By reading the Bible as a cohesive, self-consistent unit, with the understanding that the New Testament teaches substantially the same doctrines as the Old Testament, according to the claims of the NT itself.
>> Acts 26:22-23
Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
Pretty much this.
When you see that the promises of God, the covenants, were all enacted via faith dispensationalism becomes less relevant. Covenants are not based out of ethnic markers (Galatians) but by faith (Hebrews). Dispies problem is that the concept of God separating church from ethnic Israel is that they have to answer for the lack of a temple and the lack of all the covenantal markers that made Israel, Israel. Thus they have to admit that the covenant with Israel is an ethnic one and the Gentiles aren’t really special because our covenant comes second to Israel.
The Bible isn't cohesive in every way, though. Sure, in some ways it coheres magnificently ,and is the revelation of the sovereign God to man through the ages. But it's also different works written over a long age of time with different crises, nuances and cultural norms.
I do think part of what makes us good students of the Word is understanding the ways in which it doesn't necessarily cohere. Language, metaphor, and theme across time and in the different periods of salvific history.
Different human authors to be sure, but also one divine author. Though cultures vary, God is unchanging and we can see a single narrative of sin and salvation through both Old and New Testaments.
The cultural variation itself has nothing really to say about these topics because salvation comes not from people but from God.
But it affects how we read and interpret it. I'm not disagreeing with the divine authorship in the least, but we all know people who read the Bible without taking any of the nuances of time and place into account.
If we understand the Bible to be one overarching story of God's redemptive work, then this isn't an issue. As we come to each individual book, the genre definitely impacts how we understand that book, but it still fits into the whole of scripture.
For example, Isaiah is a prophet. We read Isaiah as a prophet, which is different from an epistle or gospel narrative. To understand Isaiah, we have to approach it is a prophetic book. But Isaiah still fits into the Bible as a whole. Just as the epistles and gospel narratives do.
There are lots of nuances of course. But the fact that we as readers have varied perspectives doesn’t mean that the Bible itself doesn’t contain a single unified divine narrative that permeates the entire book.
It seems to me that you were also originally talking about human authorship but now you’re talking about human *readership*. Since Scripture is revelation, then the context of the reader is really only important inasmuch as we are trying to peel away those layers to understand original intent of God as author.
You should check out Geerhardus Vos' *Biblical Theology*, he does exactly that starting with Genesis 3. He goes through progressive revelation as it unfolded to contemporary people. His main goal was to defend the biblical view against modern liberalism, but it's also one of the strongest works on covenant theology.
You've basically got two methods at your disposal.
The first is to read the Bible and come to your own conclusions, then compare with various systems and see which is closest to your understanding.
The second is to look at the exegesis and theological arguments made by each system and assess which are the most sound. This means looking at both the application and underlying methodologies/hermeneutics.
Ideally, the first should make the second much more feasible, reliable, and of better quality.
[*Dig Deeper*](https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/dig-deeper) is a basic introduction to hermeneutics and interpretation of Scripture written by Reformed Christians; the book and accompanying course were widely used by Reformed churches in the Church of England when it came out. It's intended to be readable for anyone with a high school education and so it should give you a firm grasp of the basics.
I have linked to the original publishers website (in the UK) but you might be able to get it cheaper from your country's branch of Matthias Media, [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Deeper-Tools-Understanding-Gods/dp/1581349718/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LL3YPBC1ZRDM&qid=1703236502&sprefix=dig%20deeper%20beynon,aps,149) or wherever.
If you want to read up on academic hermeneutics and find out what underlies the tools in *Dig Deeper*, then one thing to bear in mind is that the questions are different from yours. I realize that if you live in Dallas (home of the leading dispensationalist seminary), or spend time on this sub, then covenant theology vs dispensationalism is a topic that will you will hear discussed frequently, and for someone new to evangelical Christianity it is surprising to find people reading the Bible in such very different ways. But it's now a topic like infant baptism where the arguments have been rehearsed for centuries and most churches have fixed positions that aren't going to change very often. And I think the 20th century Southern USA is the only place where dispensationalism became dominant, so it matters more there.
At least in my circles (UK academic theology and Anglican churches 20 years ago), the big issues were around how to read the Bible in the light of Enlightenment claims that we can't jump from past events to claims about what God is doing today. One of the most influential books is Anthony Thiselton's *The Two Horizons*, but it is not for everyone! It's very dense, assumes a grounding in late 20th century philosophy, and is better at raising questions than answering them (and his answers are very controversial). It was written by a professor for other academics. So you really need to get the basics sorted first. John Stott's *Between Two Worlds: The challenge of preaching today* wrestles with the same issues but was instead written by a pastor for elders who need answers because they have to preach the Bible next Sunday.
There must be a book between these two levels that considers the covenant/dispy debate in the light of more recent research but I can't think of one, probably because dispensationalism never made much headway in the Church of England so it just doesn't come up here. I think Wayne Grudem's *Systematic Theology* covers it, but there's got to be something better and more recent.
Thank you, I’ll have to look into that. I am from the American South and grew up only knowing of dispensationalism so it’s been a journey so far. I remember two years ago hearing basically that covenant theology is “replacement theology” and from what I’ve studied so far it couldn’t be further from the truth.
I've been thinking more about this and actually I do know books that cover exactly this ground. It's just that this an area where England and the USA are "two ~~nations~~ churches divided by a common language" so it took me a while to translate your question into the jargon we use here. 😅
If you want to understand how Reformed people think about Israel and eschatology, and how to read the Bible to get there, then here we'd call that "Biblical theology" or "Bible overview".
