The story of the Bible is the story of covenants. If we do not have an understanding of how God covenants with humanity, we cannot properly grasp the intent of the biblical authors and the theology they taught. In his book The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom, Samuel Renihan provides an overview of all the covenants in the Bible, including some with which you may be less familiar. We discuss how they work together and what it means for our Christian worship and practice. Also in this episode: Things get Funkadelic and we learn what Sam wants for Christmas.
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The story of the Bible is the story of covenants. If we do not have an understanding of how God covenants with humanity, we cannot properly grasp the intent of the biblical authors and the theology they taught. In his book The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom, Samuel Renihan provides an overview of all the covenants in the Bible, including some with which you may be less familiar. We discuss how they work together and what it means for our Christian worship and practice. Also in this episode: Things get Funkadelic and we learn what Sam wants for Christmas.
Links related to today's guest:
Further reading related to today's episode:
(MUSIC PLAYING) I have a heart full of questions quieting all my suggestions. What is the meaning of Christian in this American life? I'm feeling awfully foolish spending my life on a message. I look around and I wonder ever if I heard it right.(MUSIC STOPS)
Amy Mantravadi:Welcome to the(A)Millennial podcast, where we have theological conversations for today's world. I'm your host, Amy Mantravadi, coming to you live from Dayton, Ohio, home of the Funk Music Hall of Fame and Exhibition Center, or at least a will be when they find a new exhibition space. What's that you say? You didn't know there was a Funk Music Hall of Fame and Exhibition Center, and you would never have associated funk music with Dayton?Well, that shows what you know! This was the land of the funk in the 70s and 80s. Funkadelic, my friends! Moving on to our main topic for today, I'm going to be speaking with Samuel Renihan about his book, The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant and His Kingdom. We'll be considering that branch of theology popularly known as covenant theology, which is the consideration of God's plan of salvation as it has played out through the covenants he has made with mankind. If you've had much exposure to the Bible, you know that God makes covenants, most especially the Old and New Covenants. ut often in our study of scripture, we tend to focus in on various details without making some of the big connections that God intended us to draw from this covenantal framework. So the aim of today's podcast is to help us become better readers of all of scripture by zooming out and looking at the big picture. To begin today's episode, I'd like to read to you from the book of the Bible that provides one of the best examinations of covenant theology, the Epistle to the Hebrews, beginning with the first verse of chapter 10."For the law, since it is only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered? Because the worshipers having once been cleansed would no longer have had consciousness of sins, but in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says,'Sacrifice and offering you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have taken no pleasure.' Then I said,'Behold, I have come. In the scroll of the book it is written of me to do your will God.' After saying above'sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you have not desired. Nor have you taken pleasure in them, which are offered according to the law,' then he said,'Behold, I have come to do your will.' He takes away the first in order to establish a second. By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, but he having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. And the Holy spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,'"This is the covenant that I will make with them: After those days," says the Lord,"I will put my laws upon their heart and on their mind I will write them."' He then says,'And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.' Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin." That was Hebrews 10:1-18 from the New American Standard Bible. Thanks be to God for his Word. Let's head to the interview.
Jon Guerra:(MUSIC PLAYING)
Amy Mantravadi:And I'm here with Samuel Renihan, the author of The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant and His Kingdom. He received his masters of divinity at Westminster Seminary,California and the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies and his PhD from the Free University of Amsterdam. He regularly conducts research on the Particular Baptists of 17th century England. Those would be the predecessors of most of the Reformed Baptists today. And he is a pastor at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in La Mirada, California, and an occasional lecture at the Institute for Reformed Baptist studies. He's put out several books, including God Without Passions: A Primer, From Shadow to Substance: The Federal Theology of the English Particular Baptists, The Petty France Church: Part One, which I think at some point is going to be followed by part two, and the book we're going to talk about today, The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant and His Kingdom, and you can catch him on Twitter@PettyFrance. That's P E T T Y underscore F R A N C E. So Sam, welcome to the program.
Samuel Renihan:Thanks Amy. I'm delighted to join you.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, I'm delighted to have you here. So before we begin, I wanted to ask you for a little clarification because I understand you play something called a keytar. Is that correct?
