commandments alone are written on stone by God himself, the judicial law (and perhaps the moral and ceremonial law also) is written in a book by Moses (Exod. 31:18; 32:15, 16; 34:4, 28 with Exod. 24:4–7).
In consequence of such a clear distinction, Old Testament believers did distinguish between the moral law and the civil and ceremonial ordinances (1 Sam. 15:22; Ps. 40:6–8; 51:16, 17; Jer. 7:22, 23).
What, then, is the relationship of the Christian to the Law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments? We must distinguish between the Mosaic Economy and the Ten Commandments. The Christian is not under the Mosaic Economy, but He is obliged to the Ten Commandments as a rule of life. (One of the most convincing and compelling arguments for the perpetuity of the moral law is that the Ten are a reflection of God’s very character and, therefore, perpetual and binding on all men in all ages.)
What is the central hermeneutical principle that guides your system in interpreting the storyline of the Bible?
All that has been said already makes clear that only a hermeneutic that recognizes the centrality of the unfolding story of the gospel of Christ is appropriate as the central hermeneutical principle which must guide our understanding of the storyline of the Bible. It is the promise of Genesis 3:15—the protoevangelium—that is the central thesis of Scripture. It is its unfolding that must guide us in our interpretation of all of Scripture.
This means that the Christianity founded by the Christ must be seen as the true and complete fulfillment of the Old Testament. It is simply unfaithful to the centrality of the gospel to think of Christianity as an accommodation of Old Testament truth standing alongside Millennial Judaism as together fulfillments of the Old Testament.
This must be true for a couple reasons.
First, the apostolic method of interpretation saw the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ and His Church. This is certainly the view of Peter in Acts 2. It is also the view of Paul (?) in Hebrews when he sees the law not as containing the blueprint for Millennial Judaism, but the shadow of Christ and the church.
Second, Old Testament prophecy must be understood not as containing literal predictions of Millennial Judaism, but visions, dreams, and dark sayings (Num. 12:6-8). Literal interpretations of passages like Ezekiel 40-48 and its vision of the future temple must be interpreted figuratively if a direct collision with the teaching of the New Testament and especially Hebrews is to be avoided.
Are the Old and New Covenants two administrations of the same Covenant of Grace, or are they fundamentally different covenants?
The history of covenant theology is anything but uniform with regard to the nature of the Old or Mosaic Covenant. Many held that it was a covenant of grace. Others thought that it was a covenant of works. Yet others believed that it was a mixed covenant.
The Westminster Confession seems to favor the idea that it was a covenant of grace. It speaks of it as an administration of the Covenant of Grace at 7:5. It is clear that this language did not find favor with the framers of the 1689. The idea of a dual administration of the covenant of grace first under the law and then under the gospel is eliminated in chapter 7 of the 1689.
I suspect that this alteration in chapter 7 of the 1689 was due in part to discomfort with the implication that the Old and New Covenants were in fact simply one covenant—the Covenant of Grace. If this is true, it certainly finds support in the Scriptures.
It is true, of course, that in the Old Covenant there was a shadowy or typical revelation especially through the ceremonial law of the gospel. Nobody ought to deny, then, that in the Old Covenant there was both a revelation of grace and a revelation of law. We have already affirmed that Christians too are under the Ten Commandments as a rule of life. Thus, the New Covenant contains and continues a revelation of law and a revelation of grace.
All this does not mean that the Old and New Covenants are really just one covenant. Brevity requires that we notice especially two passages which suggest that we must say that the Old and New Covenants are two different covenants with different natures.
Jeremiah 31:31–34
The key Old Testament passage which explicitly speaks of the Old and New Covenants is Jeremiah 31:31-34. Paedobaptist theologians speak of the two covenants as the same.
