The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology by Pascal Denault A Book Review by Cliff Cooper The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology, by Pascal Denault was published by Solid Ground Christian Books, in January of this year, and was the thesis paper for his Master of Theology degree from Faculte de theologie evangelique de Montreal, Canada. Denault's advisor for this degree was Dr. Raymond Perron. The work was originally written in French, and translated into English by Mac and Elizabetth Wigfield. Pascal is married, and he and his wife, Caroline, have four boys, with another baby due in the upcoming weeks. It was a pleasure to get to meet both him and Caroline at the ARBCA GA this past April. The book is one which most folks will put down after just reading the title, as it has a very narrow populace for which it is targeted. Even most self-proclaimed Christians will not have anything to do with a book so focused on doctrinal issues. This is just an indictment on our culture as a whole, and our "Christian Culture" also. Postmoderns want nothing to do with intellectual matters, as they are completely taken up with experience alone. But Denault is writing for the sake of those who believe we must love the Lord our God with all our mind as well as with our heart and soul. He writes addressing how one organizes theology in the framework which takes in the teaching of the whole Bible. Covenant Theology recognizes that God has always related to man by means of covenant, and could be characterized as being the Reformed conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible. It entails understanding the relationship between three salvific covenants: that of redemption, of works, and of Grace; yet takes into account the major covenants of the Bible by which God relates to men. These would include the Noahic, the Abrahamic, the Sinaitic or Mosaic, the Davidic, and the New Covenant. Denault's work focuses on the features of Baptist Covenant Theology that distinguish it from the Paedobaptist Covenant Theology. Recognizing that there were many things that united the 17th Century Presbyterians and Congregationalists on the one hand, and the Baptists on the other, he is wanting to clarify just what it was that separated these theologies. He says that the most obvious answer would be baptism, yet maintains that the most foundational issue from which others flow is their view of covenant theology. So it was not baptism itself that distinguished the Baptists, but rather it was baptism "as approached through the doctrine of the church." The issue revolved around what was the very nature of the gospel and who were to be considered members of the church His method is to present the Baptist distinctives by means of looking at the biblical order of the covenants. His sources include, firstly the Westminster Confession of Faith with the Shorter and Larger catechisms, the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, with the Baptist Catechism and the Orthodox Catechism by Hercules Collins, pastor of Old Gravel Lane Baptist Church (1680). After these, he cites Presbyterian writers William Ames, John Ball, Peter Bulkely, Thomas Blake, Herman Witsius, Samuel Petto, and Francis Turretin. Next come the Baptist writers John Spilsbury, Henry Lawrence, Thomas
Patient, John Bunyan, Edward Hutchinson, Nehemiah Coxe, Thomas Grantham, and Benjamin Keach. His final source he consults is an enigma, as he calls him John Owen, the Baptist (as he argues almost exactly as the Baptists do, yet he remained an infant-baptizing Congregationalist). In making a brief historical overview of covenant theology, Denault brings to the table Zwingli, Bullinger, and Calvin as early sources for reformed covenant theology, and comments on how Zwingli and Bullinger understand the Old Covenant as being an administration of the covenant of grace in essence, while Calvin was somewhat mixed. Though Calvin saw the "Old and New Covenants as being two administrations of the Covenant of Grace," Denault notices, in commenting on Jeremiah, that he held the Old and New covenants to be different covenants. He thus suggests that Calvin sometimes states things that "seem to be in opposition to what he said before." In chapter one, "the covenant of works," he shows that both the Baptists and the Paedobaptists saw that the presence of both a promise for obedience and a threat for disobedience indicated that there was indeed a covenant with Adam, and that without this covenant of works, "the attribution of Adam's sin to his posterity would have no meaning." This covenant was built on two principles, "do this and live," and "the wages of sin is death." Now Denault knows that there were and are those who do not recognize God's dealings with Adam as a covenant of works, but both the Westminster and the London confessions clearly pronounced that God had made such a covenant with Adam. He shows that, though there were some terminological reasons for the way the Baptists treated this covenant, yet they agreed in substance with the origin, the nature and the function of the covenant of works. However he shows that the Baptist confession saw the relationship between this covenant and the old covenant differently than the Presbyterians. While dealing with the discontinuity of the law and grace, the Westminster and Savoy confessions call the covenant of works the first covenant and the covenant of grace the second covenant, whereas the Baptists saw the first covenant as a covenant of works (yet as reaffirmed in the old covenant) and the second covenant as the New Covenant. Most Presbyterians saw the old covenant as the covenant of grace, and not some form of a covenant of works. Covenant of Grace -The Baptists saw that they must distinguish themselves from both the Socinians (2 ways of salvation in the two testaments) on one side, and the paedobaptists. They were midway between these views. -C of Grace as seen by the paedobaptists, 1. Made distinction of substance and administration, 2. They had to justify mixed nature of people of God. 3. This involved the unity of the cov of grace, 4. Ames saw "the newness of the NC in the external form alone." 5. Baptists saw the importation of the natural posterity from the OC into the NC as a fallacy. 6. They (paedobaptists) thus viewed baptized infants as in the NC. 7. Turretin held that the difference between the Old Covenant and the NC was only accidental, not essential. -C of G by the Baptists 1. desired good relations with the paedobaptists, in spite of their difference on baptism. 2. Desired separation from the Socinians, and to be identified with the reformed. 3. Affirmed the unity of the cov of grace in both testaments = only one church and one way of salvation in both testaments. 4. Yet they rejected the "1 covenant under two administrations" model. 4a. Before the arrival of the NC, the covenant of grace was not formally given, only announced and revealed to certain degrees. (Owen-"before this covenant had its confirmation by the blood of Christ being shed,
