Kingdom through Covenant (5 - and last!)

I have now come to the end of this tome and must express my appreciation of it. I have perhaps sounded a bit dour and curmudgeonly but that is because I have been rather taking for granted the extensive areas where I agree with the authors and looking for what I disagree with. That is not insignificant, but should not blind me to the very good things in this work.

Stephen Wellum wraps up with two chapters taking a systematic view of the material covered by Peter Gentry in biblical-theological form. He has a helpful summary of the idea of 'kingdom' in the Bible, and then proceeds to show how 'kingdom through covenant' is a good way to understand the plot-line of Scripture. This involves some overlap and repetition with previous chapters but it is helpful to remind one of major points in their argument.

Wellum goes through the covenants helpfully. Most interesting is the discussion of the covenant with creation with Adam serving as covenant mediator. Wellum strangely says that 'arguments for rejection of [a covenant of works] were covered in detail in chapter [6] '. In fact they are not - not so far as I can see anyway, unless Wellum and I differ considerably on what such arguments consist of.

However, he then goes on to argue in terms very similar to a covenant theologian for a representative role for Adam as covenant head and the need for perfect obedience, an obedience that is ultimately offered by Christ. He concedes that those who argue for a covenant of of works 'are on the right track' and proceeds to outline a case essentially the same. I was gratified to see that!

The significance of the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Israel and David are expounded, the big focus being on the preparation for a new Adam, to restore the divine image, of son, servant and king. He argues for the newness of the new covenant being primarily that ALL the covenant members now know God and experience forgiveness of sins and know the indwelling of the Spirit. The old covenant had many unregenerate members, and even those who were regenerate did not experience the indwelling of the Spirit in the way that new covenant members do. Hence - believers' baptism, not circumcision, or infant baptism, and a gathered church, not a 'mixed' community which is what Presbyterianism leads to [Presbyterians may object to that but paedobaptism certainly proceeds on the basis that the new covenant may be broken, which is difficult to see from anywhere in Scripture].

The final chapter looks at implications of the argument in theology 'proper' (doctrine of God); Christology (mainly a very fine argument for particular redemption); ecclesiology (an apologia for believer's baptism) and eschatology (arguing that 'land' is typological for the new creation). These last two sections round off a major element of the book's thesis, that it is a 'via media' between covenant theology and dispensationialism, and that the genealogical argument of covenant theology and the 'land' argument of dispensationalism are reflections of the same mistake of each respective position - a failure properly to apply typological principles and to see the OT covenants in context.

So all in all a good book to read. The weakest part of it is the failure to address the arguments for the Reformed position on the law. For a book proclaiming early on its new covenant credentials this was a surprise. The sabbath is only mentioned once or twice, the threefold division of the law is denied without any substantial argument and the passing of the law as a whole with the old covenant is again asserted without being argued.

I do not think that, if this is the best that new covenant systematic and biblical theology can do, Reformed Baptists need move from the 1689 position on the law. The basic arguments of this book are quite compatible with that position and a much richer position on the moral law, the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath can be maintained within it. There is no need to move towards dispensationalism or find a 'via media'. I would commend Greg Beale's 'New Testament Biblical Theology' (Baker, 2011) for a much stronger position on the moral law and the sabbath within an 'already- not yet' framework'.