Two Hermeneutics: Covenant and Dispensations

[JesusFan]

We see here that the two foundational principles are entirely different.

Covenant affirms that Scripture has unified meaning and Dispensationalism denies it. The controlling priority of Covenant is Christological fulfillment governs all interpretation.

In Dispensationalism the controlling priority is original authorial meaning governs all interpretations.

The big question for both camps would be "just how new is the New Covenant?" As Reformed tend to see it as an enlargement, continuation, and fulfillment, while we Baptists was and is a brand new Covenant relationship

 

[Arial]

The big question for both camps would be "just how new is the New Covenant?" As Reformed tend to see it as an enlargement, continuation, and fulfillment, while we Baptists was and is a brand new Covenant relationship

Covenant does not see the NC as an enlargement or continuation of the OC. It sees it as the furtherance of redemption. The OC served as a purpose in redemption and that purpose is the NC and the future consummation of redemption. The OC was a pathway so to speak of bringing Christ forth. That of course was not its only purpose. Everything pertaining to the OC and the history unfolded in it had to happen before Christ came and it had to be how Christ came. Covenant theology sees one people of God. He does not have two families.

 

[John Bauer]

The big question for both camps would be "just how new is the New Covenant?" As Reformed tend to see it as an enlargement, continuation, and fulfillment, while we Baptists was and is a brand new Covenant relationship

How new is the new covenant? Almost two thousand years old. Maybe not exactly new? Both the old and new covenants point to Christ—the old pointing forward to what he would do, the new pointing back to what he did—and they both belong to the covenant of grace.

 

[Josheb]

Covenant is an eternal matter, not a spatio-temporal one.

My bad. Let me clarify that.

Covenant is an ever-lasting matter with its instigation and foundation in eternity, not spatio-temporal creation.

 

[EarlyActs]

[MOD HAT: Rules-violating content struck.]

What exactly does the modern intellectual climate have to do with what has been posted comparing the two hermeneutics? The hermeneutic is what the hermeneutic is. It also has nothing to do with Schaeffer or neo-orthodox theology.

Covenant theology is Reformed orthodoxy (16th-17h centuries).

John Bauer's title of one thread is 'using CT to read evolution and Genesis.' But if he is treating Gen 1 as liturgy (apart from truth), which he is, then it is pointless. He resolves all theology in CT no matter how badly Gen 1 failed.

[MOD HAT: Member has grossly misrepresented the views of another member, which violates rule 2.2.]
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So I have recently been asking you more exact questions about a belief system that has almost nothing to show for it for the 1st 2000 years of history that it covered, and then when the NT comes (Gal 3), the Abrahamic covenant is not even referred to a covenant, but a promise, and then both Gal 3-4 and Hebrews3-5and 2 Cor have to deal with the old covenant as good riddance. This is not a really strong case! The King case is much stronger, with its climax at the end of Acts 2's preaching.

So to hear people luxuriate in a covenantal structure as though every page dripped with it, is misleading at best, and just like D'ism to one who grew up there. No thanks. It's like a placebo that makes you feel good by suggestion but for no real reason.

Meanwhile, I get no answers about Two Lectures, or about getting feedback from Seegert or Malone about biology, nor really about the whole platform I developed other than having it called unique. Which, I think you can understand, with John giving you thumbs up after many of your posts, is just support for my placebo theory.

 

[EarlyActs]

[MOD HAT: Rules-violating content struck.]

This OP has nothing to do with Dr. Schaeffer. You are simply changing the topic---also known as hijacking a thread.

Off topic and extremely muddled. Also a passive aggressive attack on a member referring to an entirely different thread and topic.

That is not at all why there is a train wreck in Dispensational NT eschatology. It is because of the two different hermeneutics.

The relevance of Schaeffer is that if CT is actually the 'meaning' part of a split view of reality, then it is not really the Christian message. When John Bauer puts Gen 1 in the category of liturgy because it didn't really happen, it destroys the meaning. D'ist eschatology, actually developed by the renegade E George, is the same way. She found the NT (rather than Gen 1) to be destroyed by German scholarship, so she supplied her own sense of meaning out of nowhere (modern Israel) and a whole bunch of Bible Christians followed her.

To see what a split idea of reality might be like, see the Schaeffer books. 'Facts' do not lead to meaning; it has to come from wishes, pretending, imagining. The Bible may be historically false, but no matter, we get hope from something else in it.