Samuel Renihan:Oh, man! I wish that I could play the keytar because it's pretty much the coolest instrument ever. I can only dream. Actually, I play a low D tin whistle, which is right here in my office, and I play these awesome guitars, which are here in my office. But you can see them- podcasters can't see them.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, it's too bad we're not releasing the video. He's just been pulling instruments out of every space in his office.
Samuel Renihan:The keytar is- I guess that'll have to be a Christmas wish for the rest of us.
Amy Mantravadi:Okay. And am I correct in understanding it's a kind of cross between a guitar and a piano?
Samuel Renihan:It's a keyboard that you hold and play like a guitar, so it has a strap, and so you can play it. You can move around on stage, but you're really just playing a keyboard. So it's a keytar: a keyboard guitar.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, now that you've put that desire of yours out there, maybe Santa Claus will get wind of it and you will receive it this Christmas.
Samuel Renihan:I have to be a really good boy to get a keytar from Santa.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, I'm doing what I can to help you. So anyways, we're actually here to talk about the biblical covenants today, and I guess I'll just start off by discussing the beginning of your book. You say a couple of things about covenants in the opening pages that I think are a great way to introduce the topic. First you note that,"Studying the covenant theology of the Bible magnifies the majesty of the triune God's plan of redemption." And you expand on that a little later by writing,"Covenant theology seeks to understand and explain the united purpose of God in all history past, present, and future." So keeping that in mind, we should probably start with some basic definitions. What is a covenant in biblical terms and how was one established?
Samuel Renihan:I think that the easiest way to define a covenant is to think of it as commitments. Covenants are made out of commitments and those commitments are guaranteed or protected by threats. So when I say commitment, think of,"I will, you will" statements. In a covenant, one party says, I will do this and you, the other party will do that. And then there are oaths that we swear, and if I don't do this, then this penalty comes upon me. Or if you don't do this, then this penalty comes upon you." So they're not just agreements: they're commitments. And they are commitments that are guaranteed or protected by some kind of threat, which is sometimes called a sanction. And so you'll see biblical language- A lot of"you will, I will, and you will." And you'll also see language of."May the Lord do so to me and more also if I do not," and then they state their commitment. So they're sort of threatening themselves as they make oaths. So covenants are commitments guaranteed by threats.
Amy Mantravadi:Okay, thanks. I think that's a good basic definition. Reading through your book, you mentioned two covenants with which some Christians may not be as familiar. I think most people have certainly heard of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant if they've had any exposure to the Bible, and they probably even heard about the covenants with Abraham and David and Noah, but you also mentioned the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Redemption, which maybe not everyone has heard of. And in the framework you describe in your book, these covenants set the stage for everything that comes after them. So could you give a brief definition of each of those and explain where we see them in scripture?
Samuel Renihan:Sure. The Covenant of Works comes from looking at the way in which God related to Adam or the ways in which God dealt with Adam in the garden and paying attention to how later scriptures interpret and develop what happened in Genesis 1-3. And so when we look at Genesis 1-3 and we look at God's dealings with Adam in the garden, we find that God gave him a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and that God threatened Adam with death if he disobeyed God. And we also find in the scriptures that God promised eternal life to Adam, which is symbolized in the tree of life. And so here we have a covenant: God is saying,"You will obey me and h eed my voice. You will do what I have commanded or else." And God is saying,"I will give you eternal life," which is not explicitly stated in Genesis 2, but it is developed through other scriptures later on. And even in Genesis 3, the angel with the flaming sword is set there that they may not eat of the tree of life and live forever. So there's an understanding of eternal life being promised to Adam. So when we see these commitments with threats, when we see this promise of eternal life, we say,"God made a covenant with Adam," and we call that a Covenant of Works because it is A dam's obedience or disobedience that determines whether or not he enjoys the reward. And obviously Adam sinned, he disobeyed God, he ate of the forbidden fruit. And so he all his- Adam and mankind in him fell into that curse of sin and death. And so the Covenant of Works is that covenant that God made with Adam and mankind i n him. Now, m an being fallen, we find that God had an eternal purpose to save fallen mankind. And so if you read i n 2 Timothy 1, or in Titus 1, Paul says that God's purpose to save- he says it was before the ages began. And so the Covenant of Works a nd man's fallen state is- God already had a purpose to save them from that darkness and sin in which men had fallen. But how do the scriptures describe that eternal purpose of salvation or that eternal purpose of redemption? Well, if we look at passages like what are called the Servant songs i n Isaiah like Isaiah 49, 50, 53 and others in those passages, we see commitments. We see that the Father commits the Son to a certain work. He must go and obey and suffer in the place of a people. The Son i s now committed to a work by the Father and the Father- well, in the