Covenant Theology, Scripture, and Reformed Confessions — Unit 4: Old and New Covenants: Continuity and Discontinuity

Key Verse

"But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises." (Hebrews 8:6, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what stays the same and what changes between the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Reformed view.

2. State the main teachings of dispensationalism fairly, in the way its own teachers would state them.

3. Name the sources of dispensational teaching and the debate among historians about its beginning.

4. Answer dispensationalism from Scripture on the questions of Israel and the church, the interpretation of the promises, and the unity of the covenant.

5. Explain how a Reformed pastor can speak with kindness to dispensational believers and with respect to the Jewish people.

Where We Stand

This course is written from inside the confessional Reformed and Presbyterian tradition, for students who belong to it. In Unit 3 we saw one covenant of grace in many administrations, from Adam to the new covenant. This unit asks two questions. How do the old and new administrations relate? And how shall we answer the large and influential system called dispensationalism, which sees the Bible differently?

Many dispensationalists are our brothers and sisters. They love the Lord, honor the Bible and give generously to missions. We must state their teaching as they would state it, and then give our answer. Scripture says, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). The history of the Reformed churches is told in Course 1. Our approach to reading the Bible is developed in Unit 9.

Part One: Continuity and Discontinuity in the Reformed View

Reformed teachers speak of both continuity and discontinuity between the old and new covenants. We hold both.

What stays the same

One Savior and one way of salvation. Every believer, before and after Christ, is saved by grace through faith in the promised Redeemer. Abraham believed and it was counted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4).

One people of God. Gentiles who believe are "Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29). They share one tree with Israel (Romans 11).

One moral law. The Ten Commandments express God's unchanging character. The Westminster Confession, chapter 19, teaches that the moral law binds all people, believers as well as unbelievers, forever (19.5). (See Unit 5.)

One covenant of grace. The Confession says there are not two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one under different administrations (7.6).

What changes

The coming of Christ. The shadows are fulfilled. The Confession teaches that under the law the covenant was given by promises, sacrifices and ceremonies pointing to Christ, and that under the gospel it is given by the preaching of the Word and by baptism and the Lord's Supper, with fuller light, more simplicity and more spiritual power, to all nations (7.5, 7.6).

The ceremonial and civil laws. The Confession teaches that the ceremonial laws, the sacrifices and the temple rules, are abrogated under the New Testament (19.3). The judicial laws of Israel as a nation expired with that state (19.4). Their principles of justice remain. Hebrews 8:13 says the first covenant is becoming obsolete.

The outpouring of the Spirit. At Pentecost the Spirit was given to all God's people in a way unknown before (Acts 2).

The reach to all nations. What was promised to Abraham, that all families of the earth would be blessed, now goes to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19).

The signs. Baptism and the Lord's Supper take the place of circumcision and the Passover.

The writer of Hebrews calls the new covenant better, with better promises, a better sacrifice and a better priest. Better does not mean that earlier believers were saved some other way. It means that the Savior has come.

Part Two: Dispensationalism Stated Fairly

Where it came from

Dispensationalism as a system was shaped in the nineteenth century by John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), a leader among the Plymouth Brethren in the British Isles. It was carried to North America and spread widely through the Scofield Reference Bible (1909). Teachers such as Lewis Sperry Chafer, who helped found Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924, gave the system its fuller form. Later writers revised it. Charles Ryrie, in the twentieth century, named three marks he considered essential: the distinction between Israel and the church, a consistently literal reading, and the glory of God as God's purpose. In the 1990s, "progressive dispensationalists" such as Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock changed several earlier points. Dispensationalism is therefore not one system. Classical dispensationalism (Darby, Scofield, Chafer) is the sharpest on the separation of Israel and the church, revised dispensationalism (Ryrie) restates it with its three marks, and progressive dispensationalism (Blaising, Bock) sees more continuity between Israel and the church. Where we speak below of "dispensationalists" in general, we mean what these forms share, and we note differences where they matter. We state the classical form first.

What dispensationalists teach

1. A distinction between Israel and the church. This is the heart of the system. Dispensationalists hold that God has two purposes: an earthly purpose for national Israel and a heavenly purpose for the church. The church is a new body that began at Pentecost, and it is not the continuation of Israel. In classical and revised forms, the present church age is a "parenthesis," a pause in God's dealing with Israel. After the church is taken up, God will turn again to Israel.