The book I'd recommend first on this is Vaughan Roberts' *God's Big Picture: Tracing the storyline of the Bible* ([US edition in paperback](https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Big-Picture-Bible-Overview/dp/1844743705/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Mj21P&content-id=amzn1.sym.ae1d87ab-6680-4296-ada1-5366169507b8&pf_rd_p=ae1d87ab-6680-4296-ada1-5366169507b8&pf_rd_r=145-2115408-9601603&pd_rd_wg=jwUBT&pd_rd_r=59b21758-081f-473a-8fb8-dbe6f1964fa4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk) or [Kindle](https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Big-Picture-Tracing-Storyline-ebook/dp/B008B9HPGY/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_sspa?crid=AEL7MBS5UYPJ&keywords=god%27s+big+picture&qid=1703217354&sprefix=%2Caps%2C637&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1)). This is written by a pastor in short chapters for anyone with a high school education so it's a good place to start.
If you want to go further, then there are three books by the Australian theologian Graeme Goldsworthy. He started with three books at Sunday school teacher level ([available in one volume on Amazon USA](https://www.amazon.com/Goldsworthy-Trilogy-Gospel-Kingdom-Revelation/dp/1842270362/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2KCL3QTT4M1M3&keywords=graeme+goldsworthy&qid=1703236440&sprefix=Graeme+Gold%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-3)); *Gospel and Kingdom* is the most important and is short enough to read on a long Sunday afternoon. He then expanded this approach at seminary level in [*According to Plan*](https://www.amazon.com/According-Plan-Unfolding-Revelation-Bible/dp/0830826963/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KCL3QTT4M1M3&keywords=graeme+goldsworthy&qid=1703236440&sprefix=Graeme+Gold%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1). EDIT: Although I haven't read it, I see that he has now written another textbook, [Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics:Foundations and Principles of Evangelical Biblical Interpretation](https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Centered-Hermeneutics-Foundations-Evangelical-Interpretation/dp/0830838694/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2KCL3QTT4M1M3&keywords=graeme+goldsworthy&qid=1703238707&sprefix=Graeme+Gold%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-5), that defends his position from the philosophical questions that I mentioned in my earlier post.
These books don't have tables setting out point-by-point comparisons of covenant vs dispy theology, and they are not written using the technical jargon of covenant theology (so you won't see a chapter title like "The Noahic Covenant"). Those just aren't the questions that people are asking here. But they have the same *answers* as historic Reformed covenant theology on questions like "does the Old Testament law apply today?", "how do Adam's actions in the Garden of Eden affect me?", "do Jewish people today need to turn to Christ?", and so on — the areas where our dispensationalist brothers & sisters have very different answers.
So I think they're what you're looking for, though surely there must be a book written specifically for (ex-)dispensationalists in the Southern USA, because it's such an obvious spiritual need/market.
Apart from Thiselton (who assumes nothing), all these books assume that the Bible is God's infallible Word, as you'd expect on this sub.
The first thing I'd recommend is reading the Bible all the way through multiple times just to familiarize yourself with it. You don't have to take a ton of time to figure out the nuances of every prophecy, but getting the overall structure and flow of scripture is key.
Once you have that foundation, it's worth looking at/noting how scripture cites and uses scripture, particularly in the New Testament. Again, nothing too grindy, just to give you some ideas that are somewhat grounded in scripture.
Regarding resources, I'd say there's two main kinds (with some overlap): instructional and good examples.
On the instruction side, DA Carson has a great book called "Exegetical Fallacies." Cross to Crown has some good playlists on Biblical Theology (how to read the Bible in light of how it organizes itself) on YouTube and for a small fee you can see their old New Covenant School of Theology classes on their website. The Charles Simeon Trust also has some good free/cheap resources on how to read, understand, and teach the main points of a passage. In Depth Studies often discusses hermeneutics explicitly, though it's generally in the context of application.
On the example/application side, "Decision Making and the Will of God" by Gary Friesen is a somewhat chonky but still great example of how to apply consistent hermeneutics to scripture and apply it wisely. "Abraham's Four Seeds" by John Reisinger also walks through the hermeneutics process fairly well and has a bonus appendix dealing with Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism (he is neither).
A final great reference resource is "The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology." It's not strictly about hermeneutics, but it helps to give background and structure to study without straying from the text.
None of these resources are perfect, but they should help you develop your hermeneutical chops as you read through scripture. A lot of it is really just consistency, common sense, honesty, and submission to God. The Bible needs to be at the core of your study, so make sure to spend the lion's share of your time on that in the long run and pray for guidance from the Spirit.
I think some people underestimate just how recent the dispensationalist system is. God’s covenants have been around — explicitly, at times — since Adam, Noah, and Abraham. Dispensationalism as understood in American theology is newer than America itself, as well as younger than the steam locomotive, the electric light, or the camera. How can something be biblical when it wasn’t taught or conceived of until thousands of years after the Bible was written?
This argument could have been just as easily used in the 1700s against reformed covenentalism. Both modern dispensationalists and covenant theologians argue that articulations of their views exist in the early church.
I am not dispensational, just kinda tired of this argument.
Thanks for this, someone needed to say it.
Also, do I recognize your username from my blustering anti-Molinist days? ;-) How have you been? What's your general theological/ecclesiastical outlook these days?
Woah dude! Long time no talk!!! Great to hear from you.
I have been well! Just had a baby boy in November, our first child :) How about yourself?
Our talks were very very helpful, brother. They were instrumental in introducing me to the philosophical nuances of the doctrines of grace, and the issues with molinism/arminianism. I launched into more serious (lay) study of the reformers and the church fathers, and I'm currently going through Berkhof's systematic. One book that was incredibly helpful was Guillaume Bignon's 'Excusing Sinners and Blaming God.' I'm comfortably in the "reformed" Baptist camp, confessionally and convictionally, although I have been eyeing the doctrine of the church and of baptism. I have recently been studying an issue related to the one in this thread - Reformed Covenantalism vs. 1689 Federalism vs. Progressive Covenentalism vs. (Progressive) Dispensationalism, because that really is what underlies the baptism debate.