Servant songs, it's Jehovah and the servant of Jehovah, but we understand this to be the Father and the Son, because Jesus applies that language to himself. And then we also see that not only does the Father commit the Son to do a work of obeying and suffering, but he also- the Father or Jehovah- commits himself to reward the Son, to reward the Servant."When you have poured out your life," Isaiah 53 says,"You will...your days will be prolonged. You will see your offspring." So the Father commits to resurrect the Son when he offers his life up and to glorify and magnify and exalt the Son after he has faithfully completed his mission. And the Holy Spirit is also committed to enable the Son in his incarnate nature to fulfill his mission. And so we look at these biblical passages and we say, we have an eternal purpose of redemption that is portrayed to us or presented to us as t he Father and Son making commitments and promises to one another. And so we look at that and we call that the Covenant of Redemption, where the Father says,"You will and I will." And the Son says,"Okay, yes, I will and you will." So that's what we mean by the Covenant of Redemption, and as you mentioned, those two covenants in many ways set the stage for history. Man has fallen. What's going to happen to him? Will they all die? W ill they all be left in sin? But we find that God had an eternal purpose of redemption, which is that Covenant of Redemption is worked out in history. It's manifested in history by Christ and his actions because he did what he was sent to do.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, thank you. I appreciate you providing those definitions here at the beginning, because when we are talking about covenant theology, it gets really complicated. We're dealing with the entirety of scripture and several different covenants, all with their own stipulations and members. So I think it's good to get some of the basics established before we dig any deeper. You write a lot in your book about the concept of federal headship in covenants, which again is something I think a lot of people will have some basic concept of, but not everyone will have heard it developed quite as in-depth. So I'll read a quote here from your book. You say,"Covenantal membership therefore is determined and defined exclusively by federal headship. To determine one's membership in a given covenant. the question that one must ask is,'Do I belong to the federal head? Did the federal head covenant on my behalf?'" Could you explain for our listeners, what exactly does it mean to be a federal head of a covenant and who are the federal heads of some of the various biblical covenants that we've been discussing?
Samuel Renihan:We often talk about our government as the federal government, and that's because we have a government based on representation. We have representatives who act on behalf of a certain people in a geographic region who have elected them. And so a federal head is a representative. It's one person with whom God covenants on behalf of a group of people. So the federal- meaning covenantal- head, one person who's the head of a group of people in a covenant. And we see this in the scriptures in a variety of places. So I'll run through some of those examples as you asked. First off, think about the Covenant of Works and Adam. In Romans 5, we're told that one man sinned, and the many are regarded as transgressors. They're regarded as sinners. So one person acts and it counts for- it represents an entire group of people. And so Adam's the federal head of the Covenant of Works. God covenanted with Noah and God uses the language of,"With you and with all your generations after you throughout all their generations forever." So you know that Noah and all people in him are included in the Noahic Covenant or the covenant that God made with Noah. So Noah is a federal head. God made a covenant with Abraham:"With you and with your offspring after you, throughout their generations." And throughout the scriptures, we see that the children of Abraham are self-consciously aware- it's a little bit redundant, but they are aware of their own identity."We are the children of Abraham, and so therefore we are entitled to the promises that God made to Abraham. The land belongs to us. Canaan belongs to us because we are the offspring of Abraham." And so Abraham is the federal head of the Abrahamic Covenant. The Davidic Covenant: David is the head. And oftentimes the name of the covenant bears the name of the head of the covenant. Why is it that David's sons have a right to this dynastic succession? Why is it that they have a right to the throne of Israel? Well, it's because God made a covenant with David that he and his sons would sit on the throne. and so it's descent from David. There's no alternate kingship that can rule the tribe of Judah and can establish itself in Jerusalem. David is the only rightful heir, and only his offspring. So David's the federal head. Their right to those things derives from him and the promises God made to him. The Mosaic Covenant doesn't have a federal head initially, but the Davidic Kings become the federal heads of the Mosaic Covenant, where God says,"You must obey to remain in the land." And eventually it's the king's obedience and leadership and obedience that determines whether or not that happens. But we can talk about that in more detail another time. And then in the New Covenant, Jesus Christ is the federal head because in the Covenant of Redemption, as we said, God appointed- the Father appointed the Son to to obey and suffer on behalf of a specific people. And so those people are in Jesus Christ- they're in the Son and they receive his benefits because he is their federal head in the New Covenant. That's how they enter into what Jesus Christ did for them. So Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Jesus Christ: those are the federal heads that we have in mind when we're looking at the covenants of scripture and determining who is in view in a given covenant and who is at times not in view.