Take, for instance, Matthew Poole. Amidst many excellent and sensible comments on Jer. 31:31–34, he remarks, “Neither is it called the new covenant because it was as to the substance new, for it was made with Abraham, Gen 17:7, and with the Jews, Deut. 26:17, 18.” Later commenting on the phrase, “they all shall know me,” he adds, “It is only an expression signifying the increase of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord, that should be after the pouring out of the Spirit” (591–592). John Calvin’s comments are similar. (Cf. en loc, pages. 128 and 129 of his commentary on Jeremiah.) According to these interpreters the New Covenant is just more of the same. It is not different than the Old Covenant.
The problem with such interpretations is very clear. They end up saying that the New Covenant is like the Old Covenant, while the text says that the New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant (Jer. 31:32). Such interpretations say that the New Covenant is the same, while the Bible says that it is new. The Bible contrasts the two covenants saying that one is faultless, while the other was faulty, while such interpretations as those of Poole and Calvin do not in any significant way contrast the two covenants.
The key to the newness of the New Covenant is found in a phrase often overlooked. It is the phrase, “they all shall know me,” in v. 34. This phrase contains the major thrust of v. 34. What is the point of this emphasis of v. 34? It is clearly this. While assuredly some knew the Lord among God’s Old Covenant people, many did not. Witness the sons of Eli who were priests, but who did not know the Lord (1 Samuel 2:12). Even Samuel when he was very young did not yet know the Lord (1 Samuel 3:7)! Because the covenant was made with the physical seed of Abraham, the physical nation Israel, and because at the early age of eight days babies were circumcised into the official membership of that literal nation, many with whom God was actually in covenant in the Old Covenant did not spiritually or savingly know the Lord. There were both Joshuas and sons of Eli in Israel. Both before and after Samuel heard the voice of the Lord in the holy place, he bore the sign of membership in the Old Covenant in his body. There were both Davids and Joabs, both Jonathans and Abners legally and properly getting circumcised and becoming members of Israel, God’s covenant nation.
The point of v. 34 is that in the New Covenant this situation would no longer obtain and would no longer be the case. Rather, speaking of His New Covenant people, His New Israel, Jehovah says, “they all shall know me.”
That this is the case, that this is the new thing about the New Covenant is confirmed by what we learn about the unbreakable character of the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant God’s law was written on stone. In an act with clear symbolic significance, the stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments were broken (Exodus 32:19). The New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant. Why? It was precisely because the Old Covenant could be broken even though the Lord had really and actually through covenant become Israel’s husband (v. 32). In the New Covenant, however, the law is written on the heart guaranteeing that no member of God’s New Covenant people will ever break the New Covenant.
The fact that men must know the Lord, have God’s law written in their hearts, and have their sins forgiven in order to claim a part in the New Covenant is written large across the face of the New Testament (Matt. 3:5–11; John 1:11–13; Phil. 3:3; Rom. 8:14–16 cf. 9:3–5). The Old and New Covenants are different covenants made with different peoples: physical Israel on the one hand, and spiritual Israel on the other hand.
Exodus 19:5–6
Not only are the two covenants made with two different peoples, they also are different kinds of covenants. I think it is clear that in some sense the Old Covenant must be described as a covenant of works. In using this language I do not at all intend to say that it was a republication of the Covenant of Works. I do intend to say that it was a revelation of law that conditioned the reception of its blessings on the keeping of the law and the covenant. Here is what it says: “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; 6 and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”
Israel was not according to these words, “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” This is often missed. They were a candidate for this status, but they were not yet in this status. To be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” they had to obey God’s voice and keep God’s covenant.
The contrast with the New Covenant people of God, the church, must not be overlooked. 1 Peter 2:9-10 places the church in a different condition. It says: “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.” The church is no longer a holy nation candidate. It is now an actual holy nation. In Christ it has kept the covenant and become an holy nation.
I think that the characterization of the Old Covenant as a kind of covenant of works must be qualified in all sorts of ways, but I do not think that it can be avoided. Exodus 19:5-6 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 clearly distinguish the Old and New Covenants as two different covenants.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