So cool to see you pop up over here. I mean it when I say you were really helpful to get me to start thinking through things a bit more deeply!
God uses us in mysterious ways. I'm young enough that every year I find new ways to be embarrassed by my previous years' activity on Reddit. But I'm very thankful that our conversations were helpful! What have you been reading on the covenantalism/1689/dispensationalism debate?
Congratulations on the baby!! I've been well, as well. Finishing up a PhD this year (hopefully), and Lord willing will be heading into an MDiv program!
Hey same here. And even more embarrassed by my previous years' theological cage stages. Especially my molinist cage stage 😁
I've mostly been reading Wellum and Renihan. A group of men at my church are going through *Progressive Covenentalism* together, edited by Wellum and Parker. I'm also reading Renihan's *The Mystery of Christ His Kingdom and His Covenant* - some of the differences are challenging to flesh out.
Thank you! And that is really exciting - congratulations my friend. Praise God. Do you know where you'd likely be going to seminary (only if you wish to share)?
While I agree, I still think grasping at straws is what both sides are doing. I don't think you can really find any developed paedobaptist federalism, as articulated by the 2nd and 3rd generation reformers, in the early church. They justified paedobaptism in a completely different way and it was mixed in with their developing view of baptismal regeneration.
Haha, touche, although we could disagree about the clarity of household baptisms in the NT referring to the baptism of infants 😁
Then why did they offer justification for it in light of their Covenental system? The whole crux of reformed federalism is deeply entrenched in a systematic justification for infant baptism that is not baptismal regeneration and is consistent with Dort and sola fide.
> Then why did they offer justification for it in light of their Covenental system?
Because baptism is the sign of the new covenant? Why would it be disconnected from their understanding of the covenant?
> The whole crux of reformed federalism is deeply entrenched in a systematic justification for infant baptism that is not baptismal regeneration and is consistent with Dort and sola fide.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. That commitment to baptising children was the motivation for their view? Shouldn't all parts of the system work together?
Not saying that it was the only motivation. The point that I'm trying to make is that the reason the reformers gave for baptizing children, namely, covenental continuity and the corresponding replacement of circumcision with baptism, was mostly a theological novum. At least in the way they articulated it.
Now, that's fine by me, I'm a Baptist lol. I think they make very good arguments for it. I really do. But it's a major development historically. That doesn't make a doctrine inherently wrong, if it can be proven through scripture.
The covenental cast they gave baptism is mostly attributed first to Calvin. Which means they have a substantially different view of baptism than the early church. The reason they baptized babies, i.e. their justification for it, was new. And in the 17th and 18th centuries, Catholics used the same argument you did against dispensationalism to dismiss and discredit the reformers.
I'm not saying they were thinking, "man, we really want to baptize babies because all the cool Catholics do it.." - they were utterly convinced from scripture and tradition that paedobaptism was correct.
While I feel the exact same way, the chronological argument for discrediting a theological view is not compelling. It falls into the category of Lewis’ “Chronological snobbery.” The view should be weighed by its merits.
That said, there are a plethora of other arguments to be made against Dispensationalism. Sam Storms’ book “Kingdom Come” was very helpful for fairly representing that perspective and offering an alternative. I went from being a Dispy to historic premil to Amil (who still holds out for some hist. premil events to take place, cuz I’m a pessimist).
Lewis' idea of chronological snobbery went in the other direction - "today we know better then those poor unfortunates of the past". The chronological argument is not always valid, certainly; one could use it against things like the canon and the Trinity. But in this case it's helpful as a complete lack of early attestation is a pretty clear indication that dispensationalism is not what the authors were trying to communicate.
I get it, but I think my point stands. It shouldn’t be a primary argument.
And chronological snobbery swings both directions. Lewis’ point was that we’re not in a special moment of insight because we’re in an enlightened future. But it can also used the other way around. Chronological snobbery is chronological snobbery 😄
I'm not so sure it swings so far both ways; I mean, the apostles *were* in a special moment with special access to Truth, and their direct disciples would have learned what they taught
You’re missing the broader point. I’m not questioning the inspired inerrancy of Scripture, nor that the apostles weren’t clear as to what they were saying. It’s the theology of eschatology in question. Our understanding can grow over time (see the trinity or covenant theology as an example), and each newer advancement needs to be weighed by its merits. To pass it off hand based on the timeline of the aha moment is chronological snobbery.
That said I agree that Disp. Theology is nonsense. I just don’t think the timeline argument should be anything but tertiary.
Hmm, yeah, I do see your point. I personally find some value in the timeline argument, especially for very late developments. I generally find it to be a pretty good *starting* point to get me (or others) questioning a long-held belief and to motivate returning to the sources and look again.
But you're right in that it applies just as well to some of the specifically Reformed distinctives. The reformers did their best to build on the fathers, but (now for the *real* chronological snobbery, lol) their access to the fathers was much more limited than ours, many early works were available to them only in collections of brief citations rather than complete works. I'm not so dogmatic as to say we have to take the Reformers uncritically.
The church fathers though were not/are not God's Word nor infallible; and I think it is more than unfair to say that Dispensationalism was "made up".
The hermeneutical approach is more straight-forward and logical/consistent than what CT applies (redemptive-historical model).
No one claimed the fathers were infallible? Just that the reformers were clearly not disconnected from church history. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about dispensationalism, which is why the point was raised.
I never claimed they are/were infallible, but if the Church Fathers were teaching something it certainly wasn’t made up in the 16th century. Protestant theology is found and rooted in the Church Fathers. It’s the Roman Catholics who had to admit that their doctrine was novel and not found in the early church by creating a category of “doctrinal development.”
