Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Vlach, Michael J. Dispensational Hermeneutics: Interpretation Principles that Guide Dispensationalism’s Understanding of the Bible’s Storyline. Theological Studies Press, 2023.

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Insights:

I’m the first chapter Vlach surveys “Key Elements of Dispensationalism’s Storyline.” His survey includes a number of important insights.

  • Rightly sees the importance of Genesis 1:26-28 as foundational for the theology of Scripture and rightly sees the centrality of kingdom and glory to the Bible’s theology.
  • Rightly sees redemption as encompassing not only individuals but also to all of creation, including ethnicities and nations.
  • Understands the covenants as the means by which God brings about his kingdom.
  • Recognizes the spiritual aspects of God’s work coexist alongside the material aspects of God’s work. The material aspects are not merely typological but often have eschatological significance.
  • Recognizes that an emphasis on a progression from the material to the spiritual in redemptive history may be due to the influence of Platonism and other unbiblical worldviews. This viewpoint is at odds with the Bible’s high view of the importance of material creation, including that of the resurrection body.
  • Recognizes God’s role for Israel as the nation through whom God gave the Scripture, through whom the Messiah came, and through whom all the nations will be blessed.
  • Affirms the salvation of all Israel in the last day.
  • Affirms that the spiritual blessings of the covenants have been inaugurated and also affirms that the material blessings will be fulfilled in the last day. (I don’t like spiritual and material as the distinguishing terms. Spiritual in the Bible usually referrs to the Holy Spirit and his work, rather than to a material/spiritual dichotomy; furthermore, the Holy Spirit was at work in the creation of the material world and will be essential to its recreation—just as he is essential to our personal salvation, sanctification, and glorification.)
  • Sees promises in the covenants made with Israel fulfilled in the church, and he sees believing Israel in the present age as part of the church. He also sees the church and Israel as two different kinds of entities. Israel is a nation while the church is a multiethnic body of believers.
  • Affirms that Christ will return to rule all the nations.

In chapters 2-4 Vlach turns to what he identifies as the hermeneutics of dispensationalism. This section also contains a number of insights.

  • He rightly supports discerning authorial intention.
  • He rightly accepts that there are types, symbols, and analogies in the text. He denies that these require a different hermeneutic since grammatical-historical interpretation already recognizes the reality of types symbols, and analogies and seeks to discern their author-intended, contextually governed meaning.
  • He recognizes that dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists both operate with the same grammatical-historical hermeneutic. (He does say that non-dispensationalists often abandon this approach when it comes to prophecies about the restoration of Israel, which may be too sweeping a judgment.)
  • He notes that Israel came under the covenant curses and the judgment of exile just as the Mosaic covenant and the prophets predicted. He then asks why, if the covenant promises of judgment happened as written, the promises and prophecies about Israel’s future restoration and blessing should be reinterpreted as typological and fulfilled only in the church? This is an insightful point, especially since often the prophecies of restoration are textually linked to Israel’s experience of judgment. It would be most odd then for Israel to only experience the judgment and for the promised restoration to be applied only to a different corporate party that did not experience the judgment.
  • He rightly recognizes that turning a promise into a type to be fulfilled for someone other than the person to whom the promise was originally made would violate God’s integrity. “Promises also contain an ethical component. The one making a promise is ethically bound to keep the content of the promise with the audience to whom the promise was made” (40).
  • He recognizes that later revelation “does not reinterpret or change the meaning of earlier revelation” (41). I don’t take this as a denial that the NT properly interprets the OT. That denial, if made, would be a problem.
  • He affirms that the progress of revelation does not alter promises or change the recipients of the promises, though the beneficiaries of the promises may be expanded through progressive revelation.
  • The first coming of Christ did not exhaust prophetic fulfillment; some prophecies await fulfillment at the second coming.
  • The reason that some OT prophecies are only partially fulfilled at present is due to the fact that Christ comes twice. We can see this in certain prophecies where within the same passage part of the prophecy was begun to be fulfilled in the earthly ministry of Christ and another part awaits the second coming (cf. Zech. 9:9-10; Isa 61:1-2; Amos 9:11-15).
  • Jesus is the “Yes” to OT promises in a complex way:
    • Jesus “directly” fulfills some prophecies (73)
    • “Jesus is the means for the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, promises, and covenants” (73). Vlach explains: “There are predictions about a coming antichrist, temple, Israel, nations, destruction and rescue of Jerusalem, battles between nations, the Day of the Lord, kingdom, resurrection, judgment, etc. While not Jesus, these matters are significant to God’s purposes and Jesus is involved with their fulfillment. These things do not vanish or dissolve into Jesus in a metaphysical way” (p. 74).
  • Jesus is the true Israel and national Israel still exists as an entity for which promises will be fulfilled. This is a “both/and” rather than an “either/or.”
  • Vlach observes different ways in which Israel is used in Scripture. (1) “an ethnic, national, territorial, corporate entity”, (2) “to the believing remnant of Israel,” (3) “the ultimate representative of Israel.” (76).
  • Dispensationalism historically has been Christocentric and Christotelic.
    • But it is careful not to “read meanings into texts that are not there” in an effort to be Christ-centered.
    • Dispensational Christ-centered interpretation does not find Christ in the text by “adding a hermeneutical move beyond the grammatical historical” interpretation of a text (82).
    • The OT should be read from the perspective of a NT believer with the knowledge of how Jesus has fulfilled the law and the prophets.
  • Vlach agrees that there are types, but he argues that the promises of the Noahic, Abrahamic, Davidic, and new covenants are not types. He also rejects what he terms typological interpretation, which he defines as interpretations that transform covenant promises into something other than what was promised.

