Progressive Covenantalism and New Covenant
Theology an essay by Stephen Wellum
DEFINITION Progressive
covenantalism and new covenant theology are
evangelical biblical-theological systems
that seek to understand how God’s entire
plan of redemption unfolds from creation to
Christ. Specifically, they seek to
understand how God’s one, eternal plan is
progressively unveiled and revealed through
the biblical covenants, and how all of God’s
promises are fulfilled in Christ, applied to
the church as God’s new covenant people,
thus allowing us to draw right theological
conclusions from Scripture for God’s glory
and our good.
SUMMARY This article will
describe the distinctives of progressive
covenantalism. It will do so by setting it
against the backdrop of dispensational and
covenant theology, thus highlighting where
it differs in such areas as the progression
of the covenants, the relationship between
Israel and the church, and the overall
metanarrative flow of Scripture centered in
Christ Jesus.
All Christians
agree that “covenants” are central to the
Bible’s story and that God’s redemptive plan
unfolds over time reaching its fulfillment
in Christ. All Christians also accept some
form of redemptive epochs or dispensations
across history demarcated by the biblical
covenants, and that the fulfillment of God’s
saving purposes in Christ has brought some
kind of change from past eras. However,
Christians disagree on the exact
relationships between the covenants. This is
not a new debate. In the early church, the
apostles wrestled with the implications of
Christ’s new covenant work (see Acts 10-11; 15;
Gal. 3-4; Eph. 2:11-22).
Today, Christians
still disagree on the precise relationships
between the covenants, which has
implications for other theological disputes
such as: debates on the newness of what
Christ has achieved; what moral demands
apply to Christians today, as reflected in
disagreements regarding the Decalogue and
the Sabbath/Lord’s Day observance; and how
previous Old Testament promises are now
fulfilled in Christ and the church, tied to
the larger discussion of the Israel-Church
relationship and the role of national Israel
in God’s plan. In fact, within evangelical
theology, people tend to think about these
issues within the views of either
dispensational or covenant theology, while
progressive covenantalism and new covenant
theology serve as mediating views. To grasp
better the latter views, let’s first briefly
describe the basic points of the former
views.
Dispensational and Covenant Theology As a movement,
Dispensationalism began in the early 19th
century among the Brethren in England and
quickly spread to other countries.
Dispensational theology has undergone
various revisions now described as classic,
traditional/revised, and progressive
dispensationalism.
Dispensationalism
divides up redemptive-history into various
dispensations which reflects God’s ordering
of his redemptive plan. Classic
dispensationalism divided history into seven
dispensations, while later
dispensationalists modified and simplified
the dispensations. However, what is unique
to all forms of dispensationalism is the
Israel-church distinction, which is largely
tied to its understanding of the biblical
covenants and their relationships. For all
varieties of dispensationalism, Israel
refers to an ethnic, national people, and
the church is never the transformed,
restored, eschatological Israel in God’s
plan. The salvation of Gentiles is not part
of the fulfillment of the promises made to
Israel as a nation now realized in the
church. Instead, God has promised national
Israel, first in the Abrahamic covenant and
reaffirmed by the prophets, the possession
of the Promised Land under Christ’s rule,
which still requires a future fulfillment in
the premillennial return of Christ and the
consummation.
The church, then,
is distinctively new in God’s purposes and
ontologically different from Israel.
Although in our present dispensation the
church is comprised of believing Jews and
Gentiles, the church is only receiving the
spiritual blessings of the Spirit that were
promised to Israel. But in the future,
Christ will rule over redeemed nations, not
the church as another “people group.” The
“church” as a present-day covenant people
and forever theological reality will not
receive all God’s promises equally and fully
in Christ or continue in its present form.
Instead, believing Jews and Gentiles, who
now compose the church, will join the
redeemed of national Israel and the Gentile
nations to live under Christ’s rule
according to their respective national
identities and specific promises. In this
way, a clear distinction is maintained
between Israel as a nation and the church as
a people, who at present, in an inaugurated
form, illustrate what is still to come. Yet,
presently the church is constituted as a
regenerate community, which entails that the
sign of baptism is only to be applied to
those who profess faith in Christ. Baptism
does not signify what circumcision did for
Israel under the old covenant. With the odd
exception, dispensational theology affirms
credo- over paedo-baptism.
Covenant
theology, on the other hand, has its roots
in the Reformation and post-Reformation era.
