Chapter One:

Introduction
Author: Kevin Hartley

Lay theological discussions in our day often devolve into vitriolic and uninformed character assaults.  Often begun with good intentions, theological discussion often devolves into a most insipid and unproductive endeavor.  Whatever the issue, it is rare for two interested people to discuss a theological issue without turning the conversation into a personal assault and defamation of one another.  Attempts at dialogue often conclude in a futile stalemate where both sides end up quoting a plethora of verses as though they might out-quote the other.  In such so-called discussion, neither side gains much ground since both opponents are adept at avoiding the real issues and are quite skilled in the art of misrepresentation, rhetoric, false assumptions, red herrings, and unwarranted persecution of the opponent, degenerating the discussion into anything but dialogue.

Theological discussion today can be likened to a deployment of armies; men enlist, are armed and trained to wield a catalog of verses and retorts, and are made ready for battle.  Within the various theological camps is found little fighting, but much honing of defensive and offensive skills.  When intramural theological discussion is held, it is most often only a recounting of great battles, a presentation of verse quoting skills, and/or comparison of battle scars.  Debate rarely involves the engagement of meaningful, theological discussion.  When those of like mind are occupied in discussion, they often are able to successfully engage one another in a civil manner, yet such debate rarely ventures outside of one’s safety zone.  Generally what is discussed among those of similar belief is nothing more than a reaffirmation of what is already believed and the dislike for everyone not in agreement with them. Thus, theological discussion is usually held among men of like mind, and if one decides to venture outside his camp he only does so to fight and rarely seeks a meaningful and profitable engagement.  Theological discussion rarely is a meeting of disputant forces, seated around a table, intent upon seeking a successful and peaceful resolution of the truth.

This is a most distressing fact confronting anyone who desires to engage in theological discussion.  Whether the discussion is an intramural endeavor or a discussion among broad theological lines, there is little advancement in theological discussion when civility does not reign.  Rare is it that one can honestly assess and critique his or her most personally held beliefs.  Consider how many dispensationalists truly understand dispensationalism or even know they are dispensationalists.  How many who adhere to the Westminster Confession of Faith can honestly quote the confession and provide a meaningful and informed understanding of covenant theology?  Most laymen today possess second-hand knowledge or worse, hearsay, regarding what they believe.  Their theological understanding is nothing more than a catalog of quotes and quips.  If one asks why they believe what they believe, they will probably say, “the scripture says so.”  If one asks them to show, from scripture, where their doctrine is taught, they will probably present verses that are in agreement with their preconceived interpretation, but do they ever really stop and assess the validity of what they believe?  It is doubtful.  No matter how often a theological proponent claims he can approach scriptures objectively, the truth of the matter is that no one is objective in his or her reading of the word of God.  Every reader subjects the word of God to his or her own preconceptions.

The Feud

If theological discussion is ever to be meaningful and productive, men must be honest in their assessments of themselves and what they believe.  Everyone approaches the word of God with presuppositions and most are either ignorant of that fact or unwilling to admit it.  The problem is enormous in our day, where most people “know” what they believe because they assume they know it to be truth, rather than because they understand it to be the truth.  Like a child that grows up believing the Republican party is right, not because he has examined the issues and understands what Republicanism stands for, but he is a Republican simply because his father imposed upon him his own set of beliefs.  He will live and die for the cause if necessary, never really knowing the cause. The problem is that most people embrace theology without honestly assessing it historically; it is as though for them the world began yesterday and they were born with the knowledge they possess.  They understand little of history, of their environment, of themselves, and of what outside influences have led them to their preconceptions.  This is especially true in theology; assumptions are most often held due to one’s ecclesiastical affiliation and not from an examination of the word of God, history, or one’s own rearing.  To attack a man’s religious beliefs is to assault his presuppositions, and to assault his presuppositions is to attack a man himself. 

Theological discussion has become a mere series of assaults upon one another, while little insight is held regarding the nature of the feud.  Why does a covenant theologian disagree with a dispensationalist?  Why are both sides quick to dub the other with an offensive title like antinomian or legalist?  Does anyone really understand what either title represents?  Why are both covenant theologians and dispensationalists so ready to put aside their differences and join forces against anyone who will offer another point of view?  The disputes in this century between dispensationalists and covenant theologians, and even theology in general, have been much like the old feud between the Hatfields and McCoys.  They know they dislike one another; they know the other party is wrong, and they are easily provoked at the mere name of the other party.  However, if one were to ask why they dislike one another they could only say, “this I know: I am right and the other party is wrong.”  But does anyone really understand why?  Can anyone really offer an informed analysis of the prevailing feud?

The Olive Branch

The two prevailing systems of theology most attested to and fought for are dispensationalism and covenant theology.  They are the Hatfields and McCoys of evangelicalism in our century.  There is a movement afoot today to raise meaningful discussion between those who hold to dispensationalism and those who hold to covenant theology.  Charles C. Ryrie, a leading dispensationalist, recently republished his groundbreaking work of 1966, Dispensationalism Today, answering many of the questions raised in discussion and dispute over his theological views.  Progressive dispensationalists have sought to understand the differences that separate them from non-dispensationalists, as seen in the book Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, where leading dispensational scholars elicited a response and dialogue to their theology by non-dispensational scholars.  Those from a covenant theology background have equally been engaged in scholarly discussion of the issues, as evidenced by the text Understanding Dispensationalists by Vern Poythress.  One exception to this dialogue may be the book Wrongly Dividing the Word of God: A Critique of Dispensationalism by John Gerstner.  It has met with much disdain by its dispensational opponents.  Despite Dr. Gerstner’s seemingly hostile approach, being perhaps more brazen than most would like, there is much of importance to consider in his text.  This aside, the past twenty years has borne witness to increasing discussion among theologians seeking to extend the olive branch to the other in hopes of meaningful dialogue.

Equal to this movement has been a grassroots effort to raise the question of the validity of either dispensationalism or covenant theology as a viable and useful system of theology.  The question has been raised regarding whether there is another option outside of these two dogmas that can give meaning and insight into the word of God.  One answer put forth has been given the title new covenant theology.  Some consider it a hybrid of the two prevailing theologies of our day.  Non-dispensationalists have called it antinomianism or dispensationalism and the dispensationalist has seemingly ignored it.  This book will seek not only to define the two prevailing theological dogmas of our day, but will also endeavor to identify antinomianism as an unnamed and prevailing system of theology since the early Reformation.  This is necessitated by the fact that Dr. Gerstner has labeled dispensationalism antinomian and because new covenant theology has also been egregiously so labeled.  This book will endeavor to introduce and define new covenant theology as it relates to these other systems of dogma, attempting to establish it as an entity all its own and worthy of consideration as a valid answer to theology’s most pressing question.  It is time for new covenant theology to grow up and assert itself as a viable system of theology distinct from its counterparts.

The Peace Process

The purpose of this text is to trace the origins of the four systems of theology listed in the last paragraph: covenant theology, antinomianism, dispensationalism (progressive dispensationalism included in this category), and new covenant theology.  A brief history of the development of each dogma will be set forth, then a useful and concise definition of each of these systems will be offered based upon their most germane theological presupposition.  In summation, there shall be a discussion of the prospect of unity in the continuing theological discussions as it reflects upon these prevailing theological systems.  In order to accomplish this most arduous task, a basic assertion underlies every word of this series.  Each article begins with the assumption that every orthodox theological system seeks to answer a singular question.  That is, every system of theology is engaged in the pursuit of the answer to the most pressing question of the Christian religion.  Theology addresses many peripheral matters: law and grace, continuity and discontinuity, justification and sanctification, and Israel and the church, yet all of these topics have a fundamental question that must be answered before meaningful discussion can be had in addressing these biblical tensions.  The most pressing question of the Christian faith, as it addresses theology is this:

How does God relate to men?

The way a man answers this question determines how he interprets scripture and how he addresses those aforementioned peripheral matters of importance. 

A covenant theologian addresses the issue of biblical continuity and discontinuity far differently than a dispensationalist, an antinomian, or a new covenant theologian. Every theologian of the four disciplines approaches the issue from a unique prevailing presupposition that becomes the answer to the question posed: ”How does God relate to men?”  The answer to this question not only gives meaning to God’s salvific work, but also gives pertinent information to the Christian as he tries to understand that work of God in relation to his life as a Christian.  Systematic theology grew out of a desire to explain how men are to understand their relationship to God.  Understanding this fact is vital to understanding systematic theology.

Ignorance is not the path to truth.  Richard A. Mueller notes that theological discussion is suspect because of a prevailing ignorance amongst most involved in the discussion.  He writes, “We detect no dearth of theological systems, but even a cursory examination of most of these products reveals a failure to reflect concerns of the contemporary church and a certain intellectual and spiritual distance between dogmatic system and Christian piety or the Christian pulpit.”^[1]   Richard Muller hits at the heart of the matter: systems of theology are devised to explain the Christian’s existence and life, and any theological discussion that fails to end in a discussion of practical religion should be discarded.  This book is important because, in our day, everyone possesses a theological presupposition and that presupposition affects his or her Christian practice.  Practice is derived from the answer to the fundamental question of all theological formulation.  How theology defines God’s relation to men has a direct bearing upon the Christian faith and life.  The theological confusion and ignorance of our day has led to confused Christian expression.  There is a pressing need for Christians to understand the question that is most precursory to their Christianity and living.

The Boundaries Imposed

This book does not address the questions that many are raising, such as, “What should we think about Israel?” “Are law and grace antithetical or can they be reconciled?” “How does the Old Testament relate to the New Testament?”  These questions are important and need answers, but before they can even be discussed and answered there must be an examination of prevailing presuppositions in theological dogma.   Therefore, this book shall address those prevailing presuppositions as they answer the question that is most germane and fundamental to every theological discussion of how God relates to men.  This text will not necessarily involve itself in a discussion of biblical texts, as that is often a fruitless endeavor if one ignores his presuppositions.  Richard A. Mueller writes:

This plethora of traditions and types of theology clouds the sola Scriptura of the Reformers, because any number of these separate theologies – particularly the denominational and private-interest theologies – lay exclusive claim to biblical truth.  If one comes to theological study with a fairly open mind, the problem of affiliation, alignment, and basic perspective will be enormous.^[2]

Thus, the importance of getting to the very heart of the matter necessitates the examination of theological presuppositions.  Everyone approaches the study of the scriptures having answered the question, "How does God relate to men?"   The answer dictates the manner in which every biblical interpreter understands what he reads.  Greg L. Bahnsen writes, and his conclusion is the scheme this book shall employ:

It is not hard to understand, then, that the assumptions that each party brings to a religious (or any fundamental) disagreement will both define their difference of opinion and determine how each one responds to the arguments of the other […] all assumptions can affect a person’s reasoning and conclusions [...].^[3] 

The main thesis of this book, therefore, is that all theological systems possess a most essential presupposition; they seek to answer the question, “How does God relate to men.”  How this question is answered determines how pressing theological questions and texts are interpreted.  This approach sets the proper boundaries that separate and designate differences in theological belief.

Scope and Sequence

The design of this book is intentional.  While at times the discussion may seem a bit involved, it is necessary to properly identify and define the four systems of theology in discussion (covenant theology, antinomianism, dispensationalism, and
new covenant theology).  Each theological dogma will be introduced historically, and then a definition will be put forth.  This may appear out of sequence to some, but the order is necessary.  Every system of theology has grown up in history.  Understanding the issues of the day, the environment, the tensions, and the people, is essential to a proper definition of a system of theology.  If misrepresentations and errors of identification are to be avoided, the time in which a system of theology developed must first be understood.  Just as a text of scripture needs to be examined in light of its situation, context, purpose, and occasion, so does the historical development of theology need proper introduction if it is to be honestly represented and engaged.  One is cautioned--the four mentioned systems of theology are not easily understood or explained.  A simple, trite definition and summation of them may misrepresent and do no more than contribute to the ignorance of our day.  Take covenant theology as an example: it has grown up as a theological dogma in the space of five centuries.  It has been developed by the greatest theological minds of the past five hundred years.  Are we really so morose as to think that a simple, trite expression can fully express this giant?  Systems of theology are intricate.  They are multifaceted, involved, and complex, and in order to adequately identify them, a more than cursory introduction of their tenants needs to be presented.  It is hoped this approach will not only provide the reader with an informed and honest understanding of these four systems of theology, but that it will also facilitate educated decisions regarding what one believes and why it is a held belief.

A Plea to the Reader

As noted, the chapters that follow may become somewhat involved.  The reader, despite an interest and understanding of the issues, is encouraged to persevere through the information as it develops.  Each chapter builds upon the others to form a book and must be digested if the conclusions drawn at the end are to be understood.  As the chapters are read, the reader is simply asked to assess the validity of the foremost thesis of the book by asking: Are theological systems an attempt to answer the question, “How does God relate to men?”  If so, are the answers presented for covenant theology, antinomianism, dispensationalism, and new covenant theology accurate?  If the answer to both questions is in the affirmative, the reader will come to see that new covenant theology is antithetical to the other three theological systems and will have a clear and terse definition for new covenant theology. New covenant theology can then take a step forward in distinguishing itself as a viable and veritable answer to theology's most pressing question of Christianity.  It is hoped this book will be more than informative; it is hoped it will be to the glory and furtherance of the majesty and wonder of our God and of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

^[1] Richard A. Mueller, The Study of Theology: From Biblical Interpretation to Contemporary Formulation, 7, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 20.

^[2] Ibid., 21,22.

^[3] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic: Readings and Analysis, (Philipsburg: P&R;, 1998), 463, 64.

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Chapter Two:The History of Covenant Theology
Author: Kevin Hartley

Covenant theology has a long and varied history, through which it has developed like a pearl, solidified by both time and pressure. It has established itself in Reformation history as a dominant branch of theology. What is known today as covenant theology is also identified historically as federal theology.  Recent scholarship has sought to set the two apart, claiming federal theology was a scholastic development of covenant theology, contrary to the early theology of the magisterial reformers that distinguished itself at the Westminster Assembly in the 1640’s.  David B. McWilliams states, “Federalism is often thought to be the epitome of a ‘Reformed scholasticism’ [. . . ].”^[1] Attempting to form such a dichotomy, David A. Weir offers this definition for covenant theology: “Covenant theology is a theological system in which the covenant forms the basic framework and acts as the controlling idea in that theological system.”^[2]  He then distinguishes federal theology as

[. . .] a specific type of covenant theology, in that the covenant holds together every detail of the theological system, and is characterized by a prelapsarian and postlapsarian covenant schema centered around the first Adam and the second Adam, who is Jesus Christ.^[3]

Noting Weir’s conclusion, Mark W. Karlberg writes, “This interpretation [. . .] rests upon the alleged discontinuity between two kinds of theology, the covenantal and the federal, an opinion all too commonplace in recent historical scholarship.”^[4]  Mark Karlberg, in his article, disagrees with Weir’s definition, stating, “A sharp demarcation between covenant theology and federal theology, in my judgment, is highly artificial and misleading.”^[5]  This author, in agreement with Mark Karlberg, draws no demarcation between covenant theology and federal theology, but sets forth the historic maturation of the basic presupposition of a single theology that can be termed either covenant or federal theology.

That designated federal theology is covenant theology.  The word federal, coming from the Latin foedus, speaks of a pact or an agreement between parties. Thus the term federal theology speaks to the basic presupposition of federalism, which is that God relates to men by way of a covenant.  Federal theology is a most widely used term in scholarship and history, and it is written upon exhaustively.  The term covenant theology, until recently, was a lesser-used vernacular for what, historically, has been more widely known as federal theology.  Understanding this is essential to a proper use of terms in discussing theology.  Consider this as an example:  It is common to speak of the federal headship of Adam without knowing that one is teaching a prelapsarian [before the fall] covenant with Adam simply by the use of the word.  It is more common for one to simply assume that the term federal is synonymous with representative than to take the time to do a study to determine that its true meaning is “a compact or agreement between parties.”  Clearly the history of theology and its terms can help all of us communicate our theological presuppositions much more efficiently.

As stated above, federal theology [the term I will use henceforth] has not developed in a vacuum.  It has morphed through the centuries since the Reformation, and what is taught as federal theology today is quite different from what first arose in the early 16^th century.  Any attempt to define federal theology must take into account its various stages of development and definition. This is where the confusion generally arises regarding supposed disagreements between covenant and federal theology.   The tendency to separate the two ignores the logical and necessary development of the covenant idea in history.  A 16^th century consensus among Reformers regarding the foundational principles of federal theology would not match those of the 17^th century, not so much because the two generations disagree fundamentally in their theology, but simply due to development of thought. The fact that federal theology was developing in the process of history and time can account for the apparent antithesis and presumed opposition that recent scholarship would have us believe existed.  In order to understand federal theology without drawing an improper antithesis, one must seek to understand it in the context of the Reformation.  The Reformation was an historical phenomenon that produced dogma in flux.  Philip Schaff wrote, “The designation Reformed is insufficient to cover all the denominations and sects which have sprung directly or indirectly from this family since the Reformation […].”^[6]   Federal theology is but one of the many dogmas established from Protestantism’s rise.

Many factors contributed to the rise of federal theology in Reformation history, but perhaps the most determinant was the Reformation itself.  The Protestant church sought to define itself doctrinally as it broke from Roman Catholicism.  The growing disputes with Rome gave rise to the Protestant confessional practice, the Protestant method of dogmatic definition up until the late 17^th century, which helped solidify the beliefs of the Reformed church as they sought their own identity.  Philip Schaff notes:

The Evangelical Confessions of faith date mostly from the sixteenth century (1530 to 1577), the productive period of Protestantism […].  They are the work of an intensely theological and polemical age, when religious controversy absorbed the attention of all classes of society.^[7]

During this time of confessional practice, the reformers strove for definition and refinement of their theology.  Usually such refinement and definition occurs, in history, by way of polemic, that is, in defense against a certain teaching or sect, or through the inherent need for self-definition.  Theology must ever strive to account for itself and to answer questions raised in objection to it.  Striving for dominance in the Reformed church, federal theology sought to exert itself and to gain prominence as a respectful branch of the church.

From the start of the Reformation until the late 17^th century, federal theology sought to establish itself as a viable expression of the Christian faith.  As it sought to define itself over and against Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, much as a person, grew from its embryonic stage to adulthood.  From its first cries as an infant in Luther’s emergence, to its eloquent speech as an adult at the Westminster Assembly, federal theology grew, developed, and matured through the years.  In the human maturation process, the infant, while at one moment distinctly different from the man, is still the same person.  The same can be found in the maturation of federal theology.  It is therefore artificial and invalid to separate federalism into the antithetical divisions of covenant and federal theology.

One may claim to disagree with a particular expression of federalism, but, as long as the presupposition is uniform, there remains no separation between the two.   Any study of federal theology must follow its stages of development with the understanding that any dogma has its beginning and maturational stages.  An early study of Protestantism will reveal an underdeveloped theology, but a later examination of it will reveal ideas contained only as a seed in the early days of federalism’s growth.  In its vitality a theological idea is often intensely groping for direction, and its strength is often better demonstrated in its maturation.   In theological debate, men often caricature a dogma, failing to understand and explain it fully by isolating its definition to a particular figure or time.  An understanding of the16^th century federal theology can only be understood in light of its mature development in the 17^th century.  One cannot debate federal theologians today on the grounds of what the 16^th century federalists believed.  Federal theology must be examined as though one were examining a man’s life, from pre-infancy to adulthood to old age, if he is to truly assess the value of federalism as a dogma.

The Heredity of Federal Theology

As men are born in time, so is theological dogma.  As a man is brought forth from the womb having a father and mother and traceable lineage, so theology also possesses a heritage.  Efforts are often put forth to prove the validity of federal theology by demonstrating its historicity in the early church.  This is, to some degree, how scholastics have sought to show continuity against the supposed discontinuity in federal theology.  Some have sought the witness of early church fathers as proof of the ancestry of federal theology, quoting Augustine as one of the first to speak of the relationship between God and Adam before the fall as a covenant.  Such efforts, however, have done nothing more than affirm and identify that the traits of federalism existed in days preceding the birth of federal theology.  The word covenant is no new term; the consideration of the relationship between Adam and God is no new question; the distinctions between law and grace are not new to theology; and the question of continuity and discontinuity is not novel.  These theological tensions are at the core of the impetus behind the rise of federalism, and they have existed from the beginnings of the Christian era.  Evidence from history can be gleaned in the writings of the first fifteen hundred years of the church, showing that seed ideas of federal theology are evident in pre-Reformation writings.  Prior to the Reformation there were traits evidential of what became known as federal theology in medieval theology; this cannot be denied.  However, the dogma of federal theology traces its own existence from the days of Martin Luther to the current day.  Although federal theology was not born until the days of the Reformation, it also was not born apart from a heritage.  In the history of doctrine, we can find similarities and dissimilarities to federalism throughout the life of the church. However closely we scrutinize ancient writings, we will not find the true distinctive of federal theology before we encounter the Reformation.  Since the foremost identifying mark of federal theology is the central feature of the covenant, we shall not find a theology that measures up to that mark before the Reformation.  Richard A. Muller notes, “the various terms for covenant (pactum and foedus) did not appear in these forms before the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries [. . .].”^[8]

We might identify the various stages in the development of federal theology in three ways; historically, geographically, and in confession practice.  First, historically, the parentage of federalism can be traced to Martin Luther [1483-1546] and the Reformation in Germany, Ulrich Zwingli [1484-1531] and the Swiss Reformation, and John Calvin [1509-1564] in Geneva.  The parentage would also include the successors of the following men: Philip Melanchthan [1497-1560] who followed Luther, Heinrich Bullinger [1504-1575] who raised the gauntlet of the Reformation in Switzerland following the premature death of Zwingli, and Theodore Beza [1519-1605], the successor of Calvin.  These six men might be called the fathers of federal theology, not because they consciously set about to birth such a child, but because their ideas and influence upon their successors would pave the way for such a heritage.

Following the birth of federalism would be the stage of infancy and childhood, with development influenced by men like Caspar Olevianus [1536-1587] and Zacharius Ursinus [1534-1583], Germans and co-authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, along with the Dutch theologian Johannes Cocceius [1603-1669].  Each of these men took federal theology past its first birth pangs to its early pre-pubescent life.

From that stage comes the young adulthood of the dogma, seen in the works of Thomas Cartwright [1535-1603] and William Perkins [1558-1602], both early Puritans.  This is not to exclude Robert Rollock in Edinburgh and those of the Netherlands.  A plethora of thought can be found in the works of these men, from Ursinus and Olevianus at the close of the 16^th century to the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s.

This leads to the adulthood of federal theology, when it was at its most virulent stage.  Its concise formulation is found in the work of the Westminster divines, the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith, a compilation of the Long Parliament [1643-1649] during the English Civil War.  The strength of federal theology would prevail as Puritanism flourished in the colonies and England until its decline in the latter half of the 17^th century, in the days of John Owen and Richard Baxter.

From there we trace its middle age to the works of men of the 19^th century like Charles and A. A. Hodge, Abraham Kuyper, and Robert Dabny; its seasoned years through 20th century men like J. G. Machen and John Murray; and, leading up to its old-age, we look at the development of federal theology through the Reformers who carried it forth.

It would be prudent to ask at this time, which of these historical figures might be called covenant or federal theologians?  Were Martin Luther, John Calvin, or Ulrich Zwingli federal theologians?  Noting the historical development of federal theology, they would be excluded by time. The presupposition most clearly identifying federal theology would give pause to the consideration of these men within the framework of what we might theologically define as federal theology.  None of the magisterial Reformers possessed a theology with a central dominant idea of covenant.  They held much in common with the later federal theology and even helped to establish much of the foundation for the dogma, but they clearly were separate from the “formed-in-the-womb” idea; they provided that seed necessary to birth the child, but that was all.  The earliest Reformers to truly bear the title federal theologian would have been those of the childhood stage of covenant theology, yet even they did not have the developed features of the adult federal theologian.  An adult federal theologian possessed the features of various covenant formulations and relationships that the early proponents had not known.  It is like the difference between the frame of a child and a man: structure, stature, and strength increase with age.  While the federal thought might be found in an underdeveloped form in the early Reformed writings, it is not clearly distinguished.  It is incorrect, therefore, to call the magisterial reformers federal theologians, or to say the early federal theologians were antithetical to their predecessors who held to the fully developed ideas of federalism.  At the same time, it is incorrect to make a case for antithesis between those of its early and latter stages simply because the pre-pubescent covenant thought had not blossomed into a full frame.  Any attempt to identify federal theology must be placed in its proper period of history and not faulted for its failure of agreement throughout its life.