In chapters 5-6 Vlach turns to what he describes as the hermeneutics of non-dispensationalism.

  • He rejects NT priority. He defines this as the idea that the NT use of the OT involves a “radical reinterpretation” of OT prophecies (93, citing Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, rev. ed., 373). He is right to deny that the NT “reinterprets” the OT or changes the meaning these texts originally had. But he over-reacts when he denies that that the NT teaches interpreters how to interpret the OT (see below).
  • He rejects spiritualizing the promises regarding the physical creation.
  • He denies that covenantal promises are types
  • He denies that prophecies about events to come are types. (I would affirm this denial even while granting that these prophecies may involve people and institutions that are typological at some point in history.)
  • He denies that a typical entity or institution can cancel out the fulfillment of promises regarding those entities or institutions. He helpfully quotes Craig Blaising’s opposition to when typology is “employed to contravene, suppress, or subvert the meaning of explicit covenant promise, and even more so when the NT explicitly repeats and reaffirms the same promise as declared in the covenants of the OT” (Blaising, “A Critique of Gentry and Wellum’s, Kingdom through Covenant: A Hermeneutical-Theological Response,” 117 as cited on p. 108).
  • He objects to the use of the following terms to describe the NT’s interpretation of the OT: “redefine,” “reinterpret,” “transform,” “transcend,” “transpose” (114).
  • Vlach is correct to say, “Matters like corporate Israel, nations, land, earthly kingdom, and physical blessings are not Jesus, but they are related to Jesus. We should understand how everything relates to Jesus without assuming all things disappear or metaphysically collapse into Him” (122).

Weaknesses

  • He defines redemption and redemptive history too narrowly. Redemption encompasses the restoration of all creation and includes God’s kingdom purposes. This narrow definition of redemption is inconsistent with things Vlach says elsewhere. I think it is a place where some traditional dispensational thinking is it odds with his broader theology.
  • Vlach is correct to focus on the multidimensional nature of the covenants, but in this book he only seems to speak of the Israel aspect of the covenants. If some covenant theologians err by focusing only on the salvation aspects of the covenants, dispensationalism often errs by focusing on the Israel side of things to the neglect of other aspects.
  • He doesn’t always accurately represent covenant theology. For instance, presents the Covenant Theolgoy position as holding that the Moasic covennat was a restatement of the covenant of works, that the Mosaic covenant was a restatement of the covenant of grace, or that the Mosaic covenant was a restatement of both. But the Mosaic covenant as a republication of the covenant of works is controversial among covenant theologians. In addition, among most covenant theologians, the Mosaic covenant is not a restatement of the covenant of grace but is an administration of the covenant of grace.
  • Sometimes Vlach’s statements about what non-dispensationalists think are too sweeping. Other times non-dispensational viewpoints are stated prejudicially; that is, they are stated in ways that I don’t think proponents of those views would hold. I should note however, that this critique can also be applied to almost every single critique of dispensationalism that I’ve read from a covenant theologian. Covenant theologians are almost always critiquing either older forms of dispensationalism or they are critquing straw men. Both sides in this debate need to do better in understanding the other side before registering their critiques.
  • Vlach’s typology of the temple fails to recognize that the temple was solely and purely a symbol that would pass away. The typology of the land is different. It seems that both Vlach and the major altenatives to dispensationalism (covenant theology and progressive covenantalism) don’t recognize this difference. This causes all of these parties to err in their understading of biblical typology, though in different ways.
  • Vlach over-reacts to the misuse of typology. He has some legitimate concerns. But in response, Vlach wants to limit typology to “the Mosaic Law and its elements” (108), and he wants to deny that Israel and the land are types because they are “linked with … covenants of promise.” However, David was a type of Christ even though kingship is linked to the Davidic covenant, a covenant of promise, rather than being a provision of the Mosaic Law and its elements. Thus, Vlach is drawing the definition of typology too tightly.
    • This is how I woudl respond to the problem that Vlach is seeking to address:
    • If someone were to say: David is a type of Christ; therefore, he will not enjoy eternal life in the new creation because Christ is the reality and the type has entirely passed away, the proper response would be to note that David was a type of Christ in his life and reign in the Old Testament. His life in the new creation is not typological.
    • Likewise, Israel was a type of the church during the period of the Mosaic Covenant. Its continued existence in the new creation is not typological. The land was a type of the new creation in the period of the conquest and during Solomon’s reign, and the future fulfillment of the land promise is not typological.
    • In other words, rather than denying that David or Israel or the land are types (as Vlach does), the better solution is to understand that certain types all have a time dimension to them.
  • Vlach rejects that the NT should instruct us in how to interpret the OT. I understand his concern about approaches that re-interpret original OT meaning, but this is a problematic over-reaction that undercuts the sufficiency of Scripture for hermeneutics.
  • Too often Vlach makes assertions rather than arguments when dealing with opposing views.