it 'had not' the formal nature of a covenant.") So, they saw one covenant revealed progressively in the Old Testament, and formally concluded under the New Covenant. Before the NC was concluded, the covenant of grace was only in the stage of promise. ~C of G and the Old Covenant The Baptists saw the OC as a radically different covenant from the covenant of grace, and that it did not offer salvation. Denault cites Owen, whose thinking aligned with that of the Baptists: "...no reconciliation with God nor salvation could be obtained by virtue of the Old Covenant, or the administration of it, so our apostle disputes at large," and so, it was not the covenant of grace, nor even a "mere administration of the covenant of grace." Baptists did acknowledge that salvation was being given under the Old Covenant, but not by virtue of the Old Covenant. It was the Covenant of Grace being revealed at the time of the Old Covenant that made salvation a reality. So the covenant of grace was a promise "before it was an accomplished covenant." The 2 charts on p. 74 are extremely helpful in denoting the distinct ways that paedobaptists and Baptists viewed the Covenant of Grace, and the relation of the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. Denault first discusses the harmony of the 2 systems as pictured in the graph. This first appears in that both acknowledged a pre-lapsarian covenant of works, with a post-lapsarian beginning of the covenant of grace. Also, both held that there was only 1 church, only 1 chosen people of God in both testaments So there was no duality between Israel and the church as appears in dispensationalism. Thirdly, they both confessed the progressive revelation of the covenant of grace. finally both held that under the Old Covenant, there were "those who were regenerated and those who were not." Now for the differences that appear in Denault's diagram. In the paedobaptist model, the covenant of grace includes everything after the fall. Everyone, in other words, that was in the Old Covenant was also in the Covenant of Grace. There was a distinction of inner reality and outward administration, but all under Old Covenant were also in the Covenant of Grace. When the New Covenant is introduced, nothing substantially changes, except its administration. There are still those in the New Covenant who are unregenerate, but they are only in the outward administration of it. On the Baptist side, the Covenant of Grace was being revealed in the Old Covenant, but there were many under the Old Covenant who were not covered by the revelation of the Covenant of Grace. Only believers participate in the Covenant of Grace that is revealed and prophesied under the Old covenant. Yet when the New Covenant is concluded in Christ's death and resurrection, those only who are true believers enter the New Covenant, and so, all who are in the New Covenant, are also in the covenant of Grace. After explaining the diagram on page 74, Denault makes some hermeneutical comparisons and then some theological comparisons between the paedobaptist and Baptist models of the covenants. The main hermeneutical consequence of following the Paedobaptist model, as seen by Baptists, was that this model results in the leveling of the 2 testaments. David Kingdon exemplifies this by stating that "instead of recognizing that the NT fulfillment of the covenant promises in Christ is far richer than the types of the OT, they identify the two completely." On the other hand, the Baptist model was bringing both continuity and discontinuity together in its view of the covenants. They saw a continuity in the fact that the covenant of grace was beginning to
be revealed from Gen 3.15, all the way to Christ, yet the discontinuity is seen in that the covenant of grace was not concluded until Christ, and all the covenants leading up to this were of a different substance and thus "abolished and replaced by the New Covenant. The theological consequences deal with how each model addresses 1. the way of entering the covenant of grace, 2. the scope of grace in the covenant of grace, and 3. the unconditional nature of the covenant of Grace. The Old Covenant What does the term signify? When begun? When ended?= Coming of Christ and the New Covenant. Properly the Sinaitic covenant, yet mixed with that of Abraham' covenant of circumcision (Jn 7.22-23 & Gal 5.3). ~Because Presbyterians had the model of one covenant of grace under two different administrations, some saw this cumulative Old Covenant as being unconditional and so as being a covenant of Grace. For example, Ball did not see the obedience required by the law as being the condition for inheriting the promises, but as the fruit of the blessings offered in this covenant. He did see it function as a covenant of works for the unbeliever, but as a covenant of grace for the believer. He also saw the Old Covenant as a covenant of grace, because a statement of God's deliverance from Egypt preceded the giving of the law at Sinai. Also, because the OC demanded conversion to God, he believed it also gave what it demanded. These are answered by Paul in Romans 8 and other places, saying that what the law was powerless to do, God did in sending his son. Other Presbyterians, acknowledging that the OC was conditional and thus, a form of a covenant of works, separated the Mosaic covenant from the Abrahamic covenant. This was the covenant by which Abraham was justified (Gal 3), and thus was an administration of the covenant of grace. BB Warfield follows this argument, stating that if God put children