2. Consistently literal interpretation. Dispensationalists hold that the Old Testament promises to Israel should be understood in their plain sense. When God promises land, a throne and a kingdom to Israel, these will be fulfilled to Israel as a nation on the earth, and not "spiritualized" into the church or heaven.

3. The glory of God as God's purpose. Salvation is one means in a larger purpose of God's glory. We gladly share this point.

4. Dispensations. The Bible is divided into periods in which God tests humanity under different arrangements. The Scofield Reference Bible listed seven: innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, grace and kingdom.

5. The covenants. Dispensationalists distinguish the biblical covenants, such as those with Abraham, David and the land covenant, from the theological covenants of works and grace, which they do not find named in the Bible. They hold that the Abrahamic, Davidic and land covenants are unconditional promises to national Israel, to be fulfilled literally. The Mosaic covenant is a temporary, conditional covenant. The new covenant of Jeremiah 31 is made "with the house of Israel," and the church shares in its spiritual blessings.

What dispensationalists do not teach

Fairness requires us to correct a common mistake. Careful dispensationalists do not teach that Old Testament people were saved by keeping the law. They teach, as we do, that salvation in every age is by grace through faith, based on the work of Christ. Some older statements were loosely worded, but modern dispensational writers state the point plainly. Dispensationalism is also often joined to premillennialism, but the two are not the same thing. Some premillennialists, whom we call historic premillennialists, are not dispensationalists. Our confessions do not bind a single view of the millennium. We do not argue here for or against any millennial view. Our disagreement is about the structure of the covenants and the relation of Israel and the church.

Part Three: Our Answer

1. The church and Israel are one people, not two

The New Testament speaks of the church in the language of Israel. Peter tells believers, many of them Gentiles, that they are "a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people" (1 Peter 2:9), words taken from God's description of Israel at Sinai (Exodus 19:5-6). Paul says that "they are not all Israel who are of Israel" (Romans 9:6), and that a person is a Jew who is one inwardly (Romans 2:28-29). He says that those who are of faith are sons of Abraham (Galatians 3:7), and that if we are Christ's, we are Abraham's seed (3:29). In Ephesians 2:11-22, Gentiles who were "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel" are made fellow citizens, and Christ has made the two groups "one new man" (2:14-16). A single people with a single Savior fits this teaching better than two peoples with two destinies.

2. The new covenant is made with the church

Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31 in full and applies it to Christ's work for his people now. Jesus said at the Last Supper, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20), to disciples who were Jewish believers and the first members of the church. Paul calls himself a minister of the new covenant (2 Corinthians 3:6). The promise to the "house of Israel" is fulfilled in the Israel of God, in which believing Jews and Gentiles are united.

3. The promises are fulfilled in Christ

Reformed teachers also read the Bible by its plain, grammatical and historical sense. The difference is how the New Testament itself reads the Old. Paul writes, "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen" (2 Corinthians 1:20). The apostles find the promises of the Old Testament fulfilled in Christ and his people. We take three examples.

• The throne of David. Peter says at Pentecost that God raised up Christ to sit on David's throne, and that he is now exalted at God's right hand (Acts 2:29-36). The Davidic king reigns now, though the nations have not yet bowed to him.

• The land. Paul says Abraham was promised to be "heir of the world" (Romans 4:13). Hebrews says Abraham and the patriarchs looked for a better, heavenly country and a city whose builder is God (Hebrews 11:8-16). The land was a picture of the final rest.

• The temple and sacrifices. The Old Testament system pointed to Christ, and Hebrews teaches that his one sacrifice has finished what they pictured (Hebrews 10:1-14).

For Reformed teachers, the apostles' way of reading is the best guide to what "literal" must mean, since they were inspired. We will return to this in Unit 9.