A second way to look at the development of federal theology would be to follow it geographically through its westward expansion.  Beginning in the heart of Germany and Switzerland, it branched westward into France and the Netherlands, eventually finding its deepest roots in England and Scotland, where it made its way across the Atlantic to New England.  It settled in its colonial establishment in the New World with the Puritans and Separatists of Congregationalism and in the mid-Atlantic with the Presbyterians.  From Rome to the colonies of the New World, federal theology made its conquest in the Reformation church as it made its way westward.  Thus, whether looking at the men or the locale, federal theology was an historic dogma that grew up out of the Reformation and has found its greatest maturation among the English and the Scottish churches.  Federal theology became nearly synonymous with English Puritanism and Scottish Presbyterianism.  Leaving behind its parentage, it grew up to an entity of its own.

A final way to consider the growth and development of federal theology would be to follow it through the stages of confessional development.  The earliest Reformed confessions are found in the Lutheran branch of the Reformation, of which the Augsburg Confession of 1530 is first.   In it is found a very terse statement regarding Adam and the fall, encapsulating the event in the words: “after the common course of nature [. . .].”^[9]    This early confessional idea is thought to be antithetical to later federalism, as Geerhardus Vos notes:

[…] if the relationship in which Adam came to stand with God is entirely natural and if there was nothing positive in it, then the covenant theory as an expression of that purely natural relationship must indeed appear rather artificial.^[10]

Such antithesis does not nullify the influence of Augsburg upon federal theology.  For within the Augsburg Confession there are several polemical articles against the early Anabaptists [those that baptize by immersion] and Antinomians [those said to be against the law].  This would become a distinctive trait of federalism.  Throughout its lifetime federal theology has exuded its disdain for its brothers, the Baptists and so-called Libertines of the radical Reformation. Already, in this early confession, the tension between law and grace, works and faith, and the issue of the responsibility of man is evident.  These early tensions would prove instrumental in the development of the confessional federal theology.

Confessional practice followed the geographical course of the Reformation.  That which remained in Germany took on a form unlike that of the later Presbyterian and reformed branches of the Reformation, not taking up the cloak of covenant.  However, much like reformed theology, later Lutheranism showed a remarkable congruity with its federal brother.  The final Lutheran creed of note, the Formula of Concord [1580], shows a remarkable development for Luther and Melanchthon.  Luther’s early and emphatic statements on sola fide would prove problematic to him later in life, as Schaff notes, “Luther, in opposition to Romish legalism, put the gospel and the law as wide apart as ‘heaven and earth,’ and said, ‘Moses is dead.’”^[11]  Many of his strong sentiments would later be rescinded in his disputes with the Antinomians.  Schaff notes:

The "Form of Concord" teaches a threefold use of the law: (a) A political or civil use in maintaining outward discipline and order; (b) An elenchtic or pedagogic use in leading men to a knowledge of sin and the need of redemption; (c) A didactic or normative use in regulating the life of the regenerate.^[12]

Here a threefold division of the law shows similarity to those developments in the other branches of the continental creeds.  What is most striking about this development is that it exudes a congruity of development between federal theology and Lutheranism, as both grew up in dispute with the Anabaptists and Antinomians.

Anglicanism, that branch of the Reformation growing up from the Augsburg Confession to its Forty-Two Articles and its final agreed-upon form of the Thirty-Nine Articles [1563], was not absent of continental influence.  It grew up under the influence of Cranmer and Geneva, as well as Bullinger, and it shows no great dispute with sectarianism; rather, it shows a developed theology of predestination and election.  The covenant idea is absent in the Anglican tradition, but the issue of good works is raised.  The Thirty-Nine Articles presented good works as evidential of true faith. Anglicanism, the brother of Puritanism in England, maintained its own reformed identity aside federal theology of Westminster.  The Marian exiles [those early Puritans and Anglicans driven from England to the continent during the Catholic reign of bloody Mary] of both Puritanism and Anglicanism surely had equal interaction with the continental reformers, but there is a distinctly different course of development for both groups.  The Marian exiles spent years with Bullinger and Calvin, and correspondence between those who returned during the Elizabethan age demonstrates a great respect and dependence upon the continental reformers.

A great dependence can be traced from Geneva [Calvin and Beza] and Zurich [Zwingli and Bullinger] to the rise of federal theology.  Vos notes:

The theologians of Zurich [. . .] are to be regarded as the forerunners of federal theology in the narrower sense insofar as the covenant for them becomes the dominant idea for the practice of the Christian life.^[13]

Such an influence cannot be traced through the confessions, however, as the Swiss confessional influence had no significant impact upon the Westminster divines.  With the great time spent on the continent during Mary’s reign in England, along with the influence of the exiles in the Netherlands, an incubation period of thought follows outside of the confessional practice.  David Weir notes, “from about 1585 onward many of the younger English Puritans believed in a covenant of works and a covenant of grace.”^[14]  The absence of the Heidelberg influence in both Anglicanism and Lutheranism may, however, account for the general absence of federal thought in those branches of the Reformation.  Clearly the developments by Ursinus and Olevianus, though more so through their writings than their confession, were directly related to the summations of the Westminster divines.  David Wai-Sing Wong notes:

 After the forerunners Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin, and the covenant theologian Bullinger, covenant theology developed by Ursinus and Olevianus in Germany is probably most significant in the development of covenant theology.^[15]

It does appear, though, that no one man, no one confession, and no one event is responsible for the rise of federal theology.  Federalism grew up in the face of persecution, under the influence of a growing body of theological thought, under the influence of countless reformers, and in light of two predominantly antithetical parallel movements.  When the grand summation of federal theology was set forth in the 1640s in England at the Westminster Assembly, it would be an amalgamation of federal theology embraced by Scottish Presbyterianism and English Puritanism.  The schooling of English federalism came from time abroad on the continent, at the feet of the reformers.

Clearly the greatest confessional statement of federal theology is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith.  Weir writes:

[. . .] the Westminster Assembly put the stamp of orthodox approval on the federal theology and fully included it in the Confession and the Catechisms, all three of which are fundamental documents for Reformed orthodoxy and served as the foundation for Puritan and Presbyterian thinking in the Old World as the New World.^[16]

If we seek to identify federal theology with any one person or group, we can best do so by setting forth the Westminster Confession of Faith and the catechisms created by the Assembly as the consummate presentation of the mature federal theology.  Everything following the Westminster Assembly would refer back to it.  If one desires to understand federal theology one must do so in light of the Westminster formulation.  It was the capstone upon a century of thought, dispute, and subscription in the westward expansion of the Reformation.

Factors Contributing to the Maturation of Federalism

Additional factors should be considered in the rise of federal thought.  Theological interrogation was a principal factor in the rise of federal theology.  The reformers in every generation have had to provide an apologetic for what they believed on two fronts: the balance between divine sovereignty and the responsibility of man.  They had to defend their separation from Rome early on, and did so until the Council of Trent terminated the pressing need for such answers.  David B. McWilliams concurs, stating, “federalism helps to add balance to theological thinking in part because of its ground in decretalism.  [. . .] covenant theology is based on the highest view of God’s decree [. . .].”^[17]  Federalists have always had to defend their theology against sects and various groups that have arisen to question their assumptions.  Questions abounded for the defendants of federal theology and, like a child, federal theology had to grow up to defend and assert an identity all his own.  Federalism needed to shake off the sins of Rome and rise up, independent and distinct from its other siblings of the Reformation. 

Through the maturation of federal thought, it sought to assert its own pioneering spirit.  It needed to find an identity all its own; it needed to answer the pressing questions of theology through the ages, regarding the doctrines of election, the freedom of the will, divine sovereignty, law and grace, continuity and discontinuity, and works and faith.  As it developed, it found an identity peculiar to itself through the adoption of the covenant motif.  The presupposition of federal theology developed and slowly isolated itself from other branches of the Reformation. Its first breach was with Lutheranism as the presupposition of federal theology developed and slowly isolated itself from other branches of the Reformation.  Noting this break, it was essential for federal theology to explain the tension between law and grace, works and grace, and the Christian life, in a way distinct from Lutheran thought.  Its answer to these difficult questions was found in what it conceived as a biblically logical and defensible motif--it employed the overarching covenantal scheme as its answer.  If federalism were personified we could say the child grew into a man and he was peculiar unto himself as a man that was clad in the vesture of federalism.  The covenant motif fit; it gave federalism an identity all it’s own and it served to validate itself in a world of ecclesiastical vesture.  Federalism could claim unity with those early fathers that Rome laid claim to and could set itself apart, being able to show its own historicity and depth of maturation.  Federal theology developed as an answer to its Roman counterpart and those of prevailingly different thought from the Reformation.  Federalism offered an answer and a distinct identity of its own in the idea of covenant.

It must be noted that theological dispute was also a principal factor in the rise of federal theology.  From the beginnings, in Luther’s day, the branch known as the Radical Reformation was a primary factor in the solidification of federal beliefs.  Luther's early theology drew a strong distinction between law and grace and was a champion of discontinuity, yet later debates with those he named antinomians led him to embrace a softer stance.  Luther was soon seen embracing the place of the law again and its abiding use to the Christian. From Luther onward, Antinomianism grew up alongside federal theology, much like a brother with his sibling.  Federalism’s disputes with Antinomianism would continue to aid in the distinctive identity of federal theology.  Coupled with the zeal of both Zwingli and Calvin against those called Anabaptists, the idea of continuity grew to support the views of paedobaptism among those of the early Reformation. 

Federalism would also have to contend against both Amyraldianism and Arminianism.  It would find itself seeking a middle-ground definition in the disputes between high Calvinism in the midst of the infralapsarian and supralapsarian debates.  Eventually it would have to pit itself against Lockeanism, Deism, and Modernism.  Throughout its history it sought to guard its own identity and integrity against every form of theological thought that would seek to rob it of its vesture.  Federalism developed simultaneously with all other forms of Protestantism.  As we look at the Reformation we might say it bore many children, of which one was called federal theology.  Like a child, federalism grew up to possess an identity all its own, setting itself apart from its siblings, its parents, and its grandparents, until, like a man, it stood up on its own two feet.  What we know as covenant theology and what was first deemed federal theology has had a long and illustrative history.

Current Trends in Federalism

Current trends in Reformation historiography are seeking to unravel the multifaceted and interwoven history of the phenomenon of the Reformation.  One such mystery is the development of federal theology.  Historians have sought answers for the development of dogma in social, theological, ecclesiastical, historical, political, and economical causes.  It is no different from trying to understand a man in his environment:  Why does he think the way he thinks, behave the way he does, speak as he does, and act as he does?  To answer the questions, many variables would have to be examined: Who were his parents? What was his heritage? What of his physical make-up, his culture, society, government, schooling, experiences, and life in general?  All of these questions would have to be examined to understand the man.  Equally, to understand federal theology we need to understand its time, its trends, its stages, and its proponents.  There are many reasons why federal theology was born and grew up a child of the Reformation, but when all consideration is duly made, we must conclude that, when federalism grew up, it was new, identifiable, and unique.  Whether its theology is right is not the issue here discussed.  At this point, it is necessary to simply understand federal theology and assess its viability and place in dogmatism.  Federalism cannot be dismissed out of hand as an heir of the Reformation, but must be examined in light of those dogmas that grew up beside him.

The final question posed might be, “Where is federal theology today?”  By way of analogy to the perceived course of Reformation confessional practice, we might trace the life of federal theology by way of purpose.  Peter A. Lillback defines confessional practice as “eleven distinct purposes.”  They are listed as:

1) Confessional Purpose – to express one’s faith; 2) Apologetic Purpose – to defend one’s faith; 3) Fraternal Purpose – to establish common ground and unity; 4) Pedagogical Purpose – to teach the youth, new converts and future leaders; 5) Uniformity Purpose – to standardize doctrine and practice in an ecclesiastical context; 6) Testing For Orthodoxy/Heterodoxy Purpose – to require one to candidly reveal his faith to determine if it is sound or erroneous; 7) Qualifying Purpose – to enable one to enter into the leadership offices of the Church;  8) Defining Purpose – to distinguish one religious viewpoint against another; 9) Polemical Purpose – to attack a divergent theological viewpoint; 10) Restrictive Purpose – to prevent the advance of a divergent theological viewpoint; 11) Coercive Purpose – to compel another into submission in regard to doctrine or practice.^[18]

Dr. Lillback lists the first four as early in the stage of confessional conception, the middle four as the middle stage of confessional consolidation, and the last three as the mature stage of confessional confrontation.^[19]  An analogy can be found between confessional practice and the development of federalism.  The early stage of conception for federal theology was confessional, apologetic, fraternal, and pedagogical.  The early reformers and those that followed, up until the Westminster Assembly, were seeking to define their theology and faith, often in a polemical fashion.  It was their desire to instruct subsequent generations in their beliefs.  At the time of the Westminster assembly, federal theology entered a period of uniformity, leading to a century of examination for orthodoxy or heterodoxy.  The 19^th and early 20^th century saw a period of polemic, where deism, modernism, dispensationalism, and Unitarianism sought to undermine the very foundation of federalism.  Federalism’s assaults against these perceived errors may have resulted in a restrictive and isolated tendency.  Federalism sought to reassert itself and do everything within its sphere of influence to prevent the advance of liberalism and dispensational theology.

Today the current stage of federal theology is in flux.  Its stagnancy in the mid-twentieth century is giving way to a new interest in creeds and theological thought as well as an abatement of polemics.  There are attempts at dialogue between dispensationalists and federal theologians.  A new day of apologetic has perhaps quieted the polemics of those engaged in battle several decades ago.  While mainline Presbyterianism appears to be following this path, there does remain a coercive undercurrent in American federalism.  Some who bear the name Reformed Baptist, along with more restrictive branches of Presbyterianism, have moved into the phase of coercion.  They seek to compel all others into submission and will hear nothing of dialogue.  If federal theology is to prevail in this day, it must continue upon a course of revitalization and not succumb to aberrant coercive displays.  There is a danger that federal theology may find itself in its latter days.  Most laymen within mainline Presbyterianism know little of federal theology.  Confessional subscription is no longer in vogue, and doctrine has become a buzzword for discriminatory practice.  If federalism is to survive this day, it must find a way to be reborn.  Its vitality is long since spent, and, like an aged man, its hoary head is grayed.  The question that remains is whether federalism will, in the next few decades, be relegated to a by-gone day or whether it will find the vitality to reassert itself in a culture that has little tolerance for such dogmatism.  Time will tell.

^[1] David B. McWilliams, The Covenant Theology of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Recent Criticism, WTJ, 53, 1, Spring 1991,109.

^[2] David A. Weir, The Origins of the Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 3.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Mark W. Karlberg, Covenant Theology and the Westminster Tradition, WTJ, 54, 1, Spring 1992, 135-152.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, I, 6 ed., (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 211, 212.

^[7] Ibid., 209.

^[8] Richard A. Muller, The Study of Theology: From biblical interpretation to contemporary formulation, 7, ed. Moises Silva, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 86.

^[9] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, III, 8.

^[10] Geerhardus Vos, The Covenant in Reformed Theology, (Philadelphia: K. M. Campbell, 1971), 10.

^[11] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, I, 277-78.

^[12] Ibid., 279.

^[13] Vos, 2.

^[14] David A. Weir, The Origins of Federal Theology in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Thought, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 1.

^[15] David Wai-Sing Wong, The Covenant Theology of John Owen, Ph. D. dissertation WTS, 1998, 72.

^[16] Weir, 157.

^[17] McWilliams, 125 -143.

^[18] Peter A. Lillback, “The Practice of Confessional Subscription.” David W. Hall ed.

(Lanham: University Press of America), 1995, 58.

^[19] Ibid., 59.

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Chapter Three:

Toward a Concise Definition of Covenant Theology
Author: Kevin Hartley

As important as history is to understanding a system of theological dogma, equally important is properly defining and explicating that doctrine.  The where of federal theology has been answered, now the what has to be established.  As indicated in the last chapter, any attempt to define federal theology runs into the problem raised by its historical morphology.  When one attempts to establish an identifiable definition for federalism by its form in a particular time or confession, he runs the problem of arriving at too narrow or too restrictive a definition to adequately account for all the stages and forms federalism has taken through the last three centuries. For example, one might try to define federal theology in relationship to its terms, such as equating federalism with the term covenant of grace, the earliest expression of federalism.  Doing so, however, would be to neglect the latter expressions of theological formulation found in the covenant of works at the close of the 16^th century and its subsequent expression in the covenant of redemption in the next century.  At the same time, a 17^th century definition of federal theology may not adequately cover an earlier nuance or expression of federalism, giving way to an overemphasis on the covenant of works that is supposed to have dominated 17^th century federalism.  Thus, a perplexing dilemma arises for the historian or theologian trying to encapsulate federal theology in an accurate, concise, and yet exhaustive statement.  No single elucidation or expression of federal theology from the past five centuries will suffice to adequately encompass the vast expressions of federalism. Therefore another approach becomes necessary if federalism is to be properly identified. 

A single unifying theme or expression of federal theology, regardless of terms and intricacies, must arise to account for that theological phenomenon of the Reformed faith entitled federal theology.  Historically, federal theology has been identified as “a distinguishing feature of the Reformed tradition,” where “the idea of a covenant came to be an organizing principle in terms of which the relations of God to men were construed.”^[1]  Federal theologians have uniformly sought such a distinctive for their dogma.  The Westminster divines began the seventh chapter of their confession noting:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him, as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescencion on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.^[2]

Such expressions, where the idea of covenant as an organizing principle becomes the single most important identifiable feature of federal theology, abound throughout the centuries.  The actual terms chosen to express that relationship are not as important as an understanding of the relationship itself. That is to say, by way of an example, that the 16^th century failure to accentuate or identify the Edenic relationship as covenantal, either in the expression covenant of works, covenant of life, or natural covenant [three terms used in federal theology to describe Adam’s pre-fall relationship with God], is not the heart of what makes federalism a distinct dogma. 

The question arises as to the propriety of this approach in distinguishing federal theology.  Is there a better way to identify federal theology?  It is this author's opinion that another, and perhaps more precise, definition can be found.  The rise of federalism in history is the key to a proper definition.  The fundamental question behind the rise of federal theology was not so much with what term should be used to best identify God’s relationship with men through the ages, but rather with how to simply define that relationship.  That is, the consummate achievement of federal theology is not so much its choice of terms used to identify the relationship between God and men, but what those terms involve.  A covenant speaks of a relationship (the relationship between God and men), and that relationship is variously expressed at different junctions in biblical history.

Federal theology is a dogma that seeks to answer the pending question of how God relates to men.  Federalism put forth the “idea of covenant [. . .] to be an organizing principle in terms of which the relations of god to men were construed.”^[3]  While perhaps this is not its specified purpose at all times in history, still its presence can be attributed to the desire to answer pressing theological questions of how God has chosen to relate to men.  Theology, in general, is just that--a study of God’s relationship with men.  Any explanation of that relationship must take into account the various stages in biblical theology.  Federal theology addresses the relationship between God and men in the form of a covenant.  Such an organizing system has the flexibility to account for the biblical expressions of that relationship between God and men at the various stages in biblical history. 

A covenant may be defined simply as “the bonding of parties in shared commitment [. . .].”^[4]  Or in its fuller expression, as John Murray quotes Zachary Ursinus:

God’s covenant is ‘a mutual promise and agreement, between God and men, in which God gives assurance to men that he will be merciful to them […].   And, on the other side, men bind themselves to God in this covenant that they will exercise repentance and faith […] and render such obedience as will be acceptable to him’ (Eng. Tr., G. W. Williard, The Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, Grand Rapids, 1954, 97).^[5] 

Notice there is, in this definition, the expression and explanation of the relationship between God and men.  At the heart of the discussion of the relationship between God and men is the tension raised by the doctrine of the Reformation, regarding the sovereign grace of God.  The tension arose through the application of decretalism in piety, or, to say it quite simply, the attempt to reconcile the doctrine of the sovereignty of God with the responsibility of man was the fundamental tension behind the definition of the relationship between God and men.  This is, after all, the most pressing issue of Christianity; it speaks to every branch of theology.  The covenant thought allowed the reformers to reconcile the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility.  Federalism adopted the covenant as its scheme to describe the relationship between God and men.  A covenant was sufficient to account for matters of continuity and to settle the matter of discontinuity that arose from the biblical text.

Thus, to equate federalism simply with the word covenant is perhaps misleading and fails to adequately identify the true heart of federalism.  Federal theology is not simply a theology that chose to term every age in biblical history a covenant.  Nor is defining federal theology as simple as saying that God interacts with men through a covenant.  Its complex definition involves the aspect of relationship.  Just as dispensationalism is not defined as a system of theology that breaks down the ages into various dispensations, neither is covenant theology a system that simply identifies covenants through the ages.  Both dispensationalists and covenant theologians can agree there are covenants and dispensations, even if they might disagree on their distinctive.  A glance at the section entitled "Covenant of Grace" in Charles Hodges’ Sytematic Theology proves this point where he speaks of both covenants and dispensations.  Far too much is involved in adopting so morose a conclusion that covenant theology is simply saying God makes covenants with men or that dispensationalism is a system of dividing biblical history into dispensations.  Federal theology cannot be defined simply by saying, as John Murray does, “the idea of a covenant came to be an organizing principle,” without also completing his definition with his clarifying phrase: “of which the relations of God to men were construed.”^[6]  The second half of the definition is as critical an answer to the question of what as is the first part.

If understanding the relationship between God and men is foundational to understanding federalism, there must be a presuppositional premise to its definition that federal theology arose out of the need to answer the timeless question of continuity and discontinuity as it relates to the redemptive plan of God.  The means to defining federalism, then, must come through addressing the question of whether God changes the way he relates to men in the various biblical ages.  Is there a great difference between God’s relationship to Adam and God's relationship to Abraham or Moses?  The question is complex.  Embedded within this pressing question lies the tension between law and grace, works and faith, and freedom versus sovereignty.  From Luther on, the relationship between God and men would beg for a clear and precise definition.  Federal theology was the answer to the nagging antithesis between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility that nagged the Reformed conscience. The Puritan zeal for piety, coupled with their Reformation soteriology, would find its comfortable expression in federalism. 

If theology were as simple as adopting a word to define relationships between God and his creation, then covenant theology and dispensationalism could agree.  But so much more was involved in federal theology’s adoption of the term covenant to answer the plaguing questions of their day.  In order to answer the many questions, the covenant framework provided theologians with a succinct and biblical term. John Von Rohr writes, “covenant thought was not created by Puritan theologians as a novel construct to deal with these issues.”^[7]  It was, in the early federalist’s estimation, a biblical term capable of answering the perplexities of the Christian life.  The tension they addressed has been the strain that has plagued the church since Marcion, and it becomes the foundational question behind the rise of federalism.  Simply put, every theology must strive to reconcile the apparent antithetical relationship between law and grace, works and faith, and Adam and Christ, in light of the presumed continuous nature of God’s divine and eternal decrees.

How did federal theology balance divine sovereignty and human responsibility in the covenant scheme?  Puritan piety was the grand expression of its balanced theology of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.  In Puritanism the ideals of the continental reformers met with the pietistic ideals of Puritanism; it was Christianity expressed through the idea and framework of covenant.  An adequate explanation of federalism must speak to both thought and practice.  What is federal theology?  It is a theology that grew out of an emphasis on divine sovereignty among the Protestant reformers, yet it is more than that; it is not only a theology; it is a practice.  Federal theology is the formulation of the ages that lends understanding and reason to the Christian life.  It answers the questions that perplex the Christian regarding what has God done and what I need to do.  Or to use the phrase of William Haller, it is the “wayfaring and warfaring” of the Christian pilgrim, perhaps best illustrated in Bunyan’s Pilgrims’ Progress, an allegorical expression of the practical federal theology.^[8]  Since federalism’s zenith was found in its expression in Scotland and England in the 17^th century, it must be defined as a system of theology that was devised to give understanding to a Christian’s pursuit of piety.  Federalism was one answer from the Reformation to the perplexing issue of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

Federal theology can best be defined as a theological dogma that seeks to adequately resolve the enduring question of the nature of the relationship between God and men.  The word covenant was adopted as the best expression of this relationship. 
O. Palmer Robertson notes, “In its most essential aspect, a covenant is that which binds people together.”^[9]  It speaks to both union and obligation.  Federalism’s foundation is Reformation theology itself.  It is built upon the tenants of Calvinism and has expressed itself historically against Arminianism, best summarized at the Synod of Dort.  It is the champion of Reformed orthodoxy, touting the principals of the five Solas that distinguished Reformation doctrine.  If anything, federalism is first an expression of the Reformation’s doctrinal distinctives: those of grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone, Christ alone, and to God alone the glory.  David Wai-Song Wong quotes Cornelius Van Til, writing, “In defense of the orthodoxy of covenant theology, Van Til writes, ‘Covenant theology sprang up naturally as the most consistent expression of Calvinism.’”^[10]  This is the theological foundation upon which federalism was built.  At the heart of the covenant motif and expression of federal theology, then, is grace itself.  Each covenant expression woven together has, as its fundamental design, the doctrines of grace.  Yet, at the same time, it is not so metaphysical that it is no earthly good.  It was the bridge from Zurich and Geneva to the English and Scottish pew.  It was the vehicle that brought the issue of grace and sovereignty to the practice of the common man.  Thus, it is not simply a theological thought or set of doctrinal expressions; it is much more; it is a religion.

