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February 15 - March 9, 2024
Although the Baptists believed in the unity of the covenant of grace, like their interlocutors, and though they wanted to maintain unity with them, they rejected the one covenant under two administrations model.
The Baptists saw a unity of substance in the covenant of grace from Genesis to Revelation, but they didn’t see this same unity between the old and the new covenants. They therefore did not accept the idea that those two covenants were two administrations of a single covenant.
Consequently, they didn’t endorse the theology of one covenant of grace under two administrations.
The Baptists’ opinion regarding the Presbyterian model of the covenant of grace concords exactly with that of John Owen, who states, “[…] we may consider that Scripture does plainly and expressly make mention of two testaments, or covenants, and distinguish between them in such a way, that what is spoken can hardly be accommodated to a twofold administration of the same covenant.”
By rejecting the notion of a single covenant of grace under two administrations, the Baptists were in fact rejecting only half of this concept; they accepted, as we have previously seen, the notion of a single covenant of grace in both testaments, but they refused the idea of the two administrations. For the Baptists, there was only one covenant of grace which was revealed from the Fall in a progressive way until its full revelation and conclusion in the new covenant.
The Baptists believed that before the arrival of the new covenant, the covenant of grace was not formally given, but only announced and promised (revealed).
For Coxe, the covenant of grace was not concluded when God revealed it to Adam.
The distinction between the revelation and the administration of the covenant of grace finds its whole meaning when the second element of Baptist federalism is added to it, that is to say, the full revelation of the covenant of grace in the new covenant. If Westminster federalism can be summarized as “one covenant under two administrations,” that of the 1689 would be, “one covenant revealed progressively and concluded formally under the new covenant.”
The Baptists believed that no covenant preceding the new covenant was the covenant of grace. Before the arrival of the new covenant, the covenant of grace was at the stage of promise. According to Benjamin Keach, the expression “the covenants of promise” that can be found in Ephesians 2:12 refers to the covenant of grace.118 To speak of it as a promise implies that it was not yet accomplished and was not yet in the form of a testament or a covenant. The Baptists believed the new covenant was the accomplishment of the promise, or in other words, the accomplishment of the covenant of grace.
The New Testament brings the full revelation of the covenant of grace since the new
covenant is its accomplishment. The Baptists considered that the new covenant and it alone was the covenant of grace.
The new covenant did not exist as a covenant before Jesus Christ; however it did exist as a promise (cf. Jer. 31:31). The covenant of grace revealed to Adam, and then to Abraham, was the new covenant promised. Therefore, before Jesus Christ, the new covenant did not exist as a formal covenant, but then neither did the covenant of grace.
This distinction (revealed/concluded) summarized the difference between the covenant of grace in the Old Testament and the covenant of grace in the New Testament. In the Old, it was revealed; in the New, it was concluded (“fully revealed,” according to the expression of the 1689).
Before Christ, the covenant of grace was announced; after Christ, it was established (νενομοθέτηται).
Owen adds to this by saying that the covenant of grace, as a formal covenant, exists only in the new covenant.
God did not conclude the covenant of grace with Adam any more than he did with Abraham; he revealed the substance of the covenant to them, but it was only concluded through Jesus Christ, in his sacrifice.
Those who were saved before Christ were saved because of an oath; those who were saved after him were saved because of a covenant. The Epistle to the Hebrews makes this distinction when it bases the faith of believers of the old covenant on the oath that God made to Abraham (Heb. 6:17–18). However, the assurance of the believers of the new covenant rests on a testament that is the achieved work of Christ (Heb. 7–9).
The time of God’s patience is situated between the fall of man and the death of his son; this is the period when the covenant of grace was not formally concluded in the blood of Christ. In establishing this alliance, God has finally manifested that he is just, even while he has been justifying the impious since the creation of the world.
the Baptists saw the old covenant as a radically different covenant from the covenant of grace and as a covenant that, contrary to the new covenant, did not offer salvation.
According to this understanding, no one was ever saved by virtue of the old covenant since the substance of the old covenant was not the covenant of grace.
Before the new covenant, the covenant of grace was only revealed; when the new covenant was introduced, it was νενομοθέτηται. This verb is used only twice in the Holy Scriptures: once to speak of the promulgation of the old covenant (Heb. 7:11) and a second time to relate the promulgation of the new covenant (Heb. 8:6). These two covenants were established (νενομοθέτηται) on two completely different foundations. The first was established (νενομοθέτηται) on the Levitical priesthood with the blood of rams and calves (Heb. 9:18–19), whereas the second was founded (νενομοθέτηται) on an eternal
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The Baptists did not support a theology with Socinian tendencies wherein the salvation of the believers of the Old Testament would have been different from that of New Testament believers, as if there were one salvation through works and another salvation through faith.
While they denied the idea that the old covenant offered salvation through grace, they stated that all those who were saved under the old covenant were saved by the grace of salvation in Jesus Christ.