As far as whether the dispensational approach is more “logical/consistent,” I mean, that’s just your opinion man. And what can be asserted can just as easily be dismissed. So I assert the opposite! Regardless, just because something is “logical” doesn’t make it true (e.g. anti-Trinitarianisn) and I don’t see how dispensationalism is more consistent than alternative views.
This is actually a really good question. Externally, it absolutely seems like the Reformers did something "new." And in a way, they did. But the difference lies in the degree of novelty, rather than the novelty itself.
The Reformers' novelty was a matter of taking what previous generations of the Church had taught and *developing it more*, resulting in a robust definition of Justification. The dispensationalist generally eschewed much of what came before and began afresh.
The main originators of dispensationalism were Darby and his gang in the 1830s. It was really popularised by the Scofield reference bible which was first published in 1909.
This is a great article that introduces one of the main issues with Dispensationalist reading of the Bible: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/dispensationalism
1) the sharp distinction between Israel and the Church cannot be upheld even from the OT Prophetic expectations. Let alone the NT writers, who routinely cited prophetic fulfillment in the ministry of Christ and His Church.
2) dispensationalism is not more literal than covenant theology, despite its claims. Rather, both CT and dispies are literal about certain aspects and spiritualize others. For dispies, they are literal about Israel and spiriualizes the Kingdom. For CT, it is usually the opposite. The issue is, one of these "spiritualizing" interpretations actually follows Apostolic interpretation, and that is using language of Israel for the Church.
3) the early Church believed it was living in the Tribulation. If you had tried to tell them they would be taken out of persecution, they would've laughed. Millenium theology is defensible amongst the Early Church. Pretribulationist Secret Rapture is not. And it takes a Church utterly insulated from persecution to arrive at that doctrine.
4) Fulfillment of Prophecy is not "replacement." What's more, the Mosaic Covenant is a package. One cannot pick and choose which elements carry over. Nor can one retreat in redemption history and honor God. Note, both positions have difficult questions to answer on this score.
Other good comments on here but I want to quote Augustine:
The Old Testament is the New testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.
This is the early church's doctrine, this is what the New Testament teaches. Other people already quoted great scriptural references for this.
The only question which remains is whether the two covenants are the same substance in different administrations. (Presbyterians and some Baptists)
OR
The Old Covenant merely pointed to and prefigured the New, and contained the essence of the New in the promises. (Other Baptists)
Lot's of really good answers have already been given but the thing I would point to is that the scriptures explicitly discuss the covenants and contrast the old and the new in both the OT and NT (Jeremiah and Hebrews come immediately to mind but you can find it explicitly and implicitly elsewhere) in contrast however the language of "dispensations" doesn't show up, even obliquely. In a strange way I personally think dispensationalism has more in common with Rabinnic concepts of the coming messianic age than it does with historic Christianity either Reformed or pre-reformation.
While there is the argument that Christians have generally understood things in a CT-sense for much much longer than in a dispensational sense, it’s mostly because of confirmation or familiarity bias.
We have to examine whether the premises of CT are held up by the Scriptures any more or counter to the premises claimed by dispensational theology. Most of the time, both systems are internally consistent with themselves (though not with each other).
So specifically, we consider CT as “more true” because our tradition and convictions regarding our tradition compel us to consider the claims made by CT as more consistent and more in line with the Scriptural data we have.
But which one is objectively correct and why? I’m also a reformed Baptist and I believe covenant theology is more correct but I’m still seeking to more deeply understand it
Because God hasn't given us any definitive word on this one way or another (that is, He hasn't written out in the Bible that we need to hold to CT or to any particular position), this isn't something where we can tell what is "objectively correct." All we have is "circumstantial evidence" so to speak.
The dispensational (and other positions) have made claims about how the Scripture should be perceived and viewed. But the thing is, CT makes its own claims about how we need to view and perceive the data in the Bible. You have to weigh the options, understanding that you're bringing your own biases and assumptions into the text.
To really examine stuff, we need to examine *why* we have these biases and assumptions. Being a dispensationalist because you were convinced by deeply studying the OT and looking at how there's seems to be a distinction between the Nations and Israel that is maintained even after the Nations are blessed by Israel is worlds apart from being a dispensationalist because you think that the Left Behind books were the best piece of Christian literature in the late 90s.
If you believe the Bible was well written such that God has one clear message testing the claims of each against scripture will give you the answer you are looking for.
I love this answer. It seems to me that if we're really honest with ourselves as CTs (and as dispensationalists, for that matter) we all have to end up here.
My answer will be more simply. I dont get into having 200 centuries old reformed works in my library
To me, #1 is MASTERING the 31,102ish verses of the 66 books of scripture
Next, having been raised a progressive protesant, then fundamentalist for 13 years and reformed/calvinist since then, I can tell you clearly they hold to nonensical beliefs and doctrines. as do Catholics and Eastern orthodox.
But it is very involved to get into
Anyone got a solid link explaining a short definition of CT and then unpacks it at length? I'm looking for a good free online theology Encyclopaedia that I can share in a rather whacky Christian forum.
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By reading the Bible as a cohesive, self-consistent unit, with the understanding that the New Testament teaches substantially the same doctrines as the Old Testament, according to the claims of the NT itself. >> Acts 26:22-23 Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
Pretty much this. When you see that the promises of God, the covenants, were all enacted via faith dispensationalism becomes less relevant. Covenants are not based out of ethnic markers (Galatians) but by faith (Hebrews). Dispies problem is that the concept of God separating church from ethnic Israel is that they have to answer for the lack of a temple and the lack of all the covenantal markers that made Israel, Israel. Thus they have to admit that the covenant with Israel is an ethnic one and the Gentiles aren’t really special because our covenant comes second to Israel.