Amy Mantravadi:I think that it's such an important aspect of our understanding of the covenants, because if you don't take account of federal headship, then you can start asking questions like,"Well, why am I condemned in Adam? Or why do all the good things that Christ did get counted to me?" And you could start asking yourself a lot of questions like that. But if you take into account that, as you said, you have- particularly with Adam and Christ- you have those passages where Paul is talking about that. They both imputed something to the people who were part of their covenants, and he doesn't necessarily use the exact language, but it's clear from the context that that's what he's talking about. You can start to understand how in Adam, we all die, and then those of us who are in Christ, we all live. So that's definitely an important concept to keep in mind. There are several passages in the New Testament that also discuss the similarities between the Old and New Covenants, and the relationship between the two has certainly been a topic of controversy among Christians over the years. I know cause we're both on Twitter. We're always seeing people debating these topics. And there are some differences even between Protestant denominations, but you write in your book at one point that the Jewish Mosaic laws looked forward to Christ and his kingdom, but they were not in themselves Christ in his kingdom. So in your opinion, could you describe for us how the Old and New Covenants fit together in light of what the New Testament has to say about the covenants of the Old Testament?
Samuel Renihan:Sure. I think that just in super summary form, we could say that the Old Covenant prepares the world for the New Covenant. So we're already asserting a relationship: not two disparate and distinct and distant things, but a relationship. The Old Covenant prepares the world for the New Covenant. So what do I mean by that, or how can we explain that further? First off, when I talk about the Old Covenant, I often mean actually three covenants in one. I'm often talking about God's covenant with Abraham and God's covenant with Israel through Moses- as a mediator, not a federal head- and God's covenant with David, because those three covenants all work together. In the covenant with Abraham, God gives a land to a specific people: the descendants of Abraham, who are the Israelites. And in the Mosaic Covenant, God gives them laws for living in that land. And the Davidic Covenant- God gives them a king to rule over those people, according to those laws in that land. And so the Old Covenant- you can't really separate it from the other two. If we talk about the Old Covenant as the Mosaic Covenant- which sometimes in scripture, that's specifically what the reference is- when you do that, you can't divide it from God's covenant with Abraham and God's covenant with David. And so those three covenants- If I say the Old Covenant prepares the world for the New Covenant, I mean the Abrahamic Covenant prepares the world for the New Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant prepares the world for the New Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant prepares the world for the New Covenant, because those three covenants or the Old Covenant, they provide the earthly context in which the Christ would be born. And they provide the earthly context within which his mission would make sense: an incarnate Messiah who dies on a cross and rises again on the third day. That when that happens, that's not new because there's been so much that's been revealed about that previously in history, chief of which is perhaps the Law of Moses with its temple, its sacrifices, its priestly system- its Levitical system. And then along with that, the kingly line of David. Along with that, the fact that a blessing for the nations is promised to come from Abraham's line. So the Old Covenant says,"In this place from this people will come one who blesses the nations." And as you look at that, the life and the history of that nation, the Israelites, you see a system of shed blood and sacrifice that brings purity, that brings holiness, that restores people- reconciles them to God. And you see a Davidic king who goes out and acts on behalf of the people and purifies the worship of the Temple. And all these things are contributing to preparing the world for the birth of Christ and the New Covenant that he brings with him. And so one of the ways I like to put it is to say that the Old Covenant- Abraham, Moses and David- the Old Covenant was pregnant with the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was carrying inside it the New Covenant, because it was carrying Christ inside of it. And when Jesus was born, then in quite literal ways, the Old Covenant gives birth to the New Covenant. Something appears in history that previously had been announced, but had not yet arrived. And Jesus came to fulfill that eternal purpose of redemption, which we already spoke about, that which was before the ages began. Jesus came to fulfill that, and he did by establishing a New Covenant: a New Covenant that granted blessings that the Old Covenant announced, but could not provide in itself, such as forgiveness of sins in the conscience and not just an outward