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Baptist Covenant Theologians
Posted in: Covenantalism
About the Author
Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
Feel free to submit names to the list of Baptist CT’s. If the name is of a contemporary pastor or theologian, please provide a link or reference if possible to verify the information.
This list will be constantly updated as I have time.
Concerning the CT doctrines, this is not a post that intends to provide a comprehensive explanation of all there is to know about CT. We can debate the finer points in posts to come.
Thanks for the list Jason. It will be helpful in showing others what Covenant Theology is and along with your last list on Amillennialism my shake some people up, for the good.
I forgot to put this link to MP3s from the 2005 Founders
Conference Southwest which include some on Covent Theology.
John Piper holds to covanent theology?
http://www.desiringgod.org/library/theological_qa/law_gospel/disp_cov_ncov.html
I would guess Al Mohler fits the bill, but I can’t substantiate that at the moment. Is it possible to have a strong-but-dim recollection? I have a strong sense but can’t specify the facts behind thinking that Mohler is covenantal. Maybe I’ll rummage around his site and see what I can find.
I share the surpise at Piper being included. I thought he had distinguished Fuller’s and his position as a third way between classical covenant theology on one hand, and the recent dispensational (it’s ALL recent, relatively)theology on the other. If I misunderstood his position or if he has adjusted his thinking, I welcome correction. Thanks for a helpful post.
Is this list inclusive of NCT as well as CT?
Just CT.
Hey you guys might want to check out the inteview with Jason on 08/10/2006 it can be heard here….
http://www.unchainedradio.com/freedownload/nm08102006.mp3
O. K.
Bunyan was neither Baptist nor CT (although he could be broadly categorized that way inthe same way that current NCTer’s can).
The Doctrine Of The Law And Grace Unfolded
John Piper is reluctant to put himslef in a box as you can see from the link provided by chh above.
Bunyan is NCT, not CT. Just a note here, NCT is not a new kind of CT. It is a theology of the NC itself.
Tom Nettles, B.H. Carroll and Timothy George could be added to your list.
Those claiming Bunyan for NCT should read him more carefully. The Sabbath against which he argues is the 7th day Sabbatarian view of some Baptists at that time.
I’d add to the original article that CT is not uniform in its linguistic classification scheme with respect to the covenants. Some have denied the covenant of works in language but not in principle. Some have denied the covenant of redemption in language but not in principle. That is, they see the order of decrees and their outworking (which is what the Covenant of Redemption is about) but view it as an expression of a greater inter-trinitarian relation about which we know little. As to the Covenant of Works, some, like Robertson call it the Covenant of Creation and the Covenant of Grace they call the Covenant of Redemption. So, you have to be careful, because different writers use different terms to express the same concepts. One of the weaknesses, speaking from a historical standpoint, is this lack of uniformity across the theologians. I’d recommend Golding’s book on the history of CT to help folks understand who says what and what they mean.
John Bunyan in his earlier days taught that the sabbath was a creation ordinance and therefore binding. He knew better as he got older.
Gene,
It’s not the anti-sabbatarianism, but the anti-legalism that brings Bunyan more in line with NCT views than those of CT.
I’d probably not put him into either camp conclusively, but if it’s the role of Law that separates NCT and CT, then Bunyan is definitely not CT and leans more NCT.
I would see myself in the same category as Bunyan. If he is CT then I have misunderstood CT and am in fact, CT.
Iranaeusii said John Bunyan in his earlier days taught that the sabbath was a creation ordinance and therefore binding. He knew better as he got older.
we are praying the same for you.
John Bunyan affirms the following principles:
1. The sabbath command was never given to Adam.
2. The sabbath command was not a moral command but a ceremonial one.
3. The sabbath command was given to Israelites only, never to gentiles.
Does this issue alone not remove him completely from CT?
Iren,
I am CT and non-Sabbatarian. So what was your point?
Well, his arguments are a little more than those three one liners. You would have to look at his writings. To put him in the CT category is not accurate.
You said:
“for dispensationalism, in fact, did not even exist until the nineteenth century.”
Covenant theology, in fact, is a post-Reformation development. In their criticism of dispensational theology, covenantal thinkers give the impression that their system is much older than dispensationalism. One of their most common accusations against dispensationalism is that it is too new to be accurate. The fact is that the system of covenant theology is only about one hundred years older than the dispensationalism system. Covenant theology does not appear in the writings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or Melanchthon, even though they discussed at length the related doctrines of sin, depravity, redemption, and so on. They had every opportunity to incorporate the covenant idea, but they did not. There were no references to covenant theology in any of the great confessions of faith until the Westminster Confession in 1647, and even then covenant theology was no where near fully developed. The covenant theory arose sporadically and independently late in the sixteenth century. Francis Turretin was the first to attempt to synthesize (though incompletely) a covenant theology with his “Institutes of Elenctic Theology” in 1696.