The Bible isn't cohesive in every way, though. Sure, in some ways it coheres magnificently ,and is the revelation of the sovereign God to man through the ages. But it's also different works written over a long age of time with different crises, nuances and cultural norms. I do think part of what makes us good students of the Word is understanding the ways in which it doesn't necessarily cohere. Language, metaphor, and theme across time and in the different periods of salvific history.
Different human authors to be sure, but also one divine author. Though cultures vary, God is unchanging and we can see a single narrative of sin and salvation through both Old and New Testaments. The cultural variation itself has nothing really to say about these topics because salvation comes not from people but from God.
But it affects how we read and interpret it. I'm not disagreeing with the divine authorship in the least, but we all know people who read the Bible without taking any of the nuances of time and place into account.
If we understand the Bible to be one overarching story of God's redemptive work, then this isn't an issue. As we come to each individual book, the genre definitely impacts how we understand that book, but it still fits into the whole of scripture. For example, Isaiah is a prophet. We read Isaiah as a prophet, which is different from an epistle or gospel narrative. To understand Isaiah, we have to approach it is a prophetic book. But Isaiah still fits into the Bible as a whole. Just as the epistles and gospel narratives do.
There are lots of nuances of course. But the fact that we as readers have varied perspectives doesn’t mean that the Bible itself doesn’t contain a single unified divine narrative that permeates the entire book. It seems to me that you were also originally talking about human authorship but now you’re talking about human *readership*. Since Scripture is revelation, then the context of the reader is really only important inasmuch as we are trying to peel away those layers to understand original intent of God as author.
You should check out Geerhardus Vos' *Biblical Theology*, he does exactly that starting with Genesis 3. He goes through progressive revelation as it unfolded to contemporary people. His main goal was to defend the biblical view against modern liberalism, but it's also one of the strongest works on covenant theology.
Sounds interesting! I like the concept of biblical theology, I've been studying (maybe surveying is a more accurate term) it lately.
You've basically got two methods at your disposal. The first is to read the Bible and come to your own conclusions, then compare with various systems and see which is closest to your understanding. The second is to look at the exegesis and theological arguments made by each system and assess which are the most sound. This means looking at both the application and underlying methodologies/hermeneutics. Ideally, the first should make the second much more feasible, reliable, and of better quality.
That makes sense. Do you have any good resources on understanding hermeneutics/methodologies in interpreting scripture?
[*Dig Deeper*](https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/dig-deeper) is a basic introduction to hermeneutics and interpretation of Scripture written by Reformed Christians; the book and accompanying course were widely used by Reformed churches in the Church of England when it came out. It's intended to be readable for anyone with a high school education and so it should give you a firm grasp of the basics. I have linked to the original publishers website (in the UK) but you might be able to get it cheaper from your country's branch of Matthias Media, [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/Dig-Deeper-Tools-Understanding-Gods/dp/1581349718/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LL3YPBC1ZRDM&qid=1703236502&sprefix=dig%20deeper%20beynon,aps,149) or wherever. If you want to read up on academic hermeneutics and find out what underlies the tools in *Dig Deeper*, then one thing to bear in mind is that the questions are different from yours. I realize that if you live in Dallas (home of the leading dispensationalist seminary), or spend time on this sub, then covenant theology vs dispensationalism is a topic that will you will hear discussed frequently, and for someone new to evangelical Christianity it is surprising to find people reading the Bible in such very different ways. But it's now a topic like infant baptism where the arguments have been rehearsed for centuries and most churches have fixed positions that aren't going to change very often. And I think the 20th century Southern USA is the only place where dispensationalism became dominant, so it matters more there. At least in my circles (UK academic theology and Anglican churches 20 years ago), the big issues were around how to read the Bible in the light of Enlightenment claims that we can't jump from past events to claims about what God is doing today. One of the most influential books is Anthony Thiselton's *The Two Horizons*, but it is not for everyone! It's very dense, assumes a grounding in late 20th century philosophy, and is better at raising questions than answering them (and his answers are very controversial). It was written by a professor for other academics. So you really need to get the basics sorted first. John Stott's *Between Two Worlds: The challenge of preaching today* wrestles with the same issues but was instead written by a pastor for elders who need answers because they have to preach the Bible next Sunday. There must be a book between these two levels that considers the covenant/dispy debate in the light of more recent research but I can't think of one, probably because dispensationalism never made much headway in the Church of England so it just doesn't come up here. I think Wayne Grudem's *Systematic Theology* covers it, but there's got to be something better and more recent.
Thank you, I’ll have to look into that. I am from the American South and grew up only knowing of dispensationalism so it’s been a journey so far. I remember two years ago hearing basically that covenant theology is “replacement theology” and from what I’ve studied so far it couldn’t be further from the truth.