Baptist Covenant Theologies: An Analysis and Evaluation

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I just posted on the Writings page a link to my Bible Faculty Summit paper: “Baptist Covenant Theologies: An Analysis and Evaluation.”

This paper analyzes and evaluates two Baptist versions of covenant theology as represented by Samuel Renihan’s The Mystery of Christ, His Covenant, and His Kingdom and Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum’s God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants. Renihan’s book articulates a contemporary Baptist covenant theology informed by seventeenth-century Baptist covenant theologians and by twentieth century theologian Meredith Kline. This version of covenant theology often goes by the name 1689 Federalism. In 2012 Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary published Kingdom through Covenant to argue for Progressive Covenantalism as an alternative to covenant and dispensational theologies. The covenant theology they critiqued was specifically paedobaptist, and Progressive Covenantalism is a Baptist alternative. This naturally raises the question of the relation of 1689 Federalism and Progressive Covenantalism to one another as well as an evaluation of each.

Comparison between these two Baptist systems demonstrates that while sometimes contemporary theologians, thinking freshly over the Bible, truly advance our understanding of Scripture, at other times old, but forgotten and recovered, formulations provide the best understanding of Scripture. The wise theologian examines treasures new and old, examining them all against the touchstone of Scripture.

Stephen Wellum, “Progressive Covenantalism,” in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views—Agreements and Disagreements

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Stephen Wellum’s essay is perhaps the best written in the book. Wellum’s essay is well-organized and generally clear in its argumentation. On many points I have long held the positions Wellum is arguing for, on some points I have learned from him, and on other points I think he needs to make some refinements, which is to be expected in a relatively new theological system.

 I agree with Wellum on a number of points.

1. I agree that the divine origin of Scripture results in “an overall unity and coherence,” and that this coherence includes an unfolding plan of God through a series of covenants (77) rather than making the individual covenants administrations of a covenant of grace (204-5).

2. I agree that since God used humans to write his Word, grammatical historical exegesis within the context of the entire canon is the proper way to read Scripture. (77).

3. I agree that “the NT’s interpretation of the OT is definitive, since later texts bring greater clarity and understanding” and I further agree that “later texts do not contravene the meaning of the earlier texts” (77-78).

4. I agree with the affirmation of progressive revelation, and I agree with the centrality of Christ in the fulfillment of that revelation (78).

5. I agree with the three horizons of interpretation that Wellum lays out: textual, epochal, and canonical (79).

6. I agree that “God’s one eternal plan is unveiled through a plurality of covenants,” that covenant theology flattens this diversity of covenants by making them administrations of the covenant of grace (81).

7. I agree that the creational covenant is foundational to God’s covenant plan, that the Noahic covenant is a commitment to God’s original intentions of creation and looks ahead to the new creation. I agree that the Abrahamic covenant is “the means by which God will fulfill his promises for humanity, especially in light of Genesis 3:15″ and that it unfolds first through Israel and then the promises are expanded to include all the redeemed and the whole world. I agree that the Mosaic covenant was “temporary in God’s plan, and thus when Christ comes, it is fulfilled as an entire covenant package, and Christians are no longer under it as a covenant (Gal 3:15–4:7).” I agree that the Davidic covenant draws together all the previous covenants and indicates that they will be fulfilled by a Davidic king. And I agree that the new covenant is new because is made with individual believers and that every member of the new covenant is regenerate (91-98).