It’s best systematized by the Westminster
Confession of Faith (1643-1649), along with
other Reformed Confessions. Covenant
theology organizes God’s plan in history by
God’s covenantal dealings with humans. As in
dispensationalism, covenant theology is not
monolithic, yet broadly, covenant theology
speaks of three covenants: the “covenant of
redemption” or God’s eternal plan; the
“covenant of works” made with Adam on behalf
of the entire human race, which sadly, by
Adam’s disobedience has resulted in sin and
death; “the covenant of grace” made in
Christ for the salvation of God’s people
which is unfolded over time by different
covenant administrations.
While covenant
theology admits there are biblical
covenants, it tends to subsume the plurality
of the covenants from Adam to Christ under
the overarching category of the covenant of
grace. By doing so, unlike
dispensationalism, it stresses the
continuity between Israel and the church, so
that by nature the two are essentially the
same, yet administrated differently. For
this reason, covenant theology argues that
there is continuity between Israel and the
church in at least two ways: both
communities are comprised of believers and
unbelievers (i.e., a mixed people within the
covenant community); and their respective
covenant signs (i.e., circumcision and
baptism) signify the same spiritual reality,
thus the rationale for applying baptism to
infants in the church.
Progressive
Covenantalism and its Distinctives Not everyone in
evangelical theology fits in the
dispensational or covenantal camp. In recent
years, some have sought to offer a mediating
position between the two dominant views, as
reflected by the view of progressive
covenantalism and new covenant theology.
Although these
views are often identified, there are enough
differences between them that they need to
be distinguished. For example, within new
covenant theology, some deny a creation
covenant, others deny Christ’s active
obedience, and others are not nuanced in
their grasp of God’s moral law in relation
to the Decalogue. Progressive covenantalism,
on the other hand, strongly affirms a
creation covenant, God’s demand of Adam (and
all humanity) for perfect obedience thus
necessitating Christ’s active obedience for
our justification before God, and that the
Decalogue is a reflection of God’s moral law
for Christians now applied to us in Christ.
Yet what both views have in common is seeing
how all of God’s plan and covenant promises
are brought to fulfillment in Christ and the
new covenant. But what follows is more a
description of progressive covenantalism in
three summary points.
(1) God’s
one plan is revealed through a plurality of
covenants culminating in Christ. Similar to
covenant theology, progressive covenantalism
views the biblical covenants as the central
way God has unfolded his redemptive plan
throughout history. Yet, it contends that
the Bible presents a plurality of covenants
that progressively reveal God’s one
redemptive plan for his one people which
reaches its fulfillment, telos, and terminus
in Christ and the new covenant. Each
biblical covenant contributes to God’s
unified plan, and to know the entire plan,
we must understand each covenant in its own
context by locating that covenant in
relation to what precedes and follows it
before we draw its application to us today.
Through the progression of the covenants, we
come to know God’s plan, how all of God’s
promises are fulfilled in Christ and applied
to the church as God’s new covenant people
(Heb. 1:1-3; cf. Eph. 1:9-10), and how we
are to live as God’s people today.
(2) The
covenants are more than a unifying theme of
Scripture but the backbone to the Bible’s
redemptive storyline, starting in creation
and reaching fulfillment in Christ. Progressive
covenantalism argues that the covenants are
more than a unifying theme of Scripture;
instead, they are revelatory of God’s plan,
prophetic in their anticipation of Christ,
and theologically significant as they
function as the backbone to Scripture’s
storyline. However, unlike most advocates of
covenant theology, progressive covenantalism
does not divide the biblical covenants into
simply two categories: “the covenant of
works” (law) and “the covenant of grace”
(gospel), although the truth of “law” and
“gospel” as theological concepts is vital to
maintain. Nor does it categorize the
covenants as either unconditional/unilateral
(royal grant) or conditional/bilaterial
(suzerain-vassal), as both covenant and
dispensational theology tend to do.
Why? For this
reason: each covenant contains both
elements, but with a clear distinction
between the covenant in creation before and
after the fall, and that redemption is
grounded in Christ alone. In fact, it’s due
to this blend of both elements that a
deliberate tension is created in the Bible’s
unfolding covenantal storyline—a tension
that heightens as God’s plan unfolds—and is
only resolved in Christ’s perfect obedient
life and death for us.
On the one hand,
the covenants reveal our triune
Creator-covenant Lord who makes and keeps
his promises. As God initiates covenant
relationships with his creatures, he is
always the faithful partner (Heb. 6:17-18).