Federalism was one expression offered by the reformers to account for the application of the doctrines of grace to practical living.  It was the answer to the question of “what now?” which the conscience raises once grace is understood and divine sovereignty is established in the understanding as true.  Federalism offered an answer as to how a man was to live and act, knowing that he had been saved by grace alone.  The answer was found in the amalgamation of covenant thought.  As federalism developed, it slowly began to offer a covenantal formulation to express the relationship between God and men at every juncture of biblical history.  Since God is ever shown to be sovereign in the biblical text, federalism sought to align human responsibility with divine sovereignty at every phase of biblical revelation.  Thus, the covenant addressed two primary stages of covenant: that of the prelapsarian relationship of God with men and that of the postlapsarian relationship between God and men.  Yet federalism developed in reverse order, working from redemption to creation to God’s eternal decree before all things.  Its grand finale would tout three covenants: 1) a covenant of redemption, speaking to the eternal covenant between the Father and Son at the time of the decree; 2) a covenant of life or of works, speaking to the relationship between God and men in Adam; 3) a covenant of grace, addressing the relationship between God and men in Christ. 

Federal theology first adopted the term covenant of grace to express itself.  The covenant of grace was the earliest and essential expression of federalism and remains so.  Much of the discussion regarding the apparent antithesis between the 16^th and 17^th federal theologians centers on the covenant of works.  Early on, the covenant of grace was identified as that overarching covenant of God that was first mentioned after Adam’s fall, best expressed in the days of Abraham, reaffirmed and expressed at Mt. Sinai, and later solidified in the New Covenant.  It was one covenant, and it served to define how God relates to those fallen in Adam.  Every covenant expression in the word of God, and even some not explicitly called a covenant, was put under the structure of the covenant of grace.  The Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and the new covenant were all defined as different administrations of that same covenant of grace.  John Murray wrote of the covenant of grace, saying, “it was regarded as having begun to be dispensed to men in the first promise given to Adam after the fall, but as taking concrete form in the promise to Abraham and progressively disclosed until it reached its fullest realization in the New Covenant.”^[11]  This earliest expression of the covenant motif would remain fairly uniform throughout the life of federalism.  It was the starting point upon which, from Calvin to Murray, a clear and distinct line of agreement could be traced.

The covenant of grace was the answer to the dilemma of God’s relationship to men after Adam’s fall.  It was the way in which God determined to express himself to fallen men--by way of a covenant of grace.  The promise of the covenant was life and the requirement was faith.  John Murray says, of the covenant of grace, that it was “that by which God reconciles us to himself in Christ and bestows upon us the twofold benefit of gratuitous righteousness in the remission of sins and renovation after God’s emphasis.”^[12]  It was a way of accounting for the varied expressions of God’s redemptive grace in relationship to fallen men through the distinct stages of redemptive history.  Continuity was established between God’s actions on Adam’s behalf toward the man and the continuing purpose of God in bringing about the salvation of an elect group of people from Adam’s posterity in Christ.  Thus, the redeemed were one people of one covenant, continuous in every age. 

The expression of the covenant of grace varied through the ages.  Thus, there was at one moment continuity and at the next discontinuity by way of expression. When was the covenant of grace enacted?  It was enacted with Adam after the fall when God gave to the man a covenant, and in that covenant was the promise of Christ.  How then does this covenant continue?  It is expressed again with Abraham, with Israel at Mt. Sinai, and with the church in the New Covenant.  Yet these are not distinctly different covenants, but one and the same.  Also, since a covenant is just that--a covenant--even the covenant of grace was “both conditional and absolute.”^[13]  Von Rohr said of the covenant of grace: “The covenant does have its conditions, both antecedent and consequent, and thus involves a mutuality of commitment.”^[14]  A covenant is uniformly a covenant, a bond between two parties, and, even though God provides the necessary provision of faith to the elect to affirm the sinner’s side of the covenant, it is still a covenant.  Thus the Westminster Divines wrote of the covenant of grace: “he freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.”^[15]  Here again one sees the uniformity of the idea of a covenant upheld: there is God--the party that offers the covenant--and with the covenant comes the promise of life; the requirement of man is faith, but, as noted, it is supplied by grace itself.  Here federalism balanced the idea of divine sovereignty and the responsibility of man, where grace is not antithetical to human responsibility or law. 

Such expression, however, was not capable of fully explaining the relationship between God and men in every stage.  Once a theologian answers the question of how God relates to fallen men in Christ, he must then turn his attention to the plaguing thought of the relationship between Adam and God.  Thus later federalism, at the close of the 16^th century, constructed the covenant of works in terms that defined the relationship between God and men before the fall.  The covenant idea did not vary; it still had God and man as the two parties, along with promises and curses, and its requirement of obedience.  What did change, though, was the nature of the covenant.  In the covenant of grace, God provides that necessary requirement of faith, whereas in the covenant of works, absolute obedience is the requirement placed upon man.  The promise again is life, and the curse is death.  The covenant of works was made between God and Adam, where all Adam’s descendants were included in him, and Adam was promised life for obedience.  It was believed that Adam was endowed with justice and holiness, that the law was written on his heart, and that his violation of one command was a violation of the whole law. According to federal theology, man’s first relationship with God was expressed in the covenant of works.  Man was given a period of time to earn eternal life that would be obtained by obedience to the covenant’s demands.  The relationship was one of compact, where man was to obey and God was bound to reward, if such obedience followed.  Thus, Adam’s pre-fallen state was not, by design, the consummate relationship between God and men, and it was not intended to be so. If the covenant had been kept, however, Adam would then have been granted the rewards of a greater, realized relationship.  The Garden of Eden, then, is set forth as a probationary environment where Adam was tasked with holiness.

For the federalist, this development brought greater cohesion to the tension between works and grace.  As federalism became more and more immersed in Puritan scholastic thought, the emphasis upon piety and its pursuit shifted the attention from grace to works. Such a shift in emphasis was not so much an abandonment of the ideals of the early Reformers as it was an attempt by those in its wake to flesh out the ideals in practice.  How could they avoid the extremities of Antinomianism and, at the same time, the errors of Arminius?  How could they balance grace and works without abandoning the pursuit of piety or their insistence upon grace as the principal cause of all that is good?  The answer is found in the covenant schemata that wed Adam to his progeny.  The covenant of works, while broken, was not lost.  The covenant of works preceded the covenant of grace, and the covenant of grace was an answer to the dilemma of the broken covenant of works.  Where the covenant of grace established continuity in restoration, the covenant of works established continuity in holiness.  As the covenant of grace continues, so does the covenant of works, in that the covenant of works is not abolished but eventually resolved by Christ, in us, in the covenant of grace.  Therefore, the overarching relationship between God and men, upon first appearance, becomes works rather than grace.  Such is an overstatement of the facts and is the basis for much of the discussion of supposed antithesis.

The answer to the other side of the relationship between men and God was the covenant of works.  It sought to meld together the idea of works and practice with that act of redemptive grace best summarized in the covenant of grace.  The federalist saw God’s first relationship with men as one with promised eternal reward, and it was only thusly expressed in that time before Adam’s fall.  In this estimation the Mosaic covenant is not a covenant of works.  Also according to the federalist, the Mosaic covenant was simply a further revelation of God’s redemptive grace to men, and it was never intended as another trial for men to do what Adam had failed at in Eden.  This is Mark Karlberg’s point, when he states:

The principle of works-inheritance as an administrative element in the Mosaic Covenant is limited to the sphere of the symbolic-typical.  Since the spiritual benefits of redemption in the Mosaic Covenant are purely a matter of sovereign, saving grace, the pedagogical function of the law of Moses is still typical [. . .].  The operation of the works-law-principle, antithetical to the faith-grace-principle, in the Mosaic Covenant applies to a restricted, though characteristic sphere of covenant life.^[16]

Thus, for federal theology there is a dichotomy in biblical theology drawn, not between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant, but between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.  As Karlberg states, “The covenant [covenant of works] whose principle of life-inheritance is that of works can never be reinstituted.  The operation of the works-principle […] in the Mosaic Covenant cannot be interpreted so as to constitute the covenant under Moses as a covenant of works.”^[17]  God’s relationship to men is only and always expressed in one of two ways: through the broken covenant of works with Adam, in which all men in Adam are declared to be covenant breakers, or through the covenant of grace, in which only those elect and redeemed by grace are by faith in Christ in covenant with God.  They achieve what Adam never did: that state of realized eternal life. They are not restored to Adam’s place before the fall, but to that place obedience would have taken him.  Consequently, there is no antithesis between law and grace, as grace and law are in unison.  There is no question of discontinuity other than by way of covenant administration, since the overarching covenant of redemption in the decretal work of God seeks to affirm the divine intent behind the covenant with Adam, through the covenant of grace.

It is said that grace comes in to meet the demands of that faltered relationship.  Weir writes:

According to federal theology, the prelapsarian covenant was made with Adam and is still binding upon all men, even after the Fall of Adam into sin.  The postlapsarian covenant of grace is made with Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who keeps the original prelapsarian covenant of works, takes upon himself the penalty for breaking it, and then applies this work of redemption to his elect people.^[18]

Federalism offered two explanations for the relationship between God and men.  The first, the covenant of grace, stressed man’s inability and God’s ability, without discounting the responsibility and necessary action of man.  In this relationship the free grace of God was championed alongside the necessary action of man.  The second, the covenant of works, provided a broader view of the entire work of creation.  Geerhard Vos, purporting an antithesis between the Lutheran anthropocentric theology and the Reformed theocentric theology, wrote, regarding the covenant motif and its central feature being God’s glory:

What we inherit in the second Adam is not restricted to what we lost in the first Adam: it is much rather the full realization of what the first Adam would have achieved for us had he remained standing and been confirmed in his state.^[19]

The consummate goal of God in the creation of man (God’s glory) is the very thing Adam forsook. The covenant of grace is the means to the glorification of God, the ultimate goal of all things.  The covenant of grace, not contrary to the covenant of works, but alongside it, accomplishes what the first Adam failed to do, what God decreed, and what man must do.  It is in this fuller expression of federal thought that works, to the reader, appears to overshadow grace.

As noted, later federal theology brought in a third covenant to answer the question of men’s relationship with God.  The covenant of redemption, made between the Father and eternal Son, was put forth as that compact or decision to enter into the works of creation and redemption.  This covenant was a precursor to the other two covenants.  Here the doctrines of predestination, election, and sovereignty, were all wed into the covenant scheme.  In the end, the three covenants served federalism enough to account for any dispute of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.  Federalism was an experiential phenomenon in that it addressed the man as actually involved in the covenanting scheme of God.  God was sovereign and man was responsible.  Law and grace were not antithetical but unified.  Seeming discontinuity was given sweeping continuity, and the Christian had an explanation and purpose set for his life.

Federal theology presents itself as a biblical theology and would argue that its use of the word covenant is of biblical origin.  It does not deny that its three principal covenant expressions are not found in the biblical text.  Just as with the word trinity, it would argue for its theological value and integrity based upon the covenant motif in scripture.  It offers continuity in light of seeming incongruities in the biblical text.  It provides an answer to the dilemma raised regarding works and faith as well as grace and law.  Federalism offers an answer to the pressing dilemma of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility.  As Sinclair Ferguson notes, “during the sixteenth century covenant theology came to be regarded as a key to the interpretation of Scripture and, during the seventeenth century, a key to the interpretation of Christian experience.  It brought with it a fresh insight into the unity of Scripture.”^[20]  Federal theology sought to provide a useful answer for Christian living that balanced the word of God with practice.

Federal theology is best defined as a system of theology constructed over a span of several centuries; it wed together the high and necessary doctrines of the early reformers with the great emphasis of practice and piety in the latter reformation.   They combined to address the historical question of God’s relationship to men and expressed their answer in the idea of covenant.  It accomplished for them a balance of doctrine and practice and served to save a place for the law of God in the Christian life.  Man’s relationship to God was not diametrically opposed to the original Adamic administration prior to the fall, but was seen to be continuous in the covenant scheme.  Federalism served as a useful tool against the enemies of their day, those of too much supposed liberty [Antinomians] and those of too much supposed attention to man’s ability [Arminians and Romanists]. 

If one were to offer today’s reader a concise, accurate, and exhaustive definition of federal or covenant theology, what would it be?  Federal theology defines every expression of God’s relationship with men in terms of a covenant, entailing two parties (an agreement with promises and curses), with an annexed requirement.  God has only expressed himself in relationship to men in one of two ways: either by works or by grace.  The covenant of works, made with the first man, was where life was promised upon perfect obedience, but only for a time.  It was not a covenant of law but was a relationship where law served to define the covenant obligations.  To say it was a covenant of works means it was a relationship based upon demands the man needed to supply on his own merit.  In contrast to that covenant, the covenant of grace is the answer to the broken covenant of works.  It is established upon the principle of grace.  Man is not required to supply the necessary component of faith that meets the demands of the covenant; God supplies the faith, yet God does not believe for man; rather, man himself exercises faith.  God infuses a principle of life into the regenerate soul, imparting faith to the man so that the man may barter with God by way of covenant obedience.  In this understanding law is not antithetical to grace. The covenant of grace is not about law any more than the covenant of works was about law; rather, one is by man’s ability to do, while the other involves God’s supply on man’s behalf.  The biblical antithesis, therefore, exists not between Sinai and the cross, but between Adam before the fall and Christ. 

Where does federal theology stand today?  As noted in the last chapter, perhaps the greatest threat to federal theology is the predominant ignorance of it.  It is a complex and ancient theology.  Much of today’s religion is not enamored by a system of theology that requires a great deal of thought to be understood.  Time has left the church with dusty books of three centuries or so, that sought to teach and explain this system, yet as catechismal instruction ceases and churches lose interest in theology, federal theology is certain to find itself buried in the shelves of yesteryear.  Couple this with a general disdain of the doctrines of grace and the waning need perceived by most for such a theology today and its perpetuity is in question.  In some sense, American Christianity champions the principles of Arminianism and Antinomianism.  What need is there for a theology that was made to contradict both errors?  The greatest day of federalism was the 17^th century.  The greatest accomplishment of the 17^th century in the English branch of the Reformation was its accomplished piety.    The Reformation raised questions that federalism answered, and, until those questions are again raised, federalism’s place will remain mostly among scholastic discussions and historical studies.

Despite this fact, the pressing question remains as to the validity and perpetuity of federal theology.  Was it the right answer to the questions raised by the doctrines of the Reformation and the call for piety?  Is its fundamental presupposition (defining two distinct covenants or relationships between God and men as that of works in the prelapsarian environment and that of grace in the postlapsarian work of redemption) truly biblical?  Some might argue federalism was the noose of the Reformation, that its blossoming led to a scholastic overemphasis upon works and consequently led men away from the championed doctrines of the early Reformation.  Some might also argue the logical course of federalism was dead works and nothing more than dying religion.  Still others might argue the Reformation was to history what Augustine was to the early church and federalism was to history what medieval Catholicism and scholasticism was to the dying church.  Anne Hutchinson, the so-called Antinomian of Puritan New England, was determined to fight against the legalistic branch of federal theology in her day.   In our day, Perry Miller and R. T. Kendall, among others, have sought to pit federalism against the earlier Reformation, claiming federal theology became its own worst enemy as works replaced grace as its principle doctrine.  What is one to make of these charges and even of federal theology itself?

However one answers the charges of historians, and even history itself, federalism remains a dominant branch of theology today.  It is not easily dismissed because it offers answers to pressing questions.  Is it the best expression and answer available in theology today?  This remains the question raised by this text.  Are there viable options still to be considered by those answering the most probing questions of Christianity?  At the very least these considerations may be put forth.  Federalism has historically been seen by many as a champion of what is perceived to be the greatest day of the church.  It could be said that federalism was instrumental in sustaining the longest and greatest revival of religion in this Christian era.  It succeeded in the way of piety that no other group has ever done before or since its day.  Religious affections were at a sustained peak for several generations.  Federalism clearly accompanied a day unlike any other day.

Federalism, however, had a tendency to be over-speculative regarding the soul, at times inclining toward a legalism of its own.  Clearly the Great Experiment in Puritan New England, and the day of Cromwell as Protector of the Commonwealth in England, demonstrated the difficulty in the balance of law and grace in practice.  Still, the most important of all questions concerns not the success of a theology, but its uniformity with the word of God.  If anything, the very fundamental premise of federal theology is questionable.  The question is not so much asked of federalism, "Has God said?" but, rather, "Is this feasible?"  The questions asked of federalism must remain: "Is a covenant truly the only way in which God relates to men, and is the dichotomy of works and grace in relation to the fall the proper means of biblical division?" The only answers that federalism can provide are derivative answers built on supposition and implication.  Charles Hodge honestly said, when presenting a supposed Edenic covenant:

[. . .] this statement does not rest upon any express declaration of the Scriptures. [. . .]  Although the word covenant is not used in Genesis, and does not elsewhere, in any clear passage, occur in reference to the transaction thereof recorded, yet inasmuch as the plan of salvation is constantly represented as a New Covenant, new, not merely in antithesis to that made at Sinai, but new in reference to all legal covenants whatever, it is plain that the Bible does represent the arrangement made with Adam as a truly federal transaction.^[21]

As Hodge implicates, to accept federalism is to accept a foundational premise.  Richard A. Mueller notes:

They go on to structure their systems around such concepts as the pactum salutis, the foedus gratiae, the foedus operum, and the ordo salutis.  As this point the ‘gentle reader’ may well begin to wonder which Bible this systematic theologian has been reading […].  How biblical is a ‘biblical theology’ that takes its most important terms and its major doctrinal topics from somewhere other than the Bible?”^[22]

The foundational premise of federalism remains what was summarized by the Westminster divines and quoted above (in Section VII of the Westminster Confession of Faith), that God relates to men and “hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.”  Federal theology begins with a premise that must be agreed upon.  Before one can ever embrace federalism he must first embrace the presupposition that God relates to men by way of a covenant.  In such a presupposition, a person infers that God and men are always bound in a contractual arrangement where there are promises, curses, and requirements.  For one to embrace federalism is for one to embrace a premise; thus, the primary question at hand regarding the validity of federal theology is the veracity of that premise.  The fundamental questions at hand are neither whether it makes sense nor whether it answers our questions sufficiently. The question to answer is this: "Does God only and always relate to men by way of a covenant?"  A federalist must agree with Robert Rollock, here quoted by Gerhard Vos, “God says nothing to man apart from the covenant.”^[23]

^[1] John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray: Studies in Theology, 4, (Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 216.

^[2] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 6 ed., III, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 616.

^[3] John Von Rohr, The Covenant of Grace in Puritan Thought: AAR Studies in Religion, 45, (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 1.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] John Murray. Collected Writings of John Murray, 4, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 217.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] John Von Rohr, The Covenant of Grace in Puritan Thought: American Academy of Religion Studies in Religion, 45, (Atlanta: Scholars Press), 1986, 9.

^[8] Ibid., 6.

^[9] O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 4.

^[10] David Wai-Song Wong. The Covenant Theology of John Owen.  Ph.D. dissertation,

WTS, 1998, 79.

^[11] Murray, 223.

^[12] Murray 225.

^[13] Von Rohr, 17.

^[14] Von Rohr, 11.

^[15] Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, III, 617.

^[16] Mark W. Karlberg, The Reformed Interpretation of the Mosaic Covenant, WTJ, 43, 1, Fall 1980, 55.

^[17] Ibid., 54.

^[18] Weir, vii.

^[19] Vos, 9.

^[20] Sinclair B. Ferguson, John Owen on the Christian Life, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust), 1995, 20.

^[21] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology: Soteriology, II, (Hendrickson, 1999), 115.

^[22] Richard A. Muller, Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation: The Study of Theology From biblical interpretation to contemporary formulation, 7, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 85-6.

^[23] Geehardus Vos, The Covenant in Reformed Theology, (Philadelphia: K. M. Campbell, 1971), 5.

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Chapter Four:
The History of Antinomianism
Author Kevin Hartley

A particular but obscure dogma called antinomianism has emanated from the Reformation alongside federalism.  Though it has never been associated with a confession or particular church, it has a lengthy and varied past.  What is antinomianism?  Why does it need to be defined?  Its history and definition will answer the latter question, and its continued presence in theological discussion merits its identification.  The answer to the former question begins with the occurrence of that doctrine called antinomianism in Reformation history.  Antinomianism, to be properly defined, must first be accounted for as an element of the Reformation’s theological outgrowth.  The term antinomian was not a term chosen by those of this designation; rather, their opponents placed it upon them.  Much like the term amillennialist, it is often neither preferred nor truly descriptive of those placed under its designation.  History, though, has necessitated its use.  The word antinomian is a transliteration of the Greek word for law, nomos, and the prefix anti.  It literally is said to designate a person thought to be against the law. Gertrude Huehns wrote, “The Oxford Dictionary defines an antinomian as ‘one who maintains that the moral law is not binding upon Christians under the law of grace.’”^[1] As the next chapter will discuss, this definition set forth by Gertrude Huehns is not exhaustive or entirely accurate, but it will provide a suitable identification of the movement for the moment.  From Luther onward, the word has been applied to every shade and form of aberrant group, often appropriate, but at times misplaced. 

The first step in identifying that theology labeled antinomian is to separate into groups those who have been variously lumped together under that term.  Antinomianism, though never a confessional movement or a movement constrained to a particular historical church movement, is as much a part of the Reformation as was federal theology.  Antinomianism is as old as the Reformation itself, if not older.  Certain authors, like Gertrude Huehns trace it as far back as the Marcionites and Montanists of the early church.  Like federal theology, the traits of antinomianism can be traced through the history of Christendom as far back as Marcion or even Paul himself.  As a distinct historical phenomenon, however, antinomianism does not properly find itself historically affirmed until the days of Martin Luther.  It can be identified as a doctrine that grew up alongside federalism, having its roots in the Reformation.  Since Luther was the first to use the term (and did so designating a companion of his own as the first thusly called), antinomianism is best seen as birthed from the designation of Luther. 

One might argue which is older, federalism or antinomianism, and if federalism did not exist in form until the middle to late 16^th century, then antinomianism is the older of the two.  It predates federalism because the earliest Reformation doctrine next to sola Scriptura is sola fide.  Before federalism sought to reconcile divine sovereignty with personal responsibility, Luther was defining the Christian life as simul iustus est et peccatur ("he is at the same time justified and yet a sinner").   It is this theological designation that appears most often to be the root of antinomianism tendencies.  Luther himself was the first to use the term antinomian and it was applied to an associate of his in Eisleben.  Remarkably, in some of Luther’s early statements, he might have been rightly dubbed an antinomian, yet it is his close associate that bears the distinction as the first antinomian.  Daniel Steele wrote of the rise of antinomianism:

Its full development, since the Reformation, is due to John Agricola (1492-1566), one of the early coadjutors of Luther [. . .] he published in 1537 these words: "Art thou steeped in sin – an adulterer or thief?  If thou believest, thou art in salvation.  All who follow Moses must go to the devil; to the gallows with Moses [. . .].  Luther attacked him violently, calling him a fanatic, and other hard names.^[2]

The early date of Agricola’s words and doctrine predate the rise of federalism but are by nature antagonistic to federalism. 

Antinomianism traces its roots from Luther’s early theology.  One can observe the irony in Luther’s own remarks in reaction to Agricola.   Later in life Luther would draw back and reinstate the use and necessity of the law in the believer’s life, as circumstance and situation warranted.  It is understandable that antinomianism would first arise, as a child of the Reformation, alongside Lutheranism, as Luther’s early emphasis upon the relationship of men to God in salvation stressed a stark contrast between law and grace.  Huehns wrote, “Torn between these contradictory notions, it took Luther a long time, and assiduous reminding by the temporal authorities, before he was ready to realize that ‘whoever stops teaching the doctrine of the Law, dissolves all civil and domestic government […].’”^[3]   The first antinomian controversy erupted perhaps from Luther’s own doctrine itself, where a follower of his took the often-extreme statements of Luther and formulated a particular view of law and grace.  Agricola, though, was no Libertine (a practicing antinomian); it is understood that his view of the sinner as free from the law did not lead to licentiousness.  Luther drew back from Agricola because he viewed such dogma as dangerous.