8. I agree that Jesus as “David’s greater Son, who inaugurates God’s kingdom” is “now seated as the Davidic king” fulfilling all the covenants and “leading history to its consummation at his return.” I agree that Jesus is “the true Israel,” “Abraham’s true seed,” “the last Adam, “the promised Messiah who receives the Spirit in full measure … and who pours out the Spirit on his people.” In other words, I agree that Jesus is the one who fulfills the preceding covenants (99-100).

9. I agree that “in Christ and the church, all of God’s promises are now being fulfilled” (109). (Redeemed Israel is now part of the church.)

10. I agree that “there is only one elect people of God throughout time who are saved by grace through faith in God’s promises grounded in Christ alone,” that the church is God’s new covenant people, that the church is “God’s new temple,” that the church is “God’s new creation/humanity that remains forever, comprising believing Jews and Gentiles, who equally and fully receive all of God’s promises in Christ” (106-8).

11. I agree that covenant theology “does not sufficiently account for the relationship of Christ—the head of the new covenant—to his people,” and I agree that “now that Christ has come, one is either in the new covenant or not, and to be in the new covenant entails that one now knows God, is forgiven of his sins, and is circumcised in heart” (104-5).

12. I agree with Wellum that Horton wrongly identifies the field with the church rather than the world in his interpretation of the wheat and the tares. I further agree that with Wellum that Tom Schreiner’s approach to the warning passages in Hebrews is superior to Horton’s. Thus I agree with Wellum that the new covenant is not a mixed covenant containing regenerate and unregenerate people (209).

13. I agree with Wellum (contra Snoeberger) that the Noahic covenant is part of God’s plan of redemption (211).

14. I agree with Wellum (contra Snoeberger) that the church has been brought into the covenant promises made with Israel (211-12).

15. I agree with Wellum that it is a weakness of many dispensationalists to begin the “covenantal storyline” with the Abrahamic covenant rather than with the creation covenant (213).

I largely agree with Wellum on a number of points, but I also think these points need further refinement.

1. I agree that typology is rooted in history and text. I agree that types are intended by God and  are thus a kind of prophecy. I agree that types may not be discerned without the later unfolding of revelation. I agree that types are discerned through repetition that creates a pattern. I agree that types often reach their fulfillment first in Christ and then in his people (83). But I don’t think that this is always the case. For instance, the conquest of Canaan is part of a series of day of the Lord judgments that begin in Genesis 3:8 and reoccur in history (including in AD 70, shortly after the earthly ministry of Jesus) and reached final fulfillment in the Parousia of Christ. Christ is clearly involved in that he is bringing about the judgment, but the type is more focused on the judgment that unbelievers will receive.

2. I agree that Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David all prefigure Christ. However, I don’t think it is wise to identify them as “Adams” (83-84). Adam and Christ are unique heads of humanity. As covenant head of the creation covenant, all who are in Adam fell when he fell. As covenant head of the new covenant, all who are in Christ died and rose with Christ. But Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David do not play the same role in the covenants made with them. It is for this reason that Adam is termed “the first man” and Jesus “the second man” (1 Cor. 15:47).

3. I agree that there is a son of God typology that runs from Adam through Israel to Christ and from him into the church. I agree that Jews and Gentiles in the church are (in Christ) Abraham’s seed (84). But I disagree that this means that Israel as God’s firstborn son “takes on Adam’s role” since Israel is not a federal head for all mankind.

4. I agree that Christ can be called the true Israel in the sense that he, as the Davidic king, is the representative Israelite. I further agree that in Christ, the seed of Abraham, Gentile Christians can be identified as the seed of Abraham. I disagree with the claim that Galatians 6:16 identifies the church as the Israel of God (84). This position contradicts the main thrust of Paul’s argument in Galatians, and thus cannot be correct (the Judaizers were the ones who held that Gentiles needed to become Israelites and Paul argued that Jews and Gentiles distinctly were one in Christ). Grammatically the best translation is “May peace come to all those who follow this standard, and mercy [also] to the Israel of God!” (CSB, alt.), and contextually and intertextually, the best understanding is that “all those who follow this standard” are Jews and Gentiles in Christ and that the “Israel of God” refers to elect Jews who will come to salvation due to God’s mercy. See further argumentation here.

5. I agree that Israel has a typological function in relation to the church (84), but Wellum’s typology is too abstract in that it doesn’t properly take time into account. It is not Israel per se that is a type of the church; it is Israel under the Mosaic covenant that is the type of the church. This distinction is necessary since Jews with Gentiles are part of the one new man that makes up the church. Thus, the new covenant promise is not applied to the church because the church is now identified as “the house of Israel/Judah” (84) but because promises originally given to Israel in the covenants of promise have now been extended to Gentiles as well as Jews since Christ has formed Jew and Gentile together into one new man (Eph. 2:11-16).