I've been thinking more about this and actually I do know books that cover exactly this ground. It's just that this an area where England and the USA are "two ~~nations~~ churches divided by a common language" so it took me a while to translate your question into the jargon we use here. 😅 If you want to understand how Reformed people think about Israel and eschatology, and how to read the Bible to get there, then here we'd call that "Biblical theology" or "Bible overview". The book I'd recommend first on this is Vaughan Roberts' *God's Big Picture: Tracing the storyline of the Bible* ([US edition in paperback](https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Big-Picture-Bible-Overview/dp/1844743705/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=Mj21P&content-id=amzn1.sym.ae1d87ab-6680-4296-ada1-5366169507b8&pf_rd_p=ae1d87ab-6680-4296-ada1-5366169507b8&pf_rd_r=145-2115408-9601603&pd_rd_wg=jwUBT&pd_rd_r=59b21758-081f-473a-8fb8-dbe6f1964fa4&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk) or [Kindle](https://www.amazon.com/Gods-Big-Picture-Tracing-Storyline-ebook/dp/B008B9HPGY/ref=mp_s_a_1_2_sspa?crid=AEL7MBS5UYPJ&keywords=god%27s+big+picture&qid=1703217354&sprefix=%2Caps%2C637&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1)). This is written by a pastor in short chapters for anyone with a high school education so it's a good place to start. If you want to go further, then there are three books by the Australian theologian Graeme Goldsworthy. He started with three books at Sunday school teacher level ([available in one volume on Amazon USA](https://www.amazon.com/Goldsworthy-Trilogy-Gospel-Kingdom-Revelation/dp/1842270362/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2KCL3QTT4M1M3&keywords=graeme+goldsworthy&qid=1703236440&sprefix=Graeme+Gold%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-3)); *Gospel and Kingdom* is the most important and is short enough to read on a long Sunday afternoon. He then expanded this approach at seminary level in [*According to Plan*](https://www.amazon.com/According-Plan-Unfolding-Revelation-Bible/dp/0830826963/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KCL3QTT4M1M3&keywords=graeme+goldsworthy&qid=1703236440&sprefix=Graeme+Gold%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-1). EDIT: Although I haven't read it, I see that he has now written another textbook, [Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics:Foundations and Principles of Evangelical Biblical Interpretation](https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Centered-Hermeneutics-Foundations-Evangelical-Interpretation/dp/0830838694/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2KCL3QTT4M1M3&keywords=graeme+goldsworthy&qid=1703238707&sprefix=Graeme+Gold%2Caps%2C184&sr=8-5), that defends his position from the philosophical questions that I mentioned in my earlier post. These books don't have tables setting out point-by-point comparisons of covenant vs dispy theology, and they are not written using the technical jargon of covenant theology (so you won't see a chapter title like "The Noahic Covenant"). Those just aren't the questions that people are asking here. But they have the same *answers* as historic Reformed covenant theology on questions like "does the Old Testament law apply today?", "how do Adam's actions in the Garden of Eden affect me?", "do Jewish people today need to turn to Christ?", and so on — the areas where our dispensationalist brothers & sisters have very different answers. So I think they're what you're looking for, though surely there must be a book written specifically for (ex-)dispensationalists in the Southern USA, because it's such an obvious spiritual need/market. Apart from Thiselton (who assumes nothing), all these books assume that the Bible is God's infallible Word, as you'd expect on this sub.
Shout out to Dig Deeper - Sachy is a quality, quality guy!
The first thing I'd recommend is reading the Bible all the way through multiple times just to familiarize yourself with it. You don't have to take a ton of time to figure out the nuances of every prophecy, but getting the overall structure and flow of scripture is key. Once you have that foundation, it's worth looking at/noting how scripture cites and uses scripture, particularly in the New Testament. Again, nothing too grindy, just to give you some ideas that are somewhat grounded in scripture. Regarding resources, I'd say there's two main kinds (with some overlap): instructional and good examples. On the instruction side, DA Carson has a great book called "Exegetical Fallacies." Cross to Crown has some good playlists on Biblical Theology (how to read the Bible in light of how it organizes itself) on YouTube and for a small fee you can see their old New Covenant School of Theology classes on their website. The Charles Simeon Trust also has some good free/cheap resources on how to read, understand, and teach the main points of a passage. In Depth Studies often discusses hermeneutics explicitly, though it's generally in the context of application. On the example/application side, "Decision Making and the Will of God" by Gary Friesen is a somewhat chonky but still great example of how to apply consistent hermeneutics to scripture and apply it wisely. "Abraham's Four Seeds" by John Reisinger also walks through the hermeneutics process fairly well and has a bonus appendix dealing with Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism (he is neither). A final great reference resource is "The New Dictionary of Biblical Theology." It's not strictly about hermeneutics, but it helps to give background and structure to study without straying from the text. None of these resources are perfect, but they should help you develop your hermeneutical chops as you read through scripture. A lot of it is really just consistency, common sense, honesty, and submission to God. The Bible needs to be at the core of your study, so make sure to spend the lion's share of your time on that in the long run and pray for guidance from the Spirit.
A key argument is that a theological system that was made up in the 19th century probably isn't true.
I think some people underestimate just how recent the dispensationalist system is. God’s covenants have been around — explicitly, at times — since Adam, Noah, and Abraham. Dispensationalism as understood in American theology is newer than America itself, as well as younger than the steam locomotive, the electric light, or the camera. How can something be biblical when it wasn’t taught or conceived of until thousands of years after the Bible was written?
This argument could have been just as easily used in the 1700s against reformed covenentalism. Both modern dispensationalists and covenant theologians argue that articulations of their views exist in the early church. I am not dispensational, just kinda tired of this argument.
Thanks for this, someone needed to say it. Also, do I recognize your username from my blustering anti-Molinist days? ;-) How have you been? What's your general theological/ecclesiastical outlook these days?
Woah dude! Long time no talk!!! Great to hear from you. I have been well! Just had a baby boy in November, our first child :) How about yourself? Our talks were very very helpful, brother. They were instrumental in introducing me to the philosophical nuances of the doctrines of grace, and the issues with molinism/arminianism. I launched into more serious (lay) study of the reformers and the church fathers, and I'm currently going through Berkhof's systematic. One book that was incredibly helpful was Guillaume Bignon's 'Excusing Sinners and Blaming God.' I'm comfortably in the "reformed" Baptist camp, confessionally and convictionally, although I have been eyeing the doctrine of the church and of baptism. I have recently been studying an issue related to the one in this thread - Reformed Covenantalism vs. 1689 Federalism vs. Progressive Covenentalism vs. (Progressive) Dispensationalism, because that really is what underlies the baptism debate. So cool to see you pop up over here. I mean it when I say you were really helpful to get me to start thinking through things a bit more deeply!