Thus, the Baptists could state that the old covenant did not give salvation, all the while affirming that salvation was given under the old covenant. This understanding can be summarized in this way: salvation was given under the old covenant, but not by virtue of the old covenant; during the time period of the old covenant, but not by the old covenant.
The Abrahamic covenant, the Sinaitic covenant, and the Davidic covenant were not the covenant of grace, nor administrations of it; however, the covenant of grace was revealed under these various covenants.
The first covenant did not redeem transgressions; consequently it did not offer the forgiveness of sins. However, the believers under this covenant received the forgiveness of their sins and the heritage of salvation in Jesus Christ,
Those who were called before Christ paid for their transgressions received the eternal inheritance and those who continue to be called since that event receive this same promised inheritance. As a result, all those who were saved since the creation of the world were saved by virtue of the new covenant which was in effect as a promise even before it was an accomplished covenant.
Instead of considering that the new covenant was in effect before it was concluded, certain paedobaptists stated that Christ was also the mediator of the old covenant and therefore justified the efficacy of grace by this covenant.
Many paedobaptists considered that it was through the old covenant that Christ offered the benefits of his mediation to the believers that were under this covenant,
while the Baptists affirmed the effectiveness of Christ’s death from the revelation of the covenant of grace, but exclusively by virtue of the new covenant.
According to the paedobaptist conception, the work of Christ was communicated to believers both b...
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Except for a few radical groups such as the Socinians, those who supported the New Testament exclusivity of Christ’s mediation did not claim that the benefits of Christ’s death did not exist before New Testament times, but that they existed by virtue of it. Thus, the believers who lived before Christ were called and received the inheritance even if their transgressions had not yet been redeemed (Heb. 9:15).
The first evidence of this harmony concerns the prelapsarian origin of the covenant of works and the postlapsarian beginning of the covenant of grace.
The church has existed since the beginning of the covenant of grace; the difference between the Old Testament and New Testament churches consisted in the extent of the nations to which the covenant of grace was announced and not in the identity of the church being different from one testament to another.
A third similarity between both of these understandings is found in the progressive revelation of the covenant of grace.
The Baptists and the Presbyterians recognized that under the old covenant there were those who were regenerated and those who were not.
In the paedobaptist diagram, this notion is illustrated by a separation between those who were only under the external administration and those who were also under the internal substance of the covenant of grace.
In the Baptist diagram, this notion of mixed nature is illustrated by the separation between the old covenant itself and the covenant of grace revealed under this covenant. The regenerated were both in the covenant of grace and under the old c...
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On the paedobaptist side, the covenant of grace is everything that is after the fall. It is established as of
Genesis 3:15 and concretized by two covenants: these two covenants are substantially the covenant of grace. Consequently, these two covenants are simply seen as administrations and not as covenants in themselves;
this is why these covenants are under the covenant of grace in the diagram and not the other way around. The dotted lines demonstrate that there is a progression in passing from the old to the new covenant, but there is no break. Therefore, we find a narrow continuity between these two administrations, illustrated b...
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On the Baptist side, it was considered that the old covenant was not a covenant of grace nor even an administration of it. Nevertheless, the covenant of grace was revealed progressively under the old covenant. The arrival of the new covenant marks the full revelation of the covenant of grace which passes from the state of promise to the state of a covenant accomplished and sealed in blood. The Baptist diagram shows the covenant of grace coming to join the new covenant without there being any distinction between them. The clear line between the old and new covenants illustrates the
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the Presbyterians made a distinction between the substance and the administration of the covenant of grace,
the Baptists made a distinction between the revelation and the
conclusion of the covenan...
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The Baptists often insisted that the old and new covenants not be interpreted inside the global theological system of the covenant of grace, but rather that the covenant of grace be defined based on the biblical data regarding the old and new covenants.
One of the fundamental rules of Reformed hermeneutics consists of seeing Scripture as interpreting itself. The Baptists considered that paedobaptist federalism transgressed this rule by interpreting the biblical covenants based on a theological concept rather than on revelation.
In any case, it is undeniable that the paedobaptists practised paedobaptism on the basis of a covenant where baptism did not exist.142 The only reason that explains this hermeneutic—questionable to the Baptists—is the Presbyterian model of the covenant of grace. This model had a major hermeneutical impact since it logically led to the following conclusion: if the covenant of grace was administered respectively by the old and the new covenants, these defined the nature and essence of the covenant of grace. This logic explains the intertwining of the Old and New Testaments in the paedobaptist
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In short, the main hermeneutic consequence of the one covenant under two administrations model is the levelling and amalgamation of both testaments. The paedobaptist approach not only did not use the New Testament to interpret the Old but did the exact opposite.
What is more, the paedobaptists defined the old and the new covenants on the basis of predefined theological notions (for example, the old and new covenants must have the same substance in order to preserve the unity of the covenant of grace) rather than on the basis of a biblical exegesis.