The idea that “whoever was first in the Systematic Theology line wins” is not a valid criterion for determining biblical accuracy.
My thoughts exactly.
Keep up the good blogging.
-Sean
__________________
http://www.SeanDietrich.com
“All my music is free.”
Steve,
You are terribly mistaken in your understanding of the history of CT. Just because certain terminology is new does not mean that the teaching is new. The most notable example is the doctrine of the “Trinity”. Or if your argument is credible then I guess John Calvin wasn’t a Calvinist since he didn’t use that term nor was Calvinism systematized until later.
But nice try. Oh, and by the way, follow this link for a brief overview of CT in early Christianity:
http://www.fpcjackson.org/resources/apologetics/Covenant%20Theology%20&%20Justification/briefoverview.htm
Jason,
You too, nice try, but not quite. I like your biting style, you dog.
You must be responding to some other comment because I addressed CT as a system, not the terminology used to describe it nor how new or old the individual theological concepts of CT are.
It does not matter much how new or old certain terminology might be and there is no doubt that some of the core ideas of CT were held by some very early church thinkers. The article you linked to was pretty good and I basically agree with it.
Notice carefully, I said “the system of covenant theology is only about one hundred years older.” This is true, but the basic ideas have been there since the early church, as have the basic ideas of dispensational theology.
DT as a system and CT as a system are both post-Reformation developments and both of their core ideas have been held since the early church – whatever the terminology might have been that was used to describe them.
So, scratch those fleas and ticks out of your ears because you didn’t quite hear me right the first time.
Steve, Acts 20:32
Steve, thanks for the clarification. On your technical point about systematizing of theology, you are true. But I think you would find that most orthodox scholars would not agree with you that the “core ideas” of dispensationalism has existed since the early church.
Covenant theology does not appear in the writings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or Melanchthon, even though they discussed at length the related doctrines of sin, depravity, redemption, and so on. They had every opportunity to incorporate the covenant idea, but they did not.
It does in Zwingli and Calvin. Just because terminology is not mature doesn’t mean the doctrine isn’t there. Covenant Theology used to be called Federal Theology (a better name, when the subject is systematic theology rather than biblical theology), and Federal Theology better highlights the soteriological aspects of classical covenant theology you’ll find in a Calvin, et al.
Francis Turretin was the first to attempt to synthesize (though incompletely) a covenant theology with his “Institutes of Elenctic Theology” in 1696.
It seems to me Witsius’ Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man, widely regarded as the best overall work on classical covenant theology, appeared before then. And Turretin isn’t so incomplete in his covenant theology. Neither are the Westminster Standards…
The fact is, Covenant (or Federal) Theology IS systematic theology. And all-inclusive biblical systematic theologies were just starting to be written in the 15th century. Each era of the history of redemption has different needs and brings forth different efforts. Peruse R. Scott Clark’s website for the history of covenant theology. There are many good resources there.
>were just starting to be written in the 15th century.
Make that the 16th century.
I have recently published the authorized biography of Roger Nicole, entitled Speaking the Truth in Love: The Life and Legacy of Roger Nicole. It is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or the publisher, Solid Ground Christian Books.
There were no references to covenant theology in any of the great confessions of faith until the Westminster Confession in 1647, and even then covenant theology was no where near fully developed.
>>Since this is often read many months later, I will respond.
This is demonstrably false, as you can find the covenant of works in the Irish Articles of 1611 and the works of Archbishop Usher. It can also be found in the work of Robert Rollock in 1596. Cocceius was discussing a covenant system long, long before Turretin. Voetius and Witsius did not dispute the covenants and their relation. That dispute was about making biblical theology – which is always in flux – “the” way to do theology. The Voetians won that dispute. Systematics generally takes priority in Reformed thought, biblical theology is rather fluid.
>>Covenant theology does not appear in the writings of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or Melanchthon, even though they discussed at length the related doctrines of sin, depravity, redemption, and so on. They had every opportunity to incorporate the covenant idea, but they did not.
Au contrare, it is found in Calvin and Zwingli. Zwingli discusses the covenantal unity of the testaments. It is also found in the works of Ursinus in Summa Theologica, 1592. Bullinger is also an advocate of the covenant idea.