of believers in the covenant then, and he has not taken them out, then we should not put them out of the church. So, the Baptists had to come up with an understanding of the covenant with Abraham that answers these objections to their theology. Their answer was that God had revealed the covenant of grace to Abraham, but that the covenant of circumcision was not that covenant. They saw a duality in the covenant with Abraham as they also saw a duality in Abraham's posterity. The passage which showed this understanding was Galatians 4.22-31. The operative words are: "these are the two covenants, the one from Mt. Sinai which genders to bondage, which is Hagar... but Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." Therefore two covenants were represented to Abraham, one the covenant of grace (Gen 12., revealed, not concluded), and the other was the covenant of circumcision (Gen 17, concluded with him). Abraham had a fleshly seed and a spiritual seed, but these were through two different covenants. The fundamental difference between the Presbyterians and the Baptists was found here, in how they viewed Abraham's covenant. One then might ask, "If the Old Covenant was not the covenant of grace, and it could not of itself impart eternal life, then why was it given?" Denault answers this question by referring to Gal 3,.19-24, where Paul takes up this very question. The seventeenth century Baptists saw the OC as leading to Christ in 3 ways: 1. by preserving both the Messianic lineage and the covenant of grace (Romans 9.4-5 & Ro3.1-2), 2. by pointing typologically to Christ (yet the types and the reality were two different
covenants), and 3. by shutting everything up under sin (Ro 8.3; 10.4; 2Co 3.6-9), so that the only means to obtain the inheritance would be through faith in Christ. In agreement with the original covenant of works, the OC demanded a perfect obedience to the law of God, yet contrary to it, the OC employed a sacrificial system which had reference to redemption for sinners (and all were sinners). While the OC made the sacrificial system necessary, the system could not effectually redeem sinners. There was a remembrance of sin that continually weighed sinners down and made them know that the real redemption was yet to come. The OC became the law that Jesus Christ had to fulfill for sinners, and provided the framework for their redemption by Christ. Denault says, "without being itself a covenant of grace, the OC was given because of the covenant of grace and with a view to its accomplishment." From John 1.16-17, the law given by Moses was a grace to lead to the grace accomplished by Jesus Christ. THE NEW COVENANT Denault makes the cogent statement beginning this section that "it was dangerous to affirm that a covenant called new was not new." Yet the Presbyterians in effect were saying that the new Covenant wasn't. They believed that the newness of the new covenant was only in its accidents or form, not in its substance. Ames wrote "but it is new not in essence, but in form." Yet even one of their own, Michael Horton said it was "an entirely different covenant with an entirely different basis." The Baptists, and Owen with them, say that its unconditional nature made it entirely new. It was radically new, as no other covenant before it was unconditional. Thomas Blake, a paedobaptist, wanting to negate this idea, claims that Heb 10.29 shows that it was transgressable. In reply to this, Denault says that since it is everywhere claimed in the New Testament that all for whom Christ died in the covenant receive all the benefits of it, then Heb 10.29 must mean something else. It does. He concludes it was the covenant that was sanctified by the blood and this is an interpretation that is grammatically as well as theologically accurate; thus the strained dichotomy between one being in the new covenant (outwardly, and fleshly), but not in its essence is avoided. One last note Denault makes about John (the Baptist) Owen (his term). Owen says "where there is not some degree of saving knowledge, there no interest in the New Covenant can be pretended." Conclusion Denault closes out this work by assessing the Presbyterians' work in Covenant Theology. I would like to read his second paragraph, as I think he has somewhat tried to soften the impact his work might have on them. Listen and see if you would agree. (See p. 155, para. 2) Analysis 1. Content: Denault recognizes he is describing how Baptists were "not only contesting a practice that appeared misguided, but they took on a global theological system underlying this practice, thereby
defying the very fundamentals of Presbyterian federalism." So he realizes his challenge will be great from the outset. We believe he has done a sharp work of clarifying not only how Baptists differed from their paedobaptist counterparts in reformed theology, but why their covenant theology was so different. Therefore, I score Denault a 97 on content and completion of his goal. 2. Form: Pascal Denault has very systematically gone through the main elements of covenant theology, showing, one covenant at a time, both the similarities and the differences in federalism between 17th Century Baptists and Paedobaptists. This work has greatly helped me to sharpen my own thinking about Covenant Theology, and to clarify how the covenants relate to one another, especially the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Another place my thinking has come away sharper is remembering the importance of the Galatians 4 passage on the two covenants in Abraham and their representing the Old and the New Covenants. I give him a 96 on Form. 3. Style: The only negative mark I notice in Denault's work might be in some of the ways his translated work comes through in English. Language is always a very difficult barrier to overcome, but there are just a few places the translation might be cleaned up just a bit. I still rate it a 90 on style. 4. This is a must read for both Baptists as well as reformed Presbyterians. Those who disagree must wrestle with and deal with the understanding of the two Abrahamic covenants from Galatians 4, and show how these covenants relate with the Covenant of Grace. Denault has done a wonderful job of presenting the 17th century Baptist Covenant Theology as represented in the 1689 confession.