Gentry and Wellum seem to agree that the “geneological principle operative in the Abrahamic covenant” is indicated by the phrase, “you and your seed” from Genesis 17:7. I agree, but if that’s true, then what do we say of Peter’s repetition of this formula in Acts 2:30, specifically in connection with baptism?…The cumulative case seems to place the burden of proof on the Baptist position

Editors’ Note: As noted in our recent interview with authors Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Crossway, 2012) is a groundbreaking contribution to any discussion about the intersection of exegesis, biblical theology, and systematic theology. In 848 pages, Gentry and Wellum have made a substantial case for an independent middle path between dispensational and covenant theology—a case that demands a response.

We’ve invited three noted scholars to evaluate Gentry and Wellum’s proposal: Darrell Bock, research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary; Douglas Moo, professor of New Testament at Wheaton College outside Chicago; and Michael Horton, professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary (California). Today we hear from Horton.

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For the seriousness with which it handles the issues, its depth of research and analysis, its approach on many issues, and the respectful description of alternative positions, Kingdom through Covenant strikes me as a model for the deeper and richer conversations that we need in our circles. However, since I’m offering a review from a traditional “covenant theology” perspective, I will skip over a host of edifying discoveries and get right to the point.

If I understand it correctly, the main argument of the authors is that dispensationalism and covenant theology both fail to read the Bible in a sufficiently typological way (pointing to Christ), though at different points: an unconditional and inviolable promise of either an ethnic people and geo-political land or of a “genealogical principle” that underwrites the baptism of covenant children and a “mixed body” ecclesiology. Consequently, covenant theology results in a one-to-one correspondence between circumcision and baptism, Israel and the church.

Abrahamic and New Covenants, Israel and the Church: Too Much Continuity?

I’ll grant that especially in anti-Anabaptist polemics, Calvin and his heirs have sometimes so stressed continuity within the one Abrahamic covenant of grace that the newness of the new covenant is insufficiently appreciated. Long ago, Voetius and Cocceius represented the wideness of the spectrum in covenant theology on that question, and more recent Reformed scholars (e.g., Vos, Ridderbos, Murray, Kline, Gaffin, et al.) have explored the qualitatively new blessings in the new covenant. So while I definitely think this criticism keeps us on our toes, there’s enough out there to qualify the charge that we see the Spirit’s work as “basically the same across redemptive history.”

What does hold across the various administrations of the covenant of grace, however, is God’s unilateral promise to provide a Savior in whom the families of the earth will be blessed. That’s just the rub, though, according to the authors. The classification of “unconditional” and “conditional” covenants isn’t helpful, they argue, because there are elements of each in every biblical covenant.

However, their argument assumes that the mere presence of commands indicates a mixture of unconditional-conditional aspects in the basis of the covenant itself. At this point, Reformed theology has traditionally appealed to a distinction between basis and administration. The mere presence of commands says nothing about the basis of a covenant itself. Circumcision (like baptism) identifies the members of the covenant, so if one is not circumcised, he is “cut off.” Nevertheless, one is not justified because he is circumcised, as Paul indicates in Romans 4:11. That would turn conditions into the basis rather than the administration of the covenant. Commands function in a law-covenant as the basis for blessing or curse: the swearer’s perfect, personal, perpetual obedience is the ground, ratified by a public assumption of the covenant obligations on one’s own head. In the covenant of grace, however, commands function as the “reasonable service” that we offer “in view of God’s mercies.”

The Abrahamic promise was a unilateral gift. In Genesis 15, God alone swears the oath and then walks through the pieces assuming its solemn threats. The gracious promise includes an earthly land and seed as well as a heavenly land and seed. This grace is the basis for Israel’s inheritance of the land in the first place, as Deuteronomy 8 and 9 point out so clearly, along with the prologue to the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:2. The earthly promise of a “holy nation” generates within history a temporary kingdom that is typological of the heavenly promise of an everlasting kingdom with global scope: Christ with his worldwide body.

Although the Mosaic covenant is certainly in service to the covenant of grace in various ways, in both form and content it is quite different from the one-sided promise to Adam and Eve after the Fall, Abraham and Sarah, David, and the new covenant. At Sinai (as in Eden), the servant-people swear the oath and Moses is the mediator, splashing blood on them “in accordance with all the words you have spoken, saying, ‘All this we will do'” (Exod. 24:8). As the Last Adam and True Israel, Jesus fulfills this law-covenant, confirming his oath with his own “blood of the covenant.” So now we inherit in a covenant of grace what our mediator has merited for us by fulfilling the covenant of works. Gentry and Wellum offer a tremendous defense of Christ’s active obedience, but this requires the sharp distinction between unconditional and conditional covenants that the original context of each covenant supports. So Israel inherits the earthly land by (Abrahamic) promise, but remains in the land by (Sinai-treaty) obedience. With respect to this covenant, E. P. Sanders is exactly right with his formula: “Get in by grace, stay in by obedience.” However, confusing these two covenants is precisely what provoked Paul’s argument in Galatians.

In the meantime, the promise of the Seed in whom all the families of the earth would be blessed continued—as it does today (Gen. 3:15; 28:14; Acts 3:25; Gal. 3:16). Paul doesn’t treat the Abrahamic covenant merely as typological of Christ, but sees the new covenant as the only possible fulfillment of the worldwide promise to Abraham. The Mosaic covenant was essential in the historical unfolding of the covenant of grace leading to Christ, but it was strictly temporary, typological, conditional, and limited to one geo-political nation.

The new covenant is indeed new—not like the Sinai covenant, which had “planned obsolescence” built into it (Jer. 31:32; cf. Heb. 8:9). However, it is the realization of the Abrahamic covenant (Acts 3:25). So despite repeated discontinuity between old and new covenants (Sinai and Zion, “two covenants”: law and promise, etc.), it is striking that the apostolic message explicitly treats the new covenant as the consummation of the Abrahamic covenant rather than its abrogation (for example, Acts 10:9-43, 15:7-17; Romans 4 and Galatians 3-4). Therefore, in spite of the obvious differences between the redemptive-historical quality of blessings enjoyed by Old and New Testament saints, respectively, believers and their children are “heirs according to the promise” just as Abraham and his heirs were. In both cases, there are those who embrace the promise and those who don’t. That’s why Romans 9 hits its mark: God’s promise hasn’t failed; even in the OT, God has always reserved his freedom in election even among those who are outwardly identified with the covenant. The apostles address their Jewish-Gentile congregations just as the prophets addressed Israel, only with respect to the everlasting-spiritual promises (which are not abrogated) rather than the geo-political theocracy (which is).

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