As I just said in my previous post, there is far less CT in the Bible actually than you are presenting. I don't know how anyone thinks it is "there" in early Genesis, unless you just do the move which you did a few posts ago: 'it doesn't have to have the word covenant there to be about covenant.' Sorry, I don't buy that when the text itself does many other things when the term does come along and is used. What you're doing starts to sound as made-up as a D'ist, which I don't think you want.

 

[EarlyActs]

Here's a real solid and cumulative bit of covenant theology: Is 49. Finally, 3300 years into it, we get the declaration that all the nations will gain from a covenant, because the mediator is Christ. So even with all the extensive documents and commands, the Law wasn't really going this direction anyway. Yet it was the most articulated covenant.

At least with Christ as the covenant (one of the lines allows that grammar) we get back to the mission declared to Abraham as he was to look up at the 'kavov'--the mass of stars, not the local objects. That was the mission that would reach all the nations divided at Bab-El. It launches at Pentecost. But to go the next 1000 years in that other covenant direction--can you really say the whole thing is really that 'unified' by "covenant theology"?

 

[makesends]

Covenant theology sees Scripture revealing a unified redemptive purpose. That purpose unfolds through covenantal administrations. Later revelation interprets earlier revelation. Christ is the goal of every covenant.

What gets me here is why people can't see this. THIS (though I never considered it as "Covenant") is something I KNEW from before I can remember. If Christ died to take away sin and to give us everlasting life, then that HAD to be his reason for Creating. Is the universe really so magnificent in and of itself to truly represent the majesty, the glory and power of God Almighty? If he did it just to enjoy his artwork, or his playground, or even his laboratory experiment (as some seem to think) or for whatever reason we might come up with, WHY would he need to redeem anything? Did the experiment fail? The notion is so intellectually vapid and revolting that the nicest thing I can think is, "That is not God Almighty!"

As I grew up, this ate at me, along with all the other failed teachings of those insisting on autonomy. I considered my elders more wise and thought they had a settled understanding of the truth, but it never settled for me, until I realized autonomy of the creature is a lie. It is not up to me to divine God's intentions concerning me and to walk in them. This creation is not about the creature.

There is a wonderful truth in the wording Christians habitually take as their charter —such wording as to "grow in grace", "maturity", "increasing faith", even "If you love me you will keep my commandments.", and so many other Biblical admonishments and definitions concerning what we call "Sanctification". This is not "becoming more capable so that he can trust us for bigger/more important duties". It is not, "gaining spiritual ground." This is getting to know him; it is being IN CHRIST.

I am responsible to obey, but apart from Him, I can do nothing.

 

[JesusFan]

How new is the new covenant? Almost two thousand years old. Maybe not exactly new? Both the old and new covenants point to Christ—the old pointing forward to what he would do, the new pointing back to what he did—and they both belong to the covenant of grace.

We Baptist do see it differently then our Presbyterianism brethren

 

[JesusFan]

Covenant does not see the NC as an enlargement or continuation of the OC. It sees it as the furtherance of redemption. The OC served as a purpose in redemption and that purpose is the NC and the future consummation of redemption. The OC was a pathway so to speak of bringing Christ forth. That of course was not its only purpose. Everything pertaining to the OC and the history unfolded in it had to happen before Christ came and it had to be how Christ came. Covenant theology sees one people of God. He does not have two families.

But we Baptist, even we treformed ones, do tend to see it "more in a brand new sense" then our Presbyterianism brethren do

 

[Arial]

But we Baptist, even we treformed ones, do tend to see it "more in a brand new sense" then our Presbyterianism brethren do

I have no idea what you mean.

 

[John Bauer]

We Baptist do see it differently then our Presbyterianism brethren

Indeed. For you folks, the covenant of grace began in the New Testament.

 

[Arial]

Indeed. For you folks, the covenant of grace began in the New Testament.

The Covenant of Redemption by its very name, is a covenant of grace.

 

[John Bauer]

The Covenant of Redemption by its very name, is a covenant of grace.

There is a very limited sense in which that is true: We neither deserve nor necessitate God’s eternal purpose to redeem a people for himself. That said, the covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) is intratrinitarian, eternal, and economic; its parties are the Father, Son, and Spirit, and its logic is covenantal obedience and reward within the mediatorial economy freely assumed by the Son. The Son receives a commission, a people, and a reward grounded in covenantal obedience, not grace.

