As the late R.C. Sproul would say, Everyone’s a Theologian. According to Sproul, if you’re a Bible-reading Christian, you are also a theologian (someone who studies the nature of God). God’s Word challenges us, making reading and examining it hard work for us. Yet the Bible is God’s Word, and the cost of doing the hard work reaps untold godly riches.
Because the Scriptures are God’s special revelation of Himself to us, the treasures we find through its study benefit our lives for eternity. But in man’s study of Scripture, certain differences in interpretation arise, which lead to different theological suppositions. Covenant and Dispensational Theologies are a striking example of this, differing in exactly how the canon of Scripture fits together, especially the relationship between the Old and New Testaments.
This topic is vast, with many books written in explanation of both theologies. This article will consider the highlights of each.
What Is Covenant Theology?
Let’s define the word “covenant.” According to Ligonier.com contributor Mark Jones, “Scholars have defined covenant—translated from the Hebrew berith and the Greek diathēke—in various ways, and the context in which the word is used in Scripture will also inform our understanding of its meaning. At its most basic level, a covenant is an oath-bound relationship between two or more parties. Thus, human covenants (for example, marriage) fall under this general definition. In divine covenants, God sovereignly establishes the relationship with His creatures. There are other nuances, but a divine covenant given after the Fall is, fundamentally, one in which God binds Himself by His own oath to keep His promises.”
The covenants which display the ordered account of the covenant of grace include:
Protoevangelium (Genesis 3: God promises triumph over the serpent through Adam and Eve’s offspring)
Noahic (Genesis 6:18: God promises preservation)
Abrahamic (Genesis 12:1-3: God promised Abraham He would make him a great nation and bless him, with a confirmation in Genesis 15)
Mosaic (Genesis 15, Exodus 19:4-6, Exodus 20:2: Abraham’s descendants had been emancipated and are expected to follow God’s commands)
Davidic (2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17: God will construct a house for David and promises a royal successor of Abraham through David).
These covenants (not to mention the new covenant) propel man’s history as ordered by God. Inherent in all is Jesus Christ; everything leads to Him. The whole of the Bible is therefore Christocentric, bringing unity and continuity between the Old and New Testaments. Because of this, Scripture affirms Israel and the church are now one in essence in Christ.
Covenant Theology, which became significant during the Reformation and preceded dispensational theology by a few centuries, is also recognized as Reformed Theology. The Westminster Confession of Faith defines covenant theology, which highlights Adam and Christ as the two “covenant heads” between God and man. A covenant head is the one who represents the group under which a covenant falls. Underneath that umbrella lie three covenants.
1. The redemption covenant between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit before time began. This redemption covenant (or a divine counsel) includes the Trinity and states that the Father chose a people in the Son, Who is their redemptive Mediator through His perfect manifestation in the flesh, submission, death, resurrection, and ascent. The Holy Spirit’s role was to equip the Son and employ Jesus’ finished work to the elect.
2. A works covenant (also termed the covenant of creation) in which God placed Adam as the federal head of humankind.
3. The covenant of grace with God’s elect in Christ. This third covenant is ordered through a series of covenants throughout the time between Adam and Jesus Christ.
After the Fall of the covenant of works that God gave to Adam, Genesis 3 through Revelation unveils God’s redemptive plan for humanity in Jesus Christ. This covenant of grace promised a Savior (Genesis 3:15), and Jesus Christ fulfills that covenant through His perfect obedience and atoning work on the cross.
In His covenant with Adam, God promised life to Adam as long as he displayed perfect obedience to Him. The consequence was death (Genesis 2:16-17). Since Adam represented the entire human race before God, when he broke the covenant, his guilt was legislated to his children (Romans 5:12-19). This covenant is important regarding the doctrine of sin and whether a person is unified to Adam or Christ (i.e., the second Adam). Jesus was perfectly satisfactory to God’s Law, and this Law/Gospel difference interlaces its way through the Old and New Testaments. (According to Michael S. Horton, “Law and gospel are commands distinguished from promises. Through the Law, God kills—extinguishing all hope of being justified by one’s own will and effort—and through the Gospel, God makes alive, justifies, and sanctifies.”) God established the covenants, and He metes out His justice and manifests His grace through them.