Wherever the Reformation doctrine flourished, it met with its brother antinomianism.  Steele identifies Amsdorf and Otto as the successors of Agricola, noting that they maintained “that good works are an obstacle to salvation.”^[4]  Here is seen the logical conclusion that the law is antithetical to grace and works to faith.  It is congruous to statements from Luther such as: “good works come out of faith.”^[5]  As Luther drew out the distinctive antithesis between law and grace, the question of lawlessness was raised.  Calvin was not ignorant of the tendency amongst the teachings of the Reformers to foster an antinomian spirit, as he wrote, “For, as soon as Christian freedom is mentioned, either passions boil or wild tumults rise unless these wanton spirits are opposed in time, who otherwise most wickedly corrupt the best things. Some, on the pretext of this freedom, shake off all obedience towards God and break out into unbridled license.”^[6]  Calvin was speaking more of the Libertines of his association than the more chaste expressions of Agricola.  There were some who took the naked statements about Christian freedom and truly developed a lawless practice.  Apparently Calvin himself was not untouched by that which Luther faced in Agricola.  John Dillenberger wrote:

In the decade preceding the appearance of Servetus in Geneva in 1553, Calvin had frequent encounters with a series of fairly prominent individuals in Geneva on moral issues [. . .].  They belonged to an increasing number known as the Libertines, who in 1537 challenged the Council of Two Hundred, and who in a threatening episode, were quieted by Calvin as he rushed headlong into the armed crowd.^[7]

On both fronts, first in Germany and then Geneva, antinomianism was an early issue in Reformation history.  Between Luther and the antinomians, and in Geneva between Calvin and the Libertines, the reformers were engaged in battles against what they viewed as an extreme and excess view of Christian liberty.  They were struggling to define the Christian life, as it relates to God, as one of dutiful obedience contrary to the extreme position that defined the Christian’s obedience as irrelevant.

One must understand the historical climate of the day of Luther and Calvin; these debates were not simply theological in nature, but actually dealt with ecclesiastical affairs in the church.  Dillenberger notes, “in Calvin’s Geneva the moral issues involved both government and church, sometimes in alliance, sometimes in opposition.”^[8]  The issue came to a head in the matter of Servetus, a theologian and condemned heretic, who took up the Libertine cause.  Dillenberger notes, “For the most part, the opposition to Calvin was less interested in repudiating him as such or in supporting Servetus than it was in establishing its own freedom of life and morals.”^[9]  Against Servetus and Libertines, Calvin wrote, “Nor can any man rightly infer from this that the law is superfluous for believers, since it does not stop teaching and exhorting them to good, even though before God’s judgement seat it has no place in their consciences.”^[10]  The case of Servetus is involved and there is some indication that he used the Libertine cause for ill gain.  Nonetheless, the tension of defining the Christian’s relationship to God abounded.  At the heart of the disagreement between Luther and the antinomians and Calvin and the Libertines was the fundamental question federalism would answer: "What is the relationship between God and men?"

A Libertine, historically, was a man that would answer yes to Paul’s words "shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"  Those who bore the title antinomian in the 16^th and 17^th centuries did not necessarily in practice resemble such men. The Libertines Luther and Calvin disputed are not exactly the same as the antinomians that federalism protested in the 17^th century.  The Familists of Anne Hutchinson’s time are not the same as the Plymouth Brethren of John Nelson Darby’s day. Two distinct groups are identified: those rightly called Libertines, who would define the Christian’s obedience as irrelevant and sin as surreal, and those so-called antinomians.  Antinomianism, if the word is to be employed in its historical form, needs to be defined much as federal theology was defined in the previous section.  It must first be presented as a historical phenomenon.  It must be understood in its relationship to the Reformation and then identified through its various stages and manifestations.  As there are different forms of federalism answering to one single presupposition, so there are different forms of antinomianism answering to one single presupposition.

The early reformers laid the groundwork for the continuing disputes with antinomianism that would prevail through the life of the Reformation.  Antinomianism, much like an unwanted brother, followed the Reformation beyond the continent in its various formulations.  Seventeenth century England was immersed in its own Antinomian controversy.  Following the disputes of the magisterial reformers, the next notable movement of antinomianism arose in England in the days preceding the Westminster Assembly.  Whereas on the continent the issue appeared to center upon government, ecclesiastical authority, and immoral practice, in England the discussion took on a different form.  Antinomianism of the 17^th century was chiefly concerned with the issue of assurance and was more a theological discussion of merit.  Libertines and such were still prevalent in England, but there was a distinct difference between those fanatics and those called antinomians.  Antinomianism took on some degree of respectability in the 17^th century.  This was predominantly due to the fact that, much like Agricola, reputable men raised the issue of antinomianism.  While federalism was growing up, so was antinomianism.  The different form of 17^th century antinomianism was its understanding of the issues.

At the heart of 16^th century antinomianism had been the question of moral practice. In the 17^th century the debate shifted to the question of works as evidential of salvation.  It was the natural and logical question posed by antinomianism in light of the rise of federal theology.  Antinomianism of the 17^th century, after the assaults of the magisterial reformers upon the extremities of Agricola and the Libertines, softened its harsh edges and moved toward a more acceptable position nearer the early reformers.  The great disputes between the antinomians of the 17^th century and the federal theologians would not center upon the question of moral practice but more on the issue of assurance.  Steele wrote, “John Eaton (1575? -1642?), John Traske (d. 1636?), and Tobias Crisp (1600-1643), warrant introduction here, as illustrating comparatively radical approaches to the problem of assurance that were current in England around 1635 [. . .].”^[11]  The question changed between the 16^th and 17^th century.  In the 16^th century the question centered more upon the understanding of justification and how a man relates to God, as by faith alone.  In the 17^th century the question centered more upon the matter of sanctification, the use of works as evidential in one’s assurance, and the matter of impulse for obedience.  It has not been shown that there was theological dependence by the Antinomians of the 17^th century upon the antinomians of the 16^th century; rather, it appears that wherever the doctrines of the Reformation were taught there was a tension in defining the motive and scope of Christian living.  One might say the 16^th century theologians were the champions of doctrine, answering the question of how men relate to God, while the 17^th century theologians were champions of practice, answering the question of how men relate to God regarding assurance and sanctification.  While this is not absolute, federalism did give rise to an emphasis upon piety that gave rise to the questions asked by the antinomians.  Some moved toward a more legal position and some moved closer to a position of liberty.

Antinomianism was an established term by the days of Crisp, Eaton, and Traske.  Tobias Crisp speaks to the tension in his day:

It is true, I confess, this word liberty, hath gotten an ill name in the world, partly through the abuse of liberty, and partly through the malignity of some spirits, that strike even at the heart of Christ, through the sides of those that are Christ’s; laying reproachful, ignominious, and shameful names, upon them of libertinism.^[12]

John Gill wrote this defense of Tobias Crisp:

[. . .] being far from pride, vanity, and self-conceitedness, and full of meekness, lowliness, and tender-heartedness; whereby it appeared, that the gospel of Christ had a very great influence upon his soul, and which engaged him to preach it freely [. . .] but reproach and persecution, his doctrine being falsely charged with Antinomianism [. . .].”^[13]

The Antinomianism of the 17^th century was different from the antinomianism of the mid-16^th century.  Much like federalism grew out of the early disputes between the reformers with the Libertines and antinomians, so did antinomianism grow up and mature through the years.  The reformers had rightly answered the immoral designs of the early Libertines who sought liberty for the sake of licentiousness, but that victory did not settle the question of how men are to relate to God.  Is the Christian life a legal relationship or free, or is it a combination of both?  The question would continue to be asked.

Antinomianism was not necessarily Libertinism.  Many so-called antinomians were moral, pietistic, and godly.  Stoever said, “it was possible, however, to hold antinomian doctrines without in practice committing or condoning moral excess, and not everyone might technically be labeled ‘antinomian’ ended in libertinism.”^[14]  Tobias Crisp wrote, “But in this covenant of grace, to wit, the new covenant, it is far otherwise; there is not any condition in this covenant: mark what I say, and I beseech you hear me with an impartial and unprejudiced opinion.”^[15]  Here Crisp speaks to the heart of the 17^th century antinomian debate with federalism, where the issue is not the liberty to be immoral, but rather, the issue of liberty from the covenant scheme of federalism.  Aware of the charge of antinomianism, Crisp wrote in his sermon entitled No Licentious Doctrine:

[. . .] the freemen of Christ, when they transgress the law, as in all things they sin, yet when they sin, there is no curse, no menaces, no threatenings of the law to be executed upon them: should I come to instance, peradventure I should give offence to some; I would not willingly give offence to any; but the truth, as it is in Jesus, must not be concealed for fear of the anger of those that are enemies unto Christ [. . .].^[16]

It was well agreed upon by the antinomians of the 17^th century that freedom in Christ did not mean freedom to sin, and only the extreme Libertarians could be accused of such.  Yet this agreement did not put an end to the question of how a man relates to God.

The antinomianism of the 17^th century was to some degree an intramural debate within federalism.  Tobias Crisp said:

I am not ignorant, beloved, how this assertion goeth under the foul blur of Antinomianism, that blameless walking according to the law, being established, is a fruit of ignorance, and a cause of men’s not ‘submitting to the righteousness of God.’  And no marvel it goes for such now; for, in the apostle’s time it was accounted so; nay, it was objected against the apostle himself as direct Antinomianism: and, therefore, he was enforced to vindicate himself thus, ‘Do we then make void the law, (saith he) through faith?  God forbid!’ He takes away the objection they put to him, upon his establishing of God’s righteousness, and his overthrowing our righteousness.  It was objected, that hereby he went about to make void the law; and, therefore, it is no marvel it holds still as an objection, that the maintaining of this principle is the overthrowing of the law.  But, beloved, I must say to you, as the apostle did in the same case, ‘God forbid! yea, we establish the law,’ that is to say, in its right place.^[17] 

Crisp’s point is clear: that which was called antinomianism in his day was not antinomianism.  That is, the Libertine spirit of the day of Calvin and Luther that sought to use liberty for license was not what those called antinomians of the 17^th century taught.

Thus it can be said that the antinomianism of the 17^th century moved beyond the errors of the 16^th century.  Its statements were more guarded and informed. Early in the life of Puritan New England, there arose a controversy over antinomianism.  John Cotton, a Puritan minister of Boston, was, in the middle to late 30’s of the 17^th century, embroiled in what was called the Antinomian Controversy.  Remembered most as the case involving Anne Hutchinson (a member of Cotton’s congregation who had followed his migration from England), it was the same issue that English Puritans were battling back home.  Anne Hutchinson was brought to trial in New England for her disruption of New England life.  She had been holding large meetings, instructing others in the way of Cotton’s preaching.  There was a question of whether she was teaching men in those meetings and the content of the meetings.  She was eventually accused of saying that John Cotton taught a covenant of grace and the other New England ministers a covenant of works.  John Cotton was examined by his peers, as was Anne Hutchinson.  John Cotton was exonerated, but Anne Hutchinson was disciplined out of the colonies.  Banished, she made her way to Rhode Island, where the Puritan Roger Williams had moved after his controversy with the men of New England.  A most informative gathering of source materials and the actual transcripts of the trial can be found in David Hall’s, The Antinomian Controversy 1636-1638: A Documentary History.

The antinomianism in the 17^th century was far more discrete than that of the previous century.  This is well attested to by the fact that Anne Hutchinson was able to openly debate with the New England court at length from the Scriptures, presenting them with no openly condemnable error.  One has to question whether the antinomianism of the 17^th century really was of the same tenor as the antinomianism of the 16^th century.  Yes, much of 16^th century antinomianism was misrepresented, but this was often due to its brash infancy and to an often over-statement of its point.  Much like federalism, there was a maturation of thought for antinomianism.  It was no longer the brash child of Luther’s day willing to nail Moses to the tree, even though some of this sentiment still flourished in the 17^th century, but it was mature and seeking to establish itself as a true and valid understanding of how men relate to God in light of the understanding of free grace and works.  It stood against the federalist view of assurance and sanctification. 

The antinomians of the 17^th century taught full assurance, immediate upon the work of grace in regeneration.  Unlike the federalists, they dichotomized the soul. The federalists taught that, in regeneration, a holy principle is implanted in the man where a new will and heart are given and are part of the man.  Assurance was available, to a degree, upon regeneration but works were evidential, as sanctification was the operation of the holy principle of the man invoked by the Holy Spirit.  This was the thought of antinomians such as Crisp, Eaton, and Traske.  According to Stoever, “all three men treated regeneration as the divine power of Christ dwelling in the justified, yet in such a way that it remains separate from the individual’s corrupt human nature, which is not really regenerated at all."^[18]  As it fleshed itself out, there was a conscious end to sin in the regenerate.  Again Stoever writes:

From God’s viewpoint there simply is no longer any sin in believers or in the church.  On this ground Eaton firmly rejected the common Protestant notion that the justified are simultaneously sinners and righteous in God’s eyes.  By implication, when the justified sin, they do so in their own ‘sense and apprehension,’ not in God’s sight, and faith consists either in suppressing such apprehension or in not being bothered by it.^[19]

Such a conclusion was taken as a denial of the need and process of sanctification.  From the federalist viewpoint, if a sinner is made righteous and assured of it instantaneously, there is no need to concern oneself over sin or obedience after that point.  It was believed that God sees not our sins and we must not as well.

Accordingly, the disagreement between federalism and the antinomians of the 17^th century was centered on the constitution of the soul and the matter of sanctification.  Unlike the 16^th century where antinomianism was that practice of outward licentiousness and a misuse of liberty, in the 17^th century antinomianism was assessed as an inward licentiousness and misunderstanding of liberty.  Consequently, such misunderstanding posed a threat to the Puritan mind.  For if one were to separate the man and his part in the covenant from the process of godly vivification and mortification through the use of means, men would be given to licentiousness.  Antinomianism put forth the idea that “Sanctification, accordingly, is not in the godly themselves as part of their nature but is properly and perfectly in Christ, who, as the ‘new creature,’ is in them.”^[20]  If the godly were removed from the equation and sanctification was taken outside of the man and if the man was taught to ignore his sin as irrelevant, there was, to the federalist, no remaining restraint for undue liberty in license.  In other words, the antinomianism of the 17^th century was no different in the mind of the federalist to the antinomianism of the 16^th century, as both resulted in the same conclusion.  According to the antinomian, God relates to the regenerate in Christ and the sinful body and man are of no great concern.  Even though men like Agricola and Crisp would argue that grace and love, apart from law, were impetus enough, the charge would still be applied.  Crisp wrote:

We have our justification, our peace, our salvation, only by the righteousness Christ hath done for us: but this doth not take away our obedience, nor our services, in respect of those ends for which such are now required of believers.  We have yet several ends for duties and obedience, namely, That they may glorify God, and evidence our thankfulness, that they may be profitable to men, that they may be ordinances wherein to meet with God, to make good what he hath promised.^[21]

What was done in the body was said to have no effect upon the eternal state of the soul, so a man needed not to concern himself with the law’s condemnation.  At the heart of dispute in 17^th century antinomianism was the resolution of the question of God’s relationship to men.  Seventeenth Century antinomianism addressed the make-up of the soul, the use of law, and the impetus of action. 

Clearly the antinomians of the 17^th century did disagree with the charge of Libertinism.  They would argue they were doing nothing more than teaching true grace and that the motivation for the soul was not abandoned.  Huehns notes, “The antinomian contention was always that they would do all the law commanded – and even more.”^[22]  The antinomians would argue they had greater motivation and sense of the call of holiness.   Stoever notes, “these men rejected the notion that created being could participate in the transcendent work of redemption and spiritual rebirth.  As a result, they were forced to seek justification, and subjective awareness of it, in works of divine immediacy.”^[23]  This divine immediacy produced an assurance that led to holy living.  For the federalist the importation of a holy habit was the supernatural work leading to greater holiness; it occurred in the man.   For the antinomian, “Being thus redeemed, the antinomians found their moral obligation increased, and the gravity of any offense sharpened.”^[24]  The conclusion was: “Thus the new doctrine seemed to slight the merely mechanical justice of merit and reward and to lay stress rather on the good will of the soul confronted with the demands of the divine.”^[25]  In its simplest form, the antinomianism of the 17^th century did not agree with the premise of federalism that God related to men in sanctification by human means.  Motivation was also an issue; Antinomianism did not necessarily say a man was without law.  Tobias Crisp said, “I do not say the law is absolutely abolished, but it is abolished in respect of the curse of it, to every person that is a free-man of Christ; so though such a man sin, the law hath no more to say to him than if he had not sinned.”^[26]  Crisp does not speak of sinning that good may abound; rather, he notes the proper end to salvation in obedience.  The antinomian denial of the basic tenant of federal theology does not necessarily place them in the category of teachers of lawlessness.

As noted earlier in this chapter, while the controversy was raging in England, it was transplanted to the New World.  The "Antinomian Controversy" arose in New England during the years 1636-38, at the same time English antinomianism was gaining popularity.   As it was in England, the Antinomian Controversy of New England was an intramural federalist debate; it involved Puritans debating with Puritans.  Anne Hutchinson affirmed the absoluteness of assurance as a consequence of the personal testimony of the Holy Spirit.   In New England the controversy was short-lived, while in England the controversy raged for the length of the century.  Its American counterpart was successfully snuffed out by the labors of the ministers of New England.  One thing, though, is true: wherever federalism was found, wherever the Reformation progressed, questions regarding the soul, works, faith, and law, abounded. They were but an indication of the root question of how God relates to men.  For some the federalist answer was insufficient.

It has been the general tendency of federalism to haphazardly lump together as antinomian all those in disagreement with the basic tenants of federalism.  “Sedgwick for instance repeats it senselessly: ‘the whole rabble of Antinomians such as were the Manichees, the Marcionites, the Montanists, the Muscovites, the Anabaptists, the Socinians together with their offspring and followers the Antinomians, a generation of Libertines [. . .].”^[27]  Huehns also states, “This use of the term is even confirmed by the tolerant William Walwyn who lists ‘under the common nicknames (used) of purpose to make them odious to Authority and all sorts of men…Brownists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers and the like [. . .].’”^[28]  The names given antinomians of the 17^th century were many: “the antisectarian commission of 1634 enumerates: ‘sundry sortes of separatists and novelists as namely – Brownists, Anabaptists, Arians, Traskites, Familists, and some sorts [. . .] Sensualists, Antinomians [. . .].”^[29]  The word antinomian was often a salvo fired at anyone who questioned the conclusions of federalism.  Antinomianism grew up with a tarnished name.

The fervor of antinomianism appeared to dissipate after the rise and decline of the days of Cromwell as Lord Protectorate during the Puritan revolution in mid-seventeenth century England.  With the decline in Puritanism and its piety, perhaps the tension between the two decreased.  As the height of federalism was reached, antinomianism appeared to peak. As one declined, so did the other.  Huehns notes, “the antinomian argument was carried on in the eighteenth century [. . .].  It lived on [. . .] as an egocentric or sentimental protest against the mechanistic tendencies of undiluted rationalism.”^[30]  Gerstner says, “In Scotland, the Sandemanians were antinomians with a vengeance.  All so-called ‘good works’ were considered bad works.”^[31]

The term antinomian did not die out with the 17^th century.  It was later associated with the Plymouth Brethren movement and today has been used to refer to dispensationalism.  Daniel Steele said of the Plymouth Brethren, “Perfect holiness, with the Brethren, is one and the same with justification.  It is, or was, a finished work of God.  It is in no sense personal in ourselves, but in Christ, and accomplished when he died on the cross [. . .].  No sin committed by a justified person can in the least affect his justification.”^[32]  His identification of Plymouth Brethren speaks to the same issue of the 17^th century.  He notes, “In short, the creed of the Antinomian is this: I was justified when Christ died, and my faith is simply waking up to the fact that I have always been saved [. . .].”^[33]  He quotes another:

Rev. J. Fletcher says, "An Antinomian is a professor of Christianity, who is antinomos, against the law of Christ, as well as against the law of Moses.  He allows Christ’s law to be a rule of life, but not a rule of judgment for believers, and thus he destroys the law at a stroke, as a law; it being evident that a rule by the personal observance or non-observance of which Christ’s subjects can never be acquitted or condemned, is not a law for them.”^[34]

Steele produces the evidence linking John Nelson Darby, the father of dispensationalism, with the Plymouth Brethren.  He notes, “We have heard Mr. Darby say that if any man had anything to do with the law of God, even to obey it, he was a sinner by that very act.”^[35]  Steele would declare:

[. . .] there is an exhortation to practical holiness in most of the writings of the Brethren, on this wise: "Be holy down here because ye are holy up there" (in Christ).  "Strive to make your state correspond with your standing."  Yet this motive to Christian purity is neutralized by the assurance the believer’s standing in Christ is eternal anyhow [. . .] ultimate salvation is certain.^[36]

From the Plymouth Brethren to Darby to dispensationalism, the term antinomian has not gone out of vogue.  Much in its wake, of late, has been the uproar over the Lordship Salvation debate.  John Gerstner, in his book, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth, has a whole chapter entitled Dispensational Antinomianism.  John Gerstner reaches the conclusion that “Dispensationalism clearly teaches Antinomianism.”^[37]  From Agricola to dispensationalism, a common thread of contiguous advancement alongside Reformation theology can be drawn in the formulation of that which is called antinomianism.  It is inherently in disagreement with the basic tenants of federalism and, thus, is an entity all its own.  In the next chapter a concise and exhaustive definition of antinomianism shall be set forth.

^[1] Gertrude Huehns, Antinomianism in English History: With special reference to the period 1640-1660, (London: The Cresset Press, 1951), 11.

^[2] Daniel Steele, A Substitute for Holiness or, Antinomianism Revived, (New York: Garland, 1984), 47.

^[3] Huehns, 31, 32.

^[4] Steele, 47.

^[5] Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans, (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1954), xv.

^[6] John Calvin, Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion: The Library of Christian Classics, XX, tr. Ford Lewis Battles, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), 834. 

^[7] John Dillenberger ed., John Calvin: Selections from his Writings, (Scholars Press, 1975), 7.

^[8] Ibid., 6.

^[9] Ibid., 7.

^[10] John Calvin, 835.

^[11] Steele, 138.

^[12] Tobias Crisp, Christ Alone Exalted in the Perfection and Encouragement of the Saints, Notwithstanding Sins and Trials, being the Complete Works of Tobias Crisp, D.D., 1, (London: John Bennett, 1832), 122.

^[13]Ibid., vi.

^[14] Stoever, 162.

^[15] Ibid., 86.

^[16] Ibid., 130.

^[17] Ibid., 143.

^[18] Stoever, 139.

^[19] Ibid., 140.

^[20] Ibid., 143.

^[21] Tobias Crisp, 134.

^[22] Huehns, 12.

^[23] Stoever, 147.

^[24] Huehns, 13.

^[25] Ibid., 14.

^[26] Tobias Crisp, 132.

^[27] Huehns, 37.

^[28] Ibid., 37.

^[29] Ibid., 66.

^[30] Ibid., 171.

^[31] John Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, (Brentwood: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), 212.

^[32] Daniel Steele, 17.

^[33] Ibid., 35.

^[34] Ibid., 31.

^[35] Ibid., 58.

^[36] Ibid., 79-80.

^[37] John Gerstner, 230.

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Chapter Five:
Defining Antinomianism
Author: Kevin Hartley

The use of the term antinomian has not been left in antiquity.  While it can be argued that true historic antinomianism does not exist today, the word remains in use among many in theological discussion.  Sadly, though, it is used most often in ignorance and as an affront.  This fact necessitates the proper definition of antinomianism in order that the word may retain its historical integrity.  If the word is to be used historically and properly, it cannot continue to be so broadly and indiscriminately used as it has been of late.  An antinomian, as identified by the word’s historic use, is neither simply a theologian who accentuates the law of Christ over and above the Law of Moses, nor is an antinomian necessarily someone who draws a sharp distinction between law and grace.  An historic antinomian is also neither simply someone who stresses the grace and goodness of God as the impetus behind gospel obedience, nor is an antinomian someone who stresses discontinuity between the biblical covenants. The true antinomian asserts an absolute antithesis between law and grace.  This is the fundamental presupposition of historic antinomianism.  Historic antinomianism sets forth the premise that God relates to men either by way of law or by grace and never the twain shall meet.  The implications of this presupposition are pervasive and devastating to the gospel, as this chapter shall detail.  True historic antinomianism is, was, and ever shall be heresy.

An understanding of the antinomian presupposition begins with an understanding of where the doctrine generally is born.  Whenever and wherever the doctrines of grace are taught, there appears to be a subsequent rise of antinomianism.  The reason for this correlation is that whenever free grace is taught there are always those who take the doctrine of grace to its extreme application.  Antinomianism is built upon a radical view of the fundamental reformation doctrine of sola fide.  Gertrude Huehns states, “…it was always [. . .] free justification by Christ alone.”^[1]  Thus, the doctrine of free grace has been, albeit inadvertently, instrumental in the rise of antinomianism in every age, yet it is not the grounds for such conclusions.  Antinomian theology takes true free grace and makes it grace free from the human element.  It takes grace and teaches, applies, and places it outside the metaphysical realm, separating the man, this world, and this life from God’s gracious work.  In a sense, antinomianism has historically taught that salvation is a heavenly, eternal work that has never infiltrated the natural realm. 

