[We do not hold to
"Covenant Theology" and are especially opposed to the Arminian concept of a Covenant of Works made with Adam in the Garden - ed]
This is a synopsis of the book written by The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism by Pascal Denault.
Introduction
Denault begins by situating the debate within the context of the Protestant Reformation and the development of Reformed theology. He outlines how covenant theology became a defining characteristic of Reformed thought and explains the importance of understanding the theological differences between Baptists and Paedobaptists. Denault emphasizes that seventeenth-century Particular Baptists were deeply influenced by Reformed covenant theology but developed distinct views, especially regarding the nature of the covenants and the recipients of baptism.
We do not think that Denault gives an accurate picture of where Particular Baptists stood on "Covenant Theology".
While most 17th-century Particular Baptists embraced a form of Covenant Theology (distinct from Paedobaptist models), there were some Particular Baptists who either rejected or modified Covenant Theology in significant ways. Here are a few groups and figures who diverged from or critiqued the dominant 1689 Federalism model:
1. General Rejection of Formal Covenant Theology
Some Particular Baptists distanced themselves from the structured Covenant Theology framework developed by Reformed theologians (both Paedobaptist and Baptist). This rejection usually stemmed from a belief that the biblical covenants should not be systematized in the same way or that the Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace categories were too speculative or unbiblical.
2. John Tombes (1603–1676)
- Position: Tombes was a prominent Particular Baptist and theologian who is best known for opposing infant baptism but also criticized the Covenant Theology framework.
- Key Objection: Tombes rejected the idea that circumcision and baptism were parallel signs of a unified Covenant of Grace. While he did not completely deny the concept of covenants, he was skeptical of Reformed scholastic categories and their applications to the sacraments.
3. Samuel Fisher (1605–1665)
- Position: Originally a Puritan minister, Fisher became a Baptist but later shifted toward Quakerism.
- Key Objection: Fisher rejected covenantal formulations in favor of a more spiritual and experiential understanding of faith. His move away from formal Covenant Theology paralleled his broader critique of systematic theology and external religious forms.
4. Some 17th-Century Baptist "Biblicists"
- Position: Certain Baptists (especially outside the London Baptist Confessions) preferred a Biblicist approach that avoided systematic formulations like Covenant Theology.
- Key Objection: They viewed Covenant Theology as too reliant on human reasoning and preferred a literal, text-centered reading of Scripture that focused on individual covenants without overarching Covenant of Works/Grace categories.
5. Hyper-Calvinist Baptists
- Position: Some later Particular Baptists, including figures in the Hyper-Calvinist tradition (like John Skepp and Joseph Hussey), rejected covenantal frameworks because they believed it compromised the sovereignty of grace and suggested conditions in salvation.
- Key Objection: They viewed the Covenant of Grace as eternal and entirely unconditional, rejecting the idea that it was administered through history or could be offered in any sense to all.
6. 20th-Century Reformed Baptists (Non-1689 Federalism)
While not part of the 17th century, some modern Reformed Baptists (e.g., John Reisinger and New Covenant Theology proponents) reject traditional Covenant Theology in favor of a Christ-centered focus that emphasizes the New Covenant as the sole redemptive covenant.
- Key Objection: They argue that Moses' covenant was a legal covenant and that the Covenant of Grace is exclusively the New Covenant without a historical unfolding across multiple covenants.
Summary
While the majority of 17th-century Particular Baptists adopted a distinct form of Covenant Theology (now called 1689 Federalism), dissenters like John Tombes and others were skeptical of or rejected the systemized Covenant of Works/Grace structure. These critics often leaned toward a Biblicist approach, Hyper-Calvinism, or an experiential emphasis that did not rely on covenantal categories.
Chapter 1: The Covenant of Works
Denault examines how both Particular Baptists and Paedobaptists agreed on the Covenant of Works, which teaches that God established a covenant with Adam that promised eternal life upon perfect obedience. Both groups affirmed that Adam’s failure brought sin and death to all humanity. The key differences between the groups did not emerge at this level, as both accepted the federal headship of Adam and the imputation of sin.