purification of the flesh, and also the New Covenant grants entrance into heaven, whereas the Old Covenant simply gives you entrance and maintenance in Canaan. And so the New Covenant is providing something greater and other: something above and beyond the Old Covenant, but the Old Covenant is preparing the world for it. The New Covenant doesn't come along to deviate from the Old Covenant. It comes to fulfill and provide what the Old Covenant was preparing the world to receive. And so the New Testament scriptures- especially the Book of Hebrews tells us that when the New Covenant arrived, when Jesus established it in his own blood, then the Old Covenant became obsolete and it passed away. You can think of it as stage one or two rockets that send NASA spacecraft up into orbit, but once they have completed their phase of the ascent, they detach and they fall back to earth and they're no longer needed. Maybe they can reuse them because they're so smart and everything, but you know what I mean: that what continues on into space is distinct from[parts] that detach and fall away. And so the Old Covenant brings the New Covenant into history and then it detaches and it falls away and disappears. And so this Old Covenant/New Covenant relationship of the old preparing the world for the new, bringing the new into the world: it's so important because in the in the letter to the Galatians or in the Book of Hebrews, denials of the New Covenant and or returns to the Old Covenant are viewed as rejections of Christianity. They're viewed as rejections of Jesus as the Christ, because when the Christ appears and establishes the New Covenant, there's no more need for the Old Covenant. And so if we insist on the Old Covenant, if we insist that we maintain it, what we're really saying is Jesus has not- or not that Jesus has not yet come, but the Christ has not yet come, which is to say that Jesus was not the Christ. And so the old giving way to the new and the new providing what the old could not: this is the relationship that I see in the scriptures and that I see Galatians and Hebrews defending so strongly. No, Jesus is the Christ, and the New Covenant gives us everything that was promised in the scriptures, and we should embrace that and believe in Jesus Christ because he's returning, he's coming back, he's going to judge the living in the dead. So to repeat and summarize, the Old Covenant prepares the world for the New, when the New arrives and Christ establishes it, the Old Covenant fades away, becomes obsolete. It's done away with. It's removed.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, I think you make some very good points there because certainly we see in the early Church, one of the biggest theological issues they struggle with was this question of how the Old and New covenants relate to one another. And there was a lot of confusion that you mentioned in the letter to the Galatians. We see they were trying to go back to the Law and it can be somewhat confusing when we're looking at the Old Covenant, because it has so many aspects of grace in it, and we see how the animal sacrifices are allowing people to at least for a time be made right with God under that covenant, and we see everything that's pointing to Christ. But I think, like you said, when you look at the Book of Hebrews where the author there is making such a strong case for the superiority of the New Covenant, making clear that yes, even though there were all those aspects of grace in the Old Covenant, and it definitely was in a way proclaiming the gospel to people because it was showing them a preview of Christ, it didn't have the power in itself to save, and that's why the New Covenant was necessary. So when Paul was seeing people going back to the Old Covenant, he said that obviously that is an issue that really needs to be confronted. It's not one that we can just sort of agree to disagree on because the Law doesn't have the power to save us. So moving on to the next question that I have here, one biblical character who is very central to the biblical discussion of the covenants is Abraham. He received his own covenant in the Book of Genesis that led into the creation of the nation of Israel, or as you talk about in the book, the Kingdom of Israel, and you mentioned how just, kind of making a little tangent here- You mentioned how each of the covenants is connected to a kingdom and how, as you mentioned, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant and the Davidic Covenant are all related to that Kingdom of Israel. So in addition to receiving his own covenant, Paul also writes in the New Testament that Abraham is connected to everyone who has faith in Christ. For example, Paul says the following in Romans 4:13-16. He writes,"For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith, for if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise is nullified. For the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation. For this reason, it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are off the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all." So keeping that in mind, how should we understand this connection with Abraham and what effects does it have on our understanding of the New Covenant in particular?