Antinomianism took salvation outside of the cosmic scheme and made salvation a matter separate from this world.  The antinomian gospel taught an eternal justification where men did not exercise faith; rather, men were justified by the faith that was Christ’s.  A man’s salvation was accomplished and applied in the heavens.  Justification and sanctification were instantaneous, and the importance of Christian living on this earth was annulled.  The work of grace was in the spiritual realm, and the law never once entered that realm nor played a role in the work of salvation.  John Eaton said:

When there is any morall work commanded to be done upon paine of punishment, or upon promise of any reward either temporall or eternall, there is to be understood the voyce of the Law.  Contrarywise, where the promise of life, favour, salvation, or any other blessings and benefits are offered to us freely, without our deservings, and simply without any condition annexed to them of any Law, either naturall, ceremoniall or morall, all those places, whether they be read in the Old Testament or in the New, are to be referred to the voice and doctrine of the Gospel.^[2]

Thus, never in the antinomian theology was law a factor for the Christian in redemptive, historical salvation.  God eternally related to men either by way of the law or by grace, and the two never intersected.   A Christian could say the law never played a role in his or her salvation; he was always a child of God, who looked upon the elect with mercy eternally and was never once displeased with the person.   In reality, the person was no sinner, since sin was never held against him; he was, in the eyes of God, justified and sanctified in Christ.  Life, for the true antinomian, was never defined as a process of godly mortification and vivification, since the sinner was perfect in Christ and as God looked upon him. 

Salvation, for the true antinomian, occurs completely outside himself. There is never an effect of grace upon the natural man.  The natural man is not renewed by grace, but rather is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit simply imposes himself upon the man and never does the natural man, in his being, change.  The natural man has not faith, since it is not the man’s faith that justifies, but Christ’s faith that justifies.  The natural man does not die to sin or grow in holiness, in himself, since it is the Holy Spirit in him that is perfect and causes all grace to flow from the man.  Thus, the Christian is never concerned about sin in this life since it is the natural man that sins and shall never change and is not known to God.  All good deeds are simply the immediate work of the Holy Spirit.  A Christian is also never concerned about sin in his life because it is of the old man; it is ignored by God, and repentance, conviction, and sorrow for sin have no place in the Christian’s life.  A man is fully sanctified, though he sins and does so egregiously, and never once is God displeased with him.  John Winthrop listed this as a fundamental error of the antinomians when he wrote of the New England Antinomian Controversy: “Error 32. After the revelation of the spirit, neither the Devill nor sinne can make the soule to doubt.”^[3]  Assurance for the antinomian was immediate and never to be questioned.

The implications drawn from antinomianism were disastrous.  Since the man was taken completely out of the process of salvation, never once was the importance of this life raised.  Life for the antinomian became, as Samuel Rutherford coined it, “a matter of courtesie [. . .].”^[4]  But understand that even such courtesie was not the soul’s act of gratitude or contrition.  An antinomian was not saying a sinner finds gratitude, or thanksgiving, a cause for obedience.  An antinomian would declare that no consideration of the man, based upon the soul’s reflection, was instrumental in good works.  Sanctification, for the antinomian, was no process; instead, it was instantaneous perfection outside the natural man.  Faith was never of the man; it was ever of Christ.  Therefore, the process of salvation never once touched the man outside the Holy Spirit’s indwelling effect.  Gertrude Huehns states, “the answer of the antinomians remained the same: they could not be touched by anything that belonged either to the dispensation of nature nor to that of law.”^[5]  Thus, consider the logical conclusions of antinomianism as draw up by John Winthrop:

The nature of the Opinions themselves, which open such a faire and easie way to Heaven, that men may passe without difficulty.  For, if a man need not be troubled by the Law, before faith, but may step to Christ so easily; and then, if his faith be no going out of himselfe to take Christ, but onely a discerning that Christ is his owne already, and is onely an act of the Spirit upon him, no act of his owne done by him; and if he, for his part, must see nothing in himselfe, have nothing, doe nothing, onely he is to stand still and waite for Christ to doe all for him.  And then if after faith, the Law no rule to walke by, no sorrow or repentance for sinne; he must not be pressed to duties, and need never pray, unlesse moved by the Spirit: And if he fals into sinne, he is never the more disliked of God, nor his condition never the worse.  And for his assurance, it being given him by the Spirit, he must never let it goe, but abide in the height of comfort, though he fals into the grossest sinnes that he can.^[6]

Life for the antinomian was one of enduring euphoria.  Salvation was never in doubt from the moment the Holy Spirit entered and dwelt.  Regardless of what was done in life, one’s assurance, confidence, and bliss were never changed.  Commands had no place in the Christian life, regardless of where they came from, since, although they were scriptural commands of Christ, even they were legal works.  Only the spiritual law, made known by the Spirit and his exercise, was considered of the gospel.  Exhortation was as useless as any word of instruction for the man.  The Christian was given simply to wait upon the Spirit to work good while the natural man just kept on sinning, which, to the Christian, was neither to trouble him or cause him any thought.  Assurance was full and instantaneous and afforded the Christian simply by the Holy Spirit’s testimony within him or her.  The word of God was irrelevant, as the true word of God was Christ speaking by the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, all means were fundamentally denied in the absolute separation of the spiritual and physical categories of antinomianism.  John Gerstner notes:

For the Reformed theologian, good works, while the result of divine grace, are genuinely human actions.  For the antinomian, good works are divine actions, the direct action of God within the human person…This dualism leads in turn to an odd, but understandable juxtaposition of licentiousness and Perfectionism – sometimes in combination.^[7]

A true antinomian is at one moment denying the important process of sanctification and at the same moment affirming his perfection while sinning.  He does not grieve over his sin, repent, or even give it a nod.  Never once is the antinomian like the man Paul speaks of in Romans seven who is wrestling within.  The antinomian doctrine taught that the true Christian never wrestles but always has full and impenetrable assurance.  Again, the theological implications of historic antinomianism are grave.

Historic antinomianism, then, is established upon an absolute separation between law and grace, where God relates to men either by law (only with the natural man) or grace (in the spiritual man), and law, condemnation, and guilt have no place in the Christian’s life.  Consider a catalogue of errors (noting only a few) as drawn up by the Puritan fathers in New England:  “Errour 33. To act by vertue of, or in obedience to a command, is legall.”^[8]  Any reaction of a man upon hearing a word of exhortation or command was a legal act and not of the gospel.  The word of God contained nothing to mandate or by which to frame his life, since the true word of God was made known through the Holy Spirit that dwelt within.  “Errour 64. A man must take no notice of his sinne, nor of his repentance for his sinne.”^[9]  Such actions were legal acts, acts of the natural man, and the spiritual man was to neither be concerned nor attentive to the acts of the natural man.  These activities (of awareness of continuing sinfulness and repentance for it) were legal acts, denying the full assurance a Christian had at the moment of the Holy Spirit’s assurance.  “Errour 67. A man cannot evidence his justification by his sanctification, but he must needs build upon his sanctification, and trust to it.”^[10]  His only reflection came not from his life, since all his life did was show the Holy Spirit’s work and the natural man’s work, but his reflection came from that instantaneous work of assurance at the moment of belief.  “Errour 72. It is a fundamentall and soule-damning errour to make sanctification an evidence of justification.”^[11]  For a man to even look upon his works as evidential of his salvation was law work and damnable work.  All of the Puritan attention to the process of sanctification, of examining oneself, of growing in holiness, was denied by the antinomian doctrine.  “Errour 77. Sanctification is so farre from evidencing a good estate that it darkens it rather, and a man may more clearely see Christ, when he seeth no sanctification than when he doth, the darker my sanctification is, the brighter is my justification.”^[12]  It was as though the antinomian was saying, “let sin abound that grace may abound.”  It was as though an antinomian was taught to take greater comfort in his sinfulness than in any manifestation of goodness in his life.  He needed no witness from works, since his assurance was complete at one moment and his surety was perfect in the eyes of God from the beginning.

Thus it is, for the true antinomian, that commands have no place in the Christian’s life.  It was considered a legal matter for any law (Christ’s law or a perceived moral law) to be an impetus of action.  A Christian performed good works at the whims of the Spirit, and those works were of no use to one’s assurance since the Spirit gave immediate and undeniable assurance to the soul at the moment of his indwelling of the person.  In the antinomian formulation, God is said to relate to men either through a legal or evangelical way.  Steele summarizes it this way:

In short, the creed of the Antinomian is this: I was justified when Christ died, and my faith is simply a waking up to the fact that I have always been saved – a realization of what was done before I had any being; that a believer is not bound to mourn for sin, because it was pardoned before it was committed, and pardoned sin is no sin; that God does not see sin in believers, however great sins they commit; that by God’s laying our iniquities upon Christ, He became as completely sinful as I, and I as completely righteous as Christ.  Moreover, I believe that no sin can do a believer any ultimate harm, although it may temporarily interrupt communion with God.  I must not do any duty for my own salvation.  This is included in the new covenant, which is all of it a promise, having no condition on my part.^[13]

Now many think such things when they encounter free grace, but the realities of this sinful life and the knowledge of the changes in the man and in the soul are usually enough to convince a man to avoid the extremes of antinomianism.  Coupled with the fact that the word of God is scattered with gospel commands and admonition, the cautious soul understands that to embrace antinomianism is to deny the very word of God itself.  In the estimation of the antinomian, the word of God was a legal book; hence, it was useless to the Christian. 

Consequently, the antinomian understood that the truly elect needed no book; they have the Spirit and the Son.  In the legal way, the law condemns, and all actions are worthless towards one’s own righteousness.  Even if the written word could have an effect upon the man, it would only be a legal effect.  In the gospel way, the natural man is wholly excluded from acting, and the Holy Spirit alone chooses to act. Law has no place in the working of salvation, either before or after salvation.  Stoever wrote, “From God’s viewpoint there simply is no longer any sin in believers or in the church.  On this ground Eaton firmly rejected the common Protestant notion that the justified are simultaneously sinners and righteous in God’s eyes.”^[14]  Salvation, justification, and sanctification are all spiritual matters and have no introduction into the physical realm.  Stoever noted, “Traske, not unlike Eaton, distinguished between the respective times of law and gospel and denied that the law is to be preached to believers at all, for neither does it serve to work repentance and faith nor is it a rule for believers to walk by.”^[15] 

In the end, the antinomian had no place in his life for the word of God, nor for admonition, nor exhortation, as they were legal means to legal works.  Never was a Christian to concern himself over sin in this life since to do so was to deny the power of God.  Works were never useful for assurance since assurance was an instantaneous work at the moment of the Holy Spirit’s introduction into the man.  John Gerstner says that antinomianism is the true doctrine of “let go and let God,” and in that analysis he is right.  In its logical end antinomianism made the Christian life a utopia.  Men were to never doubt, question, trouble themselves over, or concern themselves about what the natural man was doing, as it mattered not to him or God.  Neither was a person to consider, strive, or contemplate obedience since to act on such grounds would be legal acts, and only the Holy Spirit’s impetus could produce gracious acts.

Nevertheless, to be cordial and fair, it is proper to pause and remind the reader that the antinomians of history were often practicing antinomians of varying degree.  Many were simply theological antinomians; their lives were not evidential of their belief that sinning was a good thing.  As is often the case, one does not always follow through entirely on the logical and necessary conclusions of their presuppositions.  There were historically varying degrees of antinomianism.  Some in Luther’s day went so far as to say “good works are an obstacle to salvation,”^[16] but not all agreed with Luther, as Agricola was said to not represent so aberrant a view.  Early antinomianism was more Libertine than later historical antinomianism.  The antinomianism of Puritan England (held by such men as Crisp, Taske, and Eaton) was more interested in the teaching of grace apart from law and was, in some sense, reactionary to the often-extreme experimentalism of Puritan piety.  Often Puritan examination was overstated, leading many to lack assurance and providing a way for the antinomian to come in with that faire and easiee waye.  Antinomianism was more theological and practical, and often sought to defend itself against the charge of extreme licentiousness.  The antinomianism of Puritan New England was even more discrete, as it was more interested in assaulting the evidential use of works, denying the practical syllogism, and fighting against the preparatory use of the law for leading one to Christ.  One must understand that antinomianism had its expressions of degree, and the careful man must be cautious to intricately examine a person's statements and presuppositions before applying the historical term antinomian, because to do so is slanderous.

It might be said that the middle way of antinomianism was historically more a theological premise than it was a mandate on life.  Antinomianism, in its mature form, often did not press its presupposition to its logical end.  True antinomianism did not abandon the idea of obedience and godly living, as is evident in the life and teaching of those who bore the title, even if it is believed that their theological assumptions drew such conclusions.  There is a clear difference between one who teaches sin is good and what is done in this body is irrelevant and one who teaches that love is the impetus behind action brought about by the Holy Spirit.  There is also a clear difference between one who teaches that what is done in this life does not matter and one who teaches, as Tobias Crisp did in saying, “If you abide in Christ and keep in Christ, no searjent of the law dares come in to serve a writ; no accusation of the law can come in against you.”^[17]  As seen in this quote, at times antinomianism was historically an overstatement of its presupposition voiced in rhetorical wit.  Antinomianism was chargeable with an over emphasis upon the distinctive differences between law and grace and failing (or consciously choosing not) to seek continuity between the legal and the gracious. Chronically, antinomianism was ill timed, poorly thought out, and reactionary to perceived legal means and orders, such as John Goodwin's sermon in New England on the fast day, when he was ordered to humbly consider the trouble brought upon New England by the Antinomian Controversy.

 We may conclude that an antinomian is someone who has a particular view of the relationship between God and men and expresses that view in contradistinction to the view of federalism.  The true issue raised by the antinomian presupposition is identifying how God relates to men in this life and how law and grace function in such a relation.  Antinomianism is basically a denial of federal theology.  As it grew up alongside federalism, it maintained a distinct identity of its own and was often heard as a brother berating its sibling.  Federal theology constructed a contiguous and complementary view of creation, salvation, and sanctification.  The covenant of works was not antithetical to the covenant of grace; both were God’s means to an end.  Antinomianism denied the premise that the covenant of works and covenant of grace were complementary. 

Antinomianism often functioned within federal theology, affirming the designations of the various covenants.  This is why it is necessary to address presuppositions. Antinomians were able to speak of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace and often hide themselves quite well. 

As noted in the last chapter, antinomianism went wherever federalism traveled.  This was the case in New England in the 17^th century. The New England court comprised of New England Puritan divines that reviewed Anne Hutchinson’s antinomian practice had great trouble condemning her.  When reading the transcripts one is brought to remark of her composure, verbal skill, and theological proximity to the federal Puritans of her day.   Her great error was in speaking without provocation, offering her thoughts on the Spirit’s direct witness. She declared that the Spirit gave to her immediate insight beyond the metaphysical realm, where she was able to discern times, happenings, and circumstance as made known to her by the Holy Spirit alone.  She might have succeeded if she had not volunteered this insight into the supposed direct witness of the Spirit, which gave her accusers the means to condemn her. 

Antinomians did not necessarily disagree with the scheme of the covenants.  They did, however, disagree with the federal understanding of a covenant. They were at odds with the presupposition of federal theology that God relates to men by way of a covenant, meaning there is an involvement of men in salvation where men, by faith, affirm the covenant with God.  Antinomianism denied such involvement of men, and the denial of this basic premise was the undoing and unraveling of the whole premise of federalism.  The entwined knot of federalism holds together the very principle of the established relationship between God and men in a metaphysical covenant relationship.  Antinomianism appeared to abandon all sense of agreement and consequent necessity.  John Gerstner wrote:

Another historic factor contributing to this heresy is an ontological dualism, which denigrates the created order and places total reliance upon the direct and unmediated work of God.  It is crucial to understanding the point at issue here.  The question is not divine monergism in salvation – whether salvation is entirely a work of God.  Rather, the issue at stake is whether God works through the created order and whether God truly effects positive changes in the created order.^[18]

Since antinomianism dichotomized the soul into the Holy Spirit and the impotence of men, good works were not acts of men and had no direct bearing upon their standing before God; to the antinomian the covenant did not involve men or any act of theirs.  This seeming abandonment of the involvement of men in the process of justification and sanctification was the point of contention.  The antinomian said all good works are of the immediate and not mediated work of the Holy Spirit.

Antinomianism was not, then, in agreement with the presupposition of federal theology.  Neither can it be said that antinomianism is synonymous with dispensationalism, as John Gerstner sought to affirm in his book, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism.  From the vantage of principal presuppositions, antinomianism is an entity all its own.  Again, the presuppositions of antinomianism and dispensationalism set the two apart.  Where dispensationalism drew an antithesis between law and grace, it did so subordinate to its ethnic distinctive.  Daniel P. Fuller wrote:

These ‘vital distinctions’ of dispensationalism are the physical and spiritual seed of Abraham; the earthly, Messianic kingdom of God versus the timeless, spiritual kingdom; Jesus’ coming again ‘for’ his saints in distinction to his coming again ‘with’ his saints; and the absolute distinction between Israel – God’s earthly people, and the Church – God’s heavenly people.^[19]

Daniel Fuller’s words predate the current advancements in progressive dispensationalism and therefore are somewhat antiquated.  Yet his statement demonstrates that, while dispensationalism does purport a deep-seated antithesis between law and grace, that antithesis is subordinate to its precursory presupposition of ethnic distinction.  Historic antinomianism is of a different breed altogether than dispensationalism.  Dispensationalism does not necessarily overlook the metaphysical aspects of salvation.  Equally, antinomianism is not predicated upon the premise that God relates to Israel one way and all others of ethical distinction another; instead, it purports that God relates to men either by law or by grace and never both.

What separates historic antinomianism’s presuppositional law-grace antithesis from both federalism and dispensationalism is its pervasiveness.  Antinomianism is predicated upon an absolute antithesis between law and grace.  The word absolute is what makes antinomianism itself.  An antinomian can at one minute sound dispensational and the next federal and never once be either.  A dispensationalist may say things that sounds antinomian to a federalist, and a federalist may say things that could be antinomian in character, yet such statements do not necessarily make one an antinomian.  If the word antinomian is to be properly used in its historical and theological context, it must be assigned to those who affirm the basic presupposition antinomianism has historically defended.  A true antinomian is not someone who discounts the application of the law to a Christian; a true antinomian denies the Christian altogether.  True historic antinomians deny scripture, all commands, and all growth in sanctification, while affirming all the elect as perfect and sin of no concern or consequence in their lives.  The true antinomian is more than against law; he is against salvation.

In order for a person to be an antinomian he must hold to the presupposition that God relates to men either by law or by grace and never in combination.  He must believe assurance is only to be obtained by an inner witness of the Holy Spirit that is instantaneous and never changes.  He must believe that God never regards sin in his life and neither should he.  He must believe he is not justified by faith in himself, whether by grace or not, but that it was Christ’s faith which justified him.  He must believe sanctification is not a process, but that perfection is attainable in this life and possessed of all those in Christ, and that he need merely reflect upon the sense of assurance he had at the moment of life.  He must believe that commands, exhortations, law, repentance, sorrow, and grief have no place in his life.  He must believe that every good thing done in him is solely the work of the Holy Spirit and that he remains constitutionally unchanged.  He must believe the bible is a legal text and the Spirit’s working within us says something wholly different from what is in the written word, as Thomas Collier said:

It remaines a Rule, so farre as we are in the flesh, I mean in the knowledge of Christ after the flesh, but as God writes his Lawes in the hearts of his people [. . .] so shall they live above the Law in the Letter, even of the Gospel, yet not without it, for they have it within them [. . .] and so they are a Law to themselves.^[20]

He must believe he is sufficient in Christ, apart from natural things, means, and ends.  He must believe, in conclusion, that the Christian life is irrelevant, unnecessary, and of no avail.  The antinomian takes life out of the way and says that God relates to men in this life legally; he says that God relates to men in Christ spiritually, and he affirms in absoluteness that never the twain shall meet.  Thus, there really is a faire and easiee way, and what is done in this life is of no great concern.  He can truly say, "go and sin that grace may abound and rejoice when you sin because God declares you are perfect and what you do has no bearing upon that fact."  Whether theological or practical, antinomianism is not biblical Christianity, and to call someone an antinomian, in ignorance of the term, is theologically unforgivable.  We must know our terms and our presuppositions, and we must not let ignorant words wage the war for the truth.

^[1] Gertrude Huehns, 39.

^[2] Ibid., 39.

^[3] David D. Hall, The Antinomian Controversy: 1636-1638: A Documentary History, (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1968), 227.

^[4] Ibid., 52.

^[5] Gertrude Huehns, 50, 1.

^[6] David. D. Hall, 203.

^[7] John Gersnter, 211.

^[8] David D. Hall. 227.

^[9] Ibid., 236.

^[10] Ibid., 237.

^[11] Ibid., 239.

^[12] Ibid., 240.

^[13] Steele, 45.

^[14] Stoever, 140.

^[15] Ibid., 142.

^[16] Steele, 47.

^[17] Tobias Crisp, 132.

^[18] John Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, (Brentwood: Wlgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), 210.

^[19] Daniel P. Fuller, Gospel & Law: Contrast or Continuum? The Hermeneutics of Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology, (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1980), 3.

^[20] Gertrude Huehns, 53.

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Chapter Six:
The History of Dispensationalism
Author: Kevin Hartley

Dispensationalism is a rather recent phenomenon. Attempts to affirm its existence prior to the late 19^th century have proven unsuccessful.  It has a history consisting of no more than two centuries, with its success mostly due to events in the 20^th century, where it has been most prevalent in the United States.  It is a later development in Reformation history and has its roots in the Plymouth Brethren movement in late Puritan England.  Its counterpart was Methodism and Arminianism.  As a system of theology or dogma, it is identifiable by its singular distinctive: it defines God’s relationship to men based upon ethnicity.  Dispensationalism, as it will be defined in the next chapter, while claiming many facets distinctive to its theology, boils down to the singular presupposition that the physical nation Israel was, and remains, peculiar within the economy of God’s redemptive plan beyond the day of Pentecost.  The most fundamental distinctive and basic presupposition of dispensationalism is that God relates to men in one of two ways:  as an Israelite of physical descent or as a non-Israelite of physical descent.  Dispensationalism is identified by this fundamental premise, and if we are to look for dispensationalism historically, we must look for this premise.  

In the previous chapters, dogma has been identified by its presupposition.  Federal theology was identified by its covenant motif, which was not evident in history until the late 16^th century.  Its antecedents were evident quite early in church history, but its formulation was a result of the Reformation.  The same was shown regarding antinomianism; while its tenants historically preceded Luther, its formulation was not fully evident until Johannes Agricola set forth his teaching in the early 16^th century.  Thus both federalism and antinomianism are consequential to the Reformation, and their fundamental presuppositions are directly related to it.  In like circumstance, efforts to show dispensationalism’s historical validity have proven unsuccessful.  This is why it was stated above that dispensationalism is a rather recent phenomenon.  Prior to John Nelson Darby, in the 19^th century, dispensationalism did not exist, but elements of it did exist.  Premillennialism can be traced back quite early in church history (though never a dominant view), as could the dispensational divisions John Darby affirms; yet, just as it was shown with federalism and antinomianism, the mere existence of traits conducive to dogma do not affirm its existence.  It is the fundamental presupposition of a theology that affirms its existence.  Just because premillennialism has a history that predates Darby does not mean that dispensationalism has a history traceable to the early church.  Attempts to claim early church attestation for dispensationalism have failed.  It is identifiable, historically, by its presupposition, and its presupposition did not exist until the days of John Darby.  John Gerstner notes, “There is little point in closely surveying early church history for anticipations of Dispensationalism proper.  Dispensationalists themselves claim novelty for their system.  They recognize that it was mainly a nineteenth-century phenomenon.”^[1]  Equally, Charles Ryrie states: 

The first straw man is to say that dispensationalists assert that the system was taught in postapostolic times.  Informed dispensationalists do not claim that. They recognize that, as a system, dispensationalism was largely formulated by Darby, but that the outlines of a dispensationalist approach to the Scriptures are found much earlier.^[2]

So, both dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists agree that dispensationalism, as a system, began in the late 19^th century.