(ed - we cannot conceive of how anyone who purports to believe in Predestination and election could possibly accept the notion that Adam could have had salvation by obeying the command of God. This would render the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world doctrine needless. Salvation could have been attained without Christ's death and resurrection!]
Chapter 2: The Covenant of Grace
This chapter is central to Denault’s argument. He explains that the Paedobaptist view holds that the Covenant of Grace is one unified covenant that spans the Old and New Testaments, administered differently but essentially the same throughout redemptive history. In contrast, the Particular Baptists saw the New Covenant as the formal establishment of the Covenant of Grace, distinct from the Old Covenant.
Key Distinctions:
- Paedobaptists: View the Covenant of Grace as an overarching covenant that includes believers and their children, justifying infant baptism.
- Particular Baptists: Argue that the Covenant of Grace is only fully revealed and enacted in the New Covenant, which includes only those who are regenerated believers—excluding infants from the covenant community.
Chapter 3: The Old Covenant
Denault emphasizes the Baptist understanding that the Old Covenant (particularly the Mosaic Covenant) was a covenant of works in a typological sense. While Paedobaptists view the Old Covenant as an administration of the Covenant of Grace, Baptists see it as a distinct, temporary covenant that does not directly administer the grace of the New Covenant.
Baptist View: The Old Covenant had an earthly and temporal focus (e.g., the land of Canaan), while the New Covenant was purely spiritual and eternal.
Paedobaptist View: The Old and New Covenants are two phases of the same Covenant of Grace, leading to continuity in applying the sign of the covenant (circumcision to infant baptism).
Chapter 4: The New Covenant
This chapter focuses on how the Particular Baptists viewed the New Covenant as fundamentally different from all previous covenants. Denault argues that Baptist covenant theology is Christocentric, where the New Covenant exclusively contains the blessings of salvation and only includes the elect.
Distinct Baptist Position: The New Covenant is unbreakable and includes only those who are truly saved. This contrasts with the Paedobaptist belief that the visible church may contain both believers and their unregenerate children.
Chapter 5: The Implications for Ecclesiology
The covenantal differences directly affect the understanding of the church. Denault explains how Particular Baptists believe that the New Covenant people of God are exclusively regenerate believers, which shapes their congregational polity and believer’s baptism.
- Paedobaptist Ecclesiology: Includes believers and their children in the visible church through baptism.
- Baptist Ecclesiology: Restricts church membership and the covenant sign to those who give a credible profession of faith.
Chapter 6: Historical Context and Legacy
Denault situates these theological debates within the historical context of the seventeenth century. He discusses the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, which reflects these distinctive covenantal positions and parallels the Westminster Confession of Faith while emphasizing Baptist distinctives.
He also traces how these views evolved and continue to influence Reformed Baptist theology today.
Conclusion
Denault concludes by summarizing the key distinctions:
- The Covenant of Grace is established uniquely in the New Covenant (Baptist position) versus a unified covenant across redemptive history (Paedobaptist position).
- The Old Covenant was conditional and typological (Baptists) rather than an administration of grace (Paedobaptists).
- The New Covenant includes only the regenerate elect (Baptists), contrasting with a mixed visible church (Paedobaptists).
- These theological differences shape the practice of baptism and church membership, leading to believer’s baptism and a regenerate church for Baptists.
Denault’s work argues that Baptist covenant theology is not a departure from Reformed thought but a consistent development of biblical covenant theology with distinct ecclesiological implications.
For a detailed response from Presbyterians on Renault's book you may read a detailed critique of it. From our own sad experiences at Westminstological Seminary (the fortress of the Princeton-Hodge-Warfield-Theological views, Reformed Baptists are essentially as what they are - second-class citizens in the world of Reformed Theology!]
Not all Baptists are "Reformed" and some hold to a superior and more biblical view of election, reprobation, and absolute predestination without introducing artificial-man-made abstractions into scripture.