6. I agree that types often move in a lesser to greater pattern and that escalation typically occurs with Christ at his first coming (84), but I’m not sure that these features are universal. For instance, Mitchell notes with regard to marriage typology, “However, the NT fulfillment of the OT nuptial theme may be more preliminary and provisional than the NT fulfillment of many other OT themes because of the eschatological shift: the OT pictures God’s people as his wedded wife, while the NT portrays the church as the betrothed bride, awaiting the future consummation” (The Song of Songs, CC, 71). Similarly, while AD 70 was a day of the Lord connected with Christ’s first coming, the real escalation of the day of the Lord typology occurs with the second coming.

7. I agree that typology often “develops through covenantal progression” (85). However, I’m not sure this is always the case. The day of the Lord comes to mind as a counter example.

8. I agree that “the new covenant is the fulfillment and telos of the biblical covenants,” and I agree, with one caveat, with the statement, “Yet now that Christ has come, Christians are no longer under the previous covenants as covenants (other than the creation and Noahic until the consummation)” (86-87). The one correction that I’d make is that we are no longer under the creation covenant. Adam broke the creation covenant. It is for this reason that several of its provisions are restated as part of the Noahic covenant, adjusted to the context of the Fall.

9. I agree that “Scripture begins with the declaration that God, as Creator and triune Lord, is the king of the universe (Gen 1–2; Ps 103:19; Dan 4:34–35; Acts 17:24–25),” that “sin is essentially rebellion against the king,” and that God’s kingdom is restored through the covenants (88). However, Wellum leaves out the important fact that the kingdom theme in Genesis 1 is rooted not only in the Lord’s role as king of the universe but also in the role humans have as vice-regents under God. Redemption involves not merely subduing the rebellion of humans against God, the King but also involves the restoration of humans to the role of obedient vice regents over all creation.

10. I agree with Wellum that a creation covenant exists in Genesis 1-2 despite the absence of the word, that Hosea 6:7 refers back to the creation covenant, that all the covenantal elements are present in Genesis 1-2, and that Romans 5:12-21 requires a creation covenant since Adam is there portrayed as a covenant head” (89-90). However, I do not think that the use of qum in Genesis 6:18; 9:9, 11, 17 “implies a pre-existing covenant.” While the language of cutting a covenant only refers to the initial establishment of a covenant, qum in connection with covenants is used in various ways, including the initial establishment of covenants. In any event the Noahic covenant cannot be the continuation of the creation covenant because the creation covenant is a works covenant and the Noahic covenant is a grace covenant. The two covenants are a different nature and thus the one cannot be the continuation of the other (see disagreement 1 below).

11. I agree that the creational covenant is foundational with subsequent covenants. I further agree that the temple and priest typology has roots in Eden (90). However, I do not think that Eden was a temple or that Adam was a priest in Eden. There is no need for a temple when God is present or a priest when access to God is unmediated.

12. Wellum objects to certain dispensationalists who claim that the spiritual blessings of the new covenant are being fulfilled already while the physical blessings remain to be fulfilled in the future is attractive on one level. Who would not want to affirm that “all new covenant realities are now here in Christ and applied to the church in principle” (104). I agree that in Christ’s resurrection we see an initial realization of the new creation and that Christians themselves are identified in Scripture as new creations. And yet, Christians are new creations in their inner man and are still awaiting the resurrection body. The renovation of the earth is something creation still groans for. I think that dispensationalists do affirm what Wellum wants affirmed: that in Christ’s resurrection and in regenerated Christians the new creation is inaugurated; I’m sure Wellum himself believes that the resurrection of the body and the renovation of creation awaits the Parousia.

13. With Wellum, I “agree that the Scripture’s central plot is ‘not the nation of Israel, but the seed of Abraham together with his spiritual family from Israel and all nations,'” and, with Wellum, I “deny that the church is a parentheses in God’s plan.” With Wellum, I “deny that the NT changes the meaning of the OT.” I further agree that “in Christ, God’s revelation is now complete; we now know what the OT was predicting” (202). However, I favor a complementary hermeneutic because I think a complementary hermeneutic best allows for the text in both testaments to be understood according to authorial intent of both the human authors and the divine Author.

14. Contrary to Wellum’s understanding, not all progressive dispensationalists believe in a restoration of the sacrificial system (and it was not clear to me from Bock’s article that he believed in it). Most or all do believe that Antichrist will set himself up in a future temple, but that does not impact the development of the temple in the storyline of Scripture. I agree with Wellum’s development of the sacrifice and temple themes in Scripture.