4. The church was not a surprise

The classical form of dispensationalism holds that the church was hidden from the Old Testament prophets as a "mystery." Paul does speak of a mystery in Ephesians 3:3-6, that Gentiles are fellow heirs, of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ. But he says it was "not made known" to earlier generations "as it has now been revealed." So the truth is more fully revealed, not wholly unknown before. The prophets had spoken of the Gentiles coming to the Lord (Isaiah 49:6). At the Jerusalem council James quoted Amos 9 to show that the calling of the Gentiles was what the prophets had foretold (Acts 15:14-17). The mystery was the manner, not the fact: Jews and Gentiles equal in one body.

5. The promises to Abraham are not unconditional in the way dispensationalists say

The Abrahamic covenant rests on God's faithfulness, and we agree that God keeps his word. But the covenant also called for Abraham's obedience (Genesis 17:1; 22:16-18), and Scripture says that Israel could lose the blessings of the land through unfaithfulness. The land promise was fulfilled in the days of Joshua (Joshua 21:43-45), and Israel was later exiled for sin. More important, the promise is realized in the Seed, Christ (Galatians 3:16).

6. A word about "replacement"

Dispensationalists often charge that covenant theology teaches "replacement," that the church has replaced Israel, and that God is finished with the Jewish people. We deny this. Paul asks, "Has God cast away His people?" and answers, "Certainly not!" (Romans 11:1). He teaches that Israel is still "beloved for the sake of the fathers" (11:28) and that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (11:29). The picture is the olive tree: unbelieving branches are broken off, believing Gentiles are grafted in, and Jews who believe are grafted back into their own tree (11:17-24). The church is the same tree, and Gentiles are guests who share its root.

Reformed teachers have differed on Romans 11:26, "all Israel will be saved." Calvin took it to mean the whole people of God, Jews and Gentiles together. Many Puritans and later teachers such as Charles Hodge expected a large-scale turning of the Jewish people to Christ before the end. Our confessions leave room for both. All of us share three convictions. We repudiate every kind of contempt for the Jewish people, the church's shameful history of persecution included. We urge the gospel to Jews as to everyone (Romans 1:16). And we hold that God's promises do not fail.

A debate among historians

Historians disagree about the beginning of dispensationalism. Critics point to the 1830s and Darby, and say the system was new. Defenders find earlier seeds, in some seventeenth-century and early church writers, and say that the system only restates old truths. As we said in Unit 1, the age of a doctrine does not prove it right or wrong. The test is Scripture.

Pastoral Application

A faithful member of your church, a woman who came to the Lord through a neighboring church, shows you her study Bible. A friend has told her that the Sermon on the Mount is for another age, that the church is "Plan B," and that she must choose between Israel and the church. She asks, "Pastor, is the church only second best? And is my Old Testament not for me?"

A wise pastor begins with what they share. He thanks the friend for her love for the Bible. He assures the woman that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ, which both churches teach. Then he opens Ephesians 2:11-22 and Romans 11:11-24 with her and shows that the church is the one olive tree with Israel's root, and not "Plan B." He reads Hebrews 8 to show that the new covenant is hers now, and 2 Corinthians 1:20 to show that the promises are "Yes" in Christ. He asks her not to quarrel but to keep her friend's love, to pray for the Jewish people, and to remember that the details of the end times do not divide those who trust the same Savior.

Summary

Reformed teaching holds continuity (one Savior, one way, one people, one moral law, one covenant of grace) and discontinuity (the coming of Christ, the end of ceremonial and civil laws, the Spirit's outpouring, the reach to all nations, new signs). Dispensationalism, shaped by Darby and spread by the Scofield Bible and Dallas Seminary, teaches a distinction between Israel and the church, a consistently literal reading of Old Testament promises, successive dispensations and unconditional covenants to national Israel. It does not teach salvation by works. We answer that the New Testament speaks of one people, that the new covenant is made with the church, that the apostles read the promises as fulfilled in Christ, that the church was foretold by the prophets, and that we do not replace Israel but share its tree. Historians debate the system's beginning, but Scripture is the test.

Further Reading

• The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapters 7 and 19 (1646).

• John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 2, chapters 10 and 11 (Beveridge translation, 1845).

• Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology (1872-73), on the covenants and the future of Israel.

• Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man (1677).

• The Scofield Reference Bible (1909), a primary source for classical dispensationalism.

• Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism, for a dispensational statement in the author's own words.

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