By contrast, the covenant of grace is vertical and federal. It is historical and postlapsarian, administered between God and fallen humanity through a mediator. Grace here is properly forensic and redemptive, presupposing sin, guilt, and the failure of the covenant of works (which was prelapsarian).

I would argue, then, that the covenant of redemption is the ontological and eternal foundation of the covenant of grace, not a subset of it. Grace is the historical fruit of the pactum salutis, not a defining property of the pact itself.

 

[makesends]

Indeed. For you folks, the covenant of grace began in the New Testament.

I don't know if that's true. The Reformed Baptist church I currently attend very definitely does not. Not so long ago we spent a while studying the wording and practical ways the Covenant of Redemption and Grace is expressed, promised, driven into fact, and consummated in Scripture and in our lives. It started at the beginning.

 

[Arial]

I don't know if that's true. The Reformed Baptist church I currently attend very definitely does not. Not so long ago we spent a while studying the wording and practical ways the Covenant of Redemption and Grace is expressed, promised, driven into fact, and consummated in Scripture and in our lives. It started at the beginning.

The Reformed Baptist is Confessional and Covenant. Not all Baptist churches are. Some are Calvinist/Dispensational, and if I am not mistaken, some are "free will".

 

[Soyeong]

In Psalm 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith, which means that the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of grace and law. In Jeremiah 31:33, they New Covenant involves God putting His law in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so it is also a covenant of grace and law along with all of God’s other covenants.

 

[Arial]

Most of the arguments by dispensationalists against Covenant theology are made from a radical misunderstanding of CT. The claims are made with binary language such as "CT spiritualizes the OT." This is the common view by dispensationalists against CT and means that it empties the OT texts of their concrete referents. As though it never acknowledges that concrete promises were made to national Israel. Or prophecies were never applicable to national Israel.

In fact, CT affirms grammatical-historical meaning; OT promises are real, historical, and concrete; typology is retrospective, revealed by later Scripture, not imposed.

From Calvin: "We must not imagine that the promises were shadowy or illusory.”

Vos: OT realities are true at their level but oriented toward eschatological fulfillment.

The Dispensational critique collapses because it defines "literal" as a final form identical to initial form.

CT defines "literal" as historically real and divinely intended.

When that distinction is made CT does not spiritualize, it eschatologizes, that is, it treats earlier realities as real and meaningful in their time, but as pointing forward to a greater, final completion.

For the Dispensational critique to work "literal" must be redefined narrowly and rigidly.

 

[JesusFan]

I don't know if that's true. The Reformed Baptist church I currently attend very definitely does not. Not so long ago we spent a while studying the wording and practical ways the Covenant of Redemption and Grace is expressed, promised, driven into fact, and consummated in Scripture and in our lives. It started at the beginning.

Reformed Baptists tend to see all saved in the OT were actually in the NC, as the father was "back crediting" their faith towards to the Messiah and Cross of Christ to save them

 

[JesusFan]

Most of the arguments by dispensationalists against Covenant theology are made from a radical misunderstanding of CT. The claims are made with binary language such as "CT spiritualizes the OT." This is the common view by dispensationalists against CT and means that it empties the OT texts of their concrete referents. As though it never acknowledges that concrete promises were made to national Israel. Or prophecies were never applicable to national Israel.

In fact, CT affirms grammatical-historical meaning; OT promises are real, historical, and concrete; typology is retrospective, revealed by later Scripture, not imposed.

From Calvin: "We must not imagine that the promises were shadowy or illusory.”

Vos: OT realities are true at their level but oriented toward eschatological fulfillment.

The Dispensational critique collapses because it defines "literal" as a final form identical to initial form.

CT defines "literal" as historically real and divinely intended.

When that distinction is made CT does not spiritualize, it eschatologizes, that is, it treats earlier realities as real and meaningful in their time, but as pointing forward to a greater, final completion.

For the Dispensational critique to work "literal" must be redefined narrowly and rigidly.

What gets interesting is that there are still some Reformed, especially those in Baptist cir cles, who do see a premil eschatology, so would tend to see prophecy at least as more literal in fulfillment as Dispy do