I disagree with Wellum on a few points:

1. Wellum distinguishes between “creation realities such as male-female that do continue forever” and “nation-states that are more tied to the fall and Babel but now reversed at Pentecost and in the church” (219).

1.a. This is a significant error on Wellum’s part that colors his whole analysis. In fact, nations are creational realities just as the male-female distinction is a creational reality. For an understanding of creation as encompassing structures such as marriage, government, nations, and more, see Wolters, Creation Regained.

1.b. Nation-states are not tied to the fall and Babel in contrast to creation realities such as male-female distinctions. Nations are part of the created order. Psalm 86:9 and Acts 17:26 identify nations as created by God. Christopher J. H. Wright observes, “The nations of humanity preoccupy the biblical narrative from beginning to end. . . . The obvious reason for this is that the Bible is, of course, preoccupied with the relationship between God and humanity, and humanity exists in nations” (The Mission of God, 454). Daniel Strange argues the structure of Genesis 10-11 supports the claim that the diversity of nations is part of the creation order: by placing the Babel event after the Table of Nations, Genesis avoids the idea that the division into nations is itself a curse and confirms that the “scattering” was not merely a judgment but an enforced fulfillment of God’s command to fill the earth (Their Rock Is Not Like Our Rock, 124).

1.c. As part of the created order, nations will exist for all eternity (Rev. 21:24-26).

1.d. Nationhood is not reversed at Pentecost or done away with by the church. Rather, Pentecost revealed that the church is a multiethnic body.

1.e. Since nationhood is a significant theological theme within the storyline of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, Progressive Covenantalism will remain a defective system until it incorporates this theme into its system.

2. I disagree with Wellum’s claim that covenants cannot be categorized as unconditional/unilateral or conditional/bilateral. Wellum argues that all covenants are unilateral in that God always keeps his promises and that all covenants are bilateral in that God demands obedience from his covenant partners. Thus, God provides Christ as “an obedient covenant partner” so that the promises can be fulfilled (85-86; 207).

2.a. I agree that all the covenants are initiated by God and are in that sense gracious. I further agree that all the covenants have expectations for obedience.

2.b. The terms conditional and unconditional relate not to the selection of the covenant partner or to the presence of stipulations. Rather, conditional and unconditional identify whether the fulfillment of the covenant depends upon the promises of God alone or upon the obedience to the covenant stipulations.

2.c. There are obligations in the Noahic covenant: to live out the creation blessing, to exercise capital punishment when necessary. But humans have regularly violated these obligations since the time of Noah. Nonetheless, God has not sent worldwide floods because the fulfillment of the covenant depends not on obedience to the obligations but to God’s unilateral promise.

2.d. By contrast, the nation of Israel came under the curses of the Mosaic covenant because that covenant promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Wellum has made all the covenants conditional covenants and then claims that Christ will fulfill the conditions. But this reading does not survive a close study of the covenants themselves.

2.e. Wellum points out that Genesis 15 indicates “God’s unilateral commitment to keep his own promises” but that Genesis 17:9-14; 22:16-18 present “bilateral emphasis of the covenant” (207). But Genesis 15 is the cutting of a unilateral covenant. Genesis 17 presents us with expectations which are the means for bringing the covenant to fruition, and Genesis 22 is a test of Abraham’s faith. These covenant expectations cannot change a unilateral covenant into a bilateral covenant. This is fundamental to Paul’s argument in Romans 4:9-12.

2.f. I agree with Horton against Wellum that Galatians 4:21-26 “distinguish covenants of promise (e.g., Abrahamic) from covenants of law (e.g., Sinai).” Wellum objects, “it is questionable whether Paul is using this distinction as the means to distinguish all the covenants” (208). But this objection is beside the point. Though Paul does not have all covenants in view, he does clearly communicate that the Abrahamic covenant is unilateral in nature and the Mosaic covenant bilateral. 

3. I disagree that Genesis 3:15 is part of the creation covenant (90-91). The creation covenant was broken by Adam’s Fall, and Genesis 3:16-19 recounts the cursing of the blessings of the creation covenant. Genesis 3:15 is a judgment on the serpent that involves a promise of redemption. It is not itself a covenant or part of a covenant. The following covenants are the means for fulfilling this promise.

4. I agree with Wellum’s overall hermeneutical approach (see points 1-5 under agreement above). However, despite his professed intention to not change the meaning of the OT, I think there are reasons that Bock and Snoeberger argue that Wellum is changing the meaning of the OT.