Samuel Renihan:Well, in Romans 4 or similarly in Galatians 3, Paul speaks of promises made to Abraham. That may seem a little bit surprising. Abraham is heir of the world? Where did God say that? Or in Galatians 3, when he talks about a blessing for the world, that's promised to Abraham. So we begin to see that God made promises to Abraham that had a much larger scope, and in some ways, a higher level than just,"Canaan is the land for you, and you will give birth to the Christ." There was more that was being portrayed. There was more that was being revealed to Abraham during that time: inheriting the world, blessing the world. So we need to understand that Paul's purpose- as he explains in Ephesians and Colossians- Paul's purpose is to show that what has been unveiled in fullness now- Christ and his covenant and his kingdom- that this unveiled mystery, this blessing for the world or inheritance of the world- Paul is telling people this isn't new. This isn't the first time that we've been told these things. This is what God has been revealing all along: Jesus Christ and his covenant and his kingdom is not a jack in the box surprise. It's precisely what God has been planning. It's precisely what God has been revealing to his people. And so Paul many times goes back to Abraham to prove this point, and this is so important against Jewish errors, because being Jewish is all about being descended from Abraham. And so if Paul can show that from the time of Abraham, this was always the plan, then the Jews can never make a complaint. They can never say that Christ and his covenant, his kingdom is not Jewish or that it's a betrayal or that it's a deviation. If this is what God revealed to Abraham, if this is what is in the law of Moses, if this is what was promised to David and his sons, then the Jews have two options: believe it and join it, or reject it and and be destroyed by the Messiah himself when he returns. So in Romans 4 and in Galatians 3, this is what I understand Paul's purpose to be: to prove that what has now been unveiled in fullness was previously partially revealed and sufficiently revealed. What's new is the fullness of knowledge. What's not new is the plan. So none of this- the fact that Paul points beyond the earthly Israelite promises- none of that denies or changes the fact that God's covenant with Abraham was a covenant with the people born according to the flesh: a covenant to give them a land, and that the Law was given to that people in the land. Paul is just saying there was more than that. There was something greater than that there that was made known even then, and now we're seeing it in reality. And so this affects our understanding of the New Covenant in that again we've realized that the New Covenant is not newly revealed. It's just newly accomplished and established in history. And so the Abrahamic covenant was anticipating the New Covenant all along, because it promised the blessing for the nations, the one who would provide the New Covenant: Jesus Christ. So we're really asserting two things. We're saying the Abrahamic Covenant is the Abrahamic Covenant: people, land, birth of the Messiah. But we're also affirming that as we already said, that context was preparing the world and revealing to the world something greater- Jesus Christ and his covenant and his kingdom- and that Abraham would inherit that by faith, through grace, and that the blessing for the nations is this free salvation. And so we can assert that Abraham was a member of that New Covenant by looking forward to those things, while also acknowledging and affirming that Abraham had his own covenant about life in the land of Canaan and the birth of the Messiah from his descendants. So Paul proves this was God's plan all along, and he goes to Abraham to prove it in Galatians and to prove it in Romans especially- both of those places. The way you approach those passages is strongly affected by what you think Paul is trying to accomplish and what you think Paul is trying to argue. And to me, it's very important to put Galatians 3 and Romans 4 in the context of Paul's other arguments in Ephesians and Colossians about the mystery of Christ and the unveiled plan. If you're dealing with Jews who say,"Jesus isn't the Christ," or"This isn't what the Law leads to," there's no better way to confute them or refute them than to point to Abraham and say,"No, look at our father, Abraham, according to the flesh. These things were made known to him, so at no point in our history was this ever not the case." You have no excuse at that point. So I don't know how clearly I answered your question, but Abraham features- let me try to sum up- Abraham features heavily in Paul's writings, because he's trying to prove that what has been unveiled now was previously revealed. The history of Israel shows they've never existed as a nation without these promises being made known to them.