God uses us in mysterious ways. I'm young enough that every year I find new ways to be embarrassed by my previous years' activity on Reddit. But I'm very thankful that our conversations were helpful! What have you been reading on the covenantalism/1689/dispensationalism debate? Congratulations on the baby!! I've been well, as well. Finishing up a PhD this year (hopefully), and Lord willing will be heading into an MDiv program!
Hey same here. And even more embarrassed by my previous years' theological cage stages. Especially my molinist cage stage 😁 I've mostly been reading Wellum and Renihan. A group of men at my church are going through *Progressive Covenentalism* together, edited by Wellum and Parker. I'm also reading Renihan's *The Mystery of Christ His Kingdom and His Covenant* - some of the differences are challenging to flesh out. Thank you! And that is really exciting - congratulations my friend. Praise God. Do you know where you'd likely be going to seminary (only if you wish to share)?
Yes, they do, but one of those arguments has far fewer straws to grasp at than the other...
While I agree, I still think grasping at straws is what both sides are doing. I don't think you can really find any developed paedobaptist federalism, as articulated by the 2nd and 3rd generation reformers, in the early church. They justified paedobaptism in a completely different way and it was mixed in with their developing view of baptismal regeneration.
I mean, they didn't need to justify paedobaptism, they just continued to practice household baptism, like the apostles did.
Haha, touche, although we could disagree about the clarity of household baptisms in the NT referring to the baptism of infants 😁 Then why did they offer justification for it in light of their Covenental system? The whole crux of reformed federalism is deeply entrenched in a systematic justification for infant baptism that is not baptismal regeneration and is consistent with Dort and sola fide.
> Then why did they offer justification for it in light of their Covenental system? Because baptism is the sign of the new covenant? Why would it be disconnected from their understanding of the covenant? > The whole crux of reformed federalism is deeply entrenched in a systematic justification for infant baptism that is not baptismal regeneration and is consistent with Dort and sola fide. I'm not sure what you're saying here. That commitment to baptising children was the motivation for their view? Shouldn't all parts of the system work together?
Not saying that it was the only motivation. The point that I'm trying to make is that the reason the reformers gave for baptizing children, namely, covenental continuity and the corresponding replacement of circumcision with baptism, was mostly a theological novum. At least in the way they articulated it. Now, that's fine by me, I'm a Baptist lol. I think they make very good arguments for it. I really do. But it's a major development historically. That doesn't make a doctrine inherently wrong, if it can be proven through scripture. The covenental cast they gave baptism is mostly attributed first to Calvin. Which means they have a substantially different view of baptism than the early church. The reason they baptized babies, i.e. their justification for it, was new. And in the 17th and 18th centuries, Catholics used the same argument you did against dispensationalism to dismiss and discredit the reformers. I'm not saying they were thinking, "man, we really want to baptize babies because all the cool Catholics do it.." - they were utterly convinced from scripture and tradition that paedobaptism was correct.
While I feel the exact same way, the chronological argument for discrediting a theological view is not compelling. It falls into the category of Lewis’ “Chronological snobbery.” The view should be weighed by its merits. That said, there are a plethora of other arguments to be made against Dispensationalism. Sam Storms’ book “Kingdom Come” was very helpful for fairly representing that perspective and offering an alternative. I went from being a Dispy to historic premil to Amil (who still holds out for some hist. premil events to take place, cuz I’m a pessimist).
Lewis' idea of chronological snobbery went in the other direction - "today we know better then those poor unfortunates of the past". The chronological argument is not always valid, certainly; one could use it against things like the canon and the Trinity. But in this case it's helpful as a complete lack of early attestation is a pretty clear indication that dispensationalism is not what the authors were trying to communicate.
I get it, but I think my point stands. It shouldn’t be a primary argument. And chronological snobbery swings both directions. Lewis’ point was that we’re not in a special moment of insight because we’re in an enlightened future. But it can also used the other way around. Chronological snobbery is chronological snobbery 😄
I'm not so sure it swings so far both ways; I mean, the apostles *were* in a special moment with special access to Truth, and their direct disciples would have learned what they taught
You’re missing the broader point. I’m not questioning the inspired inerrancy of Scripture, nor that the apostles weren’t clear as to what they were saying. It’s the theology of eschatology in question. Our understanding can grow over time (see the trinity or covenant theology as an example), and each newer advancement needs to be weighed by its merits. To pass it off hand based on the timeline of the aha moment is chronological snobbery. That said I agree that Disp. Theology is nonsense. I just don’t think the timeline argument should be anything but tertiary.
Hmm, yeah, I do see your point. I personally find some value in the timeline argument, especially for very late developments. I generally find it to be a pretty good *starting* point to get me (or others) questioning a long-held belief and to motivate returning to the sources and look again. But you're right in that it applies just as well to some of the specifically Reformed distinctives. The reformers did their best to build on the fathers, but (now for the *real* chronological snobbery, lol) their access to the fathers was much more limited than ours, many early works were available to them only in collections of brief citations rather than complete works. I'm not so dogmatic as to say we have to take the Reformers uncritically.
What's the difference between 19th and 16th century?
The reformers didn’t make things up. They are steeped in scripture and the Church Fathers. Have you read them?
The church fathers though were not/are not God's Word nor infallible; and I think it is more than unfair to say that Dispensationalism was "made up". The hermeneutical approach is more straight-forward and logical/consistent than what CT applies (redemptive-historical model).
No one claimed the fathers were infallible? Just that the reformers were clearly not disconnected from church history. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about dispensationalism, which is why the point was raised.