4.a. I’ll use the land promise as an illustration of how I think Wellum’s hermeneutic works: In Genesis 15, 17, and 22 God makes promises to Abraham’s seed. Wellum understands that seed as not being fully defined in the OT, and he understands the NT to define the seed of Abraham as Christ and the church in Christ. Thus, when Wellum reads Genesis 15, 17, and 22 he reads Abraham’s seed as referring to Christ and the church in him. Wellum does not think he is changing the meaning of the Genesis 15, 17, and 22 in doing this any more than reading the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 as Christ changes the meaning of that OT text.

4.b. But the seed of Abraham is not undefined in the way that the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 was. Genesis 22, for instance, distinguishes between the physical seed of Abraham (plural), the seed of Abraham (singular), and the Gentiles (whom Paul will later identify with the seed of Abraham in Christ). All three seeds of Abraham sit adjacent to one another in passages like Genesis 22, and it does change the meaning of the OT texts in a way that the NT does not require to read the seed of Abraham language in the OT as referring only to Christ and the church.

4.c. Thus, despite his intent to the contrary, Wellum does at times change the meaning of OT passages.

5. I disagree with the claim that the church is “the true, eschatological Israel who receives all of the promises, including the inheritance of the land fulfilled in the new creation (103).

5.a. I affirm that the church is the antitype (through Christ) of Old Testament Israel. I deny that this means that the church is eschatological Israel because the NT continues to speak of redeemed ethnic Israel as a part of the church in both Ephesians 2 and Romans 11.

5.b. I affirm that all the covenant promises made to Israel in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants are expanded to encompass the entire church. (I agree with Wellum that the Mosaic covenant was a temporary covenant that is no longer in force; in addition, Ephesians 2 specifies the covenants of promise as the ones that the church is brought into.) I deny that the expansion of the covenant promises to the entire church means that specific promises to redeemed ethnic Israel are not fulfilled in the specificity with which they were given (e.g., land promises with specific boundaries).

5.c. Wellum objects that granting Israel the specific land promised to it gives Israel promises “distinct” from Gentiles in the church. This objection misunderstands the nature of land promises; it abstracts the land promises so that they only speak of the entire new creation. But in the nature of the case the land Israel receives will be distinct from the land other ethnic groups receive just as the land that Michael, Stephen, Darrell, and Mark receive in the new creation will be distinct from one another. A certain kind of distinctness is necessary if the land promise is not to become a mere abstraction. On the other hand, what Israel receives is not distinct from what Gentiles in the new creation receive: land in the new creation.

5.d. While I agree with the concern to uphold the unity of the people of God, I’m not sure that “nations receiving slightly different … privileges” is necessarily a problem since I think it is possible that individuals will receive slightly different privileges in eternity (e.g., the parable of the servant who received ten cities). At the very least it seems difficult to avoid the fact that Christ is an Israelite and that he rules over the world as a Davidic king. I wouldn’t want to minimize Jesus’s ethnicity any more than I would want to minimize his humanity.

6. I disagree with Wellum’s reading of Acts 1:6, in which he says that the kingdom is being restored to Israel (understood as the church) through the spread of the gospel and the growth of the church. Wellum is here concerned that all the promises of God be expanded to include Jew and Gentile in the church (108). But Wellum is here reading the promises too narrowly. Jew and Gentile in the church alike receive the land promise. But only Israel can receive the land promise as a restoration. A restoration of the kingdom does not make sense for Gentiles since in the OT era they were strangers to God’s kingdom. The better way to understand the disciples’ question is to recognize that the OT connected the giving of the Spirit with restoration to the land and the reestablishment of the Davidic monarch (cf. Eze 36-37). So their question is based in the text of the OT. Jesus’s answer does not give the timing but instead points out what must happen before the kingdom is restored to Israel. Romans 11:25 (“I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in”).

7. I disagree with the idea that the restoration of Israel to the land is only a dispensational idea (110). This view was held by many Puritans, by Jonathan Edwards, and by David Brown of “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown” fame. I fear that the eschatological restoration of Israel to the land is often rejected today in reaction to dispensationalism without the realization that this has been a historic position on non-dispensationalists as well.

Can heqim berit refer to the making of a covenant?

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קום in the Hifil can refer to confirming an existing covenant (Lev. 26:9). It can also refer to fulfilling an existing covenant (Gen. 17:7, 19, 21) or failing to fulfill an existing covenant (Jer. 34:18). I would argue that it can also refer to the making of a covenant (Gen. 6:18; 9:9, 11, 17; Ex. 6:4; Eze 16:60, 62). This variation of senses should not be surprising since קום has a wide semantic range.

This latter use is controversial. Gentry and Wellum claim:

An exhaustive study of all instances of berit in the Hebrew Bible and classification of all constructions and expressions in which this noun occurs reveals a completely consistent usage: the construction ‘to cut a covenant’ (karat berit) refers to covenant initiation while the expression ‘to establish a covenant’ (heqim berit) refers to a covenant partner fulfilling an obligation or upholding a promise in a covenant initiated previously so that the other partner experiences in historical reality the fulfilling of this promise, i.e., one makes good on one’s commitment, obligation, or promise.”