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, I think at least personally, for me, the Abrahamic Covenant is the trickiest one to analyze and understand. It has two different sort of foundation passages in Genesis chapters 15 and 17 that while not contradictory, can be a little difficult to put together because in one of them, it seems like God is just making this completely unconditional grant to Abraham, and then in chapter 17, he comes back with this requirement of circumcision. And so that can be a little confusing, but you know, this year I've been working on writing a series of articles about the imputed righteousness of Christ, which is the Protestant understanding of salvation compared with a Roman Catholic understanding of salvation. And certainly these passages where Paul is talking about Abraham's spiritual descendants and talking about how Abraham itself was justified by faith in something that God was going to do later and had righteousness credited to him- you see how Abraham to Paul is kind of the example of faith par excellence. So he's using Abraham as an example of- the patriarch of the Jewish people himself was saved by faith, looking ahead to what was going to happen in the New Covenant. And that's important because when you also look- even some of the people Jesus interacted with and John the Baptist interacted with- very proud of their descent from Abraham- and John the Baptist tells them that God can raise up children for Abraham from stones. Jesus says,"You're not Abraham's children. You're the children of your father the devil." Obviously that didn't make them very happy when he said that, but you then see in the letters of Paul and whoever the author of Hebrews was, there's a debate about that, but you see them continuing this argument about how the connection with Abraham- you can be connected with him two different ways, and it's being connected to him by faith that is the most important. So given that those who are in the New Covenant now are connected to Abraham through faith, and that that's the key under the New Covenant, as opposed to the earlier covenants we talked about, how does that affect a person's relationship with God and how we approach that relationship, knowing that we're under the New Covenant, and how should it flow into our Christian worship and practice, as opposed to the kind of worship and practice that they had under the Old Covenant?
Samuel Renihan:Being in the New Covenant means that you belong to Christ, and if you are in him, then you get everything that's his. You know, Romans chapter 8 talks about if God gave us the Son-which is the greatest thing ever, everything else is lesser than him- how could God not give us freely all things? So being in Christ, having Christ, being in the New Covenant means that we get everything that belongs to Jesus Christ, all of the benefits and blessings that he won for his people, through his obedient life and death and resurrection. So being in the New Covenant means for an individual that we enjoy regeneration. We enjoy that new birth, and we enjoy justification: our sins being forgiven and Christ's righteousness being attributed to us. We receive and enjoy adoption and the indwelling of the Spirit in us. We enjoy sanctification: God continuing to work on us and to make us more and more Holy. We have all of these blessings and we have the Holy Spirit. Christ is our Savior. God is our Father. So we have so many reasons to praise and to thank our God, and we worship him therefore, and we pray to him because of what he has done for us in Christ. Everything we do as Christian worship has Christ at the center of it, whether it's baptism or the Lord's Supper or hymns or prayer or preaching: all of these things revolve around Christ in his work, his work for his people and his work in his people. If we look at the Old Covenant, we see that the Israelites praised God for rescuing them from Egypt. They thank him for the Exodus and for the crossing- the Red Sea and all sorts of the wilderness years, bringing them safely, the conquest of Canaan. They praise God for his mighty works of salvation and deliverance. And so we do that too, but we don't say,"Oh God, thank you for bringing us up out of the land of Egypt." We say,"Thank you for bringing us up out of hell and the chains of our sin." And so we praise and we worship him because Christ did that and we praise and worship him because Christ is at the Father's right hand. And so we know that we will be heard. We know that we will be received because we have a perfect priest at the Father's right hand, perfecting our worship and presenting us to God in his own blood and in his own righteousness. So the New Covenant- there's no way in which it does not affect us and our worship by it. It shapes us. It defines us. It gives us purpose and reason for everything that we do, and it should infuse us with joy and gratitude for God's goodness. And you think about the New Covenant and you say,"Wow, this is a good deal for us! What did we do to deserve this?" And that's why it's grace: extravagant, abundant, luxurious grace, just grace upon grace, that God would give this to us when we hated him- when we deserved nothing but death, he lavished upon us goodness and mercy in Christ Jesus through the New Covenant. So if you ask me it shapes everything we do in our worship and in our daily lives.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, I think that's kind of a good place to end because we're ending with the gratitude we have for everything that Christ has done for us. I mean, that is one of the most important things to take home. So I really appreciated your book, which again- The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant and His Kingdom. And even though I've read so much about covenant theology the past few years, I still got a lot out of it that. It just caused me to think about things in some different ways, so I definitely recommend your book to people. But in addition to that, if there's someone who wants to get more into the study of covenant theology, what are some other good resources that you would recommend for them?