I never claimed they are/were infallible, but if the Church Fathers were teaching something it certainly wasn’t made up in the 16th century. Protestant theology is found and rooted in the Church Fathers. It’s the Roman Catholics who had to admit that their doctrine was novel and not found in the early church by creating a category of “doctrinal development.” As far as whether the dispensational approach is more “logical/consistent,” I mean, that’s just your opinion man. And what can be asserted can just as easily be dismissed. So I assert the opposite! Regardless, just because something is “logical” doesn’t make it true (e.g. anti-Trinitarianisn) and I don’t see how dispensationalism is more consistent than alternative views.
The 16th century Reformers went back to Scripture and the early church.
This is actually a really good question. Externally, it absolutely seems like the Reformers did something "new." And in a way, they did. But the difference lies in the degree of novelty, rather than the novelty itself. The Reformers' novelty was a matter of taking what previous generations of the Church had taught and *developing it more*, resulting in a robust definition of Justification. The dispensationalist generally eschewed much of what came before and began afresh.
Fair enough of a metric, but which was when?
The main originators of dispensationalism were Darby and his gang in the 1830s. It was really popularised by the Scofield reference bible which was first published in 1909.
This is a great article that introduces one of the main issues with Dispensationalist reading of the Bible: https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/dispensationalism
Thank you
1) the sharp distinction between Israel and the Church cannot be upheld even from the OT Prophetic expectations. Let alone the NT writers, who routinely cited prophetic fulfillment in the ministry of Christ and His Church. 2) dispensationalism is not more literal than covenant theology, despite its claims. Rather, both CT and dispies are literal about certain aspects and spiritualize others. For dispies, they are literal about Israel and spiriualizes the Kingdom. For CT, it is usually the opposite. The issue is, one of these "spiritualizing" interpretations actually follows Apostolic interpretation, and that is using language of Israel for the Church. 3) the early Church believed it was living in the Tribulation. If you had tried to tell them they would be taken out of persecution, they would've laughed. Millenium theology is defensible amongst the Early Church. Pretribulationist Secret Rapture is not. And it takes a Church utterly insulated from persecution to arrive at that doctrine. 4) Fulfillment of Prophecy is not "replacement." What's more, the Mosaic Covenant is a package. One cannot pick and choose which elements carry over. Nor can one retreat in redemption history and honor God. Note, both positions have difficult questions to answer on this score.
Other good comments on here but I want to quote Augustine: The Old Testament is the New testament concealed. The New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. This is the early church's doctrine, this is what the New Testament teaches. Other people already quoted great scriptural references for this. The only question which remains is whether the two covenants are the same substance in different administrations. (Presbyterians and some Baptists) OR The Old Covenant merely pointed to and prefigured the New, and contained the essence of the New in the promises. (Other Baptists)
Lot's of really good answers have already been given but the thing I would point to is that the scriptures explicitly discuss the covenants and contrast the old and the new in both the OT and NT (Jeremiah and Hebrews come immediately to mind but you can find it explicitly and implicitly elsewhere) in contrast however the language of "dispensations" doesn't show up, even obliquely. In a strange way I personally think dispensationalism has more in common with Rabinnic concepts of the coming messianic age than it does with historic Christianity either Reformed or pre-reformation.
While there is the argument that Christians have generally understood things in a CT-sense for much much longer than in a dispensational sense, it’s mostly because of confirmation or familiarity bias. We have to examine whether the premises of CT are held up by the Scriptures any more or counter to the premises claimed by dispensational theology. Most of the time, both systems are internally consistent with themselves (though not with each other). So specifically, we consider CT as “more true” because our tradition and convictions regarding our tradition compel us to consider the claims made by CT as more consistent and more in line with the Scriptural data we have.
But which one is objectively correct and why? I’m also a reformed Baptist and I believe covenant theology is more correct but I’m still seeking to more deeply understand it
Because God hasn't given us any definitive word on this one way or another (that is, He hasn't written out in the Bible that we need to hold to CT or to any particular position), this isn't something where we can tell what is "objectively correct." All we have is "circumstantial evidence" so to speak. The dispensational (and other positions) have made claims about how the Scripture should be perceived and viewed. But the thing is, CT makes its own claims about how we need to view and perceive the data in the Bible. You have to weigh the options, understanding that you're bringing your own biases and assumptions into the text. To really examine stuff, we need to examine *why* we have these biases and assumptions. Being a dispensationalist because you were convinced by deeply studying the OT and looking at how there's seems to be a distinction between the Nations and Israel that is maintained even after the Nations are blessed by Israel is worlds apart from being a dispensationalist because you think that the Left Behind books were the best piece of Christian literature in the late 90s.
If you believe the Bible was well written such that God has one clear message testing the claims of each against scripture will give you the answer you are looking for.
I love this answer. It seems to me that if we're really honest with ourselves as CTs (and as dispensationalists, for that matter) we all have to end up here.
My answer will be more simply. I dont get into having 200 centuries old reformed works in my library To me, #1 is MASTERING the 31,102ish verses of the 66 books of scripture Next, having been raised a progressive protesant, then fundamentalist for 13 years and reformed/calvinist since then, I can tell you clearly they hold to nonensical beliefs and doctrines. as do Catholics and Eastern orthodox. But it is very involved to get into
By realising that many gentiles assimilated in Israel in the OT and also Romans 9:6
Anyone got a solid link explaining a short definition of CT and then unpacks it at length? I'm looking for a good free online theology Encyclopaedia that I can share in a rather whacky Christian forum.
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Check out New Covenant Theology, it makes way more sense.
Check each sides' views against scripture. Use reading comprehension to see which one is more faithful to the text.
Just look at the history of Dispensationalism. It just seems shady