Kingdom through Covenant, 155; cf. Myers, God to Us, 106.

However, this claim is difficult to square with Genesis 6:18; 9:9, 11, 17 and Ezekiel 16:60, 62. The occurrences in Genesis 6 and 9 relate to the establishment of the Noahic covenant. Gentry and Wellum claim:

God is not initiating a covenant with Noah but rather is affirming to Noah and his descendants a commitment initiated previously. This language clearly indicates a covenant established earlier between God and humans at creation, or between God and humans at creation. When God says that he is affirming or upholding his covenant with Noah, he is saying that his commitment to his creation…are now to be with Noah and his descendants.

God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants, 60.

Stephen Myers rightly notes that the creation covenant is the covenant of works. The Noahic covenant cannot be a confirmation of the covenant of works:

The covenant of works had required perfect obedience from a sinless Adam; how could it be meaningfully renewed with fallen Noah? Such a situation would not be the renewal of an existing covenant, but the establishment of an altogether different covenant, on different terms, with different requirements.

God to Us, 107.

Furthermore, the content of the Noahic covenant shows that it is not a works covenant. The creation covenant promised life and blessing for obedience and death and cursing for disobedience. But the Noahic covenant promises a stay on God’s wrath for all of creation in recognition of the sinfulness of mankind.

Myers agrees with Gentry and Wellum that heqim berit does not refer to the making of a covenant, and he proposes that the Noahic covenant is the renewal of the covenant of grace, which was first announced in Genesis 3:15 (God to Us, 107). But this also cannot be. Myers takes the participants of covenant of grace to be the Father and Christ (with all the elect in him). But the Noahic covenant was made between God and all of Noah’s seed (elect and non-elect), indeed with every living creature (Gen 9:9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17). The Noahic covenant and the covenant of grace cannot be the same covenant if they are made with different parties.

There is no plausible covenant to which the Noahic covenant is a renewal. It is best, therefore, to recognize that heqim berit sometimes can refer to the initial making of a covenant (Leupold, Genesis, 1:275; Mathews, Genesis 1:1-11:26, NAC, 367). The word קום in the Hifil “means literally ‘to make stand, to erect.’ God “erects” a covenant with Noah. Thus the verb may indicate that God here institutes a new relationship” (Hamilton, Genesis 1-17, NICOT, 316).

In Exodus 6:4, God uses קום to refer to making a covenant with the patriarchs. Gentry and Wellum argue that God is referring to his action during the exodus to fulfill the land promise part of the covenant (Kingdom through Covenant, 159). But קום occurs here as a non-initial perfect, indicating past tense (as the translations uniformly recognize). This verse refers to the making of the covenant, not to its fulfillment (cf. Hamilton, Exodus, 98).

Ezekiel 16:59-63 is another instance in which heqim berit refers to the making of a covenant. Gentry and Wellum initially granted that this passage was an exception to their claim that heqim berit never refers to the making of a covenant (Kingdom Through Covenant, 475-76). However, they have since revised their view. They now argue that the two covenants in view are the Abrahamic covenant (indicated with red lettering) and the Mosaic covenant (indicated with blue lettering):

“For thus says the Lord GOD: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, 60 yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. 61 Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. 62 I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, 63 that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord GOD.”

However, since Ezekiel 16 is about Jerusalem in particular rather than about the nation Israel generally, the covenant made with Jerusalem in its youth, which covenant she broke, is likely the covenant in which Yhwh chose Jerusalem as his own dwelling place and the seat of the Davidic ruler (Ps 132:13-17; Stuart, Ezekiel, PC, 135; Alexander, “Ezekiel,” REBC, 722). The covenant that Yhwh will make in the future is the new covenant (the emphasis on knowing Yhwh is an important part of the new covenant), a covenant which includes the restoration of the city of Jerusalem (Jer. 31:38-40; 32:36-41). The Abrahamic covenant has no such promise regarding the restoration of Jerusalem. Since the new covenant, a covenant still in Ezekiel’s future, is the one that Yhwh will establish, heqim berit here refers to the making of a covenant rather than the confirming of an existing covenant.

The claim that heqim berit is sometimes used to indicate the making of a covenant is consistent with the semantic range of קום in the Hifil. There are other passages in which the word carries the meaning of “set up,” “make,” or “found” something Joshua 4:9; 2 Samuel 3:10; 1 Kings 7:21; Psalm 78:5; Amos 9:11).