Samuel Renihan:As a starter book or even just a refresher or overview, I'd really recommend Tom Schreiner's short book called Covenant and God's Purpose for the World. It's shorter than my book. It's simpler. It's very helpful. It's easy to read in a short period of time. It's not going to answer every question you might have about covenant theology. It's a really good introduction. It's trying to be an introduction, so I'm not blaming it for not being more. If you want to get more detailed than that, a lot of the good works are much older. If you're curious about the history of Baptist covenant theology, you mentioned a book that I worked on called From Shadow to Substance that deals with sort of the covenant theology of 1689 Baptists and in the 17th century. For resources beyond that, I'm very critical of Baptist covenant theology because in my experience it's very polemical and it's hard to read because it pauses every other sentence to attack another position, and I don't find that very helpful. So I really struggle to recommend books about that subject, so I usually don't.
Amy Mantravadi:Well, I think it's fair to say, so many of the great works of covenant theology historically have been written by Reformed and Presbyterian brothers. Well, I would say brothers and sisters, but really they've just been brothers. And we would find a lot to agree with in those books: you would, I would as Particular Baptists. So I'm sure some of those would be very good. Of course we would disagree at some critical points. But the one thing I do appreciate with a lot of Protestant groups, even if we have some disagreements, is that we definitely agree on that key element about the gracious nature of the New Covenant that we're under now: about being saved by grace through faith, even as Abraham was. So I appreciate you- There are so many books on the covenants there and I mean, you could do worse than just reading the Bible, honestly.
Samuel Renihan:It's so funny. Cause I, I wrote down as I was preparing for this, I said,"Do a one month Bible reading plan." In my opinion, if you want to really study the covenants, do a one month- read the Bible in a month plan and see what's- with an eye to, with sort of with your sensors attuned to, looking for the development of the history of redemption and God's plans and purposes. I think it's a very eye opening experience and it's had an impact on me when I do that kind of thing, as I prepared to write the book that we're discussing now. So I would really strongly recommend that. As you recommend books about covenant theology, it depends on what people want to get out of it. If they want to really have a comparison and a contrast between paedobaptism and credobaptism, then there's a lot of books that we could recommend that are really trying to accomplish that kind of thing. But I find that a lot of people just want to learn covenant theology, and that's where I struggle to recommend books written by Baptists, Because few of them are written with the purpose of just teaching covenant theology. Many of them also have the purpose of proving something else wrong. So if people ask me, I kind of say,"Well, what are you looking for? You know, what's your purpose? What's your desire in reading the literature?" And then you have to make choices about where to point them from there.
Amy Mantravadi:Yeah, and the best commentary you're ever going to get on this issue would be the books of Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. So that would be, of course, a great place to start. Or like you said, doing a survey of the whole Bible because it's a long story, and to really understand it all. I don't think there's any part of scripture that isn't in some way connected to covenants, and I'm quite certain that all the scriptural authors as they were writing had that covenantal frame of mind, even though we don't always have it today. I've really appreciated our discussion. Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss this. I hope you've had a good time because I have.
Samuel Renihan:Thanks, Amy. I really enjoyed it.
Jon Guerra:(MUSIC PLAYING)
Amy Mantravadi:It was a pleasure to speak with Sam today. His book, The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant and His Kingdom, is available from Founders Press. I encourage you to check it out. At the top of this podcast, I referenced that the Funk Music Hall of Fame and Exhibition Center here in Dayton is seeking some new digs after the rental costs on its previous exhibition space went through the roof, which I'm assured is different than blowing the roof off a place. If you would like to donate toward a permanent home for this cultural gem in the Midwest, please visit www.thefunkcenter.org, which is spelled exactly how you would think. The music you've been listening to on this podcast episode is the song"Citizens" by John Guerra off his album Keeper of Days. Give it a listen, and with the holidays upon us, also make sure to check out the album It's Almost Christmas that he released with his wife, Valerie. You will not be disappointed. I'd like to close us today with Paul's parting words to the Romans."Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now has manifested, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations leading to obedience of faith, to the only wise God through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever." Amen. Have a great week!
Jon Guerra:(MUSIC PLAYING) Is there a way to love always living in enemy hallways? Don't know my foes from my friends and don't know my friends anymore. Power has several prizes. Handcuffs can come in all sizes. Love has a million disguises, but winning is simply not one.(MUSIC STOPS)