Regardless of our unfaithfulness, God’s
promises, commencing in Genesis 3:15, are
certain. Yet, God demands from us perfect
obedience, hence the bilateral aspect to the
covenants. However, as the covenants
progress, a tension grows between God’s
faithfulness to his promises and our
disobedience. Obedience is not an option for
us. God is holy and just; he is the moral
standard of the universe, but we have sinned
against him. And, in light of Genesis 3:15,
God’s promises are tied to the provision of
an obedient son, who will undo Adam’s
disastrous choice. But where is such a son
who fully obeys and meets God’s moral
demand? How can God remain in relationship
with us unless our sin is removed? It is
through the covenants that this tension
increases, and it is through the covenants
that the answer is given: God himself—our
covenant-maker and keeper—will unilaterally
act to keep his own promise by the provision
of an obedient covenant partner, namely
Christ.
Thus, it’s
through the plurality of interrelated
covenants, starting with Adam and creation
and culminating in Christ and the new
covenant, that God’s one, eternal plan is
revealed in time. In fact, starting with a
creation covenant is crucial for two
reasons.
First, the
creation covenant is foundational for all
future covenants since all subsequent
covenants unpack Adam’s role in the world.
Adam, and all humanity, is created as God’s
image-son, a priest-king to rule over
creation (Gen. 1:26-28; cf. Ps. 8). Adam is
created in relation with God as he mediates
God’s rule to the world. Yet, God demands
perfect obedience from his covenant partner,
which, sadly, he fails to do (Gen. 2:16-17;
cf. Gen. 3). But God graciously promises
that a “seed of the woman” will come (Gen. 3:15),
a greater Adam, who will reverse the
effects of sin and death. In truth, all
subsequent covenant heads will function as
subsets of Adam, who, in God’s plan, will
not be the greater Adam, but who will point
forward to Christ. Adam’s role as the
representative head of creation defines what
comes after him, and the entire work of
Christ (Heb. 2:5-18).
Second, the
creation covenant is foundational for
establishing various typological patterns
that eventually reach their telos in Christ
and the new covenant (e.g., the rest of the
seventh day [Gen. 2:1-3; Exod. 20:8-11] and
salvation rest in Christ [Heb. 3:7-4:13];
Eden as a temple sanctuary which is
fulfilled in Christ as the new temple; and
marriage which points to a greater reality,
viz., Christ’s relationship to his people
[Gen. 2:24-25; Eph. 5:32]). All of these
patterns will eschatologically terminate in
Christ and God’s new covenant people, the
church.
In this way, the
creation covenant lays the foundation that
continues in all the covenants and it, along
with all the covenants, is fulfilled in
Christ. As God’s eternal plan is enacted on
the stage of human history, it moves from
creation in Adam to consummation in Christ.
However, it’s in
the new covenant that all the previous
covenants are fulfilled. Since all of the
covenants are part of God’s one plan, no
covenant is unrelated to what preceded it,
and no covenant makes sense apart from its
fulfillment in Christ. No doubt, new
covenant fulfillment involves an
“already-not yet” aspect to it. Yet, what
the previous covenants revealed,
anticipated, and predicted is “already”
here. That is why Jesus is the last Adam and
head of the new creation (Rom. 5:12-21;
1 Cor. 15:21-22; Heb. 2:5-18), the true seed and
offspring of Abraham who brings blessings to
the nations (Gal. 3:16), the true Israel
fulfilling all that she failed to be (Matt. 2:15;
John 15:1-6), and David’s greater son
who rules the nations and the entire
creation as Lord (Acts 2:32-36; Rom. 1:3-4;
cf. Ps. 2; 45; 110).
In fulfilling the
previous covenants, this does not entail
that the earlier covenants have no value for
us today. The previous covenants are forever
Scripture, which is for our instruction and
growth (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Yet, now that Christ
has come, Christians are no longer under the
previous covenants as covenants (other than
the Noahic until the consummation). As the
church, we obey all of Scripture, including
the Decalogue, but now in light of its
fulfillment in Christ and the new covenant
(1 Cor. 9:19-21).
(3) The
Israel-Christ-Church relationship across
redemptive-history. Concerning the
Israel-church relationship, progressive
covenantalism stresses two points. First,
God has one people, yet there is an
Israel-church distinction due to their
respective covenants. The church is new in a
redemptive-historical sense since she is the
new covenant community. Second, we must
think of the Israel-church relationship
Christologically. The church is not directly
the “new Israel” or her replacement. Rather,
in Christ Jesus, the church is God’s new
creation, comprised of believing Jews and
Gentiles, because Jesus is the last Adam and
true Israel, the faithful seed of Abraham
who inherits the promises by his work
(Gal. 3:16; Eph. 2:11-22). Thus, in union with
Christ, the church is God’s new covenant
people in continuity with the elect in all
ages, but different from Israel in its
nature and structure. Now, in Christ, both
believing ethnic Jews and Gentiles stand
equally together and inherit all of God’s
promises in him (Gal. 3:26-4:7). And,
furthermore, the relationship between Christ
and his people is inseparable. For this
reason, the church receives all of God’s
promises in Christ.