Dispensationalism’s lateness in the aftermath of the Reformation makes its association with the Reformation somewhat removed.  As has been shown, federalism arose directly from questions in Reformation theology, as did antinomianism.  Dispensationalism can claim no such relationship, but must trace its origins from the first generation children of the Reformation, perhaps even from the Church of England itself.  The only consequential relationship dispensationalism may claim to the Reformation is through its roots in the so-called Radical Reformation.  However, dispensationalism appears to be isolated to the Plymouth Brethren and its association with John Darby. Dispensationalism did not arise from questions regarding the sovereignty of God and election, nor did it arise from the tension raised by the doctrine of justification by faith alone; rather, it arose through ecclesiastical concerns of post-Puritan English Reformation tensions, as summarized by Daniel Steele: 

Darby, a clergyman in the Church of England, renounced the Church, and assumed that all existing Church organizations are a detriment to Christianity, and obstructive of regeneration and the spiritual life [. . .]. They insist that in Christianity there is no specially called ordained ministerial order.^[3]

The Plymouth Brethren movement is said to have begun in Ireland and Plymouth, England in the year 1830.  Daniel Steele notes, “The movement was at first a protest against ecclesiasticism, like that of George Fox, the first Quaker.”^[4]  Steele, a late contemporary of Darby, went to great lengths to identify Darby and the Plymouth Brethren with antinomianism.  His evidence is compelling, and John Gerstner’s attempt to identify dispensationalism with antinomianism has merit.  It will be borne out, however, that antinomianism and dispensationalism are not one and the same, though they may bear similarities in origin and thought.  What may have begun as an antinomian expression among the Plymouth Brethren, and Darby’s break from ecclesiastical tyranny as he saw it, re-formulated itself upon a different presupposition, later known as dispensationalism. 

Dispensationalism is related to antinomianism through its relationship to Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, as is soundly proven by Steele, who notes, “A CARDINAL Plymouth tenet is the necessary continuance of the flesh, or the old man, and his abiding, unchanged, with the new man, till death.  Regeneration has no effect on the old man by way of improvement or extinction.”^[5]  That which separates the two dogmas is their prevailing presuppositions.  We might, then, say that Darby’s formulation of dispensationalism grew out of the Plymouth Brethren movement which had its roots in antinomianism, but it morphed into an entity all its own.  The antinomian presupposition was replaced by the dispensational fundamental premise of Israel’s physically abiding distinctive.

The earliest distinguishable form of dispensationalism can be associated with Darby’s break from the Church of England and his association with the Brethren movement.  Darby’s shift occurred during the 1820’s.  If we were to identify the seed thought of dispensationalism, we would find it began in the mind of Darby during his early years with the Plymouth Brethren. Tracing the heritage of dispensationalism takes one to J. N. Darby and the Plymouth Brethren (assessing the ecclesiastical tension of his day inherent to their division) and from the recurring questions of antinomianism.  Darby’s association with the Church of England appears to separate him from federalism and leaves him, to a degree, removed from its dispute with antinomianism.  Though an antinomian of a unique breed and not a federalist, Darby gave birth to something beyond the fundamental premise of antinomianism.  From the mind of Darby was born a theological dogma peculiar to itself.  That dogma was borne out by his teaching and writing in the second half of the 19^th century.

1877. N. Darby’s influence had its greatest resonance in American theology.  Darby transplanted the dogma of dispensationalism to America during recurring visits to America in the latter half of the 19^thcentury, especially during the 1860’s and 1870’s.  During these visits he had considerable influence upon several men, consummating in the Bible Conference movement at the close of the century.  John Zens notes, “Darby made a total of eight visits to America, and spent a total of six years in America and Canada during the period 1862-1877.”^[6]It was during this time that Darby left his impact upon the likes of men such as James Hall Brookes, who was soon to be leader of the initial gathering of inquiries into the formulation of dispensationalism during the Niagara Bible Conference.  John Gerstner traces the theological thread from Darby to Brookes to Scofield in this fashion.  Craig Blaising and Darly Bock inform us: “The writings of the Brethren had a broad impact on evangelical Protestantism.  This is especially true in the United States, where they influenced prominent ministers such as D. L. Moody, James Inglis, James Hall Brookes, A. J. Gordan, J. R. Graves, and C. I. Scofield.”^[7]  The formative period for dispensationalism was the years 1860-1909.  During that time, dispensationalism was nurtured upon American soil through the discipleship of Darby and was consummated in the Bible conferences at the turn of the 20^th century.  Growing in popularity and in exclusivity, it burst forth from the womb of Darby’s thought and influence and into the world in the year 1909, when C. I. Scofield published his first study bible; it was in that study Bible that Dispensationalism was born.  The Scofield study Bible grew to immediate popularity and established itself as the hallmark of dispensationalism.  It remained dispensationalism's loci communes for half a century.  Its tenants passed from the hands of Scofield into the hands of men like Lewis Sperry Chafer, who systematized dispensationalism in his Systematic Theology.  This was the first generation of dispensationalism. Since that day, dispensationalism has grown, morphed, and matured, much as federalism did in its stages of growth.

Dispensationalism as a theological dogma is identifiable in four stages: (1) its parentage, found in the likes of Darby and the Plymouth Brethren; (2) its incubation, enclosed in the formative years 1860-1909; (3) its birth and childhood in 1909-1950, dominated by Scofield and Lewis Sperry Chafer; (4) its maturation to adulthood in the second half of the 20^th century resonating at Dallas Theological Seminary and the influence of Charles C. Ryrie, John F. Walvoord, and J. Dwight Pentecost; and (5) its middle age as formulated in the closing years of the 20^th century and dispensationalism’s reformulation by men like Craig  A. Blaising, Daryl L. Bock, and Robert L. Saucy.  Curtis L. Crenshaw defines the stages of dispensationalism in this fashion: 

[. . .] classical dispensationalism [. . .] as represented by Scofield and Lewis Sperry Chafer [. . .].  This view dominated from the late 1800’s to the 1950’s [. . .] neo-dispensationalism [. . .] being promoted by such men as Charles C. Ryrie, John F. Walvoord, and J. Dwight Pentecost [. . .].^[8]

This historical perspective omits dispensationalism’s formulation and the current trend called progressive dispensationalism, which is the fifth stage spoken of above.  Craig L. Blaising presents this division: “While it is not easy to classify all the differences between various dispensational theologians, three broad forms of dispensational thought can be identified [. . .] Classic dispensationalism [. . .] Revised dispensationalism [. . .] Progressive dispensationalism.”^[9]  These categories well identify the historic stages of dispensationalism.

There has been discussion regarding the use of the word dispensation to identify that system of theology that has its roots in the theology of John Nelson Darby.  Vern Poythress in his book, Understanding Dispensationalists, makes a good case for the abandonment of the word dispensation to identify what is called dispensationalism.  The term itself does not properly distinguish or identify true dispensationalism.   Before its formulation we might consider it as Plymouth Brethrenism, but its movement away from certain tenants of that movement warrants that title inadmissible.  At the end of Darby's life, Daniel Steele noted, regarding the identification of the Plymouth Brethren: “they are sometimes called Darbyites.”^[10]  That title, however, does not fully bear out the tenants of dispensationalism any more than the term Calvinist properly identifies the Calvinist.  What word best suits the movement that has been prominent in American theology since 1909?  Scofieldism may be appropriate, but late revisions of Scofield’s theology have left his name equally of no use to the identification of the dogma.  Federalism has its title that well affirms its fundamental presupposition; Antinomianism has its title, and, though wearing it reluctantly, it does to a degree speak to its distinctiveness.  That system called dispensationalism, however, is not identifiable by its division of redemptive history into dispensations.  Keith A. Mathison notes:

Virtually every system of Christian theology recognizes various administrations or economies within God’s plan, yet it would be inaccurate to claim that all of these systems are dispensational [. . .].  A system of theology cannot be amply defined in terms of doctrines it shares with virtually every other system of theology.^[11]

This is the problem with the term dispensationalism; it does neither identify nor define dispensationalism.  Perhaps the most accurate term would be to call it ethnic theology.  History has nonetheless left us with such an identifiable label as the word dispensationalism, and it is retained.

Dispensationalism, then, can be called a system of dogma that is distinct and separate from federalism and antinomianism. It has its roots in the Reformation and ecclesiastical disputes in England.  It grew up out of the Church of England and the Plymouth Brethren movement.  It found its fundamental presupposition in the theological transformations of John Nelson Darby.  It was born through his efforts in America and is a system of theology germane to American evangelicalism of the late 19^th century.  It was codified in the 1909 and 1917 editions of the Scofield Reference Bible and was further affirmed by the labors of Lewis Sperry Chafer.  Its prominent influence resonates at Dallas Theological Seminary.  It is comprised of three recognizable periods in its vitality: its historical expression in C. I. Scofield and Chafer, its revisions in Charles Ryrie, and its most recent re-formulations among those called progressive dispensationalists.  While distinctly different in each of these stages, its fundamental presupposition has not changed, and, therefore, the term dispensationalism applies to the whole of the movement.  In the next chapter, dispensationalism will be defined and explained at its various stages.  Its presupposition will be affirmed and its historical congruity will be shown.

^[1] John Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, (Brentwood: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), 7.

^[2] Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism, (Chicago: Moody, 1995), 62.

^[3] Daniel Steele, A Substitute for Holiness, Or, Antinomianism Revived, (New York: Garland, 1984), 53.

^[4] Ibid..

^[5] Ibid., 77.

^[6] John Zens, Dispensationalism: A Reformed Inquiry Into Its Leading Figures and Features, (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1980), 9.

^[7] Craig Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, ed., Progressive Dispensationalism, 10.

^[8] Curtis L. Crenshaw and Grover E. Gunn III, Dispensationalism: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, (Memphis: Footstool, 1985), 7.

^[9] Craig L. Blaising and Daryll L. Bock, 22.

^[10] Daniel Steele, 5.

^[11] Keith A. Mathison, Dispensationalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God?  (Philipsburg: R&R;, 1995), 3-4.

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Chapter Seven:
Dispensationalism Defined
Author: Kevin Hartley

A system of theological dogma is fundamentally identified by its view of God’s relationship to men.  Dispensationalism, as a system, has a specific view of this relationship.  The most fundamental, distinctive presupposition of dispensationalism is its tenant that affirms the continuing existence of the nation of Israel in the redemptive plan of God into the church age and beyond.  Charles Ryrie has written: 

A dispensationalist keeps Israel and the church distinct [. . .].  This is probably the most basic theological test of whether or not a person is a dispensationalist [. . .] the one who fails to distinguish Israel and the church consistently will inevitably not hold to dispensational distinctions; and one who does will.”^[1]

It can be said that dispensationalism defines God’s relationship with men in one of two ways due to ethnic identification.  If a man is a Jew then God has a particular economy of redemption for that person, and if he is not, then God has a different means to the redemption of that person.  The use of the term redemption is broad, speaking more to the design and implementation of salvation in its consummate usage from beginning to the conclusion of all things.  This does not mean, necessarily, that God has a different soteriological design for Israel and the church, but rather that God relates to Israel one way and to the church another way in the accomplishment of their salvation.  Much has been made of early charges against classic dispensationalists, that they define two plans of salvation between God and men.  Robert L. Saucy writes, “dispensationalists have more recently been careful to explain that the progression in the dispensations involves no change in the fundamental principle of salvation by grace.”^[2]  The progress in dispensational theology has been to erase the early acrimony aroused by overt statements of discontinuity in the plan of God.

Whatever form dispensationalism takes, it is always distinguishable by this most fundamental presupposition, that it purports an abiding distinction between peoples based upon ethnicity.  Historic or classic dispensationalism held this tenant; neo or revised dispensationalism affirmed this thought, and progressive dispensationalism holds this presupposition.  Dispensationalism is dispensationalism because it is built upon this most fundamental presupposition that God relates to ethnic Israel one way and to all other men another.  Some have sought to identify dispensationalism upon broader terms or theological distinctions.  Charles Ryrie asserts that there are three distinct presuppositions of dispensationalism: the distinctive of Israel, the literal hermeneutic, and the emphasis upon God's glory, yet both the hermeneutic and the supposed emphasis are contingent upon the presupposed truth that God relates to Israel one way and to all others another way.  Their hermeneutic is a result of their belief that Israel, as a nation, has a lasting and abiding place in the plan of God beyond Christ’s first advent.  Their emphasis upon the glory of God is couched in terms of God’s dichotomized relationship.  Thus, dispensationalism is distinct in its hermeneutical method because of how it understands God’s relationship to men, and its emphasis upon the glory of God is answered in reference to that relationship.  Robert L. Saucy writes, “the fundamental issue between dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists is neither a basic hermeneutical principle nor the ultimate purpose of human history.”^[3]  A dispensationalist, no matter how you adorn him, when he is stripped down to his most innermost garment, is found clad with one item of clothing, the vestry, colored with the premise that God continues his relationship with Israel in terms of the old covenant into the Christian age and beyond. 

A dispensationalist, then, is simply a person that perpetuates the physical distinctive of the old covenant into the apostolic age and beyond.   In dispensationalism, the covenant made with Israel at Mount Sinai is a watershed event in redemptive history that has an enduring place in God’s plan.  At Mount Sinai, God established a relationship with the physical descendants of Jacob that cannot be simply spiritualized away, did not pass along to a different people, and cannot vanish away.  Though it may have ipso facto influence upon the church, it remains a covenant of ethnic distinction.  It is at Mount Sinai that God determined to deal with an identifiable nation and people based upon their ethnic distinction, and that purpose has a consummate goal in the salvific plan of God.  A dispensationalist, when asked how it is that God relates to men, must affirm there is a distinct difference in relationship, contingent upon one’s ethnic origin.  He may agree on matters of biblical continuity, law and grace, and covenant, but always and only as it adheres to his basic presupposition.  The remainder of this chapter defines the various historic stages of dispensationalism based upon this presupposition. 

Classic Dispensationalism           

Classic dispensationalism originally drew a more definitive line between Israel and the church.  Curtis L. Crenshaw states, regarding classic dispensationalism: “Israel on the earth and the church in heaven, and ‘the twain shall never meet [. . .].’”^[4]   In classic dispensationalism, God’s relationship with Israel as an ethnic group was established on earth and would continue to be unfolded and consummated upon earth.  God’s relationship with the church and those outside of Israel was in heaven and would consummate there.  Thus, God’s relationship was determined by ethnicity and was administered in terms of locale.  God’s eternal plan of redemption had two manifest ends, one in heaven and one on earth.  Craig A. Blaising writes: 

Perhaps the most important feature of classical dispensationalism is its dualistic idea of redemption.  In order to understand the Bible, one needed to recognize that God was pursuing two different purposes, one related to heaven and one related to the earth.  These two purposes affected God’s dealings with humanity.^[5] 

In fact, these two purposes did more than affect God’s dealings with humanity; they defined God’s dealings with humanity.  It was the presupposition of classic dispensationalism that God’s relationship to men was based upon their ethnic distinction.

In its infancy, dispensationalism held its presupposition in its most definitive form.  One might argue that classic dispensationalism, though natal, was at its most innocent and honest expressive form.  It had not yet disputed with its theological opponents, and it was not polished and mature in its expression.  It simply had an identity and held that identity in its most plain and pure form.  Israel was God’s people on earth, and the church would be God’s people in heaven.  God had an eternal, earthly plan with earthly Israel and an eternal, heavenly plan with the church.  The two were separate and distinct groups with two distinct plans of redemption.  A clear line of distinction and discontinuity was drawn between Israel and all other peoples.  In this fundamental tenant, prepubescent dispensationalism affirmed its own identity unabashedly.  God purposed to relate to an ethnically distinguished people one way on account of their ethnic identity, and he purposed to relate to all other people in another way.  One notes that all other theologies do not deny that God has dealt with Israel and others in distinction, but what they do deny is that such a distinction is the consummation of God’s plan and purpose and that it is the fundamental and eternal designation defining how God relates to men.

Classic dispensationalism, like all dogmas, built its hermeneutic upon its presupposition.  Charles C. Ryrie would have us believe that his literal hermeneutic is the factor that leads to his distinction of Israel.  This though is not the case.

 The dispensational hermeneutic is born out of its presupposition.  It approaches the text of scripture predisposed to interpret scripture based upon its belief that ethnic Israel was, and remains, distinct from other peoples.  If this were not the case, and if Ryrie was correct, then his point would be the undoing of all other theological presuppositions.  The dispensationalist reads that the land of Palestine is to be owned by ethnic Israel, and though he may see it typologically portrayed in the church or partially fulfilled in the church, still he affirms it must be ethnically fulfilled on earth.  Meanwhile a non-dispensationalist can read the same promise and hear the book of Hebrews speak of that land as heavenly, but he arrives at a far different conclusion.  Is it because the non-dispensationalist does not possess a truly biblical hermeneutic?  No, but the dispensationalist and non-dispensationalist are working from different assumptions.  Ryrie himself affirms this point noting, “We spiral from our predispositions and hermeneutics to the exegesis of Scripture and developing our theology, and then cycle through again [. . .].”^[6]

The classic dispensational hermeneutic has grown out of its prevailing presupposition.  Craig A. Blaising wrote:

They believed that if the Old Testament were interpreted literally, then it would reveal God’s earthly purpose for the earthly people. However, if it were interpreted spiritually (which they usually termed ‘typologically’), then it would reveal God’s spiritual purpose for a spiritual people.^[7]

The scriptures had its first application to ethnic Israel and God’s earthly purpose, and the church’s place in scripture was matter-of-fact.  Since Israel came first in the redemptive act of God, and it was the first relationship defined between God and men, it holds a preeminent place in redemptive history, biblical interpretation, and the fundamental premise of dispensationalism.  Classic dispensationalists placed a greater emphasis upon the earthly purpose of God with Israel, over and above the heavenly purpose of God with the church.  The church was seen as a parentheses or intercalation, to some degree an insertion of a distinct relationship between God and men unlike that previously established in God’s earthly purpose.  The church was, to some degree, an interruption in the predominant relationship of God with Israel.

Inherent within dispensationalism is the abiding relegation of the church to the backseat of God’s redemptive plan.  Most dispensationalists would probably refute this charge; yet, to a degree, in the mind of every form of dispensationalist, Israel has a more important role in the scheme of progressive revelation.  This has a direct bearing on the emphasis of their theology.  It is more forward and less attentive to addressing and explaining the Christian life.  Since Israel’s place in history precedes the church, the church stands in dispensationalism as, consciously or not, subordinate in emphasis.  Greater attention is given to Israel’s place in redemptive history than is given to the church, though not necessarily a conscious intention of dispensationalism.  Like the story of the prodigal son, the eldest son has a different relationship to the father than the younger son has, and one relationship has a more prevailing importance in the mind of the reader.  God’s primary purpose in biblical history, for a dispensationalist, is Israel, and that is manifested first and foremost here on earth.  In its nativity, dispensationalism asserted this in its most germane and blatant form.  Like a child it lacked the eloquence that later revisions in dispensationalism has learned.  Yet while it has grown up, dispensationalism (affirming that God relates to Israel one way and to the church in another way) will always maintain this theological bias.

Revised Dispensationalism

Every revision of dispensationalism since its infant form has simply been a maturation of its earliest expressions.  A child evidences his personality early in life and continues to bear a resemblance to his early persona throughout his days as he learns how to relate to life and others.  Dispensationalism has done much the same; its encounter with opposition from federalism has led to revision of its early expression.  When examined in its adolescence, however, it is still the same person it was as a child.  Revised dispensationalism remains dispensationalism because it affirms the same presupposition as classic dispensationalism.  It may express that presupposition differently, but it still affirms the same fundamental distinctive that makes it dispensationalism.  Dispensationalism, much like federal theology, has grown up within its environment, and that has affected its expression.  It has had to contend most with its uncle, federalism, and it has had to struggle within itself to answer its own questions of identity.  In its adolescent form, it expressed itself far differently from its early self.  Much like a child, it became more informed and better suited to answer many of its early statements.  Revised dispensationalism is a more cogent expression of the dispensational presupposition.

Perhaps the most important revision of classic dispensationalism in its revisionist days was its soteriological reformulation.  Craig A. Blaising states it this way: “There will be an eternal distinction between Israel and the church, not in metaphysically distinctive kinds of salvation, but in name – the church is always the church, Israel is always Israel.”^[8]  This statement expresses one reason for the reformulation of early dispensationalism.  There was a backlash against a system of theology that was construed as treating Israel differently in relation to salvation.  Where classic dispensationalism expressed its presupposition in terms of earthly and heavenly discontinuity, revised dispensationalism expressed that same presupposition in terms of greater cohesion.  The church is not so much an intercalation in God’s redemptive plan.  Classic dispensationalism saw the church as an interruption in God’s earthly scheme, but in revised dispensationalism it was given a place in the plan and purpose of God.  The fundamental change in the revision of classic dispensationalism was bringing the church into a more coherent role with Israel in God’s plan of redemption.  Charles Ryrie has written, “Dispensational theology, while recognizing definite and distinguishable distinctions, asserts the basic unity of the unfolding plan of God in the Scriptures.”^[9]  Ryrie’s statement demonstrates the unmodified presupposition in revised dispensationalism.  Israel and the church remain distinct.

Classic dispensationalism held that God related to Israel based upon its earthly ethical distinction, but related to the church otherwise.  Revised dispensationalism has not denied, modified, or replaced that presupposition.  The church and Israel are still distinct in the plan of God, and how he relates to men is contingent upon this distinction.  Revised dispensationalism is a system of theology that states that God deals with ethnic Israel one way and all other peoples in another.  Israel maintains its place of preeminence in God’s redemptive plan, even though the church is given a place in that plan, and even though it has fit the church into God’s scheme.  Revised dispensationalism does teach one plan of salvation in Jesus Christ, variously administered, this is true.  It does teach greater continuity in relationship to that plan as it speaks to God’s relationship with Israel and the church, that, as well, is true; however, revised dispensationalism continues to affirm: “In the New Testament natural Israel and the Gentiles are contrasted.”^[10]  The presupposition of dispensationalism, classic or revised, remains unchanged.

Progressive Dispensationalism 

Developments in dispensationalism over the past twenty years have been along the lines of reformulating its understanding of the issue of biblical continuity and discontinuity, similar to the changes from classic to revised dispensationalism.  Dispensationalism has gradually moved from a position of discontinuity to one of greater continuity.  Yet discontinuity and continuity mean two different things to a federalist and dispensationalist, just as the coined phrase already-but-not-yet means something different to a federalist and a dispensationalist.  Advances in dispensationalism, bearing the title progressive dispensationalism, have given greater nuance to the theology of dispensationalism.  Their advances have brought further cohesion to God’s redemptive plan, but the fundamental presupposition of dispensationalism, from its early expression to this most recent expression, remains unchanged.  Progressive dispensationalism is dispensationalism because it begins with the premise of distinction for ethnic Israel lasting into the Christian era and beyond.  This is affirmed by Craig A. Blaising, when he says, “Progressive dispensationalists agree with revised (and classical) dispensationalists that God’s work with Israel and Gentile nations in the past dispensation looks forward to the redemption of humanity in its political and cultural aspects.  Consequently, there is a place for Israel and for other nations in the eternal plan of God.”^[11]  The question of how God relates to men is still answered by the progressive dispensationalist in one of two ways: Israel or not Israel.

As long as the fundamental presupposition remains unchanged in dispensationalism, all the noble strides at erasing differences between federalism and dispensationalism will only go so far.  In order for union to come, one side would have to abandon its presupposition.  Vern Poythress notes, “In the dispute between dispensationalism and covenant theology, both sides cannot be right.”^[12]  Progressive dispensationalism would like to define its advances as germane to the tensions raised regarding eternal salvation.  It was what Craig A. Blaising calls “a holistic and unified view of eternal salvation.”^[13]  For a federalist, Biblical continuity remains distinctly different from the holistic and unified view of progressive dispensationalism.  The reason is that both cannot agree upon the basic fundamental designation of the manner in which God relates to men.  For the federalist the covenant scheme remains the definitive mark of his theology.  The dispensationalist, whether classic, revised, or progressive, continues to define that relationship upon ethnicity.  While they have removed the discontinuity of locale and have raised the church up in the plan of God to respectability, they still affirm abiding differences in the economy of God based upon ethnic and national distinction. 

Progressive dispensationalism is dispensationalism redefined in terms of God’s purpose and plan, in history, between two distinct peoples with one singular purpose.  Where in classic dispensationalism that distinction was given a dual locale in heaven and earth, and where in revised dispensationalism that locale was removed but the division of purpose remained, in progressive dispensationalism the plan of God is unified.  Again Craig A. Blaising declares, “Progressive dispensationalists understand the dispensations not simply as different arrangements between God and humankind, but as successive arrangements in the progressive revelation and accomplishment of redemption.”^[14]  One can see in this statement that the progress of dispensationalism has been within itself.  It has been an advance in its theology and basic premise.  Thus, while advances have been made within dispensationalism, those advances cannot extend beyond the boundary of their presupposition.  Robert L. Saucy writes of progression in dispensationalism: “Contrary to non-dispensationalism, the term Israel is not finally applied to all of God’s people irrespective of nationality.  Rather it retains its meaning for a particular people in accordance with the early covenants and promises of Scripture.”^[15]  For any dispensationalist, God relates to men either as Israel or not Israel, and this remains a distinctive in every biblical stage of redemption.

The Matter of Doctrine 

John Gerstner’s controversial text, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, sought to affirm dispensational as an aberration of orthodoxy.  He went to great lengths to equate dispensationalism with antinomianism and Arminianism, even going so far as to call dispensationalism heresy.  He concluded his book with this call: “My plea to all dispensationalists is this – show me the fundamental error in what I teach or admit your own fundamental error.  If you are wrong (in your doctrine, as I here charge), you are preaching nothing less than a false gospel.”^[16]  While his words were met by a vitriolic reaction by dispensationalists and nondispensationalists alike, much of what Dr. Gerstner said has merit.  A form of Arminianism has been prevalent among dispensationalists.  John Zens wrote, “As a rule, when Dispensationalism arises to dominance, a clear and full exposition of the doctrines of grace has declined.”^[17]  In its century of life, dispensationalism has been what Dr. Gerstner called spurious Calvinism.  At the same time, with the Lordship Controversy, questions of its relationship to historical antinomianism are properly raised.  As has been shown in the last chapter, dispensationalism had its roots in antinomianism.  Is the dispensational presupposition antithetical to the doctrines of grace and federalism?  Dr. Gerstner sought to answer the question by way of the evaluation of content; below we shall seek an answer as it relates to dispensationalism’s dogmatic presupposition.

The fundamental presupposition of dispensationalism is not necessarily antithetical to the doctrines of grace.  As progressive dispensationalism has shown, there can be advances within a system of theology without the abandonment of its fundamental presupposition.  The doctrines of grace are a component of a system of theology much like fabric makes up a garment.   The garment of dispensationalism is its presupposition; its fabric can be of various weave.  The doctrines of grace are not necessarily contingent upon the presuppositions that separate the various systematic theologies existent today.  This is borne out by the fact that there have been and continue to be consistent dispensationalists who are Calvinists.  One can be a Calvinist and a dispensationalist.  The presupposition of dispensationalism does not dictate an Arminian system.  This said, it must be noted that the dispensational system, however, does appear to detract both from progressive revelation and the glory of the work of Christ.  The dispensational presupposition appears to arrest the biblical advance of revelation, due to its already-not-yet view of biblical fulfillment.  There are questions regarding the rebuilding of those distinctions that have been torn down in Christ.  Thus, dispensationalism can be Calvinistic, but it raises questions regarding the place of Christ’s first advent in biblical revelation.  These questions speak more to the tension inherent in dispensationalism itself.  Its presupposition necessitates its view of the enduring validity of physical distinction beyond the day of Pentecost.

Dispensationalism has had its influence in virtually every realm of orthodoxy, including the Reformed camp.   The number of Calvinistic dispensationalists is growing, yet they remain dispensationalists, and any advances in dialogue with federalism or any other system of theology, will continue to progress only within the boundary of their presupposed belief.  Differences in eschatology, ecclesiology, soteriology, and Christology will continue due to the restrictive nature of their presupposition.  All presuppositions restrict and separate, and it is common for men in dialogue to attack labels, even though labels are simply the remnants of our presuppositions.  Even if all labels were abolished and debate raised in dialogue, clear differences would continue to divide and separate Christians.  Dispensationalism is dispensationalism, even if it is not associated with the early formulations of dispensational thought.  Dispensationalists often take great offense to their name due to disputes in the first part of this passing century.  Nonetheless, a dispensationalist, like it or not, has the title and should not hesitate to use the word to distinguish the clear theological distinctive that all dispensationalists hold.  A dispensationalist believes God continues to relate to men based upon ethnic particularity into the Christian era and beyond.  This will ever be its identifying mark.

What then is dispensationalism, whether classic, historic, or progressive?  It is the premise that God relates to men, in every age, as either Israel or not Israel.  Dispensationalism is not Arminianism, premillennialism, or antinomianism, or even a system that simply calls various stages of biblical revelation by the term dispensation, any more than federal theology is necessary legalism or a system of theology that simply can be equated as teaching that there are covenants.  These theologies may contain such leanings within their framework, but there is no necessary correlation between their presuppositions and these theological distinctions.  This does not deny that any given presupposition may naturally lead someone to affirm one of these views.  One should not, however, simply equate one with the other without investigation.  Keith A. Mathison defines dispensationalism as “that system of theology which sees a fundamental distinction between Israel and the church.  This distinction is the cornerstone of dispensational theology.”^[18]  If we understand the word fundamental as inferring that this distinction is pervasive in every assertion and assimilation of dispensational theology, and if we understand the phrase between Israel and the church as implying more than just the fact that Israel was a nation in the old testament and the church is a body in the new, then the definition is sufficient to account for that cornerstone Mathison seeks to identify.  The truly identifying mark of dispensationalism is not just that it sees a difference between Israel of the flesh and the church, as even federalism sees such a distinction in God’s administration, but the true mark setting dispensationalism apart is that it views that distinction as pervasive, enduring, and most importantly, indicative of the manner in which God relates to men.  The dispensationalist claims that, in his eternal plan, God has established a relationship with Israel the nation as an ethnic group, and the distinction is never removed through the ages.  Thus a dispensationalist, in any age, must answer the question of how God relates to men in this way: God relates to men as either Israelites or not Israelites.

^[1] Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 39.

^[2] Robert L, Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism: The Interface Between Dispensational and Non-Dispensational Theology, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993), 14.

^[3] Ibid., 20.

^[4] Curtis L. Crenshaw, Dispensationalism: Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, 7.

^[5] Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 23.

^[6] Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 80.

^[7] Craig A. Blaising & Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, 27.

^[8] Ibid., 32.

^[9] Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism, 32.

^[10] Charles C. Ryrie, 127.

^[11] Craig A. Blaising & Darrell L. Bock, 47.

^[12] Vern Poythress, Understanding Dispensationalists, 7.

^[13] Craig A. Blaising & Darrell L. Bock, 47.

^[14] Ibid., 48.

^[15] Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism: The Interface Between Dispensational & Non-Dispensational Theology, 29.

^[16] John H. Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, (Brentwood: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991), 263.

^[17] John Zens, Dispensationalism: A Reformed Inquiry Into Its Leading Figures and Features, (Phillisburg: P&R;, 1980), 52-53.

^[18] Keith A. Mathison, Dispensatinalism: Rightly Dividing the People of God, (Phillipsburg: P&R;, 1995), 5.

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Chapter Eight:
The History of New Covenant Theology
Author: Kevin Hartley

The term new covenant theology has been applied to a movement that offers a new approach to the central question raised by systematic theology.  It is a novel approach absent in any past historical formulation, even though it bears much resemblance to existing dogma.  Its basic presupposition that affirms the in Christ relationship as its answer to the question posed by systematic theology is what makes it unique. It is a most basic answer to the question of how God relates to men, in that it says men are either in Christ or not in Christ.  Never before has there been a system of theology that has begun with this premise. Clearly, past theological formulations have expressed this point and have, at times, placed it as a central tenant of their theology.  However, as has been shown in the previous chapters’ inquiry into the roots of federalism, antinomianism, and dispensationalism, the mere existence of the in Christ relationship as a tenant of a theological system does not necessarily mean that such systems begin with that premise.  What makes new covenant theology novel in its expression of the in Christ relationship is that it affirms that relationship as the most fundamental and germane answer to the pressing question of all theological inquiries.  New covenant theology proposes that God relates to men in every age, in every administration, and in every historical expression, first and foremost by way of the in Christ relationship.  Men are either in Christ or they are not.  This is the answer new covenant theology offers for the prevailing question of systematic theology.

Like any system of theology, new covenant theology has grown up in an environment of existing and often antithetical theological thought.  It has formed as a result of the struggles of many in their dissatisfaction with both federalism and dispensationalism.  Its earliest struggle was with federalism, because it is first and foremost a theology that shares much of the principles of the Reformed faith.  New covenant theology is a theology of grace.  It gleans greatly from the same roots of federalism, and claims as its forefathers Augustine, the Reformers, and others who have championed the doctrines of grace in history.  Because its earliest proponents came from Presbyterianism and the Reformed Baptist movement, its earliest expression was in contrast to federalism.  Only recently has new covenant theology begun to draw away from dispensationalism, as many dispensationalists have taken up residence within its camp.

The early advocates of new covenant theology had their roots in the Reformed faith.  Ecclesiastical concern has been the main antagonist that has driven men to raise questions about the existing nomenclature.  Questions regarding the place of the Decalogue in the Christian life, the tension between law and grace, the so-called Sabbath of Reformed scholasticism, and the egalitarian oversight of some led to a new dialogue.   They began to question whether there was a better way of expressing systematic theological thought.  New covenant theology was born from these birth pangs.

New covenant theology is a mere adolescent in systematic thought.  It has been housed for a great deal of time simply in the minds of a few men.  Over the years it has been expressed in theological writings and conferences, and has become a prevalent phenomenon of American Christianity.   Entire conferences address the issue; websites are built around its theme; books and articles are continuously being written claiming to adhere to new covenant principles, yet, to date, new covenant theology has neither been codified nor defined in a definitive way.  Whether it will live or die is contingent upon its nurturing care.  Whether it will ever achieve a respectable place in theological circles is also uncertain. There remains a clear pathway for new covenant theology to follow if it is to establish itself as a valid expression of orthodox Protestant thought.  It must first establish its own identity; then, it must resolve questions of basic theological expression.  This book is an attempt to begin that process.  It presents a starting point for further discussion for those interested in honestly assessing the verity of new covenant theology. Discussion regarding new covenant theology often degenerates into a debate of Israel and the church or a question of the applicability of the Decalogue to the Christian life. When it degenerates into such a discussion, those in debate find they have no authority to affirm what new covenant theology says or does not say.  New covenant theology can only be affirmed, established, and distinguished when its most elementary theological question is answered.  Thus, this book seeks to provide an elementary definition for new covenant theology by addressing its fundamental presupposition.  In so doing, it is necessary to show how it differs from federalism, antinomianism, and dispensationalism.  Often new covenant theology is simply discounted as antinomianism or dispensationalism, even though it is neither.  New covenant theology is distinct and unique.  It has reached a point in history where it has become necessary for it to be defined and identified as a distinct and novel approach to systematic theology.

Lately, the concept of new covenant theology has become appealing to those questioning many of the postulations of dispensationalism.  The predominance of Arminian theology in dispensationalism has left many dispensationalists vying for a place where they may express their allegiance to the doctrines of grace and, at the same time, affirm their presupposed view of ethnic Israel.  Synonymous with the progressive dispensational movement has been the crossover of many dispensationalists who claim to be in allegiance with new covenant thought.  Hence, the camp of new covenant theology is being filled with dispensational Calvinists and non-dispensational Calvinists alike, both seeking a definition for new covenant theology.  The problem is the two groups are working from two different presuppositions.  Non-dispensationalists are working from the in Christ presupposition, and the dispensationalists are working from the dispensational presupposition.  The incongruity of thought is evident, and confusion arises because of the agreement both sides have with the doctrines of grace.  Many dispensationalists are primarily interested in finding another option to express their understanding of God’s relationship to men, but new covenant theology cannot be their safe haven.  As long as they hold to their fundamental dispensational presupposition, they cannot agree with the non-dispensational presupposition.  In other words, either new covenant theology is simply another expression of dispensationalism, or it is an entity all its own.  It is the premise of this book that new covenant theology is distinctly different from dispensationalism and must be kept separate. The dispensationalist must seek a place for himself within the boundaries of dispensationalism as long as he affirms the prevailing ethnic presupposition that God relates to men as Israel or not Israel.  New covenant theology is not dispensationalism because it does not accept that presupposition but operates from a wholly different premise.   New covenant theology is its own dogma.

The pathway to the maturation of new covenant theology, if it lives on as an expression of reformation orthodoxy, will travel the course of refinement.  It has at length expressed itself in polemic fashion against the presupposition of federalism, and, lately, against that of dispensationalism.  It needs now to assert itself in the positive.  The next chapter will define new covenant theology from its most basic theological premise.  From that point of definition, those who affirm the basic presupposition of new covenant theology will have to seek to provide answers to the peripheral questions raised in the development of systematic theology.  This will be the scholastic phase of development for new covenant theology, a step resisted by many who hesitate to hedge a free theological expression into codified language.  However, if a system of theology is to be a viable option for Christians, it must take this next step, much like an adolescent growing up must set himself apart as his own man.

New covenant theology need not reinvent the wheel.  It simply needs to reformulate much of the good that already exists in theological dogma.  This is, after all, what the Reformers did in their break from Rome.  Richard Mueller writes: 

The development of Protestant doctrine, therefore, in the great confessions of the mid-sixteenth century and in the orthodox or scholastic systems of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not a development from kerygma to dogma but rather a development consisting in the adjustment of a received body of doctrine and its systematic relations to the needs of Protestantism, in terms dictated by the teachings of the Reformers on Scripture, grace, justification, and the sacraments.^[1]

A great deal of new covenant dogma can be borrowed from the existing body of Reformed thought since there is much agreement between the two.  In so doing, it will glean from a broad spectrum of Protestant thought.  A lot can be transferred from federal theology and the thinking of Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, and the later reformers.  As it grows, new covenant theology will offer a distinct and unique view of the relationship between law and grace, between the biblical covenants, and between the matter of continuity and discontinuity.  Its greatest contribution to theological thought in our day will be its emphasis upon the centrality of the in Christ relationship to all of God’s work.  It will offer new insights into hermeneutics, ecclesiastical practice, and Christian liberty.  Its emphasis on Christ will be its greatest identifying mark. It will address experimental religion in a way not expressed in past formulations of piety.  It may even come to pass that new covenant theology will one day be set within a confessional form.  Wherever it goes from here, it will succeed in offering the Christian a new and fresh perspective of the age-old question of how God relates to men.  It will offer an answer to the question that has not yet been considered.  Those who may hedge and say new covenant theology’s newness detracts from its credibility are reminded that federalism, dispensationalism, and antinomianism are all novel in ecclesiastical history.  They are all the children of the reformation, and new covenant theology presents itself as perhaps a third-generation child of Protestant systematic theology.  It offers its contributions to Protestant dogma as a next step in the continuing reformation of the church.

Where then is new covenant theology today?  It is not found in a single confession or creed.  It is not exclusively contained within a particular denomination.  It is not allied with a theological institution.  It is spoken of in various theological conferences and discussions and has its early expression in the few sparse writings of men.  It has been suggested that new covenant theology is a derivative of John Bunyan’s treatise on law and grace.  It has also been suggested that new covenant theology strongly agrees with the London Baptist Confession of 1649.  New covenant theology is clearly Baptist theology, but it is not Anabaptist or Reformed Baptist theology.  Again, what makes it unique is not the fact that it is Baptistic, Reformed, or congregational in practice; it is unique because of its prevailing presupposition.  Agreement can be found between new covenant theology and practically every expression of Reformation Protestantism.   Most recently new covenant theology has been expressed in two books written by John G. Reisinger, entitled Tablets of Stone and Abraham’s Four Seeds.  A biblical view of the principles of new covenant theology is therein contained.  To date, anyone wanting to study new covenant theology is limited in resources.  That is changing, however, as many are beginning to express the thought of new covenant theology.  It remains in the minds and hearts of many seeking a viable alternative to the existing expressions of theological thought.

^[1] Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 1, (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House), 15.

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Chapter Nine:
Defining New Covenant Theology
Author: Kevin Hartley

 New Covenant Theology and its Fundamental Presupposition

New covenant theology, at its most core expression, answers the question of how God relates to men, as either in Christ or outside of Christ.  Such an expression covers God’s manifestation of that relationship through the successive stages of redemptive history.  Biblical history can, in its simplest expression, be divided into the days before Christ’s incarnation and the days after it.  In the days prior to his incarnation, all revelation from God looked forward to the fullest expression of the earthly in Christ relationship. In those days men were said to be in Christ by faith in the anticipation of his coming and redemptive work at the cross. Thus, the church is the consummate earthly expression of that in Christ relationship which is by faith alone, and that remains constant through the ages.  As long as men have been on earth they have been (and always will be until the consummation of all things) in Christ by faith alone.  In the days before the coming of Christ, faith looked forward to his coming; faith now looks to his final return and the realized in Christ relationship.  Those in Christ are related to God in a gracious way.  A man, in any age, is not said to be in Christ apart from faith.

The in Christ relationship is an eternal expression of God’s relationship to men.  This is evidenced by the truths that the elect of God were chosen in him, are called in him from the wrath of God, are living in him now, and shall reign with him in glory.  The in Christ relationship was, before his incarnation, expressed by way of anticipation and expectation.  Beginning with Adam, the promise of a seed--to which men could look to the mercy and grace of God in the hope of a redeemer--was given. Under the old covenant that anticipation was heightened and even further defined and illuminated as hope was given by way of emancipation to those bound up under the schoolboy status of the Law.  Even those under the old covenant were said to be in Christ by hope and anticipation of his coming.  Since the incarnation, the in Christ relationship is expressed in reflection of what God has done to draw men to himself and in hope of the coming final consummation of this relationship.  Continuity is found in the fact that, in every biblical age, the in Christ relationship is and ever shall be, here on earth, by faith and faith alone.   Thus, there is the earthly reality of faith and the heavenly hope of sight.

The contrary relationship of God to those outside of Christ, in every age, has been made known in the guise of holiness. God expresses himself to men as the creator and holy God who rightfully expects obedience from men.  At times, though not exclusively, he has done this through a covenant.  In Eden God expressed himself judiciously to Adam in a single command.  That judicious relationship, by way of Adam’s transgression, brought men in relation to God under the wrath of God and recompense of reward.  Men in Adam were out of Christ.  They were left to themselves, ever related to God by way of the demands of his holy and just nature.  When the law came in, God further manifested himself by way of a holy and judicial relationship in a legal manner, further elucidating that relationship to men outside of Christ.  At Mount Sinai God presented himself to Israel as an exacting God of holiness and justice.  Holiness is demanded of all men outside of Christ; apart from faith and divine election in Him, there is nothing but holiness, justice, and wrath. 

God, then, can be said to relate to all men in one of two ways, either in Christ or outside of Christ.  How that relationship is expressed has varied through the ages.  It has been at one moment advancing and at another moment consummating.  Each demonstration of God’s expression of this relationship in history has advanced toward a greater evidencing of either his justice or mercy while it also has been moving toward the final expression of that relationship in the final judgment.  In the end it will be the consummate declaration of God that men are either in Christ or outside of Him, just as it was even before all things.  This is the fundamental presupposition of new covenant theology.  God relates to men in every age, in every administration or dispensation of his providence, as either in or out of Christ.  Those outside of Christ, in various stages of redemptive history, have been placed under a judicious expression of God’s relationship. Adam was under the judicious expression of a creator to a creature.  A command was given and obedience was expected based upon that judicious relationship.  With Adam’s fall he was placed under the wrath of God, that judicious relationship to men outside of Christ.  All men outside of Christ are like Adam or Israel, under the judicious administration of God’s holy wrath.  

New Covenant Theology’s Struggle for Self-Identity

New covenant theology wrestles with the presuppositions of existing dogmas, struggling to free itself from the womb that would bind it within its own embryonic sac.  If it is to confirm itself as a viable theological system, new covenant theology must establish itself upon a fundamental presupposition that distinguishes itself as unique.  Many claim they hold to the same principle as new covenant theology; however, they cannot claim agreement with new covenant theology when they define God’s fundamental relationship with men under any other premise than that presupposed by new covenant theology.  Where new covenant theology will differ from the other systems of dogma presented in this book is in its fundamental presupposition that subordinates all other theological premises to this singular identifying theme: either a man is in Christ or is not in Christ.  This core affirmation of new covenant theology will set itself apart as a system of its own and will provide itself with a defensible identity.  It will relegate the relationship of covenant to simply an expression of this in Christ relationship and the ethnicity of Israel to a mere temporal expression of that relationship within an era of redemptive history.

Clearly the most difficult task of defining new covenant theology is identifying its most fundamental presupposition.  There is a broad spectrum of interest in support of the principles adhered to in new covenant theology, and many lay claim to the title who do not agree in totality with either federalism or dispensationalism.  They seek a safe haven in new covenant theology, a domain that will provide them the freedom of a theological system outside of the constricting boundaries of either federal theology or dispensationalism.  With the many refugees in the camp, of various doctrinal backgrounds, it is a most difficult task to define new covenant theology.  Those who claim to teach it have never agreed upon its definition, and with the dispensationalists who claim to be new covenant and the non-dispensationalists who make such a claim, who then holds claim to the dogma firmly enough to establish its presupposition?  It is the premise of this book that the latter group should provide new covenant theology with a clear and definitive statement of its particularity.

The thesis of this book states that all systematic theology can be identified in its most basic form as identifying the relationship between God and men. This view has not been addressed in the discussions centered on the definition of new covenant theology.   This proposal is not only viable but also affirmed by the discipline of systematic theology as the fundamental question asked of every dogma.   New covenant theology must then answer to the question if it is to be given its own place alongside federalism and dispensationalism.  New covenant theology is unique; its answer to the question of how God relates to men is novel.  The unique aspect of the new covenant theology view is that it stresses both progression and succession in a way that affirms both continuity and discontinuity far distinct from the other dogmas.  True progressive theology is what new covenant theology claims; each biblical age is a fuller expression of the fundamental relationship between God and men in Christ and not an expression of either one single covenant or a singular people.  We reaffirm our principle that God relates to men either in Christ or not, and it becomes gradually more and more evident through the ages.  Christ is the consummate goal of all redemptive history in the salvation of the elect; the new covenant is the expression of the most advanced earthly relationship between God and men, and it has consummated on earth in the church.  We await the final expression of that relationship at the final coming of Christ.

In the new covenant scheme, Adam was a mediator and representative head of all men.  A. T. B. McGowan writes, “It is, of course, possible to hold a view that makes much of Adam as the representative head yet without a covenant of works (this was certainly the position of Augustine).”^[1]  In some sense new covenant theology is a redaction of federal thought, returning to the roots of federal theology without the restrictions of later expressions of the covenant of grace and the covenant of works.  New covenant theology does affirm that a covenant, which is the highest expression of God’s relationship to men, was alluded to in Adam, but was not made in Eden.  God would later express himself in covenant, but in Eden it was mere allusion.  All creation and history has been moving forward toward that consummate expression of God’s relationship to earthly men.  Rather than this forward expression denoting a single covenant from Adam to eternity, it is at the cross that God graciously covenants with men in Christ.  Abraham was the father of men of faith, but still was given only an in Christ relationship by way of promise.  Moses was a mediator of a legal covenant, equally anticipatory of the coming age of Christ (thus even new covenant theology would affirm the gracious character of the old covenant), but still that covenant was only anticipatory of the greatest lawgiver.  Christ is the consummation of all previous covenants, promises, and relationships, fully replacing those things that anticipated him.   Each demonstration of God’s relationship to men prior to the coming of the new covenant was a temporal, incomplete, and inferior expression of the in Christ relationship.  All forms of that expression, whether by way of covenant, patriarch, head, or nation, was a substandard expression of God’s relationship to men in or out of Christ.  The pinnacle expression of that relationship on earth is found in the new covenant.  Men continue to be, as they have always been, related to God by two heads: Adam or Christ.

Federal theology has historically presented the old covenant as an administration of the new covenant.  This is not the case.  The old covenant was a mere expression of God’s relationship to men as being in Adam and under the judicious expression of holiness.  The law was a pedagogue to show the absolute sinfulness of sin, the inability of men to know God apart from sin, and God’s relationship to them as a holy and just God.  However, the old covenant was also typical of the in Christ relationship.  There was, in the old covenant, allusion to the relationship in form, type, and shadow of the once again anticipated new covenant.  Yet when all was said and done, the old covenant was another, more visible, display of the fact that God relates to men either penally or graciously, as either in Christ or not in Christ, the pedagogical and anticipatory legal covenant having ended with Christ’s first advent.  If a man is outside of grace he can be said to be under the judicious wrath of God, either by way of ignorance apart from the law or by culpability under the law.   He is said to be so, whether it be by virtue of living under the old covenant, or, in our day, by virtue of an ipso facto relationship.   It is through grace, then, that God relates to men in Christ and outside of Christ; He is a just and holy God.

New covenant theology affirms the newness of the new covenant.  It is not the old covenant, nor a single covenant variously administered; it is a covenant that is absolutely new.  It is similar to other covenants that anticipated it, but it is truly a replacement covenant.  The old covenant ceased with the first coming of Christ, and the new covenant was confirmed with the church.  Thus, new covenant theology sees the church as the consummation of an earthly expression of God’s relationship to men.  The pinnacle of all expressions of God’s relationship to men will be displayed at the return of Christ and the last judgment, when men shall relate to God as either fully under the administration of wrath and justice or fully under the administration of grace and love.  That relationship between God and men may express itself finally in a new heaven and earth. Thus, God’s relationship to men was not given in its highest expression at Mount Sinai, nor was that previous covenant the fullest expression of God’s glory.  The new covenant is the greatest expression of God’s grace and justice here on earth.  In the previous age, God related to men by way of physical distinction; that is, what is both spiritual and physical in this age was merely physical then.  In the old age, the law was upon a tablet of stone, but now it is in the heart; the foreskin of the flesh was circumcised, but now the heart’s deadness is cut away.  New covenant theology, then, can be classified as fulfillment theology, replacement theology, or progressive theology.

It might be said that new covenant theology is, in its most germane expression, christocentric.  Surely all theologies would stake this claim, but new covenant theology does so rather uniquely.

1. It views Christ as the answer to the question of how God relates to men.  Covenantis subordinate to Christ, a vehicle or mere expression of that relationship, but not always present or necessary.  Moses, the Decalogue, and the nation of Israel are subordinate to the Son and merely anticipatory of this age, and simple expressions of the in Christ relationship are more perfectly realized in the church.  God does not relate to men in a gracious way because of their ethnicity; rather, he does so because of Christ.  This can be illustrated in the Tabernacle where we see a physical expression of God’s relationship to men by way of a type.  It is an expression of God’s promises of Christ and, at the same time, an expression of his just wrath for sin, yet it is only a typical, temporal expression of that relationship, soon replaced by a more permanent, efficient, and consummate fulfillment of that relationship found in Christ.
2. New covenant theology declares that law finds its place in Christ, but only below him who is the divine lawgiver. It declares that Adam and Moses (along with every other man or nation or physical expression of glory) are found beneath the feet of Christ.  It is the theology that has grown up out of Galatians and Hebrews and will not give place to any but Christ in its expression; it fully raises Christ higher than any other form of theology.  Federal theology places Christ more as a cog within the covenant scheme.  Dispensationalism would raise Israel and Moses above him or next to him.
3. New covenant theology sets forth Christ as the terminal point of all that preceded him and the antecedent of everything that follows.  In this christocentric scheme, new covenant theology has a peculiar hermeneutic.  The Old Testament scriptures were anticipatory of the church age, referring almost exclusively to the age between Christ’s First Coming and Second Coming.  Israel and its covenant were for a given time, and their existence does not persist beyond the cross.  Pentecost marks a day of uniqueness in which God expresses his relationship to men in a unique Trinitarian fashion, alluded to in previous ages but experiencing its fullest expression in this age.
4. New covenant theology’s peculiar hermeneutic results in a theology of replacement; each successive biblical age is a fuller expression of God’s grace to men in Christ and of God's wrath outside of him.  It sees Christ and the new covenant as not taking its place alongside previous expressions of God’s relationship to men but as supplanting those relationships.  He is the second Adam; the second and superior lawgiver; that ultimate prophet who speaks, not for another, but for himself.  He is the king of kings, and David calls him Lord.
5. New covenant theology is the system of theology that seeks to see all revelation preceding the New Testament as memorial to Christ.  It is useful, much as Christ taught on the road to Emmaus, but, at the same time, it asserts a new law in Christ, a new covenant in Christ, a new relationship between God and men that is truly just that, new.  One might say new covenant theology declares that God relates to men either in the old age or in this age, but that is just a subordinate point; it is not comprehensive enough.  In both ages, the simplest expression of God’s relationship to men is the in Christrelationship.  In the old age that relationship was seen in typical anticipation, and in this age that relationship is expressed in the revelation of Christ.

            Clearly this needs further elaboration since in the previous age God related to men in various ways.  There were believers, but not Christians; there were redeemed Israelites, but they were not the church.  They looked forward to the gathering of God’s elect in one body, but stood outside of it.  They were the foundation of the house of Christ, and the church is that house.  They were the embryo, but the church is the man. That was the age of mystery; this is the day of fullness.  It is like looking backwards from this day to that day and seeing the shadows cast from Christ, and those upon whom the shadows fell, resulting in belief in Christ, are said to be in him.  It is like living in that day and looking forward in time and seeing, at a distance, a figure, but only a form.  Christ, then, stands central to God’s relationship to men.  God relates to men in Christ; they are either in him or without him. Before he came, they were in him by faith in the promise of his coming; now that he has come, they are in him by faith in him.  They are one with him, and in the age to come they will be with Him.  Regardless of the man, the age, or the economy of God’s expression of his Son, in the end men will either be in Christ or not.  This is the fundamental and most central expression of God’s relationship to men.  New covenant theology then is unique, distinctive, set apart, and novel.

New Covenant Theology and Antinomianism

New covenant theology is not antinomianism.  The chief proof of this assessment lies in the two theologies' disagreeable presuppositions.  Even though there is a strong antithesis between law and grace in new covenant theology, it has not developed to the degree of the antinomian premise.  In fact, new covenant theology is more in agreement with the experimental expressions of federal theology, as it views the metaphysical and ontological work of salvation.  The clear difference with federalism, though, is found in the fact that new covenant theology is true replacement theology.  The new covenant, as a gracious covenant, fully replaces the old covenant, yet that in no wise affirms the law grace antithesis of antinomianism.  One can read the antinomians and find much in agreement with their words and new covenant theology; one can read the federalists and do the same.  Mere agreement in expression, however, does not necessarily equate new covenant theology with either dogma.  Thus, we see the importance of expressed presuppositions.  New covenant theology does not agree with the antinomian presupposition that asserts an absolute antithesis between law and grace.

New covenant theology affirms many areas in which it is clearly not in agreement with antinomianism:

1. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the abiding place of law and exhortation in the believer’s life.  New covenant theology is not concerned with whether the believer is free of all law, but is concerned with the question, "Under which law is the believer?"

2. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the place of exhortation, admonition, repentance, sin, and the Father’s chastisement, in this life, of men who are in Christ.  In new covenant theology there is a place for commands in the Christian life.
3. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms a metaphysical relationship between God and redeemed men.  We are not simply seated with Christ in the heavenlies, but we are men, in the flesh, dwelling on earth, struggling with sin, and in need of God’s sustaining grace in Christ.
4. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the use of means in the Christian’s life.  Preaching is necessary, as is the church, as are the ordinances, and as is the word of God.
5. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the progress of sanctification.  It does not believe in the error of eternal justification.  It affirms the fact that the believer exercises faith, which is the gift of God.
6. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the believer’s need to grieve over sin and to seek repentance for it.
7. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the believer’s growth in assurance and the evidential use of good works.
8. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it affirms the use of the old covenant law in its pedagogical form.
9. New covenant theology is not antinomian because it denies the fundamental premise of antinomian theology.

Clearly, beyond any doubt, it is a most egregious error to equate new covenant theology with the errors of antinomianism.

New Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism

New covenant theology is not dispensational theology.  Many would place new covenant theology in the camp of dispensationalism simply because it stresses the discontinuity between the old and new covenants.  Yet, as has been shown, the affirmed discontinuity of new covenant theology is far different from that expressed in dispensationalism.  New covenant theology disagrees with dispensationalism in many areas: 

1. New covenant theology does not affirm the dispensational presupposition that asserts the abiding validity of the ethnic distinctions beyond the church age.
2. New covenant theology is truly progressive theology, in that each stage in redemptive history is successive.
3. New covenant theology affirms the full endand termination of the distinctive of the old covenant, assigning it to the previous age.
4. New covenant theology is not dispensationalism because it affirms the church as God’s consummate end of redemptive history here on earth.
5. New covenant theology is not dispensationalism because it affirms the supremacy of Christ as consummate in all ages, over and above any other expression of God’s relationship to men.
6. New covenant theology is not dispensationalism as it looks for no further expression of the new covenant outside of the church in this age.

Some may argue there is room in new covenant theology for another dispensation and a fuller expression of God’s glory on earth.  New covenant theology cannot agree since it sees the church as that greatest expression.  Dispensationalism is not the only theology that divides history into various dispensations.  Federal theology has its own expression of such historical dispensations, and new covenant theology speaks of stages in redemptive history.  Neither theology can deny there are distinct differences and similarities in redemptive history.  Thus new covenant theology’s emphasis upon and use of terms like progression of redemptive history and the promise-fulfillment aspect of history does not necessarily make it dispensationalism.  When dispensationalists use terms such as promise-fulfillment and already-not-yet, they mean something completely different than what someone affirming new covenant theology would mean by them.  In the mind of a dispensationalist, the phrase already-not-yet is in reference to God’s promises to ethnic Israel, while to the new covenant theologian the term means the full expression of the in Christ relationship in the final judgment.  The two, new covenant theology and dispensationalism, are not in agreement.  A dispensationalist thinks of fulfillment in terms of Israel, while a new covenant theologian simply thinks of fulfillment as the full realization of being in or out of Christ. 

See this expressed in the writing of Fred Zaspel, who finds much in agreement with new covenant expressions, but who is a dispensationalist at heart.  He writes: “So in all of this ‘realized eschatology’ we should not lose sight of the future.  What we have today is the glorious realization of the OT hopes.  But what lies ahead is more glorious still.”^[2]  What does he mean by more glorious still?  He appears to answer with the fundamental presupposition of new covenant theology, when he says: 

Finally, when all this is said we must recognize clearly that the ‘fulfillment’ anticipated in the OT and realized in the NT is nothing other than Jesus Christ Himself.  He is the covenant, the promise, the kingdom; He is our life, our righteousness, our peace, our salvation, and our everything else.  He is the goal of history.^[3]

Zaspel's seemingly new covenant perspective is eclipsed, however, when his theology gives way to his most fundamental, dispensational presupposition.  While he can seemingly agree with new covenant theology, he cannot do so without again couching his assessment with the scheme of his most fundamental belief.  He must bring ethnic Israel into his answer.

Thus, as a dispensationalist answers the question of God’s relationship to men, even though he can stress the in Christ relationship in terms of already-not-yet or promise-fulfillment, he must do so by bringing in the ethnic distinctive of his presupposition.  He cannot express the in Christ relationship apart from Israel’s assumed ethnic diversity.  It is his fundamental presupposition that holds to the distinctive place of Israel as an expression of God’s relationship to men.  Thus Zaspel writes regarding what lies ahead is more glorious:

That a promised blessing is realized here and now does not, ipso facto, rule out its fuller realization later.  For example, there is nothing here that rules out the premillenialist’s hope of the future manifestation of the kingdom—nothing at all.  That the age to come is present and coming is a matter of simple Biblical statement.  And if there is already a realization of these blessings within history we should not be surprised to learn of a still fuller manifestation of them.^[4]

A true dispensationalist of any breed thinks of promise-fulfillment in terms of Israel.  The in Christ expression, though perhaps not calculatingly, is subordinated to Israel’s place in redemptive history.  The dispensationalist is not looking simply for an expression of the in Christ relationship when he says already-not-yet; he is looking for fulfillment of promises with ethnic Israel.  The true dispensationalist cannot speak of the in Christ relationship without introducing ethnic Israel into the equation.

Thus, new covenant theology is not dispensationalism, no matter how dispensationalism is expressed.  New covenant theology does not necessitate the ethnic distinction of Israel as a fundamental premise of its theology.  Though dispensationalists have much in agreement with new covenant theology and use language transparent to new covenant dogma, the two are not one and the same.  When new covenant theology uses the term promise-fulfillment or already-not-yet, it does so simply in the expression of the in Christ relationship.  There is no reason, in the new covenant scheme, for God to retrofit biblical history with an antiquated expression of that relationship when it has been surpassed by a better expression of it.  To bring ethnic distinction back into the picture would be counterproductive to the progression of time.  It is grace in Christ that is being revealed and has been revealed.  Israel as a nation served a purpose for a time and that time has passed.  Christ has come and God has expressed his relationship to men, not nationally and not in physical type but in Christ.  We have, in our day, the consummate expression of that relationship, an end to types and an end to the rudiments of a previous age.  New covenant theology can say already-not-yet but does so simply to say that one day Christ shall return, and men will not be found as Israelites or Gentiles but as either in or out of Christ. 

New Covenant Theology and Federal Theology

New covenant theology is clearly distinct from federal theology.  Again, it has much in agreement with federalism, just as it has with dispensationalism, but what clearly sets new covenant theology apart from federal theology is its emphasis upon newness.  The old law is not the new law; the old covenant is not the new covenant.  The new covenant is a distinct covenant; it is the fullest expression of the covenant form, and it is the final expression of the covenant form.  The church listens to Christ, not Moses; the church follows Christ’s law, not the law mediated through Moses.  The church is not Israel, and Israel is not the church.  Israel was, by way of type, anticipatory of the church, and we may call the church the Israel of God, but that does not entail bringing the church into the pre-incarnate days of the Old Testament.  Christ came and made a new covenant, through a new mediator, with a new Israel.  He brought a new law and more efficient covenant with greater ability to elicit obedience.  Though the law and covenant were similar to the old, they were not one and the same.   A new car may be just like an old car, but they are not one and the same.  The old car was a vehicle all it’s own and the new car--though like the old functionally, though resembling it, and though nearly identical to it--is still not the old car.  The old car is the old car and the new car is the new car.  The old car is not as quick, efficient, and sleek, just as the old covenant is as different from the new as Moses is different from Christ Jesus.  The new covenant, in new covenant theology, is truly a new covenant.  Federal theology simply calls the new covenant a new expression of the old covenant.

New covenant theology does not affirm the fundamental presupposition of federalism.  It does not affirm a prelapsarian covenant called the covenant of works.  Federalism’s expression of a covenant of grace is contrary to the progressive emphasis of new covenant theology.  The various biblical covenants are not seen as one single covenant of grace expressed in various administrations; instead, the various covenants are distinct, historical, and are all preempted by the new covenant.  There is in new covenant theology a clear difference between the Mosaic covenant and the new covenant.  The Mosaic covenant was truly a legal covenant.  Grace may be found expressed in the old covenant, but it was a legal covenant and the Decalogue was the expression of that covenant.  The new covenant is a gracious covenant.  The new covenant is not a mere re-expression of the old covenant; it is a true, new covenant.  There are similarities among the various covenants, but the new covenant is not one and the same with the previous covenants. 

Federalism can argue for its christological focus; its presupposition does not necessarily deny the in Christ motif.  It does, though, in its covenant scheme, go beyond the basic simplicity of the new covenant theological expression of that relationship.  It does so by making it necessary that every relationship between God and men is by way of a covenant, thus subordinating the in Christ relationship to the covenant expression.  New covenant theology does not agree.  The in Christ relationship takes precedence over the idea of covenant.  At times the in Christ relationship is, and has been, expressed in covenant form, but not always.  It has been an increasing, progressing, and consummating process leading up to the new, superior, consummate, and final covenant, replacing and/or meeting the expectations of all previous covenants.  There is much that both new covenant theology and federalism agree upon.  Yet, at the heart of their disagreements are their presuppositions. 

New Covenant Theology

New covenant theology is a new approach to the formulation of redemptive history.  Its presupposition is unique, and its approach to expressing God’s relationship with men is novel.  It has much in agreement with its theological kin, but it is its own person.  It stands alone and offers a new perspective in systematic theology and a new approach to understanding God’s revelation in all its various forms.  It seeks to simplify most of the complexities that have arisen from federalism and, at the same time, to rectify the confusion and inconsistency dispensationalism raises.  It is a fresh approach to the pressing question of Christianity.  It is a viable option for the one, who, when confronted with the theological giants of federalism and dispensationalism, wonders if they are the only available options.  The consummate purpose of new covenant theology, like all well intended systems of theology, is to glorify God and his Christ.  In doing so, it offers a new solution to the enduring biblical tension between continuity and discontinuity, law and grace, and Israel and the church.  Instead of providing the Christian with a hybrid or middle ground between dispensationalism and federalism, new covenant theology seeks to step back and ask the question again of how God relates to men.  It seeks the simplest expression of the relationship in the answer that men are either in Christ or not, and God relates to them based upon that criterion.  This is not just part of history's grand theological scheme; it is history's theological premise of every age of redemptive history.  At the heart of new covenant theology is Christ.  It may be said that the term new covenant theology is itself not fully expressive of this dogma.  It could simply be called Christ theology.  Nevertheless it has the title new covenant theology, and it must stand up and be heard.  History will tell whether this adolescent will be heard.

^[1] A. T. B. McGowan, The Federal Theology of Thomas Boston, (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), 10.

^[2] Fred G. Zaspel, The Theology of Fulfillment, (Hatfield: Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, 1993), 37.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

The Conclusion

The Beginning

Theological dogma has, since the 16^th century, clearly taken its place in Protestantism thought.  John Murray notes, “The reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is without question the most notable.  It was then that the opus magnum of Christian theology was given to the church […].  It was the golden age of precision and formulation.”^[1]  Since then the church of the Reformation has labored to express itself in a most definitive manner.  It has done so by way of confessional practice, and it has done so through the expression of systematic theology.  Systematic theology is the theology of presuppositions.  John Murray writes, “The task of systematic theology is to set forth in orderly and coherent manner the truth respecting God and his relations to men and the world.”^[2]  This is the basic presupposition of this very book.  Theology is a discussion of presuppositions seeking to answer this most pressing theological question.  Federalism is a system of theology, as is dispensationalism and antinomianism.  In this book new covenant theology has been set forth as a viable option for consideration within the discipline of systematic theology.  One might question this approach and argue that the methodology of biblical theology is more apropos to the discussion at hand.  Some may even be inclined to designate new covenant theology as a biblical theology rather than a theological dogma.  This however is not the case.  Systematic theology is presupposed in any biblical theology.  In other words, new covenant theology’s systematic expression affirms its biblical theological method, the same with federalism and dispensationalism. The approach in this book has been to start at the most germane point in theological discussion. 

Theology in its Present Form

Systematic theology is an integral part of Christianity.  That integration, though, in the passage of time has given way to theological sloth.  Many hold to a system of theology and yet can offer little by way of explanation for what they believe.  John Murray writes, “When any generation is content to rely upon its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation.”^[3]  Within the various systems of theology present today there continues to be necessary development, formulation, and definition.  History has a way of inscribing dogma within the consciences of men as infallible as scripture itself and this must be avoided.  Thus it is imperative that theologians continually question, examine, and affirm what they hold as truth.  Many in our day affirm a system of theology and would perhaps die to defend it, having never truly understood it or weighed its conclusions against the greater rule of faith, God’s word.  Are the present theological dogmas the only options available?  Have we come to a place where we can honestly say that dogma must be either federalism or dispensationalism, that one of the two must be right, or is there room within the discussion of systematic theology for new options?  New covenant theology presents itself as one viable option for consideration.  As it seeks to assert itself, it will naturally continue to isolate itself.  In our day there is an immediate revulsion toward the notion that theological labels, distinctive, and separation are necessary.  Yet such distinction is necessary.  New covenant theology is a novel approach to the age-old question asked by systematic theology. 

The Future

The extreme importance of continued interaction with the basic thesis of this book is evident.  Until new covenant theology has an identity all its own, it will continue to be associated with what already exists and will be in danger of being consumed by the existing theological systems.  If new covenant theology is an expression of an existing system of theology, then there is no need to discuss it, and it should take up its place within the prescribed norms.  If it is not, then it needs to set itself apart.  New covenant theology is set forth as a novel approach to understanding the nature in which God relates to men.  It has peculiar answers to the most pressing theological questions of our day.  It is an attractive system due to its unique view of redemptive progress.  The next step in the maturation of new covenant theology must come in the way of further refinement.  Working from this basic presupposition, new covenant theology needs to set forth its view of law and grace, continuity and discontinuity, and Israel and the church.  It must develop its hermeneutic and deal with specific portions of scripture to demonstrate its interpretive process.  Though confessional formulation appears, in our day, to be a practice of the past, new covenant theology eventually must develop a confessional statement of its own.  Dispensationalism, which has never been by way of confession codified, has suffered greatly due to its failure in this stead.  It has been common and unintelligent and has had to defend its scholarship in the past half-century.  Historically, doctrinal formulation led to scholastic matriculation, which in turn led to confessional status.  This text is being set forth as the beginning of the formulation of new covenant theology as a viable dogma and due scholarly attention.  Federalism, dispensationalism, and antinomianism have established their place in systematic thought. Now, new covenant theology presents its own answer to the most pertinent theological question.  Will it be heard? 

^[1] John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray: 4 Studies in Theology, 4, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 7.

^[2] Ibid., 1.

^[3] Ibid., 8.

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Chapter Ten:
Conclusion
Author: Kevin Hartley

 The Beginning

Theological dogma has, since the 16^th century, clearly taken its place in Protestantism thought.  John Murray notes, “The reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is without question the most notable.  It was then that the opus magnum of Christian theology was given to the church […].  It was the golden age of precision and formulation.”^[1]  Since then the church of the Reformation has labored to express itself in a most definitive manner.  It has done so by way of confessional practice, and it has done so through the expression of systematic theology.  Systematic theology is the theology of presuppositions.  John Murray writes, “The task of systematic theology is to set forth in orderly and coherent manner the truth respecting God and his relations to men and the world.”^[2]  This is the basic presupposition of this very book.  Theology is a discussion of presuppositions seeking to answer this most pressing theological question.  Federalism is a system of theology, as is dispensationalism and antinomianism.  In this book new covenant theology has been set forth as a viable option for consideration within the discipline of systematic theology.  One might question this approach and argue that the methodology of biblical theology is more apropos to the discussion at hand.  Some may even be inclined to designate new covenant theology as a biblical theology rather than a theological dogma.  This however is not the case.  Systematic theology is presupposed in any biblical theology.  In other words, new covenant theology’s systematic expression affirms its biblical theological method, the same with federalism and dispensationalism. The approach in this book has been to start at the most germane point in theological discussion. 

Theology in its Present Form

Systematic theology is an integral part of Christianity.  That integration, though, in the passage of time has given way to theological sloth.  Many hold to a system of theology and yet can offer little by way of explanation for what they believe.  John Murray writes, “When any generation is content to rely upon its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation.”^[3]  Within the various systems of theology present today there continues to be necessary development, formulation, and definition.  History has a way of inscribing dogma within the consciences of men as infallible as scripture itself and this must be avoided.  Thus it is imperative that theologians continually question, examine, and affirm what they hold as truth.  Many in our day affirm a system of theology and would perhaps die to defend it, having never truly understood it or weighed its conclusions against the greater rule of faith, God’s word.  Are the present theological dogmas the only options available?  Have we come to a place where we can honestly say that dogma must be either federalism or dispensationalism, that one of the two must be right, or is there room within the discussion of systematic theology for new options?  New covenant theology presents itself as one viable option for consideration.  As it seeks to assert itself, it will naturally continue to isolate itself.  In our day there is an immediate revulsion toward the notion that theological labels, distinctive, and separation are necessary.  Yet such distinction is necessary.  New covenant theology is a novel approach to the age-old question asked by systematic theology. 

The Future

The extreme importance of continued interaction with the basic thesis of this book is evident.  Until new covenant theology has an identity all its own, it will continue to be associated with what already exists and will be in danger of being consumed by the existing theological systems.  If new covenant theology is an expression of an existing system of theology, then there is no need to discuss it, and it should take up its place within the prescribed norms.  If it is not, then it needs to set itself apart.  New covenant theology is set forth as a novel approach to understanding the nature in which God relates to men.  It has peculiar answers to the most pressing theological questions of our day.  It is an attractive system due to its unique view of redemptive progress.  The next step in the maturation of new covenant theology must come in the way of further refinement.  Working from this basic presupposition, new covenant theology needs to set forth its view of law and grace, continuity and discontinuity, and Israel and the church.  It must develop its hermeneutic and deal with specific portions of scripture to demonstrate its interpretive process.  Though confessional formulation appears, in our day, to be a practice of the past, new covenant theology eventually must develop a confessional statement of its own.  Dispensationalism, which has never been by way of confession codified, has suffered greatly due to its failure in this stead.  It has been common and unintelligent and has had to defend its scholarship in the past half-century.  Historically, doctrinal formulation led to scholastic matriculation, which in turn led to confessional status.  This text is being set forth as the beginning of the formulation of new covenant theology as a viable dogma and due scholarly attention.  Federalism, dispensationalism, and antinomianism have established their place in systematic thought. Now, new covenant theology presents its own answer to the most pertinent theological question.  Will it be heard?

^[1] John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray: 4 Studies in Theology, 4, (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), 7.

^[2] Ibid., 1.

^[3] Ibid., 8.

eMail Kevin Hartley
Return to Kevin's Main Index
Return to NCT: Defining, Distinguishing, and Advancing a New Hermeneutic index
Go to the Sound of Grace Home Page

Copyright 2001 Kevin Hartley