We include one particularly detailed critique of Denault and Reformed Baptists in General:
Perhaps this is the "rule" about which I wondered above: (taken from post #3) define the terms and the ordinances of the New Covenant based solely on New Testament data
If indeed this is the principle by which a Baptist-hermeneutic is governed (advance apologies for the broad brush strokes), then one can see all the clearer how a deep and fundamental commitment to discontinuity in religion is marked by the cross of Christ, when the Baptist looks to ground his theology. It is not merely that the New covenant documents are the principal context for, and the necessary justification of the conditions of the Christian religion today: if that were so, many or even most Presbyterians would agree. No, but the purported Baptist position is that the NT is the only relevant data set.
What is the OT for, in that case, other than for a description of the preparations for the interruption of Christ on the world scene? It is a long prelude, filled with ups and downs in the fortunes--material and spiritual-- of the Old covenant people. But is this people a church of God? More exactly, on this view it seems more accurate to assess that covenant nation as a place where (more than other places in the world) one might find, here or there, the occasional man, woman, or child of faith. The church, such as it was, could be found within the Old covenant bounds; or prior to that, within the tents of Abraham, then Isaac, then Jacob, then the twelve patriarchs and their houses; but in no sense would it be right to identify the tents of Abraham as THE CHURCH.
But, doesn't the NT refer to "the church in the wilderness," Act.7:38? My Presbyterian-hermeneutic teaches me to recognize the constituting of the Exodus people a nation as also constituting them "the church" in that age. The things that were written for them--as instruction and promise, as background and prophecy, as a record of their engagement to be the Lord's and of their progress--are part and parcel of the guidance we have inherited for our present needs (1Cor.10:11) as the indispensable interpretive context for the capstone of revelation in Jesus Christ. There was a church in those ancient times as well as the institution founded by Christ and his apostles. Abraham's tents were the best expression of the true church in his day, even if other relics also remained from the church of Noah in men like Melchizedek.
Calvin writes in his exposition of Gen.4:26, "Seth was an upright and faithful servant of God. And after he begat a son, like himself, and had a rightly constituted family, the face of the Church began distinctly to appear." If Calvin's statement were rebutted to him as representative of a theological a priori, "a mere innovation which is built up only to defend infant baptism," what should he say to that? The fact there was a church before "church" was the name of it is simply recognition of the distinction between a concept and its description, or how a concept may transition from simple to complex, without altering its essence. And if there was a church back in Genesis, then is it really a textual imposition to note comparable elements of that church with present-day church analogues? It was the "infant church;" and while there are extraordinary differences between infants and adults, there is undeniable continuity as well.
There is a kind of "intertwining of the Old and New Testaments in the paedobaptist hermeneutic." It is the hermeneutic that discovers the manifold ways that Christ is in the Old Testament concealed, yet brought to light by the clarity of his coming. Because he was the Hope of Israel, one wonders how the New Testament could be faithfully interpreted as the fulfillment of that hope, if not by finding the depth of Old Testament support for every predicate.
I want to close by affirming: I believe Baptists who focus on the NT--even to ignoring the OT--and such are not all Baptists!--these are not to be despised. As a Presbyterian, I think they have devoted themselves to a false principle, that they reckon Jesus Christ started what amounts to a new religion. It is so radical a break with the past--breaking hard even with revealed religion that appeared in the world between Adam and Moses and carried down to the days of John the Baptist--that they think of God and one another in ways that are quite distinct from the thinking manner (as they conceive it) of OT heroes and heroines of faith, ala Heb.11. The reason we ought not despise them, besides behavior dishonoring to Christ and his name on us, is that sometimes they love our mutual Lord better than those who take pride in their religion, or their harmony of OT/NT witness, or their covenant theology, or whatever. People with whom we may seriously disagree can still be our brother and sister through sincere faith in Jesus, in whom we too have put our whole confidence.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting. If an answer is needed, we will respond.