This way of
viewing Israel-Christ-Church differs from
dispensational and covenant theology in at
least two areas. First, against
dispensationalism, Jesus is the antitypical
fulfillment of Israel and Adam, and in him
all of God’s promises are fulfilled for his
people, the church, consisting of believing,
regenerate Jews and Gentiles. In addition,
in Christ, the land promise is also
fulfilled and consummated, as the one who
wins the new creation by his work and who,
when he returns, will usher in the new
creation (Rom. 4:13; Eph. 6:3; Heb. 11:10, 16;
cf. Matt. 5:5; Rev. 21-22). In Christ,
as the last Adam and true Israel, he is the
first man of the new creation and by his
work he wins the new creation by putting
everything under his feet in victory and
triumph at his cross and in his glorious
resurrection (Heb. 2:5-18). The land, then,
is viewed as a type/pattern which not only
looks back to Eden/creation, but also
forward to Christ and the new creation.
Second, against
covenant theology, Jesus’ new covenant
people are different from Israel under the
old covenant. Under the old covenant,
Israel, in its nature and structure, was a
mixed community of believers and unbelievers
(Rom. 9:6). But the church is constituted by
people who are united to Christ by faith and
partakers of the new covenant, which
minimally includes the forgiveness of sin,
the gift of the Spirit, and heart
circumcision. Thus, in contrast to Israel,
the church is constituted as a believing,
regenerate people, although we await the
fullness of what Christ inaugurated at his
glorious return. For this reason, baptism,
the sign of the new covenant, is only
applied to those who profess faith and give
credible evidence that they are no longer in
Adam but in Christ, and circumcision and
baptism do not signify the same realities,
due to their respective covenantal
differences. In fact, to think that
circumcision and baptism signify the same
reality is a covenantal-category mistake.
Here is
progressive covenantalism in summary form.
On gospel issues, although there is more
agreement than not with dispensational and
covenant theology, progressive covenantalism
contends that at the center of all of God’s
plans and purposes is Christ Jesus. In him,
all of God’s promises are “yes and Amen”
(2 Cor. 1:20), and by grace, we, as the church are
the beneficiaries of his glorious,
triumphant work, now and forevermore.
FURTHER
READING • D. A. Carson,
“New Covenant Theology and Biblical
Theology,” in God’s Glory Revealed in
Christ: Essays on Biblical Theology in Honor
of Thomas R. Schreiner, eds. Denny Burk,
James M. Hamilton, Jr, and Brian Vickers
(Nashville: B&H Academic, 2019), 17-31. • Peter J. Gentry
and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through
Covenant: A Biblical-Theological
Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd
(Wheaton: Crossway, 2018). • Gary D. Long,
New Covenant Theology (n.p.: CreateSpace,
2013). • John G.
Reisinger, Abraham’s Four Seeds (Frederick,
MD: New Covenant Media, 1998). • Brian S. Rosner,
Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments
of God, NSBT 31 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 2013). • Thomas R.
Schreiner, Covenant and God’s Purpose for
the World (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017). • Tom Wells and
Fred Zaspel, New Covenant Theology:
Description, Definition, Defense (Frederick,
MD: New Covenant Media, 2002). • Stephen J.
Wellum and Brent E. Parker, eds.,
Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course
between Dispensational and Covenant
Theologies (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016).
See an Author Interview here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRAU1W4mMzQ]
and here [https://www.booksataglance.com/author-interviews/interview-with-stephen-wellum-co-author-of-gods-kingdom-through-gods-covenants-a-concise-biblical-theology/]. • Stephen J.
Wellum, “Progressive Covenantalism.”
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqSqN2k16L0] • Stephen J.
Wellum, “The Backbone to the Bible’s
Storyline.” [http://intersectproject.org/faith-and-culture/stephen-wellum-progressive-covenantalism/]
This essay is
part of the Concise Theology series. All
views expressed in this essay are those of
the author. This essay is freely available
under Creative Commons License with
Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to
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Stephen J. Wellum is
professor of Christian theology; Editor, The
Southern Baptist Journal of Theology at The
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