What Is Dispensational Theology?
What is a dispensation according to dispensational theology? A biblical dispensation is a distinct system or period during which God enacts His redemptive will. Dispensationalism postulates that each era in history holds a specific redemptive dispensation from God. While acknowledging their importance, dispensationalists do not believe God’s covenants provide the structure of the biblical story.
Subsets exist under the dispensational label, but for our purpose, we will look at classic dispensationalism, which says there are seven distinct dispensations: Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Mosaic, Grace, and Kingdom/millennium. These dispensations underscore their tenet that God’s redemptive plan changes over time and is not governed exclusively by His covenants.
The crucial feature of dispensationalism is the distinction between Israel and the church. They also hold conjectures concerning:
- The development of revelation (how God reveals His redemptive plan)
- Typology (types exist, but the nation of Israel is not a type replaced by the church)
- How the New Testament uses the Old Testament (they believe the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old does not change the original intent)
- The understanding of promises to Israel and prophecies regarding her land and place in God’s future economy.
What Is the Difference Between Dispensational and Covenant Theology?
We will focus on the main differences between these two fascinating theological stances.
Eschatology: Most adherents to covenant theology are either amillennial or postmillennial in their eschatological (end times) suppositions. Amillennialism posits that there is no literal, visible one-thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. Postmillennialism presents a belief Christ will return once the world changes to the point of being significantly Christian.
Dispensationalists, instead, mostly hold to a premillennial view of eschatology. They believe Christ will rapture His church out of the world, after which a seven-year tribulation will ensue. Following that “time of Jacob’s distress” (Jeremiah 30:7), Jesus will usher in a literal 1,000-year reign on earth along with His saints.
Israel and the Church: Romans 11 is a seminal passage that affirms Christians and believing Jews are grafted together in Christ, no longer separate but equally part of Christ’s kingdom. Covenant theologians believe in the unity of all believers with no national separation. Dispensationalists believe God will restore Israel as a nation and re-institute the sacrificial system. They consider the grafting in “replacement theology.”
The Millennium: As previously stated, those who adhere to covenant theology lean toward either amillennialism or postmillennialism. Dispensationalists tend to hold to a premillennial view.
Covenant theologians hold the church is the recipient of the promises made to Israel. The church does, however, include those Jews who have surrendered to Jesus Christ. Dispensationalists commonly believe in a literal fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel.
Can We Reconcile Covenantal and Dispensational Theology?
The difference between covenantal and dispensational theology raises some questions worth pondering.
Does not dispensational theology’s reinstitution of the sacrificial system negate Christ’s once-for-all atoning work on the cross for the elect?
How does a dispensational view account for Romans 11, which says we are all one in Christ? In John 17:20-21, Jesus says to the Father, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in you, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” (Also see Galatians 3:28-29 and Galatians 6:15-16.)
Where is unity found by separating peoples (as in Israel and the church being separate)?
Some theologians have aimed to provide mediation between the two theologies through Progressive Covenantlism (PC). Stephen Wellum and Peter Gentry are the primary contributors to this theology through their book Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course between Dispensational and Covenant Theologies. In the book, Wellum and Gentry state: “Progressive seeks to underscore the unfolding nature of God’s revelation over time, while Covenantalism emphasizes that God’s plan unfolds through the covenants and that all of the covenants find their fulfillment, telos, in Jesus Christ…the covenants are not necessarily the center of biblical theology or the unifying theme of Scripture, but they do form the ‘backbone’ of Scripture’s metanarrative or storyline.”
Wellum and Gentry seek an understanding of each covenant within its historical and redemptive context before surmising each relation. A fuller description of PC may be found in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies by Brent E. Parker and Richard J. Lewis.
How Do We Handle These Differences?
As we look at these different theologies, we must remember something whatever view we hold: the imperative belief is in Christ and His atoning work. As the Apostle Paul said, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Neither Covenant nor Dispensational Theology has any bearing on our salvation; they are simply two different ways to look at the unity of Scripture.
Further Reading:
What Is Dispensationalism and Who Believes It?
What Is Dispensational Theology?
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This article is part of our Christian Terms catalog, exploring words and phrases of Christian theology and history. Here are some of our most popular articles covering Christian terms to help your journey